thoughts, tales and travels
Review: Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?By Bill McKibbenNew York: Henry Holt, 2019: 256 pp. This is not a particularly ground-breaking or distinguished book, but it is a thoughtful and clearly-written summary of some of the pressing moral and technological problems we face in 2020. Primarily,...
Review of The Dutch House by Ann PatchettNew York: Harper Collins, 2019, 337 pgs. I am a devoted fan of Ann Patchett. Her writing is rich and smooth, and I have found all her main characters fully developed and credible. Until I encountered the Conroy family of her most recent...
Review of Black Light: stories by Kimberly King ParsonsNew York: Vintage, Penguin Random House, 2019, 211 pages. Parsons has created a searing collection of characters driven by an id-dominated, desperate pleasure just a slight change-of-expression away from deep realms of pain. Her characters are ravenous, capable of sucking the last...
Review:Grand Union: Stories by Zadie SmithNew York: Penguin Press, 2019, 242 pp. This volume has been bracing to my spirit. Smith gleefully breaks all those rules of story writing I hear so often that it stirs me to rebellion. Show don’t tell? Smith raises the question of whether description should...
On Saturday, November 23, I went to Portland to attend the awards ceremony for the Oregon Writers Colony’s annual writing contest. I received an honorable mention for the the first chapter of my novel in progress, Double Run. My first recognition for fiction writing!
The Guest House By Sarah Blake. New York: Flatiron Books, 2019. 484 pages. It began with a distinctive landscape, the island in Maine that Sarah Blake’s grandparents fell in love with and bought immediately on impulse during the Great Depression. From that familiar family ground, Blake conjured an entirely different...
We decided to stop in Park City, famous for Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival, so that I could adjust to some altitude before visiting Bill’s son John in Leadville, Colorado,. Leadville is above 10,000 ft. The last time we were there, we spent a glorious golden day of autumn hiking....
We are on the road! Maybe for the last time driving–we’ll see.First day was very fine. We left Eugene in the morning and arrived in Boise Idaho just in time to check in, have dinner, and take a quick look around Boise. First stop was the familiar Sahalie Falls. Lots...
Lisa Halliday’s debut novel Asymmetry is the best I’ve read this year, but I’m not going to go around recommending it. It’s just not for everybody. It’s not going to entertain you, unless you have a demented taste for the boring details of caring for a very old lover or...
Our stories this week represent two of the most acclaimed writers of the midwestern United States, Willa Cather (1873-1947) and Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941). Willa Cather is one of a kind, combining a strong artistic interest and sensibility with a deep love of the landscapes and people of the mid-western United...