Nonfiction Pizza Party
In honor of NCAA March Madness and The Morning News Tournament of Books, NPP presents, the 2013 Bracket of Literary Things I've Been Enjoying Lately and Stuff.ROUND 1“Victory Lap” by George Saunders (1) vs. Online Comic Strip “Heavy-Handed” (8)Sorry, “Heavy-Handed,” your dry humor and insights about intimacy are great, but Saunders is on fire right now. “Victory Lap” starts Tenth of December off with a trio of perspectives/voices and a ton of action. And that ending. The main character is a naïve high school runner torn between doing right and wrong to save his crush. (I used to be a high school runner.)Winner: “Victory Lap”Combination Bar-Bookstores (4) vs. Watching Webshows The Outs and First Dates with Toby Harris Instead of Writing (5) In that past few weeks, I've browsed Trident Booksellers & Café in Boston and Book & Bar in Portsmouth. The visits included a PBR can of surprisingly large proportions (24 oz.) and prosciutto on a quality baguette.The Outs and First Dates are funny, high quality productions, the former a longer form dramedy most often compared to Girls, which of course is limiting, but still a complement, and the latter is a series of shorts featuring some of today's best comedic actors. Even in fake competitions, I can't let procrastination win.Winner: Bar-BookstoresBossypants Audiobook by Tina Fey (3) vs. Reading at Your MFA Program's Prospective Student Day (6)Tina Fey might to be one of the most charming people alive, and she drops a solid DFW reference concerning her disastrous honeymoon aboard a cruise ship, but her book includes a little too much beauty tip satire for my liking. And you know I love that free lunch!Winner: Prospective Student DayFinally Reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot and Notes from No Man's Land by Eula Bliss (2) vs. Bret Easton Ellis Tweets, “New novel: Robert Mallory is a high school student and serial killer in 1981 Los Angeles.” (7)
Because of personal taste, I liked the nonfiction insta-classics as much as I expected to, some (Henrietta Lacks), and a large amount (No Man's Land). Bliss writes a killer collage essay. Her collection also includes a cool response to Didion's “Goodbye to All That.”Bret Easton Ellis was one of my favorite writers in high school. (Like Wu-Tang, BEE is for the children.) Even though his most recent novel was terrible, like NJ turnpike terrible, I'm hoping for some kind of return to form.Winner: Bret Easton Ellis TweetsROUND 2“Victory Lap” by George Saunders (1) vs. Combination Bar-Bookstores (4)Let's be real here. An almost decent bar attached to an almost decent bookstore is a letdown, right?Winner: “Victory Lap”Reading at Your MFA Program's Prospective Student Day (6) vs. Bret Easton Ellis Tweets, “New novel: Robert Mallory is a high school student and serial killer in 1981 Los Angeles.” (7)I'm really hoping the program orders pizza—life imitating art, art imitating life, cheesy bread imitating pizza—but they're probably going to get those trays of wraps like last year.Winner: Bret Easton Ellis TweetsROUND 3, FINALS“Victory Lap” by George Saunders (1) vs. Bren Easton Ellis Tweets, “New novel: Robert Mallory is a high school student and serial killer in 1981 Los Angeles.” (7)“Poor thing. He looked like a skeleton with a mullet. Were those cross-country shorts from the like “Charlie's Angels” days or [what]? How could he run so well when he seemed to have literally no muscles?” Saunders for the win!Winner: “Victory Lap”