Liars and Saints

  "An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination,"  by Elizabeth McCracken. This writer is in the news because her recent work, "The Hero of This Book," dazzled many critics and novelists. McCracken is a funny contrarian; she particularly hates when people say they are "humbled" by various awards. "I don't believe you. Do you know what is humbling? Failure. I like failure, because it leads you to crave revenge; I tell all my students to write  for revenge . I'LL SHOW THEM. Revenge is wonderful fuel." "An Exact Replica" tells about McCracken's experience giving birth to a dead baby. I especially like McCracken's honesty; she says she valued people who simply wrote to her. She took comfort in "I'm so sorry" and "I don't know what to say." The villain of the piece is someone who let many months go by in silence, then tried to frame her own apathy as a virtue: "I really wanted to send you p...

 Some of Elizabeth McCracken's new material ("The Souvenir Museum") went over my head.....but how do you beat this opener? "Who died and made you boss," Sadie asked Jack, and he answered, "Nobody. Everybody. How do you make somebody boss when you're dead, anyhow?" Not *everybody* was dead, just a handful of significant people. Sadie's parents; Jack's sister Fiona; most recently, Jack's nephew, blond Thomas of the passions, who'd gone to study piano in Poland and had stepped off a building at half past ten in the morning. He was twenty-seven..... I really like the first line, which must strike a chord with anyone who is married. Jack could try to understand why Sadie is frustrated, but instead he becomes just as juvenile as she is. "How do you make somebody boss when you're dead, anyhow?" I also like the way that suicide is handled: "He'd gone to study piano in Poland and had stepped off a building at half past...