{"id":116,"date":"2013-08-12T19:42:10","date_gmt":"2013-08-12T19:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglasglover.net\/?page_id=116"},"modified":"2014-07-26T21:03:46","modified_gmt":"2014-07-27T01:03:46","slug":"attack-of-the-copula-spiders","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/douglasglover.net\/?page_id=116","title":{"rendered":"Attack of the Copula Spiders"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"Attack-cover.jpg.w300h472\"<\/a>\u201c\u2026a master of narrative structure\u201d (Wall Street Journal<\/em>)<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026every literate person in the country should be reading Glover\u2019s essays.\u201d (Globe and Mail<\/em>)<\/p>\n

“This is not literary craft reduced to statistical formulae and write-by-the-numbers word-bytes. Glover\u2019s admirable ability and patient willingness to cast a careful\u2014not cold\u2014eye on what makes sentences hum and flow is fueled by a vital, infectious fascination with words, enabling him to reveal the inspired, alchemical, verbal concatenation at work in the most alluring and memorable fiction writing.” (Review of Contemporary Fiction<\/em>)<\/p>\n

“Close reading doesn\u2019t get much better than this.” (Chapman\/Chapman’s Favorite Longreads of 2012<\/em>)<\/p>\n

\u201c…Glover, like a physicist dissecting atoms, breaks down the prose of several great writers of the past few decades. A successful fiction writer in his own right, he wants not only to identify the techniques of stylists such as Alice Munro, Mark Anthony Jarman, and Thomas Bernhard, but to understand the grand logic behind the structures, the God-like plans that such geniuses hatch to produce their greatest works.” (The Los Angeles Review<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Attack of the Copula Spiders<\/em> is a practical guide for anyone interested in writing. Glover\u2019s first chapter, \u201cHow To Write A Novel,\u201d alone is worth the price of the book.\u00a0 (Telegraph Journal SalonBooks)<\/em><\/p>\n

“These essays are not just for writing students, however. Whatever heightens student awareness of craft also sharpens the awareness of the general reader who has no desire to try his or her hand at writing but would like better to understand literature. Glover has an essay on Alice Munro that is of value to any short story writer but also should be required reading for anyone interested in Canadian fiction.\u201d (Philip Marchand in the National Post)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou should have a look at Douglas Glover on what may be the<\/em> Mexican classic, Pedro Paramo<\/em>, which was once described to me as \u201cMexico\u2019s Joyce.\u201d (The essay appears in Glover\u2019s recent Attack of the Copula Spiders<\/em>, which looks to be a great book of literary essays.)\u201d\u00a0 (Scott Esposito at Conversational Reading)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThoughtful and erudite books such as Attack of the Copula Spiders<\/em> are always useful as roadmaps for developing better readers and writers. Now if we could only get the world to read them carefully.\u201d (George Fetherling in Quill and Quire<\/em>)<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Table of Contents<\/h3>\n

How to Write a Novel — How to Write a Short Story: Notes on Structure and an Exercise — Attack of the Copula Spiders, Thoughts on Writing Well in a Post-Literate Age — The Drama of Grammar — The Mind of Alice Munro<\/a> — How to Read a Mark Anthony Jarman Short Story — Memoirs of the Undead, Cees Nooteboom\u2019s The Following Story<\/em> — Novels and Dreams, Leon Rooke\u2019s A Good Baby<\/em> — A Scrupulous Fidelity, Thomas Bernhard\u2019s The Loser<\/em><\/a> — Pedro, the Uncanny, Juan Rulfo\u2019s Pedro P\u00e1ramo<\/em><\/a> — Before\/After History and the Novel — Meditations on the Ideology of Closure and the Comforting Lie<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\u00a0Order Attack of the Copula Spiders<\/em><\/h3>\n