recommended reading

[jfb]

Well, I just finished Spilling Clarence, Anne Ursu's slightly surreal novel of remembering and forgetting in small-town Minnesota. I thought it was really great. It reminded me some of Don Delillo's White Noise, but that's a dangerous comparison for a book. Here's an excerpt with no particular context, from the story of Lilith, the perpetual cafe worker:

So far in the day, her human interaction has not been exactly pleasing. Her third customer of the morning, a woman in a pink pantsuit, greeted her with a simple, "Get me the usual."

Lilith did her best to smile. "I'm sorry. What is the usual?"

"I come in here every day and you don't know what the usual is, Brenda?"

Here's a longer excerpt courtesy of the publisher, and of course here's the book's official site.

I also recommend Joan Didion's essay "On Keeping a Notebook," from Slouching Towards Bethlehem and also found in various anthologies. It was interesting for me to read in juxtaposition with the notes I write here and elsewhere.