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The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan Vol. I
"Scott McClanahan is a powerful, exceptional writer, and the overall effect of reading his deceptively simple stories is like getting hit in the head by a champion cage fighter cranked up on meth that was cooked in a trailer without running water in some Kentucky backwoods where people sing murder ballads to their children to put them to sleep."
-DONALD RAY POLLOCK, author of The Devil All the Time
"He might be one of the great southern storytellers of our time."
-VOL. 1 BROOKLYN
"When I discovered the stories of Scott McClanahan last year, I was instantly enthralled with his natural storytelling voice and freaky funny tales. There's no pretense to Scott's work. It's like you're just dropped right into the middle of these fantastic and true stories. It's like a sweet blend of my favorite southern writers, Larry Brown and Harry Crews. Reading McClanahan is like listening to a good friend telling you his best real-life stories on your back porch on a humid night. And you both got a nice whiskey buzz going."
-KEVIN SAMPSELL, author of A Common Pornography
"McClanahan's prose is unfettered and kinetic and his stories seem like a hyper-modern iteration of local color fiction. His delivery is guileless and his morality ambivalent and you get the sense, while reading him, that he is sitting next to you on a barstool, eating peanuts and drinking a beer, and intermittently getting up to pick a song on the jukebox."
-THE RUMPUS
"Reads like Bukowski with more surprises."
-IMPOSE MAGAZINE
-DONALD RAY POLLOCK, author of The Devil All the Time
"He might be one of the great southern storytellers of our time."
-VOL. 1 BROOKLYN
"When I discovered the stories of Scott McClanahan last year, I was instantly enthralled with his natural storytelling voice and freaky funny tales. There's no pretense to Scott's work. It's like you're just dropped right into the middle of these fantastic and true stories. It's like a sweet blend of my favorite southern writers, Larry Brown and Harry Crews. Reading McClanahan is like listening to a good friend telling you his best real-life stories on your back porch on a humid night. And you both got a nice whiskey buzz going."
-KEVIN SAMPSELL, author of A Common Pornography
"McClanahan's prose is unfettered and kinetic and his stories seem like a hyper-modern iteration of local color fiction. His delivery is guileless and his morality ambivalent and you get the sense, while reading him, that he is sitting next to you on a barstool, eating peanuts and drinking a beer, and intermittently getting up to pick a song on the jukebox."
-THE RUMPUS
"Reads like Bukowski with more surprises."
-IMPOSE MAGAZINE
132 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 28, 2012
68 people are currently reading
944 people want to read
About the author
Scott McClanahan
29 books506 followersScott McClanahan (born June 24, 1978) is an American writer, filmmaker, and martial artist. He lives in Beckley, West Virginia and is the author of eight books. His most recent book, The Sarah Book, was featured in Rolling Stone, Village Voice, and Playboy. NPR called the book "brave, triumphant and beautiful — it reads like a fever dream, and it feels like a miracle." McClanahan is also a co-founder of Holler Presents, a West Virginia-based production and small press company.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 82 reviews
July 25, 2013
Scott's just there, talking to you, being friendly, telling you a funny story, talking about some odd person he knows, and you're listening, and you're nodding, and then you feel weird and cold, and you look down, and Scott has ripped your heart out of your chest, still attached, and it's still beating because Scott is squeezing it for you, and you look up, and he's still telling the story, and you smile, and you nod.
May 15, 2023
Reading Scott's stories made me wish I grew up in a strange little town surrounded by strange people doing strange things.
Sam Pink put it perfectly in his afterword in the book:
"He writes in a way that is conscious of both his own absurdity and that of others, without overdoing either. He makes it really easy to like the narrator and to learn from the narrator's experiences. Scott also knows how to balance humor and sadness."
What I'm trying to say is that he reaffirmed my faith in literature, in storytelling. Who ever thought life could be so simple yet so complicated at the same time. These stories are a testament to that.
Scott, thank you for bringing this gem into the world.
Sam Pink put it perfectly in his afterword in the book:
"He writes in a way that is conscious of both his own absurdity and that of others, without overdoing either. He makes it really easy to like the narrator and to learn from the narrator's experiences. Scott also knows how to balance humor and sadness."
What I'm trying to say is that he reaffirmed my faith in literature, in storytelling. Who ever thought life could be so simple yet so complicated at the same time. These stories are a testament to that.
Scott, thank you for bringing this gem into the world.
