K. Marvin Bruce

What is it about the viewpoint of a young girl that draws me into a novel?  As a middle-aged man, my experience is so different than that of the young, female protagonist that I can’t help but wonder what her experience is. This was very clear in my recent reading of Peter Rock’s My Abandonment .  This was one of those titles recommended by GQ that I mentioned a few weeks back.  (Yes, advertising works.)  I suspect the word “haunting” in the description sold me, and I didn’t realize a young girl would guide me  through the strange world that awaited. I won’t be giving any spoilers, but this was a girl’s coming of age story with no sex, no romance, and that inherently ambiguous relationship between a girl and her father.  The writing is spare, and beautiful, like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road .  How a middle-aged man captures the voice of a young girl is a source of wonder. The story is strange, yes, but naturalistic.  Nothing in the sho...

Last week I posted about a list on GQ of books you’ve never heard of, but should read.  Like most curious folks, I looked up one or two on Amazon.  It was then that the power of media struck me. Amazon’s feature “Frequently Bought Together” listed another of GQ’s books next to the one I was searching (Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe , from 1952).  Just coincidence?  I scrolled down. There, in the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section, no less that four of the other books on the GQ list showed up.  I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but it was clear that people were going through the GQ list and buying up the books.  I searched for one on BookFinder. By the time I clicked the link, it was gone. I’ve often felt that people who have an institution behind them (even be it GQ) have a built-in way of succeeding as writers. My own mention of Sherlock Holmes compels me to mention The Hound of the Baskervilles .  I recently read this ...

It’s unfair, really.  I live in a world with so many good books but in a society that gives me no time to read.  Of course I can read on the bus, but is that quality time with my literary children?  Hardly. A number of websites have recently taken to suggesting books you should’ve read but may never have heard of.  That’s the way the publishing industry works these days—those that are bound to become classics will not be published by the Big Five.  You’ll need to ferret them out from smaller houses.  Then try to find some time. Civilization, which gave us the writer, is also what is taking her away.  More and more time is demanded by work.  They get away with it because they can.  When’s the last time I really took a lunch break?  Sat on a park bench and read? I found a list, on GQ of all places, citing forgotten books that should be read.  Despite it being GQ, I don’t doubt it for one second.  Here are authors wh...