Back in college, someone gave me a book "Experiments with Life and Deaf" which, while I cringe at the category, does fall into something like "Magical Realism." This is the second book of the Loop Trilogy, "Loop's Progress", "Experiments with Life and Deaf", and "Loop's End". The characters are funny, and while larger-than-life, they are immediately identifiable and mostly sympathetic characters. Searching around, I see some old reviews using words like "zany"- which also makes me cringe- and talk about the vernacular style, which is something I personally enjoyed about it. The trilogy is set in industrial Erie, Pennsylvania, the characters are mostly working-class. Other than the person who gave me my first copy, and people I've given the books to, I don't think I've ever met anyone else familiar with his writing, which is fan.fucking.tastic, really.
The only other book I've read is "Elena of the Stars". Vastly different in tone and style, it has all the trappings of a cookie-cutter young adult novel; a young girl, visiting her grandfather in Wyoming, a horse. But with a kind of nasty, violent turn in the middle. While the narrative followed certain conventions- the girl, the horse, the grandpa, grand scenery, burgeoning adulthood and a little nascent sexuality thrown in- to me it still seemed a strong and unique story. I would've loved this shit when I was a kid, but I was a sucker for horse books anyway(I still remember the Dewey number from my grade-school library, 636.1).
His memoir, "Never Let me Go", is about the development of his relationship and subsequent abuse by a coach and mentor. It sounds really interesting but so freaking disturbing. I've just ordered "Jack Kerouac's Avatar Angel" , where Kerouac comes back from the dead and revisits people and places from his past. And I don't even like Kerouac that much. I'll probably end up getting the memoir, when I'm feeling brave. Has anyone else read any of these? |
