God Is Nowhere/God Is Now Here

Its been a while since I last wrote and loads of things have been happening but I've been meaning to publish this post for a while now so I'll just go for it and leave my friends exhibition, instrumental gigs and bumper sticker songs till next time.

I finished the Rebecca Miller novel in a day and I'm struggling to put into words what I felt about it because it was one of those books that kind of floated into my brain and then out again. The beginning was interesting; the main character Pippa moves to an old folks village, called something like Marigold, with her 80 year old husband and starts undergoing an existential crisis of sorts when she realizes she's not 80, a realization that is facilitated by the waster son of the elderly couple across the road, who has a giant Jesus tattoo on his back and turned religious after receiving a massive electric shock in his early 20's. It floats back and forth between the past and present kind of clumsily compared to Cats Eye, and quite a lot of the past, set in New York in the 70's, is cliched.

I live in fear of cliches in writing, in others and my own, because I feel like it can drain the life out of a good story.

I suppose my summary would be: sweet, sometimes interesting, not on the top 5 list but would give it to someone who needs a break from reality.

I'm now reading Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland and it is very good. It reminds me of Chuck Palahniuk with softer edges. Its basically about a high school shooting and the repercussions it has on 4 peoples lives, one being Cheryl a pregnant and secretly married student who writes 'God is Nowhere/God is Now Here' in her copy book minutes before she is killed. Her surviving classmates pen it all over her coffin, an action her boyfriend/husband sees as meaningless and her dad sees as a waste of the nice pearly coffin he picked out. Its a good example of the dark humour of the book, the way it uses that to show the effects of death on life as opposed to just the general aftermath. It's a complicated novel but what I like about it is that I'm pretty sure everyone could find a bit of themselves in at least one of the characters.
And the cover is cool too.

The Frances McManus shortlist was anounced today and sadly I didn't get shortlisted, nor did any of my other writerly friends. Maybe next year!

Thank you and good night.