Cleanness - Garth Greenwell (2020)

I had no knowledge of Garth Greenwell until I heard about this book on the NY Times Book Review podcast. From the way they discussed Cleanness, he struck me as a next-generation version of Dennis Cooper, and after reading this, I would say that is roughly 66% accurate. The writing style is quite different, and though the subject matter is relatively similar, it is more high-brow than low-brow, almost The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the gay version. I read that book many years ago and perhaps it is too charitable a comparison, yet that is what comes to mind.

There are no names. The narrator has no name and all other characters are only identified by a letter, or their occupation. The setting is Sofia, Bulgaria. If anything, this novel is a love letter to Bulgaria, certainly a country that many people often forget, or don't even know exists. Perhaps that regional element is what brings Kundera to mind, though Czechoslovakia is far from adjacent. Certainly the chapter "Decent People" brings to mind the political unrest that undergirds Kundera's work, a 2013 version of 1968 (so far as I can determine--I have almost no knowledge of such matters personally). So yes, a crass distillation, or equation, would be: Dennis Cooper + Milan Kundera = Garth Greenwell. At least for this volume. 

Each chapter stands on its own as a short story. Individually, they range from very good to great. Collectively, while they certainly complement one another, they do not cohere as in a more traditional novel. The only throughlines are the narrator, the setting of Sofia, and R. And while the narrator's relationship with R. is the emotional center of the novel, roughly half of the novel does not concern R., except as a memory and symbol of heartbreak, the most perfect sort of love the narrator has experienced, and the longing for something as powerful that may never come to pass.

The plot is basic: the narrator is an American writing instructor teaching in Bulgaria, for seven years, perhaps. There are three graphic sex scenes, pornographic with an intellectual undercurrent, and there is the melancholy love affair with R. There are also several scenes with current and former students which are basically innocuous, to varying degrees. The ultimate strength of this book is its honesty. The reader never gets the sense that the narrator is sanitizing his desire. There are romantic elements, certainly, but there is nothing in it that feels false, or phony. The tension between outward respectability and inward depravity is carefully and thoughtfully detailed. There are many praiseworthy elements of the novel; my only critique is that the ending feels anticlimactic, and unsettled--though the final image on the last page is quite moving. 

It is perhaps worth noting how different the first chapter, "Mentor," feels from the rest of the novel. It may turn some readers off, and it almost feels a little unfair that Greenwell is able to get away with breaking so many rules of dialogue:

"There were more people in the restaurant now, and G. lowered his voice as the booths around us filled and the air grew thick with smoke. I was leaning forward to hear him, and it occurred to me that he had brought me here for the added privacy of it, the privacy of the booth and his lowered voice but also the privacy of the language; at any of the brighter cafes on the boulevards we would have heard English but here no one else was speaking it, and we were alone in that way too. I didn't think of B. as special then, not really, he said, speaking of the boy who was also in my class, whom I thought of as G.'s particular friend; we were all equally friends, the four of us, but B. and I had always been in the same classes, in eighth and ninth grade, and then the next year they put us in different sections. It shouldn't have mattered, he said, we were good students, we didn't talk in class or fool around, and we still had our time together as a group. But it did matter, he said, I couldn't stand it. I made them switch me, I said that I hated the other students, I said they were cruel to me. It wasn't true but I made my mother believe it, I made her come to the school to complain, and after a few days they put me where I wanted to be. Everything should have been fine then but it wasn't fine, I knew that it shouldn't have made me so upset, I couldn't understand why it had. But that's not true, he said, shaking his head just slightly, I did understand, at least a little, I knew I felt something I shouldn't feel." (13)

Now that passage isn't that confusing, but later on when G. tells the story of how B. and their other two friends (one of them a girl) rent a cabin for a senior summer trip, and how he and B. were sleeping next to one another, and how when he woke up alone, the other friend told him that B. and the girl had hooked up the night before, and the feelings that brought out, it's tedious at the very least. Grammatically, it does hold together, but it is yet another contemporary novel that finds quotation marks to be a limiting concept and a nuisance. It's not like this is Ulysses; also Kurt Vonnegut would not approve of the heavy semicolon use.

If readers can get past "Mentor," they next need to contend with "Gospodar," which is perhaps the most "hardcore" scene in the novel. After these two, the reader will know how "challenging" the work is, while it smooths down the rougher edges and mostly lightens up the rest of the way. Do you really want an excerpt from "Gospodar?" Do I really want to try to set a new bar for obscenity on Flying Houses? Okay...

"He returned his hand to my head and gripped me firmly again, still not moving, having grown very still; even his cock had softened just slightly, it was large but more giving in my mouth. And then he repeated the word I didn't know but that I thought meant steady and suddenly my mouth was filled with warmth, bright and bitter, his urine, which I took as I had taken everything else, it was a kind of pride in me to take it. Kuchko, he said as I drank, speaking softly and soothingly, addressing me again, mnogo si dobra, you're doing very good, and he said this a second time and a third before he was done." (35-36) 

And that is just from the consensual part of the encounter.

"Decent People" is the protest chapter, and it certainly felt relevant to me in the political moment we are having in this country, and yet I could not fully understand the nature of it. Perhaps this is another failing of the book: it asks too much of the reader. Not all of us are fluent in foreign affairs or post-U.S.S.R. societal restructuring. The emphasis is on the love and unity that flows through the crowd, and the danger that others fear it will foment. While there are a few nice moments, it is mainly about the narrator meeting up with some other academic friends and students, and the whirlwind of the scene around them. Frankly it is more boring than the first two, and yet leaves me wanting more exposition to provide a deeper understanding.

