The Widower by Liesel Litzenburger! While I'm still in the middle of it, so cannot give it a rating as of yet, I can say I'm really enjoying it, and was happily surprised to see it in Borders earlier today, as I didn't expect it to be out until Tuesday.
This is another money where the mouth is books as I've had the galley for some time now - Shaye Areheart was kind enough to send it to me earlier this summer when I was begging them for it - hoping to get ahead of my fall of plenty (Woodrell, Adichie, Drury, Litzenburger, Franklin, LBC nominees, etc.). It didn't work. But, I grabbed the hardcover as soon as I saw it on the shelf this afternoon and marched it to the counter.
Liesel, sadly for her, was a classmate of mine in what is shaping out to be a pretty special undergraduate creative writing class back in the Fall of 1988 at the University of Michigan. It was my last semester (my ninth for those counting) and I needed six credits to obtain my BS in Statistics. So, like all of the other Stats majors, I took Creative Writing, and Reading From a Writer's Point of View. Two classes worth a trio of credits apiece, that both met on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, for an hour and a half each.
Between these two classes, I was introduced to such writers as Mark Costello (The Murphy Stories, not Big If), Charles Baxter, Ralph Lombreglia, Tim O'Brien, Elizabeth Tallent, Cormac McCarthy, Madison Smartt Bell, and many, many others.
But, back specifically to the creative writing class. It's been nearly 20 years so many faces and names have been forgotten, but some stick out. Elwood Reid was in that class - to date he's published three novels and a short story collection. Liesel was in the class, and has her debut novel out in stores now. Rob Kunkel was in that class and moving on towards an MFA at Brown - he's published at least one item in The Paris Review. Another student, my cousin, Tamara Christie-Glynn received her MFA from Eastern Michigan University not too long ago, so keep the name in mind. So, while Liesel had to suffer through some weak, and blatant, Robert Coover, The Babysitter, ripoff, I was fortunate enough to be reading the very early works of some great modern day authors. Oh yeah, the class was taught by Alyson Hagy, author of (soon to be) two published novels and a trio of story collections.
So, look for The Widower, it's in stores now!
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