Tod Goldberg

The Fix: Behind The Music and An Excerpt

A month from now my first Burn Notice book, The Fix, will be released into the wide world. I'm already well into writing the second book and thinking about the third one, too. It has been an odd process for me for several reasons, not the least of which being that I am typically a pretty slow writer, tend to agonize over every word and have a micro manager's attention to detail as it relates to marketing, art and advertising. I've been spoiled in a way because with Simplify, for instance, my great publishers at OV Books actually listened to my rants and things worked really, really well. (And it should be noted: I am hoping to have good news shortly about my new collection of stories.) With The Fix, it was an entirely different experience. I wrote the book in about 70 days. I have no micromanaging tendencies concerning anything with the art or marketing, particularly since its hard to complain about television ads running on USA, a huge web presence on USA's site and assurances that the book will be in every store in the known universe. Unlike my previous books where I've toured the nation, I'm doing a limited amount of touring this time around -- I'll post the schedule shortly, but it's primarily in the west -- focusing mostly on mystery and crime book stores, which have always shown me a tremendous amount of support for my previous books, and festivals. The reality is that this book will probably sell itself. The other reality is that my ego won't allow me to stay home and hope that happens.

I would be lying if I said writing this book wasn't a challenge. It absolutely was. I've never written a traditional crime novel. Anyone who has read my work in the past will tell you that linear storytelling isn't exactly my calling card. Nor is having a narrator who is reliable. Of course I've written linear work in the past. And of course I've written reliable narrators in the past. But one thing I don't think I've ever written is a hero, even an ironic hero like Michael Westen. My characters tend to be pretty fucked up and of course Michael is fucked up in his own way, too, but not in the "he may have killed his wife and daughter" sort of way. The challenge for me was to convey him on the page in a way that made me enjoy writing him and also was true to Matt Nix's creation.

Which brings up another challenge: I had to remember to be funny. My tendency in writing fiction is the opposite of what I do here on this blog. And of course this blog isn't even really me -- it is some blog version of myself, some stylized version of my life and opinions (I don't say the word fucktard all that often, really) -- so if you pick up a book of mine looking for whatever is you find here, you're going to be disappointed. One of the more common things I hear when I meet people at book signings and such is, "I bought your book thinking it would be really funny. But this is really different. It's serious!" Which I guess is the hazard of keeping a blog. At any rate, I gave myself the freedom with The Fix to let go of some of my literary pretension, leaving that for the short fiction I wrote this year, and hopefully found a voice that would give readers what they want in terms of the humor of Burn Notice.

After the book comes out, I'll post some other interesting stuff about the book -- including a little bit about the Easter Eggs I put in the book, which will be part of a contest I'll run here for people who happen to be fans of the entire family of Goldberg siblings and can spot all of the allusions I've made to previous works by all of us -- including some stories about the actual writing of scenes and such (there is one notable scene that occurred while I was literally freezing to death in Vermont).

Until then, Penguin has posted a pretty extensive excerpt -- the entire first chapter -- here. The spacing is a little funky in places -- some of the dialog gets shoved together in odd ways -- but it will give you a nice flavor for the book.   

Noir Cage Match

Saturday night is all right for fighting, Jesus said unto his flock. Or maybe it was Elton John. Either way, this Saturday night is the noir cage match you've been waiting for as authors from two Akashic Noir anthologies -- Las Vegas (featuring your humble host) and Los Angeles -- square off in the octagon of literacy for an evening of spirited readings, signings, give- aways, music (that woman over there to the left will be singing noirish songs) and general darkness. I'll be reading my story "Mitzvah" from Las Vegas Noir, which is a tender coming of age story about a mob hit man turned Las Vegas rabbi. It's actually more funny than dark, though I always thought it was just dark, but then people coming up to me and telling me it's funny, so there you go.