After these, the novel shifts to Part II, Loving R., which is 64 pages long and the highlight of the novel (like the first part of Asymmetry, if less substantial). These three chapters represent the most conventional elements of the novel and are more emotionally affecting than anything else in it. It made me feel lonely and sad, thinking of travels I wanted to take with a friend, as they mostly concern a trip to Bologna and Venice. These chapters exude sweet melancholy, and the twin burdens of loss and past happiness remembered:

"And he did find it [San Marco], finally, by luck mostly, I think, suddenly we turned and it opened out before us, after the cramped alleys the expanse of the square, beyond it the horizon of water. R. turned to me, smiling, and surely it wasn't at that moment that the bells began to ring, it's a trick of memory to stage it that way, but it is how I remember it, the birds flying up, everyone turning to the Campanile, as we did, its top still bright as it caught the last of the sun. Merchants were walking through the crowds, hawking toys for children, spinning tops that burst into LED color as they helicoptered up. All that was new there was evanescent, the toys, the tourists, R. and I; all that was lasting was old, worn dull with looking though I still wondered to look at it, the centuries-old basilica, the bells, the gold lion on its pedestal, the seat that would swallow it; and everywhere else the books I had read, so that look, there, I could almost convince myself of it, Aschenbach stepping from uncertain water to stone." (123-124)

While the final chapter, "An Evening Out," nearly approaches the level of Part II, it is passages like this that elevate the novel into the territory of high-art. Greenwell tempers the discordant and repelling themes of the narrative with the sort of depth of feeling and humanity that prove revelatory to the reader. And yet while this novel has many virtues, it is uneven, it is quite imperfect. And perhaps that is partly intentional, for on the whole I enjoyed the novel very much. But because I write for other readers (though in practice mostly for myself), effusive praise felt untrue, and so I recommend the book with this caveat, knowing that many readers will simply never experience it for discomfort with its subject matter.

Grade: B

Indelicacy - Amina Cain (2020)

On the heels of Dept. of Speculation, here we now have Indelicacy. I predicted, after the fact, that a whole slew of Offill imitators would flood the marketplace, around 2016. At first blush, over the first few pages, I thought this was part of that imagined slew, but it is not. 

There is a big reveal in the acknowledgments of this book that I feel is not inappropriate to mention:

"Short passages from Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Genet's The Maids, and Octavia Butler's Kindred appear here, and I've named my characters after characters in those works, as well as Clarice Lispector's The Apple in the Dark. A passage also appears from Goya: The Witches and the Old Women Album." (159)

Elena Ferrante is not acknowledged perhaps because Cain has not directly lifted from her work in the same manner, but Indelicacy owes a greater debt to Ferrante than Offill. One might make this mistake because it is "minimalist," but it does not go as far as Offill. We do not learn the main character's name until almost the last chapter. But there are other proper names (rather than a letter like G. or B., or their occupation). It is not framed as a series of non-sequiturs, though there are a number of them. The story takes place in some sort of alternate world that is vague and shadowy, and the protagonist occasionally departs from the genteel tone of the novel by saying something (forgive me) indelicate. While attending a reading at a library by an author she likes, he disappoints her, as does another author interviewing him, by conducting an obsequious exchange, taking success for granted:

"When I walked out of the room, I said simply, 'You're both worms,' and they looked at me, not knowing how to respond to a statement like that. 'Of the worst kind. When you open your mouths, you are male worms eating from a toilet.'" (119-120)

Or another nonchalant aside:

"Before I had finished my soup, an older man came and sat near me. He wasn't eating; he appeared to be doing nothing at all. He looked at me, then looked again. Men looking at women like that are truly horrible. Especially when they are so much older, when they are nearly dead themselves." (28)

The plot is very simple and basic. A woman works as a cleaning lady at a museum. She makes friends with her co-worker, Antoinette, and they eventually become best friends. There is real love between them. The woman soon meets a man. Here is the story of how they met:

"It's strange my husband noticed me, but he came to the museum to see paintings of Caravaggio and then of Goya, and the third time I was mopping the floor of the coatroom when he came for his jacket and umbrella. We stood together near the coats for some time, talking, and then he walked me home.
'Aren't you embarrassed?' I asked, and he said he was never embarrassed by anything.
We were married at the start of the summer and hardly anyone attended--a few of his friends, a cousin from Brazil. No one I knew was there." (33)

The novel almost never identifies any specific people or places, except Brazil and Jamaica and the painters referenced here. 

After getting married, the woman is able to quit her job at the museum, and focus full-time on her writing. She wants to be a writer. There are many ruminations on writing here. She doesn't know what to write about, except descriptions of paintings she admires. She becomes estranged from Antoinette after marriage, as she quits her job at the museum, and laments the loss. She develops an appreciation for dance and becomes a near-constant concert-goer. She takes ballet lessons and she meets Dana, who replaces Antoinette as her closest, dearest friend. There are shades of homo-eroticism in these friendships, and it is more pronounced with Dana. She gets drunk for the first time with Dana, and tells her husband about it, and he asks if she wants to get high with him for the first time, and so they smoke hashish. While there's nothing particularly anachronistic about this, it feels that way, perhaps to comment on the shifting tones of a patriarchal society. The woman is financially dependent on her husband. He is marrying "beneath him." It is almost old-fashioned with a modern sheen.

Eventually, Antoinette and the woman are reunited and resume their friendship. Antoinette has married, and loves her husband Frederick, though they are poor. She gets pregnant shortly after marriage. The woman has been married to her husband for three years. She does not love him, but she does love the life their marriage has made possible. She has never particularly wanted children, and she has never gotten pregnant, despite having sex without contraceptives. The woman and her husband also have a housekeeper, Solange, who becomes the other major figure in the novel. 

While this book did not knock me out quite like Dept. of Speculation, and while I often picked it up with some measure of indifference, the more I think about it, the better it seems. Because it is the fantasy all would-be writers have: to marry someone rich so we don't have to work and can instead devote the rest of our lives to the pursuit of artistic beauty. It is the idea of heaven, to some. And though like heaven, it is a fantasy, unlike heaven it is in fact a reality for some, and there is certainly a dark side to absolute freedom, when it has been bestowed by another. And yet the husband is not a villain, even when he devolves into a rant that is one of the outstanding moments of novel:

"'Women, I know they're attuned to something, they're always tuned in, I guess. I've often felt that women were tuned in to things they have no business being tuned in to. But you can't stop it, can you? Not you. You encourage it, in fact! Don't do that!......I don't even like sex! But I do like comfort. Men told me. Why didn't I listen? And just who are you, anyway? Just what are you attuned to? I've only wanted to live a normal life, and with you that's impossible. Do you know what people say about you? Do you have any idea? They feel sorry for me! And now I know why...You're like an old piece of pie I can't throw away, a very good pie. But I rescued you. You know that! And yet, I'd never seen anyone so alluring. You're always turning away. Turn toward me. Haven't you ever felt yourself carried away? Toward a woman?...Look at me, you are my wife, first and foremost, and I will be loyal to you. Let's go away, I'll take you to Brazil after all. We'll walk up and down the avenues. I'll protect you and keep you close. I gave very dear things to you, many, many jewels. Everything you're wearing right now. You are a proper woman. No, you are not. Clothes can't make a woman proper. Do you know how hard I've tried?...I don't think you realize how hard I work--not once have you come to my office!'
That is where I stopped listening." (150-151)

This novel is a complicated, troubling examination of class and power in friendship and marriage. All of the characters are flawed (Antoinette and Dana, less so). At the same time, it is a deceptively simple story. It is inspirational in a similar way to Dept. of Speculation because it presents a different sort of way of writing a novel. You don't need to pepper your narrative with complex characters and an ingenious plot. You can keep it simple and speak your personal truth. You can simply ask yourself why you write, and you can follow that purpose to its logical end. 

