What is "Doom Eager"?

Lorrie Moore, from "Better and Sicker"
"Martha Graham speaks of the Icelandic term "doom eager" to denote that ordeal of isolation, restlessness, caughtness and artistic experiences when he or she is sick with an idea. When a writer is doom eager, the writing won't be sludge on the page; it will give readers -- and the writer, of course, is the very first reader -- an experience they've never had before, or perhaps a little and at last the words for an experience they have."

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

books that make you cry

"It's much easier to write a solemn book than a funny book. It's harder to make people laugh than it is to make them cry. People are always on the verge of tears." Fran Lebowitz


I googled "books that make you cry" and the only interesting thing I found on the first page was a list of Books That Make You Cry from goodreads.com. Some of the books listed made me scratch my head; others, namely the classics, I agreed with.

Today I heard a piece on NPR about Jonathan Franzen's 2001 novel The Corrections. Winner of the 2001 National Book Award, Franzen's novel sounds like a book that promises to make me laugh and cry. Here's a link to readers' reviews of the novel posted on Diane Rehm's NPR website.
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