Forest of Fortune in Booklist

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“So here’s an interesting trio of characters: Pemberton, a down-and-out copywriter hired to write radio ads for a casino located on an Indian reservation in Southern California; Alice, an employee of the casino, who wonders if her new epilepsy medication is causing her to have visions; and Lupita, one of the casino’s regular customers, who’s baffled by what appears to be a slot machine that won’t let you stop playing until you’ve lost everything. The author introduces us to his cast in alternating chapters, letting us get to know them (Pemberton was thrown out of his own home by his fiancée; Lupita’s best friend did time for killing her husband) before he begins to join up their stories, pointing them all in the same direction: toward the evil presence that appears to be haunting the casino. The book is not quite a supernatural thriller, more like a stylishly written contemporary noir with some seriously weird overtones. Ruland’s character design is impeccable; these are very real people, each with his or her personal issues to sort out and pretty much the unlikeliest heroes you’ll meet for the next while. This one deserves a look.”

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The Floating Library takes a look at an arresting and unputdownable biography of pulp novelist David Goodis, author of Dark Passage, Cassidy’s Girl, Black Friday and many, many others. Piece begins with my introduction to Goodis via Barry Gifford’s Black Lizard series. While doing research for the review, I was sad to learn that when Vintage bought Black Lizard they let most of the crime novels fall back out of print. Also, Barry Gifford (Wild at Heart, Lost Highway) published a new book last fall that got almost no media attention. This aggression will not stand.

Forest of Fortune in The Collagist

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You can read a new excerpt of Forest of Fortune in the latest issue of The Collagist. The excerpt features three sections. The first draws from the framing device that provides the novel with its historical context.

They spirited us away to the mountains, costumed in the skins of animals. They powdered our flesh until we resembled the ghosts we were fated to become. The men were savage, the women cruel. Their ways were not our ways. I understood before Ysabella there was no going back to the life we knew before. The pain we’d endured at the orphanage was nothing compared to this. Each night we prayed for our rescue, and every day our suffering continued. We were captives, trophies of war.

The second section comes from Lupita, a gambler who is haunted by the circumstances surrounding her husband’s death:

On the morning she got the news that Alejandro had been killed by friendly fire at a military checkpoint, a hawk alighted on the picnic table in her backyard, a jackrabbit twitching in its talons. Lupita watched in horror as the hawk tore the thing to pieces. To be in love is to be tormented: You’re either the rabbit or the hawk. She moved back to San Diego the next week.

And finally there’s Alice, an Indian who works at Thunderclap Casino. 

From the platform Alice could see the entire Forest of Fortune. It was all so astonishingly ugly. Everywhere she looked she saw wires and trestles and supports for signage. The slot machines were big, garish boxes, their candles protruding like nipples and caked with grime. How disappointing it was to see things as they really were.

Many thanks to all the editors at The Collagist, Gabriel Blackwell in particular, for publishing my work in their sharp and smart-looking magazine. 

Charged with Wit and Wonder

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I reviewed Edouard Leve’s Works in the Los Angeles Times:

When I was in the Navy, I heard a story about a prankster who’d chalked a profane message on the lawn of the commanding officer’s residence. Knowing the huge white letters would inspire the C.O. to immediately wash away the offensive language, the prankster had added a layer of grass seed to the message so that every spring the insult would return.

It’s the kind of joke that Edouard Levé would have appreciated. In “Works,” translated by Jan Steyn, Levé presents 533 ideas for works of art across a wide range of media. Some are plans for photographs, others include detailed notes for installations, while others lay the groundwork for films and books, including the first in Levé’s series: “A book describes works that the author has conceived but not brought into being.”

Read the rest of the review here.

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Deep Ellum by Brandon Hobson is a slender novel of less than 150 pages but one of my early favorites of 2014.

“Snow on the roofs of buildings gleamed in the moonlight. From the rear fender of a parked car along Elm hung little icicles that sparkled. I walked past the store windows, past small mounds of dirty snow along the street. A dog was barking from somewhere above me, in one of the apartments, but besides that there was no traffic and little noise. Deep Ellum in the winter was asleep.”

Read the rest of the review in The Floating Library.