Summer Brenner: I-5, A Novel of Crime, Transport, and Sex
978-1-60486-019-1 – Paperback – PM Press – $15.95
This is a slim novel that packs a pretty powerful punch. Summer Brenner was best known to me as a poet, but it turns out she has been writing fiction for quite some time. She has a political interest, as this novel demonstrates, but it is not a tract. It’s a sensitive portrayal of an Eastern European woman who has been tricked into coming to America, where she has been enslaved in a money for sex ring that makes a business out of the correlation between the desires of women to escape the misery of their lives and men who are willing to pay for sex of all kinds with women, whose real lives they care nothing about.
As the story of I-5 unfolds, Anya, the main character, is traveling the interstate corridor up central California from Los Angeles to Oakland; adventures ensue, some of them strange, some of them desperate, all of them painful and sad. Still, Brenner’s characters matter, she is sympathetic to all of them as human beings, even the worst exploiters in the crew. That makes this novel much more than a book about sex, money, power and violence; in Brenner’s hands, these characters transcend their typologies to become real people trapped in their individual gulags. She writes visually, so that with a relatively few words, we can see what she wants us to see, the places her characters inhabit, and even their interior worlds. It’s gut wrenching book, but our faith in the ability of people to overcome the obstacles between themselves and their humanity is never lost.
This is really a terrific book; yes, the cover makes it look like a trashy paperback from the 50s, but done in a modern enough way that there is no mistaking it for anything exploitative. I-5 is a hardboiled story, and it is as noir as any book you will read, but it’s a transformative experience to read and one that should not be missed. In my interview with Summer, we talked quite a bit about the how she came to write this book, and many of the issues of sexual slavery in America and worldwide today. She expresses a deep emotional connection with the characters in her novel, based on her own experiences as a woman. Her abilities to imagine her characters and their stories is remarkable. Summer Brenner is a writer more people should know, and one who important things to say.
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James A. Owen: Here, There be Dragons
978-1416912279 – Hardcover – Simon & Schuster – $17.95 (a paperback edition is also available – but the price difference is small enough for me to recommend you buy the hardcover)
James A. Owen is a wonderful writer. It’s interesting to me how many really excellent writers there are who are categorized as “young adult” writers because the books they write are about things like dragons, or boys who are heroes or even young wizards in an imaginary school in an imaginary part of England. In my opinion anyway, Here, There be Dragons is a book for readers of all ages or any age. It’s well written, has characters with depth, beautifully done line drawings by the author, and a fast moving, engaging story line that includes heroes who are connected to our literary history in some very interesting ways. What more can one ask for in a novel?
“What is it?” John asked.
The little man blinked and arched an eyebrow.
“It is the world, my boy,” he said. “All the world, in ink and blood, vellum and parchment, leather and hide. It is the world, and it is yours to save or lose.”
An unusual murder brings together three strangers, John, Jack, and Charles, on a rainy night in London during the first World War. An eccentric little man called Bert tells them that they are now the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica — an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth and legend, fable and fairy tale. These lands, Bert claims, can be traveled to in his ship the Indigo Dragon, one of only seven vessels that is able to cross the Frontier between worlds into the Archipelago of Dreams.
Pursued by strange and terrifying creatures, the companions flee London aboard the Dragonship. Traveling to the very realm of the imagination itself, they must learn to overcome their fears and trust in one another if they are to defeat the dark forces that threaten the destiny of two worlds. And in the process, they will share a great adventure filled with clues that lead readers to the surprise revelation of the legendary storytellers these men will one day become.
It’s a pretty good bet that if you like this book, you will be pleased to know you can continue to read. This is the first volume in the Chronicles of Imaginarium Geographica series, which has now reached a total of four books, with more to come. It’s probably true that this book and its series will appeal most to a certain type of reader, one who has read and enjoyed adventure stories, particularly those well written classics of the past (again, I don’t think it’s about the age of the reader but rather one’s interests). Unlikely heroes, normal people faced with challenges to which they rise, mythological characters brought to life, and above all, dragons, definitely motivate some of us more than others. I guess I am one of those.
