Clyde Edgerton

I read a great short story last night called, "Send Me to the Electric Chair" in the anthology BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 1997 ed. Annie Proulx, a Deering High graduate. Edgerton made the short story into a novel called WHERE TROUBLE SLEEPS. It is certainly a novel I'm am going to read in the near future.

THE SPORTSWRITER by Richard Ford

To be honest, I liked this book, but it moved way too slowly for me. I read three-quarters of it, but had to put it down because it took way too long for Ford to say what he had to say. But who am I to criticize Ford, one of the greatest writer in recent memory. THE SPORTSWRITER is superbly written, there is not doubt, but with so many books out there to read, I just couldn't finish this one. I do recommend it to anyone with a lot of time on their hands. Much of the writing is dated. For instance, the use of 'Negro' and Detroit being a city a tourist would actually venture to.

Brother One Cell

I guess from wanting to escape the cold Maine winter, I began reading some travel writing. I picked up the book, BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING 2008, and one of the notable writings that did not make the collection was "My Korean Nightmare" by Cullen Thomas. That title grabbed me, so I did a little research and found the book ONE BROTHER CELL that the article was actually an excerpt of.

With this book, I got to know the country of South Korea much better. I thought there might be some abuse and possibly some prison rape in this book, but no such luck. Instead, I got a thoughtful, sometimes boring, account of a privileged American who got caught smuggling pot into a country he was supposed to be teaching English in. Thomas, by the end of the memoir, seems to have learned his lesson. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in what it would be like to be an American who had to live in a S. Korean prison for three years or anyone who wanted to learn a little more about the country. It was very well written and insightful. The only problem I had is that maybe it was about 50 pages too long