Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Lorna Landvik

Lorna Landvik's novels include the bestselling Patty Jane’s House of Curl, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, Oh My Stars, Best to Laugh, and Once in a Blue Moon Lodge. She has performed stand-up and improvisational comedy around the country and is a public speaker, playwright, and actor most recently in the one-woman, all-improvised show Party in the Rec Room. She lives in Minneapolis.

Landvik's new novel is Chronicles of a Radical Hag (with Recipes).

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:
I have about twenty pages left of The Italian Teacher by Tom Rachman and I can’t wait to get to them. In fact later tonight, I will, in the tub. That’s my treat to myself, along with a glass of Malbec and foaming epsom salts. His novel, The Imperfectionists was a big, full read and so I was excited to dive into his latest. Rachman’s like a wily and agile shortstop who covers all the bases (character, setting, plot), bringing us the story of a famous painter and his son. Bear Bavinsky is the larger-than-life artist who marries and breeds as easily as he uncaps a tube of paint, and Pinch is his first son, who idolizes his father, even as he experiences the drama and cruelty Bear wreaks. Everything takes you in — the people, their endearing/maddening foibles, insights into the art world, the wide-ranging locales (Roma! London, Toronto! the south of France!). It’s a book that makes you feel and think, beautifully written with grace notes of humor.

Waiting for the Punch by Marc Maron is another book I’ve been reading/lolling around in. In it, comic, podcaster Maron asks questions of people — mostly comics, some politicians, radio hosts, producers — and their answers are illuminating, funny, sad, scary and hopeful. It’s like a reference book for people trying to figure out how to get through life.
Visit Lorna Landvik's website.

My Book, The Movie: Chronicles of a Radical Hag (with Recipes).

--Marshal Zeringue