January 29th, 2016 § § permalink
Jérémie Guez’s Eyes Full of Empty, which came out in November from Unnamed Press, continues to rake in the good reviews:
- At The Missing Slate, Casey Harding calls it “impossible to stop reading,” and singles out its “beautiful, terrifying humanity” for praise. She concludes:
Guez, helped by the artful translation by Gauvin, crafted an entirely believable world populated by characters that you alternate between loving and hating. And that, for me, is as close to real life as you can get.
- Bookseller Chris Phipps at Oakland’s Diesel Books shortlisted it at Lithub as one of his 2015 year’s best, along with books by Georgi Gospodinov, Yoss, Boris and Arkady Strutgatsky, and Valeria Luiselli. What awesome company!
- Publisher’s Weekly says the book has “a wicked grace that will appeal to American noir fans,” and Dan Forrest of Library Journal agrees, going one further:
“Fans of the genre who are looking for a protagonist they haven’t seen before in a location with plenty of history and skulduggery will enjoy this quick-paced and suspenseful story.”
- For readers interested in learning more about Guez’s “unusual protagonist” Idir, Nadia Ghanem at Your Middle East sets Guez’s book into a history that straddles the Mediterranean: authors French and North African alike who each looked to each other’s countries for inspiration when it came to crime and noir. She outlines a rich history often overlooked and untranslated. Readers of French looking for something similar can turn to Machaho Tellem Chaho‘s review in Al Huffington Post (for Maghreb-Algeria).
- At Crime Fiction Lover, fan Marina Sofia says that she’s been reading Guez “for a while now [in French] and was hoping his books would appear English […]Â this book effortlessly mixes noir tropes with contemporary references, sarcastic retorts with heartfelt moments. She also interviews the author.
- For a slightly longer interview, check out Layton Green’s at The Big Thrill.
- And finally, if you missed the author’s live event in November at LA’s Skylight Books, where James Ellroy called the author his illegitimate son (with Delphine Seyrig) and said “Camus, thumbs down! Jérémie Guez: arriba, arriba!” look no further: the LA Review of Books has got you covered with video.
January 27th, 2016 § § permalink
The estimable Michael Holtmann of the Center for the Art of Translation will be interviewing me tonight on the occasion of Serge Brussolo’s English debut, The Deep Sea Diver’s Syndrome, recently released by Melville House. Come one and all! This free event begins at 7:30pm at The Booksmith on 1644 Haight St.
I originally pitched this novel as “Inception directed by David Cronenberg.†You can read excerpts from the first chapter at the Melville House site and also on Lithub. The book has been featured on Barnes & Noble’s January New Book Roundup, the French Embassy’s French Culture Book Blog, and SF Signal. Reviewing it at NPR, Genevieve Valentine says:
“Syndrome is also a novel of ideas that’s much less concerned with the ideas than it is the minute ways things stay with us; unimportant details fester and eat their own tails.
Brussolo seamlessly maintains both that air of dread and a quality of the lugubrious unreal that’s only fitting in a novel that’s so ambivalent about reality […] visually rich and deliciously unsettling, it’s a science fiction fever dream that will leave you in no hurry to wake up.â€
Serge Brussolo is the author of nearly two hundred books in every possible genre—dark fantasy, horror, historical fiction, young adult fiction, thrillers, and literary fiction. His books are consistently bestsellers, have won every major French science-fiction prize, are considered modern classics.
January 9th, 2016 § § permalink
WRITERS with DRINKS! with Charlie Jane Anders
San Francisco’s longest-running spoken word night is going to new frontiers of honesty and also deception. A little of both, really. Honest deception. These are some of our favorite writers, and we hope you like them!
When: Jan. 9 from 7 PM to 9:30 PM, doors open 6:30 PM
Who: Anthony Marra, Naomi Williams, Lisa Goldstein, Edward Gauvin, Tracey Knapp, Elizabeth McKenzie
How much: $5 to $20, all proceeds benefit the CSC
Where:Â The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco, CA
January 8th, 2016 § § permalink
With the official release date for Serge Brussolo’s US debut, his SF noir The Deep Sea Diver’s Syndrome, set for January 19th, advance notices are rolling in. Thank you, reviewers!
