Michael Martone

"Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story," by Russell Banks (1984): 8.5
- I'd read this before. I remember flipping through a girlfriend's Scribner short story collection and reading this story about a beautiful man fucking and fucking over the ugliest woman alive and being strangely moved. He threads every very delicate needle carefully, and you're often unsure whether he falls too much on the side of self-incrimination or self-aggrandizement and gendered projection or full-fleshed humanity and that ambiguity is exactly what works here, esp. as it's coupled with the narrator's own wonder at his actions, at his motivations, and ultimately his own burning desire to want to know whether he's good or bad, whether this thing, this affair, was "good" or "bad."

"The School," by Donald Barthelme (1974): 8.25
- I've read Barthelme and I've not liked Barthelme. Two-thirds through this short short-story I was prepared to amend all of that, throw off those immature thoughts that, while the absurd had its place, the imperative had passed by the time his work made its way to my hands (oh, and that the humor was too little or too droll). Indeed, two-thirds through this simple story of a school where an escalating series of deaths happens (from plants to snakes to puppies to Korean boys and classmates), I felt overturned--the humor was there, and not simply in the dry language, but embedded in the trajectory of the story itself (i.e. once you realize that things are going to keep dying and that these things will be increasingly 'meaningful', thus the puppy and boy turns are a bit humorous), and the surreality was working. All of that held, that is until the final page, when he leans EVEN further into the same and makes the school a complete Anarchosurrealworld. The thread was lost, despite the image of the gerbil walking into the class on its own, and I'm back to where I started.

"The Hermit's Story," by Rick Bass (2002): 7.75
- The piece: recounting of a near-death exp. under a frozen lake during a blizzard, in which we Learn Something and humans, animals, and what connects us. Of the breed of plodding, contemplative litfic that corkscrews a Big Theme overtop of an otherwise mundane story — and the thing about these is that they often work. Here we're about halfway there.

"The Fireman's Wife," by Richard Bausch (1989): 9
- A churning little present-tense portrait of ineffable domestic disaffection. Bausch's hand is never heavy on the story, and there's little overt authorial intercession in the narrative, save the implicit centering/privileging of the wife's emotional state on account of being tied to her perspective.… (mais)

There were several really great essays in this collection, and as an essayist, I got a lot of instruction and ideas for my own nonfiction writing. There were a handful that I didn't much care for, but that's almost always the case when it comes to large collections. I'd definitely recommend for writers and teachers as well as nonfiction readers.

My one gripe is with all anthologies that use a random organizational structure, like alphabetical order. It's probably great for people who like to skip around anyway, but I read everything front-to-back and like there to be some emotional story told through the arrangement of the pieces.… (mais)

Alive and Dead in Indiana is a good enough book, but nothing I would want to hang my own hat on if I were the author. [a:Gordon Lish|232097|Gordon Lish|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1267719924p2/232097.jpg] was the editor. Michael Martone, a writer Martone would claim Lish would later diss in public and act as if he did not know him. Lish is like that sometimes. Perhaps more often than not. Lately he has been dissing a few others so Martone shouldn’t feel he is being singled out and picked on, or even in select company. It happens to some of the best of them. I am not sure why it happens, but I do know when Gordon Lish has felt slighted in any way from somebody he has championed or helped pave the way by getting a first book published he tends to hold grudges. Long and hard and rarely, if ever, released and let go of. I have compiled quite a list of these confirmed past, and now discarded, bedfellows and sweethearts. Only the most religious of these anointed literary types ever remain in good stead with him. I count myself as one of the lucky ones, but sure to know my ending is eventually to come in some form or another. It simply has to be. It is only another playing piece in an elaborate board game.

It goes without saying the importance Lish has had in making stars of some of his brightest lights. Raymond Carver without a doubt is the best Lish has had to offer us, but of late even Carver has been said by Lish to not measure up much when it comes to good writing. I am not sure if old age is playing a more extensive role in these latest Lish bashings, but I would bet it has something to do with all his negativity. There isn’t a whole lot for Gordon to crow about these days as he ends the line of his long teaching career and reputation as a first-rate but tyrannical editor. His own books he has authored have never been big commercial hits or had first printings of over five thousand copies. Most titles have instead been remaindered, and none have gone on to second printings. That is not to say that Lish is not a fine writer. He is. And Michael Martone might be one as well, but by the measure of the words in this book he still has much to prove.… (mais)