I'm listening to Scott Spencer being interviewed on NPR, and he's talking up his new book which sounds like Houellebecq meets Franzen. Don't know if I can get behind this effort, but here is what you need to know about Spencer:
Last Night at the Brain Thieves Ball (1975) - Interesting first book, but nothing of what is to come. Don't remember much. B-
Preservation Hall (1976) - here we get the Spencer we all know and love. He's got a mishmash of scenarios and problems the main characters experience when they're marooned in a snowbound cabin. They're young and vital and real. No one does young folk like Spencer as the next book proves. B+
Endless Love (1979) - One of the best books of my lifetime. Jade and David are amazing characters, and the ends fray out and make you feel that missing part of you, that urgent relationship you wish you still had many years ago. Highlights include Ann Butterfield's letters, a 50 page sex scene, the two living in Vermont, and the stone fact that most adults are plain jealous of young love. A
Waking the Dead (1986) - his second best, about an unmatched love affair that ends in a killing, only to be restarted with a possible ghost/spirit of said dead lover. B+
A Ship Made of Paper (2003) - Parts are great, parts are crap. Relationships with parents and lovers are frayed, but as this was supposed to be a book about race relations, it was probably too bad it came out at the same time as Powers' The Time of Our Singing, a much better book. B
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