Union Atlantic

Adam Haslett might be the best modern, young American writer that I know of. His short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here was amazing, his first novel Union Atlantic convinced me little based on its cover or the description on its back. Yet, I bought it anyway, based on how much I had enjoyed him before and he truly rewarded me. Haslett includes a slight bit of magical realism in his novel, which tends to irritate me a bit, but notwithstanding this small default Union Atlantic is probably the novel of the US financial (note: not the real economy) crisis that I have read so far. Haslett's book reflects the US constantly at war in the Middle East, the greed of its banks and some of the people working for them, it even includes parts about the difficulty of being a - gay but not limited to that - adolescent. His characters have made good or bad career choices, but most of them are unsatisfied one way or another. His book shows life, period. And it does so without embellishments but poignantly. Highly recommendable.

You Are Not a Stranger Here

For the life of it I cannot remember where I stumbled over a review of Adam Haslett's You Are Noth a Stranger Here. It might have been a belated one for a French translation, it might have been a reference only in a review to his more recent novel. In either case Haslett fit right in with my recent self-obliged lecture of modern (as in young or not dead: Rabinovici, N'Sondé, Prigent or Cisneros all fit the bill).

He coincidently also fit right in with a discussion I recently had with a friend of mine concerning gay literature. While I had had read some homosexual authors of course (Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, Reynolds Price), virtually none of the books had actually dealt with the non-hetero world. Now the - unsurprising - truth is that this doesn't change much, in fact one would have to wonder whether something such as homosexual literature exists in the first place or whether it is not just a question of good or bad literature dealing with human lives and their complications. I would tend to favour the latter argument, but stand to be corrected as my take might simply be based on a lack of knowledge and naivety.

You Are Not a Strangere Here in any case freely mixes hetero and homo couples, stories taking place in the UK and the US. Yet, neither of this really matters nor means anything as Haslett regardless of the respective surroundings masterfully portrays humans in their suffering, in their self-delusions and (I would say) vanity. His nine stories are powerful if at times - almost reminiscent of Southern Gothic writing - grotesque and - on the surface in any case - devoid of happy endings. Haslett's writing style is extremely lucid and he wonderfully manages to convey his stories' sentiments and atmosphere across. A great new addition to my personal literary canon.