Leaving Mundania, by Lizzie Stark. And speaking of creative and delightful journalism, this was another highlight of the year -- a George-Plimpton-style guide to Live Action Role Playing (LARP) games, which the author wrote by actually joining a campaign and playing it for an entire year. As such, then, this is personal journalism at its best, a style I know some purists detest but that I like quite a lot when done right; scholarly in its research, yet engaging as we see the sociological ways this “Dungeons & Dragons come to life” weekend hobby affects Stark’s life and personality, with a lot of keen insights into why this particular activity is so good at providing socialization skills to those who otherwise find it hard or even impossible to socialize. A great guide to both a specific subculture and culture in general.
The Nervous System, by Nathan Larson. A sequel to The Dewey Decimal System that I read at the same time, these sci-fi noirs from indie-rocker Larson (and put out by our pals at Akashic Books) posit a wonderful “soft apocalypse” premise at their core; namely, after an unending string of natural disasters and terrorist attacks, 90 percent of the former population of Manhattan has voluntarily left that city, turning the island into a semi-anarchic DMZ watched over by the military but mostly ruled by a series of ethnic gangs. Like Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, then, Larson uses straightforward crime stories in both novels as a way to explore all the dark little corners of this speculative milieu, centered around a former soldier with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and a huge black hole in his memory, who is attempting to re-order all the books in the New York Public Library if just all these warring factions would leave him the hell alone. Both smart and exciting, these continue Akashic’s impressive tradition of publishing well-done noirs set in unusual situations.
Office Girl, by Joe Meno. Is there a more interesting writer currently working in Chicago than Joe Meno? Oh, wait, I know the answer to that -- NO, NO THERE ISN’T. But instead of expanding the scope of his vision with his newest novel, Meno surprisingly went smaller and more inwards, turning in a story about an intense but fleeting two-week romance between a couple of art-school dropouts during the infamous Chicago Blizzard of 1999. And it was very smart for Meno to do this, too; for as one of a growing amount of contemporary writers known for their grandiose weirdness, this is a nice reminder of how good he is with simple character development as well. A lot of critics lambasted the book precisely for this, but I found it an intimate, quiet treat, and am convinced that you will too if you go into it with the right attitude.
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