The Book Shopper

Tayari Jones: Review & Preview

Even though Tayari Jones' current promotional tour (which included six different appearances in Atlanta!) is focused on her latest book Silver Sparrow, I just finished reading her first novel, Leaving Atlanta, published in 2002.

I have been impressed with Jones essays (see earlier posting), but I will admit I was slow picking up this book. The thought of reading about the 1979 Atlanta child murders, a two year time period where over 20 African-American children were murdered, is not an inviting subject matter, but I now realize that although the deaths and the fears of abduction cast a shadow, the book is as much about the lives and expectations of three particular fifth grade schoolmates: Tasha Baxter, Rodney Green, and Octavia Harrison.

This book does what all good serious fiction does, it takes you into the world of these middle-school kids who, in addition to the tense atmosphere created by the abductions, also struggle with the usual awkwardness of puberty, classroom rivalries, and relationships with mothers and fathers (or absent fathers). Jones presents the different strata of the black working class – where people may be defined by whether they live in the projects or near them, can afford good clothes or not, or have brown skin pr “black, black as night” skin. (One student hangs the nickname “Watusi” on Octavia because she resembles a black African with unruly hair that “stuck out around her face like rays of the sun in a children's drawing.”) The book is divided into three sections following each child, but Jones melds these separate lives with skill. Jones' crafted prose is simple and strong and once a while she poleaxes you with a line that crushes then numbs you. (“You lose your child not like you lose your watch. You lose your child like you lose your sight. Lose your mind,” says one of the mothers.)

 

Atlanta Area Book Events Calendar – August 2011

  Here's a sampler of book related events for the month of August. A leaner calendar than usual, because of the upcoming Decatur Book Festival, I suspect. Think of it as a collection of links of different venues, so you can plan your month ahead.

Wednesday, August 3 Cameron McWhirter author of Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America. Lecture and book signing. Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater.

Saturday, August 6. Andisheh Nouraee author of Americapedia. Talk and signing. (In conjunction with A Cappella Books, details here) Eddie's Attic, Decatur.

Saturday, August 6. Charles Salter author of The Georgia Rambler. Eagle Eye Book Shop, Decatur.

Saturday, August 6. Martha Hawkins author of Finding Martha's Place: My Journey Through Sin, Salvation, and Lots of Soul Food. Auburn Avenue Research Library.

Tuesday, August 16. J.M. Redmann editor of the anthology Women of the Mean Streets: Lesbian Noir. Charis Books and More.

Wednesday, August 17. Beers for Books. (a kind of get S-faced for Literacy). A benefit for the Atlanta Chapter of Room to Read. The Tap, 1180 Peachtree. Details here.

Wednesday, August 17. Lisa Unger author of Darkness, My Old Friend at the Decatur Public Library.  See the Georgia Center for the Book events page.

Thursday, August 18. Johnny Diaz author Take the Lead. Outwrite Bookstore and Coffeehouse.

September 2 to 4, Decatur Book Festival. Details here.

Slaughterbus Five

Several observations that may interest:

Slaughterbus 5?

I'm always been intrigued in how books are sold and marketed and as proof, I became criminally obsessed trying to take a photo of the MARTA bus advertisement promoting Atlantan Karin Slaughter's latest bestseller Fallen. (See photographers' note below). As you can see, bus billboards are not limited just to accident lawyers, collision repair specialists, carbonated beverages, cell phones and solicitations to find candidates for a schizophrenia drug trials. Surprisingly, there is even competition for the crime fiction entertainment dollar as Slaughter must compete with this bus billboard of the TNT TV series Rizzoli & Isles, which is based on the crime novels of Tess Gerritson.

I saw one bus that had the Rizzoli & Isles ad on one side and an ad for the Slaughter book on the other.

Thomas Mullen

Decatur writer Thomas Mullen has been firing up his blog lately and has posted two thoughtful pieces about novel writing that are worth checking out. Mullen's third book, The Revisionists is due out in September and he will be at the Decatur Book Festival. (See link at the left for details about the festival.)