John DeNardo’s January Round-Up of Speculative Fiction at Kirkus Reviews says “This reads like a dream-state version of a James Bond film.†While KC at Library Journal gives her verdict: “Vivid imagery, intriguing characters, and the blurred boundaries of David’s worlds will hold their attention. A captivating read that will immerse the senses.” Charlie Jane Anders includes Brussolo in her io9 roundup of All the Science Fiction and Fantasy Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in January. And finally, Thessaly La Force features DSDS among a trio of titles perfect for winter getaways at Travel + Leisure.
January 7th, 2016 § § permalink
Happy 2016! This Saturday night, I’ll be reading at San Francisco’s longest-running spoken word night, Writers With Drinks, hosted by io9’s very own Charlie Jane Anders!
But get this all-star line-up: Lisa Goldstein, Tracey Knapp, Anthony Marra, Elizabeth McKenzie, and Naomi Williams!
I’ll be reading from Serge Brussolo’s English debut, The Deep Sea Diver’s Syndrome, a science-fictional noir about dream heists, art, pulp, and ectoplasm. What’s not to like? Melville House will be publishing this novel, which I pitched them as “Inception directed by David Cronenberg,†later this month.
When:Â Jan. 9 from 7 PM to 9:30 PM, doors open 6:30 PM
How much:Â $5 to $20, all proceeds benefit the CSC
Where:Â The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco, CA
Back in 2001, writer Charlie Jane Anders set out to create a new kind of reading that jettisoned the idea of a hushed audience hanging reverentially on each carefully-crafted word, replacing it with a lively cabaret night drawing writers from a smorgasbord of genres—poetry to sci-fi to comedy to kids books.
Writers With Drinks has won numerous “Best ofs” from local newspapers, and has been mentioned in 7×7, Spin Magazine and one of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City novels. The spoken word “variety show†mixes genres to raise money for local causes. The award-winning show includes poetry, stand-up comedy, science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, literary fiction, erotica, memoir, zines and blogs in a freewheeling format.
About the readers:
Anthony Marra’s latest book is The Tsar of Love and Techno: Stories. He’s also the author of The Wolves of Bilaya Forest and A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. He was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, where he now teaches as the Jones Lecturer in Fiction. Marra’s story “Chechnya” won a Pushcart Prize and a Narrative Prize.
Naomi Williams’ first novel is Landfalls, a fictionalized account of the 18th-century Lapérouse expedition. Her fiction has appeared in A Public Space, One Story, The Southern Review, and The Gettysburg Review. In 2009, she received a Pushcart Prize and a Best American Honorable Mention.
Lisa Goldstein’s latest book is Weighing Shadows. She won a National Book Award for her novel The Red Magician, a Mythopoeic Award for her novel The Uncertain Places, and the Sidewise Award for her short story “Paradise Is a Walled Garden.†Her other books include Travelers in Magic, The Divided Crown, The Alchemist’s Door and Dark Cities Underground.
Tracey Knapp’s first full-length collection of poems, Mouth, won the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award. She’s received scholarships from the Tin House Writers’ Workshop and the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fund. Mark Strand and Claudia Emerson each chose her poems for Best New Poets 2008 and 2010. Other work has appeared in Five Points, The National Poetry Review, Red Wheelbarrow Review, The New Ohio Review, The Minnesota Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Connotation Press, Painted Bride Quarterly, No Tell Motel, 236, Failbetter, La Petite Zine, Sewanee Theological Review and elsewhere.
Elizabeth McKenzie’s latest novel is The Portable Veblen. She’s the author of a collection, Stop That Girl, short-listed for The Story Prize, and the novel MacGregor Tells the World, a Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and Library Journal Best Book of the year. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and the Pushcart Prize anthology, and has been recorded for NPR’s Selected Shorts. She was an NEA/Japan US-Friendship Commission Fellow in 2010.
