Movies & books

Saw two movies this weekend: Mamma Mia and Vicky, Christina, Barcelona, the new Woody Allen flick. My favorite Woody Allen movies are Annie Hall and Hannah & Her Sisters...and now I can add to that list Vicky, Christina, Barcelona. At first I wasn't sure what to make of that odd narrative voice that summarizes and comments on the action, but I ended up liking it. It was dry, humorous, different.And oh my gawd, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz! I usually don't care too much about beautiful, but JHC, they both bring out the bi in my sexual. And how lucky was Scarlett Johansson to get to ... well, no plot spoilers.

Speaking of Miss Scarlett, I thought she actually did a good job in this movie. Usually she's so wooden, acting only with her pouty lips. Woody Allen is finally bringing out the something special in her that apparently he sees (beyond the bod).

Mamma Mia was manic but fun. I actually liked it better than the local stage version we saw a few years back. My favorite parts were the all the women running together singing "Dancing Queen" (that's such a great, nostalgic song for me)--and the incredible, amazing, can-do-anything Meryl Streep with her red shawl in the wind singing "The Winner Takes It All."

(Is it just me, or is the Abba "Money Money Money" song a rip-off of "Money Makes the World Go Around from Cabaret?)

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More news on the For the May Queen front:

And yet another new blurb! Look left. This one's from Jayne Pupek, the author of a wonderful new novel Tomato Girl (more on that in a September post). Just got the next version of the galleys from my publisher. I'm thrilled with the fonts they chose.

A page turner

Another new blurb! Look left, below the image of the novel cover.

New blurb, New York

It's fun to see what readers are making of For the May Queen.

One blurb came in yesterday that refers to a book I must have read 10 times in high school:

“In the tumultuous way of Go Ask Alice, so Kate Evans captures the nightmarish chaos of a young woman’s attempt to find her way amid too much freedom, too much sex and too many drugs. Laced with the kind of astute detail that drops readers into that fateful freshman year of college, this story examines the hard choices that can make or break a spirit.” — Martha Engber, Growing Great Characters From the Ground Up

I like the idea that the book is about "choices that can make or break a spirit." It's cool how when others read your work they articulate things about it that you might not be able to yourself.

Go Ask Alice is basically a book of fiction posing as a memoir. I've always enjoyed reading fiction that reads like a memoir, so I'm pleased that Martha highlighted the memoir quality of my novel. Go Ask Alice is considered a classic coming-of-age novel, in the vein of Catcher in the Rye and, more recently, Prep.

The latter novel, especially, is considered a "cross-over novel"; I've seen it shelved in both the Young Adult and Adult Fiction sections of libraries and book stores. When For the May Queen was being circulated by my agent, several editors objected to the sense that the novel was, in a way, both an Adult and a Young Adult novel. Tell that to the author, editor and publisher of Prep--which in its cross-over status became a best-seller and a New York Times Notable Book.

Yes, Prep is well-written. But I think one reason it got so much attention in New York because it's an East Coast novel. Mine takes place in California--at a state university no less, not a prestigious prep school. I have a friend whose first novel was published by a major New York publisher. His second novel, a historical set in California, was rejected by them. He told me he'll work on getting it published by a "West Coast press" while writing something that the New York publishers will take. I found that disconcerting, but he was very Zen about it. He said if you want to play in New York, you have to go by their rules. That's still stuck in my craw a bit, even though I know he's right.