i've been reading her since breaking and entering came out and been a huge fan ever since. she has truly inspired me over the years. she has always been big with other writers and i think she is finally better known with regular folks as well. partly because of her environmental stances. (i'm sure you will find me raving about her years ago on ILB and wondering why more people don't read her and now i feel like people really are.)
― scott seward, Friday, 15 December 2023 19:30 (four months ago) link
Yeah her early stories and first novel, State of Grace---Florida girl clouds ov imagery around crisis lines, narrative third and other rails---were revelatory to me, though haven't followed her very well since. A relatively recent New Yorker story seemed unfollowable, and interviews can incl. some Joyce-Carol-Oates-on-Twitter-level snobbery, but the early stuff, at least, is fine as wine.
― dow, Saturday, 16 December 2023 19:05 (four months ago) link
she's 79 and still doing stuff. god bless. i think she's always been a little cranky.
― scott seward, Saturday, 16 December 2023 22:14 (four months ago) link
I know that I've heard some of her stories read on "Selected Shorts," and I've loved them, but I can't think of what they were.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Saturday, 16 December 2023 22:23 (four months ago) link
I didn't discover her until 2021, and the rhythm, brevity, and its gnomic virtues gripped me from the start
― stuffing your suit pockets with cold, stale chicken tende (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 16 December 2023 22:27 (four months ago) link
"Marabou" was definitely one.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Saturday, 16 December 2023 22:30 (four months ago) link
love that joy williams and gary lutz have come up, they are the greatest
a friend of mine once compared my writing to gary lutz which is an amazing (and undeserved) compliment
― ivy., Saturday, 16 December 2023 22:40 (four months ago) link
ada was one of my favorite books forever ago! reckon these days it'd make my eyes roll so hard they corkscrew out the back of my skull
+1 to the bible-giver-uppers: i was never a believer but in my teens decided i should read it for its literary and cultural value (and also to brag) but within the first few pages god cursed eve and all womankind so i ripped it up and set it on fire because i absolutely do not play that
― 🍍🥧 (cat), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 14:55 (four months ago) link
more recently i tried frederik pohl's beyond the blue event horizon and it was like chapter 1: "no young man, do not commit rape. there is only a 1 in 6 chance you will enjoy it enough for it to be worth the effort lololol" chapter 2: "dear diary, it sure is tiresome to be a forty year old dude on a cramped spaceship with my bitchy wife and her bitchy 14 year old sister who keeps trying to seduce me, guess there's nothing to do but keep beating the ship's (female) computer at chess lololol" and there were some promising sci-fi concepts to begin with but a writer has to be way more entertaining to get me to power through that much hatred
― 🍍🥧 (cat), Tuesday, 19 December 2023 15:11 (four months ago) link