CONGRATULATIONS BILL (old friend, great writer, sweet as pineapple) ROORBACH
on the publication of:
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR LIFE AMONG GIANTS:
Publishers Weekly
“[A] thrilling indulgence, a tale of opulence, love triangles, and madness, set against a sumptuous landscape of lust and feasts . . . This is a purely Gatsbyesque portrayal of celebrity; David and Sylphide inhabit a galaxy of stars, each more blinding and destructive than the next, drawing intrigue and violence into their orbits.”
Booklist
“Roorbach has created a memorable narrator who possesses the disarming frankness of Holden Caulfield and whose rapid-fire delivery and cutting characterizations expertly shift between memories and the present moment…This is one of those novels you read because you care about what happens to the people and the connections between them as those connections grow, fray, and snap. By turns surreal and gritty, the book is written with the same muscular grace possessed by the dancers and athletes who are its main characters.”
Shelf Awareness
“[A] novel of extravagant imagination…the story, skirting preciousness, and skillfully uses significant objects and nicknames as plot talismans…Similar to the work of John Fowles, Life Among Giants contains flashes of fantasy and obsession, though thankfully without the frustration of a pick-your-outcome finish. With Lizard, the story’s path all the way down the field is in safe hands.”
Kirkus Reviews
“With memories of people tangled “in a hopeless knot,” David “Lizard” Hochmeyer attempts to unravel the Gordian in Roorbach’s latest novel. . . .[An] exotic, eye-catching cast. . . . sparkling characters . . . A narrative threaded through with corruption and an appreciable number of love stories.”
“LIFE AMONG GIANTS is a sprawling, exuberant novel filled with murder and lust and, mostly, love. Bill Roorbach is a writer with enormous vision and an even more enormous heart.” —Ann Hood, author of The Red Thread
“LIFE AMONG GIANTS is such a surprise: an operatic novel of grand emotions and grand events, a story about murder, money and madness but also the worlds of dance, food, sports, and romance, all experienced at their over-the-top best. No one writes pleasure quite like Bill Roorbach.” —Debra Spark, author of Good for the Jews
“A book that’s big in the best of ways, LIFE AMONG GIANTS strolls effortlessly across several recent American decades, guiding a big-eyed reader through worlds of football, ballet, murder, fine food, investment fraud, gaudy wealth, murder again, international intrigue, and suspense, all the while staying within the tight limits of a family saga that rings universal. Bill Roorbach has delivered his award-winning writing talents in one big bunch. Hollywood will come calling.” —Clyde Edgerton, author of Killer Diller
You can order a copy here. You can read Bill’s blog here. And you can leave a comment here, too.
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Are there any writers who you love so much that you read all of their books? That you drop everything when a new book of theirs is published? That you reread them so often that the spines are broken, the pages soft with wear? THat you won’t lend them? That you go their readings and are either too tongue tied to say anything or blather like a fool? That you get into bar brawls over them? And keep buying copies of their books to give to friends. And when they publish a stinker you understand and forgive. After all, who can be a genius all of the time?
I write, produce, direct, and perform brilliant monologues while driving. They are usually inspired by some lingering resentment I’ve nursed throughout the day, being honked at (especially for not responding quickly enough when the light turns green), or seeing someone with a strange outfit as I did today, like the guy in seersucker shorts, orange day glow socks, and a Mohawk gelled within an inch of its life. The monologues, also known as rants, mine the ugliest parts of myself and range widely. I will attack anything and anyone including the aged and infirm. And I will astonish myself at how nasty, degenerate, and cruel I can be. Actually, it comes as no surprise.
When I worked as the corporate file coordinator at Morgan Stanley, I picked up a few business tips and truisms. One was that you had to give any new venture at least five years before pulling the plug. I think there is an analogy with writing, though it may be more like ten years. Or twenty. And worse, there may be no plug. I think it’s good to have five year goals. I think it’s good to keep track of progress or lack thereof so that you don’t gaslight yourself about whether or not you’re making progress. It’s very easy to lose track and fail to see the strides you do make.
The lights came back on today. Joy. We were only inconvenienced. Nothing more. I keeping thinking about the woman whose two young children were swept away from her when their street flooded. There was so much devastation, many lives lost. But it’s that woman I think of, the biblical scope of her loss. The universal fear: letting go of what we love, having it taken from us. Great waves of loss sweep through our lives. My father. My sister. Then Tom by his own hand. I break this silence with news of the worst sort. Friends, writers, aunts, heroes. You don’t think: this. This storm. This tree twisted off at the trunk as easy as a soda cap. When the lights came on I walked through the house as if I were being led through by a realtor, noting every room for its particular charm. Yes, that molding is lovely, just lovely. In the small library, a reading light cast a halo on the couch, and in its glow a book with a marker somewhere in the middle.
Dear Lost Souls: are you out there, did you wake up, is it dry, are you alright? I’m writing from an internet cafe and feeling the first sun on my face in a while. We still don’t have power, NYC is a mess, but our home was not struck by a two hundred year old tree. Some food is starting to rot. At night, we read by candlelight, very LIttle Women. Then a flashlight guides the way upstairs, and for a moment I am in a movie I’d prefer not to be in. In my dreams last night, Matt Damon was seated next to me on a plane and confided in me that he had kissed a man. Then he asked me what I thought was my best quality. I said, I’m kind. Just now, the sky looks like an El Greco painting. I am on my third Americano. And I’m wondering about all of you love bugs.
Let’s talk about the blank page. Let’s talk about the Shining. Let’s talk about senior year at NYU and my Milton paper. How you can quilt a perfectly fine legal yellow pad from writing the same opening sentence over and over again. I used to have zero tolerance for people who feared the blank page. Why the hell are you a writer, I secretly thought to myself, while nodding empathically. Same thing with writer’s block, which is a version of death by blank page. You don’t know what to say, you don’t know how to say it. Or, you’re afraid to say it. Or, you have no tolerance for your own limitations. Or, you a coward. Full stop. Or you know what you don’t know. And care. Or you think you’re better than the blankness. Or you are unworthy. Or you are not in therapy. Or a page is a mirror is a stone is a flower is a sesame bun. I studied with the great Charles Ludlam, playwright, actor and founder of the Ridiculous Theater. He said that he always wrote a few sentences into the next page of whatever he was working on so he never had to face the blank page. That’s the best advice I ever heard apart from cod liver oil and a pack of Lucky’s.
