Book Review: Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It

Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It - Maile Meloy

One of the New York Times Book Review Best Books of 2009, Maile Meloy's collection of short stories Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, is so full of adultery that one might think it belongs to a different generation.  It would be easy to believe that each of these stories was written in the 1970s. Broken families, naked adults in hot tubs, it's all here.

Subject matter aside, these are good stories, adequate in the story telling, creative in their invention, the variety of situations. Where they fail for me is in the amount of exposition.  So much here requires or is given explanation, separating the reader from the story, from our own discovery, that I wanted to take a pen to the book and strike whole paragraphs.

It may very well be that I am sensitive to this issue, conscious to try and avoid the same thing in my own writing. It may be as well that I favor the stripped-down storytelling of Raymond Carver. I am willing to forgive a lot in a novel, but in a short story I don't expect to be removed from the action to be offered an explanation of something that could be made apparent within the story itself.

20 Essential Albums: Way to Blue

Way to Blue - Nick Drake

It is generally a good idea to ignore an artist’s biography when considering the art itself.  But the sadness in the songs of Nick Drake is only made stronger, more profound, when we learn of the difficulties Drake had in the world. Difficulties that would lead him to take his own life. The songs on the compilation Way to Blue, released in 1994, give off the sense of someone not fit for living in the outside world, but someone still trying to express himself in it.

The songs here come from three albums recorded in the early 70s, obvious with the overuse of strings on some of the songs. Without Nick Drake there would be no ElliottSmith, no Iron and Wine, no Bon Iver. Sure there’s the typical acoustic, singer-songwriter sense from the era, but the breathy vocals, the reflection, set the way for some of the alternative singer-songwriters of today.

Nick Drake was barely known outside of England when he was alive, but with this release he earned a lot of attention in the US.  “Pink Moon” appeared in VW commercials, other songs appeared on movie soundtracks, “Northern Sky” was my wedding song. But look to a song like “Black-Eyed Dog” to get a sense that goes deeper than the popular settings around the more familiar songs.  Drake’s voice is strained, the guitar sounds like the empty room in which it is played, as he sings “growing old and I wanna go home / growing old and I don’t wanna know.”

20 Essential Albums: First and Last and Always

First and Last and Always - TheSisters of Mercy

The Sisters of Mercy’s first full-length album First and Last and Always, released in 1985, has been played so often in my life that I cannot even recall when it first came to my attention. What I do know is how influential the album was, how the driving beat of a song like “Walk Away”, or the space and emotion of “No Time to Cry”, reached a particular strain of my own emotion.  The music expressed something that I was unable to express.

This is late-night driving music, something played loud in the next room.  Characterized by a bass that sets the course of the song, drums that keep the quick pace, twelve-string guitar that gives the songs depth, and an electric guitar that comes in high and thin.  And then there’s the thickly reverbed vocals of Andrew Eldgridge.  The song “Logic”, titled “Amphetamine Logic” on other releases, while not as strong as the singles mentioned above, is true Sisters’ style, complete with lines like “Nothing but the knife to live for / one life all I need / give me one good reason / give me more amphetamine logic.”

20 Essential Albums: Either/Or

Either/Or - Elliott Smith

Elliott Smith really came to my attention when he appeared on the soundtrack to Good Will Hunting in 1997, which prompted me to get his second album Either/Or, released that same year and on which two of the soundtrack songs also appear.

I felt an affinity for the quiet reflection in these songs, the strong emotion held close.  My appreciation of Elliott Smith represented some sort of maturing. No longer did I require the loud volume, the large living of my earlier years. Of course, the melancholy that appears in much of my favorite music is here as well.

It is easy to appreciate the simple instrumentation on the album, the reserved drums often holding back during the verses, acoustic guitar as the basis for everything, and an electric guitar only showing up once in a while.  “2:45 AM”, one of my absolute favorites, is a good example.  The whispered vocals over a quietly plucked and strummed acoustic.  The turnaround that rests before beginning again.  Then, three versus in, the drums show up, and you nod your head as Smith sings “Been pushed away and I’ll never come back” before the song fades away.

20 Essential Albums: Rid of Me

Rid of Me - PJ Harvey

Maybe it’s wrong to single out PJ Harvey as a female rocker, but there are so few, and none like PJ Harvey. She’s got guts, but you’d never mistake her music as anything else but female.  It is this distinction that gives her music a unique character.  When she sings “lick my legs / I’m on fire / lick my legs / of desire,” in the album’s title track, Rid of Me, it’s not sexual--it’s threatening.

It’s not just her lyrics, not just her voice that ventures from a whisper to falsetto to raw-throated belting, it is also the drumming, off-kilter and often surprising, and also the guitar playing that explodes at times.  And still there is space in these songs, the sound of an empty room, a feeling of agony and indecision.

Released in 1993, Rid of Me was important to me for many reasons that can’t be explained here.  But no matter the variety of memories associated with this album, it still stands on its own and sounds damn good loud.