I am a couple of weeks behind on my weekend book roundup, so this will be a chunky one.
First up, Will Eisner. Here are three of his graphic novels based on his old neighborhood, Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx. Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories (1978) is widely accepted as the first "graphic novel." Contract, along with Life on Dropsie Avenue and Life Force
all releate stories from Eisner's days growing up in the Bronx. Over
time the area changes from rural to suburban to urban then transmutes through
the influx of various groups of people: WASPs, Irish, Jews, Italians,
African-Americans, Puerto Ricans, hippies and so on. I have Fagin the Jew and Will Eisner's New York: Life In The Big City on my list to read next.
Next up are a few books (graphic novels) by Marjane Satrapi.
Satrapi grew up in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war and then went to
Vienna for school and to escape the conditions in Iran under the
Ayatollah Khomeini's regime. Persepolis and Persepolis 2 tell her story during these years. Embroideries is about the lives of women in Iranian culture and it draws on the uncomfortable justaposition of sewing and sex. Chicken With Plums
is the tale of the last days of Marjane's uncle Nasser Ali Khan who,
in 1958, out of despair decided to lay down and die. If you are interested in her,
there is great interview with her over @ bookslut.
Then there was The Cheese Monkeys, a novel by Chip Kidd. Kidd is widely known as they guy who changed the way people make book jackets. In the spirit of "write what you know" Cheese Monkeys
is set in a 1958 university (Penn State) art department graphic design class. It is
a period piece, a coming of age story, and a design manifesto. The
cover of CMs is truly worthy of
Kidd (cover design by TK). The cover seen here is a concealed by a slipcover that had to be
slid on by hand and the copyright information is printed across the
endpapers. Kidd's publisher, Scribner, was choking on these special
features UNTIL Kidd renegotiated his royalty. Wow. A guy who would
reduce his cut to assure that the packaging is just so.
In an interview I read Kidd comments that he watches lots of Law & Order. He suggests that the show should be renamed "How to Construct a Plot." Which reminds me that I never wrote up True Stories of Law & Order. I was familiar with most of the stories in the book: murdering transvestite millionaire Robert Durst, the repressed memory case of George Franklin, and Norman Mailer's protege, Jack Abbott.
But I have one particular favorite. Every time I hear this story it is
so bizarre that it's like hearing it all over again: two lawyers in
San Francisco who were keeping a Presa Canario for an Aryan Nation dude in prison when the dog attacked and killed their neighbor (Diane Whipple).
Last for now, Fast Forward I,
a sci-fi anthology edited by Lou Anders. There are a couple of Robyn
Hitchcock poems, which is sad because they don't hold a candle to his
short stories. For me the highlights were Paul Di Filippo's
"Wikiworld" and Ken MacLeod's "Jesus Christ Reanimator." The rest was
the regular sci-fi short story fare.
Sixbucks' Sad-Sack Hotel 