Vacation. Read. More read. Word. Many. We were off. Off of work. Off of the grid. Just off. There were a number of books we were reading as we left and now they are read. It's always tough to know if authors are up to what you feel like they're up to in their work, especially as you read a number of books at one time, and try to tease through your own biases, filters, and projections, tangling and unpacking your own stuff. This is probably even more the case as you wander from beach to porch to beach again, thinking and reading and thinking and unencumbered by office stuff and web distractions. Which leads to and leaves us with Freight by Mel Bosworth, Nothing or Next to Nothing by Barry Graham and Harry Potter, yes that Harry Potter, and The Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling.
We suppose that on the face of it these books may or may not seem to have much in common, and yet despite the various differences a foot, that's what it felt like at week's end. Start with Freight, a novel that reflects Bosworth's ongoing search for answers, completeness and love, and yes as always the Bosworth is love. The Bosworth is also about movement though, and Freight is about movement, and about trying to move forward by unpacking, and understanding, the past, the good, bad, the violent, and naked, all of it. There is always an undercurrent of pain and trauma in his process, coping, usually poorly, and the desire to resolve any and all of it, so the protagonist can somehow be something and somewhere he is not yet, whole, happy, healthy and intertwined with some girl if not the larger world itself. Nothing or Next to Nothing also continues Graham's efforts to capture characters who are searching for something as well, usually a way out of things that are ugly and contorted, though unlike Bosworth's characters, nothing good ever awaits them, their pasts too traumatic, too violent and messed-up, the poverty too grinding, and in Nothing or Next to Nothing as the character pukes, smokes and sexes his way forward, he is always moving as well, though we know the motion will end badly with the same certainty that we know Bosworth's will not, still incomplete as Bosworth's characters' lives may be. We would add, that it didn't escape our attention that as we chilled on the beach in South Haven, Michigan, the people Graham channels and writes about were somewhere close by, getting high, working in Taco Bell and mostly ignored, by most everyone, ourselves included. Finally, for the moment, The Sorcerer's Stone, such a pleasant surprise in all the ways it captures a character at the start of his life, trauma lurking in the past and present, secrets still to be uncovered, and violence long established, but hopeful, the protagonist more courageous than anticipated, and also moving forward, always, a whole life ahead of him, and the center of a book we would have absolutely absorbed via literary osmosis when were the age of our older son, nine, if you are interested, and who is the only reason, though a most appreciated one, that we are even reading it in the first place.
And in conclusion, if you will then, a coda of sorts. Books. Read. Words. And stories, stories about movement and possibility, or lack there of. But also stories that in many ways coalesce around relationships, those lost in Bosworth's work, though maybe, just maybe with some understanding, showing a path forward; relationships twisted and dirtied in Graham's work, hopeless, though endlessly present; and with Rowling, relationships still forming and firming, but real and true and present as something great begins. Movement. Violence. Trauma. Relationships. Word.
Barry Graham, Ben Tanzer, Scott McClanahan and Angel Babies
Ray Charbonneau, Ben Tanzer and Timothy Gager
Laura Cherry and William Walsh
Taylor Books - Charleston, WV
Harold Ray
Jay Hill and Ben Tanzer
Work. Travel. Read. More read. There you go. And there is reading, a lot, but not much travel recently, and no time to finish things when other things keep coming in and coming up, but then there are airplanes, and hotel bars, shuttles, and terminals, and there is read, and we are in West Virginia, and tomorrow night we will be Nerves of Steel with the Knabb and the Graham, and the McClanahan, and here in his home state, and so Stories V! had to be read, was read, and you know we love the Stories and Stories II, and if the former is comprised of McClanahanian near fables of a world we rarely visit or see on paper, and the latter more fable-like with its touch of mysticism and spirituality, albeit still McClanahanesque, Stories V! is yet something else, or not something else, but it is more personal on the one hand, a Scott that is more selfish, yet wanting and full of love. Or is it that we just know Scott better? Maybe? The Scott of these stories seems weirder though, which we like, because Scott does seem weirder than the guy we see reading or listen to on podcasts, and this weirdness is nice and humanizing, but again is this our own projection, or some need of some kind? Yes, maybe, sure, but then more than weird, these pieces feel like they are ready to be performed. And we know somewhere we read Scott talking about writing stories not for the sake of writing per se, but for the chance to perform, and that's how many of them feel, which yes, may be more projection. And so, why all this, this stream of consciousness, this riff and blurbage, because with Scott the question isn't whether the work is good, it is, always, or even maybe whether he's one of our best short story writers, he is, but making sense of what he does, story after story, as they blend together into one long narrative about a guy named Scott who we now think we know, and we might, because we know someone named Scott, and we know his stories, the ones he has shared anyway, and it's good, all of it, and it changes lives, ours, yours, his. Maybe. We think. 
Excited for Nothing or Next to Nothing by TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Barry Graham we are. And when we see a rocking review of it by another TBWCYL, Inc. favorite, in this case the Lavinia Ludlow, even more excitement there is. Loads of excitement in fact. Waves. And buckets. Check it."Barry’s stories tend to read like bizzaro Twain or Steinbeck, but they seem believable because of his talent to write in grotesque detail. Some of his scenes made me shiver and crave a scalding hot bath with many bars of soap, maybe, to just wash out my eyes. But as vulgar as everything was, I think there’s a closet romantic lurking inside Graham’s rough-around-the-edges-tough-guy façade and it definitely bubbles up from the caverns of his subconscious and emerges in his writing."
We have been terrifically geeked to check out long time TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee Barry Graham's soon to be released novella Nothing or Next to Nothing by the stellar Main Street Rag and are now geeked squared after reading this quite fine early review from the Pank. So, please do take a look, please pre-order and please be prepared to have any and all of this change your life, because we think it will, a lot, like now even.
There are a number of books we are looking forward to reading these days, Volt by Alan Heathcock, Daddy's by Lindsay Hunter and The Bee Loud Glade by Steve Himmer, among many, but there are few books we are as excited about as alt.punk by the quite stellar Bay area rocker and author Lavinia Ludlow, who happens to have just been interviewed at Dogzplot by another author who has a book coming out we are also much excited about, Barry Graham and Nothing or Next to Nothing. Nice how that all comes together, yes? Yes.
As excited as we may be about My Father's House coming out from Main Street Rag later this year, and quite excited we are, we are equally excited about two other joints coming out as well, Nothing or Next to Nothing by long-time TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee Barry Graham and The Mimic's Own Voice by new BFF Tom Williams. We think you could be excited too, we also think that you could take this excitement, channel it, and maybe, just maybe pre-order your copies now as we have done. We can tell you that it will feel quite good. We can also tell you that it just might change your life.
As previously noted here, the Karen Lillis asked us for three holiday small press recommendations and asked that we limit these books to releases from the last two years.
We stuck to releases from the last two years, but we did not stick to just three, we should have, and could have, but we did not and are happy to report that we were not admonished for doing so, which is always nice.
For a more detailed commentary on our part please do hit the Karen the Small Press Librarian post containing our recommendations, but for those of you who just cannot wait, here's our list, with apologies to many, many others.
