I recently finished The News: A User’s Manual by Alain de Botton and it was, in a word, underwhelming.  I started this book with high expectations and maybe that’s where I went wrong, but for a book aiming to be a guide to how we should consume our news moving forward, the author stumbled with most of his assumptions providing anecdotal evidence that I can only describe as “writing from the hip.”  Obviously, I realize that a great deal of time and research was put into this book but I finished the book realizing that the intended audience are probably people that probably don’t question the relevance of how news is presented anyway.

Before I get into that, let me tell you what I liked about the book because I’m not trying to come across as cynical or dissatisfied.  In actuality, I quite enjoyed the first half of The News.  The book is broken up into sections of different types of news.  Politics and Celebrity are my favorites.  They are extremely fleshed out, and he provides historical intricacies that resonated with me.  For example, he uses the ancient city of Athens as an example of how celebrity worship can be accomplished in constructive and even self preserving ways.  Admiration can teach us all things about ourselves and eventually highlight the subtle tendencies and talents that would otherwise be left dormant or neglected because of the daily grind of life.  The book’s section on Photography is absolutely stunning and worth reading alone.  As a proponent of visual arts and media (what does that even mean?) photojournalism has lost a certain luster in traditional news media and Alain de Botton expresses that loss beautifully with the use of photographs.  The proof is, how you say, in the desert?

***THIS JUST IN***

Ken Murphy and Lemuria accomplish something very similar with Jackson Photographs by Ken Murphy, due out this July.  The book captures the spirit and culture of Jackson as it is.  It speaks to the reader/observer through images that resonate the quiet beauty of a city that people have intentionally failed to notice.  Ken Murphy guides the eyes of the reader to the majesty of our city unlike any photographer has been able to achieve in quite some time.

***WE NOW RETURN TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAM***

Anyway, somewhere towards the second part of the book the sections get more and more pithy.  The pieces on Disaster and Consumption are as brief as the news articles he criticizes.  It’s at this point that the book feels like someone started playing the “wrap it up music” behind de Botton’s head as he furiously tried to type out a few more sections to finish the book.

My biggest problem  comes from the section Personalization.  He offers that when users are afforded the ability the personalize their own news (i.e., news channels like Google News and Reddit) a danger lies in shutting out news that could be missed or filtered by the user’s own personal standards.  He goes on to offer that the only way to be sure that this doesn’t happen is for the user to approach these channels with a firm understanding of their own self and direction.  This is laughably obvious to…umm…well me.

And that’s when I realized…maybe this book isn’t for me.  Everything he wrote seems to be intended for proponents of the old system of news.  Buying a newspaper, or watching the evening news followed by your local equivalent, ya know, that sort of thing.  I grew up with access to the internet.  I grew up with the ability to instantly search a subject and call someone out on the supposed truths they were spouting.  I grew up with the sneaky suspicion that everyone was lying to me all the time.  (Not really, I got a little carried away there.)  I grew up in the generation of fact checkers.  If I read an article that sounds sensationalized or off, all I have to do is scroll down and check the comments to see how factual or relevant the story really is.  I grew up communicating with the stories, instead of consuming them.  My opinions about subjects are constantly warping with new information and new texts, and the more and more I talk to people from around the world, the more I realize I have no idea what is ever really going on.  The real key is finding out how a story of a starving Malaysian boy’s journey to starting PayPal (totally a real story but don’t fact check me) can impact my life in a meaningful way.

This book is a guide, but it is also question.   How should we consume our stories?  Some of us have a pretty good idea.  I believe in participation and this books serves to invite you to figure out what you believe.

I’m giving this book a 7.5/10.

:Closing Thoughts:

Excerpts from this book should really be used as text material for 9th and 10th graders.  I think it would benefit younger readers to have a better understanding of what news media is capable of, and the healthy ways to consume said media.  So, if you’re a high school English/economics teacher, give it a read.

The first thing I read when I started working here was a copy of Natchez Burning by Greg Iles. I think I had the same initial reaction as most bibliophiles would: “wait, we get free books?!” After that excitement wore off, I realized that I was already a hundred pages into the book and felt completely hooked.  It’s the first new installment in the Penn Cage series in five years, and over the next two years we will be treated with two more continuations from author Greg Iles.

Penn Cage, the novel’s focal character, is the mayor of Natchez (and boy do mayors seem to have a lot of free time these days) who learns that his moral compass may by trained to follow the wrong person.  Imagine what Nicholas Cage’s character must have been thinking during the movie Face/Off: the struggle between trying to save his family and trying to follow that grey mist of a concept some people call ethics. How far can you bend before you break your own rules? What happens when the person who gave you those rules has bent them pretty far himself?

