Just a couple of things to tell you about

First off, congrats to Leif Enger, whose wonderful So Brave, Young, and Handsome was awarded the High Plains Book Award this past weekend.
http://highplainsbookawards.org/ (Oddly, as of this writing, they haven't updated their site with the winners.)

I loved this book and you can read my gushing post about it here: http://ow.ly/t47R

Further kudos go out to a group of authors recognized by the National Book Foundation as notables in their 5 Under 35 selections, http://www.nationalbook.org/5under35_2009.html

Two of them have been read and reviewed here: Ceridwen Dovey's Blood Kin (http://ow.ly/t41e) and Karen Russell's marvelous debut short story collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (http://ow.ly/t40M)

As I type this, I see Hilary Mantel has been awarded the Man-Booker Prize. I've no idea who she is but, obviously, I should acquaint myself with her work. http://www.themanbookerprize.com/

Also, The Huffington Post, which has always given a lot of space to books and authors has expanded and has a devoted books section now:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/books/

The Great Depression: A Diary by Benjamin Roth

The Great Depression: A Diary is just that, the diary of a Youngstown, Ohio lawyer, named Benjamin Roth, who began to keep track of life for a bit more than a decade after the Great Crash of 1929. As the country tried to rebuild and reinvent itself after falling into the great financial mess, Roth recorded his thoughts and observations and tried diligently (and admirably) to learn how and why this happened.

As a diary, it's peppered with some interesting personal stories--friends and family who can't find work, the general unease of the times and how the conversations always turned to the economy. It also recalled home to me since I grew up just across the border in Western Pennsylvania.

However, since the diaries were likely never intended for publication by Roth, the entries get repetitive and downright tedious, especially the stock quotes of prominent local businesses. It left me cold and there were many points when I was going to put the book down. Then he'd write about how the country fears the coming surge of Socialism or how the government was helping industry, the banks and the citizens but the debt to the coming generations was going to be staggering.

The exact same things we are hearing and fearing now.

For that it was well-worth seeing the book through.

What we are seeing now, as new and troubling as it is, it's all been done before. Better still, it's been overcome and long before the Internet , the 24 news cycle and globalization. The "mortgaging our children" claptrap, the 'righteous' anger, the belief that government can't possibly be counted on to fix this situation, the whole schmeer.

If anything, the book made me feel like we'll be okay and we will find our financial footing. The trouble lies in the likelihood that it will take far longer than we are prepared to endure since we are a nation beholden to the Internet, the 24 news cycle and globalization. In the 1980's, the Dead Kennedys railed "Give me convenience or give me death!" not as their battle cry but to criticize who we had become. That could be our true stumbling block to economic recovery--that it won't happen as quickly as we think we are owed.

The book publishes in October.

I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-up Comedy's Golden Era by William Knoedelseder

The late 70's stand-up comedy boom changed American comedy almost entirely. This comedy was different--it was hard to define but it was easy to see what it wasn't. It wasn't corny old schtick like Henny Youngman or Borscht Belt reruns a la Buddy Hackett. It wasn't what was filling the big rooms in Vegas like Don Rickles nor was it the counterculture comedy of Carlin, Cheech nor Chong. It was a strange animal and the rules were being re-written with each set. Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, Freddie Prinze, David Letterman, Andy Kaufman--as comedic styles go, they had little in common but they were all nurtured in the same scene, if not born in it.

The story starts off following Richard Lewis and his best friend, Steve Lubetkin, as they meet, learn the ropes and hope like hell they'll make it. Stand-up is starting to flourish at a few small clubs in New York where guys like Lewis, Boston's Jay Leno, and others up-and-comers are making lower-case names for themselves.

Then the whole comedy scene moves West to LA, mostly to Sammy Shore's Comedy Store, which really hit its stride when Shore's wife, Mitzi, takes over. She transformed the joint from a passable stage to the launching pad of the biggest acts in the business. What's crazy was that, somehow, she got all these comics to perform for free while she charged a cover. There's no doubt Mitzi really believed in these comics but she also took tremendous advantage of them, having them paint the club or pick up her dry cleaning. Mitzi Shore comes off as totally self-absorbed and exploitive but she knew funny.

