big bang

October 26th, 2009

My friend Lucy Jane Bledsoe is coming out with a new book in the spring. I love Lucy’s work, and have been following it over the years from her short story collection Sweat to the novels Working Parts, This Wild Silence, and Biting the Apple, to her recent collection of true adventure stories, The Ice Cave. I think Big Bang Symphony: a novel of Antarctica is her best yet.

Antarctica is like a vortex that draws you back, season after season. The place is so raw and pure, all seal hide and crystalline iceberg. The fishbowl communities at McMurdo Station, South Pole Station, and in the cold and remote field camps intensify relationships, jack all emotion up to a 10. The trick is to get what you need and then get out fast.

“Pound for pound, Bledsoe’s books are hard to beat….Bledsoe, who seems incapable of a false or unwieldy sentence or motion…takes us there to the end of the journey one unflinching page at a time.” — Kevin Killian

If any of you are reviewers and want an advance copy, email her at her website.

Punctuation

October 26th, 2009

Thanks to the folks who pointed out that my last post made it sound like 47 million people had rushed to make donations to Maggie for her health care costs. I only wish that were the case. To donate, and to follow her progress, go to Maggie’s blog.