The Correspondence: Essays

by J.D. Daniels

The first collection from a Whiting Writers’ Award winner whose work has become a fixture of The Paris Review and n+1

Can civilization save us from ourselves? That is the question J. D. Daniels asks in his first book, a series of six letters written during dark nights of the soul. Working from his own highly varied experience—as a janitor, a night watchman, an adjunct professor, a drunk, an exterminator, a dutiful son—he considers how far books and learning and psychoanalysis can get us, and how much we’re stuck in the mud.

In prose wound as tight as a copper spring, Daniels takes us from the highways of his native Kentucky to the Balearic Islands and from the Pampas of Brazil to the rarefied precincts of Cambridge, Massachusetts. His traveling companions include psychotic kindergarten teachers, Israeli sailors, and Southern Baptists on fire for Christ. In each dispatch, Daniels takes risks—not just literary (voice, tone, form) but also more immediate, such as spending two years on a Brazilian jujitsu team (he gets beaten to a pulp, repeatedly) or participating in group psychoanalysis (where he goes temporarily insane).

Daniels is that rare thing, a writer completely in earnest whose wit never deserts him, even in extremis. Inventive, intimate, restless, streetwise, and erudite, The Correspondence introduces a brave and original observer of the inner life under pressure.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Short Stories, Biography

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 3, 2017

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

This got a lot of buzz in The New York Times and seemed to be the kind of writing I'd like, so I bought in, once again proving the awesome book-selling prowess of The New York Times.

What threw me was the price vis-a-vis the featherweight book I unpacked in the mail. This is part of that new trend of "l'il" books. It measures 5 by not-quite-8, is a dust-coverless hardcover, weighs in at a mere 126 pp., and allows three blank pages between each "essay." For this you shell a whopping 20 bucks. Part of you feels both highwayed and robberied three times -- once each by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. The other part of you rationalizes you're supporting a writer and that can't be a bad thing.

Why did I quote up the word "essay" above? Because I wondered about how J.D. Daniels defines the word. Then, at the beginning, I read the following: This book is mainly nonfiction. "Letter from Cambridge," Letter from Majorca," "Letter from Kentucky," and "Letter from the Primal Horde" were written as essays and should be read as such. "Letter from Level Four" and "Letter from Devils Tower" were written as short stories and do not describe real people or events. All of these letters first appeared in The Paris Review."

But what is described as essay material often reads like stream-of-consciousness or, at times, surreal fiction, depending on which of the six brief letters you're reading. The first, "Letter from Cambridge," reminds me of a book I read in 2014, Thrown by Kerry Howley. So I felt like I had been there before, reading all about Brazilian jiujitsu, only Daniels' angle is being "the professor" who fights and gets the crap kicked out of his hide while Howley's angle is being the fair maiden sitting ringside who loves violence and blood.

Fans of clipped writing, Hemingway-style, and macho-but-vulnerable writing, also Hemingway style (though some readers fail to see Papa's "vulnerable") should like this material. His voice is unique and he manages to get spacey at times without going on and on like, say, Gogol's madman (or is it madmen?). And occasionally he writes a clunker, such as this line: "The past is behind me, burning, like a hemorrhoid." Ah, yes. Sophomoric humor essays into the writing now and again. Maybe the market is similar to Mixed Martial Arts fighting? Males 19-34 (or, say, 44)? Or not. I sailed past 44 long ago and seemed to mostly appreciate this though it was passing brief.

In addition to the Brazilian work-outs and fighting, Daniels writes about past girlfriends, crazy-ass people he's dealt with, his Kentucky past (read: memoir material in that it's fraught with dysfunctional family stuff, always gold for writers), and a psychological getaway that makes me wonder about Daniels' experiences with the psychiatric trade. Either he knows a lot about them or he has a good imagination--either doable given what goes on in that trade.

If it's a new voice you'd like or a macho voice you'd like, one seasoned with a been-to-university-but-dropped-out POV, this may be the greasy ticket you found in the alleyway. Admit one and admit it: You might actually like it and find it 4-ish. Or 2 or 3-ish if the uneven talent aggravates you. I can sympathize either way but am voting "benefit of the doubt" in this case. Merry Christmas, J.D.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's another book for the "men who are smart and weird and write essays about random things but do so in a creative and masculine way I don't always understand" shelf.