In 1979, Shore had opened her third or fourth Comedy Store in the LA area and was raking in enough dough to live the Cadillacs and cocaine lifestyle of the time. Meanwhile, many of the young guys couldn't afford breakfast after performing; others were living in their cars while they worked toward stardom so some of the more established comics (Leno, Tom Dreesen, Elayne Boosler, among them) decided it was time to even things out. They approached Mitzi with an idea to pay a small "stipend"; gas money, mostly, but Mitzi wouldn't budge. She was convinced The Comedy Store was a workshop, a college, and when they really learned their craft, naturally, they'd be famous comedians.

As absurd as it sounds, the comedians went on strike and it forever changed relationships among the comics. Feelings were hurt, deep friendships were ruined, and as the strike dragged on, Mitzi showed herself to be completely out of touch with reality. When the comedians offered her a way to settle the strike, her response was "Not. One. Fucking. Red. Cent."

There are some terrific stories within the larger story. I was struck by the real sense of fraternity among the comics; they'd fix each others set, give each other material and really look out for one another. Interesting as well is that an entire generation has no idea how close Letterman and Leno were before the legendary showdown over Johnny's job. Now they're Jay and Dave (in fact, Jay's new show begins airing this week).

The only drawback to the book is the author overreaching. I almost tossed the book when, on page 14, the author described Richard Lewis' love of Greenwich Village clubs this way: "...where Warholian hipness permeated the walls and the smell of grass and the sound of Dylan still wafted in the air." Permeatin' the walls, is it? Wafting, eh? Uh-huh. If you can get past sentences like that it's a quick, engrossing and very enjoyable book.

The Ten-Cent Plague: The great comic book scare and how it changed America by David Hajdu

Seems to me this country loves to watch judicial proceedings on TV--OJ, Bork, Anita Hill. People who will do their damnedest to duck jury duty will call in sick to work if the "trial of the century" is playing in their living rooms. In the 50's, there were hearings on the new medium, TV, that uncovered the Mob and others that allowed McCarthy to spread his hate and bile. Less well-known, were hearings that "exposed" comic books as the main cause of a highly feared condition known as juvenile delinquency. As David Hajdu ably recounts in The Ten-Cent Plague, you'd have thought it was the end of the freakin' world.

If there is a hero in the story, it's Bill Gaines, whose father, M. C. Gaines, is thought to have been among the first to bind up reprints of Sunday comic strips into a comic "book". Bill went into the "family business", published countless comic titles and was quite successful. However, the horror and crime genre caught the attention of do-gooders and created a firestorm of trouble, leading to these nationally televised hearings, the enactment of ludicrous laws (merely selling comics became a punishable offense in some cities and towns) and, in the worst cases, led to public comic book burnings which fed the puritanical paranoia of the time. (Book burnings!)

I had no idea the lengths members of Congress and lesser elected officials, psychologists, (especially the shameful Dr. Frederick Wertham), and other high-minded moralists went to in order to vilify a harmless medium in the name of protecting our children (sound familiar rock 'n' roll, rap or metal music? computer games ?, etc.). As Gaines said, wisely, in an open letter to his young readers in one of his comics, "It isn't that they don't like comics for THEM! They don't like them for YOU!" Call me a pinko, bleeding-heart, liberal but I'll always be suspect of anyone who is supposedly looking out for me on issues such as morality, censorship, and what I can and cannot see, read, or hear.

What the hearings really succeeded in doing was to ruin the careers of scores of talented artists and writers, printers and publishers, who just wanted to be able to create comics and make a living. The industry as it was then died, people lost those livelihoods and, eventually, the "menace" of comic books faded away. In the mid-1960's, when we had other issues to worry us, comics were put in proper perspective and the superhero boom brought comics back.

Just today, Disney paid $4 BILLION for Marvel Entertainment.

Bad Mother: a chronicle of maternal crimes, minor calamities, and occasional moments of grace by Ayelet Waldman

I have a recurring fantasy where I become really good friends with novelist Michael Chabon. In it, the Pulitzer prize winner and I hang out and talk comic books and music and literature, both lofty and less so. He not only lets me read early versions of his next brilliant novel but he asks for my feedback. I am supportive but honest, saying things like "Come now, Michael--Jews in Alaska? That'll never sell," which he appreciates. Then we have a beer and watch an episode of Firefly on the big screen TV he bought with his Pulitzer prize winnings. I become Uncle Reed to his kids, Zelda, Groucho, Fanny and Shmuley.

Sadly, after reading Bad Mother, this book blogger's fever dream has been dashed.