August 6, 2022
Tired of the same old rubbish? Try this. It's something else.
July 23, 2014
http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/9248408...
And that is exactly my point. It is not about you, it’s about Scott McClanahan.___M Sarki
Comparisons might be made to Donald Ray Pollock, who I do respect, but Scott McClanahan is miles better as a writer and chronicler, though a bit too immature in these first collected works. But McClanahan promises to grow into himself, and may have already done so by the time this reader moves on past these, his first two books. Donald Ray is a damn good writer, but the main difference between Pollock and McClanahan is the truth behind the tales. McClanahan’s work is believable whereas you just have to know Pollock’s work is mostly made-up fiction. That is not to say that both works are not “made-up”, but it feels more like McClanahan is simply eager to talk to me, and he tells his shit to me straight. He has a humble, almost naive quality about him. An innocence in distance so far bereft of his certain-to-be oncoming pain. His characters live in a tough world, and one not famous for its tender mercies. It is hard, this life. And hard to make up tales like these.
There is a sweetness and innocence to this childish hillbilly. He does seem younger than his years. I can almost label him a sophisticated redneck if it weren’t for his aggressively loud and strong corn pone dialect. With an accent like McClanahan’s he could almost commit murder, but I doubt he would get away with it. I love his stories and his endings, and sometimes, though predictable, surprise with a thoughtfulness generally missing in contemporary literature. Behind most everything I read that is written by young authors today there is usually a sickening pretentious voice showing off and wanting to be on stage. Everyone seems to be vying for the same ugly attention that seems so prevalent and important to the immature reader these days. But McClanahan comes from a different station than most of us. He is not ashamed of his life and what it has taken to survive it. Even when describing his mother dressing him up as a pretty girl because she always wanted one lacks any shock value as it is expressed in such a straightforward and sensitive manner. His character expects always to be teased. Deceit and deception are the norms instead of some abhorrent act on his guiltless personage. His always wanting to be a good person rings true, even when the outcomes are anything but. There are few careless mistakes, but no escaping the escalating numbers of errors in his judgment. You could call McClanahan naive, I did, but he ought by now to know better, if nothing else then because of the sheer numbers of incidents in which he has been lied to. I believe his every path is booby-trapped, and he accepts these land mines as his way of getting through to somewhere, and perhaps it is the end to each delightful story.
Of course now, in looking back through them, there is a story near the last few titled The Prisoners. The same McClanahan who wrote all the preceding clever pieces is not the same person who wrote this grim tale. By my lights one of the best, most sophisticated things he has ever written, at least so far, chronologically the way I am reading them, but not the most fun story to read compared to his other wild-ass hick-town adventures. But it was a pleasure. And this is where he gets me. What writer will he eventually become as he motors on, maturing and honing his craft? Based on what I have seen online in the extremely entertaining videos capturing his readings and short tours already completed my guess is he will stick to mostly the outrageous. But I know he can write with the best of them based on this one story alone.
The story Suicide Notes follows The Prisoners and is of the same sophisticated vein. It is as if McClanahan grew six feet in stature in only fourteen pages. Unbelievable. One of my favorite topics and he handles it with such grace and nerve. Not easy to do regarding something so grim in our society as offing oneself to end all the pain of living. His questions hit home and the answers are not obligatory.
“We like to think of ourselves as complicated. But we’re not. The whole world is just a virus.”
Fable #1 begins where the last two fell off. Another brilliant story, but this tender one about his mother’s thirty-three year teaching career and how it all was worth it, or maybe it was not. The narrator’s voice, Scott McClanahan, does not have the southern dialect, the corn-pone tone that all the preceding stories had prior to The Prisoners. Tom Brokaw himself could be narrating these last three stories as there is nothing to suggest it is the typically live-reader I have seen and heard who goes by the name of Scott McClanahan.
