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You & Me
Padgett Powell, author of the acclaimed The Interrogative Mood and “one of the few truly important American writers of our time” (Sam Lipsyte), returns with a hilarious Southern send-up of Samuel Beckett’s classic Waiting for Godot.
Truly a master of envelope-pushing, post-postmodern American fiction, in a class with Nicholas Baker and Lydia Davis, Powell brilliantly blends the sublime, the trivial, and the oddball in You & Me, as two loquacious gents on a porch discuss all manner of subjects, from the mundane to the spiritual to the downright ridiculous.
At once outrageously funny and profound, You & Me is yet another brilliant, boundary-bursting masterwork, proving once again that, “there are few writers who understand both the beauty and the absurdity of language as well as Padgett Powell” (Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang) and that, “Padgett Powell is one of the best writers in America, and one of the funniest, too” (Ian Frazier).
You & Me: A Novel won the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction.
Truly a master of envelope-pushing, post-postmodern American fiction, in a class with Nicholas Baker and Lydia Davis, Powell brilliantly blends the sublime, the trivial, and the oddball in You & Me, as two loquacious gents on a porch discuss all manner of subjects, from the mundane to the spiritual to the downright ridiculous.
At once outrageously funny and profound, You & Me is yet another brilliant, boundary-bursting masterwork, proving once again that, “there are few writers who understand both the beauty and the absurdity of language as well as Padgett Powell” (Kevin Wilson, author of The Family Fang) and that, “Padgett Powell is one of the best writers in America, and one of the funniest, too” (Ian Frazier).
You & Me: A Novel won the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
93 people are currently reading
819 people want to read
About the author
Padgett Powell
38 books110 followersPadgett Powell is the author of four novels, including Edisto, which was nominated for the National Book Award. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s, The Paris Review, Esquire, and other publications, as well as in the anthologies Best American Short Stories and Best American Sports Writing. He lives in Gainesville, Florida, where he teaches writing at MFA@FLA, the writing program of the University of Florida.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
November 10, 2024
Two men. Two. Two strange, but quite clever, old 'never really grown up' men, are having a conversation on a porch. This book is that conversation. A bit uninspiring and flat, despite the good writing to be honest. 5 out of 12, Two Star read.
2013 read
2013 read
Read
May 20, 2017I can't. Not now. I won't. Tomorrow, maybe, if those damn codgers don't get me first.
No worries. These cats'll still be around tomorrow. And the trolls have done in all those codgers, from what I hear.
That's what's got me worried. All those cats.
Well?
Yes, I am. Woke up dead. . .never better. Oh, right, the book. I read it.
Me too. Imagine that, $24 US and all that white space. Must be some kind of performance art.
I think so. And that flourish of the pen when he inscribed all that white space, that was quite the performance, worthy of Samuel Ramey himself! A truer artist never graced our town.
Not only that, but I’ve got this thing invested for my grandkids. In 60 years time they can sell it on eBay for $20. They’ll make a killing.
Do you think anyone really wants to hear us blathering?
I do. I really do. People will listen to anything that doesn’t raise their spirits. I mean, no, they’ll probably have nothing to do with us.
It occurred to me that Studio Becalmed may be our only Friend. He’ll Like our review.
Yes, and J. Rubin, too. Now there’s the anti-codger par excellence. He’ll take care of that pederast school bus driver for us.
Yes he will.
I see a vast panoply of Likes lying ahead of us, in the future, if you will.
If you will?
Or, if you won’t, I won’t.
Why do you think more people read Neal Stephenson than Padgett Powell?
They both have it going on.
They do.
But what I really want to know is why anyone would pay the equivalent of a mid-priced bottle of bourbon for a book which is no more than us sitting here shooting the shit. Don’t they have better things to do?
No, I’m sure we will be the highlight of their day. And besides, we’re amateurs. That crotchety old Padgett is a real professional. People will pay anything for a professional.
You need a professional. Professional help.
Yes, I do. And an editor.
An editor? But there’s nothing here to edit. It’s Proust needs an editor. Damn maximalists! Don’t they know more people would read them if they left more white space on their pages--it’s good for the doodle culture.
Doodles. We sure could use some doodles. Remember when Uncle Kurt used to doodle in his books?
Those were the days.
Yes they were.
Those days are gone.
Dead and gone.
Do you think we’ll get trolled?
Troll bait, that’s what we are.
I’ll plug in the heated orange jumpsuit I was going to wear down to the liquor store.
That’ll ward off the trolls.
Yes it will.
They won’t stand a chance.
Won’t even get near.
Shall we offer some concessions?
Concessions? But why? To whom?
To our readers. You know most of them are only about as educated as we are. They might not be able to tell which of us is which.
That’s true. We might get confused for each other.
That happened to me just a few minutes ago. I forgot which one I was.
It won’t matter. We’ll be dead soon.
Not soon enough.
No worries. These cats'll still be around tomorrow. And the trolls have done in all those codgers, from what I hear.
That's what's got me worried. All those cats.
Well?
Yes, I am. Woke up dead. . .never better. Oh, right, the book. I read it.
Me too. Imagine that, $24 US and all that white space. Must be some kind of performance art.
I think so. And that flourish of the pen when he inscribed all that white space, that was quite the performance, worthy of Samuel Ramey himself! A truer artist never graced our town.
Not only that, but I’ve got this thing invested for my grandkids. In 60 years time they can sell it on eBay for $20. They’ll make a killing.
Do you think anyone really wants to hear us blathering?
I do. I really do. People will listen to anything that doesn’t raise their spirits. I mean, no, they’ll probably have nothing to do with us.
It occurred to me that Studio Becalmed may be our only Friend. He’ll Like our review.
Yes, and J. Rubin, too. Now there’s the anti-codger par excellence. He’ll take care of that pederast school bus driver for us.
Yes he will.
I see a vast panoply of Likes lying ahead of us, in the future, if you will.
If you will?
Or, if you won’t, I won’t.
Why do you think more people read Neal Stephenson than Padgett Powell?
They both have it going on.
They do.
But what I really want to know is why anyone would pay the equivalent of a mid-priced bottle of bourbon for a book which is no more than us sitting here shooting the shit. Don’t they have better things to do?
No, I’m sure we will be the highlight of their day. And besides, we’re amateurs. That crotchety old Padgett is a real professional. People will pay anything for a professional.
You need a professional. Professional help.
Yes, I do. And an editor.
