What We've Been Reading

Brad:
I'm not reading a whole lot right now, as it's the midterm season and I'm just doing a lot of school work. However, I did finish In Cold Blood and I'm nearly done with The Beginning of the Fields, and neither book has disappointed.

I think the most interesting thing I've read recently is a short story by David Foster Wallace called "Good People." It was published in that creaky bastion of glossy high lit, The New Yorker, sometime in 2007. I'm a big fan of David Foster Wallace's writing, having read most everything he's written (save for his 1990 co-authored nonfiction book, Signifying Rappers, and his nigh-impossible to find book on infinity, Everything and More.) The story is exceedingly simple and incredibly sincere and heartfelt. I don't want to say too much about it, as the discovery of the conflict and the characters is surprising and moving. But it made me mourn the loss of a man and a writer who was clearly moving into new and interesting territory.

What We've Been Reading

Brad:
Infinite Jest,by David Foster Wallace. I knew that there'd be absolutely no way I'd be able to read this during the academic year, so I saved it for this summer. After three months I'm nearly done. I was already an admirer of Wallace's, having read most of his other fiction and nonfiction by the time I came around to his titanic 1996 masterpiece. While I'm not quite to the end, it's capitalizing and following through on the expectation and the promise built up over 800 pages (and plus 100+ pages of endnotes).

David:
I'm currently (finally) making my way through the last couple season's of HBO's unbelievably good series The Wire.None of the episodes ever disappoint, but I have come to watch closely, near the end of the opening credits, to see who the teleplay and story are by. If the names Richard Price or George Pelecanos come up I know I'm in for an extra special episode.

If you're a fan of The Wire then you will want to get yourself the novels of Price and Pelecanos. These novels are as gritty as any episode and with writers like these it is no wonder that an extremely literate bookseller friend of mine was quipped that watching The Wire is as substantial as reading a good novel. Price has been called one of the greatest dialogue writers of all time and the empathy that Pelecanos makes the reader feel for all of his characters is unmatched.

There is great crime fiction being written today, you just might need to look a little deeper than the face-outs at your local Barnes and Noble. If you're looking for a place to start I'd recommend Price's Lush Life and Drama City by Pelecanos.

(Go here to hear why selling shoes was the best job Pelecanos ever had.)

Dustin
I've been reading Ed Brubaker's Incognito series of comics. This new series is pretty amazing. Issue #5 just came out, and the series just keeps on getting better. It follows a guy with super-powers who is completely amoral. But he's being forced to pretend he's a normal citizen in a sort of witness protection program. Naturally that doesn't work out very well. In an effort to have the chance to use his powers he does a little good, and doesn't like it a whole lot. It gets pretty complicated and the narrative is really well layered with a lot of complex characters, who are all essentially "bad guys" but have to deal with making real choices in this world they inhabit. It's a story with "good guys" and I like that a lot. It's really dark. Sean Phillips illustrations are pretty amazing as well.

Brubaker has done some really intelligent (and often graphic) comic series and this is one of his best. (There are some good interviews with Brubaker on Incognito here and here

David Foster Wallace (1962-2008)

David Foster Wallace, author of the novel Infinite Jest and fantastic collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, passed away Friday, in an apparent suicide. From the NYT:

David Foster Wallace, whose darkly ironic novels, essays and short stories garnered him a large following and made him one of the most influential writers of his generation, was found dead in his California home on Friday, after apparently committing suicide, the authorities said.

Mr. Wallace, 46, best known for his sprawling 1,079-page novel “Infinite Jest,” was discovered by his wife, Karen Green, who returned home to find that he had hanged himself, a spokesman for the Claremont, Calif., police said Saturday evening.

It's sad every time a literary figure of this stature passes away. The world of letters is better for having him in it.