“Genuinely pleasing”

“This bird’s eye view of a life makes for a genuinely pleasing reading experience.” 

—Kirkus Reviews

Me and Not Me is a mix of memories and imaginings that chronicle the experiences—real and not real—of a novelist, friend, lover, husband, traveler, fool, and masked conjurer called Al.

Through stories, anecdotes, observations, fantasies, dreams, poems, and other thoughts, the narrator creates an intimate picture of life beyond the merely factual.

Join Al, Annie, and a diverse cast of characters as their lives intertwine in scenarios that reveal more than what happened … or didn’t actually.

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Tight, Simple, and Elegant Prose

In Combustible, we get to enjoy everything there is to love about Al Riske’s work. Tight, simple and elegant prose that cuts to the heart of the story (and its deeper essence). Friendships stretched and tested with the development of a new dynamic. Lives on the brink of transformation. Real people trying to make sense of their lives.

Pages that fly before you.

An ending you never could expect.

I loved this book.

— Greg Bardsley, author of Cash Out

Coming of age ...

"Combustible is a wonderful story ... The author did a great job of bringing each character to life ... I recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a light read with a satisfying plot and interesting characters." 

— Kristi Elizabeth, San Francisco Book Review

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Imagery

Barefoot girl in a backless dress

Streetlights on wet pavement

The shadow of a small plane flickers

across the contours of the grassy shoreline

Long-haired boys and short-haired girls

A blue Adirondack chair by itself on the lawn

Wind-blown palms  through mosquito netting

Red flowers on a black background

The smell of chlorine and Coppertone

A big-breasted blonde in a black bikini

Passenger jet streaking over black hills in a twilight sky

A white blouse with black buttons

Red sweater in a black-and-white world

Eyelashes wasted on a boy

Cliche curtains ruffled by a lacy breeze

Three in One

This three-in-one volume, now available on Amazon, contains the following novels by yours truly:

Sabrina's Window 
On a chilly morning in Taos, New Mexico, a 17-year-old paperboy breaks the window of a 31-year-old hair stylist — an accident that marks the beginning of an instant, inexplicable bond between them. In the course of one high-desert summer, Joshua and Sabrina share confidences, intercede in each other’s love lives, go on a date that scandalizes the town, and confront questions of fidelity, desire, and the nature of love. 

The Possibility of Snow 
This story traces a once promising friendship between college roommates in New England. Steve is eccentric, slightly paranoid, and too perceptive for his own good. He knows the difference between what people say and what they do. Neil is reflective, sincere, and not as together as he seems. There’s not much he’s sure of anymore. They know each other very well and understand each other not at all. 

Then We’d Be Happy 
In this Silicon Valley tale, lower middle-class friends try to fashion futures out of whatever opportunities they can find. Opportunities to make money. Opportunities to be together. Opportunities that fall apart. Opportunities that must be put back together, no matter what.

Dylan at Work

More Blood, More Tracks is a revelation.

The limited edition boxed set invites us to  follow the evolution of a masterpiece — Blood on the Tracks — from the first tracks Dylan recorded with just his guitar and harmonica in New York to those he laid down with a rollicking band in Minneapolis three months later.

The six discs in this remarkable collection include, in chronological order, all 87 takes that have survived (82 from New York and five from Minneapolis).

Along the way we get to witness the many ways in which Dylan experimented with the pacing and phrasing of each song — the results often brilliant but in different ways.

The New York sessions ended in what everyone thought was a finished album — indeed copies were circulated to reviewers — but Dylan was having second thoughts. Rightly so, as it turned out. The five tracks from Minneapolis, essentially recorded live in the studio at the end of 1974, boost the energy level of the whole enterprise.

Without them, Blood on the Tracks would still be a great album, but not the masterpiece it became. 

The delay also gave Dylan time to further refine his lyrics. Consider, for example, "If You See Her, Say Hello."

In New York, he sings: "I knew it had to be that way. It was written in the cards. But the bitter taste still lingers on. It all came down so hard."

On the final version, he sings: "Whatever makes her happy, I won't stand in the way, though the bitter taste still lingers on from the night I tried to make her stay."

Much better, right?

Rave on, James Frey

I was hoping that Katerina would mark a return to form for James Frey, whose books had, in my estimation, gone steadily downhill since A Million Little Pieces. I started reading and I thought it was, wasn't, was, wasn't, was.

As I turned the pages, the narrator's bad-boy bravado quickly wore thin. Likewise his distain for ordinary workaday life and his burn-it-down posturing. Through it all, his insecurity and self-loathing came shining through. He couldn't hide it and didn't try.

Even as he worshiped excess, intensity, and passion, he yearned for peace. His grandiose ambitions belied his longing for domestic bliss.

Of course Katerina, a novel named for a woman, is at its core a love story. Both Frey and his narrator (who he pointedly intertwines) are romantics. But then so am I, and it's the love story that makes the book, despite its many glaring faults, worth reading.

I both loved and hated it.