Notes on what I've been reading
3/23/25
This William Vollman piece at the is incredible, it’s a magazine style feature on how a rascally writer lost his last book contract, because you know books are a business, much to everyone’s chagrin, and there’s a a nice bit of “how publishing used to be” sandwiched in there too, those editors used to go out in the East Village and now they’re “upstate” hiking and such, and the old editors have been pushed out, and they can’t sustain Vollman any longer either, even him, whom I consider a lion of the capital-Literature, at least in the grad school set, and his last novel only sold about 5000 copies, like what are we even doing here?
I’ve never encountered anyone in the wild reading Vollman, and quite frankly I’ve never read him either, but he’s supposed to be one of those writers like John Barth, and Donald Barthelme and Thomas Pynchon and Joy Williams and Lorrie Moore that you’re just supposed to understand and cite as “genius” whom yes they’re all great writers, but that doesn’t mean they make a lot of money, it’s foolish to think they can, but then again, it’s what are your expectations? Like how much is enough (always the eternal q)? Because making any money solely based on your ideas and your “creativity” always feels like you’re getting away with something…read the piece though…and then Vollman got hit by a car? And he had cancer? And his daughter slept on the streets? His next book should be a memoir.
Speaking of getting drinks in the East Village, my wife and I went to Book Club on a date a week or 2 ago, and I picked up this huge book, Ducks, Newburyport and it’s mostly one very long-run-on sentence, a stream of consciousness of a pop-culture obsessed Ohio housewife, but written by a daughter of a Joyce scholar, so you get a lot of commas, much like I’m writing here. It’s an entertaining book so far. I’m glad I found it and purchased it and it was given many awards back in 2019, check it out.
Did I say it’s a big book? Here it is stacked up to my previous read, The Flamethrowers.
Finally decided to stop reading that Erik Larson book on Fort Sumter. He did a great job on the research, but the narrative seemed to prolong the inevitable a bit much. It’s probably interesting to the real Civil War buffs out there, but that’s not me.
Continuing my recent SNL50 deep dive, I’m enjoying the Lorne Michaels biography. It’s amazing to think about how TV has changed so dramatically in about 50 years, and how Michaels really did want to bring innovative comedy to television, but with always keeping an eye on how it would play in the middle of the country. Good read so far.
Keep going.