Here are some things I’ve been sticking my ears and eyes into recently. No particular order, and any opinions expressed may be changed on a whim.
Jim Harrison – The Big Seven
This is JH’s last novel, written just a year or two before he shuffled off. It’s a detective novel– the second in a series centred around a Detective Sunderson, a character who, aside from his profession, seems to be pretty much Harrison himself. He’s a retired cop, an alcoholic, who lives in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and whose life revolves around fishing, drinking, and allowing himself to be bedded by very young women (which feels like an old man allowing his fantasies to borrow his pen). Members of the family next door keep dying, and Sunderson can’t help but investigate. The story’s got lots of action– murders, gunfights, incest, suicide, but the enjoyable parts for me are Harrison’s ruminations on life, the sort of territory he covers in his essays. It’s here that the writing is most autobiographical, and I guess that’s what I really want from Jim.
The fact that The Big Seven is a sequel, and a sequel about a detective, makes me wonder if JH was trying to head into Michael Connolly territory, and write a series of big-selling airport novels. It seems unlike him, but this story is so much broader and commercial than others I’ve read. I also get the feeling that not much editing went on, like Harrison knocked the story out double-quick and sent it to press– there are some sentences odd enough that I stopped and went back a few times. It’s an engaging story that keeps a cracking pace. I’m not sure I’ll come back to it, but it’s a good yarn.
The Amazing Johnathan Documentary
The only thing worse than a magician is a “comedy magician.” I can’t stand that shit. But The Amazing Johnathan was different. Maybe it’s just because I grew up watching him– he was popular in Australia and showed up regularly on variety TV– and there was always something about his violent anarchic persona that appealed to me. He’d abandon some lame trick halfway through, then saw through his arm with a butcher knife, or ram a pencil up his nose while screaming at the band– the teenage me always got a kick out of him. You can check him out here: https://youtu.be/uUBGtiElJ2w
In 2019, Amazing is a fucking weirdo. He claims he’s dying, but maybe he’s not; he’s still performing, but we expect every show to be his last. And early in the piece he reveals himself to be an enthusiastic, unashamed meth addict. He’s also renting himself out to any film crew who wants a piece of him. Filmmaker Ben Berman takes us fairly deep into the life of this bizarre nut job, but also inserts himself into the story, questioning the point of the endeavour, when it starts to look like Amazing’s whole story is an elaborate hoax. An engaging, creative doco about a beautifully weird dude.
Trent Dalton – Boy Swallows Universe
A long, far-reaching, sometimes rambling story of a young boy growing up in seedy suburban Brisbane in the 80s; the family are heroin dealers, his only friend his mute older brother. The subject matter is pretty dark– drugs, gang fights, dismemberment– but a vein of hope and optimism runs throughout, so it never gets bogged down in misery. It does, however, get bogged down in other ways: laughably unrealistic dialogue from a 12 year old, exhausting metaphysical refrains, and a silly Hollywood ending. The first thing it reminded me of was Tim Winton, but without the savage bleakness. Maybe this is a definitively Australian style now? If so, we’re taking ourselves very seriously these days… Drags on a bit, but entertaining.
Graham Greene –Journey Without Maps
This book should have me all over it: one of my favourite authors bashing though the unmapped jungles of Liberia in the 1920s, guided by local tribes; encountering mortal danger, mutiny, corruption, deadly disease, infection, and near sobriety. Despite all this, I struggled to finish it. In fact I abandoned it halfway through the epilogue. Greene’s exhausting daily trudge through a relentlessly unvarying landscape from village to village mirrored my own progress through the chapters, and, like Greene, I too, collapsed into sleep at the end of every day, too tired to worry about the vermin scuttling around my own floors. I’m being harsh, but this was hard going. Why not just reread The Quiet American instead.
Watermark –Joseph Brodsky
Russian poet Joseph Brodsky visited Venice every year for 17 years. This is a book of ruminations, impressions, observations, very loosely strung on these visits. Musings on existence as it relates to water, time, light, reflection. It’s all quite opaque and obscure, sometimes drifting into stream-of-consciousness, but then suddenly the clouds part and his meaning becomes clear. I found it frustrating at times, but it’s deep and insightful; sometimes droll, even funny. Takes a level of mental fluidity to follow Brodsky’s train of thought and I felt quite lost for the first half; then it started to feel familiar, maybe like a visitor growing accustomed to a city…? Deserves another visit.
Geronimo Rex –Barry Hannah
I don’t know what you buy online when you’re drunk, but apparently I buy hefty novels by obscure writers from the American south. I haven’t the faintest idea what tipsily tortuous internet rabbit hole led me to Geronimo Rex, but days after the headache had subsided, I got a call from my local bookstore announcing its arrival. I must confess I struggled. It’s a long, dense, rambling coming-of-age tale set in dreary washed out towns in Louisiana and Mississippi. A thick, wallowing mire of love, lust, racism, violence, and marching bands, presented in a comic, vulgar, visceral language reminding me of Jim Harrison, Henry Miller, maybe a little Confederacy of Dunces. More profanity and uncomfortable racial epithets than you can poke a stick at. It’s disturbing, funny, and very long, but I’m glad I stuck with it.
The Razor’s Edge –Somerset Maugham
Although we’re in the world of wealthy high society, there’s always something dark and devious about Maugham, and it sucks you down without you noticing. The writing is beautiful, and it’s always fun to watch people unraveling.
Sicilian Carousel –Lawrence Durrell
I try, LD, I really do, but I always get two thirds through your books and give up. The descriptions of Sicily are tantalisingly evocative, and there are moments of momentum and humour, but also long slow delves into history and memory, drawn-out contemplation and ponderous pondering. Back on the shelf.
Kitchen Confidential –Anthony Bourdain
AB’s big hit, the book that put him on the culinary and literary map. I’ve read this a few times- it’s terrific fun. I wish I’d known about it back when I worked in a restaurant- I thought it was just our place. Drugs, booze, sex, fine dining, fighting, backstabbing, conniving, crime, punishment, redemption, old New York- it’s a ripping yarn.
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