Table Talk & Second Thoughts: A Memoir in Flashes

by Michael Martone

160 pages, Paperback

Published March 11, 2025

About the author

Michael A. Martone is a professor at the creative writing program at the University of Alabama, and is the author of several books. His most recent work, titled Michael Martone and originally written as a series of contributor's notes for various publications, is an investigation of form and autobiography.

A former student of John Barth, Martone's work is critically regarded as powerful and funny. Making use of Whitman's catalogues and Ginsberg's lists, the events, moments and places in Martone's landscapes — fiction or otherwise — often take the same Mobius-like turns of the threads found the works of his mentor, Barth.

Reviews

[Carolyn Breckinridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wit of the most subtle variety. Art in its cleverest, focused form. Michael Martone's 'Table Talk & Second Thoughts: A Memoir in Flashes' is a feast far beyond the table. Through memoir vignettes (some little more than a paragraph) he serves up humanity, one second thought at a time.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like I would get it more if I knew these people