Thinner Than Skin reviewed in Dawn

As promised, here is the review in Pakistan's Dawn newspaper of the lovely and talented Uzma Aslam Khan's newest novel, Thinner Than Skin. It's mostly positive, and you can safely disregard the very few negative murmurings uttered from time to time...

"Written in fine, eclectic prose, exploring identity and insecurity, the narrative searches for illicit happiness that is taken away for reasons that are never clearly defined or understood. Khan can be openly candid about the act of loving as a transitory pleasure but refuse her reader reasons for why relationships break down or people drift away without explanation or remorse. Plenty of fiction is about love, about lust, about wanting control over another, but in her brilliant story of 'Ice, Mating' (first published as an extract in Granta 112: Pakistan, 2010) you will find her interest. 'What is the most beautiful thing you ever witnessed?' she’d ask, as we lay together … I said it was the mating of glaciers."

Well, that sounds fairly glowing... even if I don't really know what "eclectic prose" is. Must be something good though.

The whole review can be found here.

Dawn interview with Uzma

Just in case you need further evidence that I am in fact married to the coolest gal on the planet, I present to you this interview with Uzma Aslam Khan, conducted by Pakistan's Dawn newspaper.

"I’ve never mapped out a novel. I don’t really trust maps, because the lines change as soon you find them. As if the form of a novel itself demands that you stay open to change, open to surprises."

You can find the complete interview here.

Tomorrow I'll post the review of Thinner Than Skin from Dawn's Books & Authors section.

Oh, well.

Nice job, Ravens. Good luck in the Super Bowl.

And now, in deference to people who don't care about it, I will stop talking about football.

Till next year anyway.

90 minutes till the AFC championship game...

...and you know the guy (or gal) who owns this car is going to be watching. Snapped at a parking lot in Holyoke, MA, December 2012.

 

 

 

 

 

In honor of the NFL championship games this weekend...

A bit of landmark...

Take a look at the visitor counter on the right-hand sidebar... Underneath the swirling globe that tells where you're visiting from... and you'll see that since starting this blog back in October 2007, I've now surpassed 50,000 hits. That's an amazing thing.

I started this blog mainly as a platform to try to publicize my soon-to-be-released fourth book, Monster, 1959, but it quickly evolved into a means of talking about more or less whatever came into my head--bands I discovered and liked, old movies I re-watched, bits of internet trivia, stuff about Uzma's books, and so on.

I had no particular plan for where it would go or how it would evolve--or even whether it would last past the next post. There were times when I posted new stuff almost every day, and times when I barely posted anything at all. Certainly there have been some thin stretches where I've posted little or nothing for months on end, and I'm sure some people lost interest. I don't blame them.

Now, almost five and a half years after starting, I'm happy to say that this blog is pretty much a part of my daily (or at least, several-time-per-week) routine. I can't say that I have any more of a grand vision for where it's heading than I had five years ago;, though. It will probably be more of the same: stuff about my books and my so-called career; stuff about Uzee's books; stuff about bands and records and movies that I like; occasional political rants; and from time to time, a more ambitious essay on whatever crosses my mind.

And in case you're wondering: the most popular entry I ever posted, by a mile, was this one about Game of Thrones. With over 5000 hits, this single essay accounts for 10% of all traffic to this site. Which is either awesome, or scary, depending on your point of view. Good thing I like the show... Maybe I should write another article.

Anyway, regardless of whether I write more Game of Thrones essays, I hope you'll stick around for the ride over the next few years. Cheers.

Don't Open That Door! is back...

...with installment #25, my appreciation of the 1959 Vincent Price vehicle The Tingler. And what a great movie it is, notwithstanding the fact that it makes very little sense, which you'll see if you read the column here.


For those of you who aren't aware, Don't Open That Door! is my weekly column over at PopMatters.com, in which I affectionately skewer 1950s monster and sci-fi movies. A fun time is had by all, regardless of whether or not you're familiar with the movies under review.

And, if you click the Facebook Like button or the Tweet button or the G+ button (or whichever your prefer--Reddit and StumbleUpon and so forth), you will help to ensure that I can keep on writing these little columns, as it wil convince my editors that I have some sort of following... So thanks for that.

My assessment of The Tingler begins thus:

"Vaguely effeminate Dr. Warren (you can tell he’s a scientist by his accent, and besides, he looks—and sounds—a lot like Vincent Price) keeps himself busy by cutting people up during autopsies, looking for some physical sign of the fear response felt just before death. Not finding anything, he posits that the act of screaming must destroy this mysterious critter—which he has nicknamed “the tingler”—and so he despairs of ever getting his mitts on one. After all, everybody can scream, right? Soon afterward, he meets a guy named Ollie whose wife is deaf and dumb—that is, she can’t hear or talk. Or, um, scream. Interested, Doctor?"

There's much more, including some nifty stills and a YouTube clip, all of which can be found here.

Righteous review of Uzma's new book

And the reviews just keep ticking along...

This one is from a blog that shadows the Man Asian Prize and hence reviews each of the 15 books on the longlist. The reviewer is quite gushing, which is nice, although there are some spoilers here... Can't be helped I suppose, and it's the result of an excess of enthusiasm so it's tough to get too annoyed. As for the aforementioned enthusiasm, check this out:

"Dealing with themes of forgiveness and revenge—base human emotions that we all experience, Thinner Than Skin is a layered, complex and mature novel from a writer at the height of her powers. It is perfectly constructed, both structurally and thematically, devoid of unnecessary words and ideas. Khan is in control of the language she uses to tell her story, leaving the reader blown away both by the power of the English language to describe both the natural and the internal."

Woo-hoo! Now that's pretty nice. Clearly this fellow has been paying attention, so let's hope he has the ear of the Prize committee. (Which he does not, actually. I know that. I'm just funnin' ya, as my father used to say...)

For more about the book, check out its Amazon page.

Toronto Star praises Thinner Than Skin

Regular readers of The Party Never Stops -- yeah,  both of you -- will perhaps have noticed that I've been publicizing the man good notices that the lovely and talented Uzma Aslam Khan has been receiving for her latest novel, Thinner Than Skin. Well, there's a fine reason for this, which is that Thinner Than Skin has been generating a fair bit of press, most of it very positive indeed, and I feel compelled to let people know about it.

The latest in this trend comes courtesy of The Toronto Star, which published this review a couple of days ago. It's favorable, although it seems less interested in the book itsekf and more interested in the circumstances in Pakistan which are reflected in the book. Okay, whatever. And by the way, there's a factual error: The story does not take place in Swat valley, but in Kaghan. 

Despite that, the reviewer has nice things to say. For example: "Thinner Than Skin has elements of quest, thriller, love story and legend, with unconventional characters..." I agree with this, as I also agree when the reviewer says that "as with her earlier books ... Khan continues to explore new territory, both geographic and literary." Can't argue with that, either. Thanks, Toronto.

IDEA CITY: Great name for a fun blog...

So I've never heard of IDEA CITY, but it appears to be the blog of one Catherine Stine, who has a fun entry about the books she gave people for Christmas. Included on this list is (ahem) An Age of Madness, which she gave "to my sister-in-law, interested in psychology and biology." So there you go. Fingers crossed that the sis-in-law was duly impressed.

Thanks, Catherine.

Meanwhile, I have been rocking out to the Euro-African fusion sounds of JuJu, whose album In Trance is a smoking-hot collaboration between a Gambiam ritti player and a British guitarist. The ritti is a kind of one-string fiddle used in West African music; it's basically the solo instrument that plays over the guitars and drums as they bask away, and oh man, these guys rawk.

Happy 2013

And nope, this ain't Hawaii anymore.

 

 

Still cool though.

The Jordan Times weighs in on Thinner Than Skin

Merry Christmas, everybody. Happy birthday, Mr. Jinnah.

The latest rave review of the lovely and talented Uzma Aslam Khan's latest opus, Thinner Than Skin, comes courtesy of The Jordan Times. In a review written by the not-totally-Jordanian-sounding Sally Bland, the reviewer begins by saying:

"There are a few novels that sadden one when they end — not because of the ending itself but because of not wanting to let go of the characters whose life one has shared for a while. My first experience of this sort was Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. The most recent was Uzma Aslam Khan’s Thinner Than Skin."

Well now! That's some pretty rarefied company to be placed in, Garcia Marquez and all. And I must agree with the reviewer that this indeed the kind of book that leaves a little story-shaped hole in your soul when it's over... But that's a good thing, right?

Another great review for Thinner Than Skin...

...This one courtesy of India Today, a pretty major news weekly over there on the subcontinent. The writer of the review, one Bunny Suraiya, gushes more or less nonstop about the book, which is nice. A sample:

"Every once in a while, along comes a novel that one reads more for the quality of its prose than for its story line. Uzma Aslam Khan's Thinner than Skin is one such. It is clear from the get-go that the author is in love with words. Every emotion, every sight, every sound, every taste is mined over and over again for new analogies, fresh interpretations, in what one may well describe as a virtuoso performance-a master class in the art of creative writing."

Well, that's mighty cheery. There's much more, too, so take a look.

And in other news, hey, another nice review for An Age of Madness has appeared on Amazon.com! Thanks, folks, they're much appreciated...

First Amazon review for AoM

It's always nice to see reader reviews showing up on Amazon.com and elsewhere, but they've been slow in coming aof An Age of Madness. Happily, the first one showed up a couple of days ago, and it's brief but very nice. So thanks, Elizabeth Dickie, though we have never met. (Really.)

And hey! Anyone out there who has read the book and has happy thoughts about it should feel free to posty something. For bettre or for worse, we are organisms who are easily influenced by ithers of our kind, and a handful of people saying "Yo! This book is all right!" is likely to lead to mroe people reading it, and saying in turn "Yo! This book is all right!" which will lead to more people saying etc.

Sorry I have to shill like this but hey, it's the times and all.

In other news, Australia banned semi-automatic assault weapons following a public shooting in 1996, and guess what? There's hasn't been a shooting since. Damn Australians! Knuckling under to tyranny like that, throwing away their freedoms, offering an example of another way forward, and so on.

