We can assay the weight and substance of a given work and argue its merits, but essentially the value of the thing is in its power to move us and hold us and remain in our minds long after the event of our first reading. For example, Tarzan of the Apes is a silly work in almost any critical regard except in the way that matters. When art and craft are brought to a work that has that…

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There was the St. Louis Post Dispatch, “Turmoil over the book price war took a new turn today when the Justice Department was asked to investigate what a booksellers group called ‘illegal predatory pricing’.” The New York Times, “(Reuters) The American Booksellers Association has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate a recent price war on books sold online between such retail giants as Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Amazon.Com Inc and Target Corp ahead of the holidays.” The…

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I was recently asked to contribute to the Powells Books (Powells.com) website as a guest blogger for the week of Monday, October 19 through Friday the 23rd. I was quite pleased to do it. The idea of a new audience of potential readers at this moment when my first novel is just out was a great opportunity. But then there were choices to make. Should I pick a different subject each day or carry a theme. Should I…

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Back in March of 2009, Terry Teachout wrote an excellent appraisal of one of my favorite authors, Flannery O’Connor, for the journal Commentary. This article was in turn written upon the publication of Brad Gooch’s biography Flannery: a Life of Flannery O’Connor. As it happens, I only read Mr. Teachout’s critique this morning when I stumbled across it in the course of another attempt to come to terms with my disdain for so much of twentieth century literature…

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The million-folded tyrannies
Of forever damaged families–
Youth soiled and casually twisted
In the flicker of this mordial dark,
Drinking tear fed memories
Of stolen dreams and borrowed themes,
Quick cut from a television life–
A punch line, no joke, a lie, a kiss,
Lost trust, now murder, and revenge—again.
All re-torn fabric that will not be re-sewn,
Nor helped by the documented kindness
Of our paper-built…

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Like a paving stone on a walk at night–no, more like a book left down on the floor where you were reading it while trying to stretch the pain from your back so you could sleep–I stumbled upon a book shop in Derbyshire the other day. I have never much been to Derbyshire, having missed those roads as I drove through England back in 1978. This particular bookshop was there at that time but in no better shape…

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I have been reading mystery and crime fiction since I was twelve and first discovered Mr. Holmes. The contest of good and evil was a fine caution for a teenage mind bent on breaking the rules. I did study the genre briefly in the 1970’s for the purpose of developing a mystery magazine to complement the science fiction monster that was swallowing me then, but that came to naught and in general I do not like to…

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Modern fiction is, by authority, a literature of anti-heroic impulse, anti-heroes, and the failure of mankind. Most primarily the dramatic action of the modern novel is dependent on a Freudian fallacy which pretends that human behavior is guided by sexuality, and as a subset, by greed as a form of sexual domination. After the misguided suppression of sexual matters in the Victorian age, this sort of ad hominem theorizing once appeared liberating to an intellectual community already estranged…

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Words have meanings. This is a tautology to some. A word, by definition, has meaning–truly, but not a meaning. Words are used, worn, tattered, mended, soiled, and discarded. Some are harder than others and keep their shape but shatter when abused, others are soft, if not quite clay, at least putty-like. For instance, as a writer I am very careful of what I see as my inner spirit. I can handle a great deal of worry and stress…

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So a friend of mine was telling me about a bit of behaviorist evolutionary theory and I found it very appealing. I have generally found most behaviorism as unscientific as any religion–drawing conclusions from insignificant or incomplete data and thence supposing whole worldviews. Thus the activities of ants might become a modus for human action or the pre-calculated terms of conduct of lab animals in a closed system become rules of human political order. But all behaviorists are…

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