June 25, 2009
posted by Josh Haney at 01:47 PM
Dormant since 2001's Captains Outrageous, the crass vigilantes Hap Collins and Leonard Pine return with a vengeance in Vanilla Ride, the eighth installment of Texas author Joe R. Lansdale's Hap and Leonard series, which kicked off in 1990 with Savage Season. The novel, which comes out June 30, follows the diametrically opposed duo — Hap is white and unmistakably hetero, while Leonard is black and as gay as the day is long — as they attempt to rescue a friend's daughter from the grips of a drug-dealing Dixie Mafia foot soldier. As you might expect, the Mafia feels the offense warrants some retaliation. And for that they hire the eponymous assassin, a particularly merciless femme fatale.
In the excerpt below Hap, the narrator, sizes up his neighborhood at the beginning of the story.
We went out in the yard to talk so Brett wouldn't be bothered by our big mouths. She had bought some metal lawn chairs and put them out there, and I kept expecting to come out some morning and find they'd been chair-napped, as our part of the neighborhood was getting bad. Used to, you could leave your wallet on the porch swing and no one would bother it. These days, you left a cheese grater out, someone would steal the holes.
It was a nice night and there weren't many lights on our street, and the sky was clear so you could look up through the limbs of the elm tree at the edge of the yard and see the stars. It was too cool for crickets and there wasn't any traffic on the road out front. The air smelled fresh and a little sweet, like a baby's breath, and in that moment I was glad we lived there in that house with that yard and that big elm, in what the old books about the South used to call genteel poverty.
Lansdale will be at Houston bookstore Murder by the Book on July 7 and at Austin's Bookpeople July 8. Make sure to check out his Web site for other upcoming appearances. In the meantime, you can read the Observer's recent look at Lansdale here.
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June 22, 2009
posted by Josh Haney at 12:12 PM
Author Clancy Martin, who spent much of his youth in Texas and studied at UT Austin and Baylor, will present his well-received semi-autobiographical novel, How to Sell, Wednesday, June 24, at Austin's BookPeople. The story follows 16-year-old truant Bobby Clark as he leaves his Canadian homestead to work at the Fort Worth Deluxe Diamond Exchange with his unapologetically amoral brother, Jim. Under Jim's tutelage, Bobby predictably begins indulging his brother's vices, including hawking stolen Rolexes and knock-off jewelry.
Martin now teaches philosophy (with a few of his courses focusing on ethics, ironically enough) at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and is currently working on a memoir, a second novel, and a new translation of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. While it would seem that Martin has dropped the criminal habits fictionalized in his novel, we strongly recommend that attendees concern themselves only with his literary — not lapidary — wares.
Look for Thomas Korosec's review of How to Sell in our Summer Books issue, which hits the stands and the Web July 10.
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June 18, 2009
posted by Josh Haney at 10:58 AM
In anticipation of his reading at the Dallas Museum of Art tomorrow, we sat down with Houston neuroscientist David Eagleman, author of Sum: Forty Tales From the Afterlives. The novel, recently featured on NPR, explores 40 imaginative possibilities of what the afterlife might look like. After toying with various configurations, Eagleman arrives at some refreshing conclusions that may make you appreciate your current terrestrial existence all the more.
Sample chapters from the book can be found on Eagleman's Web site.
If you can't make it to the Dallas Museum of Art event, don't fret. Eagleman will be at Legacy Books in Plano July 15 and the Texas Book Festival in Austin Oct. 31-Nov. 1.
Texas Observer: I understand that these 40 stories are not meant to be serious meditations on the afterlife. How should readers approach this novel?
Eagleman: Well, when we come into this world we’re just given a few stories by our parents and our community. These are a shockingly small number of stories that we inherit — like those of the Judeo-Christian, Islamic or Eastern traditions — which are all quite similar to one another. Once you start looking at how amazing the cosmos is, it becomes apparent we haven’t explored even a little tiny bit of the space of possibilities.
You’re right in that none of these stories are supposed to be taken seriously. But what is serious is the exercise of shining a flashlight around this endless space of possibilities, which is part of, I think, the reason this book has caught on. It is mind stretching to a certain degree.
The bigger experience of reading the book is that all the assumptions that we make about what we’re doing here, what our purpose is, are shaken up. Hopefully, after reading it, people can acknowledge that there may be more possibilities in finding meaning than they had ever previously thought.
What’s the value of entertaining all these possibilities?
We have around 2,000 religions on the planet. The hilarious part is that everybody finds the other guy’s religion to be quaint or ridiculous. What’s clear to anyone looking around with fresh eyes is that you absorb whatever religion your parents and community teach you and you believe it as fervently as anyone else.