An editor? But there’s nothing here to edit. It’s Proust needs an editor. Damn maximalists! Don’t they know more people would read them if they left more white space on their pages--it’s good for the doodle culture.
Doodles. We sure could use some doodles. Remember when Uncle Kurt used to doodle in his books?
Those were the days.
Yes they were.
Those days are gone.
Dead and gone.
Do you think we’ll get trolled?
Troll bait, that’s what we are.
I’ll plug in the heated orange jumpsuit I was going to wear down to the liquor store.
That’ll ward off the trolls.
Yes it will.
They won’t stand a chance.
Won’t even get near.
Shall we offer some concessions?
Concessions? But why? To whom?
To our readers. You know most of them are only about as educated as we are. They might not be able to tell which of us is which.
That’s true. We might get confused for each other.
That happened to me just a few minutes ago. I forgot which one I was.
It won’t matter. We’ll be dead soon.
Not soon enough.
October 24, 2013
So, do you read all parts of a book?
Do you mean like a packaged chicken? White meat and dark? Breasts, thighs, wings and legs?
Well, I hadn’t thought of it like that but yes, that is precisely what I mean.
I think you could say that I do then. I do read all parts of a book.
The Preface and the Afterword?
Indeed I do, and sometimes I read the Preface last and the Afterword first, just to show I am not easily led.
How about the Dedication?
I always read the Dedication. Sometimes more than once. I think you could say that I am dedicated to reading the Dedication.
That’s not for me to say. How do you feel about footnotes?
Some of the choicest morsels are in the footnotes. It’s where an author goes to hide his sarcasm or often just to prove he didn’t make everything up. Of course, sometimes footnotes are just an affectation, like wearing a bandana around your head when you are not a Gypsy.
You are referring to that young fellow that offed himself, the one that everybody gushes over but you think is a horse’s ass.
I am indeed. I don’t think writers who wear bandanas but are not Gypsies should be allowed to write footnotes.
What does wearing a bandana have to do with writing footnotes?
Exactly. We agree for once.
From now on it is illegal for bandana-wearing non-Gypsies to write footnotes.
I would also gas anyone yelling “In the hole” at a golf tournament. The people saying it near the green, where it is tenable that the ball go in, could be buried to their necks in the sand traps and left there to keep saying “In the hole” until they expired. There would be hundreds of tired decomposing faces in the sand, posing a new kind of hazard for golfer and spectator alike.
All right. While we are at it, I want anyone using a cell phone in a car to be put into a Final Demolition Derby wherein your car has to be moving as a salvation number flashes among hundreds of false salvation numbers flashing from hundreds of sites in the arena, on the walls, on billboards, on the license plates of other cars, on the radio inside the cars, and you have to dial these numbers as you drive in the demolition and get the right number to be saved. Otherwise you drive and you dial and you crash until you die there doing just that.
You are an angry man.
I am indeed.
But at least as we have proven, I read all parts of the chicken.
Do you read the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data?
The number-y part that appears in the front of the book?
Yes, right under the Copyright and sometimes even the Edition information.
Of course not. That’s for some librarian in Washington who never is allowed near a window and is consigned to a Hell of shuffling feet on Perlata marble.
Well you should. It might help you understand this book You and Me by Padgett Powell.
What would it tell me?
Powell, Padgett. You & Me : a novel / by Padgett Powell. – 1st ed. P. cm. ISBN 978-0-06-212613-9 1. Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989. En attendant Godot.–Parodies, imitations, etc. 2. Middle-aged men—Fiction. 3. Experimental fiction. I. Title. II. Title: You and me.
We’re in a parody of Waiting for Godot?
I didn’t think so.
Neither did Nathan, who confessed to being a pedant, then enlightened that Powell didn’t want to go down the Godot road but his publisher insisted.
Did Nathan write this in a review?
Nathan doesn’t do reviews; some kind of protest. He said it in a comment but he sounded authoritative.
Kind of like a footnote?
Very much like a footnote.
Does Nathan wear a bandana?
I don’t know Nathan to wear a bandana. But he doesn’t look like a Gypsy.
Well, do you think this You & Me is Godot-y?
It feels a little Godot-y. Funnier than Godot though. But not as funny as that Two Pints.
So Two Pints is not as Godoty as You & Me.
It is not. Go Doughy.
God Owe We.
God Oh Oui?
Oui
This is making me feel old.
I was thinking, I will not need another new swimsuit in my time.
An interesting perspective. How long before we smell like old men?
Last year, dude.
You de Man.
Do you mean like a packaged chicken? White meat and dark? Breasts, thighs, wings and legs?
Well, I hadn’t thought of it like that but yes, that is precisely what I mean.
I think you could say that I do then. I do read all parts of a book.
The Preface and the Afterword?
Indeed I do, and sometimes I read the Preface last and the Afterword first, just to show I am not easily led.
How about the Dedication?
I always read the Dedication. Sometimes more than once. I think you could say that I am dedicated to reading the Dedication.
That’s not for me to say. How do you feel about footnotes?
Some of the choicest morsels are in the footnotes. It’s where an author goes to hide his sarcasm or often just to prove he didn’t make everything up. Of course, sometimes footnotes are just an affectation, like wearing a bandana around your head when you are not a Gypsy.
You are referring to that young fellow that offed himself, the one that everybody gushes over but you think is a horse’s ass.
I am indeed. I don’t think writers who wear bandanas but are not Gypsies should be allowed to write footnotes.
What does wearing a bandana have to do with writing footnotes?
Exactly. We agree for once.
From now on it is illegal for bandana-wearing non-Gypsies to write footnotes.
I would also gas anyone yelling “In the hole” at a golf tournament. The people saying it near the green, where it is tenable that the ball go in, could be buried to their necks in the sand traps and left there to keep saying “In the hole” until they expired. There would be hundreds of tired decomposing faces in the sand, posing a new kind of hazard for golfer and spectator alike.
All right. While we are at it, I want anyone using a cell phone in a car to be put into a Final Demolition Derby wherein your car has to be moving as a salvation number flashes among hundreds of false salvation numbers flashing from hundreds of sites in the arena, on the walls, on billboards, on the license plates of other cars, on the radio inside the cars, and you have to dial these numbers as you drive in the demolition and get the right number to be saved. Otherwise you drive and you dial and you crash until you die there doing just that.
You are an angry man.
I am indeed.
But at least as we have proven, I read all parts of the chicken.
Do you read the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data?
The number-y part that appears in the front of the book?
Yes, right under the Copyright and sometimes even the Edition information.
