Chris Tusa

1) Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
2) The Death of Sweet Mister by Daniel Woodrell
3) Ice at the Bottom of the Sea by Mark Richard
4) The Worthy by Will Clarke
5) Eden by Olympia Vernon
6) Talking Dirty to the Gods by Yusef Komunyakaa
7) Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
9) Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
10) Lawrence Booth’s Book of Visions by Maurice Manning

Just finished Mark Richard’s The Ice at the Bottom of the World, and it was fantastic. Lyrical prose filled with gritty, dysfunctional characters. What else could you ask for?

From Library Journal
In Richard’s collection of short stories, we are in familiar but updated Faulkner/Caldwell territory, the gothic American South. Specifically, we are in the country of that endangered species, the redneck. In sharply detailed stories presented without excuse or judgment, and often with a sharp bite of humor, Richard offers creditable characters in the middle of their singular lives. Though full of peculiarly Southern connections, these stories transcend Southern particularity. They are about universals: love and loss and birth and death. –Marcia Tager, Tenafly, N.J. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

If you haven’t checked out this site, you may want to. It list tons of author interviews, all in mp3 format.

http://www.wiredforbooks.org/swaim

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/southern_literary_journal/v034/34.1abernathy.html

Rambles just posted a new review of Haunted Bones. Thanks to Virginia MacIsaac for her kind words:

http://www.rambles.net/tusa_bones06.html

If you haven’t read Sherman Alexie’s Flight, run to Barnes and Noble and get it today. It’s one of the most creative novels I’ve read in a while, and it’s an extremely easy read. Here’s a recent review from the Times:

Click here

Here’s a great article by Jason Sanford of StorySouth:

http://www.storysouth.com/summer2002/wheresouth.html

For those of you interested in dystopian Novels, I’d highly recommend Orwell’s Animal Farm, Brave New World, 1984, and Clockwork Orange. Here’s a link to a much longer list:

http://www.listsofbests.com/list/5479

C.L. Bledsoe has just published a review of my new book of poetry, Haunted Bones. You can read the review here:

http://www.ghotimag.com/reviewtusa.htm

Thanks C.L. for the kind words.