What I'm Reading, Watching, and Writing

Or, I Just Had Oral Surgery and I'm Recovering on the Sofa and Can't Think of a Deeper Topic for this Newsletter

My last essay chronicled the decline and fall of the theatrical moviegoing experience. Kind of a downer, yeah? Well, yesterday I had a periodontist slice my gums open and dig out the bacteria that’d been festering underneath (take care of your teeth, kids). Two hours under that knife puts your world in perspective. There’s still a lot of good out there. You just got to grab it.

First, me (this is the internet, right?). My agent’s reading my new novel, and I’m waiting for his feedback. This is a rough time for a writer but I’m handling it well; I’m only vomiting once a day. The editor of a mixed martial arts-themed anthology just accepted a short of mine for an audio anthology. And I subbed an essay about why I write to the fine folks at Rock and a Hard Place. Lots going on.

Now, onto the good stuff.

Novels

FRIENDS HELPING FRIENDS, Patrick Hoffman

For years, Hoffman has been writing lean, unsentimental neo-noir that feature sprawling casts: THE WHITE VAN, EVERY MAN A MENACE, CLEAN HANDS. Now comes FRIENDS HELPING FRIENDS, which is pitched as the story of a reluctant police informant forced to infiltrate a white supremacist camp. It’s that, yeah, but it’s also so much more. Hoffman leverages a knack for humanizing everyone on the page into a real person into a novel about how the world kicks us in the stones, over and over. I’m knocked out by how much emotion and plot he conveys in so few words, without ever stooping to melodrama. He’s among my favorite working writers, and I highly recommend his latest.

HANG ON ST. CHRISTOPHER, Adrian McKinty

I discovered McKinty through his 2019 breakout THE CHAIN. That’s a fine novel, but his Sean Duffy series is where it’s at for me. Chronicling Northern Ireland’s Troubles through the eyes of a philosophical, sarcastic, weary Catholic detective in Protestant Carrickfergus, the novels are filled with complex plots, the blackest humor, DeLoreans, Jimmy Saville, Gerry Adams, and thuggery of all kinds. McKinty has aged Duffy as the years pass, and HANG ON… finds him in the early nineties, cursing the rise of U2 and realizing he might not want the comfortable life of a husband and father part-timing down at the Royal Ulster Constabulary. McKinty’s prose shines and his jokes kill. So does Duffy.

THE HUNTER, Tana French

Few writers offer a sense of place better than French. THE HUNTER is her second time through the fictional Irish town that’s home to a retired Chicago cop, the teenaged neighbor he’s helping, and the crew of (kinda devious) folk that populate the place. There’s a layered plot here, but that’s irrelevant to my love of French; her world is what pulls me through. I liked INTO THE WOODS, her debut, but THE HUNTER is precise and vivid. This is a novel you lose yourself in, and don’t want to end.

THE SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET, William Boyle

Nobody writes about New York City like William Boyle. He is a singular voice and his Brooklyn is filled with the kinds of bent-but-not-broken people I grew up with in the Bronx. Starting with a woman’s impulsive decision to kill her abusive husband, SAINT spans decades and generations, and is Boyle’s most ambitious novel to date. This isn’t a mystery or a thriller; it’s a proper work of literature that deserves all the awards it’ll no doubt get nominated for.

Movies

BLACK BAG

I’m not the biggest Steven Soderbergh fan, but his sleek, modern, twisty espionage caper is more about the lies we tell our loved ones and ourselves than the geopolitical moves on which the story hangs. Blanchett is ice and Fassbender is—sigh—once again monk-like as an affluent (check that kitchen!) George Smiley for our times. David Koepp’s script refuses to hold your hand and the jargon flies fast. But at 95 minutes it’s so tight, so effective. This felt like the elevated version of those adult, 1990s thrillers we used to get a dozen of every year. I had a blast.

SEPTEMBER 5

Ditching the dicey politics of the Arab/Israeli conflict, writers Moretz Binder, Alex David, and Tim Fehlbaum (who also directed) tell the story of the 1972 hostage-taking at the Munich Olympics through the (perennially exhausted) eyes of ABC Sports’ control room chief Geoffrey Mason. This isn’t a movie about an ancient dispute, September 5 shows us the moment news became a NOW NOW NOW business. Peter Skarsgaard’s Roone Arledge and Ben Chaplin’s Marvin Bader debate the ethics of livestreaming a terror attack, not knowing whether they might air the murder of an Israeli Olympian on worldwide television. The procedure stuff here rocks; Leonie Benesch translating German police comms, the letterboard nature of TV titles, film photographs of hostages getting developed and prepped for air, runners transporting 16mm film canisters through police lines. This one’s a lesson in tension and how creative limits and enhance art.

A DIFFERENT MAN

Chris Evans walked so Sebastian Stan could fly. This A24 movie about a man suffering from a facial deformity approaches the land of Charlie Kaufman and David Lynch. Stan is excellent, learning that good looks—a Substance-like drug miraculously “cures” him—aren’t what makes a man. Confronted by his own lingering self-doubts and Adam Pearson’s volcano of charisma, Stan descends into a nightmare of his own making. This one gets a little thin near the end, but Stan, Pearson, and Renate Reinsve are well worth your time.

Television

ADOLESCENCE

I’m not sure what I can say about this brilliant, disturbing, technical masterpiece that hasn’t been said. You know the deal: a thirteen year old is accused of killing a schoolmate; what happened and why? My wife and I don’t have kids. After spending four hours in the teen dystopia depicted by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, I think we made the right choice. Owen Cooper is astounding (in his first role!?!?!) as Jaime Cooper, a kid drawn into an always-on world of (mis)information, hate, and self-loathing. I thought maybe the oner gimmick (each episode is shot in one long take) was just that, a gimmick, but the camera’s unrelenting presence forces viewers to be fully present for the hellscape our phones and social media have wrought on our world. There’s a lot of slop on Netflix. But every now and then we get a stealth burner. Adolescence might be the best of them.