My daughter, Katie Ives, is a recent graduate of the Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa. She is working on a series of stories based on rock climbing. One recently won a writing contest and appeared in the December 2004 issue of Rock and Ice Magazine.
When I recently visited her, I asked for recommendations of good contemporary writers. Here are her picks plus the work of one of her teachers at Iowa.
The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald provides four seemingly different stories that are united by the themes of loss and displacement. As one Amazon reviewer writes, “He takes facts and fiction and blurs the line but one is hard pressed to define his work as creative non-fiction or a fictional account of facts for even if we know that several of these people existed or were based on people who did, we are left with the sense that we have read a piece of fiction.”
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee is set in South Africa and describes the fall from grace of David Lurie, a professor of "Communications" at a Cape Town university. His specialty is Romantic poets and he attempts to operate in the mode of a character in his favorite, Bryon. While at Katie’s I started to read Coetzee’s newer novel, Waiting for the Barbarians which is a very seductive book. It draws you in with a sparse set of details but an intriguing story. There are very few names in this novel and it almost has a science fiction quality. You can project your own image of the physical and temporal space that it operates within. The main character is simply known as the Magistrate. His duty is to supervise a piece of territory that belongs to the Empire. I ordered a copy.
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates is not recent but has recently been reissued. Here is a description from the book provided in the Amazon. “From the moment of its publication in 1961, Revolutionary Road was hailed as a masterpiece of realistic fiction and as the most evocative portrayal of the opulent desolation of the American suburbs. It's the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a bright, beautiful, and talented couple who have lived on the assumption that greatness is only just around the corner. With heartbreaking compassion and remorseless clarity, Richard Yates shows how Frank and April mortgage their spiritual birthright, betraying not only each other, but their best selves.”
Bel Canto: A Novel by Ann Patchett is set somewhere in South America. As the Amazon review writes. “It occurs at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening -- until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different countries and continents become compatriots. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion and cannot be stopped.”
Housekeeping by was the first novel of Marilynne Robinson, one of Katie’s professors at Iowa. She has spend more of recent time teaching than writing but her long waited next novel is due out soon. Housekeeping was published in 1980 and won the Pen/Hemingway Award. It is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, the eccentric and remote sister of their dead mother. As Doris Lessing said, "I found myself reading slowly, than more slowly--this is not a novel to be hurried through, for every sentence is a delight."
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