THE FOREST FOR THE TREES is about writing, publishing and what makes writers tick. This blog is dedicated to the self loathing that afflicts most writers. A community of like-minded malcontents gather here. I post less frequently now, but hopefully with as much vitriol. Please join in! Gluttons for punishment can scroll through the archives.
If I’ve learned one thing about writers, it’s this: we really are all alone. Thanks for reading. Love, Betsy
People ask me what I’m working on next. It takes a few minutes to get my tap shoes on and start dancing. For some reason it always makes me feel defensive, like what’s it to you. Then guilty because I haven’t really started anything. Then ridiculous for hedging and waffling and acting like I can’t remove my thumb from my ass. What am I working on? Don’t I counsel all my writers to start a project right away? I forget how much air it takes to fill a balloon. Fans, flames, germs, seeds, a single image, a forgotten page. Something from nothing. Bring my roots rain.
Drum roll please! Here’s a New York Times Book Review for the Bridge Ladies. Before I read any review, I say a little prayer. Then I speed read. If it’s good, I feel I’ve dodged a bullet, slipped the noose. I read it again, slowly. Then, following relief, I wish it was longer, more enthusiastic, penned by Cynthia Ozick, with lots of crunchy pull quotes. Did they mention my gorgeous similes? Or how if you’re only going to read one book this year: this is it. Did the gates of heaven open? Did Idris Elba ask me out? Did Bette Midler call and say she has to play my mother? Reviews are mind fucks, full stop. But I’m grateful for this one. Don’t get me wrong. Love, Betsy
THE BRIDGE LADIES – NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW A Memoir
By Betsy Lerner
Lerner’s childhood memory of the women in her mother’s bridge club, “their hair frosted, their nylons shimmery, carrying patent leather pocketbooks with clasps as round as marbles,” conjures the magic mothers hold for little girls. But her grown-up relationship with her mother is messy and tense. Then Lerner, a middle-aged literary agent, seizes on a scheme for better understanding. She will tail her mother to her Monday afternoon bridge game, still running after more than 50 years.
At first, bridge bores Lerner. More than once, she’s tempted to check her phone. She had imagined she’d be encountering a senior division of the gossipy female-empowerment rituals she enjoys with friends her own age, but these bridge ladies are old school. She probes for revelations: When did they lose their virginity? How do they feel about aging, death? The ladies parry with a wall of propriety. Worse, the mother-daughter bond still grates. Clothing choices, housekeeping techniques — “every comment she made felt like a referendum on how I lived my life.” Tit for tat, she labels her mother the Duchess of Protocol for her meticulous makeup, her matching craft-fair jewelry sets, her restraint in the face of grief.
When Lerner resolves to join the game, she discovers that bridge is more complicated than it seemed. And so it is with the ladies. Slowly, through an accumulation of sharply observed details, they reveal themselves: How they followed the rules in life as in bridge. How they achieved their aