My friend
Jim Crace has a new novel coming out five days from now,
All That Follows. It's set, in part, right here in Austin, Texas, and one of the crucial scenes takes place at the Texas Book Festival. When Jim was researching the book, he stayed with me for a week, and from now on, whatever the fate of my own books or my reputation as an author, I can lay indisputable claim to one signal literary accomplishment: I introduced the award-winning author of
Gift of Stones,
Quarantine,
Being Dead, and
The Pesthouse to Texas barbecue.
The book is already out in Britain, but in the meantime, as we wait for it to arrive here, you can
read this review, check out
a characteristically charming interview with Jim, and
peruse the catalog of his archives at the Ransom Center. I leave you with the man himself, reading aloud from the opening pages of
All That Follows, while seated deep in the stacks of the Ransom Center. I don't believe they've archived Jim himself, but you never know; the Ransom Center folks are nothing if not thorough.
While I was suffering the effects of (self-inflicted) food poisoning over the weekend,
Next received two more reviews: a nice
Briefly Noted review in the
New Yorker, and a
very generous review by
Ken Harvey in
Edge.
Note to self: do not use an expired can of tomatoes in spaghetti sauce
ever again.
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