Micro Cultures

Choice of Words: A Note on Gabrielle Giffords & The Tragedy in Arizona

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I was in the middle of writing a column for PANK—or rather, the beginning. The idea came to me last night; I planned to use the cloistered downtime of a Saturday snowstorm to get the writing done. I went as far as the title—A Novel Gestates—and my Twitter timeline exploded with accounts of a shooting in Tucson, AZ. House Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) stood in front of a local grocery store, preparing to hold an event for her constituents. From there, the details were—and remain—sketchy: shots fired, people killed, a gunman taken into custody, the Congresswoman was rushed to Tucson’s University Medical Center, where she—at the time of this writing—continues to fight for her life.

As news outlets scrambled to find and report accurate information, Twitter—my portion of it, at least—was set aflame, not only by the seemingly instant outpouring of prayers and condolences for Rep. Giffords and the other victims involved, but by the shrunken links to a page on Sarah Palin’s PAC website; links that directed me to a graphic of the United States dotted with bulls eyes, twenty in all, “targeting” Congressional seats needing reclamation from the Democratic Party.

Courtesy of The Huffington Post

Courtesy of The Huffington Post

What followed for the next two hours was a barrage of blame aimed at Sarah Palin for inciting the shooting, for appearing careless in her choice of words. That phrase—choice of words—is one all writers, creative or otherwise, grapple with each and every day. The wrong word destroys a piece of writing, it erodes the alchemy that writing creates in the reader’s brain, sending the entire piece toppling over in a pile of scattered syllables and random punctuation marks. And that is, sadly though realistically, the best or, I should say, least troublesome outcome. In short, writers are lucky if the wrong word is a question of style, and nothing more, which leads to a relatively easy corrective measure: consulting the thesaurus, rewriting the sentence, or removing the word altogether.

The most extreme consequence of choosing the wrong word is a matter of the irrevocable: a friendship disappears, a defamation lawsuit is issued or—God forbid—something far more permanent and visceral is rendered as a suitable reaction. No more erroneous adage than this: sticks and stones break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Words have led to divorces and broken families, suicides, homicides, genocide, cross-country and cross-planet warfare; words (and far less) led to lynchings, to rape, to disenfranchisement, to lack of ownership of one’s own body and mind; “separate but equal” left an indelible pockmark on America; “don’t ask, don’t tell” turned soldiers into sexless automatons, committed to the protection of this nation, yet fearful of a simple expression: to love whom you choose.

For now, I’m turning the tragedy in Tucson—and its immediate, byte-sized aftermath—into a moment of reflection when it comes to my craft, the literary art I love and cherish in incalculable ways. I never thought about the power of my words, often relegating to self-deprecating humor as to how powerless they appear to me. As much as I want to invoke emotion into my readers, or instill them with information they may find relevant, I”â„¢m remembering the necessity of prudence.

In the weeks, months and years ahead, more truths will surface from today’s tragic events: the who, what, how and of course, why. It is far too soon to turn Gabrielle Giffords into a sounding post for America’s political landscape and its recent fascination with incendiary, and oft-times grotesque, rhetoric. Yet, I look at that graphic above, at its words, at the targets, and I think about Giffords’ husband, her family, the families of those either clinging onto life or of those who’ve already faded away. And I think of that phrase—choice of words—and begin to see it beyond the literal, the literary.

Another Bullshit Night…

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When asked to offer his opinion on memoirs, Thomas DeMary, author of zero books, offered the following response.

*Note: we shouldn’t have asked him.

Over the New Year’s holiday, I started reading Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bullshit Night In Suck City [goddamn, I love that title]. I should say I started reading it—again. Four years ago, I was halfway through it and, as it happens from time to time, I lost steam. Interest went poof and I moved on to something else—another crafty craft book crafted to help me get my groove back, I’m sure. And this was back when I hated memoir—but loved autobiographies. Is there is difference? I’m sure there is, in the way speculative fiction is different from sci-fi, but that’s not my point. To be fair, I had no reason to hate memoirs since, if memory serves me, Another Bullshit Night was the first memoir I read—provided that memoirs are different from autobiographies. I hated the idea of memoir, which is to say I was as needlessly ravenous over James Frey’s gaffe as the rest of the literary world, Oprahcons included. Which is to say, I never read A Million Little Pieces, just like the rest of the literary world, Oprahcons included. In fact, a copy of A Million Little Pieces is on my bookshelf. I didn’t buy it, however; my wife wanted to jump into the Frey foray. She never bothered. I don’t blame her; if you’ve seen all of the money shots, no need to watch a porn flick’s filler narrative. I’m sure an assistant professor, bespectacled and draped in tweed, adds A Million Little Pieces to his syllabus semester after semester, a sort of how-to or, more accurately, “don’t do what Donny Don’t does,” to quote The Simpsons. I’m not interested in the deeds of Donny Don’t; no one cares; even Donny Don’t moved on to more lucrative ventures [insert sneer here]. Nick Flynn, however, wrote a classic work—even I knew that much when I gave up on his book way back when. Sparse and detached, equal parts self-deprecation and an scathing perspective on his subjects: Flynn worked with the truth [whatever that is] and transformed it into art, literature, a fucking good story. Meanwhile, I tinker with carefully crafted depressive episodes, under the belief that mental/emotional illness is the price of the ticket, cost of admission, into the hall of mirrors called memoir. Stands to reason, upon further review. My father, to my knowledge, never slept under the glow of a lit, enclosed ATM. My father received his PhD at age fifty; no one wants to read a memoir on the rise-fall-rise of an educated black man from South Jersey. Now if I can turn my father into a monster—play up his Republican leanings, for example—I might have gold in my hands. Then again, my father is a Democrat. Nick Flynn’s father fretted over a novel he never wrote. To me, that was Flynn’s father at his most pathetic. “That’s not me, though” I said and closed Another Bullshit Night four years ago. New Year’s Day 2011, I opened it up and said, “Yes it is.” But I’ve said too much.

