Tonight is the first event for the new book, and I've spent most of the afternoon at home with curlers in my hair and cucumber circles on the eyes...
Continue »
You can count on Aimee Bender for honest emotion and a rewarding attentiveness to language, as well as for the fantastic (often fabulist) elements that place her among those who strive to expand the borders of fiction by mixing contemporary realism with the (sometimes sadly, often fortunately) impossible. This, her second published novel, delivers in all these ways. Like Jennifer Gilmore's entirely realist recent second novel, Something Red, the novel places food at the center of its narrative action but to much different effect, this being Aimee Bender.
Some readers might be put off by the central conceit, but if that's the case the problem lies in their inability to adapt to the story rather than in the book itself; readers who "don't get" Haruki Murakami may not understand Bender, either, though her concepts are often (as here) easier to grasp and her narratives more tightly controlled than Murakami's lesser works. You never get the sense that Bender is just winging it and not caring if it adds up to anything; she has a story to tell and uses what she must to tell it.
In this marvelously detailed, nonfiction narrative of travel on the spirit-rich roads of Niger, West Africa, Chilson chronicles his journeys by "bush taxi," or freelance transport, through maddeningly frequent police checkpoints, past a seemingly unbroken line of wrecked vehicles (many of them, no doubt, bush taxis like those in which he rides), and into a number of fascinating meetings and conversations with people who call the desert regions of Niger home. Those he meets include bush taxi drivers, the commandant of Niger's often corrupt and abusive highway patrol, a revered holy man who provides the writer with talismans to ward off harm on the road, and Niger's only female commercial driver, who aspires to owning her own bush taxi service. As he travels, Chilson reflects on his own responses to the landscape and to the harshness of life in the impoverished country. Ultimately a book about a place, Riding the Demon offers insights into a land of which most non-Africans know nothing at all. The influence of Graham Greene is felt here in the lushness of the book?s physical detail, the clarity of its cultural observations, and the depth of its inquiry into what makes for a truly human existence, a life lived morally and well.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(6 of 11 readers found this comment helpful)
Alix Ohlin's characters are complicated bundles of love and fear and confusion and anger and hope -- the whole dizzying human mix. Sometimes easy to fall for and sometimes hard to embrace, they are always very real. This is a fine collection of stories for those who feel that fiction's true purpose is to explore (and to connect readers with) what it means to be human. The author is clearly fascinated by the texture and the mystery of our emotional lives and attachments, and like her novel, The Missing Person, this book is well worth your time.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(5 of 11 readers found this comment helpful)
Alix Ohlin's characters are complicated bundles of love and fear and confusion and anger and hope -- the whole dizzying human mix. Sometimes easy to fall for and sometimes hard to embrace, they are always very real. This is a fine collection of stories for those who feel that fiction's true purpose is to explore (and to connect readers with) what it means to be human. The author is clearly fascinated by the texture and the mystery of our emotional lives and attachments, and like her novel, The Missing Person, this book is well worth your time.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No
(18 of 34 readers found this comment helpful)
Powell's City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. Shop those shelves — plus literally millions more books, DVDs, and eBooks — here at Powells.com.
Don't Miss
Customer Comments
Henry has commented on (4) products.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
Henry, January 9, 2011
You can count on Aimee Bender for honest emotion and a rewarding attentiveness to language, as well as for the fantastic (often fabulist) elements that place her among those who strive to expand the borders of fiction by mixing contemporary realism with the (sometimes sadly, often fortunately) impossible. This, her second published novel, delivers in all these ways. Like Jennifer Gilmore's entirely realist recent second novel, Something Red, the novel places food at the center of its narrative action but to much different effect, this being Aimee Bender.Some readers might be put off by the central conceit, but if that's the case the problem lies in their inability to adapt to the story rather than in the book itself; readers who "don't get" Haruki Murakami may not understand Bender, either, though her concepts are often (as here) easier to grasp and her narratives more tightly controlled than Murakami's lesser works. You never get the sense that Bender is just winging it and not caring if it adds up to anything; she has a story to tell and uses what she must to tell it.
Riding the Demon: On the Road in West Africa by Peter Chilson
Henry, June 9, 2007
In this marvelously detailed, nonfiction narrative of travel on the spirit-rich roads of Niger, West Africa, Chilson chronicles his journeys by "bush taxi," or freelance transport, through maddeningly frequent police checkpoints, past a seemingly unbroken line of wrecked vehicles (many of them, no doubt, bush taxis like those in which he rides), and into a number of fascinating meetings and conversations with people who call the desert regions of Niger home. Those he meets include bush taxi drivers, the commandant of Niger's often corrupt and abusive highway patrol, a revered holy man who provides the writer with talismans to ward off harm on the road, and Niger's only female commercial driver, who aspires to owning her own bush taxi service. As he travels, Chilson reflects on his own responses to the landscape and to the harshness of life in the impoverished country. Ultimately a book about a place, Riding the Demon offers insights into a land of which most non-Africans know nothing at all. The influence of Graham Greene is felt here in the lushness of the book?s physical detail, the clarity of its cultural observations, and the depth of its inquiry into what makes for a truly human existence, a life lived morally and well.(6 of 11 readers found this comment helpful)
Babylon and Other Stories by Alix Ohlin
Henry, June 9, 2007
Alix Ohlin's characters are complicated bundles of love and fear and confusion and anger and hope -- the whole dizzying human mix. Sometimes easy to fall for and sometimes hard to embrace, they are always very real. This is a fine collection of stories for those who feel that fiction's true purpose is to explore (and to connect readers with) what it means to be human. The author is clearly fascinated by the texture and the mystery of our emotional lives and attachments, and like her novel, The Missing Person, this book is well worth your time.(5 of 11 readers found this comment helpful)
Babylon and Other Stories (Vintage Contemporaries) by Alix Ohlin
Henry, June 9, 2007
Alix Ohlin's characters are complicated bundles of love and fear and confusion and anger and hope -- the whole dizzying human mix. Sometimes easy to fall for and sometimes hard to embrace, they are always very real. This is a fine collection of stories for those who feel that fiction's true purpose is to explore (and to connect readers with) what it means to be human. The author is clearly fascinated by the texture and the mystery of our emotional lives and attachments, and like her novel, The Missing Person, this book is well worth your time.(18 of 34 readers found this comment helpful)