The Olive Reader

Flash Fiction Contest sponsored by Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi will accept submissions starting tomorrow, September 1st.

TO ENTER: E-mail one story to mary@squarebooks.com with the subject header “FLASH FICTION CONTEST: “. DO NOT include your name anywhere in the body of the e-mail.

RULES: Fiction. 160 words. No more, no less. Ages 18+. One entry per person. Accepted only September 1 – September 10. The winning entry will be read on Thacker Mountain Radio by the author. If the author is unable to be present or does not wish to read their entry the producer will select someone to read it on-air.

JUDGES:
Charles McNair – Paste Magazine
Bess Reed – Regal Literary Agency
Michael Signorelli – HarperCollins
Annie Wedekind – Farrar, Straus & Giroux

The editors of the literary magazine n + 1, one of which is an esteemed HarperCollins employee, held a fundraiser August 25th. For subscribers the cost of admission was $20, for others it was $30. Over the course of the night, $3000 was raised. It was only then, with the cash box brimming and its attendees offguard, that the gutless crook made off with the entire night’s earnings. “The party was so nice that we were lulled into a false sense of security. Everybody was wearing jackets; there was classical music. We didn’t think anyone was going to steal our money,” said Keith Gessen, editor. This is terrible news. I hope whoever did this has conscience enough to redeem themselves and send the money back. In the meantime, please visit the n + 1 site and make a donation. Read the full story in The New York Sun.

Gawker witnesses their pain

Naguib Mahfouz, the first Arab writer to win the Noble Prize in Literature, and author of The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street died today. He was 94.

Not about medical marijuana or anything, but about Gunter Grass’ recent stunning admission that he had been a member of the SS in the 1940s. Here’s food for thought on how Grass handles the issue in his new book.

We’re so tickled to welcome Bryan back to the Olive Reader that we’re bleeding. Does that even make sense? I can’t tell, I’m too excited. If a room full of lightbulbs hasn’t already flashed on in your brain, Bryan is the author of Grab On to Me Tightly as if I Knew the Way, so check yourself before you wreck yourself, or check your head before you wet the bed, whichever. Here are his answers:

1. One book that changed your life?

This is a tough one but probably Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson.

2. One book you have read more than once?

The Great Gatsby

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler

4. One book that made you laugh?

Bats Out of Hell by Barry Hannah

5. One book that made you cry?

MetLife corporate branding guide (this was for a temp job I had recently that was supposed to be long term, they gave it to me my first day, there were many pages detailing how far away Snoopy’s foot should be from the blue border, the next morning after hardly sleeping I called in sick and they weren’t really too hot on having me back)

6. One book you wish had been written?

I was at the bookstore just yesterday and saw that Les Claypool, bass player for Primus, has a novel out, not that I care, I bring it up only to assert that at this point in our history, pretty much every book you could ever think of is either out there already or on its way, including new material by people long dead.

7. One book you wish had never been written?

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (okay, I never read this but the very premise enrages me and that thing with the flipbok at the end is in such poor taste I’m amazed it ever saw the light of day)

8. One book you are currently reading?

Contempt my Alberto Moravia (takes a while to get warmed up but does eventually get its hooks in)

9. One book you have been meaning to read?

Last three volumes of In Search of Lost Time (I sped through the first two but the third one was tough, all those intellectual “salons” described in excruciating detail for hundreds of pages)

10. Now tag five people

I don’t know five people

Way back in June, I wrote a quick compare/contrast blog about two reviews appearing in The New York Times. One for John Updike’s novel, Terrorist, and the other for the Janice Dickinson television show “The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.” At the time, it was a tie. But Updike’s novel went on to become a nice bestseller — and Janice’s TV show, well, I don’t think it’s on anymore.

Today! I was thrilled to see two more wonderful reviews — so here we go again.

Today, the Times ran reviews of two cultural events that I have actually been unaware of: 1) the new book by Jonathan Franzen and 2) the new TV show starring Shannen Doherty. Michiko Kakutani, who reviewed the Updike, reviews Franzen. And Susan Stewart reviews “Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty.”

Let’s compare.

Words: Length

• Doherty Review: Shannen looked nice in her photo.
• Franzen Review: Franzen got the cover lead-in with a long intro and a turn to page 6 for the rest. Book jacket and author photo shown.

