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Andrew Ervin — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:23:00 +0000

Washington Post Book World // 5 Memoirs

Andrew Ervin — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:03:00 +0000

I reviewed five memoirs for today's Post:

Light Years: A Girlhood in Hawai'i by Susanna Moore
Greetings from Bury Park by Sarfraz Manzoor
Kinky Gazpacho by Lori L. Tharps
A Long Retreat by Andrew Krivak
Escape from Saddam by Lewis Alsamari

Philadelphia Inquirer // Our Story Begins by Tobias Wolff

Andrew Ervin — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:00:00 +0000

My review is here.

Few authors today so accurately get at the heart of what makes us tick. Despite the beautiful exactitude of the prose, and the fluid turns of phrase that remind us how elastic the English language truly is, reading Wolff can be a little disconcerting - in a good way. In his fiction, Wolff fully exposes the good, bad, and ugly about what it means to be alive in this day and age.

"The Phillie Phanatic" in Hobart

Andrew Ervin — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:31:00 +0000

I'm pleased to report that my short story "The Phillie Phanatic" is excerpted in the annual baseball issue of Hobart online. You can find the entire story in the current issue of Fiction International.

Also, don't miss the amazing story "A Father's Guide to the Sea" by my friend Caroline Duda in the current issue of the Abacot Journal.

4/13: "The Phillie Phanatic" got a nice (and unusual) comment about "The Phillie Phanatic" at On the Prairie Diamond:

"Hobart’s Annual Baseball Web Issue. An excess of sentiment and perhaps better judgment leaves me helpless to the charms of Andrew Ervin’s “The Phillie Phanatic,” who is rather certainly related to the Snuffleupaggi of Hawai‘i. (The Phanatic, not Ervin, though one can never assume.)"

Miami Herald // Knowledge of Hell by António Lobo Antunes

Andrew Ervin — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:14:00 +0000

My review appears in today's Miami Herald.

Readers of the newly translated Portuguese novel Knowledge of Hell will not be surprised to learn that its author, António Lobo Antunes, is also a practicing psychiatrist. It's difficult to name another artist who better understands the subtle ways in which memory constantly affects our conscious, in-the-present thought processes. W. G. Sebald and Marcel Proust are obvious choices, but not entirely accurate ones. At his best, Antunes can make even those madeleine-induced, temporal cross-fades of In Search of Lost Time look like choppy edits in a bad home movie. If we're to look for influences on Antunes' lush, dreamy novel, admirers of Dante's epic will want to note that the Portuguese title Conhecimento do inferno could have been literally translated as Understanding the Inferno.

2 Loose Book Reviews

Andrew Ervin — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:52:00 +0000

An editor in Philadelphia, my hometown, solicited two short book reviews from me a while back. Unfortunately, they got lost in a spam filter and never ran. As I did however get paid for them (and subsequently blew the check on such trivialities as rent and food), I didn't bother trying to place them elsewhere. Here they are.

What is Sport?
By Roland Barthes
Translated by Richard Howard
University of Yale Press, 96 pages

What is sport? Well, if you’re a lifelong Phillies and Eagles fan, the answer is probably “torture.” But this year’s going to be different, right? Right? According to Roland Barthes, one of the twentieth century’s foremost philosophers and cultural critics, the function of sport is more than an outlet for our basest, battery-chucking instincts. “What is Sport” consists of the short, aphoristic text Barthes wrote for inclusion in a 1960 movie by Hubert Aquin. (Aquin, it should be noted, would go on to write several amazing novels and become an important figure in the Québec-sovereignty movement. Won’t somebody please republish “Neige noire” and “Prochain épisode” in translation?) In his commentary, Barthes focuses on five sports: bullfighting, auto racing, the Tour de France, ice hockey, soccer. He tells us that, “Ultimately man knows certain forces, certain conflicts, joys and agonies: sport expresses them, liberates them, consumes them without ever letting anything be destroyed.” That’s open to debate, I suppose, but when Barthes writes that sport is “the entire trajectory separating a combat from a riot,” you would almost think that he spent time with us up in the 700-level of the Vet.

All Over: Stories
By Roy Kesey
Dzanc Books, 145 pp., paper, $13

In “All Over,” Roy Kesey creates drama—real tension, I mean, not melodrama or bathos—seemingly out of thin air. Shiny pieces of plot and of character rotate around each other as in a kaleidoscope but, eventually and invariably, congeal into a vivid and unexpected image. In these nineteen stories, many of which bear one-word titles like “Cheese” and “Calisthenics” and “Interview,” his characters get attacked by llamas, give birth, build a structure out of ingredients from a Pizza Hut salad bar. “Scroll,” about a frustrated painter, takes a hard look at the distinctions between artistic, commercial, and popular success. In “Hat,” a personal favorite, a man learns to make a functioning airplane out of a paper clip. Quite a few of these have already turned up in some of our most respectable literary magazines and in one of those annual “Best American” anthologies, but having them all in one makes Kesey’s talents all the more obvious. The stories in “All Over” don’t represent anything, they just are. What they are, however, is what makes them so intriguing: terrifying, goofy, mesmerizing, discomforting, hilarious, terrifying again.

