carolyn kellogg

paperhaus April 16th, 2008

Well, OK, it’s about 2600 miles away, but I’ll be there on April 24. There are several e-newsletters that I’ve remained subscribed to for the last 2 years — too lazy to unsubscribe — and this morning I realized that the events in the newsletter will actually be happening while I’m in town. Cool!

Sadly, the American Cinematheque’s noir festival will be over the day I arrive. But I can catch them at the Festival of Books, if I get time to visit the booths. Smart of them — they may not be all about books, but they know that bookish people like the classic and rare films they show.

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paperhaus December 13th, 2006

#45 - Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead by Alan DeNiro. Wow and wow and wow. Was I lured in because the first story is set in a sort of post-apocalypic Pittsburgh suburb? Naw. It’s just wow.

#46 - Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx. Almost all the characters in this story collection are, when you scratch the surface, the exact same taciturn westerner. The few that aren’t DIE. Yep, this is the book that concludes with “Brokeback Mountain.” Whoop dee do.

#47 - I Sailed With Magellan by Stuart Dybeck. Another collection of stories, but this one is, like, good. Brilliant portrayal of childhood, great evocation of an urban neighborhood over time, a bunch of stuff about brotherliness. What a dork am I for not reading it sooner.

#48 - Surviving Mae West by Priscilla Rodd. When Ms. Rodd came to visit Pittsburgh, I knew she’d have some good stories to tell. One is this book — or maybe, many are in this book? — written in diary form. Others will be in her upcoming podcast.

#49 - The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe. Sometimes a runaway hit doesn’t suck. This felt like one enormous-on sentence from a very funny psychotic. Which is not at all a bad thing.

#50 - Hollywood Life: The Fabulous Homes of Vintage Hollywood by Eliot Elisofon. Stars in their gloriously garish homes in the 1960s, full color, fantastic photos. Tony Curtis inset on the cover, classic white moroccan-spanish mansion behind him, wearing a chocolate pansuit and posing with an irish setter. Plus it’s flocked. The cover is brown and flocked.

#51 - Blue Angel by Francine Prose. An older writing professor falls for an undergraduate and pathetic hilarity ensues. Not surprisingly, a hit with those who’ve sat through writing workshops. But carrying it around on campus makes you feel kinda dirty.

#52 - significant chunks of 6 books on film noir, which I’m piling into one single book for this tally: Blackout - World War II and the Origins of Film Noir by Sheri Chinen Biesen; Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity by Edward Dimendberg; Film Noir Reader, eds Alain Silver and James Ursini; Film Noir Reader 4, eds Alain Silver and James Ursini; and More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts by James Naremore. That Naremore, he’s pretty fantastic (wrong in his dislike of LA Confidential, but fantastic nonetheless).

Maybe if the Pynchon wasn’t waggling 1,100 pages at me, if there weren’t a stack of hefty LBC books begging to be finished, if Pitt weren’t doing this faculty search that I get to be a part of, maybe if there weren’t other reading and, hey, writing pressures — oh, who am I kidding. It’s December 13 and I’m at #52. I won’t make it to 75. But I’m counting up until the last minute. And next year (shakes fist at sky) … next year!

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paperhaus October 14th, 2006

it’s unfortunate that all the parts-of-books I’m reading for my film noir class don’t add up to a hill of beans in the 75 books in ‘06 race. I didn’t know it was a race, but since Dan’s already finished, it was and I have not won. Yet like any marathoner, I’m plugging along….

#35 - The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. Funny, I read O’Brien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone in high school and it did nothing for me. This felt like an entirely different author. Or perhaps, this many years later, I am an entirely different reader. Which is to say, a well-told story, sneakily elegant.

#36 - Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. I was supposed to be reading something else instead of this, probably film noir homework. It was a treat, if a smaller story that I was expecting from him after Cloud Atlas. But it proves that I will be enchanted by anything David Mitchell puts on the page.

#37 - The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy. Sadly, this wasn’t my film noir homework. It was my dumb idea to read the book again before seeing the film. Conclusion? Book, good. Film, bad. Yeah, I have a high tolerance for Ellroy. Wanna make something of it?

#38 - Among the Missing by Dan Chaon. Short stories. Liked ‘em. Had to write a paper about the book’s structure, though, and it sucked. Not the book’s fault, but it stressed me out.

#39 - You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon. A novel. Hit many of the same themes as the stories but unfolded in a way that I found totally engaging. A complicated structure that was a lot easier for me to write about; hopefully this paper didn’t suck.

#40 - Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers. Wow! The Pygmalion story redone with artificial intelligence and a version of the author in the text. Just brilliant, so thinky and smart and sciency but with heart, too. Wow.

#41 - The Echo Maker by Richard Powers. By gum, it’s up for a National Book Award, and I think deservedly so. Ed gets all the credit for putting me on the Richard Powers tip. More about that next week.
#42 - The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. Everyone and their mother (literally) has read this, but I was freaking about structure in my work and someone said it might help. It’s not much of a guide, but it sure is a nice distracting read.

#43 - Pastoralia by George Saunders. He’s funny and smart. He just got a MacArthur genius grant. And I’m the last indie bookstore shopper on the planet to have read him.

#44 - The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain. So I can’t fly to Brazil for a restaurant tour, I haven’t eaten Vietnamese in Vietnam, and I’ll have to sell a kidney to be able to drop $500 on sushi. It’s ok. Reading Bourdain is food and lifestyle porn that will tide me over until I don’t have to be a voyeur.

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paperhaus August 29th, 2006

Whew, I’m fine; I hope to discover that my classmates are, too. But I’m not quite ready to schlep the car to the garage and find out for sure what the damage is — hence, this 75 books update.

Flashback to #25 & #26, fall LBC nominees that have now been announced.

#25 Sideshow by Sidney Thompson. A fine collection of short stories about southerners.

#26 Manbug by George R. Ilsley. An entomologist, who doesn’t see the world as most people do, has his first love affair.

and then leaping to the proper place in my reading sequence, it’s final LBC nominee. I’ll have more to say about the LBC nominees in October when our discussion ensues.

#30 Firmin: Adventures of a Metropolitan Lowlife by Sam Savage. The life and times of a highly literate rat.

#31 Last Mountain Dancer: Hard-Earned Lessons in Love, Loss, and Honky-Tonk Outlaw Life by Chuck Kinder. This memoir and return home to West Virginia is sly and funny and charming. Kinder says he wants it to be a "big jukebox of a book," which it is, more than 70  vignettes that cycle from personal history to West Virginia history (think Matewan) to supernatural mothmen and back again. Kinder heads the writing program here at Pitt and I can’t help but let him speak for himself:

It is, I told my old momma and did a stiff shot of Dickel straight, a do-not-go-gently, grumpy, grouchy, corny coming-of-age story, on one level anyway. It is also a forlorn, tear-jerky, but essentially true and finally foot-stomping country-song-of-myself.

#32 The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. I was in a miserable mood and decided to wallow in despair and read this. Problem is she’s such a great writer that reading her, as always, was a pleasure, despite all the death and grief. My black mood didn’t lift.

#33 The Open Curtain by Brian Evenson. Now I know that to shake up a dark mood, I should read some high-quality horror. This disturbing and sleek book focuses on a teenage Mormon who’s grip on reality may or may not be loosening. Amazing writing. And it shook me right the hell out of my funk.

#34 Shadow Theatre by Fiona Cheong. An eliptical tale set in Singapore, told by a handful of women, involving tragedy, the supernatural and a visceral sense of place.

OK, I’ve put off the car thing for too long. Must get it to the repair shop so they can deal and I can get to class.

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paperhaus August 15th, 2006

Catching up is so much fun.

#21 - Keystone: The Life and Clowns of Mack Sennett by Simon Louvish. For a history, breezily written, with a few snicker-worthy lines that you can tell tickled the author. Quite good, entirely informative. I would have traded a few business-y details for some more gossipy tidbits — Mack Sennett was a producer, after all, who took meetings from a bathtub in the center of his office — but absolutely worth it for anyone with an itch for silent film history, early Hollywood or the Keystone Kops (yes, that includes me).

#22 - Who I Was Supposed to Be by Susan Perabo. Excellent short stories. Except I’m rapidly losing my love for short stories.

#23 - The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster. A divorced, 60-something bully of a man moves to NYC and, despite himself, begins to reconnect with other humans, including the ones who’d sworn him off. A relationship he observes kind of becomes a story-wthin-the-story. Well told. What you’d expect from Paul Auster, but sweeter.

#24 - Crawl Space by Edie Meidav. Wow, this marched right up and declared Brooklyn Follies to be superficial. Meidav’s almost-present-day tale of a fictional fugitive Vischy war criminal is always smart, sharp, ambitious and delicious to read. Even when it makes you feel a little morally dirty for liking the evil octogenarian, or the plot wanders a bit toward the end, it’s enjoyable and thought-provoking. This came to me as an LBC nominee. Love that LBC.

#25 & #26 - To Be Announced for the aforementioned LBC: fall nominees, coming soon.

#27 - The Stewardess is Flying the Plane! by Ron Hogan. A pictorial romp through 1970s film with a nice running sociopolitical narrative and some nifty trivia (did you know Gene Hackman’s favorite of his films is The Conversation? Netflix it if you don’t know it). Podcast with Ron is upcoming….

#28 - Adventures of a Hollywood Secretary by Valeria Belletti, edited by Cari Beauchamp. Eh, did I mention I have a bit of an obsession with early Hollywood? Valeria was the secretary to Sam Goldwyn and her letters to a friend back in NY provide a window on real life in tinseltown in the last years before sound. "Real life" meaning, in this case, working late, being disapproved of for having a cigarette - and a cocktail! — and trying to decide whether or not it’s worth it to marry a bohemian. Plus ca change…

#29 - The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon. Kind of required reading in my newly adopted city. A college grad has some adventures in Pittsburgh, but the greatest mystery … is himself. (ooh, it feels so After School Special to type that!) The narrator is a cypher, and aside from a few lovely witticisms isn’t revealed on the page. Why do the cool and crazy people hang out with him, fall for him? Who knows? I love Chabon’s writing, and the tale scrolls out swiftly — but for me, Kavalier & Klay is a more fantastic ride.

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paperhaus July 2nd, 2006

The latest of my 75 books.

#17 - An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. A teenager with few social skills and lots of smarts hits the road with his one and only friend, a bearish Arab-American, but their road trip gets stalled. This may be the only book on the shelves this fall that has Arab dialoge, a boar hunt and several trips to Hardee’s. I thought it was great — I hope the young adults love it.

#18 - The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell. This was OK, and when Vowell is on a roll she’s amazing, but a few of the pieces felt perfunctory and others were a little dated — the tragedy of George Bush stealing the election pales, I fear, when looking at how his administration has waged war in the Middle East and decimated the Constitution since. Truth be told, I wanted Assassination Vacation but the bookstore was sold out. I suspect the theme of Assassination Vacation will help the essays hold together better.

#19 - Becoming Abigail by Chris Abani. Strong, disorienting, disjointed, this book’s form and language fit its protagonist. Very well crafted and entirely terrific, although the subject matter is almost unbearably grim. Short and excellent.

#20 - Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. OK, she’s got a great grasp of language, can evoke beauty in the simplest of things, and has obviously thought a lot about Christianity and Iowa. But it’s all rumination and lecture, with a bit of character thrown in. Plot? As swift as the sun creeping across a field of wheat. To me, one long sermon, and not an overly illuminating one. Eh, other people liked it. Got a Pulitzer. But y’know, it just wasn’t what I’d hoped.

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paperhaus June 7th, 2006

There’s this thing coming up. I’m moving to Pittsburgh. On Tuesday. With a U-Haul.

But I’m jumping ahead — in the fall I start the MFA program in creative writing at Pitt, which is shorthand for the University of Pittsburgh. I’m really excited.

I’m so excited that I’m moving to Pittsburgh before I have to. I’m hoping it’ll give me time to buy a bike and practice until I can power it over the hill to school. And I found a cool place, midway between a grocery store and a graveyard. I love that.

I waved goodbye to LAist Sunday, am having a yard sale Saturday (105 N. Berendo St) and today I sold my car. Now all I have left to do is pack. I’m on box #14 of books and there are still more. I’ve been keeping the latest in my 75 books stack (I’m going to make it, despite my slow start) and here they go, before they get packed like the rest. In mixed-up order:

#9 The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender. Damn she’s good!

#10 Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender. The torture story made me turn away from the page. Wow.

#11 The Newton Letter by John Banville. Boy, I’m missing it. I’m really missing it.

#12 Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. If I hadn’t gone to boarding school, my reaction would be different.

#13 Brookland by Emily Barton. Should have loved it. Didn’t.

#14 Laurel Canyon by Michael Walker. Before LA’s rural canyon was a place of privelege.

#15 Girls in Peril by Karen Lee Boren. Interesting and lean.

#16 Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Love love love.

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paperhaus March 22nd, 2006

In the 75 books challenge I am behind Megan and Ed and I’m sure many others who aren’t displaying their fantastic progress. I have caught up to Kim, I think, and Cecil. Speaking of Cecil…

#6: The  Queen of Cool by Cecil Castellucci
In this young adult novel, Libby is one of the cool kids at school but she’s bored, bored, bored with it all. She doesn’t apply herself, her best friend is a superficial twit and she cares about her boyfriend as much as he cares about her (very little). So as she creates small tornados of chaos just to try to make something interesting happen, she winds up, you know, learning something unexpected. I read an early draft and I think the finished product is stripped down, in a good way, and tells its story powerfully. Cecil is a dear friend and I think she’s rocking.

#7: I Love You More Than You Know by Jonathan Ames
This was my first Jonathan Ames read and I think he’s terrfically engaging and funny. When he talks about some edgier exploits (a tranny on the knee, say) he does it with little affect. I never felt like I was reading some tragic hipster saying "look at me! I’m so crazy!" –  I just felt like I was reading a good story. The stories, which were written over the last several years, have an increasing sweetness and melancholy. It’s a fine book to take on a plane, except for the possible ball exposure on the cover.