[Lee Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the first two "letters"just fine before it started to descend to its floor. Seemed overwrought at first and then just right and then less so. The clarity/spark and my engagement declined after about forty pages. Disjointed progression (reliance on breaks between short sections to do the work of transitions); usually unpredictable/odd, often short sentences/paragraphs (the "seafood diet" joke notwithstanding); psychologically, emotionally, and physically damaged masculinity (Brazilian jiu-jitsu, sailing, drinking), a bit of a formal contrivance that's not even followed-through on (there's no "you," little continuity other than bio bits and frustrated girlfriends; statement and negation of statement; geographical variance; some humor about writers? These are elite NYC editors favorite things? Bought this without much consideration after finishing Rachel Cusk's Transit and reading her "By the Book" post on NYT.com that calls it a "groundbreaking collection of short memoirs." Has such ground not been cracked open by Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, Breece D'Pancake, and others I haven't read like that Chuck P. guy who also wrote about fighting? (Just started Renata Adler's Speedboat, which feels like similar territory in tone and approach.) An enjoyable book, all in all, but so slim, slight, ultimately heftless, with maybe at most a single quick LOL, although it's sort of humorous throughout. I wanted to root for it but instead my single lingering impression is how did this get published? No acknowledgments at the end as though to cover the tracks of some cronyism? At one point he said he met professional writers in Boston. Hmm. File under raised expectations not quite met, but I'll probably read what comes next.

[Steven Modee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I sometimes carry a notepad and write down random thoughts I have as if I might find a use for them someday, these little "gems" as I might think of them at the time. And the truth is I have used them. I feel like J.D. Daniels might do this too. His essays seem to me to be his taking some of his random journal notes, fleshing them out a little, and then combining them into a piece in some disjointed way. And calling it done.

I mean once in a while he arose to it and I enjoyed what he had to say. It might be a whole thought or just a sentence, or like these two sentences, "I wasn’t surrounded by assholes. I was trapped inside of one." I like it, but it's in with all the other stuff that seems unrelated and not so interesting.

Gratefully, I found this to be a fast read and not a complete waste of time, but I was expecting and hoping for more than what I got.

[Florence · Rating 3 out of 5]

So tbh I didn’t really understand most of the book so my rating is not really about the quality of the book itself, more that I don’t know how to rate it properly. However, I still found it quite entertaining.

[jo ianni · Rating 5 out of 5]

This text sneaks up on you. The gentle touch of fingers on your hips, then the palms not yet sweaty, then full arms wrapping around your stomach. You can feel its warm body behind you getting warmer. One hand moves up towards your neck the other below your waistband. You are starting to shiver, the shiver, that is trembling, that is either fear or excitement. You cannot breathe. You are being choked. You realize you are being choked. But you like it. It is not enough to kill you. When the limbs retract and turn you around so you might see it's face your eyes are closed, your face is a blissful grin. You do not see it's face. You are a little lost in a euphoria you can't quite comprehend.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

John Jeremiah Sullivan's blurb declares this, "...an original writer who has found a new form." Well, no. But if you enjoy Palahniuk, Thompson, Klosterman, et al, you'll likely enjoy this. Hmm, nothing "letterly" about it - no feel that these are letters written to anyone in particular. Listed at 144 pp, it is actually 126, and after blank pages more like 110 - with large print, small pages, and a large amount of white space on the pages. You can easily finish this in one sitting. His angst might be interesting if he was in his 20's, but he is approaching, if not in, his 40's. Time to move on.

Given all that, I loved his piece on his return to Kentucky, and his relationship with his father (having lived in KY myself, and hung at some of the same bars that he has - although not in the same decade). But by the time I was into the last piece in this collection, I was scan reading the piece.

BTW, lower right corner here has links to some other pieces he has written, not published in this collection. I have to admit, I'll probably read them. But doubt that I'll read his first novel, if he ever does publish one. http://www.whiting.org/awards/winners...

Reminder that 2 Stars on Goodreads means "It was OK" - not a totally damning judgement.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant! And disturbing, in a good way. And funny.

That was my review. But sixteen more words are required. Word word word word word word word word word word.

[Daniel Benevides · Rating 5 out of 5]

É o tipo do livro que te deixa meio zonzo e pede uma releitura, pois você não sabe bem o que aconteceu ali. Num universo de poucas novidades reais, isso já é mais que muito.

[Zoe Lubetkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

the only thing writers like more than writing about themselves is reading abt writing (I liked this)

[Booher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A case study in writing about nothing so compellingly that you finish the book in one sitting. Like reading George Saunders or Adam Levin's short fiction.

