An Other People's Recommendation Even I'll Recommend

June 19, 2009 7:29 AM

Ever since my last blog post, about how everybody and their mother is convinced that "Napoleon Dynamite" and I are soul mates, the cloud of bad recommendations has been hoveringimages.jpg overhead. Netflix is urging me to check out a Dane Cook "comedy" (talk about contradiction in terms) and the good folks at Amazon.com just sent me an email suggesting that I order a new home decor book by some socialite who once upon a time blew me off for an ill-fated "The Real Lives of Socialites" magazine story I was working on (it was an assignment, not my idea!).

But to give my friends and acquaintances a little credit, there is a recommendation that I have been receiving since forever ago and that isn't so shoddy after all. In fact, it's genius!

I discovered yesterday that I was a fool for not listening to my helpful friends earlier. After hearing at least a dozen exhortations that "Kate Christensen is going to be your new favorite writer," I started her new book "Trouble." Man, is it good. And it's not even supposed to be her best book! Kate writes like Mary Gaitskill after years of therapy--slightly messed up characters who are refreshingly forgiving and loving. And the writing is wonderful--wry and elegant and if it tries hard, it sure doesn't show.

This book goes down as easy as all the delicious tequila the two foxy forty-something female protagonists are drinking on every page of their Mexico City adventure. I gobbled up nearly a hundred pages on both legs of my daily commute, about 78 pages more than my average.

And if that's not enough, she also knows how to give a book reading that isn't dreadful. Last night, inspired by my new-found Kate Christensen fandon (okay, crush), I trekked out to Greenpoint's Word bookstore to see her read and be interviewed by Maud Newton. I was charmed by Christensen's easy laughter, amused by her assertion that all her books are "about rock and roll and %&$ing--some are just written with more literary pretension than others" (the point being that this book, which only took her three months to write, is no "Great Expectations"), charmed by her admission that she strives to write like Kingley Amis, and super grateful for the plates of buttery cinnamon chocolate cookies that she'd put out beforehand.

Be still, my heart.

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