Independent Book Stores

Last week, I had coffee with Mark Burell, the Museum Bookshop Manager at the Carlos Museum on Emory's campus. During our conversation he directed me to a blog called “A Rep Reading” penned by publisher representative Teresa Rolfe Kravin. Check out her timely posting about Atlanta book stores.

Also note on the upper left corner that I have added sponsored links from two local bookstores as a way to eventually bring more content to this blog. More about this soon.

Photographers note: Apologies for the poorly constructed photos. After about wrecking my car in a GASCOYNE-like high speed chase on North Druid Hills to position myself for a better photo, I decided to settle for this cramped shot at the Decatur MARTA station just before the batteries on my camera expired.

Cavett (circa 1974): A Review

I first read about the Dick Cavett biography in cultural historian Clive James' Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts (2007). James refers to Cavett as “One of the best books about show business ever published, there is nothing quite like it...” Thus primed, I picked up a used hardback copy of Cavett's 1974 book while at Atlanta Vintage Books a few months back. (The book jacket was tattered but the book itself was in fine shape.)

The Cavett autobiography, written by Dick Cavett and Christopher Porterfield, utilizes an interview format instead of a narrative one. Cavett talks about his boyhood in Nebraska and his college years at Yale, (but you can skip that). If you do read it, pick up the narrative at Chapter 5 (page 127) when Cavett is struggling as an actor and writer in New York. Cavett got his start writing jokes with for Jack Parr and was a writer for Johnny Carson as well before getting his own talk show in 1968. Cavett explains the difference between Parr and Carson, the twin pillars of late-night television for over thirty years.

Atlanta Area Book Events – July 2011

Here's a sampler of book related events during the month of July. Think of it as a collection of links of different venues, so you can plan your month ahead. The dollar sign designation ($$) indicates some kind of admission fee is charged.

Wednesday, July 6. Ann Brashares. Sisterhood Everlasting. Margaret Mitchell House.($$)

Friday, July 8. Aaronette White, Mary Anne Adams, Pearl Cleage, Dorothy M., Vanessa Jackson share from their anthology African Americans Doing Feminism. Charis Books and More.

Monday, July 11. Randy Schmidt Author of Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter. A Cappella Books' Highland Book Bash ($$). Includes a Karen Carpenter Tribute Band.

Tuesday, July 12. Wendy Venet lectures on Sam Richards' Civil War Diary: A Chronicle of the Atlanta Home Front. Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater.

Sunday, July 17. Baseball authors Alan Gratz, Robert Weintraub, Hal Jacobs, and Dave Cohen. Baseball book signing event at Coolray Field in Lawrenceville to benefit the Gwinnett County Friends of the Library.

Hunter S. Thompson on Hemingway's Death

Are you obsessed with the 50th anniversary of the death of Ernest Hemingway? If so, check out Hunter S. Thompson's 1964 essay, "What Lured Hemingway to Ketchum?" A perfect rational Thompson (remember this is 1964) visits the Idaho town where Hemingway killed himself with a shotgun on July 2, 1961. It became a more interesting read in light of Thompson's own suicide by gunshot at his Colorado home in February, 2005.

In the Ketchum story, Thompson prophetically says that writers who lose their power of conviction lose the willingness to create art out of chaos.

You can find the essay in the Thompson collection, The Great Shark Hunt (1979) Note the discount sticker that graces the cover -- a kind of book shopper's book plate.

 

 

Update 2021 - Why Thompson Still  Matters

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The August 14, 2021 issue of The Economist did a retrospective look at Thompson's best known book. Here's an excerpt:

Thompson claim that "gonzo" journalism--a person, scabrous, avowedly subjective style which he pioneered—was inspired by William Faulkner's view that "the best fiction is far more true than any kind of journalism". Fifty years after its publication, and despite its many distortions, Fear and Loathing retains its own twisted kind of truth.