When I saw Jeri's post on FaceBook, I immediately thought of The One Thing by Anna Quindlin. I think it was that book, anyway. The main character becomes a therapist and assigns books to her clients. For a women troubled by an obsessive lover, she recommends Wuthering Heights. I love that it's a real thing.
I finished reading Dave Eggers "You Shall Know Our Velocity!" How can one writer write books I really like (Zietoun, What is the What, The Circle) and books I really dislike? The style was more like his first book "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius". Lots of internal dialog. A young man, foibles painfully on display, trying to make sense of life. And then 3/4 of the way through he throws a wrench into the narrative that invalidates everything that came before; letting the reader know that the author is in control and can manipulate his audience anyway he likes. John Irving has done the same thing. It's like stage actors acknowledging the 4th wall; like a magician sharing the secret to a trick. I guess I want to believe in the story, the play, or the trick. I feel so used!
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