#8: Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames
Did I want to read a modernized Jeeves story? I’m not a Wodehouse purist, but I wasn’t sure. And if you had told me it’s a book about a hapless alcoholic writer, I probably would have declined. But that’s because I can be very stupid. This is a great book, funny, with a slightly miserable protagonist who ends up being likeable despite himself. It’s got slapstick that works (a rare feat), a roadtrip, late-night ponderings and even sex. And always the mysterious Jeeves. I’m one of those people who got to the end and thought ooh, will there be a sequel? Not that the story needed it; the characters totally hooked me, is all.

As this might indicate, Jonathan Ames has been interviewed and his podcast is coming toute suite. Looks like I’ll have to buy The Extra Man for my Ames fiction fix, though. A Wake Up, Sir! sequel is not in the works (aw).

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paperhaus February 7th, 2006

The latest of my (still lagging) 75 books for 2006 were The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and Stumbling and Raging: More Politcally Inspired Fiction, edited by Stephen Elliott.

#4: The Namesake is a novel that was totally addictive; it demanded that I come home and pick it up when I was trying to eat dinner with friends. At its best, it features Lahiri’s beautiful, thoughtful and sad writing. But it isn’t always at its best, perhaps because the story doesn’t have the emotional power of some of her short stories. Her protagonist is cold and connects with few people in his world. For readers in our world, he’s hard to connect with, too. But it was still a  fast, good read.

Lahiri is the youngest writer ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature, at age 32. I know she was 32 because we went to elementary school together. We grew up in the same small town in Rhode Island; her dad worked with my mom at the university library. We were in plays together, fifth grade together, Girl Scouts together. The Namesake draws on a New England childhood that often resembles our own. When the mother in The Namesake chose not to throw a birthday party for her son because the local kids claim to be allergic to milk, I cringed. I was allergic to milk. In the book, an Indian society evolves inside of the suburban society; in real life, I saw the moms in their saris, even in winter, shopping at the grocery store. Was there a world full of real curries and somosas right there in my town? I’m fascinated to think there was.

I have lots of questions to ask her about her beautiful writing, the big prize, and why Peter Ashley’s dad makes an anachronistic appearance to deliver the protagonist. And I hope someday I get to ask them on Pinky’s Paperhaus.

#5 Stumbling and Raging is a book of short stories inspired by, not about, politics. Editor Stephen Elliott will soon appear on Pinky’s Paperhaus to talk about the book. Four Stanford students helped him put it together, and they had nice pickings. While there are a few stories I didn’t love, it’s a really strong collection. Marquee names include Dave Eggers, Aimee Bender, Sandra Cisneros, Neal Pollack and Chris Abani. but the less well-known writers, like Courtney Angela Brkic (that’s not a typo) and Jeff Parker, hold their own. Funds raised by the book’s sales will be given to progressive Congressional candidates; a good read in more ways than one.

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paperhaus January 28th, 2006

I’m getting a wicked slow start on my 75 books.

Book #2: Big Lonesome by Jim Ruland.
The only way I got through the brutality and sadness of the first story was to think of all the CDs I’ve heard that put their most challenging track first. If you can take that, they seem to say, then you deserve the rest. Jim’s book of short stories treads between realities often overlooked and imaginary worlds that always have an element of danger. Maybe it’s a surprise that stories like this can be full of heart, but they are. It didn’t surprise me, since I’ve met him. Did I mention they’re also funny? Yes, brutal, fantastical and funny.

Book #3: Cosmopolis by Don Delillo
I love Don Delillo, but if I’d started with this book I wouldn’t. It’s completely cold. I suppose I should be thinking it’s Allegory with a Capital A, a post-Sept-11 book about the end of American/New Yorker arrogance, about the drive for self-extermination being inseparable from our drive for the acquisition of wealth and power, but I couldn’t stop thinking I was reading Delillo doing Bonfire of the Vanities (a parallel John Updike caught, too). Was I just full of youthful exuberance when I read Ratner’s Star all those times, or was it actually funny and a good story and thought-provoking and allegorical all at once? I guess I’ve got 72 more books to go; I could always re-read it and check.

So when I went to see Paul Auster the other night I was in the middle of Cosmopolis, which is dedicated to him. I bought a copy of Brooklyn Follies and was getting it signed. "I just happen to be reading this," I said, flashing Cosmopolis’ cover. He looked at me and said nothing. I can translate, tho: he was saying SO? And I said, idiotically, but trying to spur a response, "It’s dedicated to you." "Yes, we’re friends," he said, and I moved dutifully on. But, um, Mr. Auster? We’ve all got lots of friends, but they don’t all dedicate books just to us. There’s got to be more of a story behind it. Did you read a draft for him? Did the two of you share a joke that he was writing in your style? Did you dedicate a book to him in trade? All that talk about storytelling and "Yes, we’re friends," is all you’ve got? Thanks, I treasure the insight. Really.

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