E-Books: A Vignette

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* A Little Joke (Voila)

To paraphrase news anchor Kent Brockman, “I for one welcome our new e-book overlords.”

** The Aesthetic

While I love the feel, the smell, the heft of a physical book, I just want the story—a good one, mind you—whether delivered via paper pulp or through the wire. There’s a convenience factor I must acknowledge as well. My wife and I erected a new bookshelf a few weeks ago (shelf # 3). Within hours, we filled the new shelf to about 98% capacity—there’s a small space after my unread New Yorkers, perhaps the size of a Norton anthology, or three paperbacks. And this was after we reviewed our small library, deciding on at least 50 titles we could remove and donate (marriage begets, among other things, duplicate copies). Space is a premium for now and, until we acquire our dream house with its dream library (imagine four walls of books), utilizing our hard drives is quickly becoming a necessity.

What I caution against is infusing the book, in any form, with hyper-interactivity: flashing lights, garrulous music and touch-sensitive links with metadata pop-ups, as if the writer’s references need Javascript mini-browsers filled with search results or Amazon’s checkout page—just in case you want to buy the CD, movie or DVD box set. Make the book digital, breathe electric word life into its spine, if you must. Never forget the audience, never warp the book’s purpose; if I want a video game, the PS3 is ten feet away; when I want a book, I want to read—quietly—absent studio tricks designed to increase sales. The content matters; keep the rest out of it (that goes for advertisements, too).

*** Co-existence

The rise of the ebook is far from a zero-sum game, as if its popularity spells doom for the physical book (“doom”, in this case, is reserved for publishers, if you believe them). For now, I blame Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and other e-reader creators who also control the content distribution. Let’s simplify the argument: until I can take an ebook off the shelf, give it to someone and, eighteen months later, hunt down the individual until she gives back the ebook, the physical book is in no danger of extinction. In other words, publishers and distributors would be wise to consider the e-book as an alternative format only.

I’m sure the publishers are behind the DRM-locked content and the prevention of legal, unfettered sharing. I’m not a pirate, I’m not a library and I’m not Blockbuster; sometimes, I simply give books away, like the 50 titles my wife and I donated. Just in case it gets lost in the book/ebook, rabbit season/duck season rhetoric, e-books haven’t dominated just yet. And there’s no reason they need to supplant physical books, in the way one can still obtain compact discs or DVDs; if people are willing to buy physical books, and remain leery of losing their entire library to a computer glitch or a sneaky virus, then e-books will remain an alternative, secondary format—that is, until publishers offer digital copies along with their physical counterparts. I’m not buying the same book twice.

**** Whisper Sync (aka Beam Me Up)

“I love Bookstores and I love my bookshelves. But my God…read a review online, buy it, then have it beamed to my iPad? Glorious.”

@thomasdemary 12.18.10

@thomasdemary. Author of Zero Books.

The MFA: A Parade of Paper Tigers

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I have no vested interest in the MFA degree’s legitimacy as seen through the eyes of proponents and opponents alike. I’m a 29-year-old man still looking to complete his Bachelor’s degree; fretting over the MFA is a little hasty. But I’m a potential customer, an outlier sifting through the information in the pursuit of an informed decision. Hence, my question: what do I want with—or need from—an MFA?

The current debate over the MFA intrigues me; the vitriol espoused by both sides makes for good link bait as I bounce from website to blog. Good questions are raised, silly conclusions are reached, and personal agendas, hiding behind opinions sizzling with esoteric quotes from textbooks no one reads, shine through: with so much point-counterpoint goodness, how can I not be curious?

Questions involving the MFA’s worth, for both writer and reader, appear daily in the form of seething articles and blogs bemoaning a decreased quality in modern literature. The correlation, on its surface, makes sense: more and more writers flock to MFA programs, and literature appears stuck in an imaginative malaise, so it must be the fault of “the program”. Exasperation is evident in the words of Alexander Chee, graduate of the University of Iowa’s vaunted MFA program & author of the novel, Edinburgh:

On breaks, I read essays by people still trying to discredit the MFA, responses to them, responses to the responses. I wouldn’t mind something written that was critical of the MFA in ways that were honest as to what is taught there, but this parade of paper tigers doesn’t resemble the world.

In the meantime, it’s a new business, created by the MFA: the industry of attacking the MFA.

That last sentence caught my attention, made me raise an eyebrow, singe the back of my throat as I gulped my (still) hot coffee. Since I read it, I’ve tried to parse out Chee’s meaning. “It’s a new business, created by the MFA: the industry of attacking the MFA.” I wanted to take it simply as a turn of phrase, but having read of most of Chee’s blog, I take him to be a deliberate writer. He means what he writes, even if a passage seems unclear at first. Chee went on to write:

I’m tired of these attempts at totalizing views on this topic, though, and tired of this argument, if that is what it is, which is not the same as being critical of the MFA and asking it to reform—it is about delegitimizing it.   This I think of as a mask—it only reproduces arguments elsewhere in the culture, arguments that are all really about money, and that are in themselves a mask for the same thing: access to a “safe place”, aesthetically and morally, that doesn’t exist. If anything is dangerous, it’s said totalizing view: the attempt to delegitimize the degree altogether, to portray the hard work of the people involved in an entirely negative light—and it is hard work. Worse, the anti-MFA crowd portrays itself as populist, when in fact the MFA is, despite portrayals to the opposite, a largely democratic force in American literature”¦

I agree with Chee in how MFA opponents present their arguments; a populist, seemingly all-inclusive message is the best defense—or offense—against a graduate degree designed to improve one’s creative writing. That is, if you agree with Elif Batuman’s assertion of “writing as self-indulgence.” The MFA is a walled garden, the opponents suggest, one that demands payment for admission by way of a religious devotion to craft.

