I thought I was losing the ability to read. I can still read, but I’ve had a period where I thought I’d lost the will to read. I couldn’t concentrate, I had a hard time stringing five pages together in the novel I was reading. I thought that it was that I’d become hopelessly addicted to scrolling through social media or online backgammon. Or that my ADD had gotten so bad that I couldn’t focus for more than a few minutes. It couldn’t be the novel I was reading, Ride with Me, Mariah Montana by Ivan Doig, the third in the trilogy that begins with Dancing at the Rascal Fair. Dancing at the Rascal Fair is one of my favorite books, my introduction to Doig, one of my favorite authors.

I began to expect that it might actually be the novel. I’d had a hard time getting into a couple of his other later books. There’s this kind of corny metaphorical way of speaking that I’ve noticed in the West. A little of it goes a long way. And Doig lays it on pretty thick in this one. I realized it was starting to get really annoying. Occasionally he drops that “awe shucks” facade and whips out a passage of beautiful and insightful writing. But I finally just gave up, there was nothing that made me want to keep reading.

I remembered that I had a collection of short stories by Richard Russo, another of my favorites. I figured that would be just the thing to get me out of my funk. I read 50 pages, a lot for me, on the first day. Drama and humor in small New York rust belt towns. He wrote Nobody’s Fool, which was made into a movie starring Paul Newman. Good movie, better book. His Straight Man is the funniest novel I’ve ever read.

It seems to me that some writers lose their touch as they age. I’ve noticed this in Pat Conroy and John Irving as well as Doig. It’s a good thing that I get better as I age.

Beautiful crisp Fall day today, I had physical therapy in the morning and Beck and I took a short walk around the neighborhood.

I’m looking forward to the Gopher Women’s hoops team’s home opener tomorrow evening. I think it might be a fun season.

We finished Your Friends and Neighbors and started The Madness. I’ll give Your Friends… a B+. Madness looks promising.