Having written a dozen contemporary Western crime novels featuring law enforcement officer Kevin Kerney, Michael McGarrity turns the clock back to tell a sweeping backstory of Kerney’s family. The first part of the trilogy, HARD COUNTRY, due out May 10. Here, the author discusses this undertaking.
BOOKGASM: What inspired you to begin you a trilogy, particularly one set from the 1870s and through World War I?
MCGARRITY: When I first put Kevin Kerney on the page as the protagonist in my crime novels, I was already imagining his family history back several generations or more. I would conjure up images of his ancestors and speculate about their lives.
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Between consuming DVD extras, reading three decades of magazine articles and having read Matty Simmons’ 1994 NATIONAL LAMPOON bio, IF YOU DON’T BUY THIS BOOK, WE’LL KILL THIS DOG, I’m not sure I learned anything new from the movie producer’s new book, FAT, DRUNK, AND STUPID: THE INSIDE STORY BEHIND THE MAKING OF ANIMAL HOUSE, but I enjoyed it all the same.
Released in 1978, NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE was an instant hit and remains a comedy classic. There’s no disputing that, but Simmons seems intent on needing to the talk the reader into it, with ongoing references to how everyone loves to quote it, how the song “Shout” is still so awesome, how John Belushi is so funny in the flick, and so on.
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In his introduction to A GAME OF THRONES: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL: VOLUME ONE, creator George R.R. Martin writes, “Let me make one thing clear: This is not a tie-in to the television series.” I understand what he means by that — that these collected six issues are based on his original novels, just as the show is — but let’s make one thing clear: This hardcover wouldn’t exist if not for the insanely popular HBO adaptation. Dynamite Entertainment practically lives solely on tie-in comics!
That out of the way, this decently illustrated (by Tommy Patterson) THRONES comes scripted by Daniel Abraham, despite how large Martin’s name appears on the cover. It also encompasses more or less the events seen by viewers of HBO’s first season.
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As longtime BOOKGASM visitors know, it’s only in very rare instances that this site even dares to flirt with reviewing poetry. We think verse written by a Coen brother totally counts. Besides, it contains many oddball phrases like “tubby hobo.”
Ethan Coen, half of the Oscar-winning indie sib team that has brought us such modern film classics as RAISING ARIZONA to NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, has issued his latest collection in THE DAY THE WORLD ENDS, a volume so slim, the spine barely has room to include the title in a readable point size.
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In CENSORING HOLLYWOOD, Ireland-based critic Aubrey Malone fashions a pretty linear narrative out of the history of the kind of editing filmmakers don’t like: that imposed by censors, whether in the form of today’s MPAA or yesteryear’s Legion of Decency, which tagged movies as our society’s “greatest menace.”
In essence, Malone covers much of the same ground as film historian Stephen Tropiano did a few years ago in the recommended OBSCENE, INDECENT, IMMORAL AND OFFENSIVE, but whereas that author approached the topic as brief, bite-sized essays, this one aims to draw a direct line from 1896′s THE KISS to 1997′s LOLITA.
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