Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader edited by Brian Carpenter and Tom Franklin

This anthology collects short stories, excerpts of novels, and excerpts of autobiographical writing from what the editors describe as the rough south or grit lit genre. Indeed, the anthology shines in its generic formulation: the introduction and headnotes to each story help clarify what rough south means. In this case, it's contemporary (so Faulkner and O'Connor aren't here), it tends to be white and poor and created by outrageous autobiographical stories instead of academic training (although some of the later writers have participated in various MFA programs and other forms of higher education--and this experience raises ambivalent feelings in them), and it often features a kind of toughness or grit. I enjoyed the stories; some were better than others, but it was a fairly engaging collection all in all. Harry Crews's and Dorothy Allison's writings stand out as gems.

Vernon God Little by D.B.C. Pierre

This book is a send-up of US media culture. In the wake of a school shooting, the shooter's best friend--and the book's narrator and protagonist--is suspected of being involved with the plot. As the aftermath unfolds, however, we see the incompetent police, news media, and legal system, unfairly target Vernon Little. Although many descriptions of the book describe it as humorous, I was more horrified than amused. Winner of the 2003 Booker Prize.

Let the Dead Bury Their Dead by Randall Kenan

This collection of short stories, mostly set in the fictional neighborhood of Tims Creek, North Carolina, delights with its beauty, humor, and meta-fictional commentary. The stories feature a wide range of protagonists, and gradually set out a depiction of a community with memorable characters. I particularly loved "Clarence and the Dead (and What do they tell you, Clarene? and The Dead Speak to Clarence)," "Things of This World ; or, Angels Unawares," and "Let the Dead Bury Their Dead; Being the Annotated Oral History of the Former Maroon Society called Snatchit and then Tearshirt and later the Town of Tims Creek, North Carolina [circa 1854-1985]." The stories show the magic inherent in everyday life and satirize academic attempts to interpret or explain the community.

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

This book deals with the challenges of living in a postmodern, movie-going world, where we're confronted with simulacra (for Binx Bolling, the protagonist, surroundings are certified by the movies he sees, instead of the other way around), where long-held truths and narratives of historical progress are meaningless, replaced by the experience of repetition--seeing the same thing after a period of time has passed, and where our identities are constructed by mass culture (in Binx's terminology: rotation). There's no easy answer here, as Binx enters on a search to transcend the everydayness (a search prompted by his wartime experiences). But the book does suggest that the South has something to teach the nation: while the 1960s may have brought this cultural dissatisfaction to the forefront, Southerners have seen these problems before: they were defeated in the Civil War--and even more importantly--certain Southern ideas about racial hierarchy and white supremacy had already been exposed as false: so white Southerners have already had to face the loss of a sense of absolute truth. A really wonderful book.

Snow White by Donald Barthelme

I was intrigued by the playfulness of the language in
this book. Certain words are regularly twisted (bath to baff, housewife to horsewife). Of course, the fairy tale itself is a strange amalgamation of Snow White (in the Grimm and Disney versions) and Rapunzel. There are hints (at least to my mind) of the story of Cyrano de Bergerac as well. In this muddle of cultural references there's a lot going on with both gender politics and waste. Definitely one of those books you can't attempt to fully understand in whole: the pieces don't fit together nicely into a neat puzzle.

The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

This book, which is mainly set at the Peoria, Illinois, IRS office, reflects on attention, boredom, and how we deal with information. There's a lot on IRS tax codes and procedures, interspersed with personal sections about characters who have obsessive personalities (the character who worries himself into a sweat about sweating in public, the nice guy who puts others first and whom everyone consequentially hates). The book was completed (insofar as it has a finished form) after Wallace's death by his editor--the editor arranged the existing sections in the best possible order in his opinion--but it is not complete in any other sense of the word. Wallace's prose is crisp and evocative, and the book makes an enjoyable read.

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

I enjoyed this book which meandered loosely around the relationship between a music producer, Bennie Salazar, and his assistant Sasha. The book does not have a linear chronology, so the reader has to work at piecing together the stories (which none of the characters ever fully know either). One of the chapters is in the form of Powerpoint slides, a move which works, but may feel dated in ten years. The prose was beautiful, and the story was intriguing. Egan has Proustian ambitions (the epigram is from In Search of Lost Time), and she does a beautiful job reflecting on how we are changed by the passage of time.

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

This book does an excellent job juggling several different plots at the same time. First, there's Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, the two lone survivors of a terrorist hijacking of a plane over London, who are transformed into an angel and a devil during their fall back to earth. Then there are the Satanic Verses themselves--Mahound, the prophet, struggles with the decision of whether to acknowledge the goddesses Allat, Uzza, and Manat. Ayesha's pilgrimage on foot to Mecca was also striking. The book is also very well embedded in a world literary scene: references to other works abound. I look forward to re-reading this book, as it is the kind of book that richly repays the attention put into it. Booker shortlisted, 1988

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

This book is epic, on the scale of something like Moby Dick or War and Peace or Ulysses. Various sub-plots, which involve the Ennet Drug Recovery House and the Enfield Tennis Academy (whose founder, James O. Incandenza, but known to his family as Himself, committed suicide by sticking his head in a microwave oven, after completing an entertainment known as Infinite Jest so compelling that it causes viewers to stop thinking about anything else while they view it), proliferate throughout the book. The version of the near future presented in the book is fun to entangle, bit by bit, so I'll avoid saying too much about the plot. I think it is fair to say that the novel presses on the conjunction of entertainment, pleasure, and communication, and examines how we connect with those around us. It's a bit of a challenge to get all the way through, but it repays the effort put into it.

C by Tom McCarthy

This book is a strange and amazing tour-de-force. It's the story of Serge Carrefax, who is born in his caul in 1898, grows up in a school for deaf children (although he's not deaf himself), fights in World War I, and then goes to Egypt to work on an imperial telegraph project. The story is not really driven by plot, and Serge is not a well-rounded character. But it's intensely playful, has a sort of dark humor, and I found the book a quite enjoyable read.

People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia

This book tells the story of a group of characters, led by Fernando de la Fe whose wife's desertion leads him to decide to go to war against the author, known to the characters as Saturn, who is himself in the throes of grief after being deserted by a woman. The book uses post-modern and post-colonial methods to question everything from religion to immigration to the authority of authors. With all sorts of techniques and innovations that put me in mind of Tristram Shandy (black spaces, words excised from the text, multiple columns), the book tells its story by words and by form. I will certainly return to this playful and beautiful text.

I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé

In this book Tituba tells her own story, which deconstructs the book's title--Salem's only a part of the tale, and not the most important part in Tituba's own mind. The story has a sly sense of humor--it introduces anachronistic concepts like feminism and racism and even brings Hester Prynne to a Salem Jail cell at the same time as Tituba. Although I found the book's tone disconcerting at first, I grew to like it more and more as I thought about it. It's definitely a book you have to accept on its own terms.