Miami Herald // Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño

Andrew Ervin — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:06:00 +0000

The Miami Herald today published my review of the new Roberto Bolaño novella. The editor there, Connie Ogle, runs an amazing book section. She also has an excellent blog .

The satire isn't limited to mocking a bunch of pretentious, pantywaist Nazis. These often absurd portraits add up into something unique, and seemingly random threads combine to form a richly textured tapestry.
Bolaño's genius then, lies not only in telling a series of compelling stories, nor even in piling those up to form a larger narrative about a particular and unfortunate (if make-believe) artistic movement, but also in gently prodding us to ask some important questions about our own literary establishment.

Washington Post Book World // The Assist by Neil Swidey

Andrew Ervin — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 20:07:00 +0000

Now is the winter of every sports fan's discontent. The sports page these days all too often reads like a rap sheet, if not a treatise on advanced pharmacology. With the football season over, the weeks drag on in eager anticipation of spring training and March Madness. Maybe that's why Neil Swidey's The Assist, about a remarkable inner-city basketball team, seems to have arrived at the perfect time.

You can read the review here.

2/23: Reprinted in the Seattle Times.

San Francisco Chronicle // God Save the Fan by Will Leitsch

Andrew Ervin — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:35:00 +0000

Cliches of course run rampant in most books about sports, and "God Save the Fan" suffers from its fair share. It also boasts the kind of superficiality that makes so much sports-talk radio so tedious. In speaking out against the sports establishment, however, Leitch demonstrates that he commands the kind of critical, independent spirit that if used effectively could raise all fans' awareness about how poorly they're being treated by the teams and leagues to which they devote so much time and money. It will come as no surprise if one day he produces a truly powerful book about the state of sports in America. "God Save the Fan" is not it.

You can find the entire review here.

Off to NYC

Andrew Ervin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:32:00 +0000

I'll be in NYC (from 1/30-2/2) to attend the AWP conference and to meet my agent, Ira Silverberg, for the first time. Should be a good time. I miss the East Coast. A lot.

I'd like to encourage the readers of this blog, both of them, to please stop by the Ninth Letter table in the AWP book fair and say hello. I'll be there during the following times:

Thursday: 3-4
Friday: 9-11 and 12-1 and 4-5:30
Saturday: 10-11, immediately after which I will get on a train for the Jersey Shore.

The Believer // Detective Story by Imre Kertész

Andrew Ervin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:24:00 +0000

The February issue of The Believer contains my review of Detective Story by the great Hungarian novelist Imre Kertész. If you haven't read his previous books, especially Fatelessness, I'd like to encourage you to do so.

My friends Sheila Heti, Blake Butler, and Tayari Jones are all in the issue too, which makes me very happy. It's like hanging out with friends I don't get to see very often.

Tayari Jones's Mac & Cheese

Andrew Ervin — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 17:38:00 +0000

The key word is "jones," as you will want to make this again and again.

See Tayari's blog for details. I first round the recipe on Maud Newton's site, which I adore.

Macaroni and cheese is sort of a cultural thumbprint. How you make it shows exactly who you are and where you are from.
This is a recipe for southern macaroni and cheese, which means it is baked. I also want to say that it is a traditionally African-American version, in as it does not contain breadcrumbs. I am hesitant about the last part because I am sure that I will get an email from some black person who detests stereotypes or generalizations of any kind.

So, for the sake of keeping the holiday peace, I am going to say that it is a southern mac and cheese. And it is really really delicious. I promise.
10 oz of elbow macaroni
6 oz sharp cheddar cheese, grated
6 oz mild cheddar, grated
1 stick of butter
4 eggs
1 cup whole milk *
½ cup evaporated milk
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
pinch of paprika
½ small onion diced (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Whip eggs in small bowl and put aside. Mix cheeses in small bowl and put aside.

Boil pasta in LARGE pot and drain off most of the water. While pasta in still steaming, stir in the butter and about ¾ of the cheese. Stir until everything is all melty. Add salt, pepper, and paprika. (This is your last opportunity to taste, so please do.) Next add eggs, and all milk. You can add the onion now, if you like. The whole concoction should be really soupy. Stir, stir and stir some more.

Pour mixture into a casserole dish and bake for about 30 minutes. It will rise like soufflé, so make sure that your dish is big enough. Carefully open the oven and slide the rack out halfway so you can sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Continue to bake about another ten minutes until the cheese is bubbly. Take it out of the oven and let it sit about 10-15 minutes while it sets.

