What I wanted to tell you . . .

Amy Charles, proprietor of Us, Robots, has pledged assistance for those of us suffering from crippling orgasms:

(helpfully) You could try John O’Hara; that might be less painful.

I’m very fond of the Wapshot books. They’re not as good as the best of the short stories, but they’re considerably better than many of them, and I appreciate Coverly better as I get older. His inability to react in any timely manner and that suspension in which he exists so much of the time—it’s a relief, really, especially since he’s not sorry for himself, or not much. Not stupid, either. I like how much time these men have to wallow in this uncertainty about who they are and what they want, if anything, while getting up daily to go to their miserable empire-preserving jobs. It’s nice to see somebody have that.

I appreciate too how he chronicled station in that suicidal way of his. Here’s Laura Hilliston, opened to at random: “She had put on some perfume for the visit, and she wore a thick necklace of false gold that threw a brassy light up onto her features. Her shoes had high heels, and her dress was tight, but these lures were meant to establish her social position and not to catch the eyes of a man.” Yes, that’s how it goes.

Laura Hilliston was, as they say, a real character. Here she is near the beginning of Wapshot:

The village stood on three leafy hills north of the city, and was handsome and comfortable, and seemed to have eliminated through adroit social pressures, the thorny side of human nature. This knowledge was forced on Melissa one afternoon when a neighbor, Laura Hilliston, came in for a glass of sherry. “What I wanted to tell you,” Laura said, “is that Gertrude Lockhart is a slut.”

Charles continues:

I can’t recall many of the stories anymore but I like the one about the middle-aged jackass who can’t give up the party trick of jumping over the breakfront, or whatever it is. The hurdler. And the one about the poet who wakes up with the filthy mind. “The World of Apples.”

Brendan, do you know James Kelman’s short stories?

Unfortunately, no. As I said, I’m lucky to know Cheever.

In other commenter news, this just in from one Grace Brooks on the question of whether Elvis Presley was a racist:

Elvis is my 4th cousin and you are a lier!

Noted.

IMAGE: From El ladrón de Shady Hill

Comments

[Steven Augustine]

"Elvis is my 4th cousin and you are a lier!"

Wouldn't that also make Elvis her uncle?