Matthew Wayne Selznick

Take that, literati… then go out and read “Always Coming Home,” and shut the fuck up about it, already.

A while back, Henry and I did a book swap. He wrote up “Brave Men Run” almost a month ago. I am horribly late returning the favor.

Rather than tell you what “North of Sunset” is about, check out the Lulu page (where you can also — and should — buy the book!) for reviews and a synopsis. You’ll find a lot of high praise and favorable comparisons to Chandler and Flaubert there… all deserved.

I finished the book about three weeks ago. Since then, I’ve had trouble deciding just what I wanted to say about it. The fact that I’ve been uncertain of my own opinion of the work is, I think, a testament to the book’s effectiveness. I think I’m ready to give it a go.

“North of Sunset” builds pace at an exponential rate. It starts slow, piling on the point-of-view characters until I was very, very ready for the first third of the book to be under my left thumb. Once things started to happen, though, I devoured pages with eager hunger… but I was left with a disappointment I didn’t initially understand.

Took a little digesting to figure it out.

“North of Sunset” is a satire, a statement, a vision of celebrity and the freedom prison it creates, as well as Western culture’s role as both warden and conjugal visitor. The book is full of characters, but it isn’t really about any of them.

That’s not a criticism. It’s a reflection of my own preferences in what I like to read, and what I like to write. I look for sympathetic characters, good or bad. The people populating Baum’s book are, with the exception of one minor character, nearly bleached of any sympathetic qualities. That lack was the reason for my feeling of disappointment. However…

…that’s the point. In the “Hollywood Noir” world Baum asks us to embrace in order to stage his play, people require the superficial approval of the anonymous masses more than they need to act morally. As a reader, I found myself waiting for justice. It never came. Message received.

Ultimately, regardless of this reader’s literary prejudices, “North of Sunset” succeeds. It’s an engaging read, in part because it feeds on our desire to experience the amplified passions of its characters. The fact that this is the same impulse that fuels the cult of celebrity is delicious irony, a meta-message with the reader as collaborator.

Neat trick, Henry. Nicely done.

Best

Evah

My wife’s going to be at a function where Felicity Huffman will be speaking, so we thought we’d watch “TransAmerica” to check out the actor’s Golden Globe winning and Oscar-nominated performance. Sure, we could have started watching “Desperate Housewives,” but… well.

Like the best movies, indeed, the best literature of any kind, what makes “TransAmerica” so good isn’t what happens in the movie, it’s what the movie’s about. There’s a difference. So, if you told yourself you wouldn’t see a “gay movie” (it’s not) or a “trannie movie” (it’s not) I urge you to reconsider.

This is a movie about self-discovery, self-worth, the weight of responsibility, and the rewards available when one faces that responsibility. In other words, it’s about being human. That’s you, right?

Finally, if you’re interested in the actual craft of making art, in this case the actor’s art, Felicity Huffman’s performance is astonishingly transformative in every sense. I didn’t see any of the other Best Actress movies for 2006, but I find it very hard to believe Reese Witherspoon did a better job as June Carter in “Walk The Line.”

Rent this one — hell, it’s worth owning.

Say what you will about Bruce Springsteen’s entire body of work… “Rosalita” is a kick-ass song. There’s great energy, great optimism, and great youth and celebration in that song.

And what an arrangement!