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John Updike, 1932-2009

In case you didn’t hear, we lost John Updike this week.  I haven’t read much of his work in years, and regrettably, I have yet to read any of his Rabbit books, but I read Couples, The Witches of Eastwick, and most of his short stories and poetry in college and liked them very much.…

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Clara Susan Dicks and a couple pages too

Stephen King has written about the importance of a supportive spouse to a writer, and I couldn’t agree more. While on our honeymoon two years ago, I spent hours by the pool working on Something Missing while my wife, Elysha, basked in the Bermuda rays. Yesterday our first child was born, a girl named Clara…

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25 Things

My friend, Kate, sent me a note entitled 25 Things via Facebook. Included was a list of 25 random facts pertaining to her with a request for me to reciprocate. I did, and I thought I’d post the list here as well. It occurs to me that some of these items would make for a…

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Kind words

My editor sent me the first blurb about Something Missing, written by M. Ann Jacoby, author of Life After Genius. She writes: “A quirky and endearing first novel that makes you wonder if that misplaced stick of butter or can of soup means there’s a burglar prowling your pantry. If that thief is Martin Railsback,…

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The end is in sight

Exciting news. I discovered how my latest book will end. I haven’t reached the last chapter yet, but in wrapping up a crucial chapter late last night, I caught a glimpse of how things might end for Milo. One moment I was clueless, and the next moment, I was not. I say might because I’m…

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Pieces of me

Nicholson Baker has a new book, a non-fiction piece about World War II entitled Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization. I heard him speak about it and other topics on a recent New York Public Library podcast. He said something interesting during the talk, which I have since fallen in…

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Punctuation matters

It’s always so lovely to find someone who shares the same pet peeves as me. This is why I was thrilled to find the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks, a site dedicated to the world’s excessive and pointless use of quotation marks. The posts, almost all including a photo, are quite amusing. My favorite example…

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Good week

A couple of days of good news on the book front. Yesterday my editor informed me that we made a deal with Japanese publisher Random House Kodansha for the publication of Something Missing in Japan. Just think: My words were translated into Japanese characters. I must get a hold of a copy once it hits the…

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Nicholson Baker and me

My book club meets today to discuss Nicolson Baker’s The Size of Thoughts. It was my turn to choose the book, and Taryn, my agent, turned me onto Baker’s work during my initial revisions of Something Missing. Specifically, she suggested I read Baker’s first novel, The Mezzanine, and later, The Fermata, which she described as…

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I have no idea what pants I’m wearing

A friend of mine recently noted that I was wearing sweatpants out of the house. “And?” I asked. “I just would never wear sweatpants in public,” she said. “And I know that most people don’t.” Getting beyond the questionable validity of my friend’s statement and the veiled insult that her comment implied, I indicated to…

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