Book Recs

Staff Picks: Volume I

Photo of Benjamin Rybeck

Benjamin Rybeck

Fog
  1. . 
    Aug 9 - Fog

    Aug 9 - Fog

    By Kathryn Scanlan

    Years ago, writer Kathryn Scanlan bought the diary of an old woman at an estate auction. She did so on a whim, not knowing the woman, who began the diary at 86 years old and used it to chronicle the minutiae of her days in a small Illinois town. Scanlan, obsessed with this stranger’s voice, began to cut it up, rearrange the words, and the result is Aug 9 – Fog, a book that feels as intimate as the best fiction. It’s a sad and lonely voice that seems to emerge out of snow and time, whispering about the mundane in a way that becomes truly universal and beautiful. It feels a little bit like The Conet Project, the record that collected the haunting voices of shortwave radio station operators. What purpose did these voices have in cutting through the silence? What purpose does anyone’s voice have? Through this woman’s words, Scanlan creates a book of unknown origin and profound impact. A slim and unclassifiable volume, Scanlan’s work rises above the esoteric into something that feels genuinely moving.

  2. . 
    Dream Sequence

    Dream Sequence

    By Adam Foulds

    Brittle and blistering with humor, Foulds’ novel captures celebrity and its insanities as well as any book I’ve ever read. His protagonist is a British actor known only for his performance in a Downtown Abbey-like melodrama. He may be on the verge of his “moment” though: a great director (compared to Stanley Kubrick and Paul Thomas Anderson) has come calling, casting the actor as the lead in his next opus. Will the actor embrace this opportunity and give it his best? Or will he squander it on nights spent in unfamiliar environments with unsettling companions, all because squandering opportunities is the hallowed right of the famous? Added to this, Foulds gives us another character that pops up occasionally: a suburban woman with an unhealthy fixation on the actor. Obsession burns throughout this book, nearly lighting the pages on fire, all of it lit by the spark of Foulds’ masterful wit and his insight into lives of unfocused ambition.

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    Dream Sequence
  3. . 
    On the High Wire

    On the High Wire

    By Philippe Petit

    Translated by Paul Auster

    No, I have never been, as Petit puts it, “on the high wire,” nor do I ever plan to be. Too high up there, too frightening, and I would never trust my own focus enough to put one foot in front of the next and walk out on something so thin, suspended, the ground dangerously below me. Thank God there are people like Petit, though, the artist who most famously walked between the two towers of the World Trade Center (you may have seen the great documentary, Man On Wire, which chronicled this feat). And thank God there are artists like Paul Auster, who fell in love with Petit’s work and translated from the French this book of…what? instructions? musings? poetry? Petit writes eloquently of the feelings of suspension, providing a handbook that’s gloriously useless, because who the hell would ever think to try to do what he does? Well, somebody will. Somebody must. Otherwise we’d never have artists like Petit.

About the Author

Benjamin Rybeck

[email protected]

Benjamin Rybeck comes to the Center for Fiction from Brazos Bookstore (in Houston), where he worked for five years, first as marketing/events director, then as general manager. Prior to that, he taught writing at the University of Arizona, where he also received his MFA. His writing has received special mention in The Best American Nonrequired Reading and The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and his work appears in Electric Literature, Guernica, Houston Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews, Lit Hub, Ninth Letter, The Rumpus, The Seattle Review, The Texas Observer, and elsewhere. In 2016, Unnamed Press published his debut novel, The Sadness.

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