I like to watch people in bookstores. If I could, I would follow them around with a survey or a tape recorder. I want to know why they pick up the books they pick up. Did they go into the store knowing what they wanted? Had they read a review, heard the author on NPR, or had the book been recommended? Were they just looking around and a jacket or title jumped out? Were they familiar with the author? DId they read the jacket copy, the blurbs? Did any of that make a difference? Did they read the first page, the last? Did they smell the spine? Did the display make a difference? The jacket art?The author photo? I live to understand why people are attracted to books.
When I was a young editor, I worked for a publisher who would walk around the conference room while an editor was presenting a book. She would pick on people randomly and ask them if they would read the book being discussed and why. She wanted to know why they wouldn’t read it, too. She would really put people on the spot and it was more than a little terrifying. But what she’d tease out over the course of a meeting was what connected a reader to a book and sometimes, before our eyes, we saw a marketing campaign, an approach, a hook, a narrative come alive. And sometimes that idea would translate all the way through from writer to reader.
What do you do when you walk into a bookstore?
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I was invited to participate on a publishing panel last week at NYU. The last time I saw that many eyes glazed over is when I was student there thirty years ago. The panel never really came together, and I think I alienated a fellow panelist right out of the gate. He was lamenting the fact that writers couldn’t make a living just writing anymore. If five percent of writers make a living writing I would be surprised. I said that no one invites you to write, no one cares if you do, and that it is against the world’s indifference that you create. If you are lucky enough that the world loves what you write, then perhaps you will be among the few who make their living writing. The rest of us get up at dawn or write all night, or write on vacations, or quit for years and hate ourselves in an even more special way. Is it fair that a thriller writer can make millions and poet basically nothing. Is it fair that a “popular” historian can make millions while a scholar puts twenty years into a book for which he will be paid $5,000? Fair? If my mother raised me on one consistent mantra it was this: who said life was fair? And she said it after I wailed about the great injustices of life: my sister getting a larger portion of mac and cheese, the fact that I had to wear her hand me downs, including a set of faded olive Danskins. Enough said.
Why are poets such a-holes, you might ask. Is it their power with language, is it their widow’s peak streaked with white, is it their penetrating gaze or the way they pronounce poem pome? HOw about the way they read their own work? It’s like watching someone masturbate in slow motion. God, it’s gross. I used to love poetry readings, soaking up the beret life, drinking the warm Chardonnay. I fucking hate Chardonnay. And for some damn reason when I tell a waiter that I would like white wine, they always ask if I’d like Chardonnay. Is there something about me that screams Chardonnay? Why can’t they ask if I’d like a Pinot? A Sancerre? Another thing, poets think they’re better than other people.
A professional acquaintance asked me to look at a novel a few weeks ago. Sure, I chirped. Ug, I thought. The novel began with an author’s note that I think was meant to create an air of mystery. It said the story might be true, or it might not. My reaction to the note: who gives a shit? I mean, it’s work of fiction, right? If you want to tell me it’s based on a true story, tell me. If you say it’s all made up, I automatically think it’s not.What is your expectation when you read a novel. My feeling is that whether it’s actually true or not, its first obligation is to feel true, even if it’s science fiction, maybe especially if it’s science fiction. The world you enter whether it’s the ped next door or the inner ear, it has to feel fuckin real. Why did that note strike me as so…obnox? I’m sure it had everything to do with the tone, but it really got me thinking about fiction (I mostly represent non-fiction). I do find it amazing that we, as humans, want to read made up stories and the reason we want to read them, at least in part, is because they seem true.
Maybe because I was wearing my Johnny Cash shirt, but something got into me today. I met with this acclaimed film director to talk about a project. THe hour or so went really well, then we segued into the small talk before parting. We discovered that we both loved Blue Valentine and Ryan Gosling’s broken man thing. I ventured that I love Mark Ruffalo’s broken man thing even more. She totally agreed — so I started yammering about his other movies like You Can Count on Me and Eternal Spotless Sunshine and she said, no, wait, it’s that other movie that he’s so great in. I guess Zodiac, and she says no, no, the one with Meg Ryan. I knew exactly what she meant but instead of saying In the Cut, I say you want me to eat your pussy in my best Mark Ruffalo impression. She rears back, like what the fuck! Idiotically, I say it again, only this time more emphatically and trying to pooch up my lip like Ruffalo’s, you want me to eat your pussy.
I turned in my revised article to Poets & Writers today. I’m really hoping they take it because I could use the dough. And I’ve always wanted to get in there ever since they turned down my article about author photos eight years ago. I still can’t believe they didn’t snap it up. Speaking of snapping things up, I received three Monday morning rejections today. It’s a good fuck me Monday morning feeling. Saw my therapist today, usually I go on Fridays. I’m the same fucked up person on Mondays as I am on Fridays. Why is this day no different than all other days?
Constitutional Law Professor 
I think I’m done with the five part series on fame. It’s all such a mind fuck anyway. There’s no winning the fame game because everything fades. Because someone else will be anointed, crowned, bequeathed, and beheaded. Of the many lies I hear writers say is that they would just be happy to have their book published. That’s like not being asked to dance after you’ve put on your party dress and stood eagerly all night on the sidelines. It’s like being the last girl at the bar, 3 a.m. with your legs shaved. You are the tree in the forest no one heard fall. The nail in your own casket.
The all time best moment of my life was at a Christmas party last year. This scene actually happened IN FRONT OF MY DAUGHTER. I am introduced by the host to a young woman:
When Food and Loathing was published, something exciting happened. I was invited to go on The Today Show. How the publicist scored this, I will never know. In short order, I was told that I needed a) a new look and b) media coaching. The shopping trips resulted as they always have since fifth grade: in tears. The media coaching was worse. A petite, perky woman with frosted hair, a fat belt slung around her hips, and bright lipstick tried very hard to get me to sit up straight, look into the camera, and break me of the habit of going silent after a questions was asked, which apparently made me look brain dead. DNR!