For some populist perspective, here is a quote from Huffington Post blogger Anis Shivani:

The system is profoundly undemocratic when it comes to the quality of the product it engenders, and its relentless crushing of any incipient freelance competition. There is an undeclared boycott in place with the famous residencies, conferences, and awards, and non-guild members need not apply (unless they want to waste their fifty or hundred dollars in application fees). Yaddo, MacDowell, Bread Loaf, etc. among the residencies/conferences, and the well-known awards/fellowships/grants committees do not welcome outsiders. There is a de facto ban, though probably, with the minute number of writers outside the guild these days, it is something they have to worry about less and less. The same is true of the Stanford Stegner fellowship, and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center fellowship, which absolutely exclude those not already privileged enough to be members of the guild. You may pay a few thousand dollars to attend Bread Loaf as a “paying contributor” and soak in the mystery surrounding the aiber-masters, but you may never become a scholar/fellow/waiter unless you are a certified member of the guild.

Shivani considers the output of craft or, to use his words, “the MFA house style” as:

generally apolitical, domesticated narrative that remains willfully ignorant of modernism (the highbrow style doesn’t work with the guild’s self-presentation), leaning strongly toward the confessional, memoiristic, autobiographical, narcissistic, and plainly understood. The same qualities apply in poetry–the standard workshop poem is a narrative or associative slight effort, taking off from the quotidian, to rest in an uneasy or understated epiphany. There is also a language poetry subcomponent, but this has its own utterly predictable rules (the language poets think the lyric and narrative poets are closet fascists, yet they are blind to their own brand of conservatism).

To identify, with a shaky finger-point, the MFA as a catalyst for “apolitical, domesticated narrative” is a tried and tired response to the other side. The populist slant in such a position is rooted in the demystification of craft, to reduce it to its core components, to bring it down to the masses, to those who, the opponents believe, are excluded from the exalted ranks, kings and queens armed with craft as if its a pouch of magic powder thrown in the eyes of mere mortals, blinded by—or bedazzled with—lean, witty and empty prose.

By simplifying craft, which is posited as the cornerstone of the MFA, the opponents create in-roads to the walled garden, bringing the fight to the enemy, to shock and awe them with guffaws at their defaulted student loans, at their low adjunct pay, at their postmodern ho-hum of a novel, and unleash doubt from within, as if the destruction, rather than reformation, of the MFA will end the doldrums of modern literature. It’s not that Shivani and his ilk are wrong for questioning the MFA, but their arguments are in need of an upgrade. There is inherent value in the MFA—time and space to hone’s one skill, to begin or repair a project—and the opponents would do well to acknowledge, not ignore, this fact.

Both sides can at least agree that the MFA isn’t designed to address creativity—it appears the program provides the tools (craft) and leaves the writer to do what he wants with them. Opponents would argue that this is nothing more than plausible deniability for the other side—I didn’t tell him to write that shit, I only showed him how to revise!—but this is a legitimate issue worth exploration.

Arguments against the MFA sense this, although they typically give it surface attention by dragging creative nonfiction—personal essays, memoir, literary journalism—into the fight. They trumpet creative nonfiction’s current popularity, its domination over fiction and poetry in regards to cultural relevance, but they overlook the fact that creative nonfiction uses craft to develop provocative literary narratives and, move over, creative nonfiction writers gallop to MFA programs at the same pace as novelists, short story writers, playwrights, poets and screenwriters.

“Cultural relevance” is, of course, code for “real”. The supposition is that “real” is its own value; when compared with “fictitious” works, make-believe in the guise of moral and societal reflections, the “real” reigns supreme; it relates tales of real humans, of real political dramas and social conflicts. For the “real” writer, half of the work is done: characters named, plot developed, conflict identified. The “fictitious” writer, meanwhile, is left with his own brain stuffed with homicidal thoughts—murder those darlings—trying to make something out of nothing.

To my knowledge, there isn’t an MFA program tailored to address creativity. And why should it? Craft is quantifiable, almost mathematical in its study and application; “creativity” is ephemeral, intangible and, according to some people, unteachable. Besides, why apply—so goes the argument—if creativity, not craftsmanship, is your weakness? While her scathing article, “Get A Real Degree,” left MFA proponents smoldering throughout the Internet, Elif Batuman raised a valid point in her analysis of Mark McGurl’s The Programme Era :

McGurl persuasively suggests that [Flannery] O’Connor wrote “The Crop” as an “auto-exorcism” of her own inner amateur, who must occasionally have wondered what she was going to write about. The story had to be disguised as a satire about someone else, because no real writer would admit to such a shameful lack of “creativity”. But what is there to be ashamed of? Proust was surely speaking for many of his colleagues when he wrote that the desire to become a writer often comes long in advance of an “authentic” subject.

A million and one reasons for writers to apply to MFA programs, no doubt; this difficulty with creativity, with authenticity, is somewhere on that list. That craft does nothing to help with creativity—and it was never intended to do so—may explain some of the vitriol aimed at the MFA program. Some may feel duped, thinking they would exit the program as better creatives, as opposed to better writers & masters of The Elements of Style. To write—just write, baby!—and hope for craft to save the day, to salvage the draft, is sound advice for those who don’t suffer from creative malfunction.

And let’s keep it real. This very issue with creativity is the reason some fiction writers are now nonfiction writers (Batuman included); that a few of them are now opponents of the MFA, creative writing programs, or fiction in general is a bit telling (remember what I said about personal agendas?).

MFA proponents could call them quitters, hacks who chopped at “apolitical, domesticated narrative” for years before sprinting to the nearest academic degree (PhD in comparative literature for Batuman)—and I’m sure some of them do—but could this be what Chee meant when he said:

“It’s a new business, created by the MFA: the industry of attacking the MFA”?

I suppose it comes down to one’s definition of “writer”: as either master-crafter or one who can congeal the swirling dust and matter of personal interests, passions, and motivations, to slam the parts together, to create a universe out of nothingness. One is art, the other is the art’s scientific discipline; the problem is that the MFA addresses one and not the other; this, in my opinion, goes a long way to explain the paper tigers. And it may explain writers incessantly asking the question: economics aside, is the MFA for me? Luckily for me, I don’t have to answer; I still need my Bachelor’s degree.

@thomasdemary. @thomasdemary.com

Bending of Spines: A Consideration on “Truth” In Literature

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Over the weekend, I purchased a copy of Granta, the splendid UK literary magazine. I was elated to see a copy lying there on its back, next to Tin House and The Paris Review, though I wondered how it got there. Only one copy; the sticker affixed to the cover read “US $16.99” a hefty price for a literary journal, no matter its size, its beauty. Did the bookstore order one copy? Maybe an older gentleman comes every three months to buy the copy, as part of a long standing, unofficial bond between he and the bookstore. If so, I swooped in, filled with the thrill akin to sniping an eBay auction at the last minute. I remembered the opportunity I squandered in London. Copies of Granta from the sixties and seventies, all adorned with fantastic covers and rock-bottom prices, were splayed across the table at an outdoor book fair along the Thames. I happily paid the exorbitant price.

And instead of working on this column, or a story, or the feasibility of turning a 200 word prose-poem-like thing into flash fiction, I brewed some coffee and cracked open Granta’s volume devote to Pakistan. Holding the book reminded me of my ongoing ambivalence to e-books, even though I buy them, read them and still come away with literary satisfaction (or otherwise). I am by no means a luddite, my vinyl record collection (sans turntable) notwithstanding. The convenience of the e-book for all parties involved (instant delivery and low prices for the consumer; low production costs, potential higher margins for the writer) outweighs the perceived and intangible values of a physical book. Then again, my copy of Granta evoked this sense of jubilation, of excitement, in the same way as when I held the hardback copy of Victor LaValle’s Big Machine; sometimes, the gorgeous artwork, the smell of the pages, the bending of spines, all conflate to create an unquantifiable value.

As I read the first story, “Leila In The Wilderness” by Nadeem Aslam, then moved to a poem, “PK 754″ by Yasmeen Hameed, I felt vindicated by the price I paid. Discovering “new” voices, and experiencing their styles, their word choices, their rhythms for the first time makes a book, any book, electronic or paper, worth the price of admission. Again, literary satisfaction trumps and triumphs over the mode of delivery. What did I know of Pakistan, past and present? What did I know of its customs, its idiosyncrasies, and its people? These questions, born of a symbiosis between writer and reader, between nations, each side rife with assumptions and stereotypes held against the other, are fluid, transcendent, and are communicated through literature with little concern with the “how.”

Later, I read two more stories: “Portrait of Jinnah”   by Jane Perlez and “Kashmir’s Forever War” by Basharat Peer. Unlike the excellent “Leila In The Wilderness” which preceded, the nature of these two other stories eluded me. That is, I was uncertain of their genres; were they fiction or nonfiction? When such a question is asked, another surfaces: does it matter? Some say “no”; some say “you damn right it does.”

During interviews on the subject of his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, author Junot Diaz revealed that “facts” the regarding the Dominican Republic, which were contained within the footnote narrative throughout the book, were untrue. Perhaps those well-versed in Dominican history knew this, and got the joke immediately, but I wonder if this revelation pissed off a few readers. Even if the book is a novel—as in “fictitious”—do readers still take the writer’s word for it? A similar, older take on the saying, “If I read it on the Internet, then it must be true.” As for me, I took the “facts” at face value; if anything, I paid more attention to the narrative as it delved into the details of various comic books (which, of course, were all true).

There’s truth—and there’s “truthiness,” to quote Stephen Colbert. We’re all aware of the skewering James Frey received for A Million Little Pieces. He is literature’s poster boy for all that is believed to be wrong in creative nonfiction and, specifically, memoir. In David Shields’ book Reality Hunger, Alice Marshall was quoted to say:

I’m disappointed not that Frey is a liar but that he isn’t a better one. He should have said, Everyone who writes about himself is a liar. I created a person meaner, funnier, more filled with life than I could ever be. He could have talked about the parallel between a writer’s persona and the public persona that Oprah presents to the world. Instead, he showed up for his whipping.

Likewise, Shields himself wrote:

In the aftermath of the Million Little Pieces outrage, Random House reached a tentative settlement with readers who felt defrauded by Frey. To receive a refund, hoodwinked customers had to mail in a piece of the book: for hardcover owners, it was page 163; those with paperback copies were required to actually tear off the front cover and send it in. Also, readers had to sign a sworn statement confirming that they had bought the book with the belief it was a real memoir or, in other words, that they felt bad having accidentally read a novel.

The suggestion is that Frey should’ve created distance between A Million Little Pieces and the expectation of memoir—that is, “don’t you dare lie to me!”—which essentially deflects the issue of memoir, whether or not the writer is correct in each fact, each conversation quoted, each detail of the the event as it happened, back onto the reader. Frey burned at the proverbial stake because his book was called a “memoir”, a term that unearths expectations inside the minds of readers.

According to Vivian Gornick (quoted in Reality Hunger; originally appeared at Salon.com), the author of one of my favorite books, The Situation and The Story: The Art of The Personal Narrative:

Memoir is a genre in need of an informed readership. It’s a misunderstanding to read a memoir as though the writer owes the reader the same record of literal accuracy that is owed in newspaper reporting. Memoirs belong to the category of literature, not journalism. What the memoirist owes the reader is the ability to persuade him or her that the narrator is trying, as honestly as possible, to get to the bottom of the experience at hand. A memoir is a tale taken from life—that is, from actual, not imagined, occurrences—related by a first-person narrator who is undeniably the writer. Beyond these bare requirements, it has the same responsibility as the novel or the short story: to shape a piece of experience so that it moves from a tale of private interest to one with meaning for the disinterested reader.

Which is okay in my eyes, so long as the truth or, rather, the caveats are revealed upfront. No need to backtrack after the fact, to say, “well you read it wrong.” Ask Frey how that turned out for him. As for whether a story is fiction or nonfiction, It doesn’t matter to me. A safe, perhaps moderate stance to take, but yes, the quality of the story matters most to me. I’m a pessimist by nature and, while I don’t consider writers to be outright liars, I do assume that there’s a smidgen of embellishment, a slight, Plathian slant to the truth.

