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Crestfallen

Post on March 16th, 2010 by Jodie

Disclaimer: I went to college with Adam Rapp for two years I think, might have only been one. We knew each other in the way that you know your boyfriend’s friends. He’s a great guy but I couldn’t tell you his favorite food is or his favorite band. I read The Year of Endless Sorrows last year and loved it. So I was thrilled when I learned Adam had written a graphic novel called Ball Peen Hammer.

I love that I’m on the cusp of really getting into graphic novels. Writing a book is writing a book, but writing a graphic novel means you write your words and story to be seen, to be visually brought to life by something else, something other than the reader’s imagination. Playwrights have a gift for this, but writing something to be said and acted out is different than writing something specifically to be brought to life by pictures alone. And here is where Adam Rapp’s Juliard education in playwriting may have played a part in his decision to undertake the graphic novel.

Ball Peen Hammer takes place in a plague-infested, acid-raining, post-war, burnout, hole of a city. Gas-masks are a requirement, the only food available is canned peaches, and there are two terrorist groups working the city. One is The Fellowship - these are dudes killing kids, mostly black kids for reasons that are unclear to both the characters and the reader. Then there is The Syndicate, who may or may not government/military or privately funded militia. The Syndicate kills everyone, they gas innocents in a an under tunnel and that kind of stuff. And let me clear this up right now, one group has nothing to do with the other.

Most of the story takes place in one building, a clock tower. In the basement is Welton and Underjohn. Welton is part of The Fellowship and Underjohn is a new recruit. Welton has the plague and is in pretty rough shape, and he drastically deteriorates over the short timeline of the book. Underjohn is a writer/reporter type who has no idea what he’s signed up for in joining The Fellowship. In the corner of the basement are a bunch of sacks, and there’s a lot of gaging and barfing at the smell. But thankfully, even in plague infested post war shithole basements, there is air freshener. They wait for instructions from The Fellowship.

Upstairs in the clock tower is Horlick’s place. Horlick is a scraggly 13 year-old, which is hard to buy since he’s drawn like a nine year old boy. Horlick steals some melons and instead of eating them he pulls a little American Pie action on one of them. Enter Exley. Exley is a hot, goth, actress who seems to be floating through the apocalypse with her make-up still in tact. More on that in a minute. Exley busts Horlick and his melon fucking and the two become friends.

The rest of the story; whether it be downstairs with Welton and Underjohn or upstairs with Horlick and Exley; we basically have two people in a room talking. Sure people exit and enter and they share and learn new information. But we never move out of the room, and this is a huge disappointment. Huge questions were raised regarding human life and art, senseless killing versus mercy killing, living in art or just writing about it, and if we had just gotten out of the goddamn clock tower Ball Peen Hammer might have had a chance. But the setting, both in time and place, weighed so heavily on everything else it was hard not to be distracted.

There were some highlights - Exley and Welton’s one-night-stand in which she kisses his arm with her black lipstick (see, I told you her make-up stays in tact) and in true star-crossed-lover fashion Welton refuses to wash it off and keeps a bandage over it to preserve it (Bitch has some nitro-lipstick man!). Horlick talking about his brother and the girl he used to like was heart-breaking. In the final stages of Welton’s illness there is a great parallel to Exley starting to miscarry. Exley doing right by Horlick in the end and instead of killing him for art or whatever, she shows mercy. There were also a lot of threads from The Year of Endless Sorrows: tall skinny red-headed boys, sexy actresses, typewriters, ball peen hammers, toilets not flushing, writers block, miscarriages. Which makes me think that Mr. Rapp is putting a lot of himself into his work, and I love that, it’s so courageous and raw.

Ball Peen Hammer reads more like a movie story board than a graphic novel. The stakes just aren’t high enough for any of these characters. Setting everything in a broken clock tower might mean that time is irrelevant, so what are these characters moving toward? Is the goal that everyone ultimately kills each other? That we’ve all lost so much of our humanity life is just a shitty basement? With so many questions left unanswered for both the characters and the reader, it’s hard not be frustrated. Which is why I read Ball Peen Hammer twice, because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something huge. That there wasn’t some big fat clue staring me in the face. Nope. I left Ball Peen Hammer just as crestfallen as it’s characters.

Category books, Adam Rapp, Ball Peen Hammer | Comments Off

A Common Pornography: A Memoir by Kevin Sampsell

Post on February 11th, 2010 by Jodie

Many thanks to Mr. Sampsell for putting me on the list to receive his book. My apologies for not getting to read it fast enough and for not writing this review sooner.

I know nothing of Kevin Sampsell. I’d never heard of him or his publishing house - Future Tense Publishing - before the Crybaby Publicist* put me in touch with him. So I came into A Common Pornography a blank slate. I must say how grateful I am that Mr. Sampsell totes his book as a “memory experiment”. Memoir is a tricky genre, I usually shy away from it. Often times memories are presented as fact rather than an extremely opinionated view of events. Writers of memoir will say, all this happened, but I changed some of it. Bah! But reading A Common Pornography is like sitting on a couch with Kevin Sampsell and you only have an hour before someone walks in you, so he opens a photo album and starts flipping through the pictures at a rapid pace, giving the reader only the slightest context of each scene before moving on to the next shot.

What prompted the writing of A Common Pornography was the death of Mr. Sampsell’s father. During the time Mr. Sampsell returns home for the funeral he learns horrors about his father and one of his siblings. That’s all I’ll say about that because that seems to be the hook for the book. What I found however was that these atrocities were still so fresh for Mr. Sampsell that he can barely talk about them. And the events themselves take up very little time or energy in the book. Instead Mr. Sampsell frames his early life by these events and what he sticks in-between is the crappy, fluffy, filling you find in Twinkies or Oreos. His own story was not that out of the ordinary to write an entire book about. But I can understand why he wanted to try. What happens within Mr. Sampsell’s family is pure evil, but it’s not really his story to tell since he wasn’t remotely involved. So we just get mention of these horrible events and lots and lots of quick quirky little blurbs about being a teenager, liking girls, drinking, wanting to be in a band, and getting jacked-off by other guys. None of which is really outstanding or touching. Mr. Sampsell writes away from himself giving us only the memory - the picture - and then somehow removing all emotion from the telling of the tale. For a book written about his life, I still don’t feel like I know anything about him.

Because A Common Pornography was written as a memory experiment, the memories or snapshots aren’t that long, nor are they explored at any length. For lack of a better word you could say that this book was broken up into “chapters”, but I hesitate to say it that way. The titles of each chapter or memory seem more like words hastily written on the back of a photograph. Then you flip the picture over and see two kids playing air guitar or a young man getting a hand-job on a couch. And no matter how long you look at that photograph it only gives you a certain amount of information. There are no little clues or hidden meanings. It is what it is.

Make no mistake, Mr. Sampsell is a deft and talented writer. It takes an immeasurable amount of courage to put the best and worst of yourself down on paper; to pop open the secrets of your family like a can of new tennis balls. And the style in which A Common Pornography was written is quite fresh. But I feel that Mr. Sampsell keeps his readers at arms length, almost as a warning; as if to say,here is all the really bad stuff - if you still like me after this, then we’ll talk. Okay man, let’s talk.

(*The Crybaby Publicist contacted me through Bookclub Bitches and sent me a book. When the review/podcast was not to her liking she sent me an e-mail telling me how she didn’t like the way BCB did things. Obviously, she didn’t research BCB at alll since we’re pretty obvious about what we do and pretty open about the BILF system. She stomped her foot and said she wasn’t going to send us anything more (fine with me), but before that she put me in touch with Mr. Sampsell. So something really great came out of the whole thing.)

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Starting the year off right

Post on February 7th, 2010 by Jodie

Every year I participate in the Barnes and Noble Gift Wrap for charity. And every year I get about ten new book ideas and recommendations. Two years ago it was Christopher Moore’s Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal - you can listen to the BCB podcast here. Last year I only had two shifts and didn’t talk to anyone at length about what they were reading.

This year, I spoke with an older woman - a bookstore favorite of mine. She has longer grey hair, glasses, always has a pen and some kleenex and she probably is into pottery or owns a loom she brought back from Paraguay. I know you know the type. This year, she recommended Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. She said, I’ve been in a bookclub for over twenty years and this book provided us with our best, most meaningful discussion, ever. I was sold. It was the first book I read in 2010.

Mister Pip is the story of thirteen-year old Matilda and her small village on a tropical island. Due to tribal/civil war most of the village has left, most of the boys have gone to war. Children roam with stray dogs with no school or teachers until one man steps up and decides to open the school again. This man happens to be the only white guy in the village, and the only thing he has to teach is a battered copy of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.

