Portland is a great destination for fans of the independent presses. During a recent two-day trip, I selected a few must-have zines and chapbooks from a huge selection.
Some time ago, when she was four years old, or perhaps four and a half, which is a separate age at that time of life, my youngest protégé, whose name is Julia, observed that not many people seemed to know how to wave properly.
There are two big trees in my garden under which, when friends are visiting, we sit and talk, sometimes during the day, but usually at night. Especially at night, when talk seems less inhibited, wider-ranging, strangely more stimulating.
Three of the stories in Calvin Wharton’s new book, Three Songs by Hank Williams (Turnstone), have appeared in Geist, and it is a pleasure to see them again in this handsome volume. The cover photograph pictures diverging highways somewhere in Texas, intended perhaps as a spiritual analogue to the imagined space of wanderers in the more northerly western worlds inhabited by his protagonists.
The disappearance of Books in Canada, the once venerable, at times haywire and always interesting monthly review of Canadian writing and publishing, is lamented as part of the evaporation of the “Canadian” component of Canadian literature by Stephen Henighan in his new book of essays, When Words Deny the World: The Reshaping of Canadian Writing (Porcupine’s Quill). Henighan is an articulate critic of the so-called “world-class” school of writing, as exemplified in the works of Ondaatje, Shields, Michaels and the dinner-party culture of prizes that begin with the letter G.
Portland is a great destination for fans of the independent presses. During a recent two-day trip, I selected a few must-have zines and chapbooks from a huge selection.
Portland is a great destination for fans of the independent presses. During a recent two-day trip, I selected a few must-have zines and chapbooks from a huge selection.
Portland is a great destination for fans of the independent presses. During a recent two-day trip, I selected a few must-have zines and chapbooks from a huge selection.
Lee Henderson has written some very good stories in The Broken Record Technique (Penguin), a collection of painful tales about families, many of whom live in the suburbs and go to malls. This is narrative territory that may be somewhat over-reported these days, but Henderson is one of its best interpreters, a master of the deadpan who manages always to avoid sinking into ennui.