“When you move to San Francisco and ask about the literary scene, Writers With Drinks is likely the first thing people tell you about. For one thing, most of us can get behind drinking as a social activity, especially when it’s being done by the witty and verbose. But the real reason is host Charlie Jane Anders, who is a pioneer and master of free-form and fictitious biography.†~ San Francisco Weekly
December 2nd, 2015 § § permalink
Antonello in Venice by Jean Dytar
Jean Dytar’s brings Renaissance Venice to life in his
historical graphic novel of painters, hero worship, romantic obsession, artistic bickering and backstabbing, and ultimately, mortality.
Antonello in Venice is a gem that testifies to the often overlooked breadth of what French comics have to offer. Careful research shows in his every panel, but never gets the best of his gentle, inviting style, which in its page layouts manages some absolutely haunting depictions of time’s passing:
For French readers, Dytar gives insight into his intentions and process in this
illuminating commentary at his site. This graphic novel, originally titled
La Vision de Bacchus, is now available as a digital exclusive from
Delcourt at Comixology.
Venice, 1510. The great painter Giorgione is dying of the plague. In one final burst of energy, he finishes his last piece, a pictorial homage to the woman who stirred in him his first feelings of romance.
Giorgione also must face the question all painters ask themselves, how to bring to life and breathe human presence into an image on a completely flat surface?
November 26th, 2015 § § permalink
This was one of those assignments that had me scratching my head. Superdupont is a beloved French figure, but as a caricature of indefatigable Gallic redneckery, seemed basically an inside joke for the hexagonal nation, and not particularly exportable. Stranger still, Europecomics decided to go with a 2015 reboot from artist François Boucq, with script help from Marcel Gotlib and Karim Belkrouf, rather than the character’s 1972 debut from original creators Marcel Gotlib (a mainstay of humor cartooning) and Jacques Lob (the writer of Snowpiercer), who made it a classic in the pages of Pliote and Fluide Glacial. But foreign rights move in mysterious ways.
As a result, little time is spent reacquainting readers with the title character. Instead, the story revolves around the kidnapping of his newborn son. The French subtitle was Renaissance; my initial suggestion of “Rebirth†was rebuffed. I can see why they went with “Revival,†though in retrospect I think the right (and obvious) choice was Superdupont: The Reboot.
Superdupont, son of the unknown soldier buried under the Arc de Triomphe, affectionately ribs all the vieille France, Gaullist values of the generation preceding his creators. Patriotic, chauvinist, potbellied, gourmand, a champion of good living, fine reds, and French cheese, he can often be found in cape and beret striking a Superman-type pose in the three colors of the national flag, a baguette of bread under one arm. He smokes Gauloises, sports carpet slippers (charentaises), and—but of course!—is an expert in that martial art of Marseille sailors, French kickboxing, or savate. His nemesis is a secret terrorist organization called “Anti-France,†whose agents—all foreigners, naturally—speak the fictional gibberish Anti-Français, a mishmash of English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and German. Meant to mock hick xenophobia, this aspect would seem to take on new topicality in the era of the National Front. I didn’t really find that in the story, though I did appreciate its onomatopoeia cannon, reifying the heard word into menacing (comedic) presence.
Sound effects in comics are inherently if not hopelessly dual in nature: at once textual and pictorial, visual and aural, diegetic and non-. Making words meant to mimic sound into material projectiles and forcing characters to confront them maintains that duality.
The unique and truly French super hero is back, like a phoenix from the ashes, to save France once again and to restore it to greatness in a world going to the dogs. Superdupont’s reboot gets a kick-start with the birth of his son who, astonishingly, has inherited the supernatural powers of his father. Perhaps together they can finally bring down the enemies of their wonderful homeland!
This graphic novel is now available as a digital exclusive from EuropeComics on a number of platforms (Izneo, Kindle, Kobo, Google Play, and Comixology).
