“BETTER THAN GONE GIRL” proclaimed the headline on the Huffington Post story about the new novel by my longtime friend, writer C. E. “Buzz” Poverman, and I had to agree. I’d read and blurbed Love by Drowning in galleys and was blown away by the power and beauty of the writing, especially in the sea episodes. The reviewer, Melanie Bishop, went the extra mile and interviewed Buzz about his writing process and he made some very wise remarks. For the many years I’ve known him, I’ve been in awe of Buzz’s revision process. Here’s a writer who thinks nothing of tossing a hundred pages if they don’t feel right and starting from scratch all over again. Here’s a writer who fully inhabits his stories and generates enormous energy in the act of writing. But also–and this I think is my main point–here’s a writer with a distinguished career and a shelf of books and you probably haven’t heard of him even as you have certainly heard of Gillian Flynn. Nothing against Flynn, but Buzz belongs to the legion of great writers in our big country now operating under the radar of the New York mainstream in the more exciting literary world of small presses. Love by Drowning was published by the award-winning El Leon Press of Berkeley, run by a fellow writer turned publisher, Tom Farber.
Check out the review and Buzz’s trenchant comments at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melanie-bishop/better-than-gone-girl-c-e_b_6724354.html