Grade: A-

Catch and Kill - Ronan Farrow (2019)

Previously, we had occasion to review She Said in short-form. That is a terrible review, I'm sorry, not one I would put in my portfolio. But I did say I would expand on it, when I got around to Catch and Kill. And I may do this again with Apropos of Nothing, when my library account is no longer suspended. I gave She Said an A-. I thought I had given it a B+. I was going to put Catch and Kill just a notch above it, an A-. I cannot in good conscience give this an A, even though it is an acclaimed work by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Do not misunderstand--this is a very good book--I just wouldn't put it up there with Dept. of Speculation and The Night of the Gun. This is only because the story is unwieldy. I am sure that a lot of material was cut out, but there is still too much material. It really is an epic read at 414 pages. There is a great style to its structure: 59 one-word chapters. Each chapter settles on an image that tends to represent the entire scene. And looking at them now, I can instantly transport myself to them.

I see Chapter 32 is "Hurricane" and I remember the reference to Hurricane Harvey. 

I see Chapter 17 is "666" and I remember that is the safe deposit box number they almost take to hold the sensitive documents in the story, in case anything happens to Farrow.

I see Chapter 25 is "Pundit" and I remember that is his partner's dog, and how he warms up one of the victims and lightens the mood, and I remember how it was one of the best chapters in the book, even though the name of the dog annoyed me.

I see Chapter 50 is "Playmate" and I remember that is about the Playboy model that carried on a consensual relationship with Trump and the payouts she received. 

Somewhere along the line, it becomes clear that Catch and Kill is not only about Harvey Weinstein. It tends to chart a great deal of reporting Farrow did after his New Yorker story. At another point, he pursues a previously-buried story about an alleged love child of Trump (now in her early 30's and working at a genetics testing company), who had also been paid off in the late months of 2015. Farrow finds her father, who tells her she won't talk. Later on, he goes on Rachel Maddow's show and divulges how NBC tried to kill the story. This is largely about that. And Non-Disclosure Agreements. Sometimes, it almost reads like one, long NDA. They are an ever-present theme. It finally ends with Matt Lauer, who is also a looming character in this book.

And this is ultimately what puts it one "notch" above She Said: it is more of a personal statement. There are even certain moments that seem to break the fourth wall (see page 406; see also page 331, less directly). Perhaps, because there is only one protagonist and one author, there is greater unity and personal depth to the storytelling. 

For stretches, Catch and Kill is truly great. It tends to ride the wave of developments in the story, and some parts read more quickly than others. However, it began to vaguely disappoint me around page 300. I can't explain why. Maybe at that point I was thinking, "Alright, enough already, we get the point." Farrow finds a different way to tell multiple versions of a set fact pattern ending with a non-disclosure agreement. To his credit, he tends to keep it fresh, yet the reader may simply find some of the story about the story being killed at NBC less compelling or tedious. I think that really is the heart of my criticism. Some of the names do not register as characters, and it can be difficult to separate the characters and remember their role in the story.

Noah Oppenheim, for example, leads the "wrecking crew" against the story at NBC. The running gag of the book is that Oppenheim wrote the screenplay for Jackie, which many do not view as a good movie. Farrow's mother in particular, did not enjoy it. But in Catch and Kill, there are heroes, villains and bystanders, and few are exactly as they seem. Perhaps this element keeps it interesting. One is tempted to view every character that gets introduced as "good" or "bad" and it becomes very difficult to keep track of who-is-who on the NBC/Comcast corporate ladder. Farrow really should have included an organizational chart, a la One Hundred Years of Solitude. He does write an incredible coda for Oppenheim:

"'My boss! Okay? I have a boss. I don't run NBC News exclusively,' he said, then seemed to catch himself. 'You know, everyone was involved in this decision. You can speculate what Kim Harris's motives are, you can speculate what Andy's motives are, you can speculate what my motives are. All I can tell you is at the end of the day, they felt like, you know, there was a consensus about the organization's comfort level moving forward.'

He reminded me, twice, that he'd revived my career after my show was canceled. That we'd been friends. He hoped we could get a beer and laugh about it all in a few months. I struggled to understand what he was asking for. Gradually, he let it out. 'I'm just making a plea,' he said. 'If the opportunity ever does present itself to you to say that maybe I'm not the villain in all this, I would be grateful.'

And there it was, at the end of his arguments: an unwillingness not just to take responsibility but to admit that responsibility might, in some place, in someone's hands, exist. It was a consensus about the organization's comfort level moving forward that stopped the reporting. It was a consensus about the organization's comfort level moving forward that bowed to lawyers and threats; that hemmed and hawed and parsed and shrugged; that sat on multiple credible allegations of sexual misconduct and disregarded a recorded admission of guilt. That anodyne phrase, that language of indifference without ownership, upheld so much silence in so many places. It was a consensus about the organization's comfort level moving forward that protected Harvey Weinstein and men like him, that yawned and gaped and enveloped law firms and PR shops and executive suites and industries; that swallowed women whole.

Noah Oppenheim was not the villain." (404-405)

Certainly, a documentary about the subject matter of this book would be explosive, but it would more likely resurface as a feature, and in the movie, Oppenheim would be the bad guy, and Rich McHugh would be the good guy. I think. All of the women are good. Except for Lisa Bloom. Almost everyone at NBC is bad, but there are layers of moral culpability threading the organization, cutting between business interests and journalistic integrity. Perhaps Tom Brokaw, or Meredith Vieira, exemplify the ambiguity of the interests at play. Brokaw--a mentor to Farrow, a titan of the industry and the medium, a friend of Weinstein and still a champion of the story--also got #metoo'd, but that consisted of three complaints, many years ago, that were part of the "permissive atmosphere when it came to harassment by prominent men at the network." (393) Vieira looks the other way on Lauer, until she can't possibly do so any longer (Ann Curry did the same, to a lesser degree, earlier).

