Volt: stories by Alan Heathcock

This book has some very strong stories in it, especially "The Staying Freight" which starts the collection off with a bang and is the best short story I've read this year.

But, as is the case with a lot of collections, it feels uneven.

I think this might be why people tend to do less short story reading. With a novel, you can get involved and assume that you'll be reading one unified story throughout, so if you like the first 40 pages you'll probably like the entire thing. But with short stories, you can't ever know what the next few pages will bring.

This book also fits in with the sort of rural, prairie gothic literature you see making the rounds right now, titles such as The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock, Train Dreams by Denis Johnson, and books by Daniel Woodrell.

If that's the kind of thing you're into, I can't recommend anything more than Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock. I found that book to be tight, consistent, and unified in both its narrative voice and the overall tone.

Alan Heathcock has some good stories in him, clearly. But by the end of the book I started feeling like the recurring characters and settings were restricting more than freeing.

Coop by Michael Perry

Michael Perry has a way of taking whatever's going on in his life and relating it to another, smaller event in such a way that you can understand what he's talking about without him going overboard in pointing it out.

For example, in Truck: a Love Story he talks a great deal about rebuilding an old International, but the real story is more about his impending marriage to his new wife, his brother's upcoming marriage, and the ways in which rebuilding a rusty old truck are similar to a guy who's maybe a little rusty himself trying to build a love life.

In Coop, he talks a lot about raising pigs and chickens, but more than anything it's a reflection on the life one lives while raising a family and how one's upbringing looks different when you're thinking back on it instead of living it in the moment.

There are three things I always love about Perry's books:

1. He has a very easy style. This is not to be confused for a book that's a quick read because it's all plot and dialogue. There's a lot in there, and Perry uses his writerly skills to bring the magic to the reader, making it seem like everything just happened when in reality it must take a tremendous amount of work to get these sorts of stories down on paper and have them read so easily.

2. He's self-deprecating. I know that might not sound like a big deal, but if you read a lot of memoirs, it really is. It's a tough skill to master in life, tougher in writing. Actually, that might be true of almost everything. It's tough to master a skill like small talk in real life, but it's even harder to make it palatable in writing.

3. He never gets too pointed about the over-arching metaphor. Even though it's clearly there, he never has to point it out, and I think you could enjoy the books without even considering them that way.

Coop, though not my favorite of his simply because it talks a great deal about two subjects that aren't really my thing, religion and family, still shows off his aw shucks skill as a writer. It's good for the world to have writers like him around, and maybe he said it best as he described the grief of farmers filing past a casket one afternoon:

...you see these sunburned old dogs approach my brother and break down weepingas they take his hand or wrap him in their bearish arms, and maybe they are wearing big belt buckles or unmodish jeans or have their sparce hair Brylcreemed in the style of a 60's trucker, but it strikes me again how much we miss if we rely wholly on poets to parse the tender center of the human heart. At times like this I am grateful I was not raised to be sleek.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

It must suck to be a funny lady putting out a memoir right after Tina Fey. It would be like me putting out a book right after Greg Vance (you probably don’t know Greg Vance unless you went to middle school with me. I’m trying to maintain the fame ratio set up by the Fey/Kaling dynamic. I am slightly less famous than Greg Vance).

But what would REALLY suck is if Greg Vance’s book got more attention, but mine was…well, better.

I laughed, and the way the book was put together helped. Instead of talking about every moment behind the scenes of the Office (for which she writes, awesomely) Mindy Kaling breaks the book up into little sections. Some of my favorites:

“Types of Women in Romantic Comedies Who Are Not Real”
Hilarious, plus this has gotten me closer to understanding the appeal of a romantic comedy than I’ve ever been. Which is still really far, but I feel like I can grasp it in the same way that I can understand THAT some people like birds as pets, even if I’ll never understand WHY.

“Franchises I Would Like to Reboot”
I know this was a joke, but I think I would see Lady Ghostbusters, possibly on opening weekend.

“Guys Need to Do Almost Nothing to Be Great”
A list of 12 easy steps to becoming a great guy. Very doable, even for shitty guys like myself.

And because she had so many helpful tips on how guys can be great, I would like to offer a couple theories to answer the question posed by the section “Why Do Men Put on Their Shoes So Slowly?”

