-----Original Message----- Richard, Didn't you recently say
you thought the novella was the perfect length? Well, the
Utne Indie Culture 2004 agrees with you. Under Literary
Genres in the Overrated/Underrated article, they list the
short story as overrated and the novella as underrated.
Mark
Of course, Mark, that gives you the kind of depth readers
have come to expect from UTNE READER (well, in its first
year, it did turn me on to OUR GENERATION), but it's funny
you should mention, because the night before you sent this
(or the night before that), I picked up the Michael Chabon
collection WEREWOLVES IN THEIR YOUTH and read the title
story, and turned directly from that to Joe Lansdale's novel
A FINE DARK LINE, and damned if they weren't dealing with
vastly similar materials, albeit in characteristically
different ways. Alienated and intelligent but sheltered young
boys dealing with freakish circumstance, to put it vaguely
but truly. Other similarities of resonance await the
adventurous reader (and I haven't finished the Lansdale yet,
but like it so far...the Chabon isn't quite up to his Holmes
during WW2 novella, Richard, I keep touting everywhere from
the Summer PARIS REVIEW, "The Final Solution").
Also just read Peter Rabe's IT'S MY FUNERAL and am reading A
IS FOR ALIBI...my first Grafton novel.
Yours for all fiction, TM (and happy holiday season,
all)
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