Add Fat City by Leonard Gardner to the list of great anti-California novels. That’s a new sub-genre I’m creating. The anti-California novel looks at the great California dream’s underbelly. What happened to all those people who came to California and didn’t strike it rich, but stayed here anyway? Think Nathenial West’s The Day of the Locust, Charles Bukowski’s Ham and…
Category: American Fiction
My New Favorite Book: The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage
I have no idea how this book found its way into my house. I’m guessing that I bought it by mistake, thinking it was The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow which I’ve had on my wish list for a while now. However I came to read it, I am very glad I did. It’s wonderful….
Warlock by Oakley Hall
Oakley Hall populates his novel Warlock with an entire town full of characters, the way Charles Dickens does, or more apropos the way Pete Dexter did in his western Deadwood. While there is a central plot with its handful of major characters, Mr. Hall takes the time to bring each minor player to life, enough…
Bunny Lake is Missing by Evelyn Piper
You go to pick your three-year-old daughter up from her first day of pre-school. You wait with all of the other mothers, none of whom you know since you are new in town and on your own, as they watch their children come down the stairway. You wait. And wait. But your daughter does not…
My New Favorite Book: The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
Our search for the next school wide read continues without success. There have been books some teachers on the “committee” loved, some that were good for grades 6 and 7 but not 8, some good for 8 and seven but not for six. And the science and math department, along with the forces at large,…
