Things have been getting callously objective here at the Fiction Advocate lately, so we’re going to balance it out with some unabashed praise for your Friday.
Bookforum’s summer fiction issue is out, and in addition to weighing in on the Jean Rhys biography that Jessa wrote about this week, the issue contains 6 new excerpts from novels that won’t be published until September. Bookforum is presenting them online, for free, with glowing introductions by other writers like Junot Diaz, and a little comic strip to illustrate each one. It’s a great way to celebrate new writing. We think the excerpts by Holly Goddard Jones and Ryan Boudinot are especially good.
Also, storySouth has narrowed down the finalists in its annual Million Writers Award. You can read the stories online and vote for your favorite. Just glancing at them, we think we’ll vote for either “The Whale Hunter” or “Fuckbuddy.” Plus, if you scroll last year’s notable stories, you’ll find some good stuff by the Fiction Advocate and a young guy with a lot of promise named Robert Repino.
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Back when m.snowe was a youth in Schenectady, she would frequent a convenient store that happened to have the best make-your-own sundaes this side of the Hudson. Well, this store handed out recycled, folded napkins with every sundae. These napkins had the name of the store in a large font at the top and in small letters at the bottom, towards the fold, were the words: “Please don’t look inside.” Of course, curiosity always prevailed, and m.snowe was bombarded with adverts for jiffy lube, the local funeral home, and occasionally the “Dream Machine,” a tiny arcade in Mohawk Mall. After that first time, she knew better than to flip the napkin open, but her hope and curiosity was renewed every time she topped another sundae with caramel and heath bar shavings.
What m.snowe is trying to say is that as a blogger, fiction advocate, you should utilize the “edit post” feature of your blog, instead of leaving little napkins out, in the form of “comments.”
So, the Harper’s review about Jean Rhys that Jessa wrote about isn’t available online unless you’re a subscriber. But the same book is reviewed here, in Bookforum.
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/016_02/3833
Just like Jessa said about the Harper’s review, this one draws more attention to a writer that Jessa would rather keep to herself, and it basically consists of a long biography followed by a brief paragraph that finally addresses the book that’s supposedly under review.
Jessa, I don’t know if you’ll like this or hate this, but I’m starting to get interested in Jean Rhys.