From the Wahington Post's Wonkblog:

' Back in 1996, Australia imposed a much stricter version of the assault weapons ban [than the US ban that expired in 2004] after a mass shooting. The Australian version avoided many of the loopholes in the U.S. law: Not only did the country ban all types of semiautomatic rifles and shotguns, but it also spent $500 million buying up nearly 600,000 existing guns from private owners.

As Wonkblog’s Sarah Kliff pointed out, Australia’s law appears to have curbed gun violence. Researchers in the British Medical Journal write that the ban was “followed by more than a decade free of fatal mass shootings, and accelerated declines in firearm deaths, particularly suicides.” '

Too soon? Too bad.

Please read this essay by George Monbiot in The Guardian.

I continue to be wrenched by the killings on Connecticut. But I'm also wondering where all the memorial services, candlelight vigils and NFL memorials are for the kids we're murdering in Pakistan.

They have names, too. Not that you would know it, given the US government's policy of silence concerning civilian deaths from drone strikes:

'If the victims of Mr Obama's drone strikes are mentioned by the state at all, they are discussed in terms which suggest that they are less than human. The people who operate the drones, Rolling Stone magazine reports, describe their casualties as "bug splats", "since viewing the body through a grainy-green video image gives the sense of an insect being crushed". Or they are reduced to vegetation: justifying the drone war, Obama's counterterrorism adviser Bruce Riedel explained that "you've got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back".'

Bug splats. Grass that needs to be chopped. Imagine if someone described the Newtown kids that way. Just fucking imagine.

I read the news today, oh boy.

My home state of Connecticut took a hit today. Say a prayer for the kids.

More love for Thinner Than Skin

Not surprisingly, the Man Asia Prize longlisting of Thinner Than Skin has led to some new attention on the book, including this nice review from a blog site called Eleutheropobia, which is setting out to review all 15 of the longlisted titles. The review begins thusly:

"Layered with prose every bit as lush and verdant as the glacial landscapes it describes, Uzma Aslam Khan's Thinner Than Skin is a thick, intense and richly rewarding novel set in the precipitous heart of Pakistan's semi-autonomous Northern Areas."

Well, that's certainly the truth! The review goes on to say many nice things, including that Thinner Than Skin is "a gorgeous book." Can't argue with that either, IMHO.

And by the way, "Eleutheropobia" is apparently a word that means "fear of freedom." Who knew?

ForeWord review in full for AoM

Here's a link to that Age of Madness review in ForeWard Reviews. It's a bit spoiler-y, so I hesitate to post it here, but what the hell it's already on the Internet so there's no stopping it now. If you plan to read the book but haven't yet, then maybe you should wait, but if you're curious, here you go.

You can get more info about the novel on Amazon's page.

Once again, thanks to the fine folks at ForeWord Review for their kind words about the book. I gather the magazine is aimed generally at librarians and other industry types, and I appreciate the openmindedness with which the writer of the review has approached the book. Cheers.

Thinner Than Skin makes the Man Asia Prize longlist!

Canadian / Indian edition

Okay, this is a big, big deal.

Thinner Than Skin, the recent novel by the lovely and talented Uzma Aslam Khan, has been selected for the longlist for the 2012 Man Asia Prize. This prize is the Asian version of the better-know Man Booker Prize, which creates literary celebrities more or less overnight (Yann Martel won the Booker a few years ago for Life of Pi, and went from obscurity to superstardom). In 2006 or so, the people who run the Booker Prize decided to acknowledge the groundswell of literature coming out of Asia, both written in English and in translation, and set up a prize specifically for the region.

US edition

The longlist consists of 15 books, and can be seen here. Titles include some pretty big names, such as Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak, and some hot books from 2012, like Jeet Thayil's Narcopolis and Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists.

In any case, it's terrific that an indie author like Uzma, published by a small press like Interlink, is able to catch the attention of such a high-powered committee. It just goes to show the strength of the book. Comments from the Prize committee concerning Uzma's novel can be read here.

By the way, some of the online stores are claiming that the book will take weeks to ship, as they have run out of stock. Actually, the publishers are  rushing more copies as we speak, so Amazon.com and Amazon.ca should have them much sooner than they currently claim. So don't be wary about ordering.

How was my UConn reading,? Just ask Zarrin.

I had a fine old time reading from An Age of Madness at the University of Connecticut's Co-op Bookstore yesterday afternoon; there were about 15 people in attendance, mainly UConn students, who were alert and attentive throughout the whole thing and asked a pile of great questions at the end. It was a good time and it's always heartening to see that there is still such interest in stuff like, y'know, books and storytelling and so forth even in this age of Xboxes and Twitter and American Idol.

But hey, don't take my word for it. The cheerful and enthusiastic Zarrin Ahmed is a UConn journalism student who was covering the event, who took a bunch of pictures of me while I was talking and who wrote a very flattering article for the student paper. She got some of the details wrong (I was 40 when I published my first book, not 30) but overall the paints a very nice picture. You can read the whole article here.