Burn and Learn: New Book by Eric Shaffer
Poet Eric Shaffer, whose publications include Portable Planet (2000), Living at the Monastery, Working in the Kitchen (2001), and Lahaina Noon (2005) just published his first novel, Burn and Learn.
He's holding a public book release party on November 14, 2009, at 2 PM at the Hawai‘i State Public Library, 478 South King Street (at the corner of Punchbowl Street).
When I asked Eric what his book was about, he said:
Burn & Learn is a wild tale of five friends attending college, drinking coffee at the Frontier Restaurant, and learning the wisdom of the ages, the era, and the street in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This episodic novel begins where Laurence Sterne and Richard Brautigan left off, introducing a truly amusing and alluring wilderness of words through which readers can blaze their own glorious trials.
The novel reveals all in thirteen modes ranging from mythology, science-fiction fables, American koans, Coyote tales, coyote chapters, BookMovie chapters, Missing Lists (and other relevant context), realistic narrative, encyclopedic entries enumerating the details the Century of Technological Disaster, commentary on the Ideal Edition of the novel, a
love story, a lost-love story, and parables of four monkish brothers residing in a cabin on the Continental Divide.
In other words, the book is weird. I like weird books. If you like weird books, too, I highly recommend this one. Shaffer shows a poet's meticulous attention to word choice in this novel.
One of the many cool things about writing fiction. You can experiment. You can play. You are not confined by three act structure.
I especially enjoyed the picture of the 1,400 pound camera on page 285:
