Anyways, the list includes the yucky The Road and The Interrogative Mood
. That last one held my interest at first blush until I realized it was too gimmicky to be worthwhile. An entire book of disjointed questions and no narrative? Not fiction. Write a poem, please. My guess is that Harper-Collins rightly thought that no one buys poetry books anymore, especially men, so Powell’s editor strongarmed him into taking out the hard carriage returns and forming paragraphs in random places.
American Rust, about a cross-country roadtrip that leads to a murder, seems promising. And Philip Meyer is bald, the surest sign that an author knows “men’s issues” better than anyone.