Elinor Nauen

Such a fantastic reading last night. Mike's work is great & he is a terrific reader & last night might have been his best-ever reading. Just when you think he's given you the whole story, all the juice, a little extra bomb goes off & there's more. June is the perfect character as well as a perfect person. Why aren't his books best-sellers?

Isn't the past just the present, minus the uncertainty?

~ Mike DeCapite, from his terrific new novel Jacket Weather

 

I love this book & Mike & his voice & his name & the modern-eternal love story his novel's about. 

It's not jacket weather in the least, being in the 70s, but it is indeed Jacket Weather if we're talking about Mike DeCapite's terrific book, out at last from Soft Skull. Has any other novelist been able to break your heart at the exact same moment he's making you laugh till you almost throw up?

 

Read it! 

Loving Mike DeCapite's Through the Windshield. Mike's the bard of Cleveland, Walt Whitman crossed with Raymond Chandler. I can't imagine too many writers making gritty Cleveland seem romantic. Or beautiful: "It was a windy day and so bright the wind had a shine to it." He's funny, too, & there's lots of music playing while the protagonist, a taxi driver, drinks, gambles, mopes & observes.

Also, I finally found (well, Johnny did) the 3rd volume of Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, which has been lost in our house for the last 2 years. Read More