Lundgren’s Lounge: “The Painter,” by Peter Heller
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
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Here’s a book to add to the summer reading list: The Painter by Peter Heller. Though highly recommended, I began this story with guarded expectations and then was slowly and inexorably seduced by the voice and ethos of the novel’s narrator, Jim Stegner. Continue reading →
Lundgren’s Book Lounge: “Euphoria,” by Lily King
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
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Lily’s King’s newest novel Euphoria, is an instance of a writer at the height of her creative powers. Based loosely on an imagined episode in the live of anthropologist Margaret Mead, what the artistry of King conjures up for her readers in Euphoria is a work of historical fiction that soars far beyond the limiting strictures of historical details to enter into the luminous interior life of an extraordinary individual. Continue reading →
Reject: A Call for Submissions
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
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I’ve been thinking a lot about rejection lately. But why wouldn’t I? I’m a writer, after all. Mason’s Road: A Literary & Arts Journal is an online literary journal produced by the students of Fairfield University’s MFA program. It’s become a respected journal, now entering its fifth year, publishing high-quality writing across multiple disciplines. But it’s also an opportunity for us as emerging writers to experience the submissions process from the other side of the table, as editors. And sometimes it’s scary as hell to see what goes on behind the curtain. Continue reading →
Lundgren’s Lounge: “Galveston” by Nic Pizzolatto
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
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Once again my treasure trove of fellow readers has come through. Although it is beginning to feel like we are a club of “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers” (and sisters), there is a comfort to be drawn from the secret pleasures shared as we parcel out newly discovered titles and emerging writers like shibboleths that mark us from the poor, bereft non-readers amongst us. Most recently Dave Evans, founder of the redoubtable Great Lost Bear in Portland, Maine, alerted me to the work of Nic Pizzolatto and his powerful 2010 debut novel, Galveston. Thank you Dave. Continue reading →
Lundgren’s Book Lounge: My Number-One All-Time Favorite Novel
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
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I remember the first time I read One Hundred Years of Solitude as though it happened yesterday. I was a young man living in Madison, Wisconsin and after closing the final pages of this perfect circle of a novel I went out into the rainy streets and wandered in a state of wonderment through a mist that persisted till dawn. I understood instinctively that everything was different now, everything was changed, both in my life and in the world of literature. Continue reading →
Lundgren’s Book Lounge: “Marijuana Valley” by Crash Barry
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
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Sometimes obscured by all the hoopla and hysteria surrounding the marijuana legalization movement is the fact that the ‘devil’s lettuce’ (as one of my former high school students once described it), has become a permanent presence in American culture. The major league baseball Colorado Rockies recently announced that they would be selling marijuana brownies at it’s games–baseball, mom, apple pie and… marijuana brownies? You can’t get any more mainstream than that. Continue reading →
Lundgren’s Book Lounge: “Shotgun Lovesongs” by Nickolas Butler
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
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Sometimes it’s hard to discern why a piece of literature resonates so deeply. In the case of Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler I’m still unsure… is it the way that Butler so perfectly and evocatively depicts the culture of small-town Wisconsin, where I was born and raised and spent the first three decades of my life? Might it be the clear narrative connection with the musician known as Bon Iver, whose music has been haunting me since I first heard it? Or maybe it’s simply the breathtaking storytelling talent of first time novelist Butler? Continue reading →
Late Encounters with Flannery O’Connor
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
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The zenith of my literary fanboy life surely came in those minutes I sat on Flannery O’Connor’s toilet.
Blame it on the Chinese food. For weeks, I’d looked forward to this moment: the day I would first set foot inside Flannery’s childhood home. I’d Googled, I’d Mapquested, I’d made dry runs on the route through southern Georgia, I’d Wise Blood-ed myself to death. But now something stood in the way of Complete Flannery Fulfillment: the Chinese food.
Two hours before our arrival in downtown Savannah, my wife and I stopped for a quick meal of meat, vegetables and MSG. The food was good and quickly settled into our stomachs. In my case, it also traveled farther south at an alarming pace. Continue reading →
Lundgren’s Book Lounge: “White Girls” by Hilton Als
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
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Hilton Als
Since its beginnings in 2006 McSweeney’s has developed a reputation for publishing eclectic books and periodicals, including Portland, Maine, author Jessica Anthony’s startlingly original, award-winning debut novel, The Convalsecent. Add to that impressive and intriguing list Hilton’s Als newest offering, White Girls. White Girls is a mesmerizing extended essay on race, culture, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and what it means to be a gay black man in the modern world. It includes pieces on Flannery O’Connor, Eminem, Richard Pryor, Truman Capote, Michael Jackson and style and theater and cinema (Gone With the Wind), that will reshape forever the way that you consider these cultural tropes. Continue reading →
Reading Under the Influence: The Twitter Fiction Festival
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
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I, @billroorbach, am still trying to understand Twitter after a year of tweeting and re-tweeting and the translating of tweet code language, even that as simple as say, RT, which means re-tweet. Remember, I was the guy who until a year ago thought LOL meant Lots of Luck, which always seemed mean. Like, “But you’ve always been older than Dave, LOL.” So I felt more trepidation than joy when I was invited to take part in the 2014 Twitter Fiction Festival. The Future of Fiction, one of the tweets I’ve been asked to RT proclaims. LFHN! Continue reading →
