The word was out: a new novel by Jayne Anne Phillips had the New York Times critic, Michiko Kakutani, notorious for her acute discerning and dismissive eye, creaming. And so last Friday night, Jayne Anne Phillips' reading/book signing at the CUE gallery in Chelsea had the aura of a second coming, and indeed it was, because her novel Lark & Termite is her first book in nine years. For her “first” coming in 1979, she was immediately hailed as a darling of the book industry for her collection of short stories, Black Tickets. Her admirers included Nadine Gordimer and Tillie Olsen. She had an unusually close relationship with her publisher at Delacorte, the late Seymour Lawrence (called Sam). A champion of her work, he encouraged her to write a novel. Machine Dreams about the impact on an American family of a son, MIA in the Vietnam War, made an impressive debut in 1984. In the current novel, it is the Korean War that wreaks havoc on the psyches of a West Virginian family. In both cases, the language, while evoking Faulkner, pushes fiction writing to its next moment.
Before
her breakout story collection, Phillips had published with Vehicle Editions: a
slim volume called “Counting.” Vehicle later published her short story “Fast
Lanes” accompanied by drawings from Yvonne Jacquette. Vehicle publisher Annabel
Lee was on hand at the reading where Ann Close, her editor at Knopf, and
writers among them Jaime Manrique and Maggie Paley gathered over wine and
cheese. I've received so many orders for Jayne Anne's Vehicle books this week,
Annabel Lee told me, it's through the roof.
Sam would be proud
::)While commenting, I have some random feedback for Insight. I'm not sure how much control you have over customizing your menu system, but the menu system could look so much slicker. While it's just cosmetic, it would make the whole channel surfing more enjoyable. **+**
Posted by: oakley outlet | May 17, 2011 at 11:53 PM