I see that a problem in reviewing this book is reciting its revelations without proper attention to detail. To be clear, the reporting is nuanced. The reference to the "recorded admission of guilt" in the above-excerpt, for example, is really just Weinstein saying, "I'm used to this," to Ambra Gutierrez, who was fending him off and wearing a wire. But there is always more to it than that, more context than one sentence can appropriately convey. As such I will not be fact-checking this review but I encourage all readers to flag any incorrect or misleading statements as they see fit, for I would not want to appear slanted on such sensitive issues. (Yet I did also read the NY Times review recently, and saw how deftly it was summarized, and wanted to do better. We did hit on a few of the same points, if that means anything.)

Along the way, the famous figures appear: Rose McGowan, Ashley Judd, Anabella Sciorra, Mira Sorvino, Rosanna Arquette, Asia Argento, Claire Forlani, Daryl Hannah Meryl Streep (who is unimpeachable...because she's Meryl Streep) and Susan Sarandon ("Oh, Ronan...you're gonna be in trouble."). 

And then there are all of the non-famous people: Ambra Gutierrez, Zelda Perkins, Emily Nestor, Ally Canosa, Jennifer Laird, Sophie Dix, Abby Ex, Emma de Caunes, Lauren O'Connor, Lucia Evans, Karen McDougal ("Playmate"), Mimi Haleyi, Melissa Lonner, and Brooke Nevils. They didn't want their names to be known, for fear of reprisal (from Weinstein, from Trump, from Lauer/NBC), for they do not have the safety of their own independent brand to sustain them. They open themselves up to attack, and their courage in coming forward makes them the true, unsung heroes of the story. 

Gwyneth Paltrow does not appear. Neither does Christine Blasey-Ford. Certainly, they are two of the most compelling characters in She Said. Paltrow is irrelevant to the story (Donna Gigliotti, a producer on Shakespeare in Love, fulfills her function to a degree). Perhaps references to her ambivalent relationship with Weinstein--how she denounces him, while conceding that she owes her success to him--are unnecessary. And she played no role in his story, just as he played no role in Christine Blasey-Ford's story. Yet their presence in She Said lend gravitas to that narrative in the same way that Farrow's own history and personality elevate this one.

Black Cube, the shadowy private-intelligence firm hired by Weinstein to investigate Farrow's sources, and Farrow himself, is also dissected in an amusing subplot, with the two men, Ostrovskiy and Khaykin, assigned to his case. They serve as comic relief, while the question of their moral ambiguity hangs in the balance. They are sinister, and yet they are not. 

Despite the dangers he faces and the paranoia that takes a mental toll, Farrow lives a rather fabulous life, and one may become almost envious of the difficult situation in which he finds himself. For example, he is forced to stay with his friend Sophie, the daughter of a wealthy executive, in her "safe house": "a section of a building in Chelsea where Sophie's family owned several floors. It was a space to comfortably house everyone you've ever met. The rooms were proportioned like airplane hangars--imposing and beautiful and full of ornate couches you'd be afraid to sit on and objets d'art you'd be afraid to touch." (257-258) If only we could all have such a friend and place to stay in dangerous times, life might seem better. Farrow does receive vague death threats on Instagram, and though his life may actually be in danger, the situation does seem rather exciting and fun. Some might not want to trade places with him, yet he really seemed to be living out his own adventure-thriller movie plot, and one must admit it would be a good part to get to play. Farrow was brave, make no mistake, but he was also lucky to have the opportunity.

He has certainly lived a storied life, and while at various points others bring up his "conflict of interest," skeptical of the HW story due to his own personal history, his relationship with his sister Dylan is beautifully interwoven into the narrative. Their brief moments together, on the phone or in the past, veer from emotionally devastating to heartwarming:

"I looked at him like he was crazy for a moment and then asked, 'Noah, is this story dead or not?' He looked at the script again. Over his shoulder, I saw the deco architecture of historic Rockefeller Plaza. 

I thought of my sister. Five years earlier, she'd first told the family she wanted to revive her allegation of sexual assault against Woody Allen. We'd stood in the TV room at our home in Connecticut, with stacks of fading VHS tapes.

'I don't see why you can't just move on,' I told her.

'You had that choice!' she said. 'I didn't!'

'We have all spent decades trying to put this thing behind us. I'm just now trying to launch something serious where people focus on the work. And you want to--want to reset the clock completely.'

'This isn't about you,' she said. 'Don't you see that?'

'No, it's about you. You're smart. You're talented, you have so many other things you can do,' I said.

'But I can't. Because it's always there,' she said, and then she was crying.

'You do not need to do this. And you are ruining your life if you do.'

'Fuck you,' she said.

'I support you. But you just--you have to stop.'" (190)

His relationship with his father, Woody Allen, is heartbreaking in another way entirely. This is perhaps best left unexplored in this review, and saved for Apropos of Nothing. Farrow does not play into the rumor that Allen is not actually his biological father, yet they clearly have no relationship, and it does not appear that either wishes to have a relationship:

"Weinstein seemed to want a strategic playbook--for quashing sexual assault allegations, and for dealing with me. 'How did you deal with this?' Weinstein asked at one point.  He wanted to know if Allen would intercede on his behalf. Allen shut down the idea. But he did have knowledge that Weinstein would later put to use. That week, Weinstein's credit card receipts show his purchase of a book of interviews with Allen, written by a die-hard fan of his, documenting all of the arguments Allen and his army of private investigators and publicists had come up with to smear the credibility of my sister, the district attorney, and a judge who had suggested she was telling the truth.

'Jeez, I'm so sorry,' Allen told Weinstein on the call. 'Good luck.'" (255)

Regardless of your feelings on Farrow, if you are at all interested in journalism or the entertainment industry, this should be required reading. And if you do happen to have an odd feeling of underlying contempt for the work he has done, this will dispel any illusions as to his motives. He absolutely makes the best of his opportunity to be heard, if only one is willing to listen.

Grade: A-

Dept. of Speculation - Jenny Offill (2014)

In titling this post, I instinctively wrote "2018" as the year of publication. Once again, The New York Times Book Review podcast alerted me to this author, in a discussion of Weather, her newest volume. They had occasion to reference Dept. of Speculation, her previous book, and praised it effusively. I put a hold on it at the library. It took a while to get it, because of the waiting list, and then a 60+ day closure. Then it took me too long to read it (it could be read in a day, or two; it took me a week, or two, or three, or four). 

