The Correspondence Artist by Barbara Browning

"Obviously, these kinds of questions interest me, because, as I mentioned, I occasionally dick around writing fiction. Look, I'm dicking around right now."

This book should not work. It is a series of repetitive meditations on a fading relationship that includes a one-sided email correspondence, Lacanian analysis, references to Simone Beauvoir's letters to Nelson Algren and a sestina. The narrator, Vivian, is in love with her story of almost-love and retells it with slightly different details, the rather unappealing "paramour" cloaked in four guises: an elderly writer from Israel, a pop star from Mali, a young conceptual artist from Vietnam and an aging Basque separatist. Vivian tells her stories slantwise to protect her famous-in-some-
way fuckbuddy, from what, we are not ever quite sure, but she tells it because she wants to write something.

That feeling of wanting to connect, both within the correspondence and with the reader, is what energizes Vivian's slight and circuitous story. There is also a satisfying sense of fun that carries everything along. Browning throws you out of the story at surprising moments, reminding you that it is all a story, whatever that means:

"When I met Tzipi I'd been around the block. Although she's twenty-three years older than me, I'm at the antique end of her spectrum. And I'm not dumb. Even Tzipi's acknowledged that. I went into this with my eyes wide open, and she's been honest with me every step of the way.

I told you, I have no idea why I got a little reckless with my emotions with her, when I managed to be so self-contained with the paramour."

While I read, it was irresistible to ponder which lover I could fall for. Browning knows this of course, and has Vivian think about the same thing. For me, the answer was none of them, which in turn subtly deepened my understanding of Vivian's desire.

I really enjoyed this celebration of epistolary writing. It was light, but hypnotic, and even led me to try my hand at the sestina form, along with inspiring me to write several letters and postcards. How can I help but recommend a book that made me DO something?

Meet me by the angel, or travel

30th Street Station will always be my favorite. I've looked at its soaring ceiling while waiting for my father to come home, while fleeing my brother's death, while trying to warm up or cool down on yet another journey. I am small and large, young and old in that place. In the midst of such transmigrations, I've got a lot of reading done in 30th Street.

Last time I was there, days ago, I decided to check out the station's bookstore. Though I was nicely prepared for my trip with a few issues of I Love Bad Movies and a copy of lost traveler Cookie Mueller's Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black, I figured that I'd kill some time away from the ghost smell of McDonald's past. Amid the usual magazines and Victorian porn novels, the bookstore carries Tin House, displays Two Dollar Radio and other small pub books, and boasts a decent sci fi and short story section.

Debating whether to buy a (gasp! full-price) novel, I headed up to the counter, behind which the several staff members screamed catchphrases at one another in a jovial manner and avoided eye contact. Hmm. The door looked locked. "Are you closed," I asked. "Yeah," grunted the security guard.

After all, no matter how good the surprises, it is still Philadelphia.

###

A new thing that the New Jersey Transit train has been doing is being a time machine. Before every stop the speakers emit the strangled warble of a dial-up modem before announcing that you are not as close to your destination as you thought. No superhighway, then or now.

###

It is no secret that the anachronistic nature of train travels is part of the appeal. Despite today's florescent lights we can all be an incognito heiress or a man on the run on the train from big city to bigger city. There are always people to watch. If you are lucky, layovers include not only a reasonable bathroom but also food made by a human. The newly remodeled (well, new in the timeline of government and memoir) Trenton train station has both of those things. Despite my love of old things, I am so glad that the former Trenton transit center is gone, taking all of those chicken grease, brown-lit, bad boyfriend memories with it.

Baby Geisha by Trinie Dalton

What better surprise from a trip to L.A. could there be than a Trinie Dalton reading at Family Bookstore. I already talked about that here, back when it actually happened. I recommended this book to Prickly Pete by saying that they were perfect stories for his trip to the city: short, full of vice and sweetness. Since he hasn't didn't return it until now, I'd like to believe that the rec went right.

Dalton's work crackles with desert heat with bursts of wildflower color. It is utterly surprising without cheating her characters of depth or realness. She captures what is sneaky and interesting about Southern California: bad-drug haze, almost petulant natural beauty, burnout wisdom and the fringes of society and sanity.  

"'Is that a mushroom cult?' people whispered as I fluffed up kale bundles." (Escape Mushroom Style)

Journeys and their place in personal reinvention, or perhaps, redemption, are a running theme in the collection. Whether it is to a sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica, hot for a Pulitzer (Pura Vida) or a three-dollar-a-night campsite in the Ozarks (Wet Look),these characters are trying to run towards their better selves and mostly failing.

Baby Geisha is about half stories and half monologue—The Sad Drag Monologues to be exact. I preferred the stories, especially The Perverted Hobo, Wet Look and Jackpot (II), because they are denser and more of a much-need, imagery-laden, punch to the brain, but enjoyed the rhythm of the monologues. From Small Time Spender, in reference to free enlightenment in the age of "austerity":

"The all-loving, all-embracing wise universe: the Jewel Tree Meditation is free... Enlightenment awaits us, in the form of Stevie Wonder. He's living with his hot wife in Detroit. Time to write a fan letter."

Boom Boom Boom. Loved it.

How to Get Into the Twin Palms by Karolina Waclawiak

I read this like a pelican eats a fish. Why I gulped it down so fast I'm not sure, because How to Get Into the Twin Palms is about a woman changing herself to capture a man and I usually don't care for that story. But, despite the simple plot, there is something very much not straightforward to this story. The book's first line, "It was a strange choice to decide to pass as a Russian," alludes to this and though the following sentences seem to give reasons why the main character, Anka, chooses to do just this and more, they don't provide easy answers.