1. For some reason, I think we’ve decided that this is something that can be done in tandem with something else, like skimming a Skymall while talking on the phone. It is not. For me, it’s like brushing my teeth. Something in my brain tells me that I should be able to do something else while I brush my teeth. It should be an autopilot thing, so taking out the garbage and brushing my teeth should be easy to do simultaneously. Cut to two minutes later and I’m either standing in the bathroom with a bag of garbage or walking out to the dumpster, toothbrush dangling from my mouth like a bizarre-looking, foamy cigarette.

2. It may also be an unintentional stalling tactic held over from childhood. As a kid, when it was time to go somewhere I didn’t want to go, I’d take as long as possible to put on my shoes. I don’t know what I thought the result would be. I don’t think it ever crossed my mom’s mind to say, “You know what, you’re slow at putting on shoes, so just stay here and play Sega.” As an adult, I don’t think it’s a conscious choice, but if I’m leaving my home there’s a 50/50 chance that I’m going somewhere I actually want to go, so it might be that leftover, reptile survival part of the brain kicking in.

The big difference I’ve seen between man memoirs and lady memoirs is that lady memoirs almost all seem to have some portion devoted to coming to grips with whatever type of body the author possesses. I’ve read one man memoir where body talk was a big topic, but it was the memoir of a kid who doused a bathrobe in gasoline and set himself on fire, so it was about his body, but more about how horribly burned his body was.

Anyway, it’s always the section I’m least interested in, and the longer it is, the more I start to drift off. And it doesn’t matter the body type, either. I tried to read Jenna Jameson’s book after the 15th time the copy at our library was mutilated, and hearing about her body was no more exciting or interesting. I glaze over without fail.

I think the male equivalent of this is articles about the best way to shave. Every ten minutes there’s a new product, which is new and exciting because it’s more like an old product. And no, I don’t really care how cowboys did it. I don’t do ANYTHING to my body the way cowboys did it, with the exception of drinking weird little potions that always turn out to be just hard drugs mixed with flavors.

So if you’re burned, losing a foot to diabetes, some sort of fishman or rhino lady, or you’re Lucy Grealy, then I’m interested in hearing about your body. But that’s just me.

The book is fast, funny, and has the best photo captions ever written, such as “Rainn Wilson, violent Ogre.”

Who is More in Hell Right Now?

I came across a couple reviews of this book.

I can't decide what would be worse.

To be this old man:

Got this for my 81 yr. old father-in-law as a stocking stuffer for Christmas, and it was his favorite gift! He loves good (and not so good!) clean jokes, and this kept him busy for awhile. He didn't put it down during our entire holiday visit. My 7 yr. old is now asking for one of her own. Highly recommend!

who is 81 years old, getting joke books for Christmas, and is clearly insane.

Or to be the students of this teacher:

I'm a high school teacher, and I like to treat my classes to a Chuckle of the Day. It can be hard to find jokes that are just good, clean fun. I would spend a lot of time some days searching around for an appropriate joke. This book fills my needs easily. I can open up to just about any page and find a fresh, decent joke. I often get groans from the class on some of the jokes, but that is part of the fun! Good bargain...

for whom cost is an important factor when it comes to the value of JOKES.

Gift Guide

A lot of book people tend to get books for Christmas. I don't because, as my grandmother put it, "You work at a library. I'm not buying you books." Which sort of makes sense, but if I was a DJ at a strip club I think I'd be okay with friends buying me lap dances for Christmas.

Before buying a book for a book nerd, understand that you are treading on dangerous territory. Most book nerds buy the books they want, so there's a very slim margin of shit that a book nerd wants but does not already own. If it was a pie chart, the pie slice of good buys would be slimmer than my wang.

That said, here are some gift recommendations I can make with links to purchasing them online.

For the Person Who Has a Good Sense of Humor:

It's funny, it's quick, and it's barely reading. All the qualities required of a hilarious book. Plus, this may also serve as a good gift for a child as it will horrify the child and also help you confirm your suspicions that the parents are not actually reading to him.

For the Tech Nerd:

This book, while providing documentation of practical jokes perpetrated via internet (such as the famous attempt to pay bills with a drawing of a spider) also helps remind readers that this whole internet thing is kind of nonsense.

For the Simpsons Enthusiast:

John Swartzwelder, who probably had as much to do with the best (Approx. seasons 3-8) humor the Simpsons had to offer as anyone, has also written several novels about detective Frank Burly. “As my exciting story began I was being punched in the stomach.”