What is so lovely about Mister Pip is that you don’t need to have previous experience with Dickens or Great Expectations. Part of the charm of Mr. Jones’s book is that Matilda discovers Pip’s story along with the reader. Having no experience with Charles Dickens myself, this was a huge relief. As a common reader, you shouldn’t have to read one book to enjoy another. In Mister Pip, Jones gives us a great example of basing a novel on a previous classic and having his work stand on its own merit (without zombies or sea-monsters).

At the core of Mister Pip is inspiration and imagination, and ultimately the dangers of both. Mr. Watts is the lone white man of the village who reopens the school. As he begins to read Great Expectations he expands the understanding and imagination of the few island kids who attend his school. Among the blossoming minds is young Matilda - who takes Mr. Watts and Pip into her heart and soul. She is so desperate for knowledge, love and inspiration and she connects so deeply with Pip, that she builds a shrine to Pip on the beach - spelling his name with shells and stones. When rebels enter the village they discover the shrine and demand to know who this “Pip” is. In a grand and noble misunderstanding terror and tragedy ensue.

Very few books surprise me, but there comes a moment in Mister Pip that literally made me cry out. In retrospect, I knew it was coming. It can happen no other way. Yet I was still surprised and heart-broken when it happened. That kind of writing and storytelling is very special. If you’ve never read Dickens or Great Expectations, or if you have and loved it or hated it; Mister Pip does not alienate any reader. Jones’s writing is splendid. This book is a beautiful tragedy.

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Nerd Girl - The Adam Rapp episode

Post on January 12th, 2010 by Jodie

I am rawly and richly embarrassed.

Here I’ve been thinking how great it is that a guy I went to college with has published a few books and then I google him and find out he’s a goddman New York City darling and some sort of writer wizard. Apparently, I live under a rock. That tall ginger who lived down the hall from one of my boyfriends is a phemon and I had no idea. Please, don’t mistake this as a wail of regret for not having followed so clearly a talented young man through the course of his career. No, this is just the dry-heaves sick feeling of me being silly enough to contact him through fucking Facebook and say Hi.

In my own defense I made it a point to cut off most of that college crowd. I am not proud of the girl I was then. I don’t want to be remembered for her. I made little to no effort in staying in touch with people. And clearly, here is one of the dangers of Facebook. Making tall, handsome, unattainable men from college accessible; you can poke them, you can say Hi, you can send them a cell phone through Mafia Wars. Was there ever a more obvious sign that I need to get a life?

I recently read The Year of Endless Sorrows by Adam Rapp and loved it. Having the same college in common I felt in on some of the jokes. The sheer noise of New York crowds any novel written about it, but having a shared place of origin like that, well, it felt like being leaned into and whispered at. The breath of a certain yellow jacket with block purple letters (mine’s from the Pom Squad) brushed that small space between my ear and cheek and I couldn’t help but blush and smile. Dorms named after nuns?! I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t know for a fact that it was true.

When I went off to college I left Minneapolis for a small city in Iowa - not really a step up. I thought that getting out of my parents house would allow me to stretch myself and grow. But that experience of going somewhere to expand yourself and then practically being stifled by it had vexed me in ways I cannot fully express. It is that feeling of confinement that seems to shadow Mr. Rapp’s nameless narrator throughout the novel. I could relate to that, to so badly wanting to shed a formal self but realizing too late that it’s just not possible; we are who we are. We are all already ourselves. The two years I spent in college down in Iowa were terrible and wonderful. It was awful making such huge stupid mistakes. I loved easily and probably too much, I felt at times I was hurt beyond repair. And while broken and shattered I took enough away from the place to be a better person. Mr. Rapp’s narrator seems to deal with much of the same themes during his first year in New York. While parts of the novel are wickedly funny, parts are so heart-breaking I wanted to reach through the pages and give the young man a hug and a home-cooked meal.

So while this isn’t necessarily a review, it is in fact a strong and high recommendation. Heh, just how I like my men, strong and high. Sorry, couldn’t help it.

Again, I feel late to the party here. Mr. Rapp has written a ton of books and I’m only now discovering his talent. Maybe Nerd Girl needs a side-kick, like Lame Chick.

Category books, dorkdom, Adam Rapp, The Year of Endless Sorrows, Nerd Girl | No Comments »

Reading Plan 2010

Post on January 11th, 2010 by Jodie

I plan to read 30 books this year. Because 20 + 10 = 30. That’s all there is to my logic. Complicated, I know.

