Suspend Your Disbelief

Archive for 2008

Reviews |

Bottomless Belly Button, by Dash Shaw

by Jesse Hassenger

Without the need for description, and with the supposed thousand words per illustration, graphic novelists are allowed quiet moments of focus that might be dull or ponderous–or even nigh-impossible–to convey with straight prose. In Bottomless Belly Button, cartoonist Dash Shaw takes this technique to an extreme, decompressing what might typically, in prose form, be material for a short story or a novella into 700 pages of evocative panels: three grown siblings reunite at their childhood home after learning that their elderly parents have decided to split up.


Shop Talk |

recommended interview: Meeting House talks to Kelly Link

by Anne Stameshkin

“I really loved reading books when, at some point, I got the feeling I wasn’t supposed to be reading them.” My love for Kelly Link just grows and grows. That quote is from a great interview with her from Meeting House, a self-described “weekly journal of New England Literature and the Arts” whose site I will definitely be returning to. Another Link-able quote: “I don’t trust people who seem trustworthy, at least not in fiction. I’ve read too many mystery novels. In real life I think I’m more often gullible than not, easily disarmed or charmed by people I shouldn’t […]


Reviews |

YOU'VE GOT TO RE-READ THIS: Stotan!, by Chris Crutcher

by Gwen Glazer

I picked up Chris Crutcher’s Stotan! on an early-morning flight to Boston, ready to mock both the book and the 10-year-old version of myself who loved it. Starting with the exclamation point in the title and some early cumbersome exposition (which includes a very excellent and totally non-ironic mention of Tom Selleck as a sex symbol), I was sure the book would be dated and ridiculous and that I was in for a very good time. Of course, 180 pages later, I was in tears as I returned my tray table to the upright position.


Shop Talk |

the book isn't dead yet, but fiction "needs all the help it can get"

by Anne Stameshkin

Happily, not everyone predicts an imminent doomsday for the book (or book publishing). David Ulin at the LA Times urges publishers to stop panicking and “focus on the writing rather than the noise.” And Amelia Atlas at the New York Observer talks to some industry insiders who think the book might do OK in a recession: reading is, after all, a form of escape. She herself suggests: “There are only so many times, it would seem, that the industry can hear the sound of its own death knell and still worry.” Still, she quotes Sonny Mehta as saying that “Fiction […]


Shop Talk |

a section of one's own?

by Anne Stameshkin

Earlier this week, a friend asked me what I thought about questions raised in this article about urban fiction. To sum up: libraries’ urban fiction (mostly African-American fiction) sections are growing, as are the numbers of enthusiastic black readers who borrow from them. Some writers and readers within the African-American community find the genre (also sometimes called street lit or black literature) “embarrassing” and feel that it perpetuates stereotypes. Others worry that segregating blacks to a specific section in the library or bookstore recalls uglier times and promotes the idea of separate cultures, separate literatures. But other writers, readers, and […]


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the invisible library

by Anne Stameshkin

Visit The Invisible Library, where fictional books — those that exist only in fictional worlds — are chronicled. Can you think of a book not included here? If so, enter Book Maven’s Invislble Library Contest; the prize is a grab-bag of five real books.


Reviews |

YOU'VE GOT TO RE-READ THIS: Moominsummer Madness, by Tove Jansson

by Charlotte Boulay

The first review in FWR’s “You’ve Got to Re-Read This” series. These days there is always something for children to do–often a rather shallow electronic distraction–but Tove Jansson’s Moomin books show readers of all ages that quietly sitting and thinking by yourself is a valuable activity. Her characters let us know that almost everyone is lonely from time to time, and that while community can be an antidote to loneliness, we can also learn from solitude.


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the re-reading has begun

by Anne Stameshkin

FWR’s first “You’ve Got to Re-Read This” is up on our Reviews page. Charlotte Boulay tells us why the Moomin books, including Moominsummer Madness, fascinated her as a kid and why we should read them today. Writer-readers: Submissions (blog posts, essays, reviews, what-have-you) for this series remain open; send queries to fictionwritersreview@gmail.com.


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It's 13 days til Halloween…

by Anne Stameshkin

I’d already planned to curl up with Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book and get into the mood. And things, it appears, are getting better all the time. The author’s 9-city video tour concluded on October 9, and now, as I read, I can go here to watch and listen to Gaiman — in a fetching leather jacket, no less — read the entire book to me. To learn more about the much-acclaimed The Graveyard Book, listen to this episode of All Things Considered. The NPR page also features a review by Laurel Maury, some of the book’s haunting artwork, an […]




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