NYT Goes International
A nice dichotomy in the Sunday NYT Book review section. Blowing ashore on the literary front is Brett Easton Ellis who has written a novel about Brett Easton Ellis, his drugs, fame, celebs he rubs elbows with. In this novel, he’s married and living in the suburbs, apologizes for American Psycho, and writes a story that sounds like the liner notes from Hotel California. He’s friends with Jay McInerny, author of Bright Lights, Big City. The theme is dissolution without much in the way of overarching cause of said dissolution. No Spanish Civil War, Vietnam Conflict, Sands of Iwo Jima to propel young authors into the rich poignancy of loss.
Marilyn Stasio has discovered crime in translation and works from small presses, admiring what she refers to as ‘reformative zeal’, perhaps an obscure reference to Oliver Cromwell. She cites works from Bitter Lemon Press, Serpent’s Tail, and SoHo Crime. The tone is a bit over the top. Stasio pinches every cheek in sight. Small presses are just so cute that you want to hug them to death and leave lipstick stains on their inventive little foreheads.
The showstopper is Carmen Posadas’ The Last Resort, which I’m fairly certain was an Eagles’ album, or, at least, an Eagles song. When not catching for the Yankees, Posadas is Spain’s answer to JD Robb, whose villain wears knee high nylon socks. You’ve met guys like this. They twirl the ends of luxurious mustaches while plotting evil deeds, one of the ‘baroque flourishes’ alluded to by Stasio. The glam photo of Posadas suggests we’re in that murky territory between ‘crime fiction’ and ‘romantic suspense.’ The socks are suggestive of satire, offering a scintilla of cross-genre breakout novel in translation. A reference to Truman Capote sent a shiver down my spine. Baroque, indeed.