Three Cheers for the Avant-Garde

I've known for some time now about David Markson's Vanishing Point, what with the enthusiasm of fellow bloggers and reviewers. But it took an interview in last week's Publishers Weekly (not available online, unless you subscribe) before I finally moved my copy to the top of the reading stack, and I'm glad I did. Other reviewers can attest to the captivating quality of the novel's patchwork assemblage of facts about authors through which the musings of Author flit in and out; I'm just getting started, but I'm hooked. Even though Markson's experimental approach to these existential meditations on artists' lives (and deaths) might make a Book Babe wince, Vanishing Point is not at all "precious" and, in fact, quite readable--addictively so, when you get right down to it--and I seriously doubt that anybody else who loves books, and who loves reading, will respond with anything less than enthusiasm.