Alex Shakespeare’s review of Gravesend in the Bob Lewis memorial issue of North Dakota Quarterly. This is my favorite thing anyone’s written about the book. Thanks so much, Alex. And I’m really honored that it’s in an issue paying tribute to Mr. Lewis. (Sorry if this is a clunky way to share it – hope it’s not too tough to read).
An incredible oral history of Jason Molina’s masterpiece, The Magnolia Electric Co. My favorite record ever. If you haven’t heard it, please go buy it right now. Here’s my Rumpus essay on the album from right after Molina passed away.
Other big Molina news: Didn’t It Rain is being reissued later this year. I was twenty-three, living in Austin, when I found it at 33 Degrees. It was my first Molina, and it changed things for me. I’d never heard an album that sounded so much like the way I felt. Can’t wait for this.
Other stuff:
If you’re into e-books and against Amazon, you can now get Gravesend and other Broken River titles here.
My So-Called Life first aired twenty years ago this week. I was fifteen, a week away from being sixteen. I watched that first episode and never missed one the whole run. Taped them on VHS without commercials. I had Claire Danes’s picture up in my locker all junior year. One time my friend told me he was taking me to a party in the city and that she’d be there. I was heartbroken when it turned out to be bullshit. I still cry when I hear that goddamn Buffalo Tom song. I still have Sonnet 130 memorized. This is a good essay revisiting the show.
The entirety of the The Basement Tapes is being released soon.
David Lynch does the Ice Bucket thing. Genius.
Here’s an essay I published in Trop back in February about Yusuf Hawkins, who was killed 25 years ago this past Saturday. All this time and the same shit keeps happening over and over in one form or another.
Matthew Revert’s brilliant cover art for my new book, a collection of eight crime stories, coming later this year from Broken River.
Well, I’m almost a full week behind on this. My friend Abigail Greenbaum invited to take part in this writing process blog tour (she billed it as a literary internet chain letter, which I like). Our good friend Anya Groner did it the week before. They’re two of my favorite writers and they responded to these questions with their typical genius. Here I am, late, fucking the whole show up. After my answers, I’ll pass the baton to two other writers I greatly admire.
1) What are you working on?
I just finished a draft of my second novel. I’ve spent the last several months pretty immersed in it. I finished it yesterday, so I need some distance from it before I can really talk about it in more detail. It’s out with three of my most trusted readers right now, so I’ll know if it’s worth anything soon.
2) How does your work differ from others’ work in the same genre?
It’s sadder.
3) Why do you write what you do?
Everything’s shaped by where I’m from and my family and the stuff I read and watch and listen to. I was lucky enough to find James Ellroy, Jim Thompson, and Elmore Leonard really young. I watched a ton of movies as a kid, too. I was never censored. I got obsessed with David Lynch when I was about thirteen and that changed the way I see things.
4) How does your writing process work?
I write whenever the fuck I can, to be honest. I need a lot of coffee. When I’m working on a novel, I’m drinking a lot of espresso. Maybe two or three pots a day. Short stories are different. They come when they come. I don’t seem to need coffee with them. I’m influenced by everything I’m reading and listening to and watching. I need to take long walks. I have good ideas when I’m out walking. I’ll write in a notebook if I have one with me; otherwise, I’ll write in my phone. When I’m working on a novel, I’m pretty happy if I get a page or two a day. I like it when I’m hitting solid singles. I work best in the mornings, but it all depends on my job and my family and commitments. I seem to work better the busier I am. Give me two hours in the morning before work and I’ll get more done than if I have all day to sit at my desk. I don’t really have an office. I have a desk in our bedroom. My computer’s on a desk with all my son’s toys. I like to work in coffee shops. I like noise.
Next up:
Lori Jakiela, who wrote one of my favorite books from last year, a memoir called The Bridge to Take When Things Get Serious.
And my old friend Irene McGarrity. We went to college and grad school together, and I’ve always loved her stories.
Tyler Keith’s new solo record peels off the line like that primer grey ’55 Chevy from Two Lane Blacktop. It’s gritty and raw and muscled up, punk country noir at its goddamn best. Preorder/support here.
Oxford pals: Tyler Keith and the Apostles play tonight at Proud Larry’s with NERVS opening. Come on out. Here’s the Facebook event page.
And here’s Tyler’s Outsiders song, which also appears on The End of All Music’s great Record Store Day cassette comp.
“A flash. A mere blink of an eye. The paroxysms of a hummingbird’s dying heart. That is all that we have.”
I did a Dancing With Myself interview for Nigel Bird’s Sea Minor blog. Thanks, Nigel!
Really excited to find this great review of Gravesend at The Big Click by Nick Mamatas. Somehow missed it when it posted back in May. My favorite line: “The gunplay is an afterthought; what a more lurid novel would make a climax, Boyle passes over in a sentence, because the main character in this novel isn’t Ray Boy or Conway, but working-class immigrant Brooklyn itself.” Thanks, Nick!
I also love this review of Lazy Fascist Review #1 (which features a story of mine called “In the Neighborhood”) by Brian A. Ellis. “Bathroom reading for smart weirdos,” that’s fucking great.
As a baseball-obsessed kid growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, Tony Gwynn represented steadiness. You knew you were watching the best, a genius hitter. I grew up in Brooklyn, so my life was all Yanks and Mets, but I watched Gwynn every chance I got and searched for his name daily in the box scores. I loved him and I always prayed for his card when I bought a pack of Topps or Donruss. You could see that it wasn’t just that he was great at the game — he was always studying, always working, always getting better. He hit .444 with the bases loaded in his career. He had a lifetime .415 average against Greg Maddux, and Maddux never struck him out. Goddamn. It was more than that though. You could just tell that he was a beautiful guy, a nice guy, a fan first. The Olbermann piece below confirms that — it had me in tears. RIP Tony Gwynn.
“What you hoped Tony Gwynn was like, he was like.” Keith Olbermann remembers Tony Gwynn:
Another good piece:
“He played joyful baseball that transcended time and space. It seemed uncomplicated: he always hit, he always smiled, he never had a bad season. When baseball disappointed him by blocking his run at .400 in 1994—he was hitting .394 when the player’s strike began in August—Gwynn simply came back the next year and hit .368. He would have hit in the 1950s and he would have hit in the 1930s; he would have hit under water or on the moon. There was something automatic about a Tony Gwynn line drive. He was so consistently good that you almost forgot to appreciate it.” –Eric Nusbaum in Vice Sports
Megan Abbott’s The Fever and Lisa Howorth’s Flying Shoes are out today! Go get these incredible books now.
Here’s a profile of Lisa by the NY Times.
And there’s a Flying Shoes release party at the Powerhouse in Oxford tonight at 6.
Next Tuesday: Megan in conversation with Jack at Off Square Books.
Also, while we’re talking about great stuff: stream Heal by Strand of Oaks over at NPR. A beautiful record. “JM” (about Jason Molina) is my favorite song of the year.
William Boyle 