His books include And Here’s the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Humor Writers About Their Craft and (co-writer) Sex: Our Bodies, Our Junk.His new book is Your Wildest Dreams, Within Reason, which contains pieces from The New Yorker, Esquire, Time, Vanity Fair, McSweeney’s, and other publications.
Earlier this month I asked Sacks what he was reading. His reply:
I'm currently reading The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith.Visit Mike Sacks's website.
Patricia Smith has always been a favorite of mine. From what I've read, she wasn't the nicest of people, which usually doesn't matter, especially when it concerns solitary writers, but I wonder if this is why she was able to so accurately capture the emotional nuances of her disturbed, damaged characters. It seems to me that each character is, if not a jerk, than a bit of a sociopath--capable of murder or emotional devastation with a flick of a knife or a (well) sharpened remark. It's incredible how well she digs into these characters' minds. If a reader doesn'tnecessarily like these characters, at the very least they'll come to know and understand them, much as they would a troubled relative or friend.
I know very few writers able to capture the madness of males as well as Smith does; the jealousies, the feelings of inadequacy, the desperate hopelessness of a life that didn't pan out as expected. She really manages to do this better than practically any other writer I know, perhaps with the exception of Richard Yates or John Updike.
What I also find impressive is how each of her stories truly feels like a nightmare; they're claustrophobic and come circling back to various emotional or plot points at strange times and bizarre angles--and yet they always hold true to our realistic world. This is very difficult to pull off in books; it's much easier to accomplish in film, but there have been times when I've finished a Patricia Smith novel and wondered if I had even read it. Perhaps I dreamt it all?
Buy her books. She will not disappoint.
--Marshal Zeringue
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