Landscape: Memory

Over the years, Matthew Stadler's work has devolved into an ambitious and - at times - aloof blend of Walt Whitman and Thomas Pynchon, and for all of the admirable audacity and technical adventurism of later novels, this shimmering debut, initially published in 1991, remains the finest. In LANDSCAPE: MEMORY, Matthew Stadler rather painstakingly crafts a delicate and meticulous period piece - WWI-era San Francisco, an obvious... Read Full Review

Matthew Stadler's "Landscape: Memory" is formatted as a memory book, a variety of diary, with entries for about 114 days within the period stretching from August 7, 1914, through February 12, 1916. Creating the memory book is Max Kosegarten - "Dogey" to his friends - a San Franciscan finishing up at Lowell High School. His best friend is Duncan Taqdir, whom he met in the aftermath of the earthquake and fire of 1906. Another... Read Full Review

A shimmering, achingly beautiful novel about two San Francisco boys, spawns of free-thinking parents, as they are finishing high school, spending a summer in Bolinas, and starting college at Berkeley, ca. 1914-15, i.e., against the backdrop of the Panama-Pacific Exhibition and news from the trench war in Europe. The narrator is grappling with question of memory and perspective. Neither boy gives much thought or pays much... Read Full Review