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Reminded me a lot of the works of Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInery in that the lead protagonist is largely unsympathetic as a result of being a self-centered, egotistical, former drug and booze addled writer who burns through friends like there's no tomorrow. At times he comes off sympathetic, but ultimately he's self-serving. Despite this (or in spite of this), he's a mesmerizing individual and I found myself often reading several chapters ahead of where I was because I got so wrapped up in wh...
I know this was supposed to tell me something about artists and misogyny etc etc but I was too busy gasping in horror and saying “ew!” out loud to notice it. There wasn’t really a plot. There was no character development- Richard never changed. He was sexist and rapey from page 1 to page 271. At one point he even says that every beautiful and smart woman wants to find someone she matches with intellectually, but that it’s not possible because beauty is too distracting for men and therefore no ma...
A decent read. Plot was a bit cliche -- the aging writer looks back at his life and failed romantic entanglements, but entertaining nonetheless. A quick one.
I went to hear him read last night....he's a dynamic and interesting guy. I met him on the Red Line one night on my way home from work about 9 or 10 years ago. He was real nice, asked me what I was reading...one of Dennis Lehane's books so I told him a little about Lehane being from Dorchester and what I liked about his writing...pre Mystic River...Anyway, it was cool to hear him talk about his writing and although I knew he was pretty prolific and had his hand in a lot of pies, I don't think I
Read like a fantasy of how a mid-list writer wishes his career turned out. And then the end rang a familiar bell. I looked here, and this really is a good place for logging your reads, because there was Russell Banks's Foregone in my "read" pile, and it had the same kind of conclusion, albeit with a different journey to get there.
"And deep down I know the value of every experience is that I can write about it someday. My life is only a by-product of my writing."
In Perforated Heart, Eric Bogosian offers a cautionary tale about life, death, love, and art (though not in that order). Perforated Heart is the story of two Richard Morrises: one, a successful fiction writer in 2006 who, after heart surgery, goes to recuperate at his country home in Connecticut, where he rediscovers his journals from 30 years earlier; and the second is the young Richard, circa 1976, just beginning as a writer and resident of New York City.Bogosian is back in his element with th...
This was a delightful read. Bogosian's voice was strong. He displayed a true craftsmanship with both language choice and structure. The composition was as deliberate as what one expects to see in a favorite painting or photograph. True New York City immersion experience.
I've seen Bogosian as an actor, read subUrbia and watched its cinematic adaptation, for all of that this novel might be the best example and/or use of his talent. Behold a portrait of an artist as a young man and as his older self. Former struggling through the dirtily glamorous dangerous urban wilderness NYC used to be in the 70s, latter as an accomplished wealthy famous author in a much more polished, much more expensive version of the same city. And through it all he manages to remain a thoro...
I wanted to give this book a 3.5, but goodreads doesn't allow that. Super sexist, self-involved protagonist that I had a difficult time liking and/or relating to. He raped a woman and barely cares at all. Occasionally interesting character descriptions but not a page turner where you can't stop reading at all.
First Eric Bogosian book I’ve read. An extremely cynical exploration of a successful male writer’s psyche. I liked the constant back and forth between the main character’s younger self (understood through journal entries) and older self (set in present day). I got a real sense of his youthful optimism, feeling unstoppable in his 20s, which slowly deteriorated into bitterness and egomania. Also loved his descriptions of being drunk/high at parties. I’ve never read a more accurate description of h...
I was on a train ride for 17 hours and I can tell you guys, this book fed me horrible-but-good food, served me whisky, gave me a ride through the city night up until the very last minute of the ride (read the book then re-read the parts I enjoyed the most). This book made me smile- a happy and a sad smile-, laugh, cry and most of all it made me want to write. This was also my first book from Bogosian and I can tell you, it was one hell of a introduction.
This one took some patience...at first I really thought it was going nowhere, but in the end it turned out to be nicely structured. Man in his 50s finds his diaries from the 1970s and we realize what a completely different person he has become. Nice touches evoking NYC in the 70s.
Richard Morris is a writer who prides himself deeply in his own personal honesty. Like Hemingway he believes that his job as a writer is to write one true sentence after another. Like Norman Mailer he believes that he must guide himself toward madness, to glimpse into the abyss and then write about what he sees resident there. Unfortunately, Norman Mailer chose to become a social clown existentially acting-up to promote his books and both writers may have been better served to understand Hemingw...
PERFORATED HEART (2009) by Eric Bogosian is a fascinating study in obsession for pussy, money, and fame. In this instance that obsession revolves around the life of a middle-aged, successful, American Jew writer in New York who reflects back on his path via his journal from the mid 70’s, as he struggles in the present (2006-7) to reclaim his place atop the literary field. This is an intensely honest story and I could identify with it completely. I agree with most all of the positions the main ch...
This book struck very close to home. It made me uncomfortable. The format of journaling. Being one and separate by time. Ambition and self loathing. Death and indulgence. These things make me me and Bogosian helped me accept a lot of that
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)As regular readers know, I'm a particularly big fan of a type of literary trope I call the "anti-villain," which like it sounds means nearly the opposite of the more well-known term "anti-hero;" that is, instead of the main character being someone who seems fairly despicable at first but who we come
Richard Morris has just had recent heart surgery. It was very mild but it has led him on an introspective journey about his life as a writer. Digging through his attic, he comes across diaries that he wrote as a young man. While the diaries show a pretentious naïveté that makes him cringe, they are very much indicative of the man he will become. Urgent, incisive, brutally almost painfully honest and yet aching with desperate loneliness, this latest work by Eric Bogosian shows the author and play...
A well crafted book. An aging successful writer retreats to his CT summer home to recuperate from heart surgery and brings his 30 year old journals to read. The rest of the book is alternating journal entries from the young and old writer, as he wrestles with his craft, fame, women, and mortality. It's the same Bogosian character from his monologues--the hard drinking New York street intellectual, but here you see the guy looking back at himself with amazement wondering how could have ever been
For the first half of the book, I was prepared to give it two stars. I wasn't really enjoying it but the writing was interesting enough and the storyline, contrasting a journal of a writer in the present to his journal thirty years earlier, was holding my interest enough to continue. Around the midway point, though, it just became repetitious and uninteresting. I decided to read this book because it was listed as one of the best book covers of 2009... I guess it's true what they say about not ju...