Synopses & Reviews
In his new collection of essays,
Occasional Desire, David Lazar meditates on random violence and vanished phone booths, on the excessive relationship to jewelry that links Kobe Bryant and Elizabeth Taylor, on Hitchcock, Francis Bacon, and M. F. K. Fisher. He explores, in his concentrically self-aware, amused, and ironic voice, what it means to be occasionally aware that we are surviving by our wits, and that our desires, ulterior or obvious, are what keep us alive. Lazar also turns his attention on the essay itself, affording us a three-dimensional look at the craft and the art of reading and writing a literary form that maps the world as it charts the peregrinations of the mind.
Lazar is especially interested in the trappings of memory, the trapdoors of memory, the way we gild or codify, select, soften, and self-delude ourselves based on our understanding of the past. His own process of selection and reflection reminds us of how far this literary form can take us, bound only by the limits of desire and imagination.
Review
“David Lazar is both a charmer and a challenger. His supple, cultivated mind is constantly moving, full of surprises; his puckish wit and exacting standards raise the bar for all contemporary literary nonfiction. This is an exciting collection, drawing strength from both the grand essay tradition and the cutting edge, and it is highly recommended.”—Phillip Lopate, editor of The Art of the Personal Essay
Review
“David Lazar is a master of shimmering threshold moments, where acts of assertion and discovery face off (or is it hold hands?). Offering startling intimacies, gentle beckonings, and the severities of hard-won truths, Lazar is fearless about this core belief: investigations of form and self are one and the same adventure.”—Lia Purpura, author of Rough Likeness: Essays
Review
“The spirits of past masters (Montaigne and Charles Lamb among them) animate and infuse the enthralling essays of David Lazar, a succinct virtuoso, whose gift is rueful, charm-filled introspection. His recollections and avowals unfurl with stellar melodiousness, and with a skilled comics perfect timing.”—Wayne Koestenbaum, author of Humiliation
Review
"Jagged pieces of a mirror that reveal a quirky, informed and immensely curious character."—Kirkus
Review
"I won’t be forgetting about this book anytime soon."—Michael Buening, PopMatters
Review
"Words form constellations; they glitter on the pages. . . . There is a religiosity here, though not the usual kind. It's a glow on the horizon, a low light, something to think our way toward."and#8212;Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
Review
"Charming and liberating."and#8212;Robert Birnbaum, Morning News
Review
"Flutter the pages of Patrick Madden's Quotidiana, and entering it becomes irresistable. . . . At once an approachable and postmodern composition, Quotidiana presents an enthralled, reflexive mind at work. Readers will eagerly await his next thought."and#8212;Janelle Adsit, ForeWord Reviews
Review
"If Madden is a prophet of the essay, if his words seem inspired by the classical masters of the form, then he is at his most inspired when he essays upon the essay."and#8212;Joey Franklin, New Letters
Review
"For readers who wince at the sentimentality of some creative nonfictional writing, Madden's book might be the ideal transition into the genre. Madden, who was once on a scientific path himself, not only embraces academic research, he joins it with his personal accounts, holding out his hand to readers who crave objective data."and#8212;Eric d'Evegnee, BYU Studies
Review
"Quotidiana is a book written in the West with its eye casting outward, to the world, to us. By turns comic and sacred, Quotidiana invites us to consider our place in the West and our place in the world. This is as fine a collection of essays as I have read in recent memory."and#8212;Brandon R Schrand, Western American Literature
Synopsis
In
Quotidiana Patrick Madden illuminates common actions and seemingly commonplace moments, making connections that revise and reconfigure the overlooked and underappreciated. Madden muses on the origins of human language, the curative properties of laughter, and the joys and woes of fatherhood. Sparked by considerations of selling garlic, washing grapes, changing a diaper, or chipping a tooth, his essays are an antidote to the harried hullabaloo of talk-show and tabloid cultureand#8212;and a reminder that we are surrounded by wonders that whisper to the curious and attentive.
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Ingenuous and erudite, and with a beguiling wit, Madden examines the intricate tapestry of ordinary life in its extraordinary patterns. His book is a poetic and engaging exploration of the unexpectedly wide scope of our everyday existence.
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About the Author
Patrick Madden is an assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University. His essays have appeared in the
Iowa Review,
Portland Magazine,
Fourth Genre,
Hotel Amerika, and other journals, as well as in the
The Best Creative Nonfiction and
The Best American Spiritual Writing anthologies. Visit his Web siteand#160;www.quotidiana.org.and#160;
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