There’s a new kind of first-person narrative nonfiction book growing in popularity, and it is moving away from traditional commercial memoir as “misery lit” following a single template of story structure, the hero’s journey. We’re into the twenty-twenties now, and I see a pattern emerging among these new kinds of nonfiction books: a distinctive narrator’s voice, expository information about a subject matter separate from the personal themes at play, and structure that braids them together. Some of the narrators use a confessional voice, others that of a witness, a reporter, and/or a field guide. Many of these new books have chapters structured more like an essay a novel chapter. Some use a series of scenes, not necessarily chronological, but juxtaposed in such a way as to reveal a deeper story. The subject matter itself may provide metaphors for structuring the book. Taking a subject larger than the self is a refreshing approach to first-person narration that satisfies readers in new ways. I’m not entirely convinced this new wave of structuring life stories is distinctly American since the first book that hooked me on rethinking memoir came from Sweden. Patrik Svensson’s The Book of Eels won the August Prize, the country’s most prestigious literary award. I learned a lot about eels that fascinated me. Not so much about his father, with whom he went eel fishing, often in silence. By standing shyly behind the eels, Svensson reveals metaphorically through the investigation of eels the nature of grief for a parent. In many of…
The End of Country is like many other books that have surfaced in the last five or so years on the scarcity of true wilderness and the abuse of natural resources resulting from corporate greed. Seamus McGraw’s story is frightening, even apocalyptic; after all, Nature’s resources are finite. But it needs to be told and, for many residents in Upstate New York like me, its… [Read More]
Filed Under: American Innovation, Drilling, Environmental Hazards, fracking, Geology, History, hydraulic fracturing, hydro-fracking, Marcellus Shale, Narrative Nonfiction, natural gas, Pennsylvania, Seamus McGraw
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I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray, I hear it in the deep heart’s core. W.B. Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” Last Sunday, as part of the 9th Works-In-Progress reading at Buffalo Street Books, local writer… [Read More]
Filed Under: Bill Chaisson, Buffalo Street Books, childhood, landscape, Local authors, place, poetry
Swenson Book Development, LLC works to match an author’s project with an agent or publisher. Our success in doing so makes many people wonder how we do it. Drawing back the curtain on the Wizards of Bookery, we reveal one of the methods employed in our toolkit to serve our clients’ objectives. Publisher’s Marketplace is the largest online network of publishing professionals. Our professional subscription… [Read More]
Don’t let the jacket copy and title fool you. No chick lit fodder beckons in Siri Hustvedt’s newest fiction: The Summer Without Men (Picador, April 26, 2011). The antics of Mia Fredrickson’s young and turbulent neighbors, the adolescent girls in her poetry workshop, and her mother’s senior circle composed of the wise and nurturing “Five Swans” provides the context for deep intellectual passages and keeps… [Read More]
By Bethany Dixon I admit it: I judged this book by its cover. The enigmatic title alone would have pulled me in, but what I noticed was a presentation that would seduce any foodie – a robin’s egg blue background behind three perfect tiers of lemon cake, with chocolate frosting hidden between the layers like a secret. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake tells the… [Read More]