And there’s the whole philosophy of truth: what is the truth, what makes something real, etc. With truth in literature, I think what gets missed is the reader’s experience: did he sink into the world in which the story existed, with its sights and sounds, did he enjoy the characters (which is independent from liking or hating the characters), was the plot plausible, did the book earn its climax and ending, or were they mere bolt-ons, the results of convenient plot twists? In other words, was the story executed so well, that not only did it entertain the reader, but he could believe it to be true? Besides, isn’t that the litmus test, the “bullshit” test, so to speak, when we read books, fiction or non?

The terms “fiction” and “nonfiction” are mere containers, modes of delivery, along the lines of paper books or e-books. After reading the aforementioned Granta stories, I did ask myself where I should slot them. However, I knew it didn’t matter, further solidified by the fact that I didn’t want to research the dates, the times, the faces, the battles, the mountains, the unmarked graves, the political puppets, the stone-throwers, the tanks, the buildings pitted by artillery shells; I didn’t (and still don’t) know if the stories were fiction and the writers didn’t tip their hands. Rather, they both wrote rich, provocative stories and I, lonely reader, fell into their worlds, walked the streets, saw the markets, smelled the gunpowder, heard the cheers and moans. That’s how its supposed to go. Let someone else question the truth.

Bending of Spines: A Consideration on "Truth" In Literature

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Over the weekend, I purchased a copy of Granta, the splendid UK literary magazine. I was elated to see a copy lying there on its back, next to Tin House and The Paris Review, though I wondered how it got there. Only one copy; the sticker affixed to the cover read “US $16.99” a hefty price for a literary journal, no matter its size, its beauty. Did the bookstore order one copy? Maybe an older gentleman comes every three months to buy the copy, as part of a long standing, unofficial bond between he and the bookstore. If so, I swooped in, filled with the thrill akin to sniping an eBay auction at the last minute. I remembered the opportunity I squandered in London. Copies of Granta from the sixties and seventies, all adorned with fantastic covers and rock-bottom prices, were splayed across the table at an outdoor book fair along the Thames. I happily paid the exorbitant price.

And instead of working on this column, or a story, or the feasibility of turning a 200 word prose-poem-like thing into flash fiction, I brewed some coffee and cracked open Granta’s volume devote to Pakistan. Holding the book reminded me of my ongoing ambivalence to e-books, even though I buy them, read them and still come away with literary satisfaction (or otherwise). I am by no means a luddite, my vinyl record collection (sans turntable) notwithstanding. The convenience of the e-book for all parties involved (instant delivery and low prices for the consumer; low production costs, potential higher margins for the writer) outweighs the perceived and intangible values of a physical book. Then again, my copy of Granta evoked this sense of jubilation, of excitement, in the same way as when I held the hardback copy of Victor LaValle’s Big Machine; sometimes, the gorgeous artwork, the smell of the pages, the bending of spines, all conflate to create an unquantifiable value.

As I read the first story, “Leila In The Wilderness” by Nadeem Aslam, then moved to a poem, “PK 754″ by Yasmeen Hameed, I felt vindicated by the price I paid. Discovering “new” voices, and experiencing their styles, their word choices, their rhythms for the first time makes a book, any book, electronic or paper, worth the price of admission. Again, literary satisfaction trumps and triumphs over the mode of delivery. What did I know of Pakistan, past and present? What did I know of its customs, its idiosyncrasies, and its people? These questions, born of a symbiosis between writer and reader, between nations, each side rife with assumptions and stereotypes held against the other, are fluid, transcendent, and are communicated through literature with little concern with the “how.”

Later, I read two more stories: “Portrait of Jinnah”   by Jane Perlez and “Kashmir’s Forever War” by Basharat Peer. Unlike the excellent “Leila In The Wilderness” which preceded, the nature of these two other stories eluded me. That is, I was uncertain of their genres; were they fiction or nonfiction? When such a question is asked, another surfaces: does it matter? Some say “no”; some say “you damn right it does.”

During interviews on the subject of his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, author Junot Diaz revealed that “facts” the regarding the Dominican Republic, which were contained within the footnote narrative throughout the book, were untrue. Perhaps those well-versed in Dominican history knew this, and got the joke immediately, but I wonder if this revelation pissed off a few readers. Even if the book is a novel—as in “fictitious”—do readers still take the writer’s word for it? A similar, older take on the saying, “If I read it on the Internet, then it must be true.” As for me, I took the “facts” at face value; if anything, I paid more attention to the narrative as it delved into the details of various comic books (which, of course, were all true).

There’s truth—and there’s “truthiness,” to quote Stephen Colbert. We’re all aware of the skewering James Frey received for A Million Little Pieces. He is literature’s poster boy for all that is believed to be wrong in creative nonfiction and, specifically, memoir. In David Shields’ book Reality Hunger, Alice Marshall was quoted to say:

I’m disappointed not that Frey is a liar but that he isn’t a better one. He should have said, Everyone who writes about himself is a liar. I created a person meaner, funnier, more filled with life than I could ever be. He could have talked about the parallel between a writer’s persona and the public persona that Oprah presents to the world. Instead, he showed up for his whipping.

Likewise, Shields himself wrote:

In the aftermath of the Million Little Pieces outrage, Random House reached a tentative settlement with readers who felt defrauded by Frey. To receive a refund, hoodwinked customers had to mail in a piece of the book: for hardcover owners, it was page 163; those with paperback copies were required to actually tear off the front cover and send it in. Also, readers had to sign a sworn statement confirming that they had bought the book with the belief it was a real memoir or, in other words, that they felt bad having accidentally read a novel.

The suggestion is that Frey should’ve created distance between A Million Little Pieces and the expectation of memoir—that is, “don’t you dare lie to me!”—which essentially deflects the issue of memoir, whether or not the writer is correct in each fact, each conversation quoted, each detail of the the event as it happened, back onto the reader. Frey burned at the proverbial stake because his book was called a “memoir”, a term that unearths expectations inside the minds of readers.

