This is from Janet Maslin's review of Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist, which appeared in the NY Times on Sept 9.
"But here’s the thing about that dog story: it’s awfully good. Not fancy, but it really makes a point about socks, dogs and art. The dog ate the sock. The sock had to be removed surgically. And somehow that makes Paul think of one of the nifty poetry-writing tricks that he knows: you write a poem about something that’s real. (Call that a sock.) You let that reality 'slide right into your poem and twirl around in it.' Then you cut out the sock as if this were veterinary surgery, but that just makes the poem better. The poem winds up with 'a mysterious feeling of charged emptiness, like the dog after the operation.'"
I like to think of what this might mean for fiction, too?
Susan Taylor Chehak
PublicationsFiction
"It's Not About the Dog"
available online at www.guernicamag.com "Apocalypse Tonight"
in "L.A. Under the Influence," edited by Rob Roberge. 20 L.A. Writers, their influences and their work. THE TRUTH ABOUT ANNIE D. (formerly "The Story of Annie D.")
"Chehak's prose provides a seamless, calm flow to a novel whose elements of love and murder ripple enticingly, fully surfacing only gently, only eventually, in the most satisfying kind of storytelling." -- Booklist HARMONY
"Haunting . . . Clodine Wheeler is the bemused narrator who strings together brilliant beads of descriptive phrases as she sorts through her memories . . . Chehak skillfully depicts small-town meanness and ironic generosity . . . . Her mesmerizing tale has classic resonances." – Publishers Weekly DANCING ON GLASS
"A dark tale of obsession among the posh ranks of a midwestern town... Chehak's poetic style exposes the passionate longings beneath the mannered sterling-and-crystal patina of Cedar Hill life; she renders both violence and love with an unflinching eye and casts a mournful spell." -- Vogue SMITHEREENS
"Chehak is a very accomplished storyteller, always in control of her narrative, which moves ahead with grace and speed. But it's not only the plot that matters to this writer. It's the telling little details, particularly of teenage angst and of domestic life that makes the novel rich... SMITHEREENS is a novel fully worthy of the title thriller. It's hard to put down. It has a kind of dark allure." - The Los Angeles Times RAMPAGE
“In Susan Taylor Chehak’s skilled hands, Iowa becomes the seething, steamy setting for a tale of pure evil… This is a marvelous, creepy story.” -- The Kansas City Star Nonfiction
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