<\/p>\n
Famous Writers I Have Known<\/em> by James Magnuson, director of the James A. Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin, is unequal parts noir, caper, and satirical sendup of creative-writing programs and the contemporary literary scene, generally.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Frankie Abandonato is a career grifter in New York, forced to flee after his latest con goes murderously awry. The first flight out of La Guardia is to Austin, and Frankie takes off. Landing in Austin, he\u2019s mistaken for V. S. Mohle (think J. D. Salinger), a famously reclusive author who has agreed to teach a writing workshop at a prestigious fiction program. Sensing the con of a lifetime, Frankie assumes the mantle of tortured genius and must ultimately confront Mohle\u2019s nemesis, Rex Schoeninger (think James Michener). The two writers haven\u2019t spoken since feuding over a Pulitzer came to blows on The Dick Cavett Show<\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Famous Authors I Have Known<\/em> rollicks with farce, especially when Frankie tries to bluff his way through literature workshops, where he mistakes Jay Gatsby for an author, is baffled by \u201csome Cheever guy,\u201d finds himself on the phone with G\u00fcnter Grass, and assigns exercises such as \u201cDescribe a field as seen by a cow. Do not mention the cow.\u201d Students make earnest declarations: \u201cRealism is the atlas of fiction!\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Magnuson\u2019s dialogue is smart, quick, and often hilarious. Here Frankie and his former partner, who have been in prison for most of the 1990s, discuss a newfangled scam involving African royalty and something called email:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf you think I\u2019m going to pose as a Nigerian prince, you\u2019re crazy.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDid I say you were going to have to pose as anybody? That\u2019s the beauty of it. It\u2019s all done on the computer. It\u2019s totally risk-free.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not wearing any goddamned robes.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This novel is all plot, as befits a crime caper. Magnuson is judicious with illustrative detail, not feeling the need to painstakingly draw every brick in the wall when a sketch will do for his purposes. The pace is brisk and even suspenseful as the story approaches its climax, holding attention effortlessly.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Famous Authors I Have Known<\/em> is read by actor Kevin T. Collins, a veteran of audio narration whose work has won a couple of AudioFile Earphones Awards. Collins\u2019s voice is smooth and his pacing even. Frankie is a combination of cynical world-weariness, perpetual bemusement at the alien literary world he\u2019s landed in, and intermittent existential terror. Collins manages this mixture with aplomb, although a bit more attitude would be appropriate, and his choice of where to place the emphasis in any particular phrase seemed off at times. Collins does a satisfying range of voices and accents, managing to make Texans sound like Texans, not caricatures.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Magnuson romps through the novel, lightheartedly skewering literary pretention, joining the perennial debate about what is art and what is popular. Is there more value in a single critically acclaimed novel, or in a career of prosaic prose that \u201ckept generations of readers reading?\u201d Does it matter?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Review of new literary satire from James Magnuson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[216,52,241,12,8,16,15],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bookreview","tag-fiction","tag-humor","tag-lonestarreview","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-review","tag-texasauthor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n