BoD: The Thirsty Muse
Today’s Book-of-the-Day is The Thirsty Muse: Alcohol and the American Writer by Tom Dardis. The book examines the influence of alcohol on so many American authors. And the list is incredibly long. Five of the seven (at the time of publication) American Nobel laureates–Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O’Neill, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck–were alcoholic.…
continue readingBoD: Bloodbrothers
Richard Price may now be better known for his film work or his urban crime dramas. But his early novels are excellent examinations of working-class families and the pressures they face. Probably my favorite early Price novel is Blood Brothers. Published in 1976, this book follows the difficult decisions facing eighteen-year-old Stony De Coco. His…
continue readingBoD: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian
If you’re like me, you only knew Arnold Schwarzenegger’s version of Conan. The muscle-bound, grunting misanthrope who famously uttered the response “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!” when asked the meaning of life. But the actual Conan stories, written by Robert E. Howard in…
continue readingThe Truth Behind Trucker Hats
This is probably hard for many of us to believe, thanks to the Ashton Kutcher-Paris Hilton-That Fez Guy-brainwashing our culture has endured, but the truth is that there really was a man who went by the nickname Von Dutch. And in spite of stupid trucker hats, expensive jeans, and all the other crap we know…
continue readingBoD: Paris Review Book of People with Problems
Just about every movie, every song, every book, every play, and every other form of art deals with people with problems. Without a problem, what’s the plot? What’s the conflict? It’s a universal aspect of life. We’ve all got problems. So it’s a testament to these writers, and to the The Paris Review, that something…
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