Robert Newman was in town last night on his book tour for Fountain at the Center of the World. He left today for a week long run through Canada (Vancouver, tomorrow, Monday March 29th, Toronto March 30th, arriving in Montreal March 31st for the Literary Festival)

I’ve been enjoying Fountain, I bought it on the basis of a recommendation and Soft Skull’s good name, and forgot about it until Rabble reminded me.

Its been labeled as a “political novel”, an awkward and problematic concepts. Ignore it. And ignore the cover blurbs.(it is nothing like Catch 22, thankfully) Its a novel of modern life that doesn’t try to be great literature, but doesn’t relegate itself to trash heap of chick/dick lit which seems to be the accepted modern form. Newman has spun a wonderfully clear eyed fable of clashing worlds, that steers clear of easy answers (those of the dominant culture, or otherwise), and has deep sympathy for its cast especially its core, the brothers Chano, the Mexican brother, the dispirited activist, disillusioned, sometimes fugitive, and Evan, the English brother, a PR consultant, Cayce Pollard with the fairy dust blown off, powerful, angry, and losing control. The prose can switch from dream time, to hectic, before settling into the comfortable rhythm of old friends talking, all allisions, and short hand, and comfortable pauses, but the world is turned upside down, and we’re off to again.

In person he is very different. You can tell his other gig is stand up comedy, and yet even there he steered clear of the easy jokes ( (though his story involving a time traveling DeLorean, the Office of Global Communication, and religious fundamentalist take over of America spear headed by the unelected son of an oil baron was a great take on a classic), mixing in meditation on history, and the novel (how many comics involve Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Kundera in their patter?). As the time came to actually read from the novel he got more nervous, visibly agitated, I wonder how often Newman the comic, and Newman the author meet? Or it could be that he was back in Seattle, the scene of the novels climax (November 1999). Anyway my advice is read it, it goes fast, and is interesting and enjoyable, and go see Robert talk, he is funny and a fellow traveller. But if he starts reading the riot porn from the back of the book ask for some of the scenes from Mexico, which are often brilliant, and fresh.

We actually spent a while chatting over coffee after the reading, finding all the people we knew in common, and he told me about his trip across the country (“my empirically gather evidence suggests that 80% of American are anarchists who run their own infoshops”). He is definitely worth looking up.