What bothers most critics about my work is the goofiness. One reviewer said I need to make up my mind if I want to be funny or serious. My response is that I will make up my mind when God does, because life is a commingling of the sacred and the profane, good and evil. To try and separate them is a fallacy.

-Tom Robbins

I suspect that not many readers of MillersTime are Tom Robbins’ fans (author of Another Roadside Attraction, 1971, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, 1976, Still Life with Woodpecker, 1980, Jitterbug Perfume, 1984, Skinny Legs and All, 1990, B is for Beer, 2009 and a collection of essays, reviews and short stories, Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, 2005).

And to be truthful, I can’t say as I can recall which of those I read and which ones I read about or never actually read. (My memory, never one of my strengths, is beginning to falter a bit.)

But what I always loved about Robbins’ writing was his voice, a voice so distinctive and so different from most writers that I have trouble naming writers so gifted. Two that do come to mind are Dylan Thomas and Junot Diaz (Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao, 2007 and, particularly, This Is How You Lose Her, 2012).

Continue reading »