I.

Rating:
Summary: AGAIN
Review: Dixon doest it again. One of his best books ("Frog" and the amazing "Interstate" are the others, I guess, but anything by Dixon is something special). A modern writer who has been modern since decades and will be modern in ages. So are the true classics. Pure talent and good proof that you can be clever and moving in the same sentence.

Rating:
Summary: AGAIN
Review: Dixon doest it again. One of his best books ("Frog" and the amazing "Interstate" are the others, I guess, but anything by Dixon is something special). A modern writer who has been modern since decades and will be modern in ages. So are the true classics. Pure talent and good proof that you can be clever and moving in the same sentence.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible I.
Review: I cannot recommend this novel more highly. Dixon travels between acute humour and sadness, with everything in between, unselfconsciouslessly moving beyond his own metafictional self-consciousness. The last section of I. is profoundly moving in an absolutely unconventional way. Dixon's writing is both transgressive and accessable, and I hope that in the coming years he will begin to recieve the wider readership that he has so long deserved.

Rating:
Summary: 1.
Review: This is the only Dixon novel I've read. It is the first in a trilogy. Originally, I thought the title was the letter "I" but I later found out it is not the letter I but a Roman numeral cut handsomely in the book's front cover. From my one reading of Dixon, I have anecdotally concluded that, above all, he is a writer's writer: His prose is natural; his tone drawing the reader into the act of creating; his subject matter is, in most cases, the quotidian.

In the book, Dixon's narrator tries on different masks with varying degrees of sucess. For example, the narrator, in one chapter, speaks from the point of view of his wife who is wheelchair bound--he is the one in the wheelchair and she is able bodied. This makes for interesting perspective but is slow going at times. The downside of this technique is a lack of overall focus. On this point Dixon reminds me of John Ashbury, in that, his prose unfolds in a roundabout way, never driving at the heart of things. This is a good thing as a blunt object can only mean one thing. "I" is subtle and rich in psychology.

"I" is meandering and mundane at times so in that sense it is exactly like most of our lives. And speaking of, if you ever wondered what your life would be like if you had crossed the street at a point otherwise than the spot you actually crossed at, then you might just like this book. If you do this sort of thought experiment 25 times a day and write it down, you might just be Stephen Dixon. In which case, you've left us with a hearty novel, rich in style and steeped in poignant ruminations on the everyday.

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the best yet
Review: This, in my opinion, is Dixon's most personal and emotionally satisfying novel. "I." is constructed as interconnected stories that examine the various junctions of the life of "I.", a writer who bears much resemblance to Dixon himself. In some chapters, the character contemplates his mortality by comparing his situation with his wife's. In a brilliant, horrific, and funny chapter called 'The Switch', the character imagines that he's bound to the wheelchair, helpless, instead of his wife who in reality is stricken with the illness. Dixon's strengths as a writer shines forth here as I. contemplates and imagines his suicide and its aftermath. The narrative technique is unassuming, but dazzling. Much of the book also deals with recollection and memory, and there are sections when Dixon recalls a particular moment, then stops and realizes something is amiss, then starts all over again by retelling the tale. It's a fine narrative contemplation of the nature of memory and the shifting veracity of recalled details and truths. Dixon's authorial interruption is never contrived, but rather heightens the effect of blurring the line between the fictional character and the author himself. No narrative device serves as pure pyrotechinics; the last chapter 'Again' is resolute and deeply moving as I. (or maybe Dixon himself) remembers and reconstructs the first meeting with his wife over and over again, until finally the story inevitably evolves into a love story of a man who loves this woman, regardless of her illness and despite his having to adjust his life for her.

The writing is never sentimental, and it's straightforward. Dixon's paragraphs sometimes run for pages, and they remind you of Thomas Bernhard's eloquent paragraphs - but Dixon's style is more accessible. This is writing that's disturbingly funny, affecting, and serious (in the best sense of the word). There isn't an American writer like him, and his recognition is well overdue. A fine book.