Memoirous

 A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself by Peter Ho Davies Was a very interesting and heartbreaking book. A simple story really—it’s about life, love, and children—particularly your child and how impossible it is to feel in control. Those of us who are parents are tapping our chest and saying, I feel ya. It is a small book and a quick read—though I guess it took ages to write. In fact the little I’ve gleaned from a topical search online about Peter Ho Davies and a masterclass I had with him via Zoom a couple of months ago through Story Studio  inform me that he is self-deprecating and transparent about feeling guilty about not writing. Funny, I‘ve been doing much the same. Not writing, and feeling bad about it. Not true. I have been writing, not just the stuff I meant to get around to. I’ve been busy with these blog posts or what I like to tell folks: the personal essay. Seinfeld would label it writing about nothing. Ho Davies seemingly writes about nothing. There was n...

  This is not so much a review as an aside. If on a winter’s night a traveler . . . . is a novel by Italo Calvino. An experimental novel that explores the intersection of meta fiction and fantasy=surrealism. It is about readers and writers and Italo Calvino. It is an interesting thought experiment though not an engaging read. Thus, I started but did not finish it. I did find it fascinating. Books like this often feel, to me at least, like a gimmick, where technique is valued over story. AND, believe me, I often think plot is overrated—but at some point I want to be able to begin the story without having to flip back and forth to know what’s happening. At some point I need to begin to care about characters—not wonder in a realm of symbols and metaphor what they represent. Nevertheless, If on a winter’s night seems way ahead of its time.

Meta is an odd word; it is all about me. Self-referential. And, we do it in the subtlest of ways. Right when I’m enjoying a work of fiction I get a glimmer, a suggestion, that this book is all about the author. It is likely their story. At this blog I’ve reviewed Aleksandar Hemon’s short stories, Love and Obstacles and Lily Tuck’s Liliane —all supposedly fiction, but both hovering on the edge of autobiography. With Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf and The History of Great Things by Elizabeth (Betsy!) Crane we are easily clued in. The author actually references themselves. In Our Souls at Night the main characters talk over the morning newspaper while at breakfast and mention that that one writer, his latest novel is being made into a play. She’d enjoyed the last production the playhouse did of his work and now it looks like they are launching another. “He could write a book about us. How would you like that?”—she asks. Louis replies to her,   “I don’t ...