The Elegant Variation

SAFRAN FOER V. STEFAN LeFORS

Stefan LeFors was the 121st pick in the NFL draft. Safran Foer’s latest novel is ranked 15 on the New York Times bestseller list and 80 on Amazon.com.

Safran Foer grew up in Washington, D.C., and attended Princeton University, where he won the Creative Writing Thesis prize four years in a row. Stefan LeFors was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and attended the University of Louisville, where he was named first team All-Conference USA his junior year.

Stefan LeFors was the quarterback of the Louisville Cardinals. Safran Foer edited A Convergence of Birds, an anthology of new fiction and poetry inspired by Joseph Cornell's bird boxes.

Safran Foer has never thrown for 2,596 yards with 20 touchdowns in a single season. Stefan LeFors has never written a 368-page novel.

Safran Foer’s newest book is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Stefan LeFors parents and older brother are deaf. The cover of Safran Foer’s book features a hand decorated with words. Stefan LeFors uses his hands to communicate with his family.

Safran Foer on writing a bestseller: “I was a half a degree from never publishing my book. I just got a great ride. I got really lucky. I kind of hit the lottery.” Stefan LeFors on being selected by the Carolina Panthers: "I never have any questions in my mind at all. I have full confidence. It's all mental."

In December 2004 Stefan LeFors fumbled a snap in the Orange Bowl that led to a Miami score and, ultimately, a loss for the Cardinals, ending of a perfect season. On February 27, 2005, Safran Foer was featured in a New York Times profile penned by Deborah Solomon. Neither gaffe appears to have negatively impacted their careers.

DON’T. LOOK. NOW.

Uh-oh. Vermin on the Mount is live and on the Internet.

DO NOT RESUSCITATE

Since this story won’t go die (sorry), I thought I’d share this Iowa alum’s frank and uncharitable opinion of Frank Conroy:

“He was a self-mythologizing and pitiful specimen. I like to reserve my wishes for death for the president and his cabinet, but contrary to everyone’s hard love whining, it is no loss whatsoever, either to humanity or American letters.”

Harsh? Sure, but isn’t it somewhat unflattering to describe a professional educator as a “pool shark” in their obituary?

HARTY & ORRINGER TOGETHER AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME

If I wasn’t going to be doing some serious yeti hunting in the Guadalupe Valley this weekend, I’d be at the Hammer Museum to check out Ryan Harty and Julie Orringer. Benjamin Weissman’s New American Writing is one of the finest reading series in the city.

Hammer Museum
10899 Wilshire Blvd, Westwood.
Sunday May 1, at 5 p.m.
(310) 443-7000

I GUESS TAKING A SHIT IN THE STACKS IS OUT OF THE QUESTION

The Houston city council, that bastion of tolerance and equanimity, is making it illegal to stink in the library. Sadly, this isn’t the beginning of the end for Ann Coulter and Tim LaHaye. The Houston city council members have set their sites much lower. Clearly this unenforceable bit of nonsense is an attack on the homeless, the semi-homeless and the English. I have grudging admiration for crackpot rules that seemingly aim for one purpose and achieve another, but this plan is as subtle as a brick through a bay window.

In the planned community in Arizona where my brother used to live, civic planners tried to make it illegal to not own a gun. Sound crazy? Not by half. The logic was actually quite shrewd. If you’re a felon you can’t own a gun in Arizona. So the law was a way to keep criminals out of the community. Thankfully, it was struck down. But before you go praising the Arizona senate, keep in mind that they just signed off on a bill that makes it okay for citizens to carry concealed weapons into bars and nightclubs as long as you aren’t drinking. Personally, I don’t think this is such a hot idea.

Several years ago, I narrowly missed getting in the middle of a gunfight at a pool hall in East Flagstaff. It was not a nice place (although the homeless person at the bar offered me a slice of the canned ham he was sawing away at with a buck knife), but I was there on a date. (I can no longer remember whose idea it was to go there. If it was me: I’m sorry; if it was you: Typical.) What made the night so memorable was the gentleman who tried to recruit me into his neo-Nazi organization in Idaho. I declined the invitation after he flashed his holstered .45. While we were talking, he pinched a woman’s ass to show me that he wasn’t gay, I guess. The woman’s boyfriend shouted something like, “I should shoot your dumb ass” and I wondered when it was appropriate to hit the deck. A recap: In favor of taking guns away from neo-Nazis and letting bums read the paper. Look at me, I’m an activist.