But this book came out six years ago, in the comparatively innocent days of 2014. And I slept way, way too long on Jenny Offill. Unquestionably, this goes on the Best Books list. The first thing I did after finishing Dept. of Speculation was to place a hold on Weather.

Offill, it must be well-known, writes in a very unique, totally original style. It is prose, but it reads like poetry, and sometimes comedy. Also tragedy. The paragraphs are short, sometimes just a sentence or two. The pages are small. There is a limited third-person narrator. 

The plot concerns a young couple--a wife in her mid-30's, a husband a few years older--that has just had a baby in Brooklyn. The novel covers roughly the first six years of the baby's life. It is hardly at all about the baby, later the little girl, except how she annoys them and how they love her:

"Is she a good baby? People would ask me.

Well, no, I'd say." (30)

Certain details emerge. The Husband plays the piano and writes musical scores for film and television. The Wife is a college professor, not writing a follow-up novel; instead she attempts to ghostwrite a memoir by a man who was almost an astronaut, who wants to tell the story of Voyager 2. At a certain point, their apartment is infested with bedbugs. And then the Husband has an affair. And the Wife goes mad, and struggles to find meaning in her life.

There are no easy, simple, neat answers in this book. Only questions. There is no sense that everything is going to be okay in the end. While there is great darkness and cynicism in this work, there are also moments of inspiration that border on the divine (generally, quotes without context from Rilke, or Kafka, and others):

"What Rilke said: I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone." (148)

"What Kafka said: I write to close my eyes." (156)

"Studies show that 110% of men who leave their wives for other women report that their wives are crazy.

Darwin theorized that there was something left over after sexual attractiveness had served its purpose and compelled us to mate. This he called 'beauty' and thought it might be what drives the human animal to make art." (103) 

There is hardly a wasted word in this book. There must already be many Jenny Offill imitators filling up the slush piles. Please read it if you haven't.

Grade: A

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone - Lori Gottlieb (2019)

This morning (8/8/20, from approximately 10:30 AM to 11:45 AM) a truck was parked outside my living room window. The truck had been outfitted with an extremely sensitive alarm due to past break-ins. The driver told me as much when I confronted him. He was parked in a tow-zone. Every time a car rushed past closely enough to his, a little beep would ensue, followed by a succession of quick horn bursts. This aggravated me to no end, as I had a headache, and did not get quality sleep last night. The truck driver (owner of a plumbing company) explained he was not going to change his alarm. I asked him if he could move it, not very politely. I thought I heard him say no, and I cursed at him, not exactly under my breath.  Then I saw him pull away. I was just a jerk. I've been wracked with guilt for more than an hour after the incident.

For context, I was trying to read the last 10 pages of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, the latest selection from the Voracious Violets book club (I have fallen off, badly. Maybe I will resume after Just Mercy, the current selection). To review, previous selections include Educated, A Gentleman in Moscow, and The Line Becomes a River.  Certainly, this is my least favorite thus far.  

I open up with this anecdote for two reasons: (1) my aggravation at the car alarm was certainly related to my aggravation at this book never ending; (2) this type of behavior is problematic and indicative of need for change. No one deserves to be talked at like that. And maybe because of this book, and my own disgust at myself for being "that guy," a person that the plumber will look back on with disdain, maybe I am going to try to be better, and more compassionate. 

This book is too long. That is my primary gripe. It's over 400 pages. It's a bit self-indulgent. There is great vulnerability in it, and while that is always beautiful to regard in actual life, in memoir it can feel cloying and overly precious. To be clear, this book has its moments. Several passages did, in fact, make me cry. I just think it could have been about one hundred pages shorter. At a certain point, the author describes how she gets contracts to write two different books--one about Parenting, and the other about Happiness. Apparently she was given huge advances for these. She writes neither. (Note: this review will have mild spoilers.) Instead she wrote this book about Therapy. And it really feels like that--a book she was commissioned to write, that has to hit a certain quota. 

I don't doubt many people love this book, but I did not have the patience for it. I struggled to read it for more than thirty minutes at a time. It is very hard for me to reject books outright. Previously I was forced to do so, since the Chicago Public Library had a three-week limit, and fines. Now there are no fines. I do not want to be a jerk and keep books unnecessarily long. I have three other books to read, all of which are overdue.  I digress. Must avoid self-indulgence in review.

PLOT: Lori is a therapist that suffers an upheaval in her life. Boyfriend leaves her. She is a single mother, and Boyfriend tells her that he can't live with a kid under his roof for 10 more years (he has a kid of his own that is going off to college, and he wants the freedom of an empty nest). He does this completely out of the blue and leaves shortly thereafter. She is completely devastated. She needs to start going to therapy, and she gets connected with Wendell. 

Now my first complaint with the book are the scenes with Wendell. They just bored me to tears. This would probably be a great book for therapists because there is so much inside baseball (and yes, speaking as a patient, some of it was illuminating, and helped me to better understand what my psychiatrist was trying to do with me). But let's be clear: Lori is a clinical psychologist, not a psychiatrist. Perhaps a psychiatrist would write an even more boring book, discussing drug interactions. There is bravery and courage in this book. Gottlieb (not Robert's daughter) certainly opens up some veins and bleeds. Yet she writes so much about appreciating life and enjoying every minute and being thankful for all of its gifts that I can't help but be annoyed, because everything seems easier for her, somehow.

This is decidedly not the case in the chapter "The Whole Package," where she details her desire to be a mother, while not yet having found the right partner, as she hovers around age 36 and 37. As a single, childless 37-year-old, this book made me even more depressed than I already am, at times. She does opt for artificial insemination, and the discussions of the guys whose sperm she wants made me want to puke because they reminded me of how recessive I am. Must not be self-indulgent. There is one clever aside, that perhaps explains why I feel about this book the way I do:

"Other donors seemed to have good health, intelligence, and similar physical features, but something else would raise a red flag, like the donor who wrote that his favorite color was black, his favorite book Lolita, and his favorite movie A Clockwork Orange. I tried to imagine my child reading this profile one day and looking at me like, 'And you chose this one?' I had the same reaction if the donor couldn't spell or use punctuation correctly." (101)

Now I can certainly get behind the last sentence. But dissing fans of Kubrick and Nabokov, two of their mediums' indisputable masters? That is not going to sit well on Flying Houses. Were I that child, were I so lucky to have a mother so open-minded as to embrace transgressive genius, I would love her all the more. Who is to say that child will grow up to be a difficult freak, an enfant terrible? Such blanket characterizations are ultimately harmful to art and humanity. Perhaps this is just a small joke that I am taking far too seriously. But yes, she is enamored to get the sperm of "young George Clooney" (as is everyone else in that clinic).