There are a several things going on in this novel. Despite being framed as a way to "crawl out of [her Polish skin]" and find out, between Russians and Poles, "who was under who," Anka's desire to get into the titular Twin Palms nightclub seems less like a desire to escape a specific ethnic identity and more as a particular way to obliterate self. When it comes down to it, Anka feels like she is nowhere and nothing. The fact that her search seems like a whim, a way to pass her recent unemployment, makes the mercenary quality of her plan--find a Russian man, seduce him, gain access to the inexplicable charms of the club--distressing and, as she begins to succeed, it gets weirder. Anka is unpleasant to spend time with. She is prickly and seems fascinated by a chinzy excuse for paradise; sitting with her as she decides to ruin her life is hard only because you keep wanting something more interesting to be revealed in her desperateness. Anka is the dark side: boring without being sweet, self-destructive without being artful, strange without being intruging.

At its heart, How to Get Into the Twin Palms is the story of a breakdown. It is also a story about being 25 and unmoored, about being an immigrant, about what happens when the money runs out, about being a woman, about sex and relationships. Most potent is how the book examines modern American womanhood. Anka herself is consumed with beauty and courtship rituals so unexamined they read as ridiculous and disgusting, and she herself finds the reality of the body as something to be fought against. The character of Mary, a lusty, oversharing, and unraveling old lady who attends the bingo where Anka is occasionally employed, is a reminder that loneliness and desire aren't assuaged by age. Mary is a specter in Anka's life and Anka begins to hate her for her needs, the same needs that Anka wants to satisfy for herself. The two women's exchanges are some of the most satisfying in the book because of their unexpected weight.

I don't know if it is because I just got back from another quasi-disturbing trip to LA, but the importance of the LA setting crept up on me only after this visit. Anka is always scraping at her skin, dyeing her hair and doing the laundry with stinging stinky chemicals, with dinged faith that change will happen this time."The box said Spicy Ginger... I put on a shower cap and caught myself i the mirror.  I looked ridiculous, but this was it. I knew this was what I finally needed. I would look ravishing fresh and new." Also to this point is the exchange between Anka and a regular-guy-type fireman who is in LA to fight wildfires:

"What's your problem," he asked.
I wasn't sure how to answer.
"I don't know what's yours?" I said.
This place. This place doesn't make sense to me."
"It's alright. Takes some getting used to." I let pool water into my mouth and pushed it out again, for effect. "There are places you should see."

Even after some time, I can't quite pin down my feelings about How to Get Into the Twin Palms. As usual, Two Dollar Radio's production is beautiful. Examining my reactions to Anka and her world gave me a lot to think about and sometimes that is enough.

Waclawiak will be in conversation with Vanessa Veselka(author of my favorite book from last year, Zazen)  and Sarah Mcrary on October 11th @ 7pm @ Melville House.

Trinie Dalton Book Launch Party @ Family Bookstore

I walked to the one place in Los Angeles I knew I had to see: Family Bookstore. It's a small place on Fairfax with a curated collection of art books, magazines, fiction and comics. But I was there to see Trinie Dalton read from her new Two Dollar Radio book, Baby Geisha. I loved Wide-Eyed and much of Sweet Tomb and couldn't wait for more sticky stories to warm my winter.

The start of the reading was sort of weird because we were all huddled in the dark listening to the beginnings of a few of the stories in the first part of the book. Because Dalton's characterization is a big part of what I like about her work, it was strange to hear her luscious stories being filtered through her calm speaking voice, which made each piece seem similar to the one before it. The reason we were in the dark was for the second part of the reading:  a slideshow of plant images that went along with readings from some in-progress stuff she is working on. I really enjoyed this part of the reading. It was a interesting look into process--she showed lists of plants and images of those plants piled up into a collage as she read stories inspired by them.  I found the combination of the images and reading hypnotic. Even though I felt strange saying it to her face, and even though I called it "Burgertime," it was great to be able to tell her how much 'Animal Story' meant to me.

Check her out at Spoonbill & Sugartown in Brooklyn on March 11th @ 7pm.

*******************

Family Bookstore, inside:

 Family Bookstore, outside mural by Ron Regé:

Click, read, buy

1) The Rumpus has been kicking it out 70s-Heart-style. So many of their offerings help me think better. Here are a few of my recent favorites:
The Throwaways by Melissa Chadburn
When Barbara Jean Was Missing by Rebecca K. OConnor
Night Shifts by Elissa Wald
Transformation and Transcendence: The Power of Female Friendship by Emily Rapp

2) In other excellent news, Roxane Gay, one of my favorite essayists, is now their essay editor. This can only mean good things.

3) Here are some books that I am looking forward to reading:
At the Mouth of the River of Bees by Kij Johnson--I've heard many of these stories on various science fiction podcasts and I hope that they will be as good on paper.
Baby Geisha by Trinie Dalton--I really enjoyed Wide Eyed in 2010.
Three Messages and a Warning Eduardo Jiménez Mayo and Chris. N. Brown, editors--Short stories from authors I've not heard about before, published by Small Beer Press. Sign me up.
Nurse Nurse by Katie Skelly--Being the jerko that I occasionally am, I never picked up Nurse Nurse while it was in minis. Now we can get the book from Sparkplug Books and support Skelly and a great press.
The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford--NYRB rarely lets me down. Plus an afterword by Kathryn Davis, what could be better?

4) Dang, Red Lemonade has republished Lynne Tillman's Haunted Houses? I loved that book, especially when the characters kept going to the movies. If you aren't going to get it from the library check it out in this way with one caveat--if you buy the print version, expect the cover to be wimpy. Seriously, the pages of Zazen were creamy and strong, but the cover curled like dead leaf in the autumn of everyday toting. Come on with that.

5) I am working on two things right now that I am excited about. This is unusual and probably means that both are terrible writing. Still, finishing things is the main thing for right now.

What is your thing for right now?