Short story writer and poet, Dave Newman’s second novel, Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children (Writers Tribe Books), builds upon his oeuvre with an impressive range of humour from satire to self-deprecation through poetic word play. Like Carver, Newman’s writing exudes authenticity yet offers more than realism in its confrontation of deeper issues. The narrator, Dan Charles, struggles to find a balance between making a living to support his family and finding the energy to be creative. Deep inside working class America and the underbelly of higher education, here ‘The teachers wait tables. The bartenders teach school’ as ‘it is required that you must do to be.’
It’s almost weeks into the semester, and I can’t afford a bullet-
proof vest. I can’t afford anything. The students all think I’m in
charge of their lives, but I make less money than a shoe store
manager at the mall and with no job security.
He and his wife both have second jobs. The novel explores the concept of choice, through its use of detail, with a rigorous sense of humour that makes it lived and memorable. In the tradition of Bukowski, Carver, Philip Levine and Richard Ford, the novel questions literary and cultural assumptions with an engaging freshness about what matters most and shows that things for those with a work ethic are not as they should be. It is a novel marked by absence. Although based in Pittsburgh, the novel has a national and international relevance that elevates it beyond testimony. Above all, it is very funny and that is recommendation enough.
Tears in the Fence 