Of course not. That’s for some librarian in Washington who never is allowed near a window and is consigned to a Hell of shuffling feet on Perlata marble.
Well you should. It might help you understand this book You and Me by Padgett Powell.
What would it tell me?
Powell, Padgett. You & Me : a novel / by Padgett Powell. – 1st ed. P. cm. ISBN 978-0-06-212613-9 1. Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989. En attendant Godot.–Parodies, imitations, etc. 2. Middle-aged men—Fiction. 3. Experimental fiction. I. Title. II. Title: You and me.
We’re in a parody of Waiting for Godot?
I didn’t think so.
Neither did Nathan, who confessed to being a pedant, then enlightened that Powell didn’t want to go down the Godot road but his publisher insisted.
Did Nathan write this in a review?
Nathan doesn’t do reviews; some kind of protest. He said it in a comment but he sounded authoritative.
Kind of like a footnote?
Very much like a footnote.
Does Nathan wear a bandana?
I don’t know Nathan to wear a bandana. But he doesn’t look like a Gypsy.
Well, do you think this You & Me is Godot-y?
It feels a little Godot-y. Funnier than Godot though. But not as funny as that Two Pints.
So Two Pints is not as Godoty as You & Me.
It is not. Go Doughy.
God Owe We.
God Oh Oui?
Oui
This is making me feel old.
I was thinking, I will not need another new swimsuit in my time.
An interesting perspective. How long before we smell like old men?
Last year, dude.
You de Man.
July 17, 2012
Picture two dudes sitting on a front porch (I'm pretty sure one of them is Padgett), shooting the shit for 200 pages, about everything from made-up heroes (with names like Studio Becalmed), mens underwear, the Salvation Army, the afterlife, going insane, dogs, drinking, and living each day of your life as if it was the last. In other words, it's both deep and shallow. When the conversation is deep, there's a funny we-don't-know-what-we're-talking-about wink to it. When it's shallow, it's more like a this-is-really-important-this-really-matters tone to it. And the whole book IS talking. It's conversation through and through, gloriously full of equal parts bullshit and wisdom. It's also kind of like Padgett Powell, himself, looking at the winding, messy trail his work has created over the years and walking a leaky gas can down it and then setting it aflame. I can hear him laughing into the dark smoke.
July 22, 2012
I had heard of Padgett Powell before reading this, because he was a mentor of Kevin Canty (one of my own mentors, and one of my favorite writers) at the University of Florida. He Even blurbed Canty's A STRANGER IN THIS WORLD (a debut book of short stories whose whose greatness is kind of undeniable). I remember Powell's blurb well enough to paraphrase it without finding the book on my shelf--it's something like: "There's a new literary genius every week, and this week it might as well be Kevin Canty."
Which is kind of great, kind of funny, but also a little mean-spirited and insensitive. After all, your former student has just written something great, and you can't just give it an honest-to-goodness blurb, but instead have to turn said blurb into a cultural critique, and get in and out of the blurb without actually saying anything nice about the book? Yeesh, a little bothersome. My other interaction with Powell comes in the form of a rejection letter from FLA MFA. Probably the only MFA school that sends something akin to an actual rejection letter, which prominently features Powell's signature. Anyone who's gotten one of these letters can attest that there's something very annoying about it. His cursive is a little too perfect, something in the curves of his a's and s's makes it clear that this is a writer with ego. Also, the sentiment is kind of like, "thanks but no thanks, but hey, here's a Padgett Powell autograph for a souvenir."
Which is all fine and good. A little ego isn't a bad thing, if the writer backs it up on the page. After reading YOU & ME, I can definitively say that Powell does not.
What this book reminded me of, in a good way (hence the begrudging three stars) is a half drunk 3 AM conversation, among two students (pals!) at an MFA program. Both of these characters (the book is one long back and forth dialogue, without the benefit of quotation marks, between two older men) are a bit bummish, somewhat smart (but not smart enough to make sense of the world), and kind of in love with their own bullshit. You get the sense that they're even trying out story ideas, trying to upstage one another. If you've been to MFA land--and if you're reading Padgett Powell you probably have--then the conversation is sure to sound something like home. From the outset, I found myself laughing, feeling nostalgic, really enjoying myself.
The problem is the conversation NEVER ENDS. The pleasant landscape of the book quickly transforms into a kind of hell. These are old guys, after all. Maybe they were endearing MFA students once upon a time, but they never left, never grew up. They've gone on shooting the shit long, long, long after it was dead (which admittedly was promised on the book cover). If this all sounds fun, I promise you it isn't. It all stops being entertaining around page 80--the last two thirds of this are a real grind. There's also a weirdly racist snippet toward the end. What I made of that was Powell himself was stepping in and saying--"Hey idiot, you still here? Not only have I insulted your intelligence, but now I'm going to go ahead and insult your sensibilities."
Which, yeah, all in all, kind of makes sense. At its heart this book is a little mean spirited. But it's mean spirited toward, and disdainful of, the reader, which isn't something I can get behind or respect, at all. I certainly can't recommend YOU & ME as an entertainment, but I suppose for the reader who is nostalgic for the kind of conversation that happened late at night in MFA land, and who has 20 or 30 bucks to drop on a book and is willing to drop that kind of money for a book they probably won't finish--I know this is a very rare reader indeed--I would say go out and get this one. There you have it.
I received an ARC copy of this book as part of a Goodreads FirstReads promotional giveaway.
Which is kind of great, kind of funny, but also a little mean-spirited and insensitive. After all, your former student has just written something great, and you can't just give it an honest-to-goodness blurb, but instead have to turn said blurb into a cultural critique, and get in and out of the blurb without actually saying anything nice about the book? Yeesh, a little bothersome. My other interaction with Powell comes in the form of a rejection letter from FLA MFA. Probably the only MFA school that sends something akin to an actual rejection letter, which prominently features Powell's signature. Anyone who's gotten one of these letters can attest that there's something very annoying about it. His cursive is a little too perfect, something in the curves of his a's and s's makes it clear that this is a writer with ego. Also, the sentiment is kind of like, "thanks but no thanks, but hey, here's a Padgett Powell autograph for a souvenir."
Which is all fine and good. A little ego isn't a bad thing, if the writer backs it up on the page. After reading YOU & ME, I can definitively say that Powell does not.
