Forum / Early review of "Brown Paper Bag"
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Sally HoutmanMay 13, 10:44amSo inspired was I by the success of this marvelous story, I felt compelled to write its first review.
................................................This inspiring story really connects with our emotions. Through language that is both endearing and astonishing in its blandness, Brown Paper Bag paints a sentimental portrait of a free-spirited, wilful soul whose lusts and headstrong passions make it just the symbol the nation needs as it moves through economic ruin and beyond. Easily touted as an exploitation genre, the key to this tale’s mass appeal is in its charming implausibility.
Crabby McGrouchpants’ portrayal of the Brown Paper Bag as unlikely protagonist is fully realized, at once intense, witty and convincing. Rich in historical implications, the story carries echoes of its predecessors, of the sturdy burlap sacks of Faulkner’s age, of the bold and billowing sacks of the Depression era, the psychedelic lunchbags of the ‘Me’ generation, while remaining keenly focused on the harsh reality of the global economic crisis, which has seen for the first time brown paper bags stretched to uses beyond their intended purpose.
Certain to become a towering landmark of its age, Brown Paper Bag straddles the line between the amusing and the absurd, never stooping to nudity, sex, or violence to conceal its limitations. This story delivers what it promises: a fast-moving, wildly implausible thriller that glories in the everyday mundane.
http://fictionaut.com/stories/crabby-mcgrouchpants/brown-paper-bag
Crabby McGrouchpants. Calculating charlatan or evil genius?
You decide.
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Smiley McGrouchpants, Jr-Esq-IIIMay 16, 05:52amI'd do anything for you, Houtman. Anything!
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Sally HoutmanAug 14, 07:36am
Got your theme song...in the bag...so to speak.
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whatwouldbukowskidoAug 17, 03:10amA terrifying blend of Jacksonian, Brutalist, and Impressionist perspectives, Brown Paper Bag, Crabby McGrouchpant’s first novel, delivered as a marathon 20-hour sermon at what is now the Staten Island Borough Hall in 1913, is a highly agitated tale of a milliner’s journey through the cities and hinterlands of California. Part Imagist, part Ishmael, and part Navajo, the “olden synergist” Marwell Ferry Grass along with his “coverall’d lackeys” rides through the Golden State in a bottle cap and matchbook covered jalopy in search of the elusive “underground headwear genius” Alejandro F. Causeway. Along the way, a superabundance of uncanny, soul-assaulting images and scenarios materialize from “that most grand nocturnal nickelodeon of all time” the boys keep in their trunk and take turns with during rest stops. From a raid on the Hotel del Coronado’s kitchen whose “massive turkey legs were stuffed with Chicago beef tongue and jellied Indonesian nutmeg” to the introduction of an exceptionally gifted horse breeder on the verge of producing “a burro with built-in organ grinder, to entertain the journalists;” and from the sight of “Charlie Chaplin in a tuxedo, waxing doorways on Pico Street” to the frequent use of “the telefax machine for calling Chinatown,” Brown Paper Bag emerges as the most candid portrait of modern pioneer life we can ever hope to have. Occasionally nauseating to read, this is a top-notch translation of a truly mysterious literary experiment.
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