Clooney, however, does have a memorable cameo in this book:

"Late that fall, I was out to dinner with a group of people after my baby shower when my mother noticed the real George Clooney sitting at a table nearby. Everyone at our table knew about Kathleen's 'young George Clooney' description, and one by one, my friends and family pointed at my enormous belly, then turned their heads toward the movie star. 
He looked much more grown up than he had as a young actor starring in ER. I, too, felt much more grown up than I'd been as a young executive working at NBC. So much had happened in both of our lives. He was about to win an Oscar. I was about to have my son." (107-108)

Yes though, perhaps I am jealous of her trajectory: working at NBC on ER in Los Angeles, deciding she wants to go to med school, then deciding she would rather get a PhD in clinical psychology. She made tons of mistakes and backtracks, and her story feels empowering and reassuring. Yet it still seems too easy for those less accomplished readers among us.

FURTHER PLOT: the narrative technique employed in the novel is to focus on several of her patients: John (a successful TV-show producer and writer); Julie (terminally-ill 35-year-old, recently married, on the verge of starting a family); Rita (a depressed 69-year-old planning to kill herself on her 70th birthday), and Charlotte (a mid-20's low-grade alcoholic in search of a meaningful relationship). Several other ancillary characters appear as supporting players in these patients' lives: Margo, Gabe, Gracie, Ruby, Rosie (John's family); Myron (Rita's romantic interest); Dude (Charlotte's romantic interest that she meets in the waiting room, a patient of her colleague's, a f***boy). 

Some of these narratives are insufferable, some of them have revelatory moments. One of the biggest questions I have about this book: what show was John working on? It seems like a big hit, yet I have zero idea what it could be--it's definitely not Friends, but it seems adjacent to that.

Ultimately, Rita's story is powerful and beautiful, a true highlight of the book. I can recall exactly the passage that struck a chord:

"Here's what Myron realized: He missed Rita. Deeply. He wanted to tell her things--all the time, every day--the way he had wanted to tell his wife Myrna things throughout their marriage. Rita made him laugh and think, and when photos of his grandchildren popped up on his phone, he wanted to show them to Rita. He didn't want to do any of this with Randie in the same way. He loved Rita's sharp intellect and sharper wit, her creativity, her kindness. How she picked up his favorite cheese if she was at the grocery store. 
He liked Rita's worldliness and wry observations and wise counsel whenever he asked her advice. He adored her throaty laugh and her eyes that were green in the sunlight and brown indoors and her bright red hair and her values. He loved that if they started a conversation on one topic, it would segue into two or three others before it would loop back around or that sometimes they'd get so immersed in their tangents that they'd forget what they were talking about in the first place. Her paintings and sculptures made his heart thrill. He was curious about her, wanted to know more about her kids, her family, her life, her. He wanted her to feel comfortable telling him and wondered why she had been like a cipher, revealing so little of her past. 
Oh, and he thought she was beautiful. Absolutely stunning. But would she please stop wearing T-shirts that looked like rags?" (229-230)

Julie's story is also quite moving, and John's story is shattering, and there is certainly much I can relate to in Charlotte's (except it also annoys me because she's 10+ years younger and lamenting, "I just don't want to wake up five years from now and never have had any kind of relationship...five years from now, a lot of people my age won't be single anymore, and I'll be the girl who hooks up with a guy in the waiting room or her neighbor and then tells the story at a party like it's just another adventure.  Like I don't even care." (333-334)). But Rita's story for me is the true heart and soul of this book. 

So this is a complicated book to process, and I think my feelings of annoyance or aggravation largely stemmed from impatience, the pandemic (how can it not color everything we digest, seeing the world we lived in before?), and the unresolved issues I continue to have after six years of therapy. I cannot wholeheartedly recommend it, but I certainly recommend it for anyone that is struggling with grief or trauma, particularly as it relates to parenting or the looming spectre of death. As long as it took me, I got through it faster than A Gentleman in Moscow (which to be fair is very long). There is so much in it that I can't properly address in this review. Actually I wrote this review in less than two hours. So I'm sorry if it's not my finest work. It's a messy review for a messy book. There is great humanity in the work, and many wonderful "academic" portions. I learned something about myself in the process of reading it, and certainly in finishing it this morning and writing this review. I do believe that it will help many people to have a better understanding of therapy and the changes it can inspire in the way we process the world. Patience and compassion are virtues, too. 

Grade: B

Let's Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, The Life of Ernie Banks - Ron Rapoport (2019)

My mom grew up loving Ernie Banks. She was a Die Hard Cubs Fan (and had the membership card to prove it), and while she sometimes spoke of Ron Santo, Randy Hundley, Billy Williams, Fergie Jenkins and others, there could be no doubt as to her favorite player. Witness, for example, this framed poster I am keeping in my apartment for the time being.

So for her birthday/Mother's Day (they are generally 1-2 weeks apart) last year, I bought her this book. And in my efforts to support a local bookstore, I discovered there were two Let's Play Two books about Ernie Banks, released about a month apart from one another. That other one was reviewed in short-form and anticipated a first for FH. I am not aware of any other book review platforms publishing dueling reviews of these books. And I am not doing that, because my review of the Doug Wilson Let's Play Two is cursory, at best. And the Rapoport Let's Play Two is, somewhat predictably, more comprehensive and more beautifully-written. Rapoport spent the last few weeks of Ernie Banks's life attempting to begin work on a new autobiography (after Mr. Cub), and this biography is the finished product, five years after the fact. And lately, while I have found many biographies fascinating, these were some of the most engaging 413 pages I have read in any. One could not call them the most revealing 413 pages, but they are as revealing about Banks as any other source, and therein lies its r'aison d'etre: Who was the real Ernie Banks?

