The Elegant Variation

TEV GIVEAWAY: ELEGY FOR APRIL

Apologies for not getting this up sooner, as promised.  I was swept away by the drunken revelry that is the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.  I'm slowly recovering from the weekend, just in time to head off to New York on Thursday, where I will be covering a number of PEN World Voices events, so watch this space for updates. 

In the meantime, I am very pleased to offer a rare Monday edition of the giveaway.  Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Richard Rayner said of Elegy for April, 

 ... the writing has an elegance and nimbleness that surpass almost all other genre fiction. "The mist was laden with the doughy smells of yeast and hops from Guinness's brewery. It was the middle of the afternoon, and what there was of daylight had already begun to dim." Black evokes Dublin — which he knows inside out — with an almost bitter love, and his feeling for the city's class and religious divisions and its urgent, albeit repressed, sexual atmospheres helps his characters spring from the page: "Bill Latimer came into the room chuffing like a steam engine, his hand already out, smiling his broad, cold smile. He was large and heavy, not fat, with a wide, bony face, and thick, brown, wavy hair; he was much favored, it was said, by women voters."

I am happy to offer two copies of Benjamin Black's Elegy for April, courtesy of our pals at Holt, to a lucky pair of TEV readers.  It's been a while, so to refresh, just drop me an email, subject line "BLACK APRIL" and be sure to include your full mailing address, please.  I will take all entries until Wednesday, April 28 at 9 p.m. PST and then the Random Number Generator will have its way with you.  Until then ...

TEV GIVEAWAY: THE NORTHERN CLEMENCY

Last year, I added my own praise to Philip Hensher's lavishly well received novel, The Northern Clemency.  Here's what I had to say in the Barnes and Noble Review:

What is especially interesting about The Northern Clemency is that, despite the political change that transforms their lives, the characters themselves rarely engage directly with politics. Only the Glovers' son Tim, who embraces Marxism (and is one of Hensher's few tedious creations, endlessly deploying the epithet "Fascist!") directly tackles the politics of the day. For the others, it becomes a bit like white noise, easily tuned out or held to the margins, occasionally complained about. (Today we'd call it "Miner Fatigue.") And so despite its political milieu, The Northern Clemency is not a political book per se; but it suggests that momentous change will still seep into the lives of even the unengaged. To British audiences, this omission of engagement is, in itself, suggestive, even provocative. To American readers, adrift amid passing references to NUM, Orgreave, and Arthur Scargill, The Northern Clemency may be best read as a microscopically domestic, attentive, and empathetic view of family -- a view that is not as foreign as it seems, Twiglets notwithstanding. As this fine novel reminds us, all unhappy families are more alike than we care to admit. 

This fine novel has just been released in paperback and, courtesy of Anchor, I'm very pleased to be able to offer a giveaway copy to a lucky TEV reader.  To remind everyone about the rules:  I will take all emailed entries until Sunday evening, March 7 at 8 p.m. PST.  (I'm heading out of town for a few days, hence the extra lead time this week.)  Drop me an email, subject line "REQUESTING CLEMENCY" and be certain to include your full mailing address.  (International entries are fine.)  Come Sunday night, I will have the random number generator select one reader, and that will be all she wrote.  Until then, thanks for the continued patience, and I do absolutely promise a more regular posting schedule again here before too long.  Until then, I'm beyond bribing y'all with books to keep you around ...

TEV GIVEAWAY: EVERYTHING RAVAGED, EVERYTHING BURNED

Wells Tower's short story collection, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned was one of 2009's critical darlings.  A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year, it received raves from Kakutani to Ruland.  Here's what no less a short story luminary than Deborah Eisenberg had to say about the collection in the New York Review of Books:

The phrase "well-crafted" suggests an unfortunate analogy between a piece of fiction and a piece of furniture. And there is a surprising amount of fiction around that is reasonably accomplished and graceful, or strikingly ornamented, or that skillfully reproduces previous successes in structure or tone and yet feels synthetic and inert -- made up, in short, rather than like something that has been transcribed from a revelatory vision.

That cannot be said of Wells Tower's wonderful first collection of short fiction, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. The stories are indeed solid and polished; in fact, they're conspicuously artful, but proficiency -- obviously a sine qua non of any good work -- and finesse are irritating only when they substitute for soul, and this book seems to have come forth from a deep, disruptive source. The stories live and breathe with purpose.