My first book this year is our Bookclub Bitches pick - Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. It’s too soon for me to write a review, but I have some favorite passages to wet your whistle.

“The world Mr. Watts encouraged us to escape to was not Australia or Moresby. It wasn’t even another part of the island. It was the nineteenth-century England of Great Expectations. We were working our way there on assisted passage, each of us with our own fragments, with Mr. Watts as helmsman sorting and assembling them into some coherent order.” p. 152

“He was inviting me to leave behind the only world I knew. While I might have dreamed of it, I didn’t ever see myself leaving the island. I couldn’t see the world wanting to take me.” p. 176

“I could have run after him I could have asked politely for some clarification. But I didn’t. I knew what I preferred and that was - I didn’t want to know. Rater, I wanted to believe.” p. 200

“People sometimes ask me “Why Dickens?,” which I always take to be a gentle rebuke. I point to the one book that supplied me with another world at a time when it was desperately needed. It gave me a friend in Pip. It taught me that you can slip under the skin of another just as esily as your own, even when that skin is white and belongs to a boy alive in Dickens’ England. Now if that isn’t an act f magic I don’t know what is.” p. 231

“Who was it that us kids saw in the classroom? A man who genuinely thought Great Expectations to be the greatest novel by the greatest English writer in the nineteenth century? Or a man left wth only a morsel who will claim it the best meal of his life?” p. 244

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Nerd Girl - The Jonathan Carroll episode

Post on January 8th, 2010 by Jodie

To clarify, Nerd Girl is not the same as She Geek. Although in the Trivial Pursuit foxhole, you’d want one or both of them with you.

Today I am nerding out on all the authors who have e-mailed me this last week. Bill Scheft, Jonathan Carroll and Kevin Sampsell have all given me their attention this week and I cannot tell how darling this makes me feel.

Mr. Carroll was a huge surprise. I loved The Ghost in Love. Loved it the way I love Adien Brody and Chris Robinson and Keith Olbermann. I didn’t think the brief review I gave it here and on Minnesota Reads quite did it justice, since in reality I could talk about that book for hours. Mr. Carroll’s comment floored me. IT FLOORED ME! And here is what is so… ethereal…about it; I was awake at the time. It seems like it was meant to be. Mr. Carroll resides in Vienna, so there is an eight hour time difference. It was damn near three in the morning here. The Buns staged a coup around 12:30 AM that night and didn’t calm down until well after 2AM. I was so overly tired and jazzed from the whole ordeal that I clicked into Netflix’s free streaming and watched an episode of Lost. So while I’m swooning over Sawyer I get the little blip of a new e-mail. And I just couldn’t believe it!

Jonathan Carroll’s writing resonated with me on so many inexplicable levels. I only wish that everyone, everyone! connects with such an author. I wish for everyone that there is some author or musician out there that “gets” you. Not that you get them, but that they speak to your heart and soul on such a level that it practically makes you weep. That is what Mr. Carroll means to me.
Needless to say that his comment meant to world to me and being the Nerd Girl that I am, I set to constructing a Thank You e-mail at once.

Basically, I thanked Mr. Carroll and then said something to the effect of I wish I’d discovered him sooner, but that I had another one of his books on my night stand. And then I thought about how I was going to frame the e-mail and display it next to my college diploma. Mr. Carroll was kind enough to e-mail me again and suggest a different title with a quick explanation of why I should read the books in the order he suggested. Congratulations Mr. Carroll, you are my new internet boyfriend!

And here is the last thing. The title he suggested is White Apples. So, I click over to B&N.com and type in “White Apples”. And what comes up? Fucking Golden Girls DVD. How funny is that?! I mean, I totally get it - white apples, who WOULDN’T think of The Golden Girls, right?

Yesterday was an amazing day. I told three people who I thought would get what this means to me and they all got it. So I feel really blessed with great friends and family. And I cannot thank Mr. Carroll enough for his kind words and suggestions and for taking the time.

Nerd out!

Category the love i have for you, books, The Ghost in Love, Jonathan Carroll | No Comments »

Reason to smile

Post on January 5th, 2010 by Jodie

Two things have happened in the last twenty-four hours that have made me smile - real, big, genuine smiles.