It should be a fun evening as I'll be joined by the likes of Gary Phillips (who is editing OC Noir...which I'm also contributing to), Denise Hamilton (who edited LA Noir) and Jim Pascoe (who actually looks the part for these festivities where I always just look, you know, Jewish). In addition to the readings, the liquor and the woman up there singing her darkened heart out, there will also be a Q&A session with the authors and, I imagine, chances to corner me in order to ask me if I'll read your self-published novel about 9/11 and the Masons. 

Here are the details:

Date:	Saturday, June 28, 2008
Time:	6:00pm
Location:	Imix Bookstore
Street:	5052 Eagle Rock Blvd.
City/Town:	Los Angeles, CA (though, this is actually Eagle Rock)

Using The Blog For Good: Can You Recommend A Sci-Fi Story Collection?

Can anyone out there on the Chocolate Supa Highway, as Spearhead once said, recommend a story collection made up of sci-fi stories? I'm not looking for an anthology, just a single author book of stories.

Update: Thanks everyone who emailed and commented...I am now fully loaded! Seems this Ted Chiang fellow is the call, since about fifteen people sent his name my way.

God Is Dead, But Ron Currie Jr. Is Alive And Well And Answering Questions

One of my absolute favorite books of 2007 was Ron Currie Jr.'s God Is Dead, which I reviewed in the LA Times last July and said things like "Currie's strength rests in his ability to focus humanity's conundrums on the smallest physical particles" because it was a book review, but, had we just been sitting around and talking, I would have said, "Man, fuck Ron Currie. This book is awesome. Fuck that guy. You know? Where does he get off being all talented and shit? Fuck that guy."

At any rate, Ron is answering questions this week at the new blog Three Guys One Book and if you've read the book, you'll find the conversation very interesting. If you haven't, you'll want to go out and get the book and learn to hate him on your own...

Your Name Is Mine

Now, before anyone starts saying "You can't copyright a title...and isn't it also the title of a Rob Zombie song...and there must have been a French horror film of the same title...and really, do you think anyone who reads her books reads your books?" understand that I am aware of all of the above. Nevertheless: What the fucking fuck?

The image to the left there is the cover of Elizabeth Scott's YA novel Living Dead Girl. Some of you might recall my award-losing novel of the same name, pictured to the right. I know I do. I know others do, too, since, not to get all proprietary or anything, but, you know, it's kinda synonymous with me, since it lost a bunch of really nice awards. Perhaps had it won a few, well, we'd not be having this conversation. (Oddly -- or perhaps not so oddly, knowing how these things work -- the cover is actually really reminiscent of a cover I rejected.)  Anyway, I hadn't heard of Elizabeth Scott prior to this morning when a friend of mine emailed me to say, Yo, someone is biting on your mad style, you better get them to recognize, G (or, you know, something like that) and sent me a link to her book. Intrigued, I also visited the author's website to find out if her novel was about a missing woman, a dead child with weird tumors and an unreliable narrator dealing with life among the ruins. Alas, no:

Once upon a time, I didn't know how lucky I was.

When Alice was ten, Ray took her away from her family, her friends--her life. She learned to give up all power, to endure all pain. She waited for the nightmare to be over.

Now Alice is fifteen and Ray still has her, but speaks more and more of her death. He does not know it is what she wants.

She does not know he has something more terrifying than death in mind for her.

This is Alice's story. It is one you have never heard, and one you will never, ever forget.

Sounds interesting, I gotta say. I'm not sure what is more terrifying than death, however, apart from maybe that one time I was getting gas at the ARCO station in Banning and 200 Hell's Angels pulled in at the same time. I never felt more Jewish. Anyway, I poked around Elizabeth's site some and found something interesting: Living Dead Girl isn't the only book she's written that shares a title with another book...or books. Her current release is called Stealing Heaven, the title of a popular novel by Madeline Hunter, which came out originally in 2002, but also, oddly, the title of a book by Marion Meade released by Soho (the publisher of Living Dead Girl) in 1994, the title of a Jaclyn Reding novel from 1996, and the title of a book by Heather Von Prondzynski in 1998...and then there was 1995 romance by Kimberly Cates as well, which makes me think there's probably a storage bin at Harlequin filled with books titled Stealing Heaven.