But, (thankfully) this book cannot simply be summed up in one sloppy Nicholas Cage movie metaphor— It will take quite a few.  Con Air for example, now that is a Cage we can all hope to fulfill this role.  He fights for those who cannot defend themselves.  He gets in bed with a ruthless killer because it is the only way to save someone. Oh, and let’s not forget that silky, smooth, southern drawl that, I must admit, I imagined while reading a few lines in the book. But no, our Penn Cage is not so much a brawler as he is a schemer.   How about National Treasure Cage then? He is definitely well-educated— a thinking man’s hero who is more able to use his trivia knowledge and clever friends to save the day before he would win a fist fight on top of a fire truck.  He quickly uses what little information he has to decide on a plan of attack, trying to always hit where no one would think to look.  Always trying his hardest to follow the law, but unable to do so.  No, it’s close, but P. Cage doesn’t seem so bookish.

Gone in Sixty Seconds has the action, the tempo, and the reassurance of a man in control in spite of living his worst nightmare.  Only at the very edge do we see the nerves start to fray and the mind lose the sharpness that got him into that seat as mayor or legendary car thief.  But of course the bleak, lawless history of Memphis Raines (are you still with me after all these movie references?) disqualifies him.

Who then? It’s got to be The Rock where the two Cages finally overlap.  The world is turned upside down for our heroes and everyone else is a lot slower to catch on.  Stanley Goodspeed is extremely good at what he does and, despite dealing with some very dangerous elements (chemical weapons for N. Cage and criminal law for P. Cage), he is relatively protected from danger.  Soon, however, you immediately feel the loss of confidence as both characters are thrown out of their element and into the deep end of the pool.  Both Cages quickly realize their situations must be handled in a vacuum.  Survival first, reelection is still a few years away—they can play the old solving-a-hate-crime card later to win back votes.  Stanley, like Penn, finally realizes the only way to survive is to get down into the mud with the enemy and hope he still has a shred of morality left after they hose off the blood and the dirt.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even more than writing an entire post about Nicholas Cage movie characters.  If that doesn’t sell you on it then I don’t know what would.

Spandau Phoenix by Greg Iles. Dutton: New York, 1993.

With Mississippi’s literary tradition long established with William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Richard Wright, John Grisham was Mississippi’s first commercially successful writer. Following on the heels of Grisham’s The Firm in 1991, Greg Iles made his debut with Spandau Phoenix. The first of two novels set in Nazi Germany, Spandau Phoenix quickly landed on the best seller list. Black Cross was released in 1995 and is so far the last of his WWII novels. Iles moved on to other themes in subsequent novels, broadening his skill as a thriller writer. As Iles’ fan base grew, Spandau Phoenix and Black Cross became more collectible and distinguished from his other work.

This piece was featured in the Clarion Ledger on March 2, 2014. Watch for The Mississippi Book Page every Sunday in the Clarion Ledger.

Greg Iles’ new book Natchez Burning is available for purchase now! We have signed first editions for you to add to that amazing collection.

Get ready people! Greg Iles will be here THIS Tuesday at 1:00! Greg will be signing his new book Natchez Burning from 1:00 to 7:00 so that everyone will have plenty of time to meet him and get a book signed before they go home to devour the new adventure.

Oh, and one more thing. Do you like Greg Iles AND Broad Street? If you go down to Broad Street after you get your book signed and show them our social media flyer (you get one with every book you purchase!) you’ll get 10% off! Go Broad Street! Go Greg Iles! Happy Tuesday to all!

(Pssst, we made t-shirts for this signing, so make sure to pick one up before they are all out!)

We had the pleasure of getting to know Michael Garriga when he came by Lemuria last month to sign his new collection of stories, The Book of Duels. Jana Hoops, a reporter for the Clarion-Ledger, managed to snag Michael for an interview.

This interview was conducted for publication in The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, as part of an ongoing series about Mississippi authors. A portion of this interview appeared in The Clarion-Ledger March 23, 2014. No portion of this article may be used without permission.

Mississippi native Michael Garriga – and most of his 100-plus first cousins – grew up on the state’s eclectic and temperamental Gulf Coast. An enormous, raucous bunch, the family is still making its mark along the state’s southern tip. Today he and his family live near Cleveland, Ohio, where he teaches creative writing in the English department at Baldwin Wallace University near Cleveland, Ohio.

What people (teachers, other writers, etc.) or experiences influenced you to become a writer?

When I attended Ole Miss, I had the fortune of living next door to Barry Hannah, a tall-teller like my own folks. I didn’t know who he was. He was sober at the time and I just thought he was a regular old maniac. Then I took his class and everything changed. He was crazy but also kind and considerate and empathetic and sweet. I was starving and he’d feed me apples from his back yard and tell me wild stories of his youth. He told me don’t strive to be adequate or normal, be humble but not a bootlicker. He gave me inspiration and the drive and courage to sit in front of that blank screen, non-cowardly, look it head on, and talk to it. When I heard he died, I wept like a widow for a week. He was my second dad. In fact, when my dad met him, my dad called him “professor” and Barry, without a flinch, called him “doctor”—my dad who didn’t finish junior high—and so a relationship of respect was formed and sustained. Barry told me to not be scared, the same things my dad said to me. To work hard like Satan was on my back. To do things, any things: do, do, do. He taught me the word mattered and that to write was worth a grown man’s time.

