A novelette of erotic horror, Grass is both gross and sexy. I won't go into the plot (spoilers). The prose is the right mix of swampy lyricism and proA novelette of erotic horror, Grass is both gross and sexy. I won't go into the plot (spoilers). The prose is the right mix of swampy lyricism and probing and NSFW erotic interior explanation. Check out this masterful opening:
"Can a body be a forest? A deep dank overgrown woods? A tangle of viscous vegetation that requires a machete to slash a path to its dark, dark heart?"
The illustrations/cover art by Jeanne D'Angelo are lush and creepy. The cover is beautiful, creepy image that alludes both to the vegetable landscapes of Rousseau and the flowers of Georgia O'Keefe.
For fans of Kathe Koja and Livia Lllewellyn....more
Hilarious meditation/re-envisioning of Poe's sole novel PYM. It's a satirical novel that takes jabs at academia, racial politics, Little Debbie and thHilarious meditation/re-envisioning of Poe's sole novel PYM. It's a satirical novel that takes jabs at academia, racial politics, Little Debbie and the paintings of Thomas Kinkeade. Imagine Invisible Man and Mumbo Jumbo were written by Moliere and edited by Richard Pryor and you have this fast moving, exciting laugh-out-loud work. Highly recommended for both literary and genre (fantasy/horror) lovers....more
Last week I went to an event hosted by the National Academies of Sciences called "Identity, Race, and Genetics." It was a panel discussion about thoseLast week I went to an event hosted by the National Academies of Sciences called "Identity, Race, and Genetics." It was a panel discussion about those issues. It featured an editor, a PhD Candiate who wrote on the History of Science, a NIH geneticist and a law professor. The law professor--who was also an artist. The lawyer-scholar-artist mentioned the virulent racism of H.P. Lovecraft and suggested that black people lived in Cthulhuscene Period, due to the past and ongoing history of (pseudo)science and the black body. Lovecraftian mythos shows mankind as the inevitable victim of a hostile universe; existing while black (in a hostile/racialized universe) is part and parcel of the Black Experience.
I immediately thought about LaValle's novella. The book is dedicated to Lovecraft (and H.P. even has a cameo). The Ballad of Black Tom is kind of an answer/re-positioning of the notorious Horror at Red Hook. It's written from the perspective of a black first generation immigrant grifter and concerns his unfortunate dabbling in the occult. Imagine a collaboration between Richard Wright's social realist fiction with Lovecraft at his lurid best, and you would have this novel. In place of Lovecraft's rampant eugenical musing, LaValle shows what it was like to be of African descent in 1920s New York, complete with run ins with the police and racists. The novel compares and contrasts the horror of White Supremacy with the horror of Elder Gods. The reader is left to decide which is worse....more
Winner of the 2016 Lambda Literary Award in the SF/H/F Category
Beautifully written, with a meandering plot. The story moved slowly and the dramatic tenWinner of the 2016 Lambda Literary Award in the SF/H/F Category
Beautifully written, with a meandering plot. The story moved slowly and the dramatic tension was in the doldrums. The lapidary prose and the elegiac mood is what propels this novel forward, rather than a proper plot. The worldbuilding was vague, both a strength and a weakness. (It suffers from the Planet of White People syndrome issue; seriously, where are the POC?) The characters were well drawn but some POVs were unneccesary and didn't really reveal anything. (Why, for instance, is there a whole chapter from the point of view of the messenger, or from one of the clowns? They add nothing to the story). I feel the author missed opportunities to build suspense; the plot only takes place in the last 20 pages or so. It is better to take this book as a dreamlike travelogue than full-fledged novel. I'm looking forward to Logan's next book....more
A Little Life starts out as a bildungsroman. Its milleu, of 4 highly educated, multiracial people more or less on the gay side of A tale of two novels
A Little Life starts out as a bildungsroman. Its milleu, of 4 highly educated, multiracial people more or less on the gay side of the Kinsey scale is witty and rings true. It’s a mélange of workplace struggles, fabulous soirees, bad apartments and sexual experimentation. Then, about 200 pages in, it turns into a Lemony Snicket-styled book for adults, full of abuse and suffering. The two modes of storytelling, however, don’t mesh. Yanagihara’s scene setting is so meticulous—down to describing what people eat and their apartments—that the intrusion of Dickensian (heading towards Grand Guginol) excess is odd.
****SPOILERS****
Mind you, the writing about self-loathing and self-harm is powerful and ghastly and gorgeous. It just doesn’t seem to belong to the first conception of the novel. Furthermore, the history of the lead character, Jude, is downright surreal. I had a hard time believing that a pugilistic lawyer who made enough money to live in a Soho warehouse with a private swimming pool, who was also a master baker and sang lieder and had a post graduate degree in pure mathematics came from such ghoulish circumstances—a foundling raised by pedophilic monks, then a child sex slave, then a teenage hustler, and finally, a victim of a Silence of the Lambs styled sicko. Oh, he also suffers from blistering pain that requires him to use a wheelchair sometimes, and he cuts himself to ribbons with regular frequency. My problem wasn’t with the hopelessness of the story, which some people call “tragedy porn”. It was with the logistics. The problem is, in Yanagihira’s complex, detailed novel, there wasn’t a single scene of Jude learning how to bake or being a lawyer, so you don't really see how he is supposed to pull off the Tough Lawyer by day/wounded self-destructive boy by night balancing act. Also unbelievable was the patience his enabling friends had for Jude. I know real life people who are a whole lot less damaged than Jude who try people’s patience. Only his friend JB is strong enough not to put up with his crap—and JB is painted in a bad light.
Despite the flaws, A Little Life did keep me reading. The prose was great if a little overwrought sometimes, and was even suspenseful. I think that there is a great novel within this messy first draft. ...more
A charming slice-of-life magical realist book set in Mexico City in the late 80s and in 2009. Late 80s Mercedes Vega (Meche) is a prickly, sarcastic 1A charming slice-of-life magical realist book set in Mexico City in the late 80s and in 2009. Late 80s Mercedes Vega (Meche) is a prickly, sarcastic 15-year old who has developed twin interests in pop music nerdery and spellcasting. She manages to combine the two, and becomes a sorceress who uses vinyl records as a focusing agent for her spells. She press gangs her two friends--bookish Sebastian and girly-girl Daniela--to form a makeshift coven. Mayhem, of the normal teenaged variety, ensues. Flash foward 20-odd years finds Meche, who's moved to Oslo, is still prickly and sarcastic, still smarting from the fallout of her experiments in sorcery.
Signal to Noise is a gentle, character-driven novel, less about magic and more about the carefully crafted people Moreno-Garcia makes. Fans of Jonathan Carroll and Mary Rickert would enjoy this book....more
Critics and fans tend to divide the work of Samuel R. Delany into two periods: pre-and-post Dhalgren. The argument is that Dhalgren marked a change boCritics and fans tend to divide the work of Samuel R. Delany into two periods: pre-and-post Dhalgren. The argument is that Dhalgren marked a change both stylistically ( non-linear narrative, postmodern techniques) and subject matter (eroticism, power differentials, and liminality).
While Babel-17 does have a more straightforward, genre-cognizant plot, the trippy, mind-fuck aspects of his later work are very much in evidence. The story concerns a poet/linguist/starship captain(!) and her attempts to decipher a mysterious language. The prose is dense and beautiful, full of poetic images. The multicultural cast is peopled with colorful characters, and many of the trademarks of Delany’s post-Dhalgren work are very much in play: sexual and societal outcasts and complex theoretical frameworks—this time, about the effect of language on the cognitive process....more
Craig Laurance
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