Because the only Ernie Banks everyone knew in the world was Mr. Cub. The catchphrases, the ever-present smile, the humble attitude, the unrelenting positivity, the absence of dissent or displeasure. Mr. Cub. Never gets to go to the playoffs. Hall of Fame career but no championships. Just one heart-breaker of a season. But what pain and sadness lived underneath, what struggles did he conceal, what resentments did he harbor? Both Let's Play Two books try to answer this. And because Rapoport no doubt had bountiful resources available to him, as well as close personal relationships with many people in the Chicago sports world, this is the better book. Though Doug Wilson's is shorter, and totally decent, this is more consistently entertaining and engaging. Perhaps one day soon there will be an Ernie Banks biopic, and while both volumes would no doubt prove useful in such a venture, there is little that Wilson uncovers that Rapoport does not (and yes, to be fair, I can't check a copy of the Wilson volume and get specific--but don't challenge me on that until you've read both, too). It would be named to the Best Books list alongside biographies of Raymond Carver and William O. Douglas if the genre was not beginning to subsume it (and this is before reading anything by Robert Caro).

This Let's Play Two opens up with the totally iconic scene of Ernie Banks playing golf with Warren Buffet and Steadman Graham (Oprah's fiancee), along with an Illinois State Senator, on 9/11. They are in Omaha and Air Force One arrives to bring then-President Bush to a secure underground bunker. All the planes are grounded after, so the Senator (William Marovitz) drives back to Chicago with Banks, and Banks opens up to him like he rarely opened up to anyone, an experience so engrossing that Marovitz didn't realize he was driving for seven hours in the wrong direction, passing through most of South Dakota before realizing as much.

Banks was born in Dallas in 1931, the oldest of twelve children in a very poor family. Of special note is that both Essie Banks (Ernie's mother) and O.J. Simpson's mother (Eunice Durden) were first cousins. As a youth, he worked with his father, picking cotton, for 5 or 6 dollars a day. His father, Eddie, had once been a catcher for the Dallas Green Monarchs, a semipro Negro League team, who once caught for Satchel Paige. He made Ernie bat boy one game when he was 8 or 9.

The book then dives away into the history of the surrounding area and the high school Banks attended. Booker T. Washington, which also produced many notable artists. In the summer of 1948--not long after he had started playing more seriously--playing for the Detroit Colts. After another summer, Bill Blair, who had discovered Banks on a local ball-field, referred him to Buck O'Neil, the manager of the Kansas City Monarchs and the first of many legendary figures to appear. Banks began playing for him in 1950.

Banks joined the Cubs in 1953, and the book devotes 42 pages to the years between 1950 and 1953, also touching upon Banks's tenure in the military. These are some of the most charming pages, where he played against teams such as the Indianapolis Clowns, the Birmingham Black Barons, the New York Cubans, and the Chicago American Giants, in the twilight era of the Negro League. After Jackie Robinson moved into the major leagues, attentions shifted.

In 1953, he first played for Phil Cavaretta, then for Stan Hack from 1954-1956. Starting in 1955, he began crushing the ball.  He played for Bob Scheffing from 1957-1959, continuing his streak of dominant seasons. In 1960, the Cubs became "experimental" in their managerial hiring process, starting with an older Charlie Grimm, who had managed the team from 1932 to 1949, and who did not last long. Lou Boudreau replaced him after a handful of games. In 1961, they began their "college of coaches" concept, cycling Elvin Tappe, Lou Klein, Vedie Himsl and Harry Craft. The team finished 26 games under .500. Yet they continued this way in 1962, with Tappe and Klein again, and Charlie Metro. And they were even worse, finished 44 games under .500 and in 9th place. Bob Kennedy took over in 1963 and stayed til 1965 when he was replaced mid-season by Lou Klein again.

This roll-call of managers is only undertaken to underscore their relative anonymity in contrast to Leo Durocher, who emerges as one of the liveliest characters in this story. And they were also atrocious in his first year, 1966, once again 44 games under .500. However, things started looking up in 1967 and 1968. Finally, they broke out in 1969 with a 92 win season.

In 1969, Banks was 38 years old, and had been playing for the Cubs for 16 years. His best days were certainly behind him, yet he still made the all-star team and drove in 106 runs. Between the years of 1955 and 1960, Ernie Banks was arguably the most threatening hitter in baseball, particularly in 1958 and 1959, when he was named MVP.

The book, predictably, takes off in discussing the 1969 season, though this is not to say anything about the years of 1953 to 1968 are less interesting. This is mostly because of Durocher. It is difficult to select excerpts from this book but inevitably one must be about Durocher. And even within that subset, it is difficult. For example, the dissection of why Durocher treated Banks as badly as he did begins by acknowledging that Durocher may have just been trying to light a fire under him, because he wasn't like Ron Santo, who became noticeably upset when things didn't go his way. Ultimately, it centers around jealousy, and because of past experience managing Willie Mays. Mays, if anyone, is the counterpart to Banks, in terms of career accomplishments and renown. Hank Aaron is the other, even as his stats tower over theirs. Durocher took credit for the rise of Mays, and building his confidence after a slow rookie start. He treated Banks oppositely, yet it must be noted, they were at entirely different points in their career when he managed them.

Really some account of his outrageous demeanor should be recorded:

"There were times when Durocher's complaints defied belief. In May 1968, reporters were stunned when Durocher pinned a 9-2 loss to the Cardinals at Wrigley Field on the fact that Banks hadn't scored from third base on a ball hit to the infield. 'Banks should have walked home,' Durocher said of a run that would have reduced the margin of defeat from seven runs to six. 'He's been in the league sixteen years, but he just won't get off the bag.' But once again, Banks turned the other cheek. 'Leo's right,' he said. 'Taking the extra lead or the extra base helps the club.'" (245-246)

Around page 260, things start changing for the Cubs in 1967, as they develop what would become a group of core future Hall-of-Famers in Fergie Jenkins, Ron Santo and Billy Williams, along with Banks. The Bleacher Bums are born, and the story of their rise has little to do with Banks, but is one of the welcome surprises of this book. Chapter 26, devoted to them, is definitely a highlight.