The collection has just been released in paperback from Picador and we're happy to offer a copy to a lucky TEV reader.  It's been a while, so to remind everyone of the rules:  Just drop an email, subject line "RAVAGE ME".  Make sure you include your full mailing address.  (You'd be surprised how often people leave out this step.)  We'll take all entries until 6 p.m. PST on Sunday, January 17, and then we'll turn to the Random Number Generator to select a winner.  (The RNG is notoriously unmoved by pleas, threats and bribes but they are always amusing to your host.)  We'll post the winner on Monday and return with literary news on Tuesday.

TEV GIVEAWAY: THE PARIS REVIEW INTERVIEWS, I - IV

If you've paid any attention whatsoever to TEV over the years, you'll know that we're just ga-ga about The Paris Review Interviews series.  As each volume has come out, we've pretty much gobbled it up and they keep ending up in the Recommended sidebar for good reason.  There is no better archive of the working process of the world's great writers.

With the release of the latest installment, The Paris Review Interviews IV - which features the likes of Philip Roth, Ezra Pound, Haruki Murakami, and Marilynne Robinson, our friends at Picador have very generously offered up two complete boxed sets for a pair of lucky TEV readers.  Here's Roth:

INTERVIEWER: You spoke of the last phase of writing a novel being a “crisis” in which you turn against the material and hate the work. Is there always this crisis, with every book?

ROTH: Always. Months of looking at the manuscript and saying, “This is wrong—but what’s wrong?” I ask myself, “If this book were a dream, it would be a dream of what?” But when I’m asking this I’m also trying to believe in what I’ve written, to forget that it’s writing and to say, “This has taken place,” even if it hasn’t. The idea is to perceive your invention as a reality that can be understood as a dream. The idea is to turn flesh and blood into literary characters and literary characters; into flesh and blood.

And here's a sample manuscript page from The Anatomy Lesson:

The rules remain the same: Drop us an email, subject line: "WE'LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS".  You must, must, must include your full mailing address to qualify.  We will take all entrants until 6 p.m. PST on Sunday, November 1, at which point the Random Number Generator will shine its light on two very fortunate TEV readers.  Until then.

UPDATE: Congratulations to the winners of our most popular giveaway to date, Mike Fisher and Kerry Hubers.  (And for those who get frustrated at the lack of RNG love, you should know Kerry is a TEV Giveaway long timer whose number finally came up!)

TEV GIVEAWAY (MONDAY EDITION): LOVE AND SUMMER

I recently received an awfully kind email from one of my readers, John Dunbar, who advised me that he wanted to make a contribution to a TEV giveaway.  A devoted William Trevor fan, he'd recently received a gift copy of Trevor's latest, Love and Summer.  Being the diehard that he is, however, he'd already done what I do with John Banville - he'd ordered the earlier UK release.  As a result, he asked if I wanted to use his spare for a TEV giveaway.  (For those who are wondering, Dunbar has already read it, loved it, and shares the ire of the many who feel the Booker committee shortchanged Trevor.)

It's worth mentioning, by the way, that Dunbar, a songwriter, has actually worked to turn a number of Trevor short stories into pop songs.  The result is Excursions in Trevorland.  There are some warm reviews here, and he talks about the project's genesis here.  (He also cites another TEV favorite, the band Squeeze, as an influence.)

Anyway, back to the book, I've been a Trevor fan since the wrenching The Story of Lucy Gault, and look forward to reading this new book, about which the New York Times called 'a thrilling work of art."

For more than half a century, the 81-year-old Trevor has written of the passions churning beneath the surface of a world where the parlor clock endlessly ticks and the fat on the plates is always congealing. In book after book, he has somehow turned the nondescript and the habitual into the exceptionally vivid and particular: “Farmers brought in livestock on the first Monday of every month, and borrowed money from one of Rathmoye’s two banks. They had their teeth drawn by the dentist who practiced in the Square.” The real dramas in this world go largely unspoken; they reach the reader in thought balloons of suppressed desire that the author launches, stealthily, above the idle chatter and run-of-the-mill action. Trevor doesn’t even need to start a new paragraph when shifting from one to the other, when showing us that the hand putting on makeup or threading a needle is being operated by a nervous system aflame with anger or shame or longing: “In the crab-apple orchard she scattered grain and the hens came rushing to her. She hadn’t been aware that she didn’t love her husband.”

So, thanks to John Dunbar, we're happy to offer a copy of Love and Summer to one lucky TEV reader.  Y'all know the rules - send an email, subject line "THANKS, JOHN!" and make sure you include your mailing address.  Entries will be accepted until 10 p.m. PST on Wednesday, October 7 (since I got a late start), and then the Random Number Generator will speak its mind.  Until then ...