I do think some of these collected stories could have been a bit better, and some probably should have been discarded and not have been included in this special collected edition. You know, just because an author writes something does not mean it is any good or should always be remembered. I believe Scott McClanahan would agree with this remark and say so what he doesn’t care. But I think he can do much better than some of these stories included here, and perhaps his later work will prove me correct in my assumption. I am not being hyper critical, but what makes Blake Butler and Sam I pretty much dislike everything I read Pink important enough to decide the worth of a budding genius in their writing of the foreword and afterword, and why would anyone care what either of them says anyway? There is more than enough brilliant literature to read out there, so I have no idea what it is Sam Pink is reading that he so dislikes. And for my own sake of argument, back and forth and back and forth among the couple voices coming from myself, the real I maintains the now-staunch position that Scott McClanahan can do better than having literary caricatures speak on his behalf. And the publisher needs to stop already with all the blurbs citing comparisons to Charles Bukowski and their saying McClanahan is the next one in our midst. Bukowski was lucky he didn’t get sick and die before he got to be a celebrity, and then it’s just too bad he didn’t do it anyway. And since when do we U.S. citizens celebrate authors who get drunk in public and insist on burning bridges just because they can? Oh shit, I guess because we’re fucking sick and always have been. Somebody tell me one good piece Bukowski ever wrote? I cannot suffer enough to find it. McClanahan can stand on his own two feet. And if he gets drunk at a reading and throws up on his new shiny boots it won’t be because he is immolating Charles Bukowski. He simply has the bug. The one now that has most likely gotten to you too.
And that is exactly my point. It is not about you, it’s about Scott McClanahan.___M Sarki
Comparisons might be made to Donald Ray Pollock, who I do respect, but Scott McClanahan is miles better as a writer and chronicler, though a bit too immature in these first collected works. But McClanahan promises to grow into himself, and may have already done so by the time this reader moves on past these, his first two books. Donald Ray is a damn good writer, but the main difference between Pollock and McClanahan is the truth behind the tales. McClanahan’s work is believable whereas you just have to know Pollock’s work is mostly made-up fiction. That is not to say that both works are not “made-up”, but it feels more like McClanahan is simply eager to talk to me, and he tells his shit to me straight. He has a humble, almost naive quality about him. An innocence in distance so far bereft of his certain-to-be oncoming pain. His characters live in a tough world, and one not famous for its tender mercies. It is hard, this life. And hard to make up tales like these.
There is a sweetness and innocence to this childish hillbilly. He does seem younger than his years. I can almost label him a sophisticated redneck if it weren’t for his aggressively loud and strong corn pone dialect. With an accent like McClanahan’s he could almost commit murder, but I doubt he would get away with it. I love his stories and his endings, and sometimes, though predictable, surprise with a thoughtfulness generally missing in contemporary literature. Behind most everything I read that is written by young authors today there is usually a sickening pretentious voice showing off and wanting to be on stage. Everyone seems to be vying for the same ugly attention that seems so prevalent and important to the immature reader these days. But McClanahan comes from a different station than most of us. He is not ashamed of his life and what it has taken to survive it. Even when describing his mother dressing him up as a pretty girl because she always wanted one lacks any shock value as it is expressed in such a straightforward and sensitive manner. His character expects always to be teased. Deceit and deception are the norms instead of some abhorrent act on his guiltless personage. His always wanting to be a good person rings true, even when the outcomes are anything but. There are few careless mistakes, but no escaping the escalating numbers of errors in his judgment. You could call McClanahan naive, I did, but he ought by now to know better, if nothing else then because of the sheer numbers of incidents in which he has been lied to. I believe his every path is booby-trapped, and he accepts these land mines as his way of getting through to somewhere, and perhaps it is the end to each delightful story.
Of course now, in looking back through them, there is a story near the last few titled The Prisoners. The same McClanahan who wrote all the preceding clever pieces is not the same person who wrote this grim tale. By my lights one of the best, most sophisticated things he has ever written, at least so far, chronologically the way I am reading them, but not the most fun story to read compared to his other wild-ass hick-town adventures. But it was a pleasure. And this is where he gets me. What writer will he eventually become as he motors on, maturing and honing his craft? Based on what I have seen online in the extremely entertaining videos capturing his readings and short tours already completed my guess is he will stick to mostly the outrageous. But I know he can write with the best of them based on this one story alone.
The story Suicide Notes follows The Prisoners and is of the same sophisticated vein. It is as if McClanahan grew six feet in stature in only fourteen pages. Unbelievable. One of my favorite topics and he handles it with such grace and nerve. Not easy to do regarding something so grim in our society as offing oneself to end all the pain of living. His questions hit home and the answers are not obligatory.
“We like to think of ourselves as complicated. But we’re not. The whole world is just a virus.”