I can't think of anyone I know who has released a book and had another book come after it with the same exact title, particularly not when the book has been around for only a few years, is at least somewhat known and is still in print and selling. There's the case of two books with a very, very similar title being released at the exact same time, as was the deal with Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and The Cloud Atlas by Liam Callanan, both of which were released within weeks of each other in 2004, but I can't think of any others immediately.

So, to answer the obvious question: Yes, I find myself angered by this. Not impossibly so, because there are larger things to be angry about in the world than someone else using the same book title as me -- and in some cases, like when the punk band Riot Like Words named a song Fake Liar Cheat because they were inspired by the book to write a song, I'm more flattered than anything, even if I do have real dominion over those three words together -- but in just a regular business sense, I have to wonder: Why use a title someone else has already used for your book? And why do it more than once? You'd think the sheer confusion factor from having one book with the same title as another 10 books would be enough to keep you away from other such issues.

On the upside, I pray to Dave Navarro that some angst filled YA readers order the wrong book and find themselves asking their parents about whether or not it's possible they have the traces of their unborn siblings festering in their bodies...

LATFOB: A Sweat Drenched Retrospective

Let's just dispense with the formalities first: It was miserably fucking hot on Saturday. I live in a desert that frequently reaches well into the 120s during the summer and by about, oh, 9:30 Saturday morning I was already bemoaning the need to look at least passably professional for my duties as Big Time Famous Author by virtue of wearing the requisite outfit preferred by today's 30something author men: jeans, some kind of brownish shoe, shirt of either polo or buttoned variety, along with a messenger bag slung over shoulder containing, you know, early drafts of your next great novel, a dozen sharpies and a book of earnest poetry. I would have much preferred to be wearing the other favored outfit of today's west coast man authors of 30something age: shorts, t-shirt, flip-flops, messenger bag. By about 9:48am I smelled like I'd jogged to UCLA from La Quinta alongside a pack of nutria. It was fucking miserable.

That being said, it was, as usual, a lovely time. Here's how it broke down by the day:

Friday: Friday is the official kick off of the LA Times Festival of Books (heretofore known as LATFOB) with the annual Book Prizes and the Book Prizes after party. As usual, I took my brother Lee as my date (because he's tender and passionate and usually buys me a flank steak sandwich at the restaurant across the street from the Mystery Bookstore prior to their annual pre-LATFOB get together). We sat next to my friends Tara Ison (a fellow Book Prize loser..a vaunted community), Mary Yukari Waters and Mark Sarvas (along with is lovely wife) and pondered several things as the prizes unfolded:

1. We were all pretty certain that Gay Talese was dead prior to him walking out to host the awards.

2. Several of the finalists for awards seemed like excellent potential mates for Mary Yukari Waters, particularly one fellow who won an award who looked vaguely like Mr. Spock.

3. The Book Prizes are really quite a lavish spectacle -- it's pretty much like going to the Oscars with a bunch of book dorks who make really interesting, funny, and engaging acceptance speeches.

After, we headed over to the party where gossip was the food of choice -- well, alongside the yummy Korean BBQ and the chocolate fountain (where I encountered several members of the crack UCLA Extension Writers' Program team...uh...how to say...wasted...fucked up...unlikely to make it to their booth on time Saturday morning...but in a good, literary way, of course) -- and where every person with a glass of wine made a point of spilling it on Lee.