[C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

What even was that

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of these stories shine brighter than others, but they are all very good for their honesty, artistry, balanced economy, and humor. The highlight of the bunch is undoubtably letter from Kentucky. Stories read like stream of consciousness but upon closer inspection are put together very carefully. These are great because they redraw reality in a way that is foreign yet feels natural (opposite of stranger in a familiar place), not necessarily world-view changing, but done with such grace that it is a seamless aesthetic experience. Style and substance remind me of Daniel Johnson a little bit, maybe a dash of Saunders thrown in there but Daniels really isn't all that sentimental.

[Patti K · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short 2017 book of essays and short stories is great writing.
All of the pieces were previously published in The Paris Review.
The epigraph to the book is by William S. Burroughs: "Maybe
the real novel is the letters to you." They read as if letters
to the world. Concerning such topics as boxing in Brazil, being
high on drugs, being a bad boyfriend, etc. There is a bold
and highly detailed intimacy in the tales which makes them
exciting. There are Letters To: Cambridge, from Majorica,
from Kentucky, and from The Primal Horde. Recommend.

[Chazzbot · Rating 2 out of 5]

This debut collection of not-quite essays and stream-of-consciousness stories comes plastered with pre-publication hype from luminaries like John Jeremiah Sullivan and Geoff Dyer. It is a painfully slim volume, at only 126 pages with large between-chapter sections of blank pages, making the back cover and frontispiece review quotes carry a much heavier burden. And, frankly, the collection does not live up to it.

It's not that Daniels is a bad writer--far from it. The opening essays are sharp and biting and fierce. But, even within 126 measly pages, the voice soon becomes predictable, even veering into self-parody in the rather pointless short stories collected here. If Daniels is to live up to his publisher's hype, one might wait a bit to see if they offer a larger, more substantial collection that would allow a reader to more accurately evaluate whether Daniels is indeed "an original writer who has found a new form," or someone who just happened to write a few very good personal essays.

[Anthony Crupi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"'I'm a writer,' I said. It is almost always an error to admit this, and possibly an error ever to say or write anything at all."

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am glad I read this. It was very interesting. It felt like reading an excellent writer who is struggling with mental illness. The writing was good, beautiful even. The thoughts insightful and poetic. It made me think and put myself in someone else’s skin.

[Patrick Fay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful if disjointed writing. I will certainly read any novel he writes.

[John Treat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories, all addressed as “letters” to the reader, that share one common denominator: to establish their author as a human presence only am-bivalently in the world he inhabits and observes. What is Daniels “he himself”? He has a Hemingway problem, by which I mean Daniels would like to be him: he may not drive an ambulance in a civil war, true, but he does other things: he goes to sea just to rehearse the cliché that “The sea is incomprehensible and uncomprehending, the sea doesn’t care” (p. 50). Daniels is the equivalent “that sensitive guy at the dog fight” when he takes up Brazilian jiu-jitsu, learning there that “sex and violence are drawn from the same well,” which is untrue unless you’re a rapist but which makes me wonder if it’s not really male-to-male body contact he’s seeking, just as Hem-ingway did in his bar pastime of arm-wrestling. Daniels drinks and smokes to ex-cess. He tells us twice that he has a very hairy chest. What Daniels likes about hand-to-hand combat, which he is often on the verge of, is that there something happens: someone actually wins. This is the opposite of modern life, a.k.a. a supine muddle. The Correspondence would be a boring book were it not that Daniels is an ob-servant, clever and funny writer. He is a master of the well-timed punch line. He is better in when he writes in the first person than the third, because direct access to the way his mind puts things together (or takes them apart) is what surprises us.

[Mariany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice to reread this one!

_
My father hated public restrooms. Once, when I was a little kid, I had noticed he did not wash his hands after urinating and asked him about that habit and he had given his explanation, saying, "I'm confident that my penis is the cleanest thing in this environment."

His drawers were not so bad after all, but I threw them in the garbage just to seem like I was doing something to help. I passed him handfuls of paper towels. "Check your legs down to your ankles and feet," l said. "Check your socks. How are your pants? We want to keep them."

"What if we can't?"

"Then you wear my shirt around your waist like a kilt until we get back to the truck," I said. But he washed and dried himself and put his pants and socks and shoes back on. And that was that. It was nothing he could not have done on his own if he had given it a moment's thought. Orders make you stupid, the captain told me, figure it out for yourself.

The past is behind me, burning, like a hemorrhoid. My parents will not die if I wish them dead. They will die because life is finite.

When I was in college, one of my teachers said. "What's the matter with you? Are you waiting for your parents to die before you write anything honest?" and I said, "That is the dumbest question I have ever heard."