Fable #1 begins where the last two fell off. Another brilliant story, but this tender one about his mother’s thirty-three year teaching career and how it all was worth it, or maybe it was not. The narrator’s voice, Scott McClanahan, does not have the southern dialect, the corn-pone tone that all the preceding stories had prior to The Prisoners. Tom Brokaw himself could be narrating these last three stories as there is nothing to suggest it is the typically live-reader I have seen and heard who goes by the name of Scott McClanahan.
I do think some of these collected stories could have been a bit better, and some probably should have been discarded and not have been included in this special collected edition. You know, just because an author writes something does not mean it is any good or should always be remembered. I believe Scott McClanahan would agree with this remark and say so what he doesn’t care. But I think he can do much better than some of these stories included here, and perhaps his later work will prove me correct in my assumption. I am not being hyper critical, but what makes Blake Butler and Sam I pretty much dislike everything I read Pink important enough to decide the worth of a budding genius in their writing of the foreword and afterword, and why would anyone care what either of them says anyway? There is more than enough brilliant literature to read out there, so I have no idea what it is Sam Pink is reading that he so dislikes. And for my own sake of argument, back and forth and back and forth among the couple voices coming from myself, the real I maintains the now-staunch position that Scott McClanahan can do better than having literary caricatures speak on his behalf. And the publisher needs to stop already with all the blurbs citing comparisons to Charles Bukowski and their saying McClanahan is the next one in our midst. Bukowski was lucky he didn’t get sick and die before he got to be a celebrity, and then it’s just too bad he didn’t do it anyway. And since when do we U.S. citizens celebrate authors who get drunk in public and insist on burning bridges just because they can? Oh shit, I guess because we’re fucking sick and always have been. Somebody tell me one good piece Bukowski ever wrote? I cannot suffer enough to find it. McClanahan can stand on his own two feet. And if he gets drunk at a reading and throws up on his new shiny boots it won’t be because he is immolating Charles Bukowski. He simply has the bug. The one now that has most likely gotten to you too.
July 21, 2012
scott mcclanahan is on my list of favorite authors with a bunch of people who are dead.
December 27, 2022
So great
September 7, 2012
Scott is a real storyteller--all dark humor and heart. Lately I don't feel like "putting up" with premises. Sometimes it feels like the contemporary fiction table at bookstores is crying NO MORE PREMISES I AM CHOKING ON PREMISES. But Scott's stories subvert the traditional arc in a voice streaked with shadows. I liked hanging out with this voice.
November 17, 2014
The first time I encountered the work of Scott McClanahan was at a literary event at Colonel Summers Park in Portland, Oregon. During his reading, a buck naked homeless man walked up behind him holding a plastic bag over his genitals. A minute later a cop car pulled up, sirens blaring, and arrested the homeless man. Scott kept reading like nothing was happening. Maybe he didn't notice. Maybe this kind of thing happens to him all the time. I don't know.
A few weeks later I was talking to some friends about how I'd been blown away by The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake. Everybody was like, "Yeah he's great, but have you read Scott McClanahan?" I hadn't. So I bought this book and read it, expecting to hate it because I couldn't imagine that anybody who wasn't dead could write stories half as good as "Trilobites" and "First Day of Winter."
But shit, I was totally wrong. This book blew my mind. It didn't remind me of Pancake though. It reminded me of Denis Johnson's Jesus's Son with coal-scraped Appalachian mountains taking the place of corn fields. Both writers give you the feeling of walking into a dive bar, ordering a drink, and discovering that the guy sitting next to you, telling crazy stories full of half-lies is the reincarnation of Walt Whitman.
Yet whereas Denis Johnson's lyricism is rooted in darkness and drugs, McClanahan's work is rooted in innocence. He gives you the world through the eyes of a child in the language of one who's been born and died a thousand times. Lines like: "And when I think of him now, I see all of my friends sprouting from the mountains like giants because he was the one who made the children grow." One second he's talking about his father the grocer. The next he's mythologizing him in the language of the old testament.
I could say McClanahan is a writer's writer, but I don't think he is. There's something universal about his work. I'm surprised he's not more widely read. His writing is every bit as original as George Saunders, Haruki Murakami, Karen Russell, and Junot Diaz. This book is the real deal.
A few weeks later I was talking to some friends about how I'd been blown away by The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake. Everybody was like, "Yeah he's great, but have you read Scott McClanahan?" I hadn't. So I bought this book and read it, expecting to hate it because I couldn't imagine that anybody who wasn't dead could write stories half as good as "Trilobites" and "First Day of Winter."
