"Practical and provocative…the next best thing to being in a workshop with the brilliant writer and teacher John Casey…Personal, insightful, colorfully anecdotal, Beyond the First Draft is more than a writing handbook—it’s a singular contribution to the conversation about how fiction is made and what it can do."
"John Casey offers his brilliant, erudite company in that complicated and mysterious endeavor we call writing fiction. As he explores his own life and work, he introduces us not only to writers we know, or ought to know, but also to new ways of thinking about writing, about reading, and about finding our way into our own work…A deeply companionable and immensely helpful book."
"Entrancing… encourag[es] us to look more closely and intelligently at what we read and even at what we may be trying to write."— Allan Massie Wall Street Journal
"It is rare that a book devoted to the craft of fiction stands as a work of art in its own right, but Beyond the First Draft does just that. I marveled at the intelligence, humor, acuity of thought, lucidity of expression, and crystalline beauty of these essays. What a spectacular book this is."— Tim O'Brien
"John Casey is as wise about people—what we want, what we need, who we are, how we dream—as he is about the craft of writing: and that makes him an unusually good guide to the art of making fiction. What a useful book for writers at every stage!"— Andrea Barrett
"A major writer and master teacher, John Casey brings his formidable intellect to bear on the art of fiction. [His] wide reading and experience furnish these essays with shrewd exempla and portraits of other writers, their texts, procedures, and consequences. Beyond the First Draft shimmers with the wonderment of its author for the wonder of fiction."— Christine Schutt
"John Casey is a superb craftsman, a legendary teacher, and an omnivorous reader. The combination makes this book of essays a literary delight. It is pure gold for the young, and not so young, writer trying to master the craft."— Chris Tilghman
"Practical and provocative…the next best thing to being in a workshop with the brilliant writer and teacher John Casey…Personal, insightful, colorfully anecdotal, Beyond the First Draft is more than a writing handbook—it’s a singular contribution to the conversation about how fiction is made and what it can do."— Eleanor Henderson
"A delight of a book. I was lucky enough to be a student of John Casey’s, but most of what I learned from him didn’t come from the classroom. It came through conversation and observation, from spending time with a writer of his great talent, intelligence, and wit. Now his readers can do the same, listening to him play across two centuries of literature, a rich career as a novelist and teacher, and his own well-earned wisdom. The result is a real pleasure."— Adam Haslett
"John Casey offers his brilliant, erudite company in that complicated and mysterious endeavor we call writing fiction. As he explores his own life and work, he introduces us not only to writers we know, or ought to know, but also to new ways of thinking about writing, about reading, and about finding our way into our own work…A deeply companionable and immensely helpful book."— Margot Livesey
2014-06-05
National Book Award–winning novelist Casey (English/Univ. of Virginia;Compass Rose, 2010, etc.) waxes thoughtful about his craft in a collection of essays, some nearly 20 years old.The title, which sounds a little how-to-do-it, is somewhat misleading. Yes, the art of fiction is the author’s subject, but these are more ruminative, speculative pieces than they are lessons in how to write stories and novels. Readers looking for bullet-point lists of specific recommendations should look elsewhere. Also: Since the essays were written over a period of decades, some of the examples and anecdotes appear more than once. Casey frequently writes about his time at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (with kind words for such teachers as Kurt Vonnegut Jr.), and he alludes in several ways to Nabokov’sSpeak, Memory. He repeats a story about a painting chimpanzee, and several times, he discusses the significance for beginning writers of the work of acting theorist Stanislavski. On the whole, however, Casey’s topics are compelling and useful. He examines quintessentiallyAmerican writers—Twain, Whitman, Hemingway and Salinger—and he explores the concept of human justice in fiction (are you treating your characters equally?). Casey also reflects on humor—and consults some pretty good authorities (Oscar Wilde)—leaps back in history for consideration of Aristotle’sPoetics, and traces the history of sex and violence in fiction (D.H. Lawrence makes an expected appearance here). The author notes the various uses of the first person—from “My Last Duchess” to Edgar Allan Poe to “the swelling I” of Whitman—and he asserts that the “point” of it all is “to crack the skull of a character…so that the individual psyche of the character is released”—an apt and unforgettable image. The author also includes essays on vocabulary, translation and childhood reading—with a shout out toCatcher in the Rye—and ends with an affectionate tribute to his mentor, Peter Taylor.Not a handbook for students but a guidebook for thinking about fiction.
