I'm
Mitch Cullin, or so I've been told. Besides being the ethical nemesis of the
late Jon Lellenberg and his corrupt licensing/copyright trolls at the Conan
Doyle Estate Ltd., I'm also a documentary photographer, very occasional author
of books, and full-time wrangler of feral cats.
Tideland was the third book in my West Texas Trilogy. It was designed to be highly
metaphorical and fantastical. While I'm not much of a fan about pontificating
on my own novels, I can relate that the underlying themes of the book deal with
the resilience of children, issues of abandonment, and how a creative
imagination can power through trauma.
It's
almost impossible to dive into Southern Gothic narratives without exploring the
work of William Faulkner at some point, and his collected stories are a great
place to start. Specifically, the story "A Rose for Emily" pretty much created the Southern Gothic literary genre. The writing is
beautiful, evocative, haunting, and a springboard for the aspirations of many
Southern writers, myself included.
This is a collection of the very best of William Faulkner's short stories. Included are classics of short-form fiction such as 'A Bear Hunt', 'A Rose for Emily', 'Two Soldiers' and 'The Brooch'. Faulkner's ability to compress his epic vision into narratives of such grace and tragic intensity defines him as one of the finest and most original writers America has ever produced.
The
black-and-white images of Ralph Eugene Meatyard have long fascinated me and
informed my visual work and writing. Meatyard was, by profession, an optician
in Lexington, Kentucky, yet his personal passion was making photographs. His
subjects were his wife, children, and family friends, who he often posed in
murky settings as they wore masks and held dolls. These images are both
disquieting and euphonious, tapping into something primal that hints at the
secretive world of childhood.
Family man, optician, avid reader and photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard created and explored a fantasy world of dolls and masks, in which his family and friends played the central roles on an ever-changing stage. His monograph, The Family Album of Lucybelle Crater, published posthumously in 1974, recorded his wife and family posed in various disquieting settings, wearing masks and holding dolls and evoking a penetrating emotional and psychological landscape. The book won his work critical acclaim and has been hugely influential in the intervening decades. Dolls and Masks opens the doors on the decade of rich experimentation that immediately preceded…
Taking
place in rural Northern Ireland during the 1960s, The Butcher Boy tells the
story of young Francie Brady, a misanthropic, confused Roman Catholic kid whose
alcoholic father works in a slaughterhouse. Francie's first-person narrative is
at times very funny, at other times very bleak, yet the novel is infused with a
poetic lyricism that frames its protagonist with a curious empathy, even as the
story veers into dark territory.
Set in Ireland, this book tells the story of teenage hero Francie Brady. Things begin to fall apart after his mother's suicide - when he is consumed with fury and commits a horrible crime. Committed to an asylum, it is only here that he finally achieves peace. Shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize.
This is
one of my all-time favorite novels, though I'm not quite sure how to explain
it. Set in a small Texas town, Come, The Restorer is a strange,
hallucinatory, and comical novel where nothing is quite normal, in fact far
from it. Among the cast of characters are Mr. de Persia who becomes a prophet
to the townspeople after he is discovered in a glass bathtub with an erection,
the virginal Jewel Adair who following her husband's fiery death begins roaming
the countryside naked, and Addis, Jewel's adopted son, who is on a singular
quest to make himself a Panhandle saint. There's just no other book like this
one.
William Goyen's fifth novel is a fable of Texas country life in the first half of the twentieth century, portraying religious revivalism and the money madness and ecological destruction caused by the oil boom. His narrative is composed of the brief linked episodes and tales that are Goyen's trademark, and is written with an ear for the rhythms of regional speech that was his particular gift.
I have
yet to meet someone who doesn't love this novel, though I'm sure there must be
plenty of Amazon reviewers that hate it. Katherine Dunn's masterpiece
chronicles the Binewskis, a drug-addled carny family who set out to breed
their own circus freaks. Hilarity, violence, sibling rivalry, and all manner of
insanity ensues as the reader encounters, among others, Arturo the Aquaboy,
Siamese twins, and an albino hunchback. What else can I say? It's wonderful,
funny, and unsettling in equal measure, and as epic a family story
as anything Steinbeck undertook.
A National Book Award Finalist: This 'wonderfully descriptive' novel from an author with a 'tremendous imagination' tells the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias have bred their own exhibit of human oddities. (The New York Times Book Review)
The Binewskis arex a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch have bred their own exhibit of human oddities (with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes). Their offspring include Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan, Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins, albino hunchback Oly, and…
I grew up in Green Bay and my dad was the official scorer for the Packers, so I was immersed in pro football history even as a child. During my careers as a newspaper feature writer and editor and as an advertising copywriter, I also became a sports historian. My magnum opus was “The Encyclopedia of North American Sports History,” 650,000 words. But my favorite by far is my biography of Johnny Blood. I was 12 or 13 when I decided I wanted to write it, 33 when I began working on it, 38 when I finished it, and 78 when it was finally published.
From Kirkus Reviews: "This debut short-story collection paints the wistful life of a newspaper journalist as seen through his sexual and romantic encounters...
Throughout, Hickok writes in an assured style, pulling readers along. The narrow sexual focus results in a distorted picture, yet other aspects of Art's life emerge at the edges—his intelligence, his career as a journalist, and even the sincerity with which he gives in to his male urges and construes sex as love...
Subdued yet alluring; a pensive reflection on the male psyche."
Love, Sex, and Other Calamities: 15 Stories and a Poem by Ralph Hickok
A man arrives in a new city, hoping to start a new life, but he’s still haunted by memories of past loves… A 12-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl have a brief romantic encounter when their families are vacationing in neighboring lakeside cottages… Two teenagers enjoy sexual experimentation when she babysits for her little brother while her parents are out drinking… A high school boy has a crush on an older woman who identifies with Molly Bloom… A college freshman falls in love with a high school freshman and is amazed at the depths of her passion… A guy wins…
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