What this book reminded me of, in a good way (hence the begrudging three stars) is a half drunk 3 AM conversation, among two students (pals!) at an MFA program. Both of these characters (the book is one long back and forth dialogue, without the benefit of quotation marks, between two older men) are a bit bummish, somewhat smart (but not smart enough to make sense of the world), and kind of in love with their own bullshit. You get the sense that they're even trying out story ideas, trying to upstage one another. If you've been to MFA land--and if you're reading Padgett Powell you probably have--then the conversation is sure to sound something like home. From the outset, I found myself laughing, feeling nostalgic, really enjoying myself.
The problem is the conversation NEVER ENDS. The pleasant landscape of the book quickly transforms into a kind of hell. These are old guys, after all. Maybe they were endearing MFA students once upon a time, but they never left, never grew up. They've gone on shooting the shit long, long, long after it was dead (which admittedly was promised on the book cover). If this all sounds fun, I promise you it isn't. It all stops being entertaining around page 80--the last two thirds of this are a real grind. There's also a weirdly racist snippet toward the end. What I made of that was Powell himself was stepping in and saying--"Hey idiot, you still here? Not only have I insulted your intelligence, but now I'm going to go ahead and insult your sensibilities."
Which, yeah, all in all, kind of makes sense. At its heart this book is a little mean spirited. But it's mean spirited toward, and disdainful of, the reader, which isn't something I can get behind or respect, at all. I certainly can't recommend YOU & ME as an entertainment, but I suppose for the reader who is nostalgic for the kind of conversation that happened late at night in MFA land, and who has 20 or 30 bucks to drop on a book and is willing to drop that kind of money for a book they probably won't finish--I know this is a very rare reader indeed--I would say go out and get this one. There you have it.
I received an ARC copy of this book as part of a Goodreads FirstReads promotional giveaway.
February 2, 2019
This book made me laugh. A lot.
I think I read Powell's first book Edisto years ago but I can't locate it. Must have been one I passed along to a co-worker.
I shared many highlights from this book so others can get a taste of this irregular book with its crazy humour.
Library Loan
I think I read Powell's first book Edisto years ago but I can't locate it. Must have been one I passed along to a co-worker.
I shared many highlights from this book so others can get a taste of this irregular book with its crazy humour.
Library Loan
October 11, 2018
In my mind, there's nothing wrong with being vulgar. But there IS something wrong with being pretentiously vulgar. I feel as though juxtaposing meta themes with base human behavior has been done before, and in ways that are far less smug and self-congratulatory than this.
There is real depth and humor here, of course, so it was still a worthwhile read. I want to commit much of the men's exchange to memory. How strange is it, though, to see individuals characterized as "old"--two people wrestling with nostalgia and a sort of newfound trepidation--throwing the word "dude" into their conversation? It's not anachronistic, exactly, because someday the present "dude"-slingers will in fact be left to the same fate. But ... the elderly cliches are evolving, I guess, and will eventually reflect the habits and speech patterns of my own generation. Never thought of that before, and it is infinitely strange to me.
There is real depth and humor here, of course, so it was still a worthwhile read. I want to commit much of the men's exchange to memory. How strange is it, though, to see individuals characterized as "old"--two people wrestling with nostalgia and a sort of newfound trepidation--throwing the word "dude" into their conversation? It's not anachronistic, exactly, because someday the present "dude"-slingers will in fact be left to the same fate. But ... the elderly cliches are evolving, I guess, and will eventually reflect the habits and speech patterns of my own generation. Never thought of that before, and it is infinitely strange to me.
February 23, 2016
To say this novel is an unconventional one does not quite capture it's essence. In fact, the same may be said about the notion that this work is a novel at all. This book is comprised of seemingly random though often esoteric dialog between two characters. These men remain unnamed, yet as the work progresses we begin to know them through this dialog. There is no real plot, there is no real action. And yet, Powell captivates the reader. If you are one who dog-ears pages for their particular insight or humor, you will likely dog-ear most of these pages. This book is wholely an enjoyable endeavor...though having finished it, I'm not certain what it is about.
September 10, 2012
This might be my favorite read of 2012 so far. I finished his earlier book, The Interrogative Mood, wishing I (or the author) could dialogue more about some of the questions. This book is full of similar questions but the setting is two old men on a porch talking through their thoughts on practically everything. They have brief dialogues on all manners of subjects and it becomes one of the most delightful books I've read in a long time. One part poetry, one part Abott and Costello's Who's on First, and a bunch of crazy language games. I absolutely loved this.
abandoned-dnf
May 22, 2020DNF at 20%. I'd rather go pick weeds out of my yard using tweezers than finish this book.
My dad and his friend used to sit on the porch and talk. They were far more interesting than this even on days when they didn't say anything. They were definitely more insightful and a lot funnier...even when they didn't say anything.
This book is pretty much evidence that the phrase "prize winning author" means nothing. Looks like anything can win some kind of prize just by existing.
My dad and his friend used to sit on the porch and talk. They were far more interesting than this even on days when they didn't say anything. They were definitely more insightful and a lot funnier...even when they didn't say anything.
This book is pretty much evidence that the phrase "prize winning author" means nothing. Looks like anything can win some kind of prize just by existing.
Read
December 10, 2022stopped at pg. 22
July 12, 2012
First off, let me just say that this isn’t the typical style of book that I read, I’ve decided to try and expand my book shelf with new writers and new genres. This book comes across as more or less disorganized chaos, no chapters, no plot, the entire book is a discussion between two men in the south just hanging out passing time. Or perhaps the conversation is taking place between three or more people, or for a suspenseful thriller aspect, maybe there is only one person.
Having spent a great deal of time in the south this book is very reminiscent of the types of conversations you might over hear while walking down the street or standing in line. Sporadic conversation that jumps from subject to subject, the only point is talking, regardless of topic. Talking for the sake of talking. A conversation that starts out with comments about the weather, crosses over into sports, did you see that thing on TV, how’s the family, a brief memory from childhood, hunting advice, and then see you later. Completely and totally random conversations about random topics and whatever happens to pop up into your mind mid-sentence.
There are a few parts of the book where it seems to drag by but overall it flows pretty well. There are a lot of jokes, a lot of ridiculous statements, and some rather strange and unusual viewpoints. There were times that I laughed, laughed a lot, and times where I looked forward to turning the pages and getting past certain dialogue. Not because it was offensive or anything, but some parts of the conversation just came across as a little boring or uninteresting to me - not many though. There are also a few moments where I found myself comparing what I read to a philosophy book due to the depth and profound statements.
