The Sixers beat Boston, and then minutes later I learn that an Australian gentleman named Robert Tulip, a guy I don't know, gives The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity five stars on amazon and compares my writing to Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Well, no one could ever live up to that, but by strange coincidence, the protag had plenty of buds but was short on paper, so it was mass market pages of The Brothers Karamazov that fictional John and Jake were smoking in the expurgated scenes.
Mr. Tulip wrote:
Wow, what a superb ten thousand words. I'm not sure if it just because I am reading The Brothers Karamazov at the moment, but this short story reminds me so much of Dostoyevksy in its biting social satire, its acute political insight, its ability to paint pictures in words, and its foreboding of a society that has lost its way and is on a trajectory to catastrophe. The drugs are the anaesthetic for the emotional pain of a fascistic existence in denial, enabling a crazy-brave creative prophetic vision. The description of undergraduate life is realistic if exaggerrated [sic] in a hallucinatory direction for effect, and casts a lens upon wider social trends.
Thank you, Robert. And Isaac Sweeney. And Christina at The Strand. And Kate Ledger, author of Remedies. And new acquaintance Don Ray Pollock, from Knockemstiff, Ohio. And Dan Cafaro especially. All of you brought me some good book vibrations this week and made me feel like the impossible was possible if not right around the bend.
PS--Betrayal is available for free through March 12 at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/40939
Alex Kudera’s award-winning novel, Fight for Your Long Day (Atticus Books), was drafted in a walk-in closet during a summer in Seoul, South Korea. Auggie’s Revenge (Beating Windward Press) is his second novel. His numerous short stories include “Frade Killed Ellen” (Dutch Kills Press), “Bombing from Above” (Heavy Feather Review), and “A Thanksgiving” (Eclectica Magazine).
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We're still waiting on a time, but we've added The Ivy Bookshop to the famous 2012 Goodman-Kudera book tour. So this is what we know...
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If you, or anyone you know, becomes burdened with the gift of an electronic reading device this holiday season, you're welcome to take a...
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I'm happy to announce that I'll be reading from " Frade Killed Ellen " or Auggie's Revenge at 3 p.m. as part of an ...
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My interview with Olga Gardner Galvin of ENC Press is available here: http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2009/06/22/interview-with-olga-gardner...
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Smashwords: http://www.short-fiction-ebooks.com/_/_/571510/turquoise-truck Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/turquoise-truck/id10...
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At the SEIU conference in Washington D.C. last November , one student group reported that they are fighting to make income-based repayment t...
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Debra Leigh Scott's "insightful article" on " How The American University was Killed in Five Easy Steps " flew aroun...
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"[B] ut the fact that [Roberto] Arlt wrote 'badly' is what made him important. Because Arlt’s style was no style at all—an abra...
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Meanwhile, over at the Author's Guild , Scott Turow reminds us of how hopeless it is for all but the chosen few of the publishing world ...
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