Starting with the fact that I live in Ohio and he lives in Berkeley, I knew chances were slim, but, after reading his wife's collection of essays, I realize this won't come to pass because I don't think Ayelet Waldman and I will get along. At all. Ever.

Waldman, a novelist and former attorney, got in hot water a few years back when she published a piece in the New York Times declaring she loved her husband more than her children. The aftermath was screeching outrage and it ended in Trial By Oprah; Waldman actually went on the Big O's show and defended herself (admirably, I understand, which makes sense since she was a lawyer).

Here she writes about how difficult it is to be the Good Mother that I guess all moms feel the pressure to try to be. I'm neither a mother or a parent but it's obvious, even to me, that aspiring to that lofty ideal can only make a tough job even tougher. So where do we part company? How about where Waldman writes about being the mom who tried to have dodgeball done away with at her kids school. The mom who is sure her kids are not only gifted but exceptionally so. Oh, right. THAT mom. Reed Next will have no truck with THAT mom.

My fantasy aside, the unwavering and unflinching honesty it took to write these pieces--about her diagnosis with bipolar disorder, her youthful promiscuity, her decision to end a pregnancy and other painfully frank pieces--has stayed with me long after I finished the book. She's not shying away from anything here and if she is holding anything back, there can't be much left. If there is--"hoo hoo!" as they used to say on the old Jack Benny show.

There were times when the "oh, I'm such a bad mother" motif got a little tiresome but I was quite captivated by the book. Much to my surprise, there were places I saw myself. Despite my belief that she and I will not make good neighbors, I admire her writing and appreciate the remarkable candor she brings to these pieces. The book is a keeper.

As for Michael, I can only imagine the pals we could have been.

LOOKING FORWARD TO FALL

http://www.observer.com/2009/books/hey-look-all-these-novels-read


Here's a great look ahead at the biggest Fall list in some time. Some BIG names and some BIG books are just around the corner (and a few are already out)--Richard Russo, Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, Audrey Niffenegger, some guy named Dan Brown (never heard of him), Lethem, Chabon, Eggers. Yoi!

Get ready and start saving your dough.

So behind...such guilt

I think I'm going to try to make a clean slate of it by doing a quick and dirty catch-up/cop-out:

What I Was by Meg Rosoff.
Starts promisingly but builds to a crescendo where I ended up saying, "You call this a crescendo? Bah!" NEXT!

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell.
Typical Gladwell and I mean that in the best possible ways. Equally thought-provoking and yet fascinatingly simple and that I mean in the best possible ways, too. I kept saying to myself, "Well, sure. If I had thought of it like that, of course this story would turn out this way." The trick is I don't think of it that way until Gladwell brings these examples to my attention and makes me think of it his way. Then it all flows out. From the reasons behind the best hockey players to rice paddy success, to learning that Gladwell is JamaiCanadian, Outliers is, like its subjects, a great, big, bestselling success.


It Feels So Good When I Stop by Joe Pernice.
I got to read the uncorrected manuscript and think it shows a lot of promise. At the same time, I'm anxious to see what a good editor is going to do with some of the less polished spots. It comes out next month so I'll find out soon enough. Still, I'm intrigued and look forward to the finished book.

I'm Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett.
I had high hopes for this one but finished it and felt like it's all been done before and done better. NEXT!

The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry. This was terrific and clever and confusing and rewarding (mostly). Plus, it reminded me of Jasper Fforde and how many authors you can say that about? (Few, actually). Was this set in the future or the past? London or the States? Was this sci-fi or a mystery? Did it resolve itself or is it the starting point for more books in a series or at least a sequel? I don't know but I think this is one of the most novel novels I've read in years and I enjoyed it immensely. More please, Mr. Berry. And soon.

The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken

I loved Niagara Falls All Over Again and was haunted by the story of Rocky and Mose, so it's a surprise it took me this long to get back to McCracken's earlier novel. I'm sorry I waited but I'm so glad I read it.

Subtitled, "a romance", The Giant's House is most certainly a love story but it's also a story of family and finding a sense of place. Peggy Cort, the small town, Cape Cod librarian is an unusual narrator but one whose quirks and humanity are endearing. Our giant, James Carlson Sweatt, is growing and growing from the time we meet him as an eleven-year old until he can grow no more. McCracken shines in the telling of how the two become linked with gentleness and grace, two qualities neither Peggy nor James would be identified by. Lovely, sad, sweet and moving.