LANCE LANCE REVOLUTION

Greetings lit-nerds and nerdettes and a glorious Thursday morning to you. What the Elegant One didn't tell you before he cycled off into the sunset, so to speak, is that the true purpose of his visit to New York is to peddle (ahem) his spinning memoir. In fact it wouldn't surprise me at all if at this very moment he's munchng on a ultra-oat-bar while snapping at the elastic of a super-tight pair of bike shorts. I've been poking aound TEV HQ and found some disturbing documents: IMs to Olympic officials insisting spinning is a sport, long drunken missives to Lance Armstrong, and a series of e-mails wherein he attempts to convince Tanenhaus to name him Deputy Editor of Spokes: The Literary Magazine for the Stationary Cycling Enthusiast. And I shudder to think of the contents of a folder in his photo album that bears the title "Sweaty Seats." Apparently all the "performance" "enhancing" "drugs" Sarvas has been taking has sent the last remaining wit that orbits what passes for his intellect into the coldest reaches of his cranium, causing him to conflate Thursday with Friday. So no posts today, but we have some interesting revelations in store for you tomorrow.

OUTTA HERE

We barely got it together to make it out of here in time, so we're leaving with this somewhat indiscriminate spraying of literary links ... if you seek more considered commentary (and we wouldn't blame you), visit our fine feathered friends to the left, or stop back tomorrow for a new guest review or Friday for guest host Jim Ruland ... Failing that, we'll be back to harrass Steve Wasserman on Monday ...

Ben Ehrenreich, who shared the stage with us Saturday night, doesn't think much of Jeanette Winterson's latest novel ... the new issue of January Magazine has an excerpt of the young James Bond adventure ... JLo keeps the world of letters safe for now ... Hitchhiker hype is reaching critical mass ... and finally, whither Cupcake ... we hardly knew ye ...

GUEST REVIEW: DANGEROUS GAMES

A busy day full of meetings today but guest reviewer Daniel Olivas steps in to save the day ... Don't forget to check back tomorrow when Jim Ruland takes command of the bridge and steers this ship into all sort of trouble ...

Dangerous Games
By John Shannon
Carroll & Graff
248 pp.
$25.00

REVIEWED BY DANIEL OLIVAS

Because of its sheer size, Los Angeles can be many things to different people. The city boasts some of most spectacular beaches and breathtaking mountains. It is also the home of celluloid dreams: Bogart and Bacall; Capra and Coppola; the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and Oscar. And L.A. is the ultimate melting pot, a magnet for those who wish to make better lives for themselves whether fleeing a struggling economy in Detroit or political persecution in Central America. But if we pull back the curtain just a bit, we can view the darker side of Los Angeles. The coast is being held hostage by a few wealthy homeowners who wish to keep the great unwashed far from “their” hard-earned beaches. When summer comes, the dried-out mountains and hills become so much kindling for arsonists. In Hollywood’s backyard, the porn industry makes its home in the Valley amidst middle class tract homes, Ventura Boulevard businesses, churches and temples. And cracks show in the melting pot: the streets are teeming with gangs, jaded cops, and people afraid to venture into “different” neighborhoods. All of it is true: the good and the bad co-exist allowing us to feel both at home and apprehensive at the same moment. In other words, this is the perfect setting for novelist John Shannon to allow Jack Liffey, finder of lost children, to get into fresh trouble.

