even books

Eli Schwartz is the slack-jawed, tubby-tummied hero of Flatscreen, the sophomore effort of US writer Adam Wilson. Eli has graduated high school only to find himself jobless, girlfriendless, and living in a condo in suburbia with his depresso, wine-guzzling Mom. YAWN, right? But then things take a turn for the sorta interesting when he develops a friendship with the washed-up actor who moves into his childhood home. This guy, Seymour Kahn, is also wheelchair-bound, with a penchant for prescription drugs, strippers, and according to Eli, Eli himself. Seymour has a messed up little family he tries to stay away from, much like Eli, so the two get along great guns … until, that is, one of them gets shot. Yeah, for real.

Author Wilson is a former TV blogger for Flavorwire so it’s no surprise his writing is peppered with about a million movie references and lots of OMG internet shorthand speak. It’s about as easy to chomp through as confectionary, and eventually gives you just about as much of a headache. The best joke is when the Mom ends up moving to Florida to date a Jeff Goldblum-But-Spelt-Differently. From all these cultural in-jokes, I guess we’re supposed to feel like Eli is our buddy, our friendly neighbourhood dropkick … but really, if I met this guy at a party, I’d probably clink beer bottles and move on.

You can definitely see a pattern here. Eli sits comfortably alongside other 20th century apathetic anti-heroes: I’m thinking the phony-phobic Holden Caulfield of Catcher in the Rye, or even Reality Bites’ couch-surfing stubblefest, Troy Dyer. In fact, Flatscreen would’ve probably been more comfortable in the 90s full-stop. It’s angst-ridden and makes some questionable fashion choices – with Eli spending a few scenes swanning about stoned in a flannel bed robe.

That said, Flatscreen does a convincing job of communicating to us the malaise of a modern-day America, which really hasn’t changed that much since then. By the end of the novel you don’t up caring much … but then, maybe that’s the point.

- AB

A Tiger in Eden is the debut novel from Melbourne writer Chris Flynn. Originally from Belfast, he’s taken his knowledge of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, combined it with his knowledge of sexy backpacker party times, and created a bit of an Eat Pray Love for men, only with more fisticuffs. Luckily, this isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.

Our protagonist is Billy – a loyalist hard man who did unspeakable things as part of an Ulster paramilitary group in the 90s. He’s on the run from the Belfast police and lying low in southern Thailand.

He gets drunk, gets tanned, has a whole lot of meaningless sex, dabbles with the idea of getting back into crime, then somehow finds himself in a Buddhist retreat where he learns that no matter how far you travel your past will always catch up with you (this is the point where I started to feel the Eat Pray Love vibes). Billy goes on to meet a special lady who changes the game, and he has a soul wrenching yet life-affirming moment after taking a bunch of pills at a full moon party. Oh, and he also stares down an escaped tiger with his tough guy eyes, saving himself and his lady from a violent demise.

Yeah, a lot of this is full on male fantasy: namely, the barrage of sex scenes with hot young European backpackers and the fight sequences where Billy feels immortal and seems unstoppable. The writing itself is great though. Flynn creates a thick Irish brogue for Billy and uses very little grammar in order to capture the cadences and pace of Irish speech. This takes some getting used to but ultimately lends the book a fantastic energy. The premise itself - a hard man in a tropical paradise - is also compelling. I would have preferred more insight into the Irish situation itself and less insight into the types of muffs Billy encountered on his journey, but hey, that’s just me. You might really get into the muffs.

– AF

So, Sunday past we hit the macaroni for our first ever segment on FBi’s Canvas, entitled, rather imaginatively, ‘Even Books on FBi.’ Our host was Jesse Cox and he was super (he was also wearing a great sweater, which those in radio land sadly missed out on). We talked about books and then Jesse interviewed Marieke Hardy for us. Here are some funny things we said:

About our ‘sting’, which is radio speak for some kind of jingle: “AIR HORNS!” *giggles*

Our parties: “Everyone in the room has at least one topic of conversation to conversate about … hence the need for lubrication.”

On pretending we are urban rappers: “We wanted to make the B Club [a literary salon in London] more street, more gutter yknow.”

On one of the smartest women in America: “Tina Fey: a rollicking ride.”

One thing you should probably never suggest on a book club segment: “If you can’t be bothered to read, watch YouTube instead.”

A phrase Virginia Woolf has probably never heard used in relation to her work: “Sensorial zest.”

And some excellent things Marieke Hardy said about her book, You’ll be Sorry When I’m Dead:

On stories like the one that takes place in a Swinger’s Club: “They’re not sexy-sex, Nikki Gemmell stories…”

On baring all: “There’s more raw honesty than dick jokes.”

On allowing those mentioned an unedited ‘right-of-reply’: “That felt like the braver part of the book. Letting go of the reins.”

On the ‘real’ Marieke: “For funny stories, there is a point where you have to be a caricature.”

On her highschool zine: “We nearly broke the photocopier in the library with Sex Bus!”