* Dieters can substitute skim or 2% milk and the butter can be cut down by half. You might be able to scale back the cheese a little, but just use less cheese, not a 2% or fat free.

My Favorite Books of 2007

Andrew Ervin — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:04:00 +0000

An incomplete list:

Fiction
Chris Abani, Song for Night (Akashic)
Amiri Baraka, Tales of the Out and the Gone (Akashic)
Ron Currie Jr., God is Dead (Viking)
Trinie Dalton, A Unicorn is Born (Abrams)
Steve Erickson, Zeroville (Europa Editions)
Percival Everett, The Water Cure (Graywolf)
Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke (FSG)
Geoffrey Household, Rogue Male (NYRB)
Bohumil Hrabal, I Served the Kind of England (New Directions)
Travis Jeppesen, Wolf at the Door (Twisted Spoon P)
Gyula Krúdy, Sunfolwer (NYRB)
Rick Moody, Right Livelihoods: Three Novellas (Little, Brown)
Stewart O'Nan, Last Night at the Lobster (Viking)
Aaron Petrovich, The Session (Hotel St. George)
Lydie Salvayre, The Power of Flies (Dalkey Archive P)
Selah Saterstrom, The Meat and Spirit Plan (Coffee House P)
Jim Shepard, Like You'd Understand, Anyway (Knopf)

Nonfiction
Roland Barthes, What is Sport? (Yale UP)
Madison Smartt Bell, Toussaint Louverture (Pantheon)
Herodotus, The Landmark Herodotus (Pantheon)
A.M. Homes, The Mistress's Daughter (Viking)
Sally Jenkis, The Real All Americans: The Team that Changed a Game, a People, a Nation (Doubleday)
Deborah Kapchan, Traveling Spirit Masters: Moroccan Gnawa Trance and Music in the Global Marketplace (Wesleyan UP)
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New Directions)
Peter Nádas, Fire and Knowledge (FSG)
Henry David Thoreau, To Myself (Yale UP)

Poetry
Gabriel Gudding, Rhode Island Notebook (Dalkey Archive P)
Ron Silliman, The Age of Huts (Compleat) (U of California P)
Victor Segalen, Stèles (Wesleyan UP)

3 2007 Books I Still Want to Read
Robert Stone, Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties (Ecco)
Paul Verhaeghen, Omega Minor (Dalkey Archive P)
William T. Vollmann, Poor People (Ecco)

What am I forgetting?

"The Phillie Phanatic" in Fiction International

Andrew Ervin — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:41:00 +0000

My short story "The Phillie Phanatic," about the sordid inner life of the beloved baseball mascot, is in the new issue of Fiction International. It begins:

I have been set on fire and pushed down these steep cinderblock steps. The people here have snapped the bones of my arms and kicked my stomach. My heavy fur doesn’t help—it just makes the sweat and stink and daily humiliation even more insufferable. On a muggy East Coast night I can feel the weight of this entire city pressing me down into the toxic and overly manicured field from which the heat rises in a blinding, swiggling haze. My life has become a carnivalesque nightmare from which I cannot awaken.

For twenty-eight years I have been imprisoned: an eternity of solitary, lugubrious winters and sweltering Philadelphia summers. I ask myself sometimes which is worse and I have found in myself no suitable answer.

I owe a world of thanks to my teacher and friend Audrey Petty, who helped me a great deal with this story.

1/5/08: The issue is available here. Please buy a copy.

Philadelphia Inquirer // The Water Cure by Percival Everett

Andrew Ervin — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 13:29:00 +0000

Frank Wilson over at my hometown Philadelphia Inquirer was nice enough to let me review Percival Everett's latest.

Consider yourself warned: The Water Cure will keep you awake at night for however long it takes you to read it and likely for a significant amount of time afterward. The novel, part revenge fantasy and part treatise on ancient philosophy, details the emotional devastation of a father beset on all sides by trouble and tragedy. It is at times violent, blasphemous, crude, juvenile, indecent, hilarious, upsetting - and altogether captivating, so to speak, for those very reasons.

11/27: Conversational Reading is discussing the review today. Some people over there aren't thrilled about my comparison of Everett to Gilbert Sorrentino.

11/28: My review has been reprinted in today's Lexington Herald-Leader and the Centre Daily Times in State College, PA.

12/5: PopMatters has also republished this review.

12/7: Minneapolis Star-Tribune too.

12/28: This review is all over the damn place.

12/16: San Jose Mercury News.