For the Traveler

Trust me, planning a Portland vacation around the advice in this guide will give you a trip to remember. However, do note that the mausoleum is no longer open to the public. Use findagrave.com to locate a relative and prep a story about your love for geneaology.

For the Person with Childlike Wonder

NOT A CHILD, by the way. Childlike Wonder is awesome in adults and really annoying in children.

For the Writer

Simple, quick, and it actually looks quite handsome on the shelf, which is where most of your books will spend most of their lives. It's a fast enough read that you can get back to goddamn writing already.

For the Child (if you must)

Lots of monster drawings that need finishing touches. And who can resist instruction such as "Draw an EPIC puke!"

The Call and Gimmicks

A book that's pleasant and quiet without being boring, which is a rarity as far as I can tell.

The book has a structure to it that might turn some people off from the beginning. The narrator is a large animal doctor, and each section works kind of like this:

Call: [explanation of animal ailment]

Action:

Result: [you're smart. you can figure this one out][explanation of what he did]

But then the narrator deviates from the structure a little bit.

Thoughts On The Ride Home:

What I Heard With The Window Open:

What I Checked For Out The Window:

What The Spaceman Said To Me:

and so on.

It really got me thinking about the difference between a book with structure and a book with a gimmick.

For example, I tried The Interrogative Mood by Padgett Powell, a book in which every sentence is a question. THAT didn't work for me. Honestly, I felt that the structure was SO rigid that it took away from the possibilities of the story. The most entertaining part was the existence of the book as an object, not the text within.

It had points where it was clever, but I don't personally value cleverness in art. Cleverness is a great attribute when it comes to problem-solving and engineering (and therefore can sometimes work in mystery novels), but in art it can be really annoying. If I enjoy a painting, it's likely that I'm getting a feeling from it or placing my own experiences on top of it, and that emotional result is never related to cleverness. Clever jokes are not my favorite, and usually the kind that result in someone SAYING "that's funny" as opposed to actually laughing. A clever poem? That's a tough sell.

So what, then, is the difference between a book with good structure and a book with a gimmick?

I thought about it a lot. Maybe it has something to do with whether the tool is something that is too rigid. If it's too rigid, the story starts conforming and contorting to fit the frame and can never go anywhere unexpected or fun. Maybe it has something to do with the tool being too repetitive. I did notice that several people who enjoyed The Interrogative Mood (of which there are many) seemed to have read it in small chunks instead of all at once.

Ultimately, though, the answer I came to is this:

Structure is a gimmick that works.

Murder on the Orient Express, Mackie Style!

*note: I am aware that cover is for the PC game. If I'd known that was an option, you be your ASS I would have played it. Why read it when you can LIVE it?

Uh, book club book.

That's the explanation for why.

It's pretty much what you'd expect, a whodunit with an ending that's fairly interesting, although you could probably just skip to it and get about the same amount out of it. I DO have a theory that horror movie writers are going back to Agatha Christie for their plot twists, turns, and oddly-positioned stabbings, though. However, the weird machines that drown people in pig's innards are a fairly novel creation that I'm not prepared to credit to classic literature.

Because I don't want to spoil the whole thing, I thought what might be useful is to discuss the detective abilities of the main character, Hercule Poirot. And because it is my only cultural reference at the moment, I will compare his methods of detection with that of television detective and star of the Shield, Vic Mackie.

Here are some scenarios and how I suspect each would handle them:

SCENARIO 1: A BODY IS FOUND ON A TRAIN

Poirot: Would work his way through the different passengers and narrow things down to a most likely suspect.

Mackie: Would find the conductor of the train, ask him what he was hiding, then assault him, shoving a piece of the train's coal in his mouth until he said everything he knew.

SCENARIO 2: A GOVERNESS IS SUSPECTED OF A CRIME

Poirot: Would gently question the lady so as not to put her on the defense.

Mackie: Would question the lady, then threaten to allow a sex tape of her to hit the streets if she didn't start talking, pronto.

SCENARIO 3: AN ITALIAN MAN IS ACCUSED OF STABBING ANOTHER MAN

Poirot: Would consider this possible, and does put forth the theory that "wops" (his word, I swear) DO tend to stab (this is pulled directly from the pages, I SWEAR to you).

Mackie:...actually, pretty much the same thing.

As you can see, our detection skills have come a long way, baby.