Two for Texas

Thu 19 Jan 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Two items popped up this week from the grizzled weird part of Texas: first, Tobias Carroll interviewed Robert Freeman Wexler, Skulls, Detectives, and the Texas Surreal in Vol. 1 Brooklyn (“There’s a point early on in Robert Freeman Wexler‘s novel The Silverberg Business where you might have an idea of where things are heading. . . .”) then Vick Mickunas’s WYSO Christmas Day interview popped up online — although I think the audio file will actually appear in a day or two.

 


Podcastery Times 2

Thu 22 Sep 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Podcast week part 2: this week Robert Freeman Wexler was interviewed by Rick Kleffel on Narrative Species.

Rick has been interviewing people for many years  — here’s a podcast from 2007 with me, Kelly, and Karen: News Report; Gavin Grant, Karen Joy Fowler, Kelly Link — but his enthusiasm for books still comes through along with a deep knowledge of writers, books and more. I have his recent chat with Kim Stanley Robinson lined up next.

Listen up here.

 

"Shannon, a detective working for the Llewelyn Agency out of Chicago, is recruited to find missing money intended to purchase land in Texas for refugee Romanian Jews. It seems like a straightforward job for a straightforward man. Shannon is a methodical thinker who has family in Galveston. But while his thoughts are those of a careful, entirely rational man, his dreams are not. As he becomes involved in what he calls The Silverberg Business, the weird begins edging in, first in dreams, but does not confine itself to his hours of unconsciousness. Readers will experience a similar expansion. Robert Freeman Wexler’s novel The Silverberg Business is mind-boggling in content, and in its unique ability to entertainingly take reader places they’d never expect to go."


Indie Bookstore Silverberg Spectacular

Mon 22 Aug 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Write here, write now, Write Columbus.

I wish I were going to be at Two Dollar Radio HQ tomorrow night for Robert Freeman Wexler and Jeffrey Ford’s event (Aug. 23, 8 p.m.) where Robert will launch his new novel, The Silverberg Business, and Jeff will read from Big Dark Hole. An aside here, having been to many readings by Jeff over the years he is just as likely to pull out a sheaf of papers and read from something he has finished that day.

Tomorrow is the first night of Robert’s Indie Bookstore Silverberg Spectacular. If you get to go, do post photos and tag us on twitter — or even BKMN on instagram.


Adventurists and Businesses on the Road

Fri 17 Jun 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

We’re busy with Robert Freeman Wexler setting up readings for his forthcoming novel The Silverberg Business as well as with Richard Butner setting up a couple of NYC area events for The Adventurists.

So far for the very strange historical Texas business book, there are two readings set up — the first at $2 Radio HQ, oh, how I’d love to get there with none other than short story superstar Jeffrey Ford, and ah, now there are 3! A Jo-Beth Cincinnati reading was just finalized. There should be a Chicago reading coming and then, of course, given the Texan nature of the business at hand, events in Austin, Houston, and maybe Galveston. More TK, as I am wont to say.

Aug. 23, 8 p.m. Two Dollar Radio HQ, Columbus, OH — with Jeffrey Ford
Aug. 27, 8 p.m. The Emporium, Yellow Springs, OH
Aug. 29, 7 p.m. Joseph-Beth,  Cincinnati, OH — in conversation with Rebecca Kuder

Richard Butner is leaving North Carolina — but only temporarily! — and will be in NYC at the fabled KGB Bar for the fantastic fiction series with a friend, New York city native, and excellent writer, Veronica Schanoes, and the second over the water (but not very far) in Hoboken, at the outstanding indie bookstore, Little City Books:

Aug 17, 7 p.m. Richard Butner & Veronica Schanoes, KGB Fantastic Fiction, KGB Bar, NYC
Aug 18, 7 p.m. Little City Books, Hoboken, NJ

The Adventurists cover - click to view full size The Silverberg Business cover - click to view full size


“the strangest book I’ve ever read”

Fri 11 Mar 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

The Silverberg Business coverWell here’s a fine thing that should set many a Small Beer reader’s Spider senses tingling: John Crowley — whose own new novel Flint and Mirror comes out next month from Tor — sent along this note after reading an early copy of Robert Freeman Wexler’s forthcoming novel, The Silverberg Business:

“Certainly the strangest book I’ve ever read, and strangeness is a thing that I take to. The grotesque horrors, the impossibilities, the shifting scenes, Silverberg’s skull, the skull-heads, the wooden house that turns into a mansion without the detective finding it particularly odd. It is in fact a book not like anything I’ve ever read.”
— John Crowley, author of Little, Big