Corey Mesler

I genuinely adored this poignant and creatively dazzling novel by Corey Mesler who takes head-on a major narrative challenge and elegantly succeeds with it. This novel is a paen to youth. This particular young peripatetic writer, Jack, is haunted by the ghost of San Francisco poet and novelist, Richard Brautigan, and the story line develops around this intriguing conceit. In a sense the creativity of Jack is inspired by his creative mentor and ultimately symbolizes the victory of creativity show more over death in Brautigan and the young man. They both are deeply engaged in an existential pursuit -- how can one live amid so much futility, inauthenticity and the mindblowing endgame of death? What is the meaning of life and wherein does its value reside? For them the pursuit involves immersion into the experience of life itself -- not merely surviving, but living life fully. The young man's earnest and possibly quixotic striving leads him from woman to woman in a quest for real love. For how can life be lived fully without earth shattering love? The existential quest also takes them on the road and readers will sense the literary connection to Kerouac as well as to Ferlinghetti and Farina in "FRB." Jack's Big Idea is simply to live and to avoid or trade-off inauthentic life, as much as possible, for living with meager pecuniary means in the Now. I admire the young man's sincerity and integrity in his dogged, imaginative pursuit of a meaningful existence. It's clealry not all fun and games and the ending is also poignant: it left me wondering where other travels would lead Jack down the Great American Highway of Existence. The comedy in the narrative, especially the Lone Ranger joke, by his well-named brother, Lark, left me laughing out loud repeatedly. Initially, as the story is narrated in the first-person singular, I was concerned that the narrative would become overly self-indulgent. But wisely the author backs away from the creative dangers manifest in a first-person narrative style and focused on his ghostly foil, a daunting proposition which the author manages to pull off authentically. I was much impressed by Mesler's way with words and his daunting vocabulary amid a highly accessible, narrative structure. I enjoyed the realism of the dialogue and the round nuances of the primary characters. I had to laugh as Jack tried so valiantly and dutifully to steer customers in his bookstore away from pervasive, best-selling, commercial pap into the truly great books by the geniuses whom he respected. One can sense the sentiment of the author for each of the women with whom Jack and Richard tarry. I felt as if I had received intellectually well beyond my investment in reading this pithy, wise and profound novel. I sincerely entreat you to read "Following Richard Brautigan" as the odds are high that you will see yourself as a youth in your personal existential quest on every page of this great, dense, big-hearted and welcoming novel. show less

Frank is working on his time machine and arrives in het sexuality laden fantasy. But he gets stuck and invents a new life. Can he come back or not. This is an interesting theme for a story, which got me to read to the end.
However Franks sexual obsession told by the stories he write is weird. And not all erotic. For the story the very explicit sexual encounters are not really necessary. All in all a weird book.

Decent writing, but some of the punctuation seemed a little weird. I received an electronic copy as part of a Member Giveaway and it was listed as erotica. There seemed to be too much of a disconnect between the erotic parts and the rest of the story. Those parts weren't very descriptive and I personally wouldn't classify it as erotica.

This novel sings like a spirited, well played rendition of "Dirty Lowdown Blues" on Beale Street: it is authentic, gentile, Southern and soulful. Mesler treats his characters with a gentle hand in their depiction, which perhaps is Southern or just a spirited and eclectic writer giving his characters time and space to dance to the music of time to enable their unique identities to come into play. This novel is about aspiration and the distinction between what is authentic and what is show more artifice. This novel deals with the ghosts haunting our spirited lives and advising us well by insinuation of instinct and the voice of deep, innate reason to be only what we truly are. This novel is about the absurdity of life and its futility: Samuel Beckett is alluded to more than once but in "Memphis Movie" there exists no lingering despair, no bitter edges, no fearsome abyss. Mesler calmly builds characters who live and breathe, whom we come to know and care about, and whose lives intersect with comedy and tragedy in either case to enrich and inhabit a truly immersive reading experience. We become engaged in the storyline because the characters are engaging and beckon us to enter their lives and understand their hopes and dreams and ambitions. Mesler takes the aspirations of his characters and they become a springboard to the action of their lives, leading them on, egging them on or, as Scott Fitzgerald wrote in "Gatsby", they become "boats beating against the current." The well dressed set of Memphis in his movie is inherently essential in the telling of this rich, Southern tale: it is not only Southern but it is also American and, at times, even Biblical. Going back to the Pyramid and a poet bearing the Memphis mojo of movie script named Camel. At times, the Mississippi might just as well be the Nile. Memphis becomes an Eden after the Fall and, after all, it's germinal that Memphis is certainly East of both Hollywood and Eden, the latter of which is the first name of the film's producer. Mesler's writing is sure-footed and even throughout the novel and mesmerizing with inventive twists and credible turns in an imaginative storyline which Mesler plays against all the triangles of character like a chess master. The mature writing is calm and simple and glorious with a narrative in which the dialogue limns for its reality and beauty and resonant qualities of readership. One senses a quiet dignity and a subtle sense of beauty in the language by a writer who knows himself and his gifts implicitly. The writing's simplicity and honesty and beauty beguile and entice and evoke an eagerness to see what comes next. So one's interest is piqued, not because of conventions used to build suspense in lesser thrillers, but rather because the writing is exquisite and elegant so we care what happens next as the characters draw us into their lives by virtue of their foibles and their unique gifts. Mesler leads us ably through the haunts of his native city of Memphis: clearly, this is a town that Mesler knows inside-out and worships and adores. Like many great novels there exists a subtle Faustian tale resident in "Memphis Movie" and it is a novel which, as such, should also become a great movie. In the end, life is really just a feature film with images, created on fickle, flickering, insubstantial light playing on thin, luminous film, in which we star, direct and shoot among a cast of thousands with a script of indefinite direction leading to joy and heartbreak and ultimately a bewildering ending. Ah, but what a ride and what an ecstasy comes from this journey as the camera rolls to take in and capture lost time as unique human experience edited by the discretion of memory. Well worth the price of admission, I genuinely loved this great American novel of the South and can't recommend enough that you lose yourself in the 3D cinema of Corey Mesler's brilliant "Memphis Movie." show less