Robert Glück

Some beautiful writing throughout that requires close attention as timing jumps frequently, almost on purpose because that's how the mind works in reflection. Intrusive, perhaps. But some knockout prose, particularly on grief, that made me reflective. Found this passage stunning:

"Mourning is the fear of losing Ed combined with the fact of losing Ed. I can't work it out and the problem shackles me. I see why doctors suggest travel, because I can't find a different place inside-intolerable show more rigidity.

I console myself: I never have to accept his death. Do I write to remain in contact?—when I'm finished will he be truly buried?" show less

A combination of fiction and fact focusing on the life of the author's friend Ed. The writing is beautiful and that is enough to entice the reader into the sometimes dream-like narrative.

Nearly fifty essays compiled by the creators of the online journal, Narrativity. The book promises, in its back cover copy, to represent writers "from Tijuana to Montreal," and sure enough they're there: the overall thrust of the book, however, is Bay Area through and through, and readers' enjoyment of the book will likely vary proportionately to how much mileage they can get out of that particular scumbling-up of aesthetics and theory and personal experience and politics that the San show more Franciscan literary scene has been reliably producing for a generation now. I tend to enjoy that stuff, but this collection is a mixed bag, in part because of the length restriction: averaging only about five pages apiece (a remnant of their Web origins), many of the pieces are able to squeak out a provocative line of inquiry, but very few develop fruitfully beyond that. This leaves the book feeling like a kind of intellectual snack food: often tasty, but not particularly nourishing. show less

Please don't write about dreams.