I had the pleasure of meeting James A. Owen at Comicon in San Diego. I was impressed to see a writer so willing to engage with his readers – Comicon can be exhausting for exhibitors and for creators even more so. In this interview, he displays his engaging personality, and talks with me about the origin of his work as a novelist, his work in comics, contacts with film makers (the film adaptation is in development and appears scheduled as a 2011 release), and his attempt to revive the classic magazine, Argosy. Owen started as a comic book writer and illustrator, and even was a publisher of comics, and then moved into writing novels almost accidentally. This is a lucky turn of events for readers of fiction. You can learn much more about James A. Owen and his work at this website and he also has a beautiful blog based site, the Wonder Cabinet, that is well worth regular visits. I’m hopeful that over time, Owen’s work will reach the wider audience it deserves.
Note to listeners: this interview is slightly longer than most at 27 minutes, but should provide sufficient interest to reward your investment of time.
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Caroline Leavitt: Girls in Trouble
978-0312339739 – paperback – St. Martin’s Griffin – $14.95
Sometimes you get lucky. There are books you find by accident, maybe you choose them just to browse, not meaning to become engaged, they’re discoveries, books you would not “normally” have picked up to read, they surprise you, you’re hooked, and then you can’t stop reading. For me, reading Caroline Leavitt’s Girls in Trouble was just that sort of a book. In this case I read it because she wrote me an email and asked if she could send me a copy of the book, which was easy enough for me to agree to. When it came, I picked it up, the story line described on the cover has some personal resonance, so I took a chance and started reading. And then found I could not put it down. Reading Girls in Trouble was a constant surprise and revelation. It took me places I did not expect to go, it gave me characters I wanted to know and know better, and I believed in their experiences. And it’s a big plus that Caroline can really write.
I don’t want to give any of the story away, but suffice to say, what happens to the people in this book is not what you expect, and reading it will help you understand something important about families, relationships, and parenting. Not the easy, feel-good poster stuff from the movies either. I recommend this book to almost any kind of reader, male or female, old or young, literature readers and even those who just like to be entertained. It’s that good.
Given how much I liked this book, interviewing Caroline Leavitt was quite a pleasure. She has a lot to say about writing, and the way she interacts and lives with her characters, and how this and her other books came into being. Girls in Trouble is a rich vein to mine for an interview too, as it works on so many different levels and across so many lives and years, and of course because it is centered around an open adoption gone terribly wrong, it generates a certain amount of controversy and that gives the author another great subject to talk about. I am very much looking forward to reading her next novel, Pictures of You (which we also talked about in this interview).
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Anna Elliott: Twilight of Avalon – a novel of Trystan and Isolde
978-1416589891 – Paperback – Touchstone – $16.00
This is a beautifully written book and immediately engrossing. I was, quite honestly, surprised to find out that this is Anna Elliott’s first novel, as the writing is so good. Another retelling of any part of the Arthurian cycle runs grave risks – these are stories many readers know well, and have strong feelings about. Elliott tells the story from a far different perspective than most modern versions, and I think is quite brilliant in her portrayal of the role of a strong woman in a particularly brutal time. There is much that is beautiful in this story, plenty of human warmth, redemption, strength of character and charm, even. But the author does not shy away from a realistic depiction of a dark and dangerous time in early European history. She manages the unfolding of her story well; I never lost interest in the characters, and was drawn deeply into the world Elliott creates, which after all, is the point of a mythological telling like this one. I am looking forward to the next two novels in the trilogy.
I enjoyed talking to this first time novelist about Twilight of Avalon and how she came to write it (or how it came to her). And I think listeners will be interested in what she has to say about this book, early British history and the unfolding of the Trystan and Isolde story through the three books in her story cycle. There is romance here, but there is also a strong woman whose connection to magic, healing and the realm of spirit has quite a bit to say to modern readers as we are ourselves living in perilous, sometimes dark, often dangerous times ourselves. Thanks Anna Elliott for the telling.
