Daniel > Recent Status Updates

I'd never heard of Gilbert Sorrentino, but I'm gonna need to reread that piece. I don't think I entirely understood it.

The Robert B Parker piece is barely a page. Just like a chapter in one of his novels. ;) The Richard Layman piece was very good. One of the best in a while. I'd been starting to think they'd frontloaded all the good stuff.

2 problems with this book:
a.) length, both overall and the way it's structured
b.) it's not Nolan's Ross Macdonald bio, which I've been dying to read since I reread The Underground Man. Not going to start a second big bio while I've got this one in progress though. (Tho honestly this would go on hold if I did.)

been going deliberately slow on the reread, one chapter at a time. hopefully i'll be able to make more time for it and finish it up soon.

The stuff in this section is largely unfamiliar, so yay. But very wtf about Elia Kazan still hanging around The Actor's Studio with everybody after he traitor'd up Strasberg's wife Paula a few years earlier in the HUAC/McCarthy bullshit era.

Jerome Charyn making it about himself. <.<

didn't care for the David Madden piece, too much about himself. most of this has been pretty good though.

why are the chapters in this book sooooooo long? it's exhausting. i just have to keep stopping at random spots.

this is just stunningly good. phil is so believable, and real to me. jacks is a sweetie. the bathroom window gag on the other hand is ott, and there's never any acknowledgement of it. like acker just sweeps all the book's weaknesses into the time gaps.

some cool writing tidbits in the kenner piece. the symons piece is good, but nothing stood out in it.

The Robert Easton piece was good. (Only the first two pieces here are by Macdonald, the rest of the book is various people writing about him.)

there's no way i could have read this in 2 weeks as a library loan

💯👍👍🌈

always kind of in awe at writers who stop scenes in places I could never leave them. stuff you know's gonna have consequences, but they just skip over it. also: ENRAGED that my library doesn't have Acker's other book.

that plot step felt a little matter of fact. no planning or anything, just does it. there was a time gap so maybe off screen planning. idk. just something a bit odd about it from a storytelling perspective, imo. still, this is amazing

had this from the library, but it's $2 so i own it now.

not sure what actually happened in that scene, but something about the voice, the humor here is just really working for me. loving this 😁

ok, first demerit: neglecting to mention one of the secondary chars we've met a few times already is black and fat until 18%. still, some grade A banter in this book. can't imagine this isn't gonna get an easy 5 ⭐ when it's done

this is REALLY good :)

impressive opening

First piece is a transcription of a recorded lecture and were this book not printed in 1984 I'd blame some kind of computer error for "Certain writers of the cloaca-and-dagger school" on page 14 and wonder how that got by the editor. Then again, Macdonald was a birdwatcher...

I'm not sure this structure is doing the book any favors, and so far my most memorable takeaway is Sol Stein was a CIA propagandist, a tidbit which I don't remember coming across before.

Not loving this wave of strangers liking a random old review of mine for an obscure book that certainly didn't have enough likes to be on the first page before. WTF?

Feel like I should be reading this during wildfire season.

Reading this knowing what went on with Millar's (Macdonald's) daughter is just kinda... wow

This book is fantastic.
Random quote: The walls were lined with books, many of them in foreign languages, like insulation against the immediate present.
He doesn't do try to do this every page. His early work was clearly trying too hard, but later Ross Macd is perfect. (The very last books you can see the decline sadly.)

after the first time I read this I ran out and bought everything else Ross Macdonald ever wrote, and damnit I'd do it again. So good.

Gotta say, learning about lost novels you'll never get to read is a bit of a downside to literary biographies.

i wish this was a little more precise about when certain things happened, but it is engaging enough for me so far.

back to the Baldwin bio