Spooktober Wall Street Journal review: One Of Us by Dan Chaon (plus Odd-Fish fan art!)
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I have another book review up in the Wall Street Journal! This time I’m reviewing Dan Chaon’s circus-freak literary horror One Of Us. It’s very enjoyable and I ultimately wrote a positive review, although I had a few nits to pick. (I’m a big fan of Chaon, especially his 2017 novel Ill Will, so when I heard this book was coming out, I put in a specific request at the WSJ to review this one.)
In other news, I’m in the middle of my usual fall round of school visits, talking about the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival and my young-adult fantasy The Order of Odd-Fish. As part of my presentation, I usually show off Odd-Fish fan art that I’ve received over the years (I’ve collected it all here) and that sometimes inspires young artists to make their own fan art for the book . . .
And I just received two great pieces of fan art from Lennon M. of Decatur Classical School in Chicago! (It’s the school that both my daughters went to in Chicago, but I mercifully refrained from doing any presentations there until they graduated.) The art on the left is of the foppish cockroach Sefino getting humiliated by the centipede gossip columnist Mr. Chatterbox, and on the right is the wannabe villain Ken Kiang telling Hoagland Shanks about The Pie of Innocence Slain:
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I love the supercilious look in Chatterbox’s eye and the way Lennon indicates the centipede’s disdain at Sefino’s mustard-blotched ascot through the speech bubble—and Sefino looks hilariously mortified, too! Likewise, the picture with Ken Kiang clearly relishing regaling Hoagland Shanks with dire visions such as a dead cat, a scythe, a skull, and so on, while Shanks contentedly eats his pie and claims it tastes like peaches is inspired. In both pictures, the looks on everyone’s faces and their body language are so expressive and communicate the vibe of the scenes so well. Top notch work, Lennon!
I also have some super exciting publishing news of my own coming up. Stay tuned!