November 25th, 2015 § § permalink
Vissi d’arte! Luisa, the beautiful and extravagant Marchesa Casati Stampa di Soncino (1881–1957), with her leashed leopards and live boa boas, was many things: heiress, muse, and patroness of the arts, celebrity, and epitome of the female dandy. She died penniless and alone in Knightsbridge, her name misspelled on a headstone that read, “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.” Italian comics artist Vanna Vinci, author of acclaimed children’s books and biographies for adults of Frida Kahlo and Tamara de Lempicka applies her lurid, vibrant style to Luisa’s life. At Women Write About Comics, Ginnis Tonik praises Vinci, saying
she shows a skill for deftly balancing honesty without condemnation, Casati is a lovely addition to the fashion lover’s library. I wish this book wasn’t only in digital form as it makes for a great coffee table piece for the fashion geek.
This graphic novel biography is now available as a digital exclusive from EuropeComics on a number of platforms (Izneo, Kindle, Kobo, Google Play, and Comixology).
November 6th, 2015 § § permalink
Tonight kicks off the Eyes Full of Empty tour with author Jérémie Guez. I will be appearing with Guez and crime great James Ellroy at Skylight Books.
From France’s hottest young crime writer, comes a hardboiled noir with the pace of a Chandler novel and the French Algerian literary legacy of Camus.
Idir is not your typical Parisian detective. The son of an Algerian immigrant who made good, Idir’s middle class upbringing places him at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to his rich friends from university, while his street smarts make him just intimidating enough to handle the secret problems of Paris’s elite. Put another way, Idir knows precisely how much pressure to exert on behalf of his wealthy clients, while keeping things low profile. That is, until Oscar Crumley, a powerful media mogul, hires Idir to find his missing younger half-brother, Thibaut. Sent on a wild goose chase through highs and lows of the Paris underground, Idir must navigate upper crust treachery and entrenched criminal rings to discover the truth. Echoing the headlong impulsiveness of Chandler’s Marlowe, and deftly translated by Edward Gauvin, Eyes Full of Empty introduces us to an entirely new kind of Parisian mystery.
Jěrěmie Guez was born in Paris in 1988 and has been hailed as the rising star of contemporary French noir. His two previous novels, Balanceě dans les cordes and Paris la unit, were awarded the 2013 SNCF du Polar and 2012 Plume Libre prizes, respectively.Eyes Full of Empty is the highly anticipated first English translation of Jěrěmie Guez’s work. He lives in Paris.
James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the L.A. Quartet: The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz,and the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy: American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood’s A Rover. These seven novels have won numerous honors and were international best sellers. His newest novel, Perfidia, is the first novel of the Second L.A. Quartet, Ellroy’s fictional history of Los Angeles during World War II.
Event info:
Friday, November 6, 2015 – 7:30pm
November 5th, 2015 § § permalink
I will be reading from my own fiction tonight at the first Loudest Voice reading of the year, November 5 @ 7:30 PM at Pop-Hop Books! The USC reading series will feature some amazing current students as well as out-of-towners. I’m delighted and flattered to be in their company:
Christine Kanownik is the author of the forthcoming KING OF PAIN by Monk Books. She lives and works in New York.
Dexter L. Booth  is the author of Scratching the Ghost (Graywolf Press, 2013), which won the 2012 Cave Canem Poetry Prize selected by Major Jackson and was a Finalist for the 2014 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award in Poetry, as well as a finalist for the 2014 L.A. Leimert Park Book Fair’s Jessie Redmon Fauset Award. Booth is included in the anthology The Best American Poetry 2015 (edited by Sherman Alexie) and his poems appear in Blackbird, The Southeast Review, Ostrich Review, Grist, Willow Springs, Bat City Review, Virginia Quarterly, and other publications. Dexter currently a PhD candidate and Provost Fellow at the University of Southern California.
Yvette Siegert is a poet and translator based in New York. She has edited for The New Yorker and has taught at Columbia University, Baruch College and the 92nd Street Y. Her writing has appeared in many publications, most recently in Aufgabe, Boston Review, St. Petersburg Review, Stonecutter, The Literary Review and The New Yorker, and her work has received recognition from PEN/New York State Council on the Arts, the Academy of American Poets and the National Endowment for the Arts.
