the imperfectionists

...is perfect.

I love the title, I love/want to crawl out of my skin about every character. The situations, the reactions to those situations, the dialogue-- everything feels fresh.

It also talks around/about what's going to happen to print media. It's the topic I always pretend isn't a topic (Even as I read The Imperfectionists from my kindle-- but hey, I bought it with real money, I'm reading it, and I've been able to focus my eyes better and read faster on the kindle than I have in about 8 years.) But the issues Rachman brings up, along with another conversation yesterday, got me thinking about dear old Rice man, Larry McMurtry-- an avid shunner of technology. (Though, I have a story about that. He has some loop holes).

I went and re-read this great feature on his Fondren talk, and then dredged up some of my old notes that I took during his lectures  the few times I was lucky enough to hear Rice's former creative writing professor chat with me and some others about writing. 

I want to talk about Larry more later, but let's just say, I cannot begin to fathom doing any serious novel work (let alone something like 29 books) on a typewriter (even an Hermes 3000). The idea of it just scares the crap out of me. 

Tom Rachman (and I agree with him) in every interview seems to talk about balance between the internet and technological offerings and the old school stuff. He's a smarty. We're friends on facebook. 

In addition, I've officially decided to become real friends with Tom Rachman. I've been thinking about making Rome one of my first trips once I'm living in Europe, so I guess I'll friend him then :)


I love that The Imperfectionists is really a novel in short stories. Each of the real chapters (Excluding the backstory stuff that butters between the slices) could stand entirely on it's own. And yet, together, this thing is just the greatest! (I'm laughing out loud on the train, squirming in my bed, or just shaking my head in downright disbelief sometimes).


Of course, this makes me think of Cronin's fantastic Mary & O'Neill, which I supposed is less linnear, more kaleidoscopic from what I remember. I've been feeling more and more like I should revisit that one, anyhow, since for the past several months, I've been working on a project like that of my own.


If you're reading this, it means you've perhaps already read (or at least have extreme immediate access to) many of my short stories. While contemplating what I'll be working on when I first get to Scotland, in addition to the new novel, I'll also need to be doing more short stories. I already have several that I'm both still very proud of, and that I think belong together tonally, etc and at least belong together in a collection.


But with a few tweaks, here and there, I think could be taken a step past that. So that's my plan. We'll see what happens.