It is unusual, it is funny, it is quirky, it is strange, but overall I have to say that it’s a pretty good book. I’m glad I got a chance to read it, especially since I wouldn’t have picked it up on my own. If you’re looking for a short fun read, pick this up - if you’re looking for a deep novel with a complex plot pass. If you have trouble reading this book cover to cover, try turning to a random page and reading for a while, chances are good you will start laughing. I would have to rate this book either 3.8(ish) or about a 4.2, so I will give it a solid 4.
Thanks to the author, publisher, and Goodreads first-reads for the early release copy
Having spent a great deal of time in the south this book is very reminiscent of the types of conversations you might over hear while walking down the street or standing in line. Sporadic conversation that jumps from subject to subject, the only point is talking, regardless of topic. Talking for the sake of talking. A conversation that starts out with comments about the weather, crosses over into sports, did you see that thing on TV, how’s the family, a brief memory from childhood, hunting advice, and then see you later. Completely and totally random conversations about random topics and whatever happens to pop up into your mind mid-sentence.
There are a few parts of the book where it seems to drag by but overall it flows pretty well. There are a lot of jokes, a lot of ridiculous statements, and some rather strange and unusual viewpoints. There were times that I laughed, laughed a lot, and times where I looked forward to turning the pages and getting past certain dialogue. Not because it was offensive or anything, but some parts of the conversation just came across as a little boring or uninteresting to me - not many though. There are also a few moments where I found myself comparing what I read to a philosophy book due to the depth and profound statements.
It is unusual, it is funny, it is quirky, it is strange, but overall I have to say that it’s a pretty good book. I’m glad I got a chance to read it, especially since I wouldn’t have picked it up on my own. If you’re looking for a short fun read, pick this up - if you’re looking for a deep novel with a complex plot pass. If you have trouble reading this book cover to cover, try turning to a random page and reading for a while, chances are good you will start laughing. I would have to rate this book either 3.8(ish) or about a 4.2, so I will give it a solid 4.
Thanks to the author, publisher, and Goodreads first-reads for the early release copy
July 9, 2012
If you're looking for a humorous book to read this summer, pick up YOU & ME, a novel by Padgett Powell. A modern day WAITING FOR GODOT, YOU & ME chronicles the conversations between two men, sitting on a porch somewhere between Bakersfield, California and Jacksonville, Florida. The men use a methodology akin to a modern day Socrates. The topics selected for discussion run from the profound -- e.g., how to live everyday as if it's your last -- to the mundane -- e.g., walking to the nearby liquor store while wearing orange jumpsuits and orange electrical cords. There is the juxtaposition of the ghosts of Julia Childs and Crazy Horse; the hair on Custer and on turtles; the Coppertone girl and Buster Brown. One of my favorites, however, is the discussion of feeling insurance:
"The premiums would be impossible, the actuarial tables a nightmare.
And this is why Lloyds does not offer it. Blues insurance. Quite an idea.
Verification tricky. Who would NOT claim?"
Powell is witty, sardonic, and clever. Take a look at the ups and downs of modern day America. Check out YOU & ME!
"The premiums would be impossible, the actuarial tables a nightmare.
And this is why Lloyds does not offer it. Blues insurance. Quite an idea.
Verification tricky. Who would NOT claim?"
Powell is witty, sardonic, and clever. Take a look at the ups and downs of modern day America. Check out YOU & ME!
December 25, 2015
It's Waiting for Godot…but without Godot. Or should I say, even less Godot than the original play? As there isn't even a promise of Godot but, at best, a trip to the liquor store in an orange jumpsuit. This lack of drive for the two porch-dwellers in Powell's new novel can, and does for a little bit, make the forward motion of this book a little vacant, but Powell gifts us in the best moments with the kind of Barthelme-like mastery he's certainly earned. Be ready for a total lack of narrative, and long stretches of unattributed dialogue. The exchanges are funny, blistered at times with utter sadness, and they certainly follow their own logic as well as a great ear for language, the words that pop up that become pursuits of logic, so overall I was won over and stuck through pretty well to the end, which is indeed an end. Have a feeling there won't be too many others who share my view.
August 13, 2012
Padgett Powell follows up The Interrogative Mood: A Novel? w/ another high concept literary frolic which operates from a literary degree zero. Two "weirdly agreeable dudes" sit on a porch and talk. Where the unrelated questions in The Interrogative Mood allowed Padgett to suddenly go in any direction whatever unbeholden to anything that had come before, the dialogues in You & Me likewise can go of in any direction whatever at any moment. This is writing that is wildly free while at once being constrained by a hard and fast structural conceit. You & Me does not quite equal the machinegun scattershot genius of The Interrogative Mood but it remains pretty philosophical and uproarious. And Powell remains one of the most fun writers working today anywhere.
August 27, 2012
As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Applying this maxim to literary criticism seems apropros in the case of this book. Sometimes crap is just crap. Sam Beckett called, he wants his 1st draft of Waiting for Godot back--so he can shred it. I think this book was an exercise in seeing how long the author could sit and tap out semi-coherent sentences, while legally drunk, before falling over. About ten minutes from what I can tell. Funny? No. In the sad days of the tarnished and falling stars of Mel Gibson, Roseanne Barr, et al, the ramblings of substance abusers no longer break the funny meter at the comedy club. Doesn't work in print either. Avoid the gaper's block at this car wreck of a book. Life is too short to waste on this tripe.
Read
May 12, 2013Even more pointless than Waiting For Godot, slackster lit for the art of gabbing.. less like a play than an eternal comic strip, with the same setting and the same characters, ruminating in syndication for infinity.
"Ice cream is like maggots in a field wound."
"Ice cream is like maggots in a field wound."
July 25, 2012
Fans of Waiting for Godot & Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead will love this excellent exchange of everything.
July 22, 2012
in the mid to late 80s i knew padgett powell, sat in, took up space in, his class...twice. this, shortly after the publication of his 1st novel, edisto, that he signed for me, 1985, there at the goehring's bookstore on 13th street in gainesville.
you might not be able to see it on the cover/dust-jacket, but those two figures at the bottom of the ampersand, two figures in silhouette, their back to the reader, the one on the right with a cane, the other turned slightly toward the elder, slightly hunched....man.
the narrative of this one takes the form of two people having a conversation. there are no quotation marks around the dialogue, there is no he said she said and no adverbs saying how they said it. they are simply having a conversation about things, life, the passing of life and so on.
they talk about things like "feeling insurance". imagine that. hey? having insurance for your feelings?
they talk about dogs...and dogs are missed when they are gone.
more so than most people and yeah why is that?
or, they talk about the "sleep washer" and having "poppin-fresh BVDs" to pull on in the morning....a new way of thinking of "white noise".
they talk, they realize "we don't have to do anything unless we want to."
they question words...or, the one does, and the other (i have this sense of two old...time has passed, yes...two oldies watching life pass, commenting on it...say, at a store, on a bench maybe...or the barber shop...or anywhere...the beach maybe...the mall...somewhere...)
they question life..."is it better to have continuity of no content or discontinuous content"?
they are opinionated: "the remarkable knows no color, in the progressive view."
they have reached some conclusion: "jejune longing is the chewing gum of life."
they have taken seemingly innocuous things, split-shot sinkers for example, and have drawn conclusions....a "huge and hugely gratifying anal balm."
they consider 'having it together' and by this point the reader is aware that they, the one, or both, have decided they have not always had it together.