The value of shaking things up is that people might come to realize that the whole of existence is a lot bigger than anyone has ever thought. Maybe, when it comes to waging wars over religion or voting or deciding how to educate children, people will stop and think. Hopefully people will be a little more willing to say, “You know what? The story that I believe in gives me comfort, but maybe I should recognize that the world is a little bit bigger than me.”
Sort of introducing a sense of humility into the debate. Why do you think people are so easily indoctrinated by family and community when it comes to their religion?
I can speak to that as a neuroscientist, which is my day job. We are really hardwired for this stuff. Babies’ brains come into the world ready to experience religion. It is just a matter of which context you’re born into — that’s the one you will absorb. If you’re born in Afghanistan, you’re most likely to be a Muslim, and if you’re born in Iowa, you’re probably going to be a Christian. We come to the table already very hungry for this sort of thing.
Considering it is firmly anchoring the western front of the Bible belt, Texas isn’t known for being the most open-minded state when it comes to questions of religion and spirituality. How has your book been received here?
The really surprising part to me is that both atheists and religious individuals have really liked this book. Several atheist organizations have given my book glowing reviews because they feel it is consistent with their beliefs in that religion is a man-made story. Religious people have tended to like it as well because it stretches them spiritually and allows them to think about different ways that God might relate to us. One Web site even named it as [one of their] top ten spiritual books of the year and suggested that it would make for good discussion at a church book club meeting.
I read that SUM was recently adapted for the stage and that you were part of the cast. How did you enjoy that experience and how did your professional training as a neuroscientist prepared you for the stage?
Well, as a neuroscientist I have to do a lot of public speaking, so maybe that has prepared me well. The experience was amazing, though. The musician Brian Eno read the book and he loved it for whatever reason. He got in touch with me said he wanted to write all these new pieces of music for the book and perform them at the Sydney Opera House. We performed to about 1,000 people and it was an awesome experience.
To shift gears a little bit, your next book is going to be called Why I Am A Possibilian. Could you describe what a possiblian believes?
A possibilian is a new position that I am defining that is between atheism and religion in the traditional sense. Essentially, atheists assume we have it all figured out and we know all the answers and there is nothing more interesting to talk about. From having spent my life as a scientist, that seems to be a crazy position. In fact, what I’ve come to appreciate is how little we know. Ironically, they sound very familiar to the religious people who find it patently ridiculous that someone could believe in a religion other than theirs.
The idea with possibilianism is to celebrate our ignorance and explore new stories. Instead of strongly committing to a particular story, the possibilian is comfortable with holding a lot of possibilities in their head at the same time.
While they don’t agree on much, I think atheists and believers would agree that religion has contributed some positive things to society, namely, a justification for morality. If they would be interested in doing so at all, how would a possibilian justify morality while entertaining several different interpretations of the afterlife?
It’s not exclusively about the afterlife. The afterlife is just sort of the playing field I use to explore these interesting things about human nature. But really what I am interested in is, what’s going on in general? What’s going on in this big, giant cosmos of ours?
A lot of philosophers have come to different conclusions that don’t necessarily have any moral leanings to them, such as the Existential philosophers. Within that possibility space of ideas are some that have morality inherent in them and some that are morality neutral. I'm simply trying to show that there are more ways to answer life's big questions than many people would like to think.
You mentioned the Existentialists a moment ago. What philosophers do you admire?
Well, I have always really liked the Existentialists even though at this point in my life, I don’t really buy their starting point. In essence, they argue that there’s nothing out there: We’re just creatures crawling on a pebble floating through space and that’s it. You’re responsible for finding your own meaning.
I’m not sure that I share that point of view, but I really appreciate what that did for me as a younger man. It made me feel like, “Wow, there is this whole different way of looking at this.” These guys were ballsy enough to establish a completely different framework. That influenced me a lot.
Staying with what has influenced you over the years, what sort of spiritual ideas were you exposed to growing up, either by your parents or someone else?
Like every kid, I was very earnest when it came to religion. I really tried to talk with God and have him send me sign. You grow up in a world where people will tell you that’s the case and you want to believe that’s true. Then, like many teenagers, I started questioning all that. Luckily, I’ve never really had religion forced on me, though.
Lastly, you’ve been interviewed on NPR, you’ve performed at the Sydney Opera House with Brian Eno. How are you dealing with all this newfound fame and fortune?
I’m just trying to make sure I enjoy it. Traveling around and being on a book tour can be so exhausting that I have to be sure that I’m not missing the boat. The best part of the whole thing for me is the feedback I’ve gotten from people who feel inspired by the book in very different sorts of ways. Generally they feel more creative or just a little broader mentally, and that to me is the greatest thing. Because I’m not interested in spreading any particular message, the idea of just spreading creativity and open-mindedness has been a real pleasure.