I also adored Larry Brown, with whom I had many drinks. I’ve worked with Richard Bausch, Paul Griner, Mark Winegardner, Robert Olen Butler, Julianna Baggott, and many, many others.

Tell me about your life, professional and otherwise, now.

I have two beautiful baby boys, better than any two baby boys in America today, I guarantee, because my wife, Megan, is a gorgeous Kentucky woman. She teaches literacy to the college kids here in Berea, Ohio, and so too to our boys. They are strong and handsome. And she is too. I teach in Ohio at a really wonderful university—Baldwin Wallace University. My colleagues are sharp and sweet, my students able and kind, and the weather’s horrible. It’s a great private school, and I love it here. However, it’s way different than the South. I love teaching Southern Lit, because the students and I get into great debates about stereotypes, what they think of us, what we think of them, and what’s the truth. It ain’t easy, but it’s fun.

What is “The Book of Duels” all about? It’s a unique topic for a book!

“The Book of Duels” has 33 short stories, each comprised of three separate dramatic monologues given in the final seconds before an ultimate confrontation. Taken together they create a multi-perspective narrative. There are three perspectives because I learned in researching this book that, for a duel to be legal, you had to have a witness; hence, the third, different, point of view character was born. Plus, I love the idea of the triptych, the holy three. Examples of the duels in the book are a cockfight, Cain and Able, and then a joust, Don Quixote and the Windmill, and a bullfight – we were living in Spain at the time.

The book is described as “flash fiction.” Please explain what that means.

 I often use the term “flash fiction” to describe these works because of the layers of association: firing a pistol (as in most of the stories); a flash in the pan (referring to when a pistol misfires and also to those people quickly forgotten); flash forward and flash backward (two narrative strategies that engage the reader at the emotional level); the speed and brevity of these monologues; and the flash of an epiphany or a moment of yearning in the characters, like a flashbulb going off. That is, Flash Fiction, to me, connotes a moment when characters’ desire for self-knowledge and self-awareness dovetails with their epiphany of who they are. In one intense moment, who they are, at the deepest level, is revealed or made apparent to themselves or to the readers. I also use the word “flash” because these stories don’t fit nicely into any one genre. Are they dramatic monologues or short short stories? Are they poetry or fiction? They’ve been published as both. And they are truly hybrids.

How did you research “The Book of Duels?”

For each story I tried to embed myself in the historical situation, reading not only history books, but also books written at the time of the event to better gather the language. . . and to learn about the zeitgeist of the time and the slang—the foods, the politics, and the terrain of the place and time. . . . For a small moment in time, I was truly engaged with these people—their obsessions became mine. And, and I guess, in turn, I put mine on them.

Are there other writers whose influences we could find in this book?

I have read an awful lot of Faulkner. I don’t know if my work speaks to his except for my long-winded tendencies. The duels often contain a lot of playfulness and dark humor, which comes mainly through the poets I read: Jennifer L. Knox, Doug Cox, David Kirby, Maurice Manning, and Frank Giampietro, who edited many of these duels. I see the King James Bible in several of these stories, as well as Robert Olen Butler’s books of flash fiction. Barry Hannah’s work also had a profound influence on me: the illogical leaps, the playfulness, the drugs, the sex, and the general madness. The Drive-by Truckers created the book’s “soundtrack.” They’re among my favorite storytellers; they actively court the other Point of View. Their language skills are mind-blowing, the best puns ever. I use several of their lines as epigraphs.

Tell me about the illustration of the book.

These illustrations, which I love, came about because of an early editor, Ben Barnhardt. He solicited the book after having read a couple of published duels. He said he had a pal in Minneapolis—Tynan Kerr—who would be perfect for the book. TK liked the stories and started working on them. Man, he was fast: he had vision…and he has skill. His work is amazing. I saw the first four or five drawings, and Milkweed Editions began asking about the cover of my book, and I said, “Whatever Tynan sees.” And I was right. That cover is, to me, sexy. I love it. I thank Tynan…his vision and his skill and insight.

What are some other interests that you enjoy pursuing when you aren’t writing, helping your students learn to write, or reading what someone else has already written?

Seriously, keeping up with Megan and raising two boys—while teaching a full load and writing—is enough. That said, I like shooting skeet and drinking with men way older than me at VFW or DAV clubs, where men have things to share and not be scared to do so; it is more interesting than almost anything Shakespeare, who I love, could aspire to. I also enjoy cooking.

What will your next book project tackle – anything in mind at this point?

Yes, I’ve written a manuscript entitled “Loosh.” It’s a Southern Noir, concerning the Biloxi beach wade-ins of 1959 (staged to integrate the Mississippi Gulf Coast beaches). I’ve imagined the forces behind it on both sides and it should be ready for an agent in the next month.

Since you are a creative writing instructor, what are some suggestions you’d give would-be writers to embrace and/or avoid?

Seriously, don’t condescend to your readers: Treat them as if they are 10 years older than you, at least as well educated if not better, better read than you, and not nearly as much of a prude. Don’t talk down. Talk up. They expect as much out of art, and you should demand it, too.

By Jana Hoops