used // in well-loved condition

The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books
edited by Jeff Martin & C. Max Magee


A new month, a new review. This was an impulse buy off the "employee recommendations" display at my local Barnes & Noble while killing time before seeing "Thor" in 3D. One look at the cover art, and I couldn't very well not buy it. Throw in the fact that I've been kicking around the idea of doing my thesis on reading as tactile experience and the fetishization of print, and it's fairly obvious that this particular book was tailor-made for me.


Happily, it did not disappoint.



The common consensus appears to be that the bulk of the book is dedicated to a bunch of bibliophiles waxing David Foster Wallace-esque about their love of the book as an object/art form. Ain't gonna lie: That's more or less true. But so what? The fact of the matter is that the book as an object and/or art form is more than worthy of exaltation and all the praise one can manage to heap upon it. And with David Foster Wallace gone, why shouldn't other writers at least attempt to carry that torch? But while The Late American Novel certainly appeals to my fellow bibliophiles, the earliest of early adopters and the most elite of technocrats could undoubtedly take something worthwhile away from this easily digestible, well-under-200-page read.


While I was initially skeptical upon reading the first paragraph of the introduction, in which Martin and Magee appear to completely miss the mark with respect to the infamous F. Scott Fitzgerald quote, "There are no second acts in American lives," tying it into the notion of a cultural comeback rather than the three-act structure of American drama, it was an interpretative mistake that was easy enough to forgive since everything else was pithy, spot-on, and exceptionally well-written.


I could quote passage after passage of the book in an attempt to entice you, but I'd hate to give too much away. The essays range from vibrant enthusiasm and an embracing of technological advances and the wealth of new possibilities they bring to the downright luddite in nature, and all make valid enough points. There's even something to appeal to those with a post-modern/post-po-mo/meta bent.


That childhood favorite of anyone raised in the 1980s, Choose Your Own Adventure, plays fairly heavily, so that ought to be an incentive to pick up a copy right there.


Perhaps my favorite essay of the lot is "The Crying of Page 45." First things first, a solid Pynchon reference means I'm pretty much sold straight out of the gate. But then there are diagrams, illustrations, tongue-in-cheek humor, references to the near-forgotten art of textual illumination, old school Mac pop-ups ... it's a thing of beauty, really.


...and I just added ~45 books to my "to-read" list thanks to this book, so that should tell you something.