I have to find a good book to read. The last books that I read that kicked ass were Mark Powell's Hurricane Season and Frank Bill's Back to the Dirt. Both of these gritty books are the kind that keep your attention. Great writing. Those books have sentences in them that make you stop and go, "Whoa, I have to read that again." I love writing that makes you do that. Sometimes Hemingway's short stories have me rereading sentences over again. He wrote a paragraph in The Green Hills of Africa about the Gulf Stream that is otherworldly:
That something I cannot yet define completely but the feeling comes when you write well and truly of something and know impersonally you have written in that way and those who are paid to read it and report on it do not like the subject so they all say it is a fake, yet you know its value absolutely; or when you do something which people do not consider a serious occupation and yet you know, truly, that it is important and has always been as important as all the things that are in fashion, and when, on the sea, you are alone with it and know that this Gulf Stream you are living with, knowing, learning about, and loving, has moved, as it moves, since before man and that it has gone by the shoreline of that long, beautiful, unhappy island since before Columbus sighted it and that the things you find out about it, and those that have always lived in it are permanent and of value because that stream, will flow, as it has flowed, after the Indians, after the Spaniards, after the British, after the Americans and after all the Cubans and all the systems of governments, the richness, the poverty, the martyrdom, the sacrifice and the venality and the cruelty are all gone as the high-piled scow of garbage, bright-colored, white-flecked, ill-smelling, now tilted on its side, spills off its load into the blue water, turning it pale green to a depth of four or five fathoms as the load spreads across the surface, the sinkable parts going down and the flotsam of palm fronds, corks, bottles, and used electric light globes, seasoned with the occasional condom or a deep floating corset, the torn leaves of a student’s exercise book, a well-inflated dog, the occasional rat, the no-longer-distinguished cat; well shepherded by the boats of garbage pickers who pluck their prizes with long poles, as interested, as intelligent, and as accurate as historians; they have the viewpoint; the stream, with no visible flow, takes five loads of this a day when things are going well in La Habana and in the ten miles along the coast it is clear and blue and unimpressed as it was ever before the tug hauled out the scow; and the palm fronds of our victories, the worn light bulbs of our discoveries and the empty condoms of our great loves float with no significance against one single, lasting thing – the stream.
That kind of writing to me is so magical that reading it makes me want to write. Just the way the sentences run on into the next, so naturally.
So I am looking for a book that has that type of writing. Hard to match, I know. I will tell you this: I do not want a book where I have to use a dictionary to figure out what the fuck the author is talking about. Like, are we talking about a real bear, a metaphoric bear, a man that really is a bear? Just say a bear is a bear. That type of thing. I'd much rather read Bukowski. Not his poems, his writing. I was working as a bouncer at the 45th Street Pub one night about 15 years ago, and one of the waitresses was going to a community college down the road, and she was assigned Post Office by Bukowski for English class. She brought it to work and left it at the front of the place. I picked it up and was immediately drawn to his writing style. Like he was talking to you, simple, no bullshit, and funny. Lots of sex and drinking. Some weird shit once in a while, like when he was writing for that avant-garde magazine in San Francisco. I bought everything that I could about Bukowski. The only problem is that he never really played sports or served as a soldier. But he did fight. Lots of fights. When you get done reading him, you either want to start drinking or never drink again. When he wakes up every morning and pukes, not good. He beat up his wife. I was watching a documentary that I ordered on DVD many years ago, and he got drunk and kicked his wife and called her a "cunt" I believe.
I like Cormac McCarthy. especially The Road. And the movie crushed me. I started one of his books, but there was something about having sex with a watermelon. Oh, I know I should give it a chance. Some other time.
And then I began to read this other book, and it had so much promise, and then one of the characters pays for sex with a boy. I mean, can we be real without being that real? Makes me wonder what's on the author's laptop.
It doesn't matter if it's fiction or not, as long as it has good writing.
Garry Smith of Sports Illustrated magazine was a great writer long ago. Pete Dexter. John Underwood. I knew a guy who was with a group who kicked the shit out of Pete Dexter, with pipes and shit. Fucked him up for life, not like in the movies. Dexter had written something derogatory about their neighborhood. Mistake. When Inside Sports magazine first came out, it had the best writers around. Then I guess it was losing money or got sold or something, and the quality was shit. Now there aren't any magazines, so I don't know who the good sportswriters are; there are just personalities who don't know shit, yapping on TV. I started David Foster Wallace because I saw that he dipped Skoal, but I couldn't figure out what the fuck he was talking about or Frantzen. I know they must be amazing. But writing tastes are like anything else; you like what you like, and you can't help what you like.
I almost forgot Gene Hill, the man when it came to outdoor writers. I take that back; he is one of my favorites regardless of the genre. He was a hunter who loved dogs and guns and fall and the Chesapeake and more. You must read Gene Hill.
Who else? Candace Millard, Hampton Sides. I used to go to Barnes and Noble and buy stuff that looked good, and then I began it, and it turned political or woke or some shit. Or how bad white people are. The whole white supremacy thing is a little overused now. And putting down Christians. Give it a rest. It's easy writing. Germans can still get crushed, Russians, too. It's okay if they are the bad guys. Not other "groups", right?
I have boxes of books downstairs. I bet I can find one that I overlooked. One that makes me feel something.