We unfortunately didn’t get to ask her about season two of her black comedy TV series Laid, which is in-production. If we did, we hope she would’ve said this: “Your box set is in the mail.”

You can listen to the on-demand stream here.

And as for some books we’d like to recommend? On air, we only touched on a few. Ok, two, to be exact. But here are a few more, in random order. Don’t like random? Just you wait till we are such mega-gods of radio and book reviews that we put them in Dewey Decimal AND alphabetical order. Then you’ll be sorry.

Bossypants (Tina Fey) - A spiky blend of humour, introspection and critical thinking from one of the most beloved comedy writers of our time. Pretty much non-stop zingers. You’d have to have been in hiding not to have noticed all the press about it a few months back.
There but for the is by Scottish writer Ali Smith, a lady who looks a little bit like a friendly goblin. It’s about a man called Miles who attends a dinner party and then halfway through, as the hostess torches the crème brulees, disappears into the spare room and refuses to come out. He leaves a note: Fine for water but will need food soon. Vegetarian, as you know. Thank you for your patience. The hosts kind of seem like assholes but still, it’s hard to know what anyone would be like in that situation. They find a random number in his phone book of a lady called Anna who he’d known, barely, twenty years before, so they call her and ask her to come help coax him out. It becomes about how one event can fuse together many stories, which is an Ali Smith trademark. Her Hotel World is about how various women – a maid, a ghost, an eccentric hostel visitor, a homeless lady – are brought together over one night. The Accidental is about one family’s very hot sticky summer spent in the country, and an accidental house guest they acquire, and how she turns all their lives upside down. Smith is a deft and beautiful writer, given to gusts of sensory perceptions and Madeline cake moments – one bite leading to pages of memories and thoughts. You can see a lot of Virginia Woolf in her style, which is very vivid. There but for the came out 2011. (AB)
The Life (Malcolm Knox) tells the story of Dennis Keith (DK), a 58 year old former surf champion who now suffers from OCD and lives with his mum in her nursing home, too fat to sit on a surfboard let alone stand on one. He’s a fictional character, but quite heavily based on real world surf champion Michael Peterson, a famously volatile surfer who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. It’s a story of self destructive genius, and it’s also a great snapshot of Australia at a particular time, when seaside towns changed under the hands of developers.

People can’t help but compare it to Tim Winton’s Breath, but in stark contrast to Winton’s ornate descriptions of ‘men dancing upon waves’, The Life is written in the language of the line-up: ‘I done this’, ‘yous done that’.

The story is told in the third person and then the first, jumps around between past and present, is crammed with half-sentences, broken sentences, with repetition and colloquialisms. At first everything feels a bit wrong: too choppy, too abrupt, but after a while you go with it, stop noticing, and the words take you somewhere else. A bit like when you first try reading Irvine Welsh. Highly recommended. (AF)
Revolutionary Road is a novel by Richard Yates and is thought of by many as an American classic. It follows the marital breakdown of April and Frank Wheeler, and by extension the breakdown of the American Dream. In the movie directed by Sam Mendes the pair are played by Kate Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio, who are both appropriately attractive and troubled (also, Titanic 2.0!). It has been described as American Beauty circa 1955 and it certainly shares some themes: the disillusionment with the suburban idyll, a vitriolic but also somehow loving marriage, a generation of children who suffer as a by-product of their parent’s decisions. The only problem I had with it was that Yates seemed to dislike his own female character, April – she was beautiful but ultimately not understood. It was very much a man’s tale. Still, fifty years later, it remains a searing and prescient portrait of an America in decline. (AB)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) is one of the classics I’m embarrassed to have never got around to reading, and the reason I’m finally doing it now is that I can’t stand to read the book after I’ve seen the film (and I do really want to see the film). So I began with a resigned ‘this will be good for me’ sigh. But happily, I’m just loving it to death. The incorruptible Ms Eyre herself isn’t in the least bit annoying, the conversations between characters are often profound and frankly it’s making me want to be a more clean-living, virtuous person. (AF)

Curse of the Wolf Girl is the follow up to Lonely Werewolf Girl, both by Scottish writer Martin Millar, who looks more like a grumpy elf. While rather silly, it’s lots of fun. The heroine is a snarly but beautiful werewolf warrior called Kalix, and it’s all about her and her messed up royal werewolf family, plus some fire elementals obsessed with fashion, and an overweight or maladjusted human or two. Neil Gaiman rates Millar’s work and so do I. (AB)

I will also admit to this week buying the first instalment in the Game of Thrones saga by fantasy heavyweight George R.R. Martin. And so bid adieu to any spare time I may have had over the next two centuries or so. (AB)

And I’m looking forward to reading A Spectacle of Dust, Pete Postlethwaite’s autobiography, not just because he had a “face like a f-ing stone archway”. (AF)

That’s it! Tune in next time for a back-to-back recitation of James Joyce’s Ulysses, in Dutch-Swahili.

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