cover image Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog: On Writers and Writing

Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog: On Writers and Writing

Louis Decimus Rubin, Jr.. Univ. of Missouri, $29.95 (144pp) ISBN 978-0-8262-1608-3

In this slim yet satisfying volume of essays, Rubin, the founder of Algonquin Books, weighs in with great, sometimes world-weary wisdom on writers, writing and the many ills and exhilarations one experiences while plying the sometimes murky trade of authorship. From the agonies of writer's block—which Rubin memorably describes as something like a moose, "massive, hirsute, inchoate, its imposing antlers spread aloft like a gantry crane"—to the finer points of modern poetry, he probes the creation, craft and consumption of the written word. If a common theme runs through these thoughtful short essays it is Rubin's insistence on and celebration of the representation of the real, the solid, the actual stuff of life. Whether in the terse, almost naked prose of Twain and Hemingway or the florid avalanche of adjectives that flow from the pen of Faulkner, Rubin revels in the details, the microscopic evidence of the writer's eye through which the world passes to be reimagined as great and satisfying literature. Rubin's own prose seethes with an abiding love of and respect for language, its awesome power and for those, lured by its siren song, who struggle every day to master it. (Nov.)