According to Vivian Gornick (quoted in Reality Hunger; originally appeared at Salon.com), the author of one of my favorite books, The Situation and The Story: The Art of The Personal Narrative:

Memoir is a genre in need of an informed readership. It’s a misunderstanding to read a memoir as though the writer owes the reader the same record of literal accuracy that is owed in newspaper reporting. Memoirs belong to the category of literature, not journalism. What the memoirist owes the reader is the ability to persuade him or her that the narrator is trying, as honestly as possible, to get to the bottom of the experience at hand. A memoir is a tale taken from life—that is, from actual, not imagined, occurrences—related by a first-person narrator who is undeniably the writer. Beyond these bare requirements, it has the same responsibility as the novel or the short story: to shape a piece of experience so that it moves from a tale of private interest to one with meaning for the disinterested reader.

Which is okay in my eyes, so long as the truth or, rather, the caveats are revealed upfront. No need to backtrack after the fact, to say, “well you read it wrong.” Ask Frey how that turned out for him. As for whether a story is fiction or nonfiction, It doesn’t matter to me. A safe, perhaps moderate stance to take, but yes, the quality of the story matters most to me. I’m a pessimist by nature and, while I don’t consider writers to be outright liars, I do assume that there’s a smidgen of embellishment, a slight, Plathian slant to the truth.

And there’s the whole philosophy of truth: what is the truth, what makes something real, etc. With truth in literature, I think what gets missed is the reader’s experience: did he sink into the world in which the story existed, with its sights and sounds, did he enjoy the characters (which is independent from liking or hating the characters), was the plot plausible, did the book earn its climax and ending, or were they mere bolt-ons, the results of convenient plot twists? In other words, was the story executed so well, that not only did it entertain the reader, but he could believe it to be true? Besides, isn’t that the litmus test, the “bullshit” test, so to speak, when we read books, fiction or non?

The terms “fiction” and “nonfiction” are mere containers, modes of delivery, along the lines of paper books or e-books. After reading the aforementioned Granta stories, I did ask myself where I should slot them. However, I knew it didn’t matter, further solidified by the fact that I didn’t want to research the dates, the times, the faces, the battles, the mountains, the unmarked graves, the political puppets, the stone-throwers, the tanks, the buildings pitted by artillery shells; I didn’t (and still don’t) know if the stories were fiction and the writers didn’t tip their hands. Rather, they both wrote rich, provocative stories and I, lonely reader, fell into their worlds, walked the streets, saw the markets, smelled the gunpowder, heard the cheers and moans. That’s how its supposed to go. Let someone else question the truth.

Fuck Writing Maxims

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Thanksgiving Eve. It is almost midnight and, rather than sleeping, I’m working on the iPad, attempting to snap out of my writer’s block. Call it Honeymoon Hangover; upon my return from London a few weeks ago, ramping up again has been difficult. The words stumble out; the ideas, if they come at all, are hardly worth chasing.

No going to London.

Colm Taiban

A few minutes ago, I refreshed my Twitter timeline to find a quote concerning the craft of writing. I can’t remember the first sentence and, preferably, I don’t want to dig it up for quote. I closed the program in mid-scan, murmured “enough” under my breath and opened up my blank word document.

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the internet.

Zadie Smith

I’m sick of maxims. I don’t want to hear anymore about what to write, how to write, when to write and why I should follow some truism the originator barely follows, let alone trusts. I’m tired of the compact, convenient, vacuum packaged advice designed, at first glance, to help the beginning writer, even though the advice’s true value, so to speak, is its ability to trigger confusion.

Maxims are scripture from the religion of literature, meant to provide guidance like pseudo North Stars. Because, as you know:

  • you should write in the morning (or night)
  • you should outline (or let it all hang out)
  • you should research (or make it all up…unless it’s nonfiction & you’re you-know-who with the current MFA sweatshop scam).

I’m tired of the Vonnegut quotes, the Zadie Smith musings, the little nuggets pried from Junot Diaz’s life—all in the name to spark a flicker of hope in the hearts of writers who’ll never get published or read. Harsh but—what can I say?—I’m in a I-don’t-give-a-fuck mood right now.

“If you stay positive, it sounds really Pollyanna-ish, but it’s a lot easier to get shit done and get out of that fucking hole.

Junot Diaz

Or perhaps I’m speaking for myself because recently, writing is a joyless, dry-hump experience where I’m looking in the mirror. How can I describe the struggle?

It’s knowing what I want to say and, as I begin to write, the voices rise from some bog located in my brain. It’s a matter of an underdeveloped belief in my own personal writing process. The side effect of looking for an easier way to write; which is to say, mimicking the methodologies of past craft-masters: finding myself so out-of-tune with my way of writing that the work suddenly seems foreign to my eyes and ears. Perhaps the prose works–it might even be publishable–but it isn’t mine. I didn’t do it my way. I didn’t experience the very thing those craft-masters needed to share their advice in the first place: discovery. Rather, I imitated.

Sound like yourself

Kurt Vonnegut

I’m considering Draconian countermeasures: unfriend the writers; defrock the experts; unfollow the alleged conduits between me and the Publishing Dream. Put down the pipe, in other words, and remember the reasons, the motivations that lie dormant inside me, and find the will to adhere to their whims. The closer I am to my motivations, to myself, the sooner the stray notes of my personality will collide into a kaleidoscopic writing process, wholly unique to me, to my ticks and moods.

To that last point, it may not require heavy-handed, anti-social activities. It’s about me. Pawning off my issues to other people, friends and blog usernames alike, is disingenuous and ultimately, counterproductive. That said, it’s not supposed to be like this. Writing shouldn’t become a futile, exacerbating mind-fuck that renders me immobile and unswayed by the piece at hand. So what’s the remedy?