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Ivy Pochoda: The Art of Disappearing
978-0312385859 – Hardcover – St. Martin’s Press -$24.99
The Art of Disappearing is simply a wonderful novel. And it’s the author, Ivy Pochoda’s first too. It’s beautifully written, flows naturally, and as with all great novels, it’s layered and complex. A story that transforms the reader’s experience can be considered a true work of art, and this is one of those.
This is a description from Ivy’s own website:
Toby Warring seems too young and too attractive to be sending drinks to strange women in a small-town Nevada saloon, but that is exactly how he meets Mel Snow, a textile designer who is selling her wares throughout the country. In a brief but strangely familiar conversation, Toby shows Mel that he is a rare “real” magician—actually creating the wine he places in front of her—and explains that all he has ever wanted is to perform in Las Vegas. They marry the next day.
You can read excerpts from the book here to get a feel for her writing, which is luminous. Magic is at the heart of the book, but it’s not about parlor tricks. In my interview with Ivy Pochoda, we talked about how she came to write this story, how it incorporates much of her own experience of place, and how she created the magical realism that imbues the book. Ivy grew up in Brooklyn in a very literary family, fell in love with writing and books early, went to Harvard (where she was a champion squash player, and lived in Amsterdam for several years. While living there, she started work on the novel and it is where much of The Art of Disappearing is set, though Las Vegas and the American west are also important locales for the book and its characters.
I love this novel and will be looking forward to the author’s next book.
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John Pipkin: Woodsburner
978-0385528658 – Hardcover – Nan A. Talese – $24.95
I first heard about this novel on NPR and was immediately attracted to the notion of a novel that was generated by this single almost unknown incident, when Henry David Thoreau accidentally set fire to the Concord woods in 1844. I’d learned of this first from poet friend Jonathan Williams many years ago, but it never really hit me how paradoxical this event was. John Pipkin has woven a truly original story out of the history surrounding this one event.
He starts with the historical Thoreau, imagining him not as the genius of outdoor philosophy he has become, but as a bumbling, confused and somewhat thoughtless individual who does yet fully know who he is or even why he is. Pipkin adds other characters to the story, all of them confused and searching for something that perhaps only the accidental conflagration set off by Thoreau and his young friend can bring them. There is Eliot Calvert, aspiring romantic playwright and accidental bookseller searching for meaning in a mundane life, the irresistibly named Norwegian orphan immigrant Oddmund Hus (whose past also involves an explosive accident) who is silently in love with the wife of the farmer he works for, and Caleb Dowdy, the strange, confused Episcopal minister who seeks salvation through self abasement. And of course, Thoreau as Pipkin paints him, a young largely unfulfilled son of a pencil manufacturer, way over his head in the woods, searching for meaning in nature bit in no way ready for his destiny.
All will meet, all will be transfixed, transformed, formed, in the conflagration at the heart of this story. I talked to first-time novelist John Pipkin early one morning in September about this truly excellent book. In this interview he talks about what lead him to this story, and how he came to imagine it, as well as his research, the characters and of course, Thoreau himself. Pipkin is a terrific writer, and just as good at talking about his work. I am looking forward to reading more of his work, and recommend this novel to almost any reader – it is that good.
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Jayne Anne Phillips: Lark and Termite
978-0375401954 – Hardcover – Knopf – $24.00
Lark and Termite is one of the best novels I have read in a long time, written by one of the best writers we have. Jayne Anne Phillips writes fiction that is always deeply luminous, complex and beautiful. There’s an almost meditative quality to this novel, as the author switches between multiple perspectives and voices brilliantly, almost lulling the reader into not realizing that a complex and intricate story is being told. Phillips gives voice and life to her characters, defining a family and the complex web of events and places that give it structure, deep and viable across place and time in an extraordinary, mysterious and beautiful story.
As Alice Munro says about Lark and Termite: “This novel is cut like a diamond, with such sharp authenticity and bursts of light.”
In this interview, Jayne Anne Phillips talks in detail about her newest novel, the genesis of the story and its characters, their history as she imagines them, how she works as a writer. We also talk about her first book, Sweethearts, published by my Truck Press in 1976. Overall this is a varied and interesting conversation with a writer who is in complete command of her abilities.
— David Wilk, September 2009
Knopf makes an excerpt of Lark and Termite available for readers to sample, well worth visiting the book site or click below.
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William Gladstone: The Twelve (a novel)
978-1593155568 – Hardcover – Vanguard Press – $19.95
William Gladstone, author of the new novel, The Twelve, interviewed by Writerscast host David Wilk.
The Twelve is a terrific first novel by an experienced book industry professional, west coast based William Gladstone. I know the author personally, and I’ve read this novel at various stages of its development. In its final published form, it has become a compelling read on a subject of great interest to many people – the future. It’s a book with a strong spiritual message but one that does not get in the way of its fast moving and intriguing story.
The publisher’s description of the book goes like this: “The Twelve is an extraordinary and unforgettable novel about a most unusual man. As a child, Max lives in a world of colors and numbers, not speaking until the age of six. As an adult, Max ventures on a journey of destiny to discover the secret behind the ancient Mayan prophecy about the “end of time,” foretold to occur on December 21, 2012.
When he is fifteen years old, Max has a near death experience during which he has a vision that reveals to him the names of twelve unique individuals. While Max cannot discern the significance of these twelve names, he is unable to shake the sense that they have deep meaning. Eight years pass before Max meets the first of the twelve.
With this, Max’s voyage of discovery begins, as he strives to uncover the identities and implications of “the twelve”—individuals he will meet during his journey towards truth, all of whom seem connected, and all of whom may hold the answer to what will happen at the exact moment the world may end. The novel takes the reader on a series of global adventures, culminating in a revelation of why and how Max and the twelve are destined to unite to discover the magnitude of the meaning of December 21, 2012. Only the twelve can provide the answers, as the fate of all humanity rests in the balance.”
In my fast-paced interview with author Gladstone, we talk about the genesis of the novel, his sense of the meaning of the book, and what the future holds for humanity.
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David Morrell – The Shimmer
978-1593155377 – Hardcover
Vanguard Press $25.95
David Morrell is one of the better action thriller novelists writing today. Not only does he write well, but his novels always have terrific characters, explore complex emotional relationships, and are driven by great story telling. When I picked up The Shimmer, I already had a number of other books on my plate and no real intention of reading it right away. But after the first few pages I could not put it down. This wonderful novel combines elements of the thriller novel with science fiction and fantasy, historical fiction, modern psychological horror stories. My interview with the interesting and voluble David Morrell gives readers a chance to get to know quite a bit about this novel, his 28th, and much more about his background as a writer, a teacher and storyteller. The Shimmer takes place in a town in Texas modeled closely on the real-life town of Marfa and includes a great deal of real history woven into a gripping modern tale. This book is a great example of Morrell’s work, and this interview was a lot of fun for me to do. — David Wilk
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P.W. Catanese – Happenstance Found (The Books of Umber Series)
June 23, 2009 by David
Filed under Children's Authors, Fiction
978-1416975199 – Hardcover
Aladdin (Simon & Schuster) $16.99
P.W. Catanese is the author of a number of books for children and young adults who lives in Connecticut. In this podcast, Writerscast host David Wilk interviews Catanese, who talks in detail about his life as a writer, his earlier series of fairy tale retellings for younger readers, and his latest novel, the excellent Happenstance Found, which is the first in a new series he has created called The Books of Umber. The novel opens with Happenstance, a strange boy of undetermined age, waking up in a cave with no memories of who he is or anything about the fantastic world in which he lives. He soon encounters Lord Umber, an adventurer who seems familiar with our world as well as his own, and his two companions — a brute cursed to be forever truthful and a one-handed artist and archer… As the group attempts to learn about his origins, they’re forced to confront a supernatural assassin and secrets from Umber’s own mysterious past. The world Catanese creates in this novel is highly compelling; his new series should appeal both to adults who love a good fantasy and to the younger readers to whom it is aimed.
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