The Glories Of South By
Well, my South By Southwest Interactive Festival appearance is over. I generated slightly less buzz than Malcolm Gladwell, Ana Marie Cox, Al Franken, and every other person who appeared at the festival. My reading occurred on the "Day Stage," which should be more accurately called "The Secret Stage Behind The Snack Bar." The crowd seemed reasonably amused by my readings of rare unpublished "Bad Sex" columns, and then I dumped a cup of sugar on my shirt. Hilarious. I finished off with a segment from my memoir about parenting, which, at the rate I'm writing it, will end up being a memoir about grandparenting, but people seemed to enjoy.
For what it's worth, I've gotten my son Elijah very excited about seeing some free day shows at South By Southwest, though he says he thinks he's going to see "Spongebob Squarepants Music." I told him, "Elijah, it's rock n roll music." He said, "No, daddy, I want to hear different rock n roll music!"
Hip kids say the darndest things.
I finished Book Number 10 amidst all the excitement of my triumphant return to the lower midlist of industry convention speakers. That book is The White Trilogy, by Ken Bruen, three short novels about South London cops that lay out the perameters for contemporary noir writing. Bruen's main character, a brutal alcoholic lout named Brant, is a revelation, and I like how the villains always get what's coming to them, but never at the hands of the cops. The books actually improve as they go along. The third volume of the trilogy, "The McDead," was far and away my favorite.
Not like Ken Bruen is reading this, but I did find frustrating his incessant referencing of other noir stories and movies within his text. I almost threw the book across the room when Brant ran into Ed McBain during a trip to New York. It drives me crazy when writers over-reveal their sources. This particular narrative flaw is common in the crime genre--Carl Hiassen's characters are often loner weirdoes who like Garcia Marquez--but it's still annoying.
Nevertheless, Ken Bruen is not the kind of British Isles writer who normally gets attention in the U.S., but he's a damn sight less pointy-headed than most of the popular ones. Recommended.