David Gordon

David Gordon holds an MA in English and Comparative Literature and an MFA in Writing, both from Columbia University, and has worked in film, fashion, publishing and pornography. He is the author of The Serialist, which won the VCU/Cabell First Novel Award and was a finalist for an Edgar Award, and Mystery Girl, as well as a short story collection, White Tiger on Snow Mountain.

His books in the Joe the Bouncer Series are The Bouncer (2018) and the newly released The Hard Stuff.

Recently I asked Gordon about what he was reading. His reply:

As the beginning of the school term approaches, I am both finishing up summer reading and thinking about classes I will teach, so my my current book-list is even more of a hodge-podge than usual. I am reading:

Street of Thieves (Mathias Énard) This is a really thrilling and brilliant novel, written by a French Arabic scholar who now lives in Barcelona, about a young guy from Tangier who ends up lost in the no man’s land of the docks and ferries between Morocco and Barcelona as he flees his family, (who disowned him for sleeping with a cousin), a group of Islamic extremists, and the Spanish authorities, while also trying to connect with his Catalan girlfriend.

Night Studio (Musa Mayer) This memoir about the great painter Philip Guston is written by his daughter. In may ways it is pretty raw and painful - as it details life with a loving, exciting, but sometimes monstrously selfish artist as a father. Full off great insights on art and life, but also makes you happy that your parents aren’t geniuses.

Various works by Samuel Delany - Speaking of geniuses. I teach a class where we read "genre” and “literary” fiction together, and I have long wanted to include this singular visionary from the world of Sci-Fi, so I am dipping into both his novel, Dhalgren, and The Motion of Light on Water, his memoir about life as a black, gay writer in the East Village in the 60s.

Visit David Gordon's blog.

--Marshal Zeringue