786: “In his latest novel . . .”
Reviews of What a Piece of Work I Am
“In his latest novel, Mr. Kraft has created a heroine as complex as his narrative. . . . [he] is a master at illuminating the shoals and shallows of a young person’s heart. . . . Mr. Kraft’s work is a weird wonder, successfully mating tales from the kind of small-town life that hardly exists anymore with a never-ending examination of what it’s like to create such a world. . . . . In an age when computer technology is on the verge of unleashing the all-singing, all-dancing novel, Eric Kraft’s true theme, the awesome power of the low-tech human imagination, has never seemed so timely or so wise.”Karen Karbo, The New York Times Book Review
“Eric Kraft cooks up another treat. . . . [He] continues his delightful and brainy series of novels about the engaging denizens of the fictional Long Island clamming town of Babbington. . . . Lodkochnikov’s voice is as fetching as can be, by turns tough and wistful. Like mythology, her vibrant stories show human beings at their worst, their best, and their most fragile. And they yield more than a few bits of wisdom. Above all, Kraft’s new novel celebrates the joy of storytelling while gently probing the psyches of those who feel the need to create stories.”
Timothy Hunter, Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Novelist Eric Kraft’s niche in contemporary literature might well be as a sunny, upbeat American version of the Argentine fabulist Jorge Luis Borges. Like the latter’s magical realism, Kraft’s writing focuses on personal identity as an ephemeral, ever-changing construct, and this theme underlies his ongoing, major life’s work, The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy, now consisting of five independent yet related novels . . . . His newest novel centers on the sultry Ariane . . . In this complex mirroring of two sides of an evolving identity, what the masterful tale teller Kraft does is show that, while Ariane may not exist materially, it is enough that she exists in Peter’s imagination ‘at a crossroads in a labyrinth of tales.’”
Mark Ciabattari, Washington Post Book World
“Ariane Lodkochnikov is practically a walking sex fantasy—her nickname is Tootsie Koochikov, and she is so alluring that even her dopey brothers spy on her through chinks in the bedroom wall. . . . Her fate is to be a modern- day Ariadne, though, which means that almost any path she tries is a dead end or loops back to where she started. That should be frustrating to the reader, but it’s when we come upon new versions of what we’ve seen before that the novel is most droll and delighting. It conveys a sense of sheer play that a reader may not have experienced since building a fort in the back yard or setting up a dolls’ tea party.”
The New Yorker
“A story of travels that are sometimes real, sometimes imaginary, and always diverting. Kraft’s gift is for minute observation, the depiction of small events and the metaphors to be found in things like clam chowder. Reading Kraft takes work, but it is work well rewarded.”
Mark Munroe Dion, Kansas City Star
“The Peter Leroy stories and novels of Eric Kraft are among the most ingenious works of recent fiction. They are this fine writer’s way of using fiction to deal with that age-old dilemma of art, the links between illusion and reality. . . . Kraft’s techniques are sly indeed. He satirizes artistic pretentiousness, while, at the same time, obviously enjoying what he satirizes. The delicate line between art and truth has never been more entertainingly explored.”
Roger Harris, The Newark Star Ledger
“Reality, in Eric Kraft’s fifth novel, sometimes seems as slippery and difficult to grasp as a jellyfish in baby oil. Like a nimble child playing hopscotch, Peter Leroy,
the present-day narrator of this confabulation, delights in hopping back and forth across the borders of truth, being, memory, meaning, and existence—asking, and often answering, provocative questions about the nature of being and becoming, and about how we construct ourselves (literally make something of ourselves) over the course of our lives. . . . Mr. Kraft is aiming high here, compelling his characters and his readers to struggle and grapple with preconceived notions about reality and fiction and truth and their relationship to how we become ourselves. It is well worth the effort, though, because we are—as we have come to expect from Eric Kraft—in the hands of a master.”
Michael Z. Jody, The East Hampton Star
Recommended by the Reader’s Catalogue
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1994)
Available now, free, on Apple Books: http://books.apple.com/us/book/id1442081719
The serialization of The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy will resume with the first episode of At Home with the Glynns on Wednesday, August 14th, 2024.
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archiveor consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, and Where Do You Stop?
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.
The serialization of The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy is supported by its readers. I sometimes earn affiliate fees when you click through the affiliate links in a post. EK
The illustration in the banner that opens each episode is from an illustration by Stewart Rouse that first appeared on the cover of the August 1931 issue of Modern Mechanics and Inventions.
www.erickraft.com
www.babbingtonpress.com
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