You can run but you can’t hide. At least not from your own life. Keith, the self-absorbed protagonist of Ben Tanzer’s You Can Make Him Like You, is sucker-punched by this lesson over and over again. Yet, as one can expect from Tanzer, the blows are at turns funny, tragic, and often spot-on in revealing the anxieties that scratch beneath our own skins.

What ails Keith is life itself. Or rather an adult life with all its complications and irresolvable issues that always require a bit of character sacrifice. His life is neatly ordered and sorted, a well-crafted mix of job, friends and a wife. But there’s temptation everywhere Keith looks. And sure, he would never do anything to ruin his marriage, right? Right? Liz, headstrong and the adult of the two, also won’t budge on having a child, an event that Keith views more as an intrusion than bundle of joy. Order is quickly becoming uncertainty and a lack of control. Keith, who never wants to confront anything and would prefer to suppress these difficult issues with a jog in the cool Chicago air, is better at avoiding life or trying to hide in the checklist of cultural touchstones he surrounds himself with. He ties his emotional issues to romantic comedies, Hold Steady songs, Michael Chiklis’ Vic Mackey character on The Shield, and even Patrick Ewing. So when the kid finally does arrive, and things don’t go as planned, not even Vic Mackey can save him.

At first impulse, if you read the plot on the back of a book, it would all sound a little too cliché. Yet, Tanzer’s love of writing pop stories, that reveling in what can be new and poignant in oft-tread ground, wins the day. His greatest skill — and it’s been this way through all of his novels and short stories — is to take the normal, the everyday we all know and live through, and to turn that into great tragicomedy. Like his protagonist, Tanzer is obsessed with the art of a great pop song: Three chords, three minutes, and out. But the emotion is so pure, you can’t deny it. You Can Make Him Like You hits the reader like that and hits it just right.

Ask anyone who has tried: often those are the hardest songs to write.

The Blacksmiths for Literary Progress will have our own table at the 21st Annual Indie & Small Press Book Fair. We’ll be featuring new books and zines (and possibly old lamps, used furniture, and rusted cutlery) from Brian Cogan, Mike Faloon, Tim Hall, Karen Lillis, Ben Tanzer, and Ken Wohlrob. We’ll also have some free books to give away. Do stop buy, say hello and take home some damn good independent lit.

Here are the details:
Saturday, December 6, 2008, 10 AM to 6 PM
Sunday, December 7, 2008, 11 AM to 5 PM
Location: The New York Center for Independent Publishing
20 West 44th Street (btw 5th and 6th)
New York, NY 10036

Here’s a quick “heads up” about two new books you should check out.

First up is good friend Ben Tanzer’s new short story collection Repetition Patterns. In a very cool move, the collection is being released as an e-book only download by The Chicago Center for Literature and Photography (CCLaP), with a pay-what-you-want pricing setup (just like Radiohead did with In Rainbows). It is great to see someone testing out the pay-what-you-want scheme with publishing. But lest I get too caught up on the distribution side, do check out Repetition Patterns for the stories. Having read with Ben and really enjoyed his first novel, Lucky Man, I can tell you he’s a hell of a storyteller.

Also just released is the brand new novel from fellow ex-New Jersian Alex Austin, titled The Red Album of Asbury Park. I was lucky enough to read a few chapters from The Red Album… prior to its publication and Alex nails that down-and-out sadness of the Jersey Shore perfectly. It has the characters — the gangsters and musicians and lowlifes and surfers and the beaten and broken. But it also has a good story; a tale of murder and ambition set in a 1960s Asbury Park that’s lost its luster. Gritty stuff and well worth $15 cover price.

It was a real honor to get to read with Ben Tanzer this past Sunday at Freebird Books, my de facto home base here in Brooklyn. The reading was an east coast celebration in honor of the release of Ben’s new book, Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine (the original release party was held in Chicago).

A good group of friends made it down to hear Ben read from the new book and myself kick a brand new story, “Job in Williamsburg,” as well as an excerpt from “Taking the Happy Bus on Home,” the last story in The Love Book. People responded quite nicely to Ben’s reading, digging on the fantastic sense of humor from the book.

As always, Peter from Freebird Books took great care of us and I can never walk out of the joint without discovering some great new find. In this instance, it was the Mavis Gallant short story collection released by Bloomsbury Classics (imported from the UK). If you’re in Brooklyn, do stop by Freebird and support the cause.

But here are a few shots for your ocular amusement.

I’ll be joining Chicago’s own Ben Tanzer at Freebird Books in Brooklyn this Sunday to celebrate the release of his new novel, “Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine.” We’re going to kick out the stories and have a few drinks with all our good friends who can make it to the reading. Show time is 7pm.

Ben Tanzer and the nice folks at This Blog Will Change Your Life recently posted some nice praise for The Love Book. And I quoteth:

“…while love may be the operative word here, we’re not sure anyone would call them love stories, per se. Now that said, are these stories all about how love gets warped, lost, manipulated, sublimated, twisted, fetishized, tainted and occasionally celebrated? Yes, and more. And so do we think you should you read this collection? Yes, again, for sure, so, go ahead, please read The Love Book, it just might change your life.”

And a gratuitous reminder, you can come on down to Freebird Books in Brooklyn, NY on Sunday, September 28 to see Ben and myself kick out the stories to celebrate the release of his new book, Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine.

Full disclosure: I know Ben Tanzer (although we’ve yet to meet in person) and will actually be reading with him at Freebird Books in Brooklyn, NY on September 28.

Some books have a way of winning you over. I remember the first time I picked up John Fante’s Wait Until Spring, Bandini. It was not Ask the Dust. When the former was written, the author had not developed into the great teacher of Bukowski that can be found in the latter. And yet, as I delved deeper and deeper into Wait Until Spring, Bandini, my perception of the novel changed. While the book is not a definitive example of Fante’s greatness as a writer (Ask the Dust is his most memorable book for a reason), it has great heart, it has soul. The scene of Bandini’s mother and father laying in bed together in the first chapter just about made me weep. It was a beautiful piece of writing. I was won over.

Ben Tanzer’s Lucky Man also won me over. Perhaps because the book starts so unsuspectingly, providing no grand opening or sudden launch into the action. It starts with a conversation — between the four main characters and the reader who serves as an impromptu listener of their life stories. But I think there is a simpler answer. There isn’t an ounce of pretense in Tanzer’s writing, something lacking among a lot of my peers. You never get the sense that Tanzer is trying too hard to convince you of his writing skill. His dialogue fits his characters. The situations always feel real. All of this helps the reader settle in and go along with what at first seems like a standard coming-of-age story.

Once the book gets moving however, the story takes flight (as do the characters). Lucky Man reads like a 220-page long prose poem, told by the four main characters who speak directly to the reader in present tense. One often feels like they’re reading transcripts of reality show confessionals strung together. This is even taken to an absurd pretense when one of the characters has an unfortunate incident. But it is also the four perspectives of Sammy, Louie, Jake and Gabe that deliver a great sense of seeing the world of Lucky Man from all sides, or rather all camera angles. Along the way, there is a lot of humor and a ton of sadness. But Tanzer never uses the breakups, suicides, adultery, car crashes, drug abuse, or sudden death as cheap thrills. This is life in all its grimness.

Ultimately, the title is a grand joke. And that is what really won me over in the end. Lucky Man can be dark. And anyone who has read my work knows I have a penchant for the dark and strange and cynical. But the last page of Lucky Man nicely turns a dark, cynical outlook into a great punch line.

If you use any of the book sharing sites, here a links to the novel for each:
Good Reads | Library Thing | Shelfari

On Sunday, September 28 @ 7 p.m., I’ll be joining Chicago’s own Ben Tanzer for a special reading at Freebird Books in Brooklyn to celebrate the release of his new book, Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine.