I just returned from Chicago. Two notes:
- I think you’ll really want to hear this week’s “Wait Wait.” It’s our 1st anniversary of the “live in Chicago” format, and Tom Hanks is our guest. This one’ll be a keeper (if you “keep” such things).
- I will soon be launching a website for my book. Any day now. Meanwhile, though, I’ll share a couple of highlights from reviews #2 and #3. It gives me a chance to work on my excerptational skills.
From Booklist: “crackling comic novel… Suffice to say, Schrödinger’s Ball bounces among love, madness, and the invention and promotion of the World’s Largest Molecule… his wit and linguistic acrobatics make this clever mind-bender worth the ride.”
From Kirkus: “…raucous, willfully absurd debut… Why is this novel not an unhinged, inchoate mess? For one thing, Felber keeps a genial, clear-headed tone throughout, and he’ll spike the story with interesting shifts in writing styles… it gets its power from the details each individual story accrues… Felber has embraced postmodern fiction’s favorite themes… and turned it into a work of broad comedy instead of a fit of fatalistic handwringing.”
I’m pretty sure most publicity people wouldn’t be excited about quoting the “unhinged, inchoate mess” question. But I love it. It captures the book’s feel and thrills my unhinged, inchoate heart. [Besides, it clearly says that the book isn’t…]
UPDATE! Apparently, a section of chapter 1 of the book has just been added to the Amazon page. Holy speaking-of-excerptationalism, Batman! Go! Enjoy!
Fanny Roborat
32 comments
Ann
May 12, 2006 at 7:05 pm
1I can’t wait to read more about these mysterious Bos-tonians and their tri-angles. Is this a science fiction novel? Where are the names with apostrophes, like Deb’orah? (I can’t wait to read more about her orgasm, too!)
piglet
May 12, 2006 at 7:55 pm
2August is a long way away.
Harold
May 12, 2006 at 8:13 pm
3“Being dead wasn’t a problem at the moment; it was just an eigenstate.”
Damn, boy. That line nearly knocked me out of my chair. And it just sold you a bunch of copies for my friends.
“Her eyes are closed, her jaw is clenched, and her body je…”
“Her body je…” what? Dammit, now I gotta wait until my books arrive to find out what happens next!
Steve
May 12, 2006 at 8:24 pm
4Coming to San Diego on the book tour? The Book Works is a great indie bookstore and I’m sure they’d love to have you.
Heck, the UCSD bookstore would be a great venue, too, and you could come by my office for coffee.
Linkmeister
May 12, 2006 at 9:08 pm
5“Felber has embraced postmodern fiction’s favorite themes…”
Er, has Michael Bérubé heard about this? ‘Cos he’s about the most post-modernist blogger I know, and I’m sure he’d have an opinion if he hadn’t just gone off on a month’s vacation.
cooper
May 12, 2006 at 9:27 pm
6Her eyes are closed, her jaw is clenched, and her body je…
Adam, did your mom teach you that trick? Break it off in mid-sentence, keep ‘em begging for more. Oh, she’s got to be so proud of you; learning the family craft so expertly, and just in time for Mother’s Day. You’re such a good son!
David
May 12, 2006 at 9:52 pm
7Went. Enjoyed. Goddammit, August is like forever from now, especially for someone with her eyes closed, her jaw clenched, and her body je… Is she wearing those $2800 boots?
siobhan
May 12, 2006 at 10:39 pm
8“Her eyes are closed, her jaw is clenched, and her body je…”
“…b’s plaything. Close your eyes and think of Florida, she muttered to herself.”
I don’t know why you didn’t capitalize the guv’s name, though.
dee
May 13, 2006 at 8:52 am
9“Her eyes are closed, her jaw is clenched, and her body je…”
“…ry falwell’s worst nightmare — heaving breasts constricted by her high-collared, long-sleeved blouse, a dainty gold cross suspended over them like a pitchfork resting on a haystack.”
This is fun.
jack*
May 13, 2006 at 4:33 pm
10I love it how you grasp, let alone manage to express so clearly, how spectacularly Schrodinger’s thought experiment backfired. Rather than seeing the problems in quantum theory that needed explaining, instead people embraced the paradox itself. It must be somewhat disheartening to be seen as the poster boy for the public love affair with macroscopic superposition.
Harold
May 13, 2006 at 5:36 pm
11Did I ever mention that in college I started a club called the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Hypothetical Animals? “Every day, countless hypothetical animals are subjected to cruel and inhumane ‘thought experiments’ performed by heartless, uncaring Physicists…”
cooper
May 13, 2006 at 7:17 pm
12…er, dee, maybe two haystacks.
Linkmeister
May 14, 2006 at 2:38 am
13That was indeed a good WWDTM performance, and Hanks was downright funny.
“Her eyes are closed, her jaw is clenched, and her body jejune, which doesn’t preclude appreciation by us, dear reader; Nabokov taught us that.”
waterfowler
May 14, 2006 at 10:36 am
14Happy MotherFelber’s Day y’all.
cooper
May 14, 2006 at 8:02 pm
15fowler, you ol’ softy. But it was good of you to mention that. Me too, Ms Layton - Happy Mother’s Day.
cooper
May 14, 2006 at 8:25 pm
16BTW Adam, good show this week. All of you guys got in some good lines. I thought Paula’s quip about “Yes they do serve concessions” at the courthouse was particularly well received by the house. I enjoyed it. And (yawn) you won again.
David
May 14, 2006 at 11:16 pm
17Living in Jebland, which has entirely too many Falwellians, not to mention a gaggle of local heavenly hucksters, including no less than the Healing Helmet-Hair Guy (any more, Orlando attracts them like excrement attracts flies), I’ve got to say, Great finish-the-sentence contributions.
Thank you, Adam, for the heads up on this week’s WW,DTM. I had to take exceptional measures to get to listen to it, and I’ve got to say it was one of the best. You, Paula, and Charley (sp?) make a great threesome.
I Googled to try to find out the correct spelling, but had to settle for Charles P. Pierce. I already loved the guy, but his bio cinched it. It’s got to be fun for all three of you to work a show together. It was damned sure fun listening to the three of you work it. And kudos to the people who did all the work to put this one together. It is a keeper.
David
May 14, 2006 at 11:45 pm
18It’s Charlie. Damn, my mind jumped right past the one time it appears in the bio and went directly to the reference to WW,DTM. Glad I went back and read it again.
Maximum Bob
May 15, 2006 at 1:31 am
19It was Roy, no? That “Fishin’ Accomplished” line was great.
And the “I’m president?” line was priceless.
Very funny show.
Jeffrey
May 15, 2006 at 7:49 am
20Best Wait, Wait in a very long time. Hysterical.
Sharon
May 15, 2006 at 10:32 am
21Has Patrick Fitzgerald reached inside the Oval Office?
David
May 15, 2006 at 11:45 am
22Thanks for the correction, Maximum Bob. Yeah, it was Roy, dammit. I was trying to remember which one it was and heard Roy’s voice but Charlie’s name in what appears to be my crumbling mind. Hope neither Charlie nor Roy reads the post and finds out I got their names mixed up. They are both terrrific.
Old Mother Felber
May 15, 2006 at 12:17 pm
23Thanks for the Mother’s Day greetings, Cooper and Waterfowler….(uhm… what a great name for a firm. Cooper and Waterfowler, for all your sporting needs. Cooper and Watefowler, Poulterers: barrels of birds.)
Anyway - thank you!
Landis
May 15, 2006 at 1:39 pm
24I did a stint driving all the streets of Boston for the A9 “BlockView” images project and I’ve got to say that you’ve described the streets perfectly. I swear that there are a couple places where every street that comes into a rotary or a square is one-way going IN. People have been stuck in those things for years.
I had one drive in which the it was actually impossible to get to a street that had normal traffic on it. I asked a police officer how to get there and he started to explain it and then realizing he couldn’t even explain it decided to stop traffic and send me the wrong way down a one-way street just to make it to this other one. It’s absolutely crazy.
siobhan
May 15, 2006 at 1:48 pm
25ABC is reporting that the feds are checking numbers their reporters have called in searching for leakers. Same thing for Washington Post and NY Times.
But don’t worry, this is only being done to catch terrorists.
Jim
May 15, 2006 at 3:09 pm
26Not to worry Siobhan.
All the reporters need to do at this point, is just leave several messages in Rove’s, Cheney’s, and Bush’s voice mail.
I think something along the line of “Bush is a rascal” would be an appropriate message.
Flood the top folks with phone calls, (maybe get an auto-dialer from the tweens that vote for American Idol) and the finger will starting pointing in the right direction.
Excuse, me somebody’s at the door…..
dee
May 15, 2006 at 3:11 pm
27Oh that’s probably just the DC and New York Al-Queda cells calling to complain that damned kid threw their paper in the rose bushes again.
Sharon
May 15, 2006 at 3:19 pm
28First they came for the journalists…..
Mary
May 16, 2006 at 12:00 pm
29To quote my husband, who has lived in both Boston and NYC, “New York drivers are aggressive. Boston drivers are creative.” Now I understand.
Annie
May 17, 2006 at 5:25 am
30August is too far and the wait is killing me. Its hard to wait for such a long period.
Building mystery!!!
David
May 17, 2006 at 10:58 am
31Hope the journalists are finally starting to catch on, Sharon. In particular, I hope that the FBI’s gathering of the phone records of journalists forces the major organizations to admit what the hell is afoot here.
I do like what one of the target journalists said, namely that if the FBI is going to do this, it’s time for more investigative shoe leather.
But I think the only real hope is for the MSM to become aggressive, unrelenting champions of the re-establishment of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights as the most sacred American document, and the only thing to which patriotic Americans owe their allegiance.
I think we are at the point that the MSM either develop actual non-gender cojones or else be prepared to enjoy full-spectrum journalistic castration.
mike
May 20, 2006 at 6:06 am
32Congrats on the first anniversary of the “live in Chicago”. All the best for the launch of the website of your book.
Thanks for posting the reviews but its hard to wait till August!!!