When we last saw Liffey, he had found the perpetrator of various crimes of vengeance arising from the racist history of Terminal Island, been dumped by his new girlfriend, survived a collapsed lung and renewed his relationship with his teenage daughter, Maeve. Liffey also fell for a police officer named Gloria Ramirez, a Native American who was raised by Latino parents who taught her to hate her own heritage. Dangerous Games begins with Liffey living in East L.A. with Ramirez; his moody daughter is delighted with Ramirez and hopes her father won’t mess this one up. But Liffey’s relationship leads inexorably to a new search for a lost child: Ramirez’s beautiful 18-year-old niece has disappeared from her tiny reservation in the Owens Valley leaving enough clues to make everyone suspect that she’s been swallowed up by L.A.’s porn scene. Liffey feels up to the task.

If it were left at that, our hero would have more than enough to occupy him. But during one clear day while Liffey waters his girlfriend’s lawn and Maeve lounges alongside chatting with her father, a gangbanger loses control and shoots indiscriminately in Liffey’s direction leaving Maeve severely wounded. As Maeve recuperates, Liffey adds a new mission to his list: revenge. His subsequent confrontation of the perpetrator and eventual solution is one of the most surprising and fulfilling aspects of the narrative. But there is still a lost child to find. And this is where things get ugly as we’re thrown into the world of phone sex, porn films, dangerous reality videos, AIDS and very violent men who truly believe that women are meant to be controlled and used in any way imaginable.

Throughout, we’re treated to Shannon’s smart dialogue, complex characters and a thrill ride of action. The denouement takes place in the Malibu Hills, set ablaze by reality “filmmakers” as their ultimate get-rich-quick venture. As Liffey and others try to outrun the flames, Liffey muses on all the failures in his life and wonders about the meaning of it all. There are wonderful things in life to be certain: the love of both his girlfriend and his resilient, brilliant daughter. But all the mistakes are there too: failed relationships, a battle with alcohol, physical scars too many to count. In Shannon’s sure hands, we see the world through the eyes of a man who struggles to reconcile life’s joy and pain shaped in large part by Los Angeles itself. Shannon offers more questions than answers. But that’s okay. Finely-crafted novels do that. And this is certainly one of Shannon’s best.

Daniel Olivas is a writer living in Los Angeles.

OPERATORS ARE STANDING BY

Before we get to the literary news, a few bits of housekeeping.  Thanks very much to all of you who wrote in about our Vermin on the Mount appearance and our Festival of Books coverage ... If you haven't heard back directly from us yet, we're still digging out from underneath all the rubble.

Unfortunately, the rubble will remain pretty thick for the next few days.  We're off to NYC on Wednesday morning ... Among other things, we'll be meeting with Sam Tanenhaus at last, and we'd love to have some of your thoughts and questions in hand ... If there's anything you think we absolutely have to ask Mr. T, please note it in the comments box below.

Additionally, we begin something of an adventure this morning.  We were recently invited to come in and teach an eight-week class in short story writing for a group of at-risk boys in the juvenile detention system ... We teach our first class this morning and we're very excited and slightly terrified at the thought.  We think there's a graduation style reading in one of the bookstores around town at the end of the eight weeks, so stay tuned.

Our verminous pal Jim Ruland (who gave us a much-needed crash course on teaching) has kindly consented to take the reins of TEV on Friday while we're off in rainier climes, so please do stop by and see what evil weirdness he has up his sleeve.

MAHFOUZ PUBLISHER DIES

Donald Herdeck, the man who founded Three Continents Press and brought the works of Naguib Mahfouz and Derek Walcott to America, has died.

Despite scant critical attention and little commercial demand, Herdeck had published Mahfouz's works in small editions since the 1970s. But the Nobel proved to be a mixed blessing for Three Continents, which had just one employee besides Herdeck.

The entire stock of Mahfouz's novels, translated into English from Arabic, sold out in one day, and it would take weeks to reprint them. Herdeck received a call from an angry bookseller, who scolded him for being "a terrible businessman."

He recounted the conversation to The Washington Post's David Streitfeld: " 'Here you have this wonderful Nobel Prize winner, this wonderful author, and you don't have copies of his books! What's wrong with you?'

"Herdeck responded with something like this: 'And where have you been for the last 12 years, when we had thousands of these books sitting in our warehouse and they sold only in trickles? What was wrong with you?' "