Thursday, November 18, 2010

Jaimy Gordon Wins Big



















So happy Jaimy Gordon won the National Book Award for fiction! Yeah! The book: Lord of Misrule (McPherson, 2010). Yayss!

Jaimy Gordon is a thoughtful person, very engaging and hard-working. I remember meeting her in Ludington, Michigan, many moons ago, and some of the things she talked about: the layered joys of reading Marcel Proust, comparative literature in general and a tale she was writing about survivors of the Holocaust who lived in a magic cave in Eastern Europe who emerged many years after WWII (sort of like one the those legendary Japanese soldiers). As then, she continues to teach at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Congratulations, Jaimy Gordon!  She graciously signed a couple of her books that I still have in my very condensed personal library of under 500 volumes.




















Another big winner: Patti Smith for Just Kids (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2010) -- in the nonfiction category. Another yayss! Smith pretty much does it all.

And these aren't just kids: Jaimy Gordon is 66, Patti Smith, nearing 64. I love it!  And they both have Michigan connections.

For an earlier take on Patti Smith (Dream of Life):

http://eriklerouge.blogspot.com/2010/01/patti-smith-dream-of-life-second.html

Today's Rune: Journey.

4 comments:

JR's Thumbprints said...

Wow! I love the Michigan connections. Also, Jaimy Gordon was Bonnie Jo Campbell's professor at WMU. Way cool!

Johnny Yen said...

I'm looking forward to reading Ms. Smith's book. In the reviews, I discovered that she was originally from Chicago, the Logan Square neighborhood, where I lived with wife #1.

jodi said...

Erik, I will be reading both of those! The covers alone are awesome...

Charles Gramlich said...

Patti smith is 64? Whoa.