Torch Writer

Even as a woman, I'm a little intimidated by A.M. Homes. I just finished her 1999 book "Music for Torching." Think William Burroughs meets Richard Yates. It's that good. The novel, which I picked up in the bargain bin for $1.98 (!), is a satire, a sometimes brutal tale, about a husband and wife who feel "stuck" in their lives in the suburbs. Homes manages to make this story completely absurd but at the same time believable. There's something really aggressive and a little sadistic about her writing. Is that why I felt threatened by her? Am I a closet sexist? Perhaps Homes knows that even women would feel that way, and that's why she writes under a gender-neutral name. In any case, I can't deny that the book is at times, hilarious, right on the money, and tragic. (Image via NYMag.com)

Still Crazy After All Those Years of Therapy

Sometimes people are just screwed up, and no amount of therapy, yoga, or hocus-pocus rituals is going to save them. That's what I came away with after reading Kathryn Harrison's (very short) memoir "The Mother Knot." The book chronicles Harrison's coming to terms with her rocky relationship with her dead mother. (This includes exhuming her mother's body, having it cremated, and then throwing ashes all around.) I am a fan of Kathryn Harrison, the novelist, but Kathryn Harrison, the memoirist? Not so sure. Harrison, who was abandoned by her mother, had an affair with her father, and has suffered from bulimia and anorexia, has documented all those traumas in both fiction and nonfiction accounts. My advice: tap into your personal hells only for your novels. Your fiction is much more readable and has more depth than your truth. (Image via Random House)