But shit, I was totally wrong. This book blew my mind. It didn't remind me of Pancake though. It reminded me of Denis Johnson's Jesus's Son with coal-scraped Appalachian mountains taking the place of corn fields. Both writers give you the feeling of walking into a dive bar, ordering a drink, and discovering that the guy sitting next to you, telling crazy stories full of half-lies is the reincarnation of Walt Whitman.
Yet whereas Denis Johnson's lyricism is rooted in darkness and drugs, McClanahan's work is rooted in innocence. He gives you the world through the eyes of a child in the language of one who's been born and died a thousand times. Lines like: "And when I think of him now, I see all of my friends sprouting from the mountains like giants because he was the one who made the children grow." One second he's talking about his father the grocer. The next he's mythologizing him in the language of the old testament.
I could say McClanahan is a writer's writer, but I don't think he is. There's something universal about his work. I'm surprised he's not more widely read. His writing is every bit as original as George Saunders, Haruki Murakami, Karen Russell, and Junot Diaz. This book is the real deal.
March 10, 2013
Yeah, I know, you've read collections of short stories about down-and-outers in Appalachia and many of those collections (Donald Ray Pollack's work for one) are excellent. McClanahan's stories feature an undercurrent of metafiction/confessional memoir that give the already heartbreaking and horrifying stories an extra jolt. The emotion is genuine, the characters unforgettable, and the minimalist style is as beautiful as it is plaintive. This is my first experience with McClanahan, and it won't be my last.
April 5, 2017
I just bought this cuz the cover cracked me up (fascist classics, I love that) but then it was good. funny and sad and kind of low-key profound. I'm gonna find some more of this weird shit.
October 13, 2023
I love Scott McClanahan
July 29, 2021
So you go to a bar with your friend Scott who is from West Virginia. And that is a state, not just the Western part of Virginia. And he tells you the story about the prettiest girl in Texas. And the one about the last time he saw Randy Doogan. And stories about his father, and mother, and with each one you get more enthralled. And he really talks to you, to the point that you forget that you are not having a beer in a bar with Scott, but are actually reading a book.
June 7, 2022
Let’s break into blossom
I could reread this book every day for the rest of my life
I could reread this book every day for the rest of my life
July 20, 2023
DNF @50%.
Kinda average stories throughout. Didn't keep me interested enough to keep reading on.
Kinda average stories throughout. Didn't keep me interested enough to keep reading on.
August 8, 2015
Whenever I open up one of Scott McClanahan's books, it's like I'm entering a bullshit free zone. Scott has often been compared to other famously subversive writers such as Charles Bukowski and Harry Crews. Also, Breece D'J Pancake. Although subject matters often overlap (dysfunctional families and friendships, working shitty jobs, drinking, women) I think Scott is Scott, and no "He's like __________ meets __________" will ever fully encapsulate him. He is just that singular. Probably without even realizing it, he's cultivated his own style of storytelling, one that is full of minimal eloquence and honesty and absurdity, all while sticking close to his Appalachian roots. He has a big heart and is mightily talented. Read this book, and then read everything he's written. He's fun. He's profound. He is only getting better.
November 12, 2021
the first few stories didn't really do it for me but by about a third of the way in i was like oh god yes please don't let this end but then it did but then there was stories v! so it was all ok in the end
March 22, 2013
This dude is the real deal. Those openings. That voice. I haven't had a book move me this much in quite some time. Skip the intro and the afterword. They detract from the book's power. Particularly the introduction.
March 23, 2013
stories about life and stuff. completely amazing. i don't even know what to say really
February 16, 2019
Imagine sitting on the back porch of a house in West Virginia and you're listening to this guy tell stories, well there you have it: that is this book. Well, also add in the fact that this guy you are listening to is "sharing" information that by just listening to him will curse you to suffer harm, whether that is getting hit by a car or infected with a suicide fever. But at the end its all good, because he tells you that you are going to live a long and happy life - if you believe him.
This collection has quite a nice blend of humor and sadness, crazy stories and introspection.
This collection has quite a nice blend of humor and sadness, crazy stories and introspection.
March 16, 2021
This one came out of nowhere. I saw it in the Amazon Prime store and it was so highly rated that I couldn’t pass it up, plus the cover was intriguing, and I do not regret a single moment spent with this book. I read it in under a day. It was that short, but also that beautiful. The book is just stories of this guy’s life in rural Appalachia and it’s sad and funny and lovely.