Thanks, John.

BELATED UPDATE: Congratulations to winner Clara Boza!

TEV GIVEAWAY: HOME

We're heading out for a few days in New York (so things will be quiet here through the beginning of next week) but we didn't want to leave without resuming the usual giveaway fun.  This week, we have a copy of Marilynne Robinson's Home, newly in paperback, for one lucky TEV reader.  We usually make a bit more fuss here on these giveaway posts but (a) we're pressed for time today and (b) we can't imagine there's a reader of this site unfamiliar with this book. So let's cut to the chase - drop an email until 8 pm PST on Sunday, Sept. 13 to qualify, subject line "I WANNA GO HOME"  Include your full mailing address, as always, and the Random Number Generator will do its worst when we return from NYC.

TEV GIVEAWAY: NETHERLAND

You've read the interview, you've heard all the praise, now read the book for yourself.  Thanks to our friends at Vintage, we are happy to offer FIVE lucky TEV readers signed copies of the paperback edition of Netherland.

The rules are as they have ever been.  Drop us an email, subject line "OH ME, OH MY, O'NEILL" and be certain to include your full mailing address.  We will take all entries until Sunday, July 19 at 8 p.m. PST, at which time the Random Number Generator will bestow its largesse on five happy readers.  Until then ...

UPDATE: Congratulations to winners Erika Sloan, Allison Greenhouse, Mike Courtois, Fay Sheco and one anonymous reader.

TEV GIVEAWAY: THE GOD OF WAR

I greatly admired Marisa Silver's fine novel, The God of War, when it came out last year.  Here's what I said about it over at the Barnes & Noble Review:

Common themes of family, guilt, dysfunction, and shame informed many of the stories in Silver's debut collection, Babe in Paradise (2001), as well as her first novel, No Direction Home (2005). These concerns remain present in The God of War, but the story is primarily a sustained meditation on questions of agency and volition; the acceptance (or refusal) of responsibility and the apportioning of blame. Indeed, her damaged cast has settled in this remote backwater in the futile hope of controlling their own fate beyond the reach of government and society. That they largely fail suggests how impervious to geography and inescapably human the so-called human condition really is.

The God of War has just been released in paperback, and I'm pleased to offer a copy this week to a lucky TEV reader.  (And I'm pretty sure I can arrange to have it signed for you, too.)  It's been a while since we've done one of these, so we're probably all a bit rusty on the rules.  Therefore:  Drop us an email, subject line "GIMME SOME SILVER".  Include your full mailing address, please, otherwise you will be disqualified and possibly mocked.  All entries will be accepted until Sunday, June 28 at 6 p.m. PST, at which time the Random Number Generator will practice its own special brand of tough love.  Until then ...

TEV GIVEAWAY: THE WRITER'S NOTEBOOK

Well, you've had a chance to see for yourself this week what sort of essays you'll find in Tin House's The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House.  In addition to Susan Bell's memorable essay on The Great Gatsby, you can check out Dorothy Allison, Jim Shepard, Aimee Bender, D. A. Powell, and others break down elements of craft and share insights into their own writing. With how-tos, close readings, and personal anecdotes, The Writer's Notebook offers all writers useful advice and inspiration. Included is a CD of workshop discussions and panels.

Some of the other terrific writers in this collection include Rick Bass, Kate Bernheimer, Lucy Corin, Tom Grimes, Matthea Harvey, Anna Keesey, Jim Krusoe, Margot Livesey, Antonya Nelson, Chris Offutt, and Peter Rock.

We're very pleased to be able to offer a copy of The Writer's Notebook, courtesy of Tin House, to a lucky TEV reader.  Everyone knows the drill - drop an email, subject line "I'M CRAFTY", and include your full mailing address, please.  We'll take all entries until Sunday, May 31 at 7 p.m. PST, at which time the Random Number Generator will break all hearts but one.  Until then ...

UPDATE: Congratulations to Ned Resnikoff, winner of one of our most contested giveaways to date!

GIVEAWAY HOLIDAY

We're taking a one-time holiday from our Friday giveaway - we've still got to select winners from our last two outings - but it will be back next week.  We're also revising the transcription of our big Joseph O'Neill interview for a four-day posting plus giveaway, and we've got one or two other multi-day surprises in development, so do pop back next week.  Until then, a fine weekend to all.