Do not pay any attention to the rules other people make…. They make them for their own protection, and to Hell with them.

William Saroyan

It comes down to a dismissal of the advice, to bid the maxims adieu, to salute and wish them well. In retrospect, they surfaced one truth: famous, published, literary giants are as fucked in the head as I am. The writing advice industry, replete with guidebooks and blogs, exists as a result of our inherent uncertainty in the validity of our works, both what we generate and how we generate them. As for me?

It is Black Friday. Our artificial Christmas tree is to my right, erect and illuminated, hungry for gifts at its feet. Our dog paces the apartment in search of a playmate; my wife sits on the ottoman, hand over mouth, watching a zombie flick. I’m wearing a newsboy cap and Ray Ban eyeglasses, embracing my foray into douchebaghood, as I listen to Bob Dylan’s Time Out of Mind. I’m at my desk now, working on the iMac, and I’m feeling exposed, that I might want to reel back the personal truths espoused, to swap them for tempered rants written in the third person.

You write what you write, and then either it holds up or it doesn’t hold up. There are no rules or particular sensibilities. I don’t believe in that at all anymore.

Jamaica Kincaid

Airplane Mode

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Shopping in Oxford Street (file picture)

Third (and final) installment of a micro-series. Parts one and two. Meanwhile, Electric Parade is on a two-week hiatus due to the author getting married. Gone ’til November…

*

“Lately, I’ll sit down with a blank pad and feel like I really have to dig down deep to get my own voice to come out over the “sample choir.” It’s a very strange feeling, like a conductor trying to sing over the orchestra, and is, I believe, a fairly new one for artists.”

-Brian Christian, as quoted by David Shields in Reality Hunger.

**

Throughout the years, I’ve developed a habit of unplugging from the Internet, more so over the last two years. Between the blogs, the tweets and the Facebook updates, coupled with the day-to-day sounds of life outside, I find it difficult to shut out the noise.

Much is made of the authorial voice. When to suppress it, when to let it bellow through the prose, but never how to discover it, or how to recognize it. The prevailing thought is to worry less about how to find your voice. I would contend that voice, amid all ideas mined, is important to a writer’s sanity.

Everyone has an opinion. I’m fortunate to live in a country that doesn’t gun its citizens down for said expression. And yet, somehow, opinion has transformed into obnoxious: the polarized scream-fests on the news, the flame wars on Twitter and in the comments section of my favorite blogs, the pithy beefs aired out on Facebook. Everyone has a voice; some don’t know when to shut up.

The cliche goes, “silence is golden.” In real life, I’m an introvert. I’m used to hearing my own voice in my head. And once upon a time, when I started writing, reaching and listening to my second, deeper voice (the writer in me, perhaps?), was easier. Taken for granted, maybe, like breathing. Like peace and quiet.

***

No gadgets in London. This is no luddite’s manifesto—it is a mere declaration of unplug. A recall of sorts: to remind myself that the matrix is a movie and marriage aside, I am quite alone on Earth.

My thoughts are still under my agency.

Yes, it is the current mode to let it flow, flow, through the wire in byte-sized blurbs. London evokes, however, a chance to reclaim something lost amid the glittering voices scattered across monitors and capacitive screens, each in need to be stars, as celebrities and constellations garner attention and lowly humans, me too, adapt to new ways of being heard.

I want to be alone, as a father surrounded by family still retreats, as a woman takes in a lover and still recedes. I want to know, once again, the voice I’ve come to trust and curse without the choir clawing for something basic, bread or acknowledgement.

I feel it—do you?—in the era of message, where everyone speaks up to sell you something: maybe a self-help product or $199.99 seminar to get you published or address your fears or tell you that yes, you are complete.

Everyone has something to say and for two weeks, I’d like to disengage from the ether and return to the world, dystopian as ever, and remember the sole voice, hear its truths, and feel no need to share them with the world: to be silent and selfish.

****

“¦the iPhone and iPad will attend the journey to London, according to sources close to the matter.

@thomasdemary.  @altruistic bullsh*t.

Touch-Down In London-Town: Morning Sickness

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london-bridge

Part two of a three part micro-series. Part one is here.

II.

Nausea hit me mid-morning. In the middle of a team meeting at work, giving the rundown on the day’s priorities, I place a hand on the wall and prepare to vomit in the presence of co-workers. Out of nowhere, like ambulance sirens, beads of sweat bubble across my bald head and I’m thinking, “Maybe I’m getting the flu.” With nausea and sweat comes a fit of dizziness—not a complete spin of the world, but the sight of the factory, the cubicles, the machines and assemblers tilt on a forty-five degree angle. I make it through the meeting and dart to the side exit of the building, the smoking section, and step outside to the new cold air, a country breeze effusing nicotine, trying to retrieve my bearings, looking for them as if they’re my keys. I sit on a trash can and light a cigarette, freezing as the wind dries my scalp. I chair the meeting every morning, and have done so for at least three months, so “stage fright,” as a malady, is the wrong answer.

I can’t get sick. Not before the wedding, not before our romp through London. My immune system is a cat’s cradle of tripwires: a stomach flu before a Thanksgiving flight to Georgia, Chicken Pox on my seventh birthday (a sleepover, of course), appendicitis three weeks before I started fourth grade (the senior year of elementary school), and bronchitis two weeks before my wedding—my first wedding”—ive years ago. The whole ordeal, my first marriage, was a catastrophe, like a first draft submitted to publication. That I got sick before the celebration wasn’t an omen of things to come—it failed as a predictor to future illness, the one that temporarily halted my sanity, the one that exposed the terminal malignancy in our marriage. But that’s that—this is flu-like symptoms on a October morning three weeks before Marriage: Redux.