Saturday: As noted, it was hotter than fuck out, but that didn't dissuade 150,000 people from showing up bright and early to attend the festival, which would have been great if they hadn't been so fucking sweaty. Nevertheless, I managed to make it to my 10am panel with Susan Straight, Brock Clarke, Sylvia Brownrigg and Tara Ison, which was a sell out and a great time. I really like moderating panels because I'm genuinely interested in the things other writers have to say and also because I hate attending panels where the moderators aren't, which makes being on a panel and being in the audience a torturous exercise. So, I like to moderate a panel in such a way that it would be a panel I'd like to see. Thus, I rolled out the word "bukakke" almost immediately after Tara attempted to make a point about...something...where she was searching for an appropriate metaphor about...something...and so I just kind of said, "Like bukakke?" to which Tara just kind of nodded, like, yeah, bukakke, precisely. (When asked later by an audience member what bukakke meant, Brock responded that it was an "ancient Japanese jism ritual," which seemed to satisfy that questioner...) It's always great fun doing a panel with Susan because she is always so smart and interesting and insightful and has a wonderful look of horror on her face whenever I cross that line into, you know, abject obscenity.

After the panel, we headed to the green room, which is pretty much made from the very fabric of awesome. Why? Because you're sitting there, eating a sandwich, and over the loudspeaker you hear "Will TC Boyle and Jane Smiley please report to the patio?" and you think, How did I get here? But mostly because they have pretty yummy food, it's air conditioned, quite large, and filled with every author you've ever heard of and many you haven't and everyone is so nice. I tried to find someone to have an odd conversation with but had to be satisfied with learning that Lee had inadvertently offended someone -- it was a mix up of names, hilariously, as it happens, that I'd recount here if it wouldn't involve Lee being hideously embarrassed and then the person he really meant to talk shit about would probably start emailing me, too -- before making an ill advised trip down the hall of torture that is the Janss steps (whenever I walk up and down these fucking things I think about that scene in Galaxy Quest where Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver encounter a series of odd killing machines in the bowels of the space ship that serve no larger purpose but to possibly kill, and Weaver says, "This episode was poorly written!') during the heat of the day. Lee and I stopped off to visiting our cousin Danny's birthday party on the lawn before knocking around the booths down below. I made my way to the Akashic booth to sign some copies of Las Vegas Noir and to marvel at how Johnny Temple can look so cool while sweating like a hobo and I just look all frumpy and Jewish. Note to self: lose weight, get cool, found a press. I then walked back up Janss, found Susan Straight and her daughter and her daughter's friend and assured them all that I knew how to get to a panel Laila Lalami was moderating (and which featured one of my favorite writers, Tony Earley). About three hours and 10 pounds later, by which point even Susan was calling me a fucktard and letting me know what a fellow named Uncle Frosty was going to do to me for my lack of navigational abilities (or was thinking it, anyway) we finally found Korn Hall, approximately two miles from where I thought it was and about fifty paces from where we started out.

We spent the next hour drying in the AC and giggling and then, for the love of god, I walked down those god awful steps AGAIN, only to walk back up them, AGAIN, by which point I was generally aware of the smell of my own groin. But then I got to sit with Tony Earley back in the green room, along with my OV Books editor goddess Stacy Beirlein, talking about 80s music, the hall of fame credentials of Steve McNair and people we all mutually dislike. So that was nice.

Sunday: Sunday was The Day of the Siblings as all four of us had events this afternoon, and which also meant I'd have to do things in order to prove to my sister Linda that anything is possible if you have dangling thing around your neck with your name on it.

First objective: Speak to Aimee Mann.

This would have been easier if I'd just tagged along with my friend Steve Almond when he went to host the show Aimee was doing with Joe Henry at Royce, but I was busy eating french toast in the green room, so when she arrived back in the green room herself and Linda started acting like it was 1987 and getting all, you know, hush hush keep it down down, I walked over and said hello to Aimee and Joe (because we're pretty tight now, I just call 'em Aimee and Joe), chatted with them briefly and then moved on to, uh, more french toast. Linda was suitably impressed.

Second objective: Have a conversation with Steve Garvey.

