Bücher von K B Dixon

In a new collection of idiosyncratic essays on the subject of photography, Too True, K.B. Dixon offers a close-up look at an enduring fascination. A writer and photographer, Dixon comes at his enigmatic subject from every direction—from the experience of reading Roland Barthes to the question of posing, from the art of the author photo to a real-time history of the Vivian Maier phenomenon. He provides the reader with a distinctly personal take on the many mysteries of a maddening medium.

"Haircut today. Another half-hour with Beth, the stylist, telling me tales of her sullen daughter, Phoebe, and her incontinent Chihuahua, Norman (a depressed and depressing little rescue dog who sleeps curled up in a mouse-colored bed near the shampoo station). Another half-hour of struggling to make small talk-something I do not do very well at all." A daily diary started by the narrator as a sort of orientation experiment, Notes, K. B. Dixon's new novel, follows a single year in the life of obscure composer, photographer, and essayist David Bacon. It offers a compact and comic look at both his world and the world around him. Here in elliptic notes is a snapshot of Bacon's wife, Emily; his perpetually fearful neighbor, Mrs. Hampton; and his continuing struggle with a recalcitrant composition tentatively titled The Coward's Quartet. Here in black and white is the documentary evidence with which one might-if so inclined-confront a conveniently unreliable memory.

"Maybe I should take a little time off-not just from my formal fiddling with the epistemological puzzles of narration, but from fiction in general-time off from imaginary people and imaginary experiences. Maybe I should try something 'conventional,' reportorial, nonfictional-get in touch, even if just obliquely, with the real world again." Purportedly culled from a cache of donated papers, K. B. Dixon's new novel, Novel Ideas, is an unorthodox character study, a look at one writer's life from the inside. A mosaic collection of excerpted letters and emails written by the author Stephen Styles to his close friend, the novelist Alan Dodd, the book follows Styles as he struggles to write a true crime story-a story that must, in the end, compete with friends, family, and other ideas (novel ideas) for his attention.

"The clichés of beauty are irresistible. It is usually (although I have to concede not always) some sort of affectation to pretend otherwise." A quirky catalogue of imaginary photographs K. B. Dixon's new novel, The Photo Album, is an idiosyncratic mix of character study and meditation-a glimpse into the life of a peculiar photo-enthusiast named Michael Quick and a questioning, if somewhat cursory, examination of his present obsession. It is a portrait not just of the photographer, but of the time and space around him. Also the people-his camera-shy wife Amy; his friend, the writer Ryan Richardson; his neighbors the Moores, whose son is mysteriously missing. A concise and unconventional wander, it is as much a comic adventure as a contemplative one.

The Ingram Interview, K. B. Dixon's unrepentantly quirky new novel, weaves its way interrogatively through the life of Daniel Ingram, a retired, none-too-healthy English professor who has been kicked out of an assisted-care facility because he was depressing other residents. Moving in temporarily with a former student of his-a young art-film maker named Michael Berger-Daniel works fitfully on a ramshackle memoir as he continues to pursue a reconciliation with his absent ex-wife.

K. B. Dixon's work has been described as original, clever, pithy, lyrical, insightful, gonzo, and laugh-out-loud funny. His new novel, A Painter's Life, is a characteristically mischievous oddity. A mix of biographical scraps, journal entries, review excerpts, and interviews, it is an intimate and introspective tour of the art world-a portrait of the sometimes portraitist Christopher Freeze. Focusing in part on Freeze's friends, family, and fellow artists-as well as his relationship with his frazzled dealer and his would-be monographer-it is an inventive, seriocomic look at one peculiar man's ceaseless struggle to make something beautiful.

"How was my day? I'm trying not to remember." A wry, unconventional character study, Andrew (A to Z) is a sort of mosaic that the reader assembles subconsciously. Focusing on the narrator's family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors, it is the story of a quasi-neurotic malcontent on the edge of the edge of middle middle-age. An amateur photographer, the office satirist, an evening's dinner guest, Andrew pastes together in alphabetical disorder a collage portrait of his baffled suburban life. Excerpt: "Arizona. There is a rumor I was born there, but I don't believe it. I don't feel like a person who was born in Arizona, I feel like a person who was born somewhere else-somewhere with trees and an ocean and a liberal political tradition. Somewhere like Washington or Oregon or Massachusetts."

"Maybe between the two of us we can trick me into being honest with you." A collage of notes written in a sixth-floor men's room, The Sum of His Syndromes is the story of a slightly disturbed young drudge who has found himself at a personal and professional crossroads. There is a job he doesn't want, a girl he does, and a friend who is writing a book. If it weren't for the wise counsel of his therapist, the anomalous Dr. C, who knows what might have happened.