Chapter 29 deals with the 1969 season and the team's infamous downfall in the last month of the season, to the lowly New York Mets. It should be noted that, among Rapoport's many gifts, is a knack for the incisive detail from a game that is otherwise lost to history. In his recitations of the minutiae of each crucial game, they are further etched into history, and the drama these moments create in the lives of the players are felt more all the more deeply. Witness the turning point that marks the beginning of the end of that year:

"The Cubs were in a foul mood when they arrived in New York for games on September 7 and 8. They had just lost three games at home to the Pirates and were still replaying the last one in their minds. They had been one strike away from victory after a two-run homer by Hickman in the eighth inning when Willie Stargell hit a home run off Regan* that tied the score. And when Kessinger, who earlier in the season had set a record for shortstops with fifty-four errorless games, booted a ball in the eleventh, the Pirates were on their way to a 7-5 victory. 'To me,' Santo said, 'that was the turning point.'" (314)

AND HERE IS THE TURNING POINT OF THE REVIEW

[Yesterday, 7/14/20, I completed this review. Then, because I had taken a picture with my phone of the poster in my dining room, and updated the blog post from my phone. I felt I had published it, but perhaps I had just saved it. Regardless, this morning, I planned to publicize it on Facebook/Twitter. I tried to close the web page on my chromebook, and it warned me that I would lose all the changes I had saved. I thought, no way! I saved it from my phone earlier. And none of those changes were showing up on my chromebook version and I didn't want to have to re-do it. But apparently, yes, even though I saved it with all the finishing touches, the world prefers that I lose them, and waste 1-2 hours of my life, and appear even more amateurish. It makes me so angry that I will not re-do. This is not the first time this has happened. This is probably the forth of fifth time (somehow, with Buddenbrooks, way back in 2008, I wrote 2 different reviews) this has happened. And I just do not have the patience at the moment to make it as perfect as I did yesterday. I just can't. The internet has made writing an even more stressful endeavor.]

The first thing I included was an analysis of when my mom must have sent a letter to Leo Durocher, threatening to categorically reject the team if Ernie Banks was not taken off the bench. I had included several different paragraphs to provide additional context. I can be quick about this and cut a lot:

"Durocher responded by benching Banks for a week, leading one Chicago columnist to say the manager was vying for the title of most unpopular man in Chicago. Durocher was so determined to denigrate Banks that in a series in Atlanta he used reserves Jimmy Stewart and Marty Keough, who were hitting .153 and .069 respectively, as pinch hitters while Banks, who had a nine-game hitting streak, sat on the bench." (245)

I had a great second asterisk about Jim Bullinger. A quote about Ernie Banks trying to marry everyone off, including Mark Grace and Dennis Rodman, and presuming that Patrick Kane had a wife. And then about how he shouldn't be one to talk, as a four-time husband.

Finally there was a long quote about Joe Pepitone, a fan-favorite in 1970, who I could only think of as the Nick Castellanos of his time.

Also something about the Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony in 2013, and the absence of family attending. "It was as if he was proclaiming on a national stage that he was alone in the world." (396)

There is great historical value in this book, and it is not a bad blueprint to follow if one hopes to play in the MLB, though obviously things are quite different nowadays. Many would do well to follow the example set by Banks, even though the culture of today urges us to "make it okay to talk about mental illness." Sometimes it is better to simply keep one's mouth shut, and not try to update a blog, where little good may come of it. Better to smile, for it is July 15, and another beautiful day, and the MLB will returrn in 9 days for the strangest season in almost 150 years.

Grade: A

*Phil Regan appears as a minor character in this book several times, most prominently as a member of the 1969 Cubs. There is a reference to his work as a pitching coach later in his career, but the book does not divulge that Regan, in 2019, fifty years later, was still a pitching coach. And actually, was the head pitching coach of the Mets, as an 82-year-old. So he could actually compare Fergie Jenkins to Jacob DeGrom, and that is pretty remarkable.

** (note) References previously made to trying to set up Mark Grace, Jim Bullinger and Rick Wilkins, led me to make reference to Bullinger's (reliever/starting pitcher) first-career at bat home run, and Jose Guzman's 26-out no-hitter, both of which took place in 1992 and 1993. Which is when I became a Die Hard Cubs fan.

State of the Union (2020)

I felt compelled to note that many of the links on the right side of the web page no longer work. This is sad.
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You need to ask Bradford Cox or somebody if you want access to Deerhunter's blog.

Mario Batali Voice is defunct, redirecting to a page that simply transmogrifies the blog header into a
domain name (SteveAlbinicooks.whatimadeforheather.com, or something).

Dickson has not updated his Working Marathon Runner blog since 2015.

Daniel has not updated Adventures of a Gastrophile since 2012.

Jill has not updated Bitchin' Vegan Kitchen since 2011.

Even Portastatic (which to be fair has mostly been supplanted by Superchunk/Mac solo) is apparently finished since 2012 (CMJ was still a thing).

THINK AND GROW POOR and DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME, thankfully, are still available.

Owing to the massive difficulty of attracting anyone's attention (absent schadenfreude), I should stop trying to produce content that many no doubt find spurious.

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Moving onto the second list of links, Daily Routines was turned into a book. We should all be so lucky. The promised land for the majority of us content producers.

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing is - pretty active! Last post was made almost one year ago (7/19/19). It is arguably more active than Flying Houses. I will need to revisit this soon.

Nathan Bransford -- really? Updated his blog yesterday? He wins this contest.

Paper Cuts, the NY Times blog, should actually be removed, because it just links to The New York Times Art section, but I guess just going to that page that doesn't take up 1/10 articles for the month.

Pub Rants ALSO WINS!  Updated July 6, 2020.

Book Cannibal also stopped since 2012.

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Things have changed since 2008. Are blogs still the best way to reach a bigger audience with longer form writing, absent a job/contract/respected platform to do said writing? I don't know, but I have been attempting to crowd-source/focus-group/revise-collaborate my WIP via Google Docs with an ever-growing list of users authorized to comment.

And nobody comments. Nobody wants to read it. So this ultra-efficient feedback device is--for me at least--misbegotten.

I had an idea for a social media platform designed for writers and other artists, that would narrowly focus on each users' projects, for feedback, criticism and advice. I also once had an idea for a reality TV series framed around an MFA-creative-writing class. But the act of writing is not inherently interesting, they told me. I beg to differ--there could easily be a way to make it interesting--but it appears most people just don't want to read as much, they'd rather listen to audiobooks most of the time.  Or podcasts.

Instagram has emerged as a sort of successor to the so-called blogosphere. Just one of the many reasons this blog has been "retired." Instagram is very good for visual artists and dubious, at best, for writers. Text on Facebook does not do much for me. My engagement rate, if you will, is much higher on Instagram. My posts on Facebook are more or less completely ignored, except by a handful of friends that have apparently not muted or unfollowed me. This blog has been about as successful as my Facebook account in terms of branding and eyeballs.

And yet, while we have not read nearly as much as we would have liked during Quarantine, there was Let's Play Two and now, currently, Dept. of Speculation. I'd like to write about both of these. So stay tuned.

And please, if you would like to help me with the WIP as a guinea-pig reader, please reach out. Thank you and be safe.