This Book Will Change Your Life - Last Call in the City of Bridges by the Salvatore Pane.

In our heart of hearts we would have some cogent, yet, pithy, 140 character commentary on Last Call in the City of Bridges by the Sal Pane, that would somehow channel Patrick Ewing's stoic awesomeness, John Starks dogged, one-balled fearlessness, or possibly Kanye West's massive sense of self and all things Kanye. But maybe that wouldn't do the Sal Pane justice? We could also reflect on other recent coming of age debut novels by young male writers that struck us as saying something meaningful in a space filled with so much clutter that actually doing so makes the work meaningful in and of itself. And here, The Slide by Kyle Beachy or Sophomoric Philosophy by Victor David Giron come to mind. We could reference these things. Seeking to infuse this riff with some kind of pop culture shorthand, and we probably already have based on the mere fact that we have mentioned them at all. So we could do all that, and yes, have done so, but let's not totally do so. Instead let's focus on something else. Or something's else. First, the writing itself, because in the Last Call, the writing is tight. Not tight like the shorts Larry Bird wore in his heyday. It's not about restriction, or the inability to breathe, because Last Call breaths. The wordplay and dialogue is alive and dynamic. It's that the craftmanship itself is tight. Sal Pane knows how to construct story, and we think the importance of this sometimes gets lost until you see it right in front of you, pulsating and beckoning. Second, the debut novel can be a trap, there will be sex, drinking, and search. There will also be tragedy, friends die, maybe siblings, or both, and then there are the work woes and relationships and how anyone anywhere can possibly communicate, much less connect with anyone anywhere. And so the question becomes, how does the author do this differently and new? It's about freshness, and new angles, and so it is with Last Call, which is about sex, drinking, death, and alienation as it has to be, but spun through a generation that has grown-up in the internet. Not as guests or travelers like those who came before them, but in it. Everything saturated with social media. Every conversation filtered through how it will ultimately translate to Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. And everyone wondering whether they should be trying to escape something they are so totally immersed in when they don't quite know what alternatives exist because they've never truly been exposed to them. Sal Pane has brought us this generation laid bare, with tightness, humor, and pathos. Will it change your life? We think so. It probably already has.

Kyle Beachy rocks the CCLaP.

There is a quite fine podcast at CCLaP with TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and local author Kyle Beachy of The Slide fame that we think you just may want to check out. Why do we think so? Just because.

The Slide by Kyle Beachy.

Okay, so at first we're thinking coming-of-age tale, and typical in some ways, drugs, loss, sex, fractured families, and on and on, but good, the Kyle Beachy can definitely write, and then we're thinking, nice, it's also a celebration of St. Louis and the mid-west, and we like that, its different, and again, the Beachy can you know, write, but then like 200 pages in, its something all together different, a story suddenly filled with twists and turns, chaos, violence, and goodness; a story we couldn't put down because we had to know what came next. And that's good stuff. And that's why we read. Nice work dude.

A quasi-AWP round-up, massive shout-outs and the new edition of this Podcast Will Change Your Life - No Screendoors. Nice, right? Totally.

AWP has been going for days and we barely scratched the surface in terms of events and networking. We did make two stops though and had much fun that we want to report on. First off, we hit the Orange Alert reading at the Book Cellar on Wednesday night and while there were many great writers both reading and hanging-out at the event we want to especially highlight long-time TBWCYL, Inc. favorites Jason Jordan, who read a killer piece of epistolary prose and S. Craig Renfroe, who we have not only published in This Zine Will Change Your Life, but who stars in the new and quite rocking edition of This Podcast Will Change Your Life - No Screen Doors; recent favorite, the awesomely dashing and black-clad John Domini; and new found kick-ass favorites Barry Graham of Dogzplot who read from his new slamming book The National Virginity Pledge and Peter Schwartz he of the wonderful poetry and singing voice. And last night we hit the Featherproof after-party blow-out and again, while there was much literary and musical love to be found we do want to highlight Amelia Gray of the new Featherproof flash-fiction collection AM/PM, quite funny and awesome; local playwright Chris Bower who is nothing less than spell-binding every time we see him; once and future rockstar Kyle Beachy of the terribly buzz-worthy new book The Slide, which we will be sure to report back on as soon as we read it, which will be soon, for sure; and last but not least, singer and too cool hip hop dude Serengeti, who ripped it up. Many thanks sir, we were floored. As we were all-week. Long live AWP.