The Birth of Wild Man

An author’s ride from misery to manuscript

Jeff Geiger

Once upon a time, and not all that terribly far back, Jeff Geiger was undergoing what he now describes as “a dark night of the soul.” The Eugene writer had arrived at the artistic crossroads. “I’d been working for, I’d say, at least a decade as what I’d consider to be a serious writer,” he says. Deciding that he was most passionate about young adult fiction, Geiger wrote two such novels that came up bust. They had heart, but “they weren’t selling. It was an incredibly frustrating experience,” he recalls. Continue reading 

Self-Published Round Up

Every once in a while something crazy happens: Someone self-publishes a book and it takes off. The Celestine Prophecy started that way as did Still Alice, and 50 Shades of Grey started off as internet-published Twilight fan fiction. Lane County has a whole host of writers publishing themselves or getting published by a “vanity” press (Hey, it’s not vanity if it’s good!). They, and we, hope one of these books takes off. Here’s just a smidge of what got dropped off at EW this year. Continue reading 

Winter Reading Top Ten

  J. Michaels Staff Picks 160 East Broadway # A (541) 342-2002   Of local interest is Megan Kruse’s Call Me Home. Oregon writer, an uncommonly powerful debut novel. Also in fiction, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Astonishing, challenging, upsetting and profoundly moving. Continue reading 

Punk’s Not Dead

Author Bob Suren reads from his punk-rock memoir

Bob Suren

Bob Suren’s new book, Crate Digger: An Obsession with Punk Records — out now from Portland publishing house Microcosm Publishing —  tells the story of the author’s love affair with punk music. The journey takes Suren from band member to record storeowner, fanzine editor, radio show host and record label founder.  “For many years I was self-employed,” Suren tells EW, “but for many years punk rock was my boss.” Continue reading 

Down and Out in Seattle

Beautiful losers walk the wild side in Danny Bland’s In Case We Die

Entering into the gloriously tattered tradition of strung-out criminal lit ranging from Hubert Selby’s Last Exit to Brooklyn to Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son, Seattle rocker turned author Danny Bland has written a novel that reads like a beastly scream into the dark mythology of ‘90s Seattle — a gilded wasteland where junkies reared on Iggy and Sabbath turned filthy power chords into gold and cosmonauts of the apocalypse pimped hip to the culture vultures. Continue reading 

Rape and a College Town

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town

Jon Krakauer doesn’t start Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town (Doubleday, $28.95) with one of the worst scenes in the book; he eases into it with the police pulling up to tell a young woman named Allison Huguet that her rapist has confessed.  Only a couple pages later does Krakauer tell of the assault and of Beth Huguet’s horror when her daughter calls her at 4 am gasping with panicked sounds into the phone before screaming, “He’s chasing me! Help me! Save me! Mom!”  Continue reading 

Reckoning with the Past

History professor Christian Appy looks at how the Vietnam War shaped us in 2015’s

Christian Appy. Photo: Ian-Kaye

When we heard Christian Appy talk about his new book at a Morse Center event on the UO campus last month, we knew American Reckoning was a must read for more understanding of the “Vietnam War and Our National Identity,” as he subtitles it. Appy is a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the author of two previous books on the Vietnam War. Continue reading