Customer Comments

I've always loved Nester's sensibility—wry, curious, unflinching—and this book doesn't disappoint. It'll keep you up late, gobbling up just one more chapter, and then just one more. What a pleasure to spend a few days in the Shade in the company of the author. I miss it already.

The first time I read Kathleen Founds was when she submitted a story called "The Un-Game" to Booth, the magazine where I work. The visiting judge didn't pick her story, but it was a favorite among the readers and has since become a cult classic with the staff. For good reason, too: that story is funny and heartbreaking, and the voices of the teacher and the students in the story crackle with personality. I waited a long time for this book. I'm happy—so happy—to say that the rest of this book is just as strong as "The Un-Game," and, taken all together, the whole is greater than the sum of its kickass parts. It might be marketed as a story collection, but it reads like a novel, following Laura and Janice on their trips through the outer darkness. Whatever you call the book, though, it's a triumph. The characters in this book are funny and dark and deeply human, haunted by babies and mothers, wanting to give up, holding out for grace. I love this book. Two thousand stars.

When Roz Chast left the city to move to a Connecticut suburb, her parents were 78 years old, but the last thing they wanted to do was talk about aging and dying. Whenever Chast brought up the subject, they deflected, denied, re-routed the conversation. It's not that they were ignorant; they were just practiced at ignoring. Time has a way of pressing the issue, though, and after her father showed signs of senile dementia and her mother had a fall, they could no longer avoid the subject. To borrow a phrase from the author: This is a book about people who don't want to deal, being forced to deal. The fact is that most of us in this country don't want to deal, which must have made this book a tough pitch to publishers. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you're squirming a bit right now ("Can't we read something more pleasant?"). But in Chast's hands, the story charms the reader with dark wit and rueful honesty. Her sensibility manages to be really serious and really funny, sometimes all at once. When her father calls Chast to say that her mother took a bad fall and is refusing to go to the hospital, the take-charge mother butts in on the extension and announces, "I wrote a poem about it." Chast is unsparing in her portrayal of her parents, though it's softened by comedy and sympathy. "Between their one-bad-thing-after-another lives, and the Depression, World War II, and the Holocaust, it was amazing that they weren't crazier than they were." Ultimately, she's harder on herself than anyone else, exposing her worries and shame as she attended to her parents' decline. As a result, we get a loving but clear-eyed picture of a couple's last days, and what it's like to care for them. What Chast has given us, then, is not only a good book, but an important one. Through CAN'T WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PLEASANT?, we can all begin to deal.

In the world of comics right now, the most interesting stuff is nonfiction. And the art is way ahead of the writing. This book is no exception. It looks really cool--huge format and the color is muted on natural pages, like old-school comics--and the subject matter is naturally intriguing. But the writing . . . it's such a barrage of names and *this happened, then this happened, then this happened* that it's hard to keep track of any of it, much less to know why it's important. The most interesting moments come when the pace slows enough to allow a story to develop, or when the author up some insightful commentary. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen a lot, so the book often feels more like an illustrated timeline than the story of hip-hop's birth and rise. I can't help but think that the book would be better if it tackled less, and developed it all more deeply (They had already planned a multi-volume approach, so why not make more volumes?). Maybe that's just me, though, trying to impose narrative on something that doesn't have narrative intentions. Maybe the intent is to pepper the reader with factfactfactfact, but if that's the case, then it feels like a missed opportunity to delve into the story-rich history of hip-hop.

A couple of years ago, I had the chance to hear the legendary editor Gary Fisketjon talk about books. He described a certain kind of book that married the best elements of genre fiction and literary fiction as "not boring, and not dumb." It's a rare combination, easier proposed than done. Add Lee Martin to the short list of writers who can hit this sweet spot. With Break the Skin, Martin offers a sharp take on the classic crime confessional. It's a story about "sore hearts," with characters who want, more than anything, to be wanted. The book alternates between two narrators--the blown-about Laney, and the brassy Miss Baby--and it doesn't take long for both of them to get under my skin and into my heart. "Not boring, and not dumb" doesn't do this book justice. It's thrilling and touching, deep and beautiful, on every level, and in every line.