Excerpt: Brin Friesen's Sic. and The Domino Diaries

The Excerpt Reader met Brin Friesen par hasard, as the French say.. 


A chance encounter in Facebook set me mail-to-mail with this young and audacious writer.


Friesen (self proclaimed 'a lumbering soul but trying to fly..' & 'The greatest looking author since Byron,') is the first ever and, to date, perhaps the only writer able to boast the seemingly-dubious title 'Author/Boxing Coach'( Self employed, that is).

But on a more 'serious' note..


Friesen (b.1979) grew up in Vancouver and later lived in Madrid and Havana. He debuted in 2006 with a novel named Sic. (from the Latin. Meaning "thus," "so," "as such," or "in such a manner..." The book was published by and/or Press, an anonymous publishing house which has published, to date, Friesen's novel and the novel of one D.R. Haney, Banned for Life, relating the story of Jim Cassady, the quasi-legendary punk-rock frontman who disappeared without a trace shortly after his girlfriend’s apparent suicide. 


Sic tells the story of a young boy, Jasper Finch, and his vicious junior high school years. The book was optioned for film the year it was published. It also won Friesen the Eric Hoffer Award 2009 for "Legacy Fiction," and was shortlisted for the Grand Award Prize. 


To get the average reader better acquainted with Friesen's world and work, the Excerpt Reader has held a brief interview with him. Here it is:

                                        ***

* Who is Brin Friesen?

I flunked out of high school and decided to hustle speed chess and teach people how to box while working on my first novel. I traveled around a lot. I lived in New York, Spain, and Havana off and on since 2000. In Havana I trained under Olympic boxing coaching and hatched an idea about a book on the role of boxing in Cuba and how the boxer's struggle has always been a metaphor in that society for the Cuban struggle. Still working on it.


* Why do you write?

Literature is my favorite company. I get lonely pretty easy. I like trying to get even with places and people that have my number. I always felt a little double-parked where I was born, so I had to try and shipwreck into strange places and people to see if I could do any better and feel at home.


* How would you best describe your books?


I'd describe my fiction as my best attempt to make sense of things that never made any sense to me in real life. My first book was about the best and worst day of my life happening on the *same* day: first kiss, first beating. The Cuba stuff is just an extension of the most fascinating place and people I've ever met and a lot of the work of George Orwell holding a candle in the dark about how to organize what I set it down.


* Who is your ideal reader?

My ideal reader is someone who brings all their prejudices and personal biases to my work intact as much as possible. Salinger was onto something when he dedicated one of his books to amateur readers. Individuals are the only people I've ever cared for or been interested in. The less they've been fucked around with, the better.


* Who is your ideal writer?

My ideal writers are probably the ones I dismissed at one stage only to find them waiting for me with a smirk when I came around. To me that's where the real loot is with literature: you have to come to it when you're ready. It's always waiting for you. By and large they go even further, too. Every time you return to their books they've changed along with you. If you've grown and brought more to it, it can offer a little more as well. I'm very greedy for anything in the world that the more time you spend with it the less you understand.


* How much of your fiction is autobiographic?


Plenty of my fiction is autobiographical. I think it's mainly a case of those moments that really shape you or disintegrate your reality - most of which you can't accept or really deal and maintain your identity - that necessitates exploring them in a fictional or fantasy realm. I fall victim to this all the time in fiction. Mainly I write about kids at an age where what scars them scars them for life and what compasses they find support them for life also. Both become a kind of fetish in a way, like the tune fairy tale girls hum or whistle when they find themselves alone in the darkness of a forest. I'm not convinced people walk away from much. We just look for new things to cope.


                                        ***

Friesen's provided the Reader's followers with an excerpt from his debut novel, Sic. 


The opening of the book reminds one of 'youth culture' movies (well, filmed from a more 'elderly' point of view) such as Gus Van Sant's Elephant and his Paranoid Park. The life therein described is a 'normal', day-to-day life. But you know there's catastrophe around the corner, lurking..




At the moment, Friesen's preoccupied with a new book, "The Domino Diaries", that's intended to be published soon, and which will also be released as a documentary film called "Hero, Traitor, Madness" (Friesen's filmed most of the interviews for the book and he intends to use them for this documentary.)

The book is an essay of sorts about Cuba, written through Friesen's highly individual and exceptional prism of Boxing, though it could well be read as a diary as well, or as a carnet de voyage, as the French like to call them.

You can get acquainted with some chapters from the book here.


VERDICT: BUY IT (because Boxing isn't only for dummies. & Brin Friesen is a living example of it.)

Excerpt: Lisa Birnbach & Chip Kidd's True Prep: It's a Whole New Old World

Needless to say, the Excerpt Reader adores book excerpts.


So it should come as no surprise at all if, upon a chance encounter with such an excerpt (and in his favorite non-literary magazine, of all places! - I'm referring to Vanity Fair, naturellement - 'The average Wasp's guide to every day life'), the Reader should be obliged to run and tell its readers all about it.


Well, what is it about this time, you ask?!


Oh hang on! I'm just about to tell you all about it.. But first read the excerpt yourself!
                              
                               ***


Some 31 years after publishing The Official Preppy Handbook in 1980 (gosh, has it been that long since the eighties??) - a book that 'cracked the Wasp code-and went on to become a huge best-seller' (did it? the Reader has never heard of it! Then again, it was born in 1979..) - editor and co-author Lisa Birnbach let's us have a glimpse at an excerpt from the update, entitled True Prep.


The new book, True Prep: It's a Whole New Old World (as the excerpt makes us understand) helps redefine 'preppy' and covers "the inevitable changes that are piercing blissful bubbles from Deer Isle to Jackson Hole" (with a short stop at such inventions as The Internet, Facebook, Mp3 - inventions that might seem today obvious to today's average joe-shmoe but to the average 1980's Prep are quite not, I'm sure.


So what is preppy??


Well, I'm glad you asked! Preppy is what preppy does (and wears, of course!) 
It is at once a 'lifestyle' and a vocation.
You can be born 'preppy' or turn into one as you grow older and acquire good taste, but be the circumstances as they may, you shouldn't ever ever fake it, as Birnbach makes it quite clear, in the following 'rule': 


You may wear a Harvard sweatshirt if: you attended Harvard, your spouse attended Harvard, or your children attend Harvard. Otherwise, you are inviting an uncomfortable question.

Well, enough prep-talk! Let's talk turkey!


Here are some preppy rules every average private-school Wasp, or any other preppy-wannabe should follow:


 - No drinking at lunch.


Well, that's a nice one. And very hard to follow if you belong to that whole New England social scene, or own a summer house in the Hamptons, but actually live there all year round..



O.K so how about some Fashion Rules ('preppy' is all about personal appearances, if you haven't understood by now..):



 - Your underwear must not show! Wear a nude-colored strapless bra. Pull up your pants. Wear a belt. Do something. Use a tie!

 - We do not display our wit through T-shirt slogans.
 - Nose rings are never preppy.
 - Neither (shudder) are belly-button piercings.
 - Nor are (two shudders) tongue studs..
And that goes for ankle bracelets as well!


But wait, there's more:


 - Every preppy woman has a friend who is a jewelry designer.
 - No man bags.
 - Preppies don't perm their hair.
 - Preppy men do not believe that comb-overs disguise anything.
 - You can never go wrong with a trench coat.
 - Sweat suits are for sweating. You can try to get away with wearing sweats to carpool, to pick up the newspaper, or to drive to the dump, but last time you were at the dump, the drop-dead-attractive widower from Maple Lane was there, too.

or how about Tattoos: 


 - Men who have been in a war have them, and that's one thing. (Gang wars don't count.)

Some more 'rules':


 - Women over the age of 15 may wear a simple black dress. Women over the age of 21 must have several in rotation.
 - High-heel rule: You must be able to run in them—on cobblestones, on a dock, in case of a spontaneous foot race.
 - Real suspenders are attached with buttons. We do not wear the clip versions.

 - Learn how to tie your bow tie. Do not invest in clip-ons.


...but MOST important:


We do not wear our cell phones or BlackBerrys suspended from our belts. (That includes you, President Obama.)



Thinking of going on holiday? Don't forgert to take your preppy handbook with you, and adhere to the following commandments:


 - Thou shalt not fly first-class. 
 - Thou shalt use thy frequent-flier miles whenever possible. 
 - Thou mayest fly business class if thy destination is more than five hours away.    
 - On board, the wine will not be fine; therefore drinkest beer or spirits.  -  - 
 - Naturellement, thou never wearest shorts, sweatpants, or flip-flops on an airplane, and thou shalt attempt not to sit next to a miscreant in such garments. 
 - If thou takest a sleeping pill, thou must try not to snore, Pookie. 


and on and on it goes..


VERDICT: DON'T BUY (Unless you've ever had a VF article written about you ..)


P.S. Haven't had enough?! Read on

Excerpt: Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey

On 'normal days', the Excerpt Reader consider itself a right expert in everything literary, especially when it comes to fiction..


There are are a few cases, though, when the Excerpt chooses to stick to the ninth amendment, and opt for the right to remain silent, rather than blabber on about literary works adhering to genres relatively obscure to the Reader.


Those genres may vary from science to science fiction, say (fantasy included), thrillers (espionage or crime novels, the Reader can do without reading most of them..) or Historical novels, baah.


The novels of Jasper Fforde, versatile as they may be, adhere to none of the above genres, yet they would still featured high on the Reader's reading-priority list, if it had one..


So much so, that the Reader has actually purchased, a few years back and on a half-whim, Fforde's third published novel, The Well of Lost Plots (2003), placed it in its library, and has almost completely forgotten all about it since, let alone read it. It stand there ever-since, lonely, a living monument of the Reader's inability to think outside the box, or read outside the box, for that matter.


When news of a 'new' Fforde novel, Shades of Grey, published late last year, came to its ears, the Reader had to call in the experts.


A Jesper-Excerpt came immediately to my rescue, in the form of a dear friend, writer and blogger. 


Here's what she thought of Fforde's novel:


                                       ***
First some background.. 

When I heard there was a book about a literary detective called Thursday Next, where people move freely between our world and fiction, and where fictional characters like Jane Eyre are kidnapped from her book, I simply had to get my hands on it at once and read it.. 


I love English literature, and the world created by Jasper Fforde, where Shakespearians have fist-fights with Marlovians on the street, and "Richard the 3rd" is a cult show with audience participation, made a lot of sense to me. 


Coming from a 'decorous' yet at-most-times informal cultural background, I also think that what people refer to as 'high-culture' should not be something revered and admired from afar, but rather something to love, have fun with and enjoy. 


And Fforde sure knows how to do that..


There is a wonderful world to be found in Fforde's writings. For example, in the Thursday Next quadrilogy one discovers that Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations is addicted to car racing and that David Copperfield killed his first wife Dora, and was arrested and replaced by a clone – which, as literary criticism, is actually very much to the point! 


The fourth Thursday Next book appealed to me less than the first three, maybe because – although it has some Hamlet in it – it is more about politics than about literature. 


I haven't read the second series by Fforde, the one featuring Jack Spratt solving nursery crimes. Maybe it was my laziness and maybe Humpty Dumpty and other nursery characters didn't appeal to me as much as Mr. Rochester. 


And now to the chase..


At the Excerpt Reader's request, I have read a few of the opening pages of Fforde's new book, Shades Of Grey, which "imagines a screwball future in which social castes and protocols are rigidly defined by acuteness of personal color perception. Centuries after the cryptically cataclysmic Something That Happened, a Colortocracy, founded on the inflexible absolutes of the chromatic scale, rules the world. Amiable Eddie Russett, a young Red, is looking forward to marrying a notch up on the palette and settling down to a complacent bourgeois life. But after meeting Jane G-23, a rebellious working-class Grey, and a discredited, invisible historian known as the Apocryphal man, Eddie finds himself questioning the hitherto sacred foundations of the status quo". 

Sounds witty and brilliant, but didn't it make you a little bit dizzy? 


And as for the excerpt, it was very vivid, starting in medias res, piling up adventures and then going back to relate the circumstances, and it was apparent that Fforde is no less brilliant than he ever was, but I guess for me the Ffordian ffun and ffrolic are a little too much when they're not directly connected to my favourite subject.


Instead of reading Shades of Grey, I might just take a candle to my bedside and read some Victorian literature, fondly remembering Heathcliff's bad behaviour during group therapy in Wuthering Heights. 


                                        ***


VERDICT: BUY IT (because every book by Fforde is loads of Ffun)


& Tx again, Lee, for this insightful reading.

What should the Excerpt Reader read??

Please help the Excerpt Reader decide what excerpt it should read and review next.


Tell me which book should be next, or suggest a title of your own:

David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. 

THE BIG ONE. The BIG Kahuna. You know those HUGE-ASS novels (not to be confused with those BIG-ASS novels that are only 500-700 pages long..) I'm talking about the DOORSTOPPERS.. I mean the ones you buy knowing you'll never finish; let alone get to their middle; let alone get through their first 100 pages; let lone even bother to open them..

I'm talking about Tolstoy's War and Peace; Jonathan Little's The Kindly Ones; Victor Hugo's Les Miserables; J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (well, if you're nerdy enough, you did get through that one, and most probably more than once..); Almost any book by Stephen King (again, unless if you're a nerd..)


Well, I bought this one, and I won't ever open it unless you ask me to. And that's a promise!!




John Le Carré's Our Kind of Traitor. His 22nd novel.


He's been keeping espionage-novel addicts busy for nearly half a century and this October he's got another one out. A true celebration for Le Carré's enthusiasts. 


The Excerpt Reader has found itself more than once delving into Le Carré's novels, only to come out a much more paranoid, skeptic individual..


Though most of his greatest novels (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; Smiley's People; A Perfect Spy) have a touch of the autobiographic in them, the Reader's still waiting for that ultimate Autobiography. He might not make it! Le Carré's almost 79..



Frédéric Beigbeder's Un roman français.


It's true what they say.. If you've read one of Beigbeder's novels (say 99 francs; L'Amour Dure Trois Ans (French Edition)) then you've read the whole lot.


And yet, with every one of his novels you find yourself reading, you find out he has a little more to say, after all..


About what, you ask? Well, about nothing much.


Love, sex, money.. The whole enchilada..











Paul-Auster's Sunset Park.


I'd lost faith in Paul Auster a long time ago.. 


Say after reading The Music of Chance and losing interest in it midway..


But I am willing to do the Excerpt's readers the complimentary service of reading this new book's (out November) excerpt and reviewing it here.


Who knows?! It might just make me want to go back to reading him..

Gabriel García Márquez' next novel. Or autobiography. 


Really, anything will do. 


The Excerpt Reader doesn't mean to sound too demanding, but hey, we were promised a "novel of love" in 2008.. and what about two other volumes in his autobiography, Vivir para contarla? So what if he's 83?! We want BEEF! 


Well, that's me for now.


And YES, I know it's only 5 books but hey, if you've found nothing interesting here, you're welcome to leave a comment OR drop me an email at excerpt_reader@yahoo.com.


SO LONG (and thanks for all the fish!)