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Book review: Geoff Dyer’s Zona

My review of Geoff Dyer’s wonderful new book Zona is up at The Iowa Review.

Zona’s stated subject is Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 masterpiece about three men who journey to a desire-granting room in a forbidden, supernatural landscape called “the zone.” And indeed, Dyer describes the film scene-by-scene—nearly shot-by-shot—annotating his description with quotations culled from the works of Whitman, William James, Slavoj Žižek, and Rilke himself. But Zona’s subject is also, and equally, film itself. And it is also Tarkovsky the man, and the aleatory, uncontrollable process of making art. And of course, it is the eternal subject of any Dyer study: the author’s own cantankerous, improbable existence.

Read the rest here.

Nicholson Baker on The Lit Show

I’ll be sitting down with Nicholson Baker on The Lit Show this Friday to discuss his new novel House of Holes and the rest of his large, irreverent body of work. You can tune in live here (or, if you’re in Iowa City, by pointing your dial to KRUI at 89.7), or download later via The Lit Show podcast using iTunes.

Baker is one of my favorite writers—can’t wait to have him on the show.

Bad reviews, secret Jews, experimentalism blues

Listen to my interview with Ben Marcus on The Lit Show here, or use the player below.

(You can subscribe or download via The Lit Show podcast using iTunes.)

Ben Marcus on The Lit Show.

Hear me interview Ben Marcus on The Lit Show this Thursday at 3 p.m. CST.

You can listen live here.

Season 05
Episode 04
Air date: Thursday, February 9th, at 3 PM CST

On this Lit Show, Ben Marcus discusses his new novel, The Flame Alphabet. Marcus is the author of two previous books, The Age of Wire and String and Notable American Women, and the co-author (with artist Matthew Ritchie) of The Father Costume.

Marcus’s work centers (or de-centers) around language, mythology, and a perverse rationality that leaves the reader equal parts befuddled and captivated. The Age of Wire and String matches the prose style of technical writing and travel books to surreal, dreamy anecdotes and definitions. Notable American Women is no less experimental, turning familiar postmodern tropes (such as the inclusion of the author as character) inside-out.

Marcus will chat with co-host Ben Mauk about The Flame Alphabet, a novel in which a mysterious epidemic has caused language to become toxic.

On Thursday, February 9th, Ben Marcus will read at Prairie Lights in Iowa City, 7 PM.

Michael Martone on The Lit Show

On The Lit Show, Ben interviews Michael Martone about teaching, writing, and Martone’s new book of short fiction, Four for a Quarter.

Friday, 11/11 at 1:00 p.m. CST. Listen here.