Winner: Franzen

Words: Phrases

• Doherty Review: “Breaking up is supposedly hard to do; creating a decent reality show must be even harder”
• Franzen Review: “succeeds in giving us an odious self-portrait of the artist as a young jack-ass…”

• Doherty Review: “This makes [Doherty] about as lovable and layered as the characters she has played on television”
• Franzen Review: “the author’s self-involvement … makes for an incredibly annoying portrait …”

• Doherty Review: “operates on the flawed principle that it is fun to watch relationships come asunder.”
• Franzen Review: “another hellish exercise in self-absorption”

Winner: Franzen

Words: Difficulty

• Doherty Review: tacky, prissy horror, banal
• Franzen Review: solipsistic, self-absorption, odious, petulant

Winner: Franzen

Last Lines

• Doherty Review: “Lacking redeeming social value and cheesy without the grace of campiness”
• Franzen Review: “…the reader has begun to feel every bit as suffocated and claustrophobic as Mr. Franzen and his estranged wife apparently did in their doomed marriage.”

Winner: Franzen

Overall Results: Please. The Franzen review is so awesome, I’m actually going to clip it out of the paper and tuck it into a little box for safe keeping.

From an interview with Philip Roth about his latest work, Everyman:

I had no idea that I hadn’t named him until I sat down to read the first draft. And then I decided to let it stand. Let him be defined by his relationship to others, to his father and mother, his brother, his wives, his daughter. We may all feel defined by our names, but, in fact, what defines us is our relationship to the network of people we know. That’s who we are.

(Via Normblog)

Not that McSweeney’s needs any help directing traffic to its site, but today’s feature was great. I just finished The Sons and The Castle within the last two months, so Social Security Denies Gregor Samsa’s Disability Claim really resonated with me. My mentioning of this link is in no way an attempt to direct you to my long-ago feature, which now resides, moldering, in the archives. In no way.

Yikes.

Just out is Born to Kvetch by Michael Wex. Around here, we like to refer to it as “a delightful excursion through the Yiddish language, the culture it defines and serves, and the fine art of complaint.” Of course, we rely on the acronym to save time, which sounds pretty Yiddish once your mouth becomes accustomed to it. For more information, some entertainment, and the soothing idioms of our own David Hirshey, visit the book’s site, here.

And our sister/cousin/secret twin locked in the attic blog, Eos has a nice feature on a Perennial book, Little, Big.

The big boys are coming out swingin’ — which is good news for those of us who like our prose on the masculine side. Random House announced on Friday that they will be publishing Norman Mailer’s first novel in 10 years — THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST — adding to the wealth of big guns that will be hitting bookstores in the next 4-5 months.

Here’s a checklist that I recommend you print, fold up nicely, and keep in your wallet.

Cormac McCarthy, The Road, September 26
Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land, October 24
Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, November 21
Robert Stone, Prime Green, January 9
Norman Mailer, The Castle in the Forest, January 23

1. One book that changed your life?

I read Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut when I was going to a Catholic high school. The notion that religion could be something concocted by the government to keep its citizens in line really messed with my head and made me question a lot of things.

2. One book you have read more than once?

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. I’m fascinated with that thin line (or in this case, lobotomy) that distinguishes sanity from insanity.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook

4. One book that made you laugh?

I Am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell.

5. One book that made you cry?

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. The beginning of this book is the most painful, but honest thing I’ve ever read.

6. One book you wish had been written?

I’d love to see a collection of true “coming-out” stories.

7. One book you wish had never been written.

The Biography of the Idea of Literature. Too horrible for words. I considered tossing electrical appliances in the bathtub with me when I read it.

8. One book you are currently reading?

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby.

9. One book you have been meaning to read?

Aye-aye-aye…there are about five million, but to choose one at random, The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer.

10. Now tag five people.

Um…no.

Five hours of color footage of writer Eudora Welty has been found in the National Endowment for the Arts media archives and returned to Mississippi.

Gary Fisketjon, editor extraordinare at Knopf, has been named the winner of the 2006 Maxwell E. Perkins Award for distinguished achievement in fiction. Gary has edited just about all of my favorite writers of the last 30 years, including Cormac McCarthy, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Donna Tartt, Bret Easton Ellis, and Jay McInerney.

Leading astronomers say Pluto is no longer defined as a planet.

Which is interesting, I think.