The Open Curtain review at The Elegant Variation

As a follow-up to my last post--Matthew Tiffany hands off a guest review of Brian Evenson's The Open Curtain to The Elegant Variation.

The Open Curtain is one of those books that you want to tell people about, but end up hedging your words – there's always more you could say without giving away the entire story, and yet this is one of those books that you get the most out of without the constraints of a summary read beforehand. The way Evenson builds upon the confusion Rudd goes through as he loses more and more of his present self to the tragedy of 1902 is suggestive of a number of possible psychological explanations. You know that this is billed as a "literary thriller," so at some point the past is going to intrude in a horrific way on the present....

Yeah, I'm gonna have to read that.

Also, via TEV, we learn that if you're in California, you've got the chance to check out, tonight, a reading, featuring Brian Evenson, and poet Maggie Nelson. Whose poetry, based on her first book Shiner, I sort of love. To the point where, once or twice, in the hazy lovelorn days of youth, I maybe oh maybe professed an ever so small desire to marry her for it. So yeah, if you've got the chance to attend her reading, you should.