The funny thing here is that Steve Garvey actually lives in my neighborhood here in the desert, but I'm not going to go up to him at Ralph's and be like, Yo, nice forearms! But on equal ground at the Book Festival, I figured, you know, he wouldn't think I was too much of a dork. Problem was, I didn't see him until nearly the end of the day, but was able to corner him for this exclusive interview as he walked past me:

Me: Hey Steve.

Steve: Hey Tod.

(I'd like to think he's a big fan or remembers the Kato incident...but I think he just looked at my name tag...but whatever...we hit it off...)

Where my ego failed me, however, was when I was in the food line alongside Karen and Linda and a person I do a, uh, unflattering imitation of happened to be standing right in front of me.

Linda: Why don't you do your imitation now?

Me: Why don't you shut up?

Linda: Maybe he'd appreciate it.

Me: (twisting my name tag around) I'm going to guess he'd find it transcendent, but unfunny.

I managed to avoid getting my ass kicked by said man of books, which was good since I had a panel with Rob Roberge, Mark Haskell Smith and Chris Goffard that afternoon, which was also great fun. We managed to not piss off any fans of cat mysteries, so that was nice, and Rob didn't tell anyone that they "parroted morons" so that was also nice, since I saw him do that once on a panel, too, but Mark did get an audience member angry because he didn't answer a question sufficiently to her understanding (she was taking notes, which we all found frightening) and Chris, being the only Pulitzer nominee on the panel happily managed not to scream "You, Goldberg, are an idiot. I was up for a Pulitzer and now, now, this? Fuck you all, fuck you too death!"

Later, after the book festival people finally kicked me out of the green room, I went to dinner with Rob Roberge, Steve Almond, Stacy Beirlein and, seemingly, the entire Internet -- Pinky, Callie and Sarah -- which made me a little nervous, since it's possible every word I said would make it onto a blog. Luckily, I was totally, totally on my best behavior, speaking only of books I haven't actually read, people I like but still hold in contempt, and giving out life advice ("When in doubt, assign blame.").

Other things I did this weekend:

Tried to make it to panels for friends and former students, but, you know, it was really quite hot out.

Wondered what the fuck is up with authors from the east who wear suits to this event -- don't they realize this is LA?

Pondered ways to go up to people I'd maybe given not so great reviews to, but who I genuinely wanted to meet since we have mutual friends and they seem like nice humans, albeit ones whose books I didn't entirely like, before ultimately deciding, you know, fuck it. If the shoe were on the other foot -- and god knows, there a lot of shoes in my metaphorical closet -- I probably wouldn't want that person coming up to me.

Signed more than one copy of this Sunday's Parade for fans, which makes me think it's time to stop writing about Parade.

Told someone that there was a new Akashic anthology coming out called San Dimas Noir, and the fucktard actually believed me.

Answered a lot of questions about the word fucktard.

Sang the Ruby's Diner birthday song in order to get a dove bar.

Talked to a lot of people who thought I was  Lee. No one ever thinks I'm Karen.

Screamed "My name is my name!" and realized that being Marlo would be awesome.

Pondered the enduring popularity of Julie Andrews. She is like Elvis a this thing.

Pondered just what Timmy from Lassie has to say in his memoir

Thought about how much time it must take to actually set up the LATFOB and marveled at how it runs like a perfect machine. It is, without a doubt, the best literary event in America and is run flawlessly by the LA Times -- from the panels to the stages to the aforementioned green room -- to the point that as an author you really have nothing to worry about while you're there, since you're treated like a super star all weekend long. It really is truly amazing. So big ups to Maret Orliss, Ann Binney and the rest of the festival team who make it all such a pleasure.

