In Stewart O’Nan’s The Odds, the Drink is Marriage on Niagara’s Rocks

Michael van Baker — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:47:06 +0000

I don't want to quote too much from The Odds, by Stewart O'Nan, because it's a small book, about 180 pages, and his style isn't the pyrotechnic kind that, in a paragraph, leaves you wide-eyed. I'd just end up giving things away. The Los Angeles Times called him "the spokesperson of the regular person," and you can see what they were getting at, but O'Nan's gift is to somehow, through building up the stream of life's matters of fact, surmount them.

Joshua Mohr’s Damascus and Keeping on the Sordid Side of Life

Michael van Baker — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 00:01:13 +0000

Mohr writes out the sordid heart of San Francisco--specifically, the Mission District--and if you've spent much time by the Bay, you'll recognize that unsettling warm-sewer-whiff-in-the-street urbanity that permeates his books. It's a radical empathy with, or even in preference for, the stinky side of life that, mostly unseen, underlies everything.

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In Stewart O’Nan’s The Odds, the Drink is Marriage on Niagara’s Rocks

Joshua Mohr’s Damascus and Keeping on the Sordid Side of Life