Category Archives: fiction

A movie about conscience. (No wonder it wasn’t a hit.)

Posted on November 5, 2025 by oddmanout215

OK, I’m busted. Last week I implied that the movies shown on Netflix are invariably mediocre, but within days The Forgiven (2021) proved me wrong. It takes place at a luxury residence on the fringe of the Sahara Desert — … Continue reading →

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The plot against America thickens

Posted on October 30, 2024 by oddmanout215

I was telling my neighbor Swamp Rabbit that Philip Roth would have been appalled but not surprised by the deification of Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden earlier this week. Roth, who died in 2018, depicted a fascist nightmare taking … Continue reading →

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DeLillo’s ‘airborne toxic event’ is still unfolding

Posted on June 20, 2023 by oddmanout215

My neighbor Swamp Rabbit dropped by on Sunday to wish me a happy Father’s Day, but we ended up talking about that strange day earlier this month when the air smelled like burnt toast and the skyline looked like a … Continue reading →

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Martin Amis (1949-2023) braved the moronic inferno

Posted on May 24, 2023 by oddmanout215

My neighbor Swamp Rabbit was drinking beer on his porch when I told him that British author Martin Amis died last weekend.   “Okay, but what’s that got to do with the price of eggs?” he said, referring to the … Continue reading →

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The Year of the Yahoo

Posted on August 11, 2021 by oddmanout215

“What exactly you mean by yahoo?” Swamp Rabbit said, sounding defensive. I’d just finished telling him that yahoo-ism is a syndrome that’s been trending for years in this country. That the yahoos among us became louder and more conspicuous when … Continue reading →

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Hey, let’s appoint Jeff Davis to investigate the Civil War

Posted on July 23, 2021 by oddmanout215

So Nancy Pelosi tells Kevin McCarthy no, you can’t appoint foes of the democratic process to a committee investigating an attack on the democratic process. She’s referring to Jan. 6, when an angry mob of Trumpers stormed the Capitol with … Continue reading →

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Not forgetting is hard work (a history lesson)

Posted on June 4, 2021 by oddmanout215

“When was the last time you thought about history?” I said to Swamp Rabbit, who was playing a video game on his phone. “Here, check this out.” I made him read the laughably creepy anecdote that starts Milan Kundera’s The … Continue reading →

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From out of the blue, new realities

Posted on March 23, 2020 by oddmanout215

I was reading to Swamp Rabbit from Albert Camus‘s The Plague: Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from … Continue reading →

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Books? There is no time!

Posted on May 15, 2019 by oddmanout215

Swamp Rabbit told me he was going home, he was tired of my grumbling about Donald Trump, I should finish writing my new “fiction book” instead of following politics. “Or read books by other peeps,” he said. I told him … Continue reading →

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Enough about Naipaul the man — read his books

Posted on August 15, 2018 by oddmanout215

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it. — V.S. Naipaul, A Bend In the River (1979) Pardon me for breathing! And make no mistake — the … Continue reading →

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