fax from honduras

tee hee! it's a bad joke, i know, but i can't control these impulses.

Telex from Cuba is not only a catchy title, but an ambitious first novel by Rachel Kushner. set in the 1950s and detailing the tumultuous transitions from Batista's presidency to Castro's coup, it bounces from narrator to narrator. children in the United Fruit-controlled towns Nicaro and Preston; an Eastern European prostitute at the Club Tokio; a French ex-Waffen arms dealer; pretty much every perspective except for that of a Cuban is represented. it's an interesting choice, and i think it works in this novel -- Kushner writes with great strength about foreign perspectives, foreign intervention, and their impact. there's a little unevenness of voice, because of this incredibly ambitious and intricate dialogue, but that's not uncommon in a first novel.

you won't learn anything new about Castro (well, maybe you will, not all of us were history majors), but you will be drawn into the web that Kushner weaves, and sad when the story has spun itself out. get this one in hardback -- i foresee great things from her, and you'll want a first edition!

happy endings

imagine your favorite fairy tale -- you know the one, that you've had read to you a million times and then read to yourself a million more -- and imagine discovering it for the first time. imagine that no one but you has ever read it, and that the only way they ever will is if you share it with them. imagine that you work for weeks, trying to find the right way to share it.

now imagine a book that seems to write itself as you read it, a book that feels its way through the story and learns its plot only as you turn the page. a book that has narratives that swirl around each other, touching occasionally only to draw away, until they meet at the end in a thundering crescendo.

now imagine that both those things, your favorite fairy tale and a book that writes itself, are in fact the same thing. meet The Translation of Dr. Apelles, by David Treuer.

if all of the above irritates you, because it doesn't tell you anything about the plot or who the characters are or what they are like, then this book is probably not for you. it shifts around, it changes direction mid-scene, it will not be still. and neither will the characters, for the most part. but unlike many other novels that call themselves things like "experimental" and "post-modern", this novel has no pretensions. it is so simple, and so enchanting.

normally i would try to tell you about other books, similar books. but in this case, i really can't. luckily, The Translation of Dr. Apelles is already out in hardcover. if you can't wait, you can buy it now. if you can, it's out in February 08.

either way, this book is a treasure.

pigeons and power

i started it this morning. or last night, i'm not entirely sure. but i finished it today, and i know that either way, i read it really fast.

it's only 251 pages. it's thin for an advance reader. the cover is just white, with an illustrated pigeon in profile, squarely in the middle. the spine is blue. when i first pulled it out of the ARC box, i thought it was another of those histories of a specific thing, until i remembered that someone's already done pigeons.

then i looked at the title. The Invention of Everything Else. Samantha Hunt. i'll take it home, i thought. why not.

it's simply wonderful.

i'd never heard of her before, though The Seas does sound vaguely familiar. judging by The Invention, she's a terrific writer. it's a history, but it's not. it's a love story, or it's almost a love story, or it's two love stories, one finished and one just beginning. it's a biography, but only sort of. there are a lot of pigeons involved. electrical currents, invisible waves of energy. edison and tesla, new york before and after electricity, time travel (possibly? not at all? most definitely?), mark twain, and tunnels buried beneath now-old-but-then-new hotels.

you must read it. the only book i can think of that comes close is Dreamland, by Kevin Baker. come to think of it, they belong side by side on a shelf. on my shelf. right next to Suskind's The Pigeon. i'll go do that right now...