Be Brief and Tell Them Everything by Brad Listi is a novel of autofiction. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “A darkly funny meditation on creativity and family, Be Brief and Tell Them Everything tracks the life of a middle-aged author who is struggling to write his next novel while trying to come to grips with his son's disabilities, set against a backdrop of ecological catastrophe and escalating human insanity in contemporary Los Angeles. A beautiful, powerful, concise work of autofiction that is reminiscent of My Struggle and Grief is the Thing with Feathers, Be Brief documents the stops and starts of adulthood and marriage, and the joys and challenges of parenting, while defining what it means to be a good man, and a good writer.”

The fictional Brad in this novel is very similar to real-life Brad Listi. They both are married with children and live in Los Angeles and host a podcast about a writer talking to other writers. It’s difficult to tell from listening to Brad on his podcast and reading Brad’s thoughts in his novel where—or if—the two “Brads” diverge. Certainly, they’re the same person, right? That’s the conundrum, but what a fun one to read and explore.

Autofiction is a flavor of fictionalized autobiography, heightening the question of what is real and what is embellished. In television, think of Seinfeld. In movies, think Almost Famous. In other recent literature, think of The Red-Headed Pilgrim by Kevin Maloney. In most cases, there’s a modification of real-life events or the invention of subplots or tangents that help in the search for the self—the examination of the author’s “character.” The embellishing in this book procures comedic gold. Be Brief is observationally funny as Brad picks apart the positive and negative aspects of the city of Los Angeles, the lunacy of the endless failures and iterations of writing books, the foibles of parenting by people who have barely figured out their own lives, along with the untimely deaths of his loved ones and the guilt from being raised Catholic.

The Theory of Light and Matter by Andrew Porter is a book of short stories categorized as literary fiction. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “These ten stories take us across the country—from rural Pennsylvania to Southern California to suburban Connecticut—and deep into characters struggling to find meaning in their day-to-day lives. The Theory of Light and Matter is a stunningly astute vision of contemporary American suburbia, full of tension, heartbreak, and emotional complexity—the work of an important new voice. Long Listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.”

Earlier this year, I read the new collection The Disappeared by Andrew Porter and knew I’d have to dive into this earlier collection by the same author. There is a different cast of characters in this one, an array of disaffected yet searching narrators looking for meaning in their lives when they aren’t receiving answers from their loved ones or friends or neighbors. All of the stories are told in first-person and are intimate retellings of very personal situations and memories.

“Azul” is about a husband’s awkward relationship to a foreign exchange student—who is named Azul—and the close relationship the student has to the narrator’s wife. The narrator—Paul—is baffled by how close his wife becomes with Azul and often wonders why he’s tasked with driving Azul to his lover’s place. Paul often delights in observing Azul’s spats with his gay lover Ramón. When they break up, Paul unwittingly invites Ramón to a house party for Azul with unsettling results.

The Red-Headed Pilgrim by Kevin Maloney is a humorous novel of literary autofiction. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “On a sunny day in a business park near Portland, Oregon, 42-year-old web developer Kevin Maloney is in the throes of an existential crisis that finds him shoeless in a field of Queen Anne's lace, reflecting on the tumultuous events that brought him to this moment. Thus begins a journey of hard-earned insights and sexual awakening that takes Kevin from angst-ridden Beaverton to the beaches of San Diego, a frontier-themed roadside attraction in Helena, Montana, and a hermetic shack on an organic lettuce farm. Everything changes when Kevin falls in love with Wendy. After a chance tarot reading lands them on the frigid coast of Maine, their lives are unsettled by the birth of their daughter, Zoë, whose sudden presence is oftentimes terrifying, frequently disturbing, and yet--miraculously--always wondrous. The Red-Headed Pilgrim is an irresistible novel of misadventure and new beginnings, of wanderlust and bad decisions, of parenthood and divorce, and of the heartfelt truths we unearth when we least expect it.”

Main character “Kevin Maloney” is a fictionalized version of author Kevin Maloney and the book opens with him wondering how he fossilized into the day-job that was only supposed to last for a short time, but stretched into twelve years. What he really wanted to do was see the world or join a monastery or live in the woods shunning modern society and bellowing a “barbaric yawp.” Kevin wonders what happened? He recounts his younger years through his twenties with the verve and idiocy of Bukowski’s Hank Chinaski ala Walt Whitman ala Allen Ginsberg ala Burrough’s William Lee. He quotes Jung and listens to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and asks young women if he can stick his penis in their vaginas (literally). His adventures lead him to a weird, codependent relationship with Wendy which spawns a child named Zoë.

