RaveElectric LiteratureAbout once a year, you find a book that you can unimpeachably recommend to everyone...This year, and just in time for holiday gifts and small talk, John Jeremiah Sullivan has given us that book in Pulphead. ... there’s a common thread connecting the touching personal essays for The Paris Review with the sexy, weed-soaked assignments for GQ: Each is a lesson in generosity ... A lot of the sources Sullivan befriends have been hounded for years, but he wins people over, again and again; reading through, you start to think he must be a super-charming person ... Generously, Sullivan honors each of these people’s trust in the written piece. The book is LOL funny, but he never once makes a joke at one of his sources’ expense ... He’s a total fanboy — he knows more Road Rules trivia than the cast members themselves do — and his goal, in these pieces, is not to tear things down but to share his love for everything he reports on ... I’ll resist the urge to go on and on, because I’m sure I’ll spend the next two months doing so to all of my friends and acquaintances. Instead, I’ll just recommend it to you as your next recommendable book.
Denis Johnson
RaveElectric LiteratureTrain Dreams is a gorgeous, rich book about the classic American myth, but written for a country that’s lost faith in its own mythology. It’s a portrait of the West when we were rich, cocky, and our destiny had manifested, but told through the eyes of Grainier, who is humble, ungreedy, and unsure of himself … At barely over 100 pages, you can afford to read it slowly, enjoying the gorgeous, small, weird scenes, Johnson’s hallmark as an excellent short-story writer … The train itself is an interesting central anchor for a book about being disappointed with progress. The train was both the realization and the destruction of the pioneer dream … Train Dreams, luscious with grief, regret, and lowered expectations, is a lesson in end-of-the-frontier humility for a country anticipating apocalypse.