"i just think that given the near total dissolution upon us now that it, our dissolution, could not have been greater, not even when we were crawling from the cave, and that to have survived this far we must have had it together more back then than now."
all that sugar and cell phone that we now consume and so on.
"we live, figuratively speaking, if not literally, under water."
oh yeah....the one gets into percentages...numbers....
the one poses an interesting question: have you noticed, any time lately, the phenomenon by which when you meet someone whose personality you object to that your own personality is shifted to a counter personality, as it were, to which you also object, arguably more than you object to the offending personality of the other?
ease up. the day was rued when we came upon it, or when it came upon us, and beheld us marring the horizon, sitting here like unconquerable savages, men missing their dogs and talking pointlessly unless talk to the dead. let's sharpen something.
that last is nice...this vision of the sun also rising...
...disputing nothing is the first step through the difficult door of happiness.
so...on page 134 w/about 50 pages to go...
update: complete, finished, 28th? dec 2011...i just now noticed here, at the end of the year, that it says directly below "date i finished this book"...and i see that it is the 28th there....did i miss a day? am i a day off again? well...i'll try not to let it bother me too much...
so anyway, as the narrative progresses--i think i might have stopped at like a turning-point in the story last night--i wasn't trying to do that....by stopping i mean i read the remaining 50 pages after i wrote what i did there and now here i am...after a night of rest...posting. sans poppin-fresh bvds...i don't do commando and i am not busy so same-o same-o.
there's a nice line of metaphor running through the story, about kathy porter and her old man. see, the one talked her into a look....in the long ago..."but since i did not know about touching, i thought looking contained the entire crime."
[pecker tracks]...looking at my notes here, they, or the one wondered what it is called when you mar the wood, or when a carpenter mars the wood...though padgett did not use the word "mar"...not that i recall....say like when the hammer slides off the nail or it is missed altogether...you get [pecker tracks]. these things--> [ ] i understand, signify something that the person inserts in something of another. or am i confused like the dates.
they are in "assisted-living" as of the telling...and they have to figure out how to die...perhaps w/dignity...or i am lacking brackets.
hence: (from the story)....: what i am saying--am i saying this?--is that one's whole life is not having the wit to not be afraid of kathy's father [her w/the view, no touch, yet full-crime]. this is why we do not know, have a clue, really, how to live today as if it's the last day of our lives. we think we have the score because we can see that fifty years ago we did not have the score, bolting from the playhouse, but the fact is we are bolting from another playhouse today. we do not recognize it as a playhouse.
there's another nice metaphor-s about snickers wrappers, golfing sand traps.
...i can see that i did not need to put on the orange heated jumpsuit...a detail from the story...and make a run, as i was full-on w/o need....as i missed things...looking now. that's what rereads are for, catching things you missed on the first pass. fishermen know this.
like this nice way of defining us: half the world is an animal and the other half a meddling high-minded egghead and they are not coming together except in certain forms of predation and exploitation of the other. [we never really get off the playground, do we?]
there's a couple...anagrams? or what's the word for it...like government initials for things...fbi, cia, epa, so on.
lil' tnt: lose it like there's no tomorrow
or
ledoolaiitldool: live every day as if it's the last day of your life
there's lots more....like this one that i didn't list: people do not care what is done to them if they see the shit slapped out of the other half.
i could go on and on.....it closes out nicely.....oh yeah, forgot to say that as the narrative progresses, the reader gets a sense of a new day from time to time, as if time is indeed just moving right along...a sense that they just sat down...
....course, being old...they might have just nodded off and when they come to it is like a new day....old people must have a pile of those during the course of one day? they had their say.
a good read.
you might not be able to see it on the cover/dust-jacket, but those two figures at the bottom of the ampersand, two figures in silhouette, their back to the reader, the one on the right with a cane, the other turned slightly toward the elder, slightly hunched....man.
the narrative of this one takes the form of two people having a conversation. there are no quotation marks around the dialogue, there is no he said she said and no adverbs saying how they said it. they are simply having a conversation about things, life, the passing of life and so on.
they talk about things like "feeling insurance". imagine that. hey? having insurance for your feelings?
they talk about dogs...and dogs are missed when they are gone.
more so than most people and yeah why is that?
or, they talk about the "sleep washer" and having "poppin-fresh BVDs" to pull on in the morning....a new way of thinking of "white noise".
they talk, they realize "we don't have to do anything unless we want to."
they question words...or, the one does, and the other (i have this sense of two old...time has passed, yes...two oldies watching life pass, commenting on it...say, at a store, on a bench maybe...or the barber shop...or anywhere...the beach maybe...the mall...somewhere...)
they question life..."is it better to have continuity of no content or discontinuous content"?
they are opinionated: "the remarkable knows no color, in the progressive view."
they have reached some conclusion: "jejune longing is the chewing gum of life."
they have taken seemingly innocuous things, split-shot sinkers for example, and have drawn conclusions....a "huge and hugely gratifying anal balm."
they consider 'having it together' and by this point the reader is aware that they, the one, or both, have decided they have not always had it together.
"i just think that given the near total dissolution upon us now that it, our dissolution, could not have been greater, not even when we were crawling from the cave, and that to have survived this far we must have had it together more back then than now."
all that sugar and cell phone that we now consume and so on.
"we live, figuratively speaking, if not literally, under water."
oh yeah....the one gets into percentages...numbers....
the one poses an interesting question: have you noticed, any time lately, the phenomenon by which when you meet someone whose personality you object to that your own personality is shifted to a counter personality, as it were, to which you also object, arguably more than you object to the offending personality of the other?
ease up. the day was rued when we came upon it, or when it came upon us, and beheld us marring the horizon, sitting here like unconquerable savages, men missing their dogs and talking pointlessly unless talk to the dead. let's sharpen something.
that last is nice...this vision of the sun also rising...
...disputing nothing is the first step through the difficult door of happiness.
so...on page 134 w/about 50 pages to go...
update: complete, finished, 28th? dec 2011...i just now noticed here, at the end of the year, that it says directly below "date i finished this book"...and i see that it is the 28th there....did i miss a day? am i a day off again? well...i'll try not to let it bother me too much...
so anyway, as the narrative progresses--i think i might have stopped at like a turning-point in the story last night--i wasn't trying to do that....by stopping i mean i read the remaining 50 pages after i wrote what i did there and now here i am...after a night of rest...posting. sans poppin-fresh bvds...i don't do commando and i am not busy so same-o same-o.
there's a nice line of metaphor running through the story, about kathy porter and her old man. see, the one talked her into a look....in the long ago..."but since i did not know about touching, i thought looking contained the entire crime."
[pecker tracks]...looking at my notes here, they, or the one wondered what it is called when you mar the wood, or when a carpenter mars the wood...though padgett did not use the word "mar"...not that i recall....say like when the hammer slides off the nail or it is missed altogether...you get [pecker tracks]. these things--> [ ] i understand, signify something that the person inserts in something of another. or am i confused like the dates.
they are in "assisted-living" as of the telling...and they have to figure out how to die...perhaps w/dignity...or i am lacking brackets.
hence: (from the story)....: what i am saying--am i saying this?--is that one's whole life is not having the wit to not be afraid of kathy's father [her w/the view, no touch, yet full-crime]. this is why we do not know, have a clue, really, how to live today as if it's the last day of our lives. we think we have the score because we can see that fifty years ago we did not have the score, bolting from the playhouse, but the fact is we are bolting from another playhouse today. we do not recognize it as a playhouse.
there's another nice metaphor-s about snickers wrappers, golfing sand traps.
...i can see that i did not need to put on the orange heated jumpsuit...a detail from the story...and make a run, as i was full-on w/o need....as i missed things...looking now. that's what rereads are for, catching things you missed on the first pass. fishermen know this.
like this nice way of defining us: half the world is an animal and the other half a meddling high-minded egghead and they are not coming together except in certain forms of predation and exploitation of the other. [we never really get off the playground, do we?]
there's a couple...anagrams? or what's the word for it...like government initials for things...fbi, cia, epa, so on.
lil' tnt: lose it like there's no tomorrow
or
ledoolaiitldool: live every day as if it's the last day of your life
there's lots more....like this one that i didn't list: people do not care what is done to them if they see the shit slapped out of the other half.
i could go on and on.....it closes out nicely.....oh yeah, forgot to say that as the narrative progresses, the reader gets a sense of a new day from time to time, as if time is indeed just moving right along...a sense that they just sat down...
....course, being old...they might have just nodded off and when they come to it is like a new day....old people must have a pile of those during the course of one day? they had their say.
a good read.
October 4, 2017
I'd give this 1/2 star. It's been a while since it took me so long to finish a book.
I was tricked into reading it by all the rave reviews, so I kept expecting it to get better. Sadly it never did. There were a few humorous "conversations" but most of it was just uninterestingly silly or just plain boring. It makes me think of funny events that when I tried to recount them to friends, it came down to "you just had to be there".
The best thing I can say is that it is a short book.
I was tricked into reading it by all the rave reviews, so I kept expecting it to get better. Sadly it never did. There were a few humorous "conversations" but most of it was just uninterestingly silly or just plain boring. It makes me think of funny events that when I tried to recount them to friends, it came down to "you just had to be there".
The best thing I can say is that it is a short book.
April 25, 2018
This is an odd little book. Short (1 - 3 page) dialogues between two old guys sitting on a front porch in a rundown neighborhood. Amusing, addictive. Loved their hypersensitivity to language. Slang. Sometimes sad and stark. I picked it up at a Little Free Library in a coffee spot, knowing Powell's literary reputation, and thought I'd just read a few pages. Demonstrates how much you can do with dialogue alone. It is now with my books of poems for short "read a page or two" reading.
April 21, 2022
For some time now, and, no doubt, for some time to come, when a novel appears that has two character holding endless, twisty, amusing, redundant conversations as its MO, Beckett's unmatchable Waiting for Godot is always going to pop up its heavy head. Amusing, at times, clever, at times, easy-peasy, at times, inventive, yet not the rich rewards of other of his work.
January 24, 2021
Two characters, ostensibly male, having a conversation. The dust jacket draws a parallel to Waiting for Godot as there is no plot.
It has moments of humour and moments of interest and moments of tedium.
I am glad that I read it but would not recommend it.
It has moments of humour and moments of interest and moments of tedium.
I am glad that I read it but would not recommend it.
October 29, 2017
A jumbled mess of randomness. I was forcing myself to read it all, but it was tough. The only book I have read where I felt as if I was getting dumber the farther into it that I got.
July 10, 2019
'Waiting for Godot' without the action and excitement.
May 19, 2020
DNF couldn't get into it. Not my thing at all
August 30, 2020
Mix and serve with top shelf bourbon. Serves: 1.
June 13, 2021
It's interesting fun and xlever
March 25, 2012
The blurb on the inner cover of the dust jacket describes this book as 'a conversation, apparently on a porch, by two men who may be difficult to grasp'. Which is odd because having now finished the book, I don't recall a porch being mentioned in the text. Perhaps that's why the blurb-writer wrote 'apparently'. But why mention a porch at all?
Two guesses: because it locates Powell's writing within a Southern tradition of which the author himself is not unaware ('You sound like William Faulkner.' / 'Mr. Bill? Why thank you.'); and because it gives us a context in which to visualise what follows, as if it were something as familiar as a dramatic dialogue where a pair of old codgers look out upon society and pronounce judgement upon the world while sipping bourbon and chewing tobacco.
It isn’t quite that simple. For one thing, there are no speech marks, and there are no words in the book other than what we assume these men are saying. Why do we assume they’re speaking to one another? Because of the style. One asks a question and the other responds. But sometimes they are responding to one another and sometimes not. Perhaps it is better to assume that they are talking across one another.
There is a loose structure to the book. Each sequence of dialogue begins with a statement or a prompt, or sometimes a question reminiscent of ‘The Interrogative Mood’. For the most part they have a pleasant weight and good humour to them reminiscent of Gertrude Stein:
‘I have lost my mind, I am comfortable with having lost my mind, and I plan on having my mind stay lost.’