One - My four year old daughter successfully Hot Boxed me (aka Dutch Oven) last night and it was hilarious. We were hiding from Daddy and I told her no giggling. So we snuggled under a blanket and then she lets one rip. It was epic too. I don’t know what that girl eats at school but man….phew! So I’m laughing and gasping for air and she’s telling me “Mommy, get down! Daddy will see you.” I’m shaking out the blanket and then she starts giggling and well, maybe you had to be there.

Two - I opened my door this morning to find a package from Harper Collins Press. Even though my short-lived communication with the Crybaby Publicist went south, she did put me in touch with Kevin Sampsell. And today I got his new book A Common Pornography: A Memoir. Which just goes to show that even though the Crybaby Publicist was horribly unprofessional to me, something good came out of it.

Category books, momdom, dorkdom | No Comments »

Bottom Feeders

Post on January 4th, 2010 by Jodie

Since I’m posting about my favorite books, I figured I should post those that didn’t make the cut:

Lighthousekeeping by Janette Winterson
The Sookie Stackhouse novels - by Charlaine Harris
Moonlight in Odessa by Janet Skeslien Charles
Beat The Reaper - I thought this was okay, but was so disappointed to hear DiCaprio is going to star in the film.
You Suck! by Christopher Moore

*Abandonded
Castle by J. Robert Lennon
Remedies by Kate Ledger

Category just the day, books | No Comments »

Top Ten Books of 2009 #1

Post on December 31st, 2009 by Jodie

The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll

God Bless Twitter. And not just any Twitter, but celebrity Twitter. If it weren’t for Neil Gaiman, @neilhimself – I know, we are still working on our relationship - I would never have discovered Jonathan Carroll, @JSCarroll. With a title like, The Ghost In Love, I was expecting an eerie, sad love story. Instead, The Ghost In Love proves itself as social commentary on how much we’ve taken control of our lives; how much we need to look at ourselves and our actions and how much, how very much, we need to forgive ourselves.

Mr. Carroll’s writing, along with Mr. Gaiman, falls into that magical realism/slipstream fiction that I so easily feel myself drawn to. Reading these kinds of books is like an awakening for me. I’m a believer. Reading The Ghost in Love was beautiful and validating and spooky. It is my number one book of 2009.

The plot is intricate and weird, however Mr. Carroll rewards his readers in the end. The story centers around two lovers, German and Ben. Ben hits his head and is supposed to die, but he doesn’t. However, since the business of Death is a huge whirling machine without stop, Ben’s ghost is sent up anyway because of a “glitch” in the system. Ben’s ghost, Ling, starts to fall for German, but Ben and German have split up. They do however share custody of their dog, Pilot. Pilot is the only one who knows that Ling is in love with German – since dogs and ghosts can talk to each other, which is why dogs act so damn weird sometimes. Pilot then begins talking to Ben (yeah, talking dogs), Ben starts talking to the ghost Ling…and they all go down the new road of life after not-death together.

Other nasties are released due to the glitch of Ben not dying, and I was struck with how hard we all are on ourselves. How our expectations of ourselves can have a negative effect, conjuring our worst fears. Thankfully, Mr. Carroll also supplies the power to banish the nasties, and shows the reader how salvation lies within our good memories and love for each other. There was a feeling of acceptance finishing The Ghost in Love; that who you are is enough, that your love is strong enough to save, that the happy memories of our life propel us forward, not hold us back. Absolutely delightful.

Category books, Neil Gaiman, Things I find on Twitter, The Ghost in Love, Jonathan Carroll | Comments Off

Top Ten Books of 2009 #2

Post on December 30th, 2009 by Jodie

Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist – Lindqvist’s vampire tale is sleep-with-the-lights-on scary. It should be no surprise that I have a vampire novel in my top ten. But the complete horror of this book makes it stand out. Vampires to me aren’t that scary, but the inner workings of some ‘normal’ people can be more repulsive and shocking than we imagine or suspect. Lindqvist takes you to the edge of shocking and leaves you uncomfortable. Read the full review here.

Category books, lists, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let The Right One In | No Comments »

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Crestfallen

A Common Pornography: A Memoir by Kevin Sampsell

Starting the year off right

Nerd Girl - The Adam Rapp episode

Reading Plan 2010

Nerd Girl - The Jonathan Carroll episode

Reason to smile

Bottom Feeders

Top Ten Books of 2009 #1

Top Ten Books of 2009 #2

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