October 7, 2024
man this guy rocks.
February 22, 2024
Nice korte verhaaltjes. Chill om te lezen in de trein
November 10, 2015
This was like listening to an interesting new friend tell about his life in another part of the country, only much better. An easygoing, minimal style was used very effectively throughout. I will be reading all of Scott McClanahan's books in the future.
January 18, 2018
Like stories from the drunk man at the end of the bar. Perfect short story collection. Mostly bite-sized stories that are perfect in tone, managing to be utterly depressing and hilarious at the same time.
August 27, 2012
We have found Charles Bukowski's successor and his name is Scott McClanahan.
September 6, 2022
o maior elogio que posso fazer a este livro é dizer que se o meu querido caldwell fosse vivo, provavelmente escrevia histórias assim.
November 16, 2020
Some books just find you when you need them the most.
I had never heard of Scott McClanahan before. All I know is that this book was available on Amazon Unlimited and I liked the cover. Come on, using the Penguin Classics Template is a ballsy move. And then I downloaded it on my kindle.
For a time now, I've been interested in reading literature by people from a working class background. I'm tired of my country's canon of white people writing about their privileged lives. I'm even more tired of the American canon of white suburbanites writing about how bored they are.
But sometimes there's a guy (or gal) who knows the hustle. What's like to live payday to payday, scraping by, even when you have a degree. McClanahan is that guy. He just knows. And we know he knows because his writing is clear, unpretentious and sincere. Of course most things in his stories are probably fiction, but the kind of fiction that comes from experience. And I can relate to his experiences on a very deep level.
Although I'm not even American, I know what is like to live in a shitty state, earning not much and pining for better days.
I know what is like to think about people who have it worse than me: addicts, people of color.
And I know that we're bound to the same unusual, cruel and sometimes funny human experience.
I just love this book.
Hope he gets the recognition he deserves.
I had never heard of Scott McClanahan before. All I know is that this book was available on Amazon Unlimited and I liked the cover. Come on, using the Penguin Classics Template is a ballsy move. And then I downloaded it on my kindle.
For a time now, I've been interested in reading literature by people from a working class background. I'm tired of my country's canon of white people writing about their privileged lives. I'm even more tired of the American canon of white suburbanites writing about how bored they are.
But sometimes there's a guy (or gal) who knows the hustle. What's like to live payday to payday, scraping by, even when you have a degree. McClanahan is that guy. He just knows. And we know he knows because his writing is clear, unpretentious and sincere. Of course most things in his stories are probably fiction, but the kind of fiction that comes from experience. And I can relate to his experiences on a very deep level.
Although I'm not even American, I know what is like to live in a shitty state, earning not much and pining for better days.
I know what is like to think about people who have it worse than me: addicts, people of color.
And I know that we're bound to the same unusual, cruel and sometimes funny human experience.
I just love this book.
Hope he gets the recognition he deserves.
September 10, 2020
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑾𝒐𝒓𝒌𝒔 𝑽𝒐𝒍.𝟏 de Scott McClanahan
Este librito lo conseguí en la librería independiente La siamesa de Siam, en Lima. Scott nació en West Virginia, EEUU. y es el primer libro suyo que leo.
Resalta la portada, que parodia a los libros de Penguin Classics, siendo así una declaración desde el inicio. Ésta edición cuenta con prólogo por Blake Butler y un epílogo por Sam Pink, ambas colaboraciones tienen el tono perfecto para abrir y cerrar el ambiente.
The Collected Works es un compilado de relatos cortos en donde el personaje principal es el mismo autor, dejando a la imaginación qué tanto de lo que nos cuenta realmente sucedió.
Al finalizar cada historia necesitaba una pausa para poder procesar lo que acababa de pasar. Es un libro fantástico pero real, crudo y directo. A veces te deja un sabor a... Oscuridad.
Creo que es perfecto para las personas que suelen analizar su propia existencia. Por mi parte me he quedado enganchada y estaré buscando una copia de The Sarah Book, otro de sus trabajos.
Espero que se animen a leerlo.
Este librito lo conseguí en la librería independiente La siamesa de Siam, en Lima. Scott nació en West Virginia, EEUU. y es el primer libro suyo que leo.
Resalta la portada, que parodia a los libros de Penguin Classics, siendo así una declaración desde el inicio. Ésta edición cuenta con prólogo por Blake Butler y un epílogo por Sam Pink, ambas colaboraciones tienen el tono perfecto para abrir y cerrar el ambiente.
