Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2019
128 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A stark, elegiac account of unexpected pleasures and the progress of seasons.
Fifteen years ago, Kathryn Scanlan found a stranger's five-year diary at an estate auction in a small town in Illinois. The owner of the diary was eighty-six years old when she began recording the details of her life in the small book, a gift from her daughter and son-in-law. The diary was falling apart―water-stained and illegible in places―but magnetic to Scanlan nonetheless.
After reading and rereading the diary, studying and dissecting it, for the next fifteen years she played with the sentences that caught her attention, cutting, editing, arranging, and rearranging them into the composition that became Aug 9―Fog (she chose the title from a note that was tucked into the diary). "Sure grand out," the diarist writes. "That puzzle a humdinger," she says, followed by, "A letter from Lloyd saying John died the 16th." An entire state of mourning reveals itself in "2 canned hams." The result of Scanlan's collaging is an utterly compelling, deeply moving meditation on life and death.
In Aug 9―Fog, Scanlan's spare, minimalist approach has a maximal emotional effect, remaining with the reader long after the book ends. It is an unclassifiable work from a visionary young writer and artist―a singular portrait of a life revealed by revision and restraint.
"The book is a fascinating chronicle of Scanlan's obsession, but, more than that, it transforms a seemingly ordinary life into a profound and moving depiction of how humans can love and live. Scanlan's portrait of an everywoman feels entirely new." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"There is an undeniable poignancy in the readerly act of filling in the gaps of this octogenarian's life...A work of frequent beauty but puzzling intent." - Kirkus Reviews
"Wholly original ...[Aug 9–Fog] blurs the lines between nonfiction and fiction, meditating on the passage of time through the life of one woman." - The A.V. Club
This information about Aug 9 - Fog was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kathryn Scanlan lives in Los Angeles. Her stories have appeared in NOON, Fence, American Short Fiction, Tin House, Caketrain, and The Iowa Review, among other publications
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