Tag Archives: 1980s

Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr. (2009)

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A genius baby is born to a Maine family with an alcoholic mother and a cocaine-addict older son, but the kicker is that the baby knows that a stray comet’s going to destroy the world in 2010.  The novel goes in wildly varied directions from here using different narrators and styles, with no two sections alike and plenty of black humor.  The second-person sections take some getting used to but add an otherworldly flair that becomes essential plot-wise, resulting in a thoughtful meditation on what it means to enjoy life and find meaning in the face of tragedy.

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The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro (1988)

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An aging butler in 1950s Britain goes on a road trip and reflects on the glory days of the British aristocracy that turn out to be not so glorious.  This novel works so incredibly because of its narrator, who speaks in a voice that’s both dignified and easy to read, reeking of unreliability and dry humor as he encounters the common folk.  Greater stakes, however, lie in its backstory of what democracy really means and how an entire working class could trade their independence for service to the upper classes—who are prone to more than a few shortcomings.

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Fight Scenes, by Greg Bottoms (2008)

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Fight Scenes is about growing up in the 1980s with your friend whose dad keeps naked pictures of women he’s slept with under his bed; it’s about dealing with bullies and looking at porn with girls you like and sitting in front of the 7-Eleven and smoking pot in the woods and fending off crazy racists at the local Popeye’s.  Bottoms shows us these moments in a series of vignettes that all say more than they seem to at first glance, so that the book shows us both his ridiculous middle-school adventures and how fucked up life can be.

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Where I Got It

A 2016 Christmas gift from the same friend who got me Rose of No Man’s Land, which is also pretty rad.

Lichtenstein, by Janis Hendrickson (1988, 2012)

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This picture-filled guide to Roy Lichtenstein’s career covers both his paintings of starry-eyed comic-book heroines (an example of which graces the cover), his images of everyday objects like washing machines and golf balls, and his later, more abstract paintings.  There’s also a close technical and thematic look at the Benday dots used in so many of his works.  Though I was most interested in Lichtenstein’s Pop Art images, the book covers much more, though the latter half goes into more depth than I was looking for.  Still, a solid introduction to Lichtenstein’s life and work with cool pictures.

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Where I Got It

At a bookstore in the Germantown section of Columbus, Ohio in summer 2015.  I’d been interested in Lichtenstein’s Pop Art works for a while (one of my teachers had a large “I’d Rather Sink Than Call Brad For Help” print on his office door in college, below), and buying this book was my reminder to actually learn more about him.

 

 

Once Upon a River, by Bonnie Jo Campbell (2011)

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Sixteen-year-old sharpshooter Margo Crane leaves home after a family dispute and follows the river, initially seeking male companions of varying quality before deciding to live by her wits.  Though the story starts out with a literal bang, the rest feels disconnected as Margo undergoes a series of strung-together tribulations.  We see her growing up, but the change feels less satisfying since a lot of it was there all along.  The scenes vary in their effectiveness, with some feeling clunky as they follow that literary fiction voice often copied by graduate writing workshops.  In short: nothing too new here.

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Where I Got It:

Bought online in August 2013 for a graduate writing workshop (the last of several books I bought for that workshop but didn’t actually read until later).

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Author website

Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissinger (1990)

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I have zero interest in football, but I enjoyed Bissinger’s book because it’s mostly about the all-encompassing influence that football holds over midwestern culture.  Bissinger spent a year in the west Texas town of Odessa following its high school football team to the state championship, and shows how completely football trumps academics and leads the town to build a $5.6 million stadium for its high school.  He also discusses how racial tensions and Reagan-era politics affected the region—history seen from ground level.

There’s a lot of football play-by-plays too, but I kind of skimmed over those.

Rating:

4-kafkas

Where I Got It

Bought online a few weeks ago, part of the research process for my new novel.

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Bissinger reflects on Friday Night Lights 25 years later (Sports Illustrated)

Interview with Bissinger on the book’s 25th anniversary (NPR)

Conversations with Kingsley Amis, by Thomas DePietro (2009)

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DePietro’s collection covers forty years of interviews with British novelist and man of letters Kingsley Amis, who has a lot to say on the writing process, British politics, and the working-class hero in post-WWII fiction as he moves from card-carrying Communist party member to hardcore Thatcher supporter over the course of forty years.  The collection also serves as a useful, expedited autobiography of Amis’s life (with his philandering only alluded to), but can be repetitive since Amis retells the same anecdotes over and over—how many times can we hear him deny being one of the Angry Young Men?

Rating:

3-kafkas

Where I Got It

Bought online a few weeks ago as part of research for the new novel.

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1975 Interview with Amis for the Paris Review

Or, check out Amis’s first and most famous novel Lucky Jim instead

 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera (1984)

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Kundera’s prose is just plain beautiful: lyrical, thought-provoking, and melodic, divided into short, powerful scenes that make for lots of page-turning, so an extra kudos to translator Michael Henry Heim for capturing the power of the original Czech.  The plot involves a man who cheats constantly on his wife, but the plot comes second to Kundera’s other subjects: love, the 1968 Prague Spring/Communist invasion by Russia, more love, sex, communication, more sex, fate, dogs, fidelity, being an ex-pat, loyalty to one’s ideals, and old age.  A great read, though a quick warning: the philosophical reflections do get dense.

Rating:

4-kafkas

Where I Got It

Gift from a friend I visited in Columbus, Ohio who was downsizing his book collection and recommended it highly, Summer 2015.

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Milan Kundera on Wikipedia

How Important is Milan Kundera Today? (2015 article in The Guardian)

Less Than Zero, by Bret Easton Ellis (1985)

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Bret Easton Ellis’s first novel feels like a 1980s version of The Sun Also Rises with heroin, male prostitution, and at least one snuff film, which was probably the same level of scandal as when Hemingway’s characters got drunk and had premarital sex in 1926. The whole novel evokes a quiet, disconcerting loathing for the fast-paced, aimless LA lifestyle of its post-high school characters, with subdued yet depressing descriptions of everything from desert scenery to shooting up heroin. It’s also a fast read that leaves you with a distinctly unsettled feeling, but in a good way.

Rating:
4-kafkas
Where I Got It

Ordered online in Summer 2015 after having this on my informal To-Read list since college.

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Wikipedia page