Your LA Times Festival Of Books Primer

[First, before I dispense with Book Festival wisdom: If you happen to live in Southern California and are a fan of Augusten Burroughs, he will be speaking on the campus of UCR's Palm Desert Graduate Center, where I mold young minds, tonight [Thursday] at 6pm, followed by a book signing and reception where you'll get to eat cheese and cookies and get your memoir love on. It's a free event and though we're expecting a big crowd, it's an excellent opportunity to see Burroughs outside of the mob scene of a book store. Burroughs will be giving a 45 minute talk and then I'll sit down with him for a brief Q &A as well. Details can be found here ]

I'm a big fan of the LA Times Festival of Books, not least of all because I'm just a huge book dork, but also because for us author-folk, it's like an annual west coast conclave of authors; so while it's ostensibly a business affair, it's also just a great way to see a great sum of your friends at one time with food catered by the LA Times & UCLA.

Of course, it's also my time to have odd and usually inappropriate conversations with people. Normally, I try to have a meaningless conversation with Christopher Hitchens, either about cheese or sporks while standing in the food line. Last year, I tried to get in front of Deepak Chopra long enough to say the word "bukkake" in front of him to see if he has any reaction, spiritual or otherwise, but he was fairly unapproachable last year. Dr. Phil would seem like a good target for mundane conversation -- and his publicist is a former student of mine, so I've got an in -- but I'm afraid if I were in front of him I'd either spit on him or say, "Hey NOW!" to see if he really is Jeffery Tambor. I think this year I'm going to try to have a dumb conversation with Steve Garvey, since he notoriously snubbed me in favor of Kato Kaelin a few years back. So, here are the options I see for conversation starters with Mr. Forearms:

1. "Steve, just to be clear, Brett Michaels is bald underneath that bandanna, don't you think?"

2. "Any opinion on whether Starbuck is the 5th Cylon?"

3. "I don't know about you, but I think that Dr. Laura is looking like a sweet, sweet piece of conservative fucktardery this weekend. You gonna hit that?"

I am of course open to other conversation topics, so if you have ideas, feel free to drop them in the comments and I'll let you know how it goes.

After attempting to corner Mr. Garvey, I'll be doing 2 panels over the weekend. For those expecting to see me with T. Jefferson Parker and Denise Hamilton on a panel -- we did one together I think 4 years in a row, with different iterations; one year Jeff was the moderator, one year Marcos McPeak Villatoro was the moderator, twice I was the moderator -- the LA Times has decided we're like the president: four years is enough. So, instead, I'm doing the following events:

Saturday, 10AM:

Young Hall CS 50

PANEL     1091
Fiction: The Long & Short of It
   Moderator   Mr. Tod Goldberg
   Ms. Sylvia Brownrigg
   Mr. Brock Clarke
   Ms. Tara Ison
   Ms. Susan Straight

This should be a lively talk -- I'm friends with Susan and Tara, and I think they are friend's with each other, too, and I'm eager to meet Brock and Sylvia as I'm a big fan of their work. We're going to talk about writing novels and writing stories, since all five of us do a little of both. Then, well, then we're going to talk about penis size. I haven't informed the panelists of this. I figured, you know, I'd just whip that out on stage. 

Sunday, 2:30pm

Dodd 147

PANEL     2014
2:30 PM
Mystery: Crime With An Edge
   Moderator   Mr. Tod Goldberg
   Mr. Christopher Goffard
   Mr. Rob Roberge
   Mr. Mark Haskell Smith

Here's the thing: The last time I did a panel with Mark & Rob, we were joined by a writer none of us were familiar with. During the course of the panel, a question was raised in the audience about things you should avoid when writing and Rob responded -- rightly, I might add -- "Cat mysteries." This got me, Rob and Mark ranting, at some length, about how fucking stupid cat mysteries are, about how the people who write cat mysteries must be absolute morons, how the people who read cat mysteries must also (and I think it was Rob who said this...) have sex with their cats because that's the next natural progression, and then Mark added that cats, generally, are considered anti-God and the reason for the moral degradation of western civilization, and I followed it up with some startling statistics related to the number of cat mysteries people read being frighteningly close to the number of sexual partners they've had who dress like the San Diego Chicken for pleasure and, well, then it really started heading south. All the while, however, the other author on the panel stayed pretty mum, apart from shifting around in her seat and, oddly, persistently licking her hands. After the panel, Rob and I walked over to a bookstore and, just for the hell of it, decided to see who the hell that other person on the panel was. Turns out she wrote books about a woman who solves crimes with the help of her cat. I don't remember the name of her first novel, but I think it was something like In The Catnip of Time.

