Archive - October 21, 2013

Last night in Richmond, Virginia, What the Zhang Boys Know by Clifford Garstang (Press 53), was named winner of the 2013 Library of Virginia Award for Fiction. Garstang’s novel-in-stories was in excellent company when named a finalist along with New York Times Notable Book of the Year The Right-Hand Shore by Christopher Tilghman (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), and National Book Award finalist and winner of the 2013 PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction, The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers (Back Bay Books). When asked what winning this award meant to him, Garstang said, “Truly, this is one of the highlights of my writing life. I am especially honored to have had What the Zhang Boys Know considered alongside The Right-Hand Shore and The Yellow Birds, two outstanding books by Christopher Tilghman and Kevin Powers.” Garstang is also the author of the award-winning In an Uncharted Country (Press 53), which won a gold medal in the Independent Publishers . . .

In three recent issues The New Yorker has featured Peace Corps writers. All of them writing from different modes of prose. Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65) published a brilliant new short story, then Norm Rush (CD Botswana 1978-83) a telling piece on trying to be a writer on “Work for Hire,” and George Packer (Togo 1982-83) in the October 28th issue, an article entitled “Business as Usual” that begins, and says it all with: “House Republicans have suffered a huge tactical defeat of their own devising. But in a larger sense the Republicans are winning, and have been for the past three years, if not the past thirty. On economic-policy matters they are setting the terms.“ Back to Norm Rush’s short essay on labor. His labor. It starts with: “Surveying my motley history of impromptu efforts to make money, I see something like a vast mural by Hieronymus Bosch in which . . .