‘I’m just a mouthful of pyjama air’
‘Do you see a problem with my outfit?’
‘A dark thing.’
‘I need a saddle pommel. To steer me through the house.’
These men – and I think we can assume they are men – don’t really talk like people actually talk. Occasionally there are attempts to mimic the rhythm of ‘real’ speech, but for the most part their voices switch between written and spoken registers in mid-conversation. You could do it on stage like Beckett, but if people spoke like this in real life you would think them mad. But it is very nice to read them aloud.
It doesn’t really have a plot. There is no action as such. I suspect that your enjoyment of the book may be tempered by these issues. Certainly there may be questions from the back of the class as to whether we should or should not really consider this A Novel.
But who really cares about that anyway. It is a very pleasant thing to read. The writing is clear and concise and rhythmic, musical. It’s often quite funny. And it is reflective, in its way: one has the sense while reading it that the book is thinking through things for you. It is a kind of crystalline dialectic. And it is also angry, in its way: angry about the war, angry about sugar, angry about physical and moral decrepitude, and the ways in which we have been cowards. Above all, its vision of contentment is encapsulated in a dream of peace, isolation and inward solitude:
‘I would like to go to a place where there are orange fields and sweet young dogs to walk in them with. There is a small wind at all times, large wind at night. Things bud and decay in equilibrium, light and shade play together nicely. If things are named, the names are not known but not used overmuch. Forgetting and remembering have shaken hands.’
Two guesses: because it locates Powell's writing within a Southern tradition of which the author himself is not unaware ('You sound like William Faulkner.' / 'Mr. Bill? Why thank you.'); and because it gives us a context in which to visualise what follows, as if it were something as familiar as a dramatic dialogue where a pair of old codgers look out upon society and pronounce judgement upon the world while sipping bourbon and chewing tobacco.
It isn’t quite that simple. For one thing, there are no speech marks, and there are no words in the book other than what we assume these men are saying. Why do we assume they’re speaking to one another? Because of the style. One asks a question and the other responds. But sometimes they are responding to one another and sometimes not. Perhaps it is better to assume that they are talking across one another.
There is a loose structure to the book. Each sequence of dialogue begins with a statement or a prompt, or sometimes a question reminiscent of ‘The Interrogative Mood’. For the most part they have a pleasant weight and good humour to them reminiscent of Gertrude Stein:
‘I have lost my mind, I am comfortable with having lost my mind, and I plan on having my mind stay lost.’
‘I’m just a mouthful of pyjama air’
‘Do you see a problem with my outfit?’
‘A dark thing.’
‘I need a saddle pommel. To steer me through the house.’
These men – and I think we can assume they are men – don’t really talk like people actually talk. Occasionally there are attempts to mimic the rhythm of ‘real’ speech, but for the most part their voices switch between written and spoken registers in mid-conversation. You could do it on stage like Beckett, but if people spoke like this in real life you would think them mad. But it is very nice to read them aloud.
It doesn’t really have a plot. There is no action as such. I suspect that your enjoyment of the book may be tempered by these issues. Certainly there may be questions from the back of the class as to whether we should or should not really consider this A Novel.
But who really cares about that anyway. It is a very pleasant thing to read. The writing is clear and concise and rhythmic, musical. It’s often quite funny. And it is reflective, in its way: one has the sense while reading it that the book is thinking through things for you. It is a kind of crystalline dialectic. And it is also angry, in its way: angry about the war, angry about sugar, angry about physical and moral decrepitude, and the ways in which we have been cowards. Above all, its vision of contentment is encapsulated in a dream of peace, isolation and inward solitude:
‘I would like to go to a place where there are orange fields and sweet young dogs to walk in them with. There is a small wind at all times, large wind at night. Things bud and decay in equilibrium, light and shade play together nicely. If things are named, the names are not known but not used overmuch. Forgetting and remembering have shaken hands.’
July 1, 2012
i read this story before i got it in the mail today...high five...
this version..."first published as you + i by serpent's tail, an imprint of profile books ltd, london." etc
portions also appears in harper's, little star...(i suspect it is one of those magazines)...mcsweeney's, subtropics (another?)...and on narrativemagazine.com
dedicated for amanda dahl...who loved forty-four (a daughter, i believe...has anyone dedicated a book to their dog?)
has a couple quotes on white pages before it all begins:
do you know where you are, mr. barthelme?
in the antechamber to heaven.
--from hiding man: a biography of donald barthelme by
tracy daugherty
he felt rather like someone lying in a bath after all the water has run out, witless, almost dead. --malcolm lowry, under the volcano
another thing the purple snake copy does not have is location...always helpful, i think. you?
somewhere between bakersfield, california, and jacksonville, florida--we think spiritually nearer the former and geographically nearer the latter--two weirdly agreeable dudes are on a porch in a not upscale neighborhood, apparently within walking distance of a liquor store, talking a lot. it's all they have. things disturb them. some things do not.
You & I...
anyway...a good bathroom reader...treestand...deer-season is coming up and it would be a perfect ending to an already questionable year to miss that four-year-old buck i've been hunting for better than twenty years now...by reading this in the stand and having the buck pass within arrow/bolt/bullet/musket ball-range...
so...
this version..."first published as you + i by serpent's tail, an imprint of profile books ltd, london." etc
portions also appears in harper's, little star...(i suspect it is one of those magazines)...mcsweeney's, subtropics (another?)...and on narrativemagazine.com
dedicated for amanda dahl...who loved forty-four (a daughter, i believe...has anyone dedicated a book to their dog?)
has a couple quotes on white pages before it all begins:
do you know where you are, mr. barthelme?
in the antechamber to heaven.
--from hiding man: a biography of donald barthelme by
tracy daugherty
he felt rather like someone lying in a bath after all the water has run out, witless, almost dead. --malcolm lowry, under the volcano
another thing the purple snake copy does not have is location...always helpful, i think. you?
somewhere between bakersfield, california, and jacksonville, florida--we think spiritually nearer the former and geographically nearer the latter--two weirdly agreeable dudes are on a porch in a not upscale neighborhood, apparently within walking distance of a liquor store, talking a lot. it's all they have. things disturb them. some things do not.
You & I...
anyway...a good bathroom reader...treestand...deer-season is coming up and it would be a perfect ending to an already questionable year to miss that four-year-old buck i've been hunting for better than twenty years now...by reading this in the stand and having the buck pass within arrow/bolt/bullet/musket ball-range...
so...
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