So.

Yeah.

I'm happy to report that though I've never met Christopher Goffard, I have read his book Snitch Jacket and I'm happy to report no cats solve crimes in it.

Signings follow both of these events and, as usual, get your tickets early this weekend because they will sell out. For those of you who just want to see me in the hot flesh, I'll also be signing books at the Mystery Bookstore booth (#411) on Sunday at 11am with my brother Lee (they'll have all of my books, as well as Las Vegas Noir), and I intend to sign some copies of Las Vegas Noir in the Akashic booth as well, so if you're looking for that release, I've been assured it will be in stock.  Also at 11am on Sunday, in the Borders booth, my sisters Linda Woods & Karen Dinino will be signing their latest book, Journal Revolution. 

There are a bunch of other great panels -- after the jump, are a few I'll be attending, think you should attend, or just have, you know, opinions about. The full list is here. Tickets are available this weekend. [Oh, and I have an early transcript from Silverblatt interviewing Walter Mosely below, too...]

The Nightstand

Every few months, someone will email me to ask what I've been reading or if I can recommend something for them in X genre and invariably, I can't remember what I've read. So, herewith, what I've read since January -- some old, some new, some in between:

On Killing by Dave Grossman. An absolutely fascinating look at killing (or, frequently, not killing) during times of war.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks. I've read Sacks' work before but had always missed this one -- interesting stuff abounds here.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. I'd read this in parts over the years but never all the way through. Much of it seems dated now, owing, no doubt, to how much it has been ripped off by others over the years, but I am still struck by her economic prose.

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. I thought this would be a good primer when starting my Burn Notice book, as it has been a long time since I've ready any Hammett and had never read The Thin Man. It was enjoyable, though also somewhat maddeningly predictable in places. But I really liked the tone of it, even if the mystery was fairly pedestrian.

The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford. I reviewed this for the LA Times and was somewhat disappointed. I'm a big fan of Ford's (I loved The Girl in the Glass and really have enjoyed his two books of stories as well) and I felt like this was too sentimental in places and hastily tied together in others.

Storming Las Vegas by John Huddy. A book I reviewed for Las Vegas City Life, it's a great true crime account of a series of casino robberies in Las Vegas. Strong, strong work.

Beautiful Children by Charles Bock. I also reviewed this in the LA Times and found much to admire and much to question -- Bock has a world of talent, no doubt, but I found the book tough sledding in places, mostly do to his ambitious structure, which didn't quite work for me. But the future looks promising, for sure, and I think the push Random House is giving him is awesome. It shows how much a house's belief in a book really matters in terms of publicity.

Sex for America edited by Stephen Elliott. Another book I reviewed in Las Vegas City Life, it's an anthology of politically inspired erotica. Like many anthologies, it's a mixed bag, but worth the price simply for Michelle Tea's story "Music from Earth."

Bang Crunch:stories by Neil Smith. A very odd, utterly original collection of short fiction. Sort of like if Aimee Bender and George Saunders had a kid, only to find out Kevin Brockmeier was the dad and he'd been sleeping with Melanie Rae Thon, too, and they'd all grown up in Canada.

The Delivery Man by Joe McGinniss Jr. I reviewed this in the same review as Beautiful Children in the Times and had similar thoughts: McGinniss Jr. has a ton of a talent and this is good noir tale, but i was held up in places by lack of authenticity. It's the kind of book that makes you think the next thing he does is going to be incredible.

