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A swimmingly excellent novel. I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying is a new novel in flash fiction by Matthew Salesses. In 115 chapters, all shorter than a page and some as short as five lines of text, Salesses details a man’s life that is simultaneously falling apart and coming together. A boy who is apparently his moves in with him after the mother passes away. Yet the man continues to juggle two affairs on the side while maintaining a passable relationship with “the wifely woman.” Meanwhile, his career advances, with no discernible effort on his part. Possibly medicated (prescribed and otherwise) into ambivalence, the narrator puts in appearances where and when necessary most of the time, trying to stave off the genuine pain that comes from true engagement. And yet, by taking his poison a thimbleful at a time, the bite eventually seeps in and both the narrator and the reader come to an understanding about his place in the world. Salesses is a husband and a father. His writing has been published widely. Recently, he took the time to share some thoughts about I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying with GR.   1) Is it harder or easier to write against type? I can tell you’re a nice guy and a good dad, so what is it like to write about a man who is ambivalent about relationships and fatherhood? I’m not sure whether it’s harder or easier, in general. It’s harder for me to make up someone than to use myself as a character. One thing I like about nonfiction is that I don’t have to worry about how to create fully rounded characters; I only have to worry about how to represent people/myself as fully rounded. The reason to choose fiction over nonfiction is to get at a truth that can’t be gotten at, or can’t be presented, as convincingly in an essay. Which means that in fiction I’m often writing against type, because I want to tell a story, and I don’t generally make a lot of interesting things happen in real life. In this book, that choice meant using the voice of someone more directly conflicted than I am. I could have written nonfiction about my own fear of commitment, but it wouldn’t have been as interesting or convincing (coming from a married man with a daughter) as the story of this narrator, who is deeply afraid and makes choices out of that fear. I guess to answer the question, it would have been harder to write this particular story if the narrator was nicer and a better dad. I’ve never actually seen an Easy-Bake Oven, but I love the myth of it. 2) Flash fiction. Here to stay as a viable format, or something that, in the future, will date all work to 201X? Here since at least Kafka, or maybe oral myths, and here to stay. Also, I remember teachers telling me in undergrad to write fiction that is timeless and would last...
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Photo by Ken Byrne

 

Gina Apostol’s fascinating novel Gun Dealer’s Daughter has just been published in an American edition. This incredible book traces the seduction of Sol, a young privileged girl, by a romantics in a revolutionary group during the heady Marcos era in The Philippines. The first-person narrative is colored with defective memories and unreliable (but sympathetic) narratives. The reader will fall apart with Sol when she realizes too late that she’s sealed the cruel fate of the one person who truly cared about her.

I recently had the pleasure to read Gun Dealer’s Daughter and Gina agreed to a few questions and answers for Giant Robot readers. For those in New York City, Gina will be reading with Sabina Murray at The Asian American Writers’ Workshop on Thursday Sept. 6.

 

Congratulations on writing such a stunner of a book. Has anything changed editorially from its original 2010 publication on Anvil in the Philippines and the American W.W. Norton edition earlier this year?

I cut some sections of the opening, mainly. I had always thought the beginning was too slow. But I was also attached and wanted to keep everything. I did keep most of it, like the carousel ride, etc., minutiae the reader would not remember but I thought were crucial to my design—the book was designed with a circle in mind. My editor helped me cut. It was great to work with an editor who was, to my mind, always on the same page with me, but had a sharp eye for killing, killing, killing all the lice—Flaubert’s term for the incidents and words you can get rid of, but don’t want to, because they have already sucked your blood.

 

 I was once at this coffee shop in Baltimore listening to this incredibly stunning kid go on and on about Salinger and why she loved Catcher in the Rye. She turned out to be Winona Ryder talking to her boyfriend at the time, Johnny Depp

 

I couldn’t help but feel a certain vibe similar to the film Heathers. The feeling of play-revolutionaries mixed in with adolescent infatuation careening into something horribly real. How far would the teenage-girl narrator go in her zeal to impress Jed? On a different day would Sol (the girl) and Soli have changed places?

