Ondaatje's Rat Jelly was one of the books that turned me on to being a writer. And I spent a lot of time with In the Skin of a Lion, which I love. I'd read the Billy the Kid book years ago, but reading it again now, after the novels, in the light of what I'm looking for, this book does everything right. It goes for the story, it invents the story, it accepts the story, it turns the mic over to a multitude of voices, it refuses (while evoking) the myth of its subject, and it does all this without for a second letting the language sag or lapse or seem forced or somehow laid on from any source other than what is exactly right for what it's doing. What a triumph.
Tonight I read from 14 Tractors, a Stegnerish book, at the Stegner house. Fun!
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