You Must Be This Happy to Enter by Elizabeth Crane. I love Elizabeth Crane and her new collection is just as weird and fucked up as her previous two collections. And I mean that in a good way. There's no one quite like Crane working these days in short fiction -- alternately sexy, strange, sad and tortured by pop culture.

Harry, Revised by Mark Sarvas. I read this originally in manuscript form about 18 months ago and read it again when the galley arrived on my doorstep a few weeks ago. It's funny, frequently totally inappropriate and already one of the best debuts I've read this year. And I'd say that if we weren't friends, too.

The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction edited by Lex Williford and Michael Martone. I'm using this for a course I'm teaching at UCR, so I read it cover to cover.It's really a fantastic anthology of 50 short stories published since 1970. I used their first edition for years in classes and then last year they sent out a survey to writers and professors asking for new recommendations and so I happily complied. Two of the stories I suggested made the cut: "The Ceiling" by Kevin Brockmeier and "Orientation" by Daniel Orozco, though they didn't take my suggestion of including "Aftermath" by Mary Yukari Waters and, uhm, yeah, somehow forgot to include anything I've written, which I'm sure is just a misprint...

The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell. For learning how to do spy shit.

The Tao of Spycraft: Intelligence Theory and Practice in Traditional China by Ralph Sawyer. More spy stuff.

The Spycraft Manual by Barry Davies. Did I mention spy shit?

Currently, I'm reading The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford and wondering how the fuck I ever lived without reading that, and have the following books on my to be read pile: An Arsonist's Guide to Writers Homes In New England by Brock Clarke (I'm doing a panel with him at the LA Times Festival of Books), Snitch Jacket by Christopher Goffard (also on a panel) and about 1000 arcs of books to sift through for reviews this month in various periodicals.

I Guess He Finally Wrote It

About five or six years ago, when his collection A Multitude of Sins was out, I interviewed Richard Ford and he mentioned that he was working on a book to be called Lay of the Land and then had an idea for another book that he thought he'd call Canada [he mentions it about 2/3 of the way through the interview]. When I interviewed him at the Writers Bloc when Lay of the Land came out, he mentioned he was still tinkering with it, with ideas, with topics. I guess he figured it out:

Pulitzer winner Richard Ford's CANADA, a novel of revenge and violent
retribution set in the Saskatchewan prairie int the early 60s, for
publication in 2010, moving to Dan Halpern at Ecco, including a second
novel and a book of stories, by Amanda Urban at ICM

This sounds a lot like a return to the style and topics he favored in the 80s and early 90s in his short fiction and his book Wildlife, which happens to be my personal favorite of his novels. What's really interesting, from an inside baseball point of view, is that he's moved from Knopf and his long association with Gary Fisketjon there to Ecco and Dan Halpern. It's a fairly large seismic shift, for sure.

I Pause In My Quest To Meet My Deadline To Say: If You Live In LA, Go See Amy Hempel Tonight

I have another, oh, several thousand words to write before I'm done with a book that already has a cover and a listing on Amazon, but I wanted to pause, here at 1:06am, as I try to figure out what more to say using different words from the ones I've already written, to encourage all of you to go to the Hammer Museum tonight (Tuesday) at 7pm to hear Amy Hempel read. If you love short fiction, you probably already love Amy, but if you don't love short fiction, going to see Amy will make you love short fiction.

It's a free event. There's plenty of seating. I'm going. Wendy's going. I think many of my students are going. Rumor has it the entire cast of Celebrity Rehab are going and Chyna is again going to say she never did steroids, despite that porn video of hers where her labia is the size of a pitched tent and actually held a man down until he tapped out, and Jeff Conaway is going and he's going to moan and threaten to leave, but he'll stay, because he loves Amy Hempel. And Shifty? Well, shoot, all I can say come my lady, come, come, my lady.

And, as an added bonus, the mystery of the Emmylou Harris issue will finally be solved.