"I'm astounded by people who take 18 years to write something. That's how long it took that guy to write 'Madame Bovary,' and was that ever on the best-seller list?"
Over at the Fictionaut blog, Matt Briggs fine series, Rediscovered Reading, takes a look back at Dawn Raffel's first book. Her story collection, In the Year of Long Division, was published by Knopf back in 1995, and it has the same traits that makes Raffel's current work so interesting. In Briggs' words:Each story is a feat of prose style, too. They accomplish the
improbable task of discovering a way of writing something that matches
her subject. She uses sentence fragments and run-ons. She omits names,
preferring sometimes pronouns, letters, and generic names like Mother
and Father.It's not a difficult book to find. If you're reading this, you seemingly have internet access, which means you can find www.abebooks.com pretty easily. It's well worth your time, as is looking a copy of her follow-up title, the novel, Carrying the Body.My suggestion? Go find these books, read them, fall in love with Raffel's work and by then, her forthcoming title, Further Adventures in the Restless Universe, will be close enough to available (March 2010, Dzanc Books) to keep your excitement level up!
By definition, the modern practice of history begins with written records; evidence of human culture without writing is the realm of prehistory.