peteg's blog - noise - books - 2015 02 19 AtticusLish PreparationForTheNextLife

Atticus Lish: Preparation for the Next Life.

Thu, Feb 19, 2015./noise/books | Link

I discovered Red Plenty via a glowing review by Dwight Garner, and his review in the New York Times last November led me to this. Having read it I agree with what he said and have little to add. Powerful stuff indeed. Somewhat perplexingly it is an economical, dense, urgent and necessary type of thing that is rarely beautiful; in fact when my heart was up around my ears it was getting viscerally ugly. But never cheap, condescending or exploitative, and always clear-eyed. I guess the word for this stuff is art. I hope he keeps at it.