After the giddy comedy of jPod, Douglas Coupland has returned to the suburbs with his eleventh work of fiction. The Gum Thief is set in a Staples office superstore, where disparate people are thrown together. We first meet Roger, a sad-sack, forty-something divorcee who is struggling with both the composition of his first novel and [...]
Monthly Archives: September 2007
In Church with Amis, Banville and Self
September 25, 2007 – 1:08 pm
I can never get comfortable in a church. I don’t know if it’s because I’m too large for the pews, or merely because I’m a heathen. Last night, however, I was in discomfort as I listened to a debate between Martin Amis, John Banville and Will Self about “Writing in the 21st Century”. This was [...]
The First Transmission & Salt Literary Oktoberfest!
September 13, 2007 – 1:37 pm
For a long time now we have been huddled in the darkness, our faces lit by the dim flicker of a screen-saver in operation. The thought of the outside world, while not intensely worrying, is sometimes viewed as a complication. But like most shut-ins, we desire to see the bright lights and sample the delights [...]
Review: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace
September 12, 2007 – 10:37 am
Yesterday, I caught myself, yet again, recommending this collection to a friend. It’s that kind of book: the kind that becomes an obsession, the kind that turns you into a bore because you can’t stop forcing it on friends/acquaintances/strangers in the street.
David Foster Wallace has a unique voice, approaching fiction writing with a scientific precision, [...]