Andrew Earles

Mainly because I hate to see such slip-shod hackery result in a writer getting paid a fee that probably amounts to my rent. Venturing a strong guess that it will not get published, I’m posting it here.

Hello,

In regards to September’s “Big Book of the Month” entry, it might behoove Esquire to choose a writer that has at least a passable knowledge of the subject at hand. Tom Chiarella, who I was astonished to find credited with “fiction editor and writer at large” in the masthead, is clearly not the man to assess Cormac McCarthy. His first paragraph, a descriptive blanket statement showcasing a cursory knowledge of post-apocalyptic B-movies and similar novels that is perhaps appropriate metaphor for describing The Road, belies the problem that follows. Chiarella claims The Road to be “so intensely unlike his previous work that you might be left wondering if this really is the same author of those hard-bitten west-Texan narratives Blood Meridian and All the Pretty Horses.” Any reader that finished McCarthy’s previous novel, last year’s No Country for Old Men, would not wonder this at all. No Country for Old Men is a road story so bleak that one is convinced of an ugly outcome after the first chapter. That novel’s 1980 could easily be a post-war wasteland, and the respective dead-end travels of its three principles, if anything, trademark a particular side of McCarthy’s fiction. There is no mention of No Country for Old Men, which I take to mean that Chiarella has yet to read the book. That’s ok, as he has obviously never read Blood Meridian either, or he would have known that it’s not a “west Texan narrative” (the novel is primarily set in northern Mexico), nor would he have associated it with All the Pretty Horses. The two books couldn’t be more dissimilar. Blood Meridian is one of most brutal books in American fiction, and like No Country…, belongs with the McCarthy that created The Road and other darker novels like Suttree and Child of God. All The Pretty Horses is part of the “Border Trilogy” – McCarthy’s mild 90’s fare that made him famous and endeared him to adventurous housewives everywhere. To Chiarella’s credit, it is in fact set in west Texas, and has little to do stylistically with Blood Meridian. This carelessness and McCarthy illiteracy would come as no surprise in the pages of a garden variety daily paper, but in Esquire?

-Andrew Earles

The hat tricks are in! Vote for your favorite:

1. Supporters of Clever Art for Stupid People that found I (Heart) Huckabees worth its weight in hot air needed their very own Big Fish .

2. The female love interest is physically vague and borderline unattractive. Not that female leads should be Knock Down Drag Out beautiful, but this was an obvious plot device utilized to score points among Supporters of Clever Art for Stupid People.

3. The hottest soundtrack of today’s most inoffensive, NPR-tailored indie rock.

4. A leading man with all of the requisite quirks.

5. Creatively safe in all aspects.

6. The guts and nerves have left the premises.

Bob Welch “Lose Your…”
Bob Welch was a pop song machine. His hit rate (not in the chart context) with Fleetwood Mac was bulletproof, and when the solo career called, French Kiss delivered. Not only are the hits (the re-do of his Mac period “Sentimental Lady” and “Ebony Eyes”) bulletproof, but this song teases with an earth-shattering hook and then FADES OUT AFTER 45 SECONDS!!! To you Bob Welch, I extend a middle digit on both hands and proclaim, “Keep ‘Em Flying.”

The Verlaines “Death and the Maiden”

I’ve played this song many times for newbies, and the reaction is the same: Vocal love and total assault (“WHERE CAN I FIND THIS?!?!?!?!”). This happens because I often cut it before the song lapses into the merry-go-round bullshit. A death march within a great pop song if there ever was one.

This is the full Tom Foster feature that I turned in to the Memphis Flyer. A much shorter piece ran in the print version.