Miami Herald // Song for Night by Chris Abani

Andrew Ervin — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:45:00 +0000

Abani writes like a man possessed by demons, but his fiction doesn't attempt to exorcize them so much as welcome and understand and times actively love them. His characters frequently experience moments of ecstatic release, and in Song for Night we get thoroughly caught up in a few of our own. This novella doesn't simply blur the lines between the real and the unreal -- or the real and the hyperreal -- but instead makes us question if those distinctions ever truly existed.

The review is here.

The Believer // Zeroville by Steve Erickson

Andrew Ervin — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:11:00 +0000

The first two paragraphs of my review are online here. It's a beautiful novel.

"If there’s a surrealist quality to his fiction, it’s likely because Erickson recognizes as well as any artist working today the surrealist quality of our real world."

Miami Herald // Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

Andrew Ervin — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 19:52:00 +0000

I'm not sure there's been a better Vietnam novel since William Eastlake's The Bamboo Bed. Honestly, I can't be sure that there's been a better American novel published in the past 10 years. Johnson understands the conflicts at the heart of the American psyche, and in Tree of Smoke he delivers the sort of historical novel that not only shows us where we've been but also shines a light on where we're going. It is a masterpiece.

Read the whole review, if you feel like it.

Hobart // Interview with Rick Moody

Andrew Ervin — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 13:48:00 +0000

The entire interview is here.

The Believer // God is Dead by Ron Currie Jr.

Andrew Ervin — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 19:10:00 +0000

The full review is available here. It's a great book.

Truthiness in Advertising

Andrew Ervin — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 18:23:00 +0000

On 2/8/07, I reviewed Richard North Patterson's novel Exile for the New York Times Book Review. It read, it part:

"I won’t ruin the ending for you because Patterson accomplishes that all on his own, revealing way too much way too soon. And yet, despite its occasionally gastropodous pacing, Exile delivers the sort of torn-from-the-headlines story Patterson’s fans have come to expect."

An ad in today's NY Times for the paperback editions quotes that review:

"Torn from the headlines . . . Exile delivers. --The New York Times Book Review"

Philadelphia Inquirer // The Age of Huts (compleat) by Ron Silliman

Andrew Ervin — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:47:00 +0000

Silliman is actively reshaping what poetry means and causing us to rethink the very nature of language. Can you ask for more than that from any artist? If The Age of Huts provides any indication, we're witnessing the development of what is sure to be a defining literary project of the postmodern era. Good luck, reader.

Read the review here, please. And have a look at Silliman's blog.

7/5/07: PopMatters has apparently republished the review.

7/7/07: I'm big in Taiwan.

Washington Post Book World // 4 Sports Books

Andrew Ervin — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 15:38:00 +0000

I reviewed 4 books about sports for the 6/17 Washington Post Book World:

The Real All Americans: The Team that Changed a Game, a People, a Nation by Sally Jenkins

1941: The Greatest Year in Sports by Mike Vaccaro

Maradona: The Autobiography of Soccer's Greatest and Most Controversial Star

Tales from Q School: Inside Golf's Fifth Major by John Feinstein

Oxford Magazine // "Self-Portrait"

Andrew Ervin — Wed, 23 May 2007 21:59:00 +0000

The venerable Oxford Magazine has just published my story "Self-Portrait" in their 2007 issue. Not sure, but I think that's where Andre Dubus published his final story.

7/9/07: PeteLit was nice enough to call the story, "a sharp piece of metafiction which suggests that the narrator might have a viable career as an art thief, should his writing career not materialize as hoped."

7/10/07: I'm incredibly flattered to see that Dan Wickett has discussed "Self-Portrait" on the Emerging Writer's Network blog:

To date I've had the pleasure of reading four or five of Ervin's stories, and each one is wildly different from the rest of the pack. This time around the narrator claims to be somebody who has taken on the person of one Andrew Ervin, and even goes so far as to link, within this story, to online efforts attributed to Andrew Ervin (stories, book reviews, etc.). [...] The story is entertaining, witty, and as one expects from Ervin, well-written.

7/11/07: Brian Kornell at (Plan B) was nice enough to plug "Self-Portrait."

7/12/07: The Ninth Letter blog has also linked to "Self-Portrait" & included a photo from my recent trip to Budapest. The very bad-ass editor there, my pal Jodee Stanley, also mentioned it on her personal blog, Minor Arcana. (For the record, I'm one of the fiction readers at 9L.)

Miami Herald // The Session by Aaron Petrovich

Andrew Ervin — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 15:46:00 +0000

I wrote up Aaron Petrovich's debut The Session for the Miami Herald:

In terms of style, The Session is likely to bring to mind the absurdist drama of Vaclav Havel or Wallace Shawn or even Samuel Beckett as directed by a young and still intellectually constipated Ingmar Bergman. Little wonder that Petrovich is himself a playwright whose work has been staged in several New York City festivals, as his ear for dialogue is astounding.