Summer Brenner: My Life in Clothes

978-1597091633 – Paperback – Red Hen Press – $18.95  (ebook versions also available)

Summer Brenner is an economical and elegant writer whose fiction I have become very attached to (I read her noir novel, I-5, which I think is a terrific book, and interviewed her for Writerscast in December, 2009.  Her latest book, published by the very fine Southern California based independent literary press, Red Hen, is a collection of stories called My Life in Clothes.  It may as well be considered a novel, as the stories are interlocked and related enough to make one, marked by Ms. Brenner’s characteristically beautiful writing throughout.

That she was a poet first is evident in the carefulness and precision of her language; she writes a gorgeous and transparent prose that is warm and fluid and easy to inhabit.  The Economist gave My Life in Clothes a terrific review, and called this book “a fierce and funny slip of a thing,” and while I love the allusion to clothes in that comment, I think this book is much more than a “slip.”   Brenner loves her characters and tells their stories effortlessly.  It’s the retelling and and reimagining of her own life after all.  Clothes are the reference point throughout.

The story begins with Moshe Auerbach, a Lithuanian refugee who comes to America, then follows his family line to Atlanta and then the protagonist and her friends and lovers in California from the sixties onward. Along the way we meet Marguerite, the protagonist’s mother, whose fixation on clothing and appearances is a key element of the book and her cousin Peggy, whose own interest in clothes and what they mean for self image is profoundly meaningful for her in every respect.

Brenner’s writing shines.  She’s funny, poignant and sharp.  Here’s just one of the many great turns of phrase she manages in this book: “Peter and I used to sit for hours with rod and bait, our legs dangling over the pier, sipping beer, waiting for something to happen,” she begins one story. “Most of the time, nothing did. But that didn’t matter. We were looking for an excuse to do nothing and preferred if it had a name. Fishing is the best apology ever invented.”  There are many more – I highly recommend this book to anyone who appreciates wonderful writing, and stories well told.

Brenner is a prolific and diverse writer.  She has published a dozen books of poetry, fiction, and novels for children.  Another recent title is Richmond Tales, Lost Secrets of the Iron Triangle, a novel for youth, which received a 2010 Richmond Historic Preservation award. Gallimard’s “la serie noire” published another of Brenner’s crime novels, Presque nulle part which PM Press will release by its English title, Nearly Nowhere, in 2012.

Her voice is wonderful to listen to as well, and I think you will enjoy our conversation about My Life in Clothes, and its wonderful stories and characters.

Kermit Moyer: The Chester Chronicles

978-1579621940 – Hardcover – Permanent Press – $28.00

What a pleasure it was to discover this writer.  The Chester Chronicles is a collection of interlocking stories that serve to create what is essentially a coming-of-age novel.  We are introduced to Chet Patterson as a pre-adolescent and stay with him as he grows unto early manhood.  He is the son of a military man, so at the heart of the book is the peripatetic journey of a budding intellectual, who often does not fit in with the crowd and is always in search of both his internal and his social identity. There are lots of adventures along the way, many having to do with girls and sex, boys and drinking.

There are certainly elements here that will be most familiar to people of a certain age, who lived through the ’50s and ’60s, especially the defining moments of those times.  But as with any good book, the character and his story transcend the specifics of the place and time in which the book is set.   The point is, after all, for us to see him as a person on a journey, and to understand where he has been, and perhaps also, therefore, to understand who he will become.  As the author says of himself and of his character, he is “plagued with Oedipal anxieties and existential doubt, yet nonetheless convinced of his heroic destiny.”  There are several moment in the book that can make the reader laugh out loud, and there are others where it is equally impossible not to deeply feel his pain.  I’d say that’s a pretty good accomplishment for any writer.

In my interview with Kermit Moyer, we talked about some of the autobiographical elements of the book, some of the stories which stood out for me as a reader, as well as some of the characters in the book that affected me the most.  We talked quite a bit about autobiographical fiction and how this book fits into the tradition of fictionalized autobiography and works transformationally both for the author and the reader.  Moyer provides an interesting explanation of his writing which I hope will help introduce new readers to his fine writing.

What Was I Thinking? Liz Dubelman

ISBN# 978-0-312-38472-2
St. Martin’s Press, Hardcover $21.95

This fun WritersCast podcast has host David Wilk interviewing Liz Dubelman, co-editor of the wonderfully entertaining collection of first person essays by women describing those special moments in relationships when they suddenly realized: it’s not going to work.  WHAT WAS I THINKING: 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories will be published February 3, 2009.  Dubelman, co-founder of www.vidlit.com, talks about the genesis of the book, how she and co-editor Barbara Davilman (co-author of YIDDISH WITH DICK AND JANE) collected the essays in the book, how women are responding to it, and why it seems men do not have the same sensibilities about relationships that women do.  Dubelman also talks about “Come to Your Senses Day” – February 15, and the book’s website www.c2ysd.com.