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June 09, 2009
posted by Josh Haney at 09:13 AM
After working as a New York City club promoter for eight years, Houston native Brantly Martin is having a homecoming of sorts tonight at Domy Books, where he'll read a few excerpts of his debut novel, Pillage.
Martin's hilariously gritty story, In the stylistic vein of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Truman Capote, shines a satirical light on the social elite of downtown Manhattan. While protagonist Cracula is admittedly autobiographical, Martin has kept mum as to just how fictitious the rest of his characters are. Given the overwhelming debauchery on display throughout, we assume the reticence is primarily to protect the guilty.
If you've ever enjoyed Hunter S. Thompson's wrathful ramblings or the abrasive prose of Irvine Welsh, check out this performance—and this novel—from one of the most entertaining new writers we've read.
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June 05, 2009
posted by Brad Tyer at 09:27 AM
Texas prisons made the national book news yesterday in the unlikeliest of contexts. The occasion was an anti-censorship salon hosted by New York City publishing maven Jane Friedman and sponsored by the National Coalition Against Censorship. BFFs Fran Leibowotz, the chain-smoking humorist, and Toni Morrison, the self-regarding Nobel laureate, chatted about the perils of censorship by libraries, schools and retail outlets, and the wondrous power of the written word.
Especially, apparently, the wondrous power of words written by Morrison. Her gris eminence relayed an anecdote about her publisher, Knopf, receiving a letter from either an unidentified inmate in the Texas prison system or prison system officials (it's unclear in the telling). Morrison told the assembled that she'd framed said letter and hung it in her bathroom. What it said and who it was from, exactly, depends on which reporter heard Morrison paraphrase it.
According to Motoko Rich's account in the New York Times' "Paper Cuts" blog:
Morrison, looking regal and speaking in a warm, languid voice, talked about how she had proudly framed and hung in a bathroom a letter from the Texas Correctional System that said that “Song of Solomon” could not be distributed among inmates because “it might stir inmates to write.” She let that sink in for a few seconds. "I thought, 'what a powerful book.' "
Alternately, according to an unnamed AP reporter:
On Wednesday night, Morrison recalled a letter being sent to her publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, from a Texas inmate, who informed the author that "Song of Solomon" was not permitted at the prison because it might start a riot. "And I thought, `What a powerful book,' " Morrison said. "This book is so powerful."
Note, please, the consistency of Morrison's embrace of some anonymous Texas prison bureaucrat's judgment of her book's power...
Otherwise, which is it: Is the Texas Department of Criminal Justice afraid of prisoners writing, or rioting? (Btw, there's no such thing as the "Texas Correctional System".) We called TDCJ public information officer Michelle Lyons to find out.
Turns out TDCJ does keep a list, based on prisoner requests, of books approved for inmates and books banned for inmates. (Incitement to riot, Lyons confirms, is one reason a book might land on the banned list; incitement to write, not so much.)
According to Lyons, Song of Solomon was first requested by a Texas inmate in July 1999, whereupon it was approved, and has remained on the approved list ever since.
Which doesn't necessarily mean Morrison is making it up. She may indeed have a framed letter from a Texas inmate who claimed, accurately or otherwise, to have been denied access to one of her best-loved novels.
Then again, as one of the world's preeminent women of letters, it could just be that Toni Morrison is unwilling to let facts get in the way of a good story.
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June 03, 2009
posted by Brad Tyer at 10:17 AM
This morning's inbox brings us a tantalizing bit of publishing world news: Apparently punkish folk-singer Michelle Shocked, pictured, has sold her memoirs, titled Voice of Sanity, about "being raised Mormon in East Texas, being institutionalized at age 22, converting to Christianity, and more," to Harper One. No word yet on a release date.
All we know is that she better hurry up if she wants to compete in the women-raised-wrong Texas memoir sweepstakes. There's already Diane Wilson, who recently followed up An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas with the self-savioring memoir Holy Roller: Growing Up in the Church of Knock Down Drag Out; or How I Quit Loving a Blue-Eyed Jesus.
And don't forget Beaumont-bred poet Mary Karr, who started the contemporary memoir tsunami with 1995's The Liars' Club and supplemented it in 2000 with Cherry. Karr's third, Lit: A Memoir, is scheduled for publication in November. That book will apparently diverge from Wilson's losing-my-religion trajectory and Shocked's changing-my-religion recalibration—Karr has described it as detailing "my journey from blackbelt sinner and lifelong agnostic to unlikely Catholic."
Losing God, changing Gods, finding God ... It's all good. All good copy, anyhow.
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Can't let that last post stand without the late-breaking (to me) addendum that former Dallas Observer editor Julie Lyons' first book hit stores yesterday. It's an account of—what else?—her transformation from hard-nosed newspaperwoman to door-to-door Christian evangelical, with a little help from a small Dallas church.