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

What the heck did I just read? Felt like a fever dream, the whole of this short novella/memoir evoked the sense I get when I'm nodding off to sleep while reading a book, a blurry liminal space where non-sequitors oddly make a dreamy sense.

It's a memoir, written almost directly addressing the reader feeling extremely personal, of a very interesting of a writer who grew up in Kentucky, ending up an unlikely member of the Cambridge literati, but on the way there experiencing truly bizarre episodes on a boat with an Israeli captain, learning martial arts in the most brutal fight-clubby way possible, and a dabble into collective insanity during group therapy.

It's hard to say what to take away from this book, but the prose hurls with ferocious forward momentum like I haven't seen before, and it seems as honest a look into the pure id and soul of a writer as you're likely to get.

[P.D. Dawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unbelievably intense, succinct and often visceral book that is so concise in what is says, you feel the real power lies in what is unsaid. The breath between Daniels' rhythm of words and the audacity of truth displayed in some sentences is truly outstanding, take for example: 'My parents will not die if I wish them dead. They will die because life is infinite.' That line personifies the author's outlook on life, a certain resignation as to the unstoppable nature of things, and we as reader are taken on a journey through that mind where every step of the way, and through every nonchalant criticism of life, we see it that way too, a journey full of chaos that eventually amounts to the truth of all things.

[Ramona Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I was reading The Wave by Virginia Woolf, I was reminded of this little book I purchased at Elliot Book Store on Capital Hill in Seattle, WA. (A fantastic book store.) Although this book is not quite the stream of consciousness of Virginia Woolf, it has a randomness to it that is unsettling. Not that feeling unsettled is a bad thing; I was glad it was a short book. (And, hey, what author wouldn't want to be considered with Virginia Woolf?) Daniel's observations of the world are humorous and, in my view, often accurate. In particular, I enjoyed his Biblical themes throughout the book; they were subtle and poignant. I don't know if I would recommend this book. This book is the type of book best to find on your own.

[Michael S · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning is great....being a guy who "fought" full contact, no pads martial arts-kyokushin-dabbled a bit w the MMA format-(6 years all together-5 kyokushin-1 mama) all beginning in my mid 40s-and a writer (soon to be published)-an academian-completing my doctorates this summer-I felt as a kindred soul had been met-

Later letters shared some commonality of spirit, experience, debauchery, and a very strong sense of I'm here but rebelling against it anyway-were good though not as connected/good as the first where he is fighting-himself and, of course others....

So overall, it's hard for me to evaluate because the beginning is me....in essence....however, all of this is worth reading

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't feel like I can write a coherent long review about this little tome right now as I probably need to reread it at some point. I initially read about the first 3/4 of it then proceeded to lose it in one of my backpacks for months. By the time I came back to it, I had forgotten a good bit of what I had read. (the fault of my crappy memory, not of the book itself, I promise.)

But there are a whole lot of pages folded down, a lot of highlighted passages. I did really enjoy huge chunks of these letters/stories. There were problems, I feel, but overall I definitely want to reread it at some point so I figure that makes it deserve this highish review.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yet another piece of literary auto-fiction recommended by my creative writing teachers, JD Daniels’ essay collection “The Correspondence”, which I’m afraid hasn’t convinced me that this genre is worth taking seriously.

Daniels seems to have modelled himself on the hard-drinking bad boys of American letters (Hemingway, Carver, Hunter S. Thompson, blah blah blah), and his book jacket photo recalls the teen-serial-killer good looks and insouciance of a young Bret Easton Ellis. After some success in literary journals, he’s pulled together this collection, which has been raved about by some very influential people - Geoff Dyer, Tom Bissell, and the high priestess of pretentious auto-fiction herself, Rachel Cusk, whose enthusiastic comments are printed on the back cover.

Cusk's praise isn't surprising, since Daniels shares much of her modus operandi. First, there's the deliberate blurring of literary genres. Despite the book's title, and chapters each headed “Letters from X”, these aren't letters in any conventional sense, and aren't addressed to anyone in particular. Any correspondence taking place is between Daniels and himself, to which we, the accidental reader, happen to overhear. There's a conscious and confessional approach to the process of writing autobiography, covering the familiar ground that young white American males like to write about– working-class childhoods in shitty Bible Belt towns (Daniels is from Kentucky), emotionally distant Vietnam vet fathers, flirtations with hard drugs and existential poetry, disposable girlfriends, years in psychoanalysis. And finally, and inevitably, there's a fussy self-consciousness about writing, and the recurring desire to sit down and craft all his suffering into Great Art.

All of this isn't quite as tiresome as it sounds. His first essay, "Letter from Cambridge", is his most successful, a tightly-written and very funny account of his obsession with Brazilian martial arts. It’s material that’s been covered before, of course, most notably in Chuck Palahniuk's “Fight Club”, in which male ultra-violence was a form of resistance to the numbing effects of modern consumer capitalism. Daniels’ vision isn’t quite so ambitious or expansive, but he’s very good at describing the enlivening qualities of physical pain, cataloguing every bloodied nose and dislodged tooth with a masochistic glee. The chief pleasure of the essay comes from Daniels resisting the impulse to tell us what it all means, and letting his self-destructive wannabe-alpha male behaviour speak for itself.

Daniels shows particular interest in male psychosis - his own and other people – and he renders characters with a Gothic flourish that recalls a younger potty-mouthed Truman Capote. In "Letter from Kentucky", "Blind John, still dripping rain from his trip to the ATM, offered me a hundred dollars to let him go down on me". Then there's Edgar in "Letter From Level Four" a paranoid introvert who sends him 86-page poems and who exists as a mirror-image for his own anxieties. In the final essay, "Letter from the Primal Horde", he attends a sinister-sounding group therapy seminar, in which everyone is lost, terrified, and apparently unable to navigate their own lives.

Daniels is clearly a dedicated craftsman - the writing is smart, self-aware and often funny - though his razor-sharp prose often feels whittled to the point of being arch, frequently overwhelming his material. His one-liners, although funny and polished, fizzle with self-satisfaction at their own cleverness, and provide little in the way of insight. In "Letter from Kentucky", he concludes an account of drunks in a bar with one such zinger: "The big man went to the hospital. The little man went to the penitentiary. I don't know where the bar went." It sounds clever, and we admire the wit and precision of his writing, but there's something hollow in the words. All that studied coolness creates a smoke screen, preventing us from engaging emotionally with the disturbing material.

Like many bright young things of his ilk, Daniels' is almost entirely interested in men and masculinity. When he's not wrestling with the difficult legacy of his father, he's tracking the other oddball males of the species who he comes across, which occasionally seem erotically charged. Along with his almost constant social anxiety, Daniels alludes to a certain static around his sexuality ("I myself almost slept with Larry, he was irresistible, a beautiful man"), which seem too serious to be writerly affectation, but too problematic to be explored more deeply. Accordingly, and perhaps inevitably, he's not much interested in women. What few female characters do appear are marginal – mothers, girlfriends, floozies – and defined entirely in terms of their relationships to men.

By the end of the collection, I wondered what, if anything, Daniels will be able to write next, having apparently exhausted all the major incidents of his life and recounted every insight he’d learned about himself in therapy. There’s nothing wrong with being a sprinter rather than a marathon runner – not every Creative Writing graduate can be Updike – but I suspect a car crash is on its way when Daniels realises that his insights don't quite match his ambitions. It’ll be interesting to see if he can pry his focus away from himself and towards a work of fiction, and escape the relentlessness of the auto-fictional “I”. Then he might be able to surprise us – and himself – and create something that lingers in the mind as well as entertains.

[Aengus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to make of this. "The Correspondence" is presented as a series of six letters written during dark nights of the soul. Some of them read like weird fiction; others come off as journal entries. While there are some piercing, uncomfortable passages, and Mr. Daniels is a fine writer, the question of whether these pieces are supposed to be read as as fiction or non fiction made "The Correspondence" a little confusing.

[Rori.Cantall · Rating 5 out of 5]

a real homerun.
not completely sure what I just read. Memoir? Essays? Short stories? The four pieces of "Correspondence" should not be read if you have something important to do. It will suck you in and not let go.

If you only have time to read one part of the book, I urge you to check out the last letter. It's cynical and humorous, but refuses to find itself wandering into pedantic belligerency. Wonderful.

RECOMMENDED FOR: people who care about words.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The blurbs all over the first couple pages are hilarious, and really set the tone of me not knowing what this book really is. It's broken down into 6 parts, and I thought the first one especially, and a few of the other 5 were really great, but the other two didn't shine as bright. Whatever this book is, Daniels is a really good writer with an interesting past, who can really captivate you and give you a sense of place easily. I'd love to read more from him.

[Vincent Eaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

An author unknown to me. Series of personal essays from 2017. Nothing before, nothing since. But buy was this fine and dandy. Writing like a guy spitting onto his palms, rubbing them together vigorously, and then getting to the tools and putting the object together. Dark areas with lighting striking in bursts of laughs. Deranged, precise, unexpected. And nothing more from his out in the world, alas.