I admit on this trash can, square in hand, that the conflation of work, writing, wedding and international travel, in the face of State Department “advisories,” equate to stress. Day-job is the day-job and I’ve already said my peace on it. Writing: a desperate search for the new sound, the new way to say, “I’m so lonely” in the new era where deeper horrors are communicated through the wire via snarky microcosms. The wedding remains a mystery: my fiancee’s dress and the first-night undergarments underneath (yeah). And what of London? I need it to save me, but what if? What if we get there, cameras in hand and guidebooks in our bags, and detach our tourist armor, let it all fall in an American pile by our feet, and find our skins capable of blending in with the masses? What if I return to the States unrecognizable? Will I pull a Madonna and discover a latent British accent?

I take a shortcut and get right to the point, or as close to it as I can. I’m still a man, to quote a favorite Tony Toni Tone song of mine. I’m nervous because I’m gripped by more humanistic fears. A story I want to tell my children one day (or nieces and nephews if childbirth ain’t in the cards) is the moment I knew I was going to marry her. The moment contrasted previous meditations on marriage, old thoughts that considered the act as a necessity to the longevity of a relationship, that I had to do it in order to keep the peace, to play my part in the future commiseration of two. Instead, I laid eyes on a woman I hadn’t seen in seven years in a Charlotte hotel lobby. Nobody saw it, the phantasmic explosion before my eyes, the dispersion of amethyst and azure, a mushroom plume of something unexpected, that took place between our bodies, in a space measured in yards. I saw perfection and heard God in my ear. “Don’t fuck this up, writer-man.”

So far, so good. She still seems inclined to take my last name. And for that, I think about sitting on a dormant plane London-bound, cabin lights slightly dim, and I kiss her on the cheek, lower to the neck, living it up like newlyweds designed to make seasoned couples nauseous at the sight of our carrying-on. Carry on, writer-man—carry that weight, boy-turned-man. Is the love I take equal to the love I make? My ex-wife would say no, that happiness is, without question, a warm gun””to the head, no less. I would agree—probably. But that’s that and this is three weeks before touch-down and take-off into Space, the perfect allegory for love and creativity. Co-pilots in a rocket-ship, Moleskine notebooks in tow. I know nothing of tomorrow and, for now, that’s enough to end the rumbles. My stomach settles. I snuff out my cigarette. I stand and head back in, get back to work, resume time’s march toward—

The Day Job – A Writer’s Malady

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I step outside and drag a blade of cold air into my lungs.   5:35 AM.   In two hours, I’ll sit at my desk, wait for my laptop to boot up and stare at the pictures, the papers, the brown ring left behind from last week’s coffee. In two hours, I’ll return to the place where, if I choose, I’ll remain until social security forces me to keep working. And I’ll come back again. Dead man working, empty coffin waiting.

Minutes ago, I feigned sound sleep. Couldn’t get comfortable all night long and, through the black, the clock’s bloody numbers seeped past my peripheral, pooled into my direct line of sight, and the time shimmered with chuckles. The morning guffawed at my restlessness and squealed at the stroke of 5:30 AM. Our dog waited in his crate, ready to get going. My body rose, a long sigh lifted my weight from the bed and, between encrusted blinks, we began the ritual.

The wind pumps life into my nerves, previously dulled by insomnia, shocked and frayed now, electrocuted by this damn cold. Mid-September in south New Jersey. Summer refuses to linger; when it goes, its out and you hope for its return. That and the dark reminds me of Bill Withers as the dog tugs, circles, stops and surveys the scenery, then crouches to urinate.

A field, for any other name eludes me, separates two parking lots. Wind sweeps through the low-cut lawn, mowed seventeen hours earlier. Twenty minutes. I unlock the retractable leash and let him run, sniff grass, eat it and putter around the light pole. I try to remain vigilant, on the lookout for rabbits and squirrels and other woodland creatures that’ll stir his ire.

Before long, I look upward and note the transformative fade from black to purple. I should write about it, I think to myself. And I think about the time. The year. The past. Writers before me. And question if I have anything worthwhile to add to the ubiquitous subject of sunrises. In other words, I wonder if I have something new to say. More to the point, I conspire with self-doubt to sabotage my thought process. Long story short, I psyche myself out and begin the traverse to a new topic.

He sits on command and I stroke his black fur, repeat affirmations in his ear, a good dog indeed. The heaviness settles in for the day. In ninety minutes, I’ll sit at my desk, fumble with my Blackberry to check spam mail and overnight messages one hundred-forty characters deep. I’ll sink into a slipstream and drown in jade-colored timelines where fellow followers bemoan anxiety over dreams turned reality. I’ll remember the walk, the field, the purple smeared parallel to the horizon and vaguely recall the conspiracy, as if it occurred years, not hours, ago.

The usual preparations: food in his bowl, coffee maker percolates, my love’s taillights turn the corner toward Philadelphia, I wash, dress, brush, straighten out, brace. One hour. I open the other laptop and shut off the wireless connection. No browsing. No refreshed reports from the blogosphere. We’re talking words and phrases, serious business, and I have sixty minutes to salvage the rest of my day.

Without a character, a theme or voice, I begin to type. Each meaning behind every word meanders without forethought; my sentences stretch beyond the outskirts of brevity, terseness, get-to-the-fucking-pointedness. Little action, less backstory. The narrative swells, its belly pregnant with equal parts density and emptiness and I, voyeur, keep my eyes on its navel.

Two cigarettes down, ten minutes to go. He sleeps by my feet and whimpers to himself amid the unknowable: a canine’s nightmare. The morning’s silence, less still now that the sun is here, rings in my ears like a far-away chime, a singular note hummed as though a television were left on mute. Sound within no-sound. The unbearable tumidity of sonic vacancy leaves my stream of consciousness in shambles. I mutter an expletive. Fuck. I have an 8 AM meeting with my staff and I cannot arrive late. And if I could, no good would arise from it. And even though I should, since I dare call myself “writer,” I am, at least, on the path to said profession and therefore beholden to a day-job.

Third cigarette lit and I start my car. And sit. A free minute before I have to hit the road. I bring up Bill Withers on the iPod and play “Ain’t No Sunshine.” I switch to “Use Me” because its funkier, it knocks from my speakers and, as I shift into Drive, it seems more fitting.