Trying to Be: A Collection

Novelist Haskell (Out of My Skin) ventures into nonfiction with this slim but potent volume. He begins by reflecting on the work of painters Francis Bacon and Diego Velazquez, both substantive subjects he handles with gravity, but through a series of turns ends up describing a class he took to learn to perform Trio A, a modernist one-person dance by choreographer Yvonne Rainer. It’s an intriguing portrait of someone (in this case, Haskell) skilled in one medium trying their hand at something very different, and from there Haskell unveils the book’s true aim: reckoning with how to live a creative life. As he writes, “I understand the necessity of constraint, that wanting is one thing and not getting what you want is a fact of life, but still. I want my life to expand into moments that aren’t just reiterations of what I already know.” Haskell offers further observations on the works of filmmaker Mikio Naruse, actor Sophia Loren, and playwright Bertolt Brecht, which begin to converge with Haskell’s own life in a deeply moving segment about his late aunt, who wrote a biography of Keats during her retirement. His aunt, he shows, possessed the courage to change course, and he recalls their many conversations centered on “the process of becoming a person.” The result is an unconventional and quietly eloquent rumination on what it means to live well. (Oct.)