- Dead parents who leave behind shocking secrets. Four this week.
- Books vaguely resembling The Road. Most feature female protagonists who get violent pretty quickly. Sometimes I cheer them on, sometimes I wish I hadn't read the manuscript with lunch. Three so far.
- Hipster fiction. The sort of thing that makes you think of Gary Shteyngart's description of how to behave at a Paris Review party. Not badly written, but not for me. Around four or five manuscripts, to varying degrees. See minute 1:29 in the video below:
I saw Mr. Shteyngart read a few weeks ago. It was like stand-up comedy hour. He's much funnier in person. In this video, I found him simply bizarre. But his impression of partygoers is, unfortunately, spot-on.
17 comments:
Is there anything you wish you HAD seen this week?
Wow, the shocking secrets of four dead parents in a week! Were they good?
JessicaLee: Things I wish I had seen...hmm. I could really go for a food memoir, right about now. And I found myself surprisingly bloodthirsty at times, so yes, more female protagonists killing bad guys, please.
Terry: One is (so far) great. Two were readable but not amazing. Last one was not to my tastes.
AG~ Have you read A Homemade Life yet?!? = food memoir thing of beauty!
Kate,
Yes! I have it now. I love how she describes the way her father put nearly a tablespoon of mayo per potato in his potato salad. Wow!
Well... glad mine dosen't come under any of those ;p not that I've queried you :)
http://damselinadirtydress.blogspot.com
AG: make the macroons. Just sayin'. And also, while Molly's style is pretty blog-ish (is that a word yet?) I love how she weaves the story of food into her story of grief. Also, I'm betting you've read Laurie Colwin's stuff-- but if not, please do. She took food writing to a whole different level.
Well...*scraps MS*...mine's totally nothing like any of those.
I love it when you post info like this. It helps give us a bit bigger picture of what everyone's doing.
Angela,
Hmm. Maybe it could be a recurring end-of-week post. Testing the waters, so to speak.
Did you guys ever get those kits for pools, where you put in a few drops and see what color it turns, and if it's safe to swim? Yes. Consider it something like that.
my parents always told me they put those pool chemicals turned colors if you PEED. You just lifted the veil on a mystery of my youth (I used to beg my brother to whiz in our pool to see the water turn red. he never did).
It's always interesting to see what's churning in the slush...
Ha, Kate, no, I meant the ones that test the Ph (I think?) of the water--to make sure the chlorine levels are safe and won't, you know, burn your eyes out.
yes, yes, the Ph testing kits~ we had a pool growing up, however, my father promised the kit included a turn-red-when-peed-in component. Sadly, I think they were worried I wouldn't interrupt important games of ring diving or blow-up whale riding to go when necessary. I think I'm glad my family just swims in the lake everyday;)
Hi GK,
I must confess I haven't been seen around this blog for a while, but have very much enjoyed catching up on it the past few days. I have a question I was hoping you might feel worthy of answering in a blog post, provided we all survive the hurrican this weekend. Several months ago (November, I think?) you posted about St. Martins trying to launch a new genre called "new adult" for college-aged/early 20s readers. I initially heard a lot of buzz about this, but it seemed to quickly die out. As a publishing insider, do you know if anything ever came of this? Are we querying writers allowed to refer to our novels as "new adult"?
Have a great weekend! I hope you find time to reconnect with your mop and/or finish Mockingjay!
That video's awesome. Also: James Franco, please marry me.
GK,
1-Have you ever read the french novelist Muriel Barbery's "Gourmet Rhapsody"? It's about a dying famous food critic trying to remember "that special taste" that made his life complete, even the "sour" parts.(Ratatouille kind of rings a bell?)
And she asked the help of Pierre Gagnaire, one of the most respected chefs in France, to make the recipes.
2- Crazy, crazy true story this week (simply had to share):
The 45 years of service doorman of my building (note that I consider him my friend) was wrongfully arrested right at our entrance (a scandal for our famous neighborhood of Ipanema!--as they used totally unnecessary brutal force--typical of our police force--see the all so true movie "The Elite Squad"). Since I'm a lawyer, I resolved everything (even not being my area of expertise). They abused their power just to show off, because of election year!!!!!!!!! Also filming it all!!--including me, still putting my suit on as I quickly rush my way down the stairs.
So, why am I telling you this?
Spooky enough, I've written about it last year, word for word, just as a fictional creation for my book!! Seriously!!!
...what about female protagonists killing things, period (survival and whatnot)? cuz i totally have one of those. :D
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