The Collected Works es un compilado de relatos cortos en donde el personaje principal es el mismo autor, dejando a la imaginación qué tanto de lo que nos cuenta realmente sucedió.
Al finalizar cada historia necesitaba una pausa para poder procesar lo que acababa de pasar. Es un libro fantástico pero real, crudo y directo. A veces te deja un sabor a... Oscuridad.
Creo que es perfecto para las personas que suelen analizar su propia existencia. Por mi parte me he quedado enganchada y estaré buscando una copia de The Sarah Book, otro de sus trabajos.
Espero que se animen a leerlo.
March 14, 2020
Working on a "reading through the shelves" project while on what passes for paternity leave among the self-employed.
I read Crapalachia back in 2013 and really loved it, and suspect I would have loved The Collected Works more had I read it then too.
As it stands, I greatly admire Mr. McClanahan's prose style, his conversational and unexpected voice, his ability to paint the truly horrible as mundane and vice versa. As someone who grew up in a poverty-stricken1 nihilist hellscape, I admire his ability to reflect his upbringing (in a poverty-stricken nihilist hellscape) in his prose without it being maudlin, defensively sentimental or full of self-righteous rage.
That said, about a third of the stories fell flat for me. Perhaps it is an operation of age or the mellowing that comes from long happiness. When McClanahan is on he is ON, though, and I look forward to reading the remainder of his work.
I read Crapalachia back in 2013 and really loved it, and suspect I would have loved The Collected Works more had I read it then too.
As it stands, I greatly admire Mr. McClanahan's prose style, his conversational and unexpected voice, his ability to paint the truly horrible as mundane and vice versa. As someone who grew up in a poverty-stricken1 nihilist hellscape, I admire his ability to reflect his upbringing (in a poverty-stricken nihilist hellscape) in his prose without it being maudlin, defensively sentimental or full of self-righteous rage.
That said, about a third of the stories fell flat for me. Perhaps it is an operation of age or the mellowing that comes from long happiness. When McClanahan is on he is ON, though, and I look forward to reading the remainder of his work.
January 9, 2023
Começo por elogiar a linguagem do autor. Num meio em que muitas vezes sinto que o elitismo e o ego imperam, a forma de escrever despretensiosa de McClanahan soube-me bem.
E neste caso, embora a linguagem seja simples, McCalanhan tem uma voz muito própria e consolidada, que conseguimos identificar e sentir do início ao fim do livro.
Aliás, essa linguagem serve um propósito, já que ele nos escreve como se fosse aquele amigo do amigo que acabámos de conhecer, um fala-barato que nos vai contando história atrás de história e nós ficamos ali a ouvir, sem perceber o que é verdade e o que é mentira - há momentos em que até nos podemos perguntar se não será um doido ou, por outro lado, alguém que está a fazer pouco de nós para se divertir e passar o tempo.
Depois, tanto há passagens que são como um murro no estômago, devido à dureza, como outras que alcançam uma certa transcendentalidade - e é óptima a forma como ele faz a transição para estes últimos momentos; os textos vão discorrendo para aí muito naturalmente, sem nunca abdicar daquela estética mais realista.
Estou a apreciar o trabalho da Cutelo, creio que pode ser uma boa presença no nosso universo editorial. Espero que continues a trabalhar com eles, seria um bom sinal.
E neste caso, embora a linguagem seja simples, McCalanhan tem uma voz muito própria e consolidada, que conseguimos identificar e sentir do início ao fim do livro.
Aliás, essa linguagem serve um propósito, já que ele nos escreve como se fosse aquele amigo do amigo que acabámos de conhecer, um fala-barato que nos vai contando história atrás de história e nós ficamos ali a ouvir, sem perceber o que é verdade e o que é mentira - há momentos em que até nos podemos perguntar se não será um doido ou, por outro lado, alguém que está a fazer pouco de nós para se divertir e passar o tempo.
Depois, tanto há passagens que são como um murro no estômago, devido à dureza, como outras que alcançam uma certa transcendentalidade - e é óptima a forma como ele faz a transição para estes últimos momentos; os textos vão discorrendo para aí muito naturalmente, sem nunca abdicar daquela estética mais realista.
Estou a apreciar o trabalho da Cutelo, creio que pode ser uma boa presença no nosso universo editorial. Espero que continues a trabalhar com eles, seria um bom sinal.
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