Dave Hickey’s book on beauty “The Invisible Dragon” is the bomb. It started as four essays in the 1990s when Dave was so famous, he was touring around to all the amazing art centres just lecturing, and people started asking him: “Can you explain beauty to us?” and he did. When his editors at University of Chicago Press wanted to republish last year, Hickey wrote a manifesto at the end of the book called American Beauty. It’s absolutamente perfecto.
Maile Chapman is the classiest lady in fiction. Her stunning first novel, “Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto” is the creepiest kind of gothic: it is medical, wintery dark and terrifying–and yet somehow the language is poetic and lovely, like Maile. Based on research conducted during a Fulbright year in Finland, Maile managed to sew the near-arctic landscape into every scene. The book is daunting in its scope, mirroring the Bacchae in its structure, and unflinchingly examining the complex (and sort of disgusting) world of women’s medicine. The best part of this book is the suspense; the whole time you’re thinking SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN OH MY GOD> and then it does. Buy this for your chilly auntie who secretly appreciates the bleak and beautiful.
This bit of brilliance by friend-of-a-friend Sheila Heti is my vote for Novel of the Year/Novel of the Future/Novel of my Dreams. “How Should a Person Be” is radical. It is fiction that does not feel like fiction. It is a novel without a boring character, a boring climax, even a boring moment. It is a story of girl friends (not lovers, not frenemies, but true friends) and art and sex and marriage and ugliness– all pointing to the question of our generation, How should we be? Dave Hickey, my cheerleader and the resident genius of the state of New Mexico, says with some authority that Sheila Heti is the rock-star of the new writing, and I believe it. Buy this for your artist-in-crisis best friend, and in the card write, “See, it’s fucking hard for everyone.”
This incredibly sad, incredibly funny debut novel by my pal Craig Francis Power won all the Newfoundland prizes this year, and is making waves across the country with its indie publishing house Pedlar Press. Craig is an insane visual artist and a curator, and a bloody masterful writer too. Blood Relatives feels dark and smoky and damp and cold and slightly drunk, just like my few days on the Battery in St. John’s. My favourite chapter so far is called “The Asshole of Death.” That is when things really get sad and drunk and smoky and dark. Buy this for your down-on-his-luck drinking buddy, but keep your eye on him while he reads. This brilliant book is not afraid to venture to a few low-down places.
MY FRIENDS’ BOOKS ARE THE BEST BOOKS!
Luljeta Lleshanku’s miraculous collection “Child of Nature” brings serious poem-tears to my poemy eyes. In her second translated collection and her ninth book of poetry, Luljeta cleaves you open with tales from her broken country Albania, then fills you up with sweet little snippets from our shared humanity. “Two people form a habit, writes Lleshanaku; Three people make a story.” In Las Vegas, Luli invited me to join their family! They cooked Albanian food and told me everything. I miss my “adesh”, her daughter Lea, and her stunning daughter Lodia– a threesome to be reckoned with. Buy this for your whimsical granny, pining for the old country.
MY FRIENDS’ BOOKS ARE THE BEST BOOKS!
Devin Krukoff is a great man, and a really great writer. His second novel “Flyways” published by the lovely Thistledown Press, is textured and wintery. When we were just kids in writing school, Devin came up to me and in the quietest voice, whispered, Oh yeah, I just won the Journey Prize. I totally lost my mind. I remember screaming: YOU ARE SO TALENTED OH MY GOD, and I really meant it. I would scream it again. Buy this book for your birdy Dad.
MY FRIENDS’ BOOKS ARE THE BEST BOOKS!
This year, I totally dug this poetry collection by Mike Spry. His work is real, about a drinker named Jack and his elusive lady Jane. According to the rad publisher, Snare Books, “JACKis a collection about loss, and how its various speakers deal with loss through addiction. Whether that addiction is alcohol, drugs, sex, love, or an inability to deny the past, these are narrative poems that reconsider the method in which the desperate periphery manage the minutiae of existence.” Buy this for your cynical bro who used to write poems, but at some point changed his mind to think that poetry didn’t relate to his life any more. In the card, write the words, “See! It relates!”
MY FRIENDS’ BOOKS ARE THE BEST BOOKS!
This month I am recommending books from my friends to give as holiday gifts! I am so impressed by my pals’ published works this year, I’m really pushing this stuff like drugs. I’m starting here, with Alissa Nutting. Her work is sardonic and super-freaky hilarious. Last night I dreamt we were chasing her dragon brother through a palace while all her friends were on crystal meth. And that is normal for her stories! Buy this for your funny sister!
New Dirty Poem in Hobart
This is for real. Hobart, one of our fave mags out of the USA, has some of my dirty words in their December Issue. CHECK IT. xo!
the silky bits: lingerie images to go with some of the poems
Here’s an article I wrote for Parlour Magazine about arriving in Sierra Leone. You can find them at parlourlife.com. An amazing Calgary/Edmonton fashion, style, and culture magazine. I’m so stoked to be a regular contributor…
Lingerie Poetry in Diagram →
Diagram recently published this sweet set of poems from my novel. These are called “The Lingerie Triptych” but they are really an excerpt of Six City, the book I’m working on now. Enjoy!
Hot Stuff Fiction in PANK →
This spring, PANK magazine (who we love, don’t we LOVE PANK?) published this story called “Stampede Queen” from a longer collection I’m working on called The Vegaboy Chronicles. They also interviewed me, and I tried to come up with some funny answers. Oh Boy.