Read my article/interview about this book here: The Spiritual Awakening of Mickey Mouse

I did an article/interview about this book here:David Wojnarowicz: A Definitive History

I was drawn to this book because the publicity and word on the street made comparisons between his stories and Denis Johnson's, Raymond Carver's, and, one of my new favorites, Scott Wolven. I must say the comparisons are apt and I would also throw in Thom Jones for good measure. Blurbs were coming from T.C. Boyle, Alice Sebold, and George Pelecanos and I am now adding my own support to the list. One of the things I like most is when I read a sentence or a paragraph that is unique and poetic and contains just the right amount of insight and emotion so that I can only pause, stare of into space and dream about writing one like it. Richard Lange accomplishes that over and over in this collection of stories. They are petty theft gritty with slightly off center characters trying (and often failing) to get just a little juice from the lemon of life. The stories feature many places you will recognize if you live in Los Angeles, not necessarily by name but by description alone (Tang's Donuts for example). There's despair, there's hope, there's redemption...all the classics.

Fans of Italo Calvino will feel at home as Viskovitz shape-shifts in every chapter to a different animal to relate tales of love and life. A snail travels for months across the garden (a momentous feat!) for love. A worker ant rises up to become the dictator of his hill only to be squashed by his own power. E - T - C!

My favorite book by my favorite author. A wonderful and strange experiment that takes place in the slash between real/fiction.

I predict that Stacey and her stories will be with us for a long long time. Join the movement or miss out.

In these short, intense pieces our narrator brings us with him as he wanders through his seedy surrounding, getting high, getting money, getting by. Intimate, disturbing, stark and poetic. Oh, and funny, too.

There is something so of the earth, so base, here. Starving and writing and wanting.

SUMMER PICKS! Floppy Hats, roller skates, the sand, the surf. I pretty much learned to read on the beach. "Then Again Maybe I Won't", "The Catcher in the Rye", "The Subterraneans", "Fletch", and my mom's Agatha Christie books. Sandy classics. This season I'm feeling a little warm in the heart to match the temperature. Warm, hearty reads include: "My Date with Satan" by Stacey Richter, "Seeing is Forgetting" by Lawrence Weschler, the poems of Kenneth Patchen and Frank O'Hara, and the stories of Nelson Algren. Backpacks should also include suntan lotion, Sex Wax, a radio, tuna sandwiches, and a copy of Mean, Nest, or Zoetrope magazines. Surf's up! No Black Ball! Cowabunga! (Extra points for bringing your ukulele to the beach and swooning the natives.)

I really like reading Kureishi's screenplays and I am sure you can find the book that contains them and his insightful essays somewhere used now that it is criminally out of print. In the meantime read this excellent, award-winning novel.