Posted by Jason Diamond I know he probably hates to be thought of as “Blane from Pretty in Pink,” “guy in the Less Than Zero film adaptation” or “tolerable dude in Weekend at Bernie’s,” but until 30 seconds ago that’s what I always thought of when I thought about Andrew McCarthy. So it was something of a surprise to learn McCarthy is a travel writer that is good enough to win Travel Writer of the Year by the Society of […]
A Sad Ass Attempt to Explain Why I Liked Richard Yates by Tao Lin
Posted by Jason Diamond Melville House 208 Pages Tuesday was the official release date of Tao Lin’s latest book, Richard Yates. Judging by the fact that this is the our second post in two days that talks about Tao, I feel comfortable saying that it’s officially Tao Lin week in Vol. 1 land. Since I started paying attention to his work, I’ve noticed there are several different schools of thought regarding Lin as a person and as a writer: People […]
Huffington Post Books Attempts to Create Bret Easton Ellis Scoop, Fails
Huffington Post Books tweeted that Bret Easton Ellis had broken his silence over controversial Twitter comments he made right after J.D. Salinger died. Me and about fifteen other dorks would really care, but the thing is, he talked about that months ago in an interview with Vice: Well, you’ve written my favorite Twitter that anybody’s ever written. What? The Salinger one. On the day he died, you posted: “Yeah!! Thank God he’s finally dead. I’ve been waiting for this day […]
Should I Trust the Good Taste of Todd Zuniga?
Todd Zuniga (Opium, Literary Death Match) has good taste, and he seemed to like Imperial Bedrooms. Is this the final clue from God that I should read the (possibly terrible) follow up to one of my favorite books ever? The dark undergrounds of real-deal metropolitan cities (NYC, SF, LA, London, etc.) can be grim, horrifying places. We’ve all heard stories (or at least seen Requiem for a Dream). I don’t have the constitution to live in this world, though I […]
From Sam Lipsyte to Hot Tub Time Machine in Less Than Ten Words
The Daily Beast discusses how Generation X writers (in this case, Bret Easton Ellis and Jennifer Egan) seem depressed as they enter, or in the midst of, middle age: Imperial Bedrooms is not great, but in its better moments the novel contributes to our culture’s rich seam of aging slacker angst. Correction: aging male slacker angst. Aren’t there any bummed-out women past the age of 35 expressing their feelings? Egan it seems, like so many other artists and writers of […]
Guy Obsessed With Kerouac Realizes Bret Easton Ellis is no Jack Kerouac
In his review of Imperial Bedrooms, Jay Atkinson mentions Kerouac (who he wrote a book on), Bukowski, Jim Carroll, Walt Whitman, and Thoreau, all to make that point that Bret Easton Ellis is not as good as any of them. I also really like this line: “Of course, Ellis’s new book is laden with the obligatory references to Ambien, Grey Goose vodka, Josh Hartnett, Kevin Spacey, “Lost,’’ et al, brand names that are meant to be “relatable,’’ I suppose. But […]
Things I Like About This Week’s New Yorker
1. Bastard Noise gets a shout out. This gives all my high school crust punk fantasies some validation. 2. The Imperial Bedrooms review is tiny. So tiny that I am led to believe there is nothing good to gain from this book. 3. Peter Schjeldahl on the Charles Burchfield retrospective at The Whitney. 4. Nora Ephron parodies Stieg Larsson.
Song Titled “Bret Easton Ellis Novel” is Surprisingly Good
Netherfriends wrote a really good song with Bret Easton Ellis’ name in the title. For this, I salute them.