Review: Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan

Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan
published by FSG Originals
365 pages

This is a generous four stars. The essays were solid, often brilliant, but more than a few were average, near boring. Favorites include 'Upon this Rock', 'Getting Down to What is Really Real', 'Violence of the Lambs', and 'Peyton's Place'. It's a decent essay collection but the praise on the back gets a little out of hand, as do most blurbs. Wells Tower calls it the "most inspired book of essays since DFW's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. A bold claim.

All Human Existence is a Trick of Light

The Angel Esmeralda (Nine Stories) by Don DeLillo
published by Scribner
211 pages

I guess there's a reason this is DeLillo's first and only story collection. I'd say 3 1/2 of these stories are worth reading. The title story is taken from his excellent epic Underworld and is the strongest story by far. Human Moments in WWIII is also great. Anyway, DeLillo has turned into a philosopher-poet. So there's that. I just need to stick to his earlier work. I still have Great Jones Street, Endzone, and Ratner's Star to read.

Et in Arcadia Ego

Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy
published by Random House
337 pages

I am nearly 30 years old and I've just finished Blood Meridian for the first time. I'm glad I waited this long because I don't think I could have handled it in my younger years. Never has a work of literature left me so spent and speechless. It was slow going and most days I almost dreaded the thing. Not because it wasn't enjoyable...well, hell, I don't think Blood Meridian can be enjoyable. What I mean to say is that the writing is stunning and this is clearly a monumental work of American literature and certain scenes in the narrative will be buried in my heart and brain forever, but I found only despair and dark pleasures.

The dread I felt came from The Judge and the evilness of the book. I can't remember ever having been terrified of a literary figure. And make no mistake, Blood Meridian is a terrifying work. And I have nothing left to say.

 "For this will to deceive that is in things luminous may manifest itself likewise in retrospect and so by sleight of some fixed part of a journey already accomplished may also post men to fraudulent destinies." pg 120

Review: The Year of Magical Thinking

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
227 pages
published by Vintage

It's hard not to like Didion's writing style. It's lyrical and thoughtful. Cyclical yet straightforward. And especially with this book, you just want to give her a hug. Her ruminations on her husband's death border on the cliche but she gives grief new literary life with her obsessive excavation of her memories of the night her husband died.

Review: Hot Pink by Adam Levin

Hot Pink by Adam Levin
256 pages
published by McSweeney's

I haven't read Levin's The Instructions yet but it's on my bookshelf and after reading through a galley of his first story collection, Hot Pink, I'm eager to dive into His Big Book. Though the influence of George Saunders comes through from time to time, Levin's stories are something else entirely. Violence is commonplace. Love is sincere but confusing and misguided. And of course they're all funny.

Review: Habibi by Craig Thompson

Habibi by Craig Thompson
672 pages
published by Pantheon

Brutal and beautiful. The sprawling narrative is a tad overwhelming but forgivably so. But seriously, the artwork is pretty astounding. Thompson is mostly known for his book of equal heft, Blankets, which is a great graphic novel in its own right but Habibi is clearly his most mature and imaginative work to date.

Coming of Age in Hollywood

A Way of Life, Like Any Other by Darcy O'Brien
155 pages
published by New York Review of Books (Classics)

The charm of this slim book comes almost entirely from the narrator. He is young, intelligent, brash, observant, funny and a son of Hollywood.

I enjoyed the novel all the way through but the last few chapters is what did it for me. It is essentially a coming-of-age story and O'Brien gives us an ending that is both open ended and undeniably satisfying.

NYRB Classics rock.