For probably fifteen years I’ve been haunted by the image of a man falling down a flight of stairs, falling apart at the bottom to become just a coat wrapped around an IV stand, hung with dozens of tape recorders. I knew this image was from The Tattooed Potato, a bleak and frightening book I’d read (exactly once) in elementary school. Last week, while in the library, I suddenly had to go check it out and read it. (It is not actually very bleak or frightening now, and in fact that exact image isn’t in the book.)
As per NFD policy, I’m going to wait a little while before I write any more about the book–I only finished it ten minutes ago. I will say this: it’s one thing to realize that one still reads for the things one first found in middle school. It’s another to understand that the nature of names, protagonism, surreality, pacing and imagery in one’s own writing all basically derive from an author one read in fourth grade.