Review of The Summer She Was Under Water at The Nervous Breakdown

Kurt Baumeister reviewed The Summer She Was Under Water as part of his Microbrew Reviews at The Nervous Breakdown.

"The Summer She Was Under Water is a quick, dark book, one in which life offers many questions, few answers. Lurking always are Sam’s memories of her brother Steve, memories that have come to dominate every aspect of her life, from her work to her relationship with her boyfriend, Michael. Both in terms of prose and dialogue, Michalski’s writing is vivid and true to life, perfect for a world in which connections to other humans seem tenuous, always one wrong word or action from being cut, perhaps forever."

To read more, go here.

Review and Excerpt of The Summer She Was Under Water

The first read of The Summer She Was Under Water appeared yesterday at The Collagist. Michael Tager writes a stirring, lyrical analysis of brother-sister tensions:

"What is it about siblings that brings out the worst in people? Is it the way they entwine familiarity and contempt? Is it the inherent power dynamic that so often pits elder against younger? Maybe it's the favoritism that parents so often (and rightly) refuse to acknowledge but is still often self-evident. In the case of The Summer She Was Under Water, it's all of the above, and more."

To read more, go here.

Also, at The Nervous Breakdown, you can find an excerpt of Summer:

"Everything feels all right, right now. Perhaps Steve would be lighthearted and charming and teasing and they’d spend their days trying to fish and maybe they’d fish for their father’s old beer cans and the lost city of Conowingo. And Steve would be the person Sam always hoped he would be, was capable of being, and maybe their family would close ranks around each other and there would be a tacit understanding that they each would rise their tide a little and all their boats would float comfortably, not mired in the muck or run ashore. If they all did their part and dammed their happiness in, here, this summer, there would be plenty to drink from, to siphon, in the lean times."

To read more, go here.

"The Hard Truths" at The Nervous Breakdown

I have this essay at The Nervous Breakdown on writing about controversial subjects in fiction: 

"If I do have a responsibility to my readers, it’s to be the best spokesperson for my characters, to make them as fully realized as possible, to discover their hard truths and not shy away from them."

To read more, go here.

The Fault in Our Stars: Loving the “Crazy” in Fiction at The Nervous Breakdown

I wrote this essay about the "crazy" in fiction because people always ask me, after they read my novella "I Can Make It to California Before It's Time for Dinner" whether Jimmy Dembrowksi, the mentally challenged first-person narrator, was inspired by Lenny in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. In fact, I was not thinking of Lenny at all when I wrote Jimmy, but I realized I've had a fascination with the "other" since my grade-school days:

In my seventh-grade English class, we read Daniel Keyes’ novella Flowers for Algernon, the first-person narrative of a mentally challenged janitor, Charlie, who briefly becomes a genius after undergoing an experimental procedure. It was my introduction not only to an unreliable narrator but also to one whose unusual speech patterns and perspective on the world opened to me the possibilities of the “other” in literature—whether those others were disadvantaged, culturally different, sociopathic, or just plain crazy.

To read more of the essay, go here. Also, thanks to Dean Smith and The Baltimore Review for their shout out of The Tide King in "What We're Reading":

[Michalski] has an amazing ear for language—including the use of “prolly” which is Baltimorese for “probably”—and is one of the most exciting fiction writers on the planet.

To read more, go here.

4/23/13: Toledo Reads Recommends Could You Be With Her Now (and other news)

Toldeo Reads has recommended Could You Be With Her Now in their spring reads section. It's always exciting when the word gets out from others about one's writing!

I also am finishing up an interview with Baltimore writer Elisabeth Dahl that will post on The Nervous Breakdown soon. Elisabeth's debut novel, Genie Wishes, a YA treat, just published this month this ABRAMS. I ask her about the challenges of writing literary versus YA fiction and why the books of our still hold so much power over us today. Stay tuned for it!

Self-Interview at The Nervous Breakdown

I had the pleasure of interviewing myself today at The Nervous Breakdown:

"Writers are not glamorous. We pretend to be on Facebook and Twitter, but mostly we’re sitting at home trying to be brilliant (or imaging what would happen to us if we actually were). I don’t own skinny jeans; I wear activewear and furry socks every day. And our spouses are publicly proud of us, but behind closed doors we get a lot of “you write all the time. You care more about your writing than [husband/wife/favorite child/favorite pet/favorite parent].” In that way, we are slightly above drug addicts and alcoholics on the obsessive behaviors scale. We’re self-absorbed except we don’t know it because we’re too busy being self-absorbed. We will be better people, we promise! 1) after we finish the novel; 2) after we get an agent; 3) after we sell the novel; 4) after we write the second novel; 5) after we win a prize for the second novel. 6) After we write the third novel, etc."

To read more, go here.

(You can also read an excerpt of Could You Be With Her Now at the same site here.)

My interview with Keith Scriber (author of The Oregon Experiment) posted today at The Nervous Breakdown. Keith is the kind of author that I love to interview: available, gracious, thoughtful, funny, and, interested in me as a person. (Sometimes, in this job, we don't even get a thanks.) Keith had some amazing insights about character and also what he calls "The heart in conflict with itself."

Here's a peek:

As I held my first child while watching the WTO protests, that internal conflict I felt--what Faulkner calls “the heart in conflict with itself”--was the beginning of Scanlon (the protagonist of The Oregon Experiment), and I think it’s where the most interesting (changeable, thoughtful, volatile, vulnerable, stubborn, complicated, deluded, passionate, principled, surprising) characters always begin. Whether that original conflict is one that I recognize in myself or in someone else (or one purely imagined), the characters always develop surprisingly, so yes, the separation is inevitable. They meet challenges and rewards, they are stressed and influenced by experiences that come about through the narrative, and only then do I come to know how they’re evolving. By the time I’ve finished a novel, the characters are as real to me as many of my…well, maybe not friends, but surely acquaintances. And I’d say the same about the great fictional characters: Raskolnikov, Holden Caulfield, and Kent Haruf’s McPheron brothers are as alive in me as some people I encounter regularly.

To read more, go here: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/jmichalski/2012/11/a-nose-for-trouble-an-interview-with-keith-scribner/

Interview with Justin Kramon at the Nervous Breakdown

The Nervous Breakdown just posted my interview with Justin Kramon, author of Finny (Random House, 2010), a coming-of-age story about a fiery 14-year-old girl, Finny. Justin on writing from the female perspective:

I think that I’m basically a woman. I don’t know why, but female points of view have just always been fascinating to me. Maybe it’s because I find myself and my own hang-ups boring. I’m not sure. I also feel like a lot of the topics that excite me as a writer—relationships, sex, psychology, food, awkward social situations—are ones that women have a lot to say about.

To read more, go here.

This and That

My virgin interview, with Dzanc author Henning Koch, is up at The Nervous Breakdown. I'm also interviewing a fabulous lady next week whose debut collection is fantastic, so stay tuned!

On a personal note, I received a fellowship from the Hambidge Center for two weeks this summer. Whether I'll be putting the finishing touches on The Tide King or working out the new novel that's been fermenting in my head, the two weeks of solitude will be so welcome.

I have a story forthcoming in the May issue of The Northville Review that I'm excited about. There is a cat named Tupac in it. I know a cat named Tupac. They are not the same Tupac, but I hope you read it, anyway.

Finally, I'm happy that the spring issue of jmww will be out early next week. I'm finishing up proofing and other small housekeeping bits, like making the formatting a little bigger. Maybe I'm getting old, but when you think your own journal is too small to read, you've got to make some changes

Here Comes Your Newest Nervous Breakdown

I'm now a contributor for The Nervous Breakdown. I'm excited to interview you if you've got a book or a story you want to talk about or are just really itching to talk to someone and you can't afford therapy. Okay, don't crowd.

Seriously, though: look for my interview with Dzanc author Henning Koch and others soon!