“There is only one thing I know about life. If you live long enough you start losing things. Things get stolen from you: First you lose your youth, and then your parents, and then you lose your friends, and finally you end up losing yourself.”
Throughout The Sarah Book McClanahan portrays himself as an agent of chaos and misery, detailing the ways in which his tantrums, fixations, and paranoias hurt his wife, children, and everyone else he comes into contact with; and yet the reader neither pities nor despises him. The rural West Virginia that McClanahan writes about is rarely represented in mainstream American literature. Too often in books and popular culture, poor country people are portrayed as either ugly redneck caricatures or naive, good-natured simpletons. In McClanahan’s works, no matter the characters’ flaws, they are portrayed as complex and multidimensional, even though they aren’t necessarily admirable.
By Scott McClanahan (Tyrant) McClanahan reads at the Pitchfork Music Festival Book Fort Preparty Thu 7/14, 7 PM The Whistler 2421 N. Milwaukee 773-227-3530whistlerchicago.com Free