I just found the novel’s old Mac disks (those cute, colored squares that slide into the 1990s Macintoshes—I still keep that computer in my closet, like a sad robot of things past) and they were labeled Fil CITR —Filipino Catcher in the Rye. Oh, snap. It was only when I had finished the book that I thought—the bookend of carousels is a secret nod—of course!—to Catcher in the Rye. Heathers is a very good reference. All those films and books about adolescent stupor among the beautiful who become the damned. Now if Winona Ryder could also sing the Internationale as well as epater le bourgeois girls, she’d be Sol’s sister. I was once at this coffee shop in Baltimore listening to this incredibly stunning kid go on and on about Salinger and why she loved Catcher in the Rye. She turned out to be Winona Ryder talking to her boyfriend at the time, Johnny Depp. He was in town doing the movie Crybaby. He had a huge pimple on his face because John Waters kept making him eat Cheez Doodles or something during the shoot. What one learns from such models is that it is not good to take your teenage angst seriously. You might come to a bad end. In Winona’s case, she shoplifted; if only Sol had done the same. I always thought if Holden in Catcher had grown up in the Third World, he’d have turned into a good Maoist instead of just wandering drunk on Fifth Avenue and wiping off graffiti from the Egyptians at the Met. For me, of course, the difference between Heathers and Holden and Sol—and Winona—is that in Gun Dealer, adolescent angst is diagnosed as a political matter—even our malaise has consequences beyond the small pool of our local disenchantments. As for Sol’s thing with Jed—it is, I think, a cover for other lusts—above all the lust to be “real.” She has the Velveteen Bunny around her, after all, toys, the illusory world her parents bought, but like the bunny she wants to be real. Jed is a screen for that hunger, but I think even Sol knows she’s fooling herself. If you asked me, I’d have told her to get rid of Jed, from day one. Guy’s a dope. But I am not Sol. The thing about Sol and Soli is that they are meant to be somehow interchangeable, I think, but I am not sure. That Sol has, perhaps, a desire to be that other one, Soli, her ethical self, maybe, but she’s locked in her own merry-go-round of security, her carousel of comfort.

 

I fucking don’t care if Mitt Romney has ever felt alienated in his life

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A man who influenced Sci-fi and fantasy in some of the greatest ways, has passed away. Instead of writing about unicorns in space, he actually wrote satirical novels that were at times freaky. The coolest thing about Bradbury is that he appeared locally in LA often. His most popular, Fahrenheit 451 and Martian Chronicles are nearly required reading at schools. (LA Times – Ray Bradbury)
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tongue and Groove – Author Readings Friday 5/25 8pm Giant Robot 2  2062 Sawtelle Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90025 310-445-9276 In celebration of National Asian American/Pacific Islanders Heritage month, Conrad Romo’s Tongue and Groove Series will make an appearance at Giant Robot 2 featuring Frannie Choi, Chiwan Choi, Ed Lin, Traci Kato Kiriyama and others bios Chiwan Choi is a writer, editor, teacher, and publisher Abductions is his second book of poetry. Ed Lin is the author of Waylaid,This Is a Bust and Snakes Can’t Run. Lin, who is of Taiwanese and Chinese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards. The native New Yorker’s latest book is One Red Bastard, by Minotaur. He’ll be available to sign copies. Traci Akemi Kato-Kiriyama is the creator/ producer of Tuesday Night Café in Japan Town. She is a writer, performing artist, educator and  grassroots organizer. Franny Choi was a finalist at two of the three most prestigious poetry slams in the country: the National Poetry Slam and the Women of the World Poetry Slam. She was awarded Best Female Poet and Most Innovative at the 2011 Wade-Lewis Poetry Slam Invitational, and her team was specially recognized for Pushing the Art Forward at the 2011 College Union Poetry Slam Invitational. She was also the top-ranking female poet at the 2011 Southern Fried Poetry Slam and the champion of 2010 Seoul Poetry Slam Giant Robot was born as a Los Angeles-based magazine about Asian, Asian-American, and new hybrid culture in 1994, but has evolved into a full-service pop culture provider with shops and galleries in Los Angeles as well as an online equivalent. Eric Nakamura Giant Robot Owner/Publisher eric@giantrobot.com  
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  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Writing Workshop and Author Signing at GR2 Ed Lin – New Book – One Red Bastard Wednesday May 23nd 7-9pm GR2 – 2062 Sawtelle Blvd LA, CA 90025 www.gr2.net 310 445 9276 Giant Robot 2 (GR2) presents: Writing Workshop and Author Signing at GR2 Author Ed Lin just released his latest novel, One Red Bastard and is conducting a writing workshop. He says to bring your iPad, iPhone or Paper. The workshop is scheduled for an hour 7-8pm. Afterwards from 8pm-9pm, Ed Lin will sign his new book – One Red Bastard. We’ll have copies on hand. Giant Robot was born as a Los Angeles-based magazine about Asian, Asian-American, and new hybrid culture in 1994, but has evolved into a full-service pop culture provider with shops and galleries in Los Angeles as well as an online equivalent.   Eric Nakamura Giant Robot Owner/Publisher eric@giantrobot.com
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