Norwood by Charles Portis is a humorous novel that is a picaresque road trip story. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “Out of the American Neon Desert of Roller Dromes, chili parlors, The Grand Ole Opry, and girls who want "to live in a trailer and play records all night" comes ex-marine and troubadour Norwood Pratt. Sent on a mission to New York by Grady Fring, the Kredit King, Norwood has visions of "speeding across the country in a late model car, seeing all the sights." Instead, he gets involved in a wild journey that takes him in and out of stolen cars, freight trains, and buses. By the time he returns home to Ralph, Texas, Norwood has met his true love, Rita Lee, on a Trailways bus; befriended Edmund B. Ratner, the second shortest midget in show business and "the world's smallest perfect fat man"; and helped Joann, "the chicken with a college education," realize her true potential in life.”

Norwood is Portis’s first novel and another book lovingly brought back to life by The Overlook Press along with classics True Grit and Dog of the South (another picaresque novel and a stronger one at that). Norwood Pratt is sent home to check on his sister Vernell after their father died, as it’s claimed she’s unable to look after herself. He helps her get a job and she quickly meets an older suitor who she marries. Finding himself now sharing their father’s house with his sister and her grumpy husband, Norwood happily accepts a “job” from Grady Fring, the Kredit King, where he’s tasked with driving a pair of cars to New York along with a beautiful yet pissed off performer, Miss Phillips. And the adventure begins. Norwood confesses his dream of becoming a country singer, Miss Phillips steals one of the cars and drives away to Chicago, and Norwood trips from one strange situation to another.

The Disappeared by Andrew Porter is a book of short stories categorized as literary fiction. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “A husband and wife hear a mysterious bump in the night. A father mourns the closeness he has lost with his son. A friendship with a married couple turns into a dangerous codependency. With gorgeous sensitivity, assurance, and a propulsive sense of menace, these stories center on disappearances both literal and figurative--lives and loves that are cut short, the vanishing of one's youthful self. From San Antonio to Austin, from the clamor of a crowded restaurant to the cigarette at a lonely kitchen table, Andrew Porter captures each of these relationships mid-flight, every individual life punctuated by loss and beauty and need. The Disappeared reaffirms the undeniable artistry of a contemporary master of the form.”

Fifteen stories are told in this collection, most taking place between San Antonio, Texas to Austin and back. There are a few intriguing questions that run through this collection. What happened to who I used to be? What ever happened to the interesting people I used to hang out with when I was younger? What happened to those weird neighbors I used to live next door to at that shabby apartment complex? If there is a theme song for this book, then it would be “Somebody That I Used to Know.”

For instance, in the first story “Austin,” the narrator begins the story at a party where some old college buddies are hanging out and getting drunk. They’re reminiscing and telling stories, although the narrator feels disconnected from them. One friend tells a story about an acquaintance who killed a home invader and asks the narrator if he was justified in doing it. Instead of answering this moral dilemma, the narrator simply leaves the party; he disappears. At home, his wife worries about a possible intruder in their own laundry room. Late one night as he stays up worrying, he muses:

“Outside I could hear the occasional sound of a car passing, young people shouting things into the air. When did I become the person who listened to such sounds and not the person who made them?”

The Pathless Sky by Chaitali Sen is a book of literary fiction. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “In the "exquisitely written" The Pathless Sky, Chaitali Sen conjures a world in which a nation's political turmoil, its secret history, and growing social unrest turn life into a fragile and capricious thing and love into a necessary refuge to be defended at all costs. A world not unlike the one we live in. Though they fell in love in college, life has conspired to keep John and Mariam apart for years. But a day comes when, across a great distance, both realize they have always loved each other. During the intervening years, however, the troubles in their country have reached a critical impasse. Government crimes have been white-washed, personal liberty is deeply compromised, a resistance movement has emerged from the underground to take the fight for freedom to the streets, and the government militia employs increasingly draconian measures in an attempt to maintain control. When Mariam is implicated in the latest spell of anti-government actions and arrested without appeal, the consequences of her and John's love will prove potentially dire for both.”

John and Miriam meet in college and although there is an unexplainable attraction, they don’t consummate their relationship for years. The journey toward marriage is long, but is compelling, nonetheless. John joins the military and is deployed, then goes to grad school. Miriam gets a job as a librarian. They keep in touch through letters (!!!), but the distance between them is vast until John realizes he’s in love with Miriam and goes to great lengths to get back to her. Once married, family secrets are revealed that conspire to keep them bound to Miriam’s hometown, but John is determined to get them out at all costs.

Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby is a book of crime fiction that reads like a thriller with social commentary. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah's white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek's father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed of his father's criminal record. Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys. Provocative and fast-paced, S. A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears is a story of bloody retribution, heartfelt change - and maybe even redemption.”

Razorblade Tears was released in July 2021 and it had been on my TBR list for quite some time. I’m glad I finally got around to reading this blisteringly emotional crime thriller. As the book description states, Ike and Buddy Lee are fathers whose sons were married to each other, yet Ike and Buddy Lee were estranged from their boys. Ike and Buddy Lee didn’t meet each other until their sons’ funerals, after being ruthlessly murdered for unknown reasons. The fathers were reluctant to speak to each other at first. But when Buddy Lee spots a tattoo on Ike’s arm, he realizes they both have a shared past of incarceration. Buddy Lee finds Ike around town and suggest they look for their sons’ killer. Ike hesitates at first, but when the police seemingly do nothing as far as investigating, both fathers come together with the common goal of bringing their sons justice.

Cosby excels at pushing the crime narrative along, the chapters are short and packed with action, bristling with clever metaphors and similes. But where Cosby really shines is his ability to mine the deep emotional trauma and regret from both fathers who realize their shortcomings as parents and husbands and men. Both Ike and Buddy Lee were easily lured into a life of crime when they were young men, both regretting choices they made and the absence in their sons’ lives while being incarcerated. They both also regret not taking the time to understand their sons and their sexuality, knowing that it’s too late to reconcile this with their deceased sons.

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel is a book of literary science fiction. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core. Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him. When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe. A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.”

Sea of Tranquility is the latest book of literary science fiction—more literary than scientific—from Emily St. John Mandel about time travel that crosses many centuries from the early twentieth century to five hundred years later. We follow an exiled young socialite on his journey to Canada from England, an author from a moon colony on her book tour down on Earth, and a detective as they each witness a vision of a violinist in an airport terminal, an experience disconcerting to all of them as it’s out of context to their life experience. What is this aural glitch? That’s the heart of the narrative to this compelling and beautifully written novel.

Lowdown Road by Scott Von Doviak is a book of 1970s hick-flick crime-spree fiction. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “Join a heart-racing road trip across 1970s America as two cousins make the heist of their lives and must avoid the cops and criminals hot on their tails. It's the summer of '74. Richard Nixon has resigned from office, CB radios are the hot new thing, and in the great state of Texas two cousins hatch a plan to drive $1 million worth of stolen weed to Idaho, where some lunatic is gearing up to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered motorcycle. But with a vengeful sheriff on their tail and the revered and feared marijuana kingpin of Central Texas out to get his stash back, Chuck and Dean are in for the ride of their lives - if they can make it out alive. With Lowdown Road, he cements his reputation for pedal-to-the-metal storytelling that also makes you think about just who we are and where our darker roads might lead us.”

Lowdown Road is the latest crime novel from Scott Von Doviak, full of action and high jinks. Cousins Chuck and Dean are like a more salacious version of Bo and Luke Duke from the 1970s – 80s television series The Dukes of Hazzard, even the back of the book declaring ‘Just two good old boys. Never meaning no harm.’ This novel would make an excellent season to that TV show, but with more violence and sex so it could appear on Cinemax. Chuck and Dean hatch a plan to steal two hundred and fifty pounds of weed and sell it at an Evel Knievel event in Idaho, but they’ve pissed off a kingpin weed dealer, a malevolent county sheriff, a biker bent on revenge, and practically everyone else they encounter. When their plan starts to unravel, can they sell enough of their contraband to make the wild road trip worthwhile?