THE FINAL NOMINEE - THE PORNOGRAPHER'S POEM

Michael Turner's The Pornographer's Poem (Soft Skull Press) is a novel that the Guardian called "Salinger with a strap-on."   That's the kind of endorsement that gets attention ... well, it gets mine, anyway.   According to our fellow LBC member The Literary Saloon, it's a book that got precious little review attention, which is a shame because it happens to be our personal favorite of the books we read for round one.

As the Soft Skull website informs us, "it is 1974 and radical teacher Penny Singleton is turning a class of 7th graders into a filmmaking collective. Her conviction and technical expertise ignite a passion between the unnamed young male narrator and his best friend, the budding art scholar and poet Nettie, who begin making pornographic movies together in an attempt to understand the hedonism and shame circulating behind the town’s white picket fences. From the naiveté of their first grope to the shooting of their feature “Rich Kid Gang Bang,” the two teenagers attempt to re-make the world in an image acceptable to them, while the adult world—with its brutal and disposable people, its money and sickness—attempts to seduce and destroy them. As Nettie pushes the narrator to make even more subversive and liberating films, he finds himself tumbling deeper into a world of greed, hypocrisy and unexpectedly, a redemptive and transcendent love."

The novel, which is winner of Ethel Wilson Book Award for Fiction in Canada and celebrated as the Best Book of the Year in France by Technihaut magazine, is written in clean, straightforward prose and the narrative moves swiftly through the sequences that give birth to the nascent pornographer of the title.  Despite its rough subject matter, it's a humane and moving book - not to mention blackly funny at turns. 

You can check out this interview with Soft Skull publisher Richard Nash, in which he discusses acquiring The Pornographer's Poem.  And there's also a January magazine interview with the author himself.

Next week, the Minority Opinion will discuss their dissent from the READ THIS selection.  And we hope to have Kate Atkinson joining us here soon.

Comments

[Jozef Imrich]

Great choice!

BTW, Speaking of prons and cons of choices, 'I remember a time when Playboy was the pornography of choice for young men everywhere. Now, sheesh'

http://bayosphere.com/blog/craig_weiler/20050623/independent_film_making_pron_for_the_teenagers
[Independent Film Making: prOn for the teenagers]

[Justine]

How odd. I was reflecting a bit on slash fiction only to jump over here and find a title like THE PORNOGRAPHER'S POEM. Perhaps it's a sign. I'll have to order it immediately.

Sounds like another intriguing novel that I would have missed out on completely if not for LBC. I will indeed read this (and pay more attention to Soft Skull in general). Thanks again.

[Sabra Wineteer]

On a only slightly related note...does anyone know of women writers who write edgier novels? Do these writers even exist?

[LouisB]

Sabra, I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'edgier' exactly, but I just finished Mo Hayder's The Devil of Nanking and it'll positively curl your hair.

[Sabra Wineteer]

Let's see how coherent I can be before the caffeine's fully kicked in this morning.

Sometimes I think I am looking for present-day literature which doesn't exist. I want to see the writers of my generation (Gen X) weigh in on meaty issues and do so with characters that aren't as flat as pancakes.

I have gotten less than 100 pages into Jonathan Franzen's _The Corrections_ (hardback) and I have lost interest because the characters seem as though they are made of cardboard. I just finished page 55 of Jonathan Safran Foer's _Everything Is Illuminated_ (also hardback) and I am having to push myself through and motivate myself to read further. I find it too kitschy to hold my interest when the characters are not fully actualized. Eugenides has done a better job with his two books, though I wouldn't say either were character-driven novels. Moreover, with the former two authors, the female characters seem non-existent to ancilliary.

To me, third wave feminism's role in present-day gender issues has as much to do with men (and in my acquaintanceship even more so) than with the way women view themselves. I think for the first time in history the balance of the masculine and feminine within each gender is more complete and reflective of the Yin and Yang. I have seen very little of this in the literature of my generation whether it's from male or female writers.

[Lauren Baratz-Logsted]

Sabra, you could always try reading my books! You may hate them, but my characters are never pancakes. :) And if you want to read a male writer who does women well, give Arturo Perez-Reverte a shot, in particular his latest, The Queen of the South. One of the things I love about him is how he loves and respects women; in his books, they are smart, strong - hell, they're usually smarter and stronger than his men.

[Justine]

Sabra, I can't help thinking that the edgier novels written by women of our generation are out there (and will multiply)... they're just hard to find... They're coming out from the small presses, for one thing...It seems that anything female-written coming out from the major publishers gets bent and shoved into chick-lit or some variation of chick-lit...Hell, I suspect if my publisher could have slapped a perky pink cover (featuring a martini glass and a high-heeled shoe) on a dark-fantasy novel featuring demonic violence and the like, they would have done it with mine, simply because its protagonist and writer are both youngish and female.

Have you tried THE BITCH POSSE, by Martha O'Connor? I haven't read it, but it does seem like she's at least attempting to do what you want to read.

[Sabra Wineteer]

Thanks for the references, y'all. _The Bitch Posse_ looks up my alley and a bit like the edge of my first novel. St. Martin's Press, too. There is hope!

[bookdwarf]

I also recommend Sabina Murray. Her first book, a collection of stories called 'Caprices' was excellent. Her second book 'A Carnivore's Inquiry' was less good, but still interesting.

[Justine]

I loved A CARNIVORE'S INQUIRY.

Am waiting for her next book.

[Justine]

Sabra -- maybe the next big publishing trend will be anti chick-lit. That would be cool. :)

Btw - Martha's former agent read the first 50 pages of an early draft of POSSE and actively discouraged her from continuing it, on the grounds it was 'too dark' (Martha found a new agent). And yet the book went to auction. So maybe the success of POSSE and also of PREP, which is not as candy-coated as the cover makes it out to be, will open up the field a bit.

[Sabra Wineteer]

I hereby dub the movement Third Wave Lit (for what it's worth) and will be posting a manifesto at thirdwavelit.blogspot.com after I get my social drama fix.

[Sabra Wineteer]

I have the first post up on thirdwavelit.blogspot.com and have opened up a discussion about it. Please feel free to come by and comment. For Chick and Dick Lit writers and those who feel their writing is the edgier versions of these two genres, feel free to email me your links to include. There will also be space for lit bloggers' links, though I request that you specify if you blog about a specific literature (crime, fantasy, etc.) or lit in general that you specify.

[genevieve]

Linda Jaivin's "Eat Me" is an older title and perhaps you could include it in your links when you get them up - an Australian grrl's take on erotica in the late 90's. Not quite your generation perhaps? but maybe worth a look.

[Justine]

Also, have you read Susan Choi? AMERICAN WOMAN and THE FOREIGN STUDENT are both excellent.

Another young female writer I like is Alix Ohlin -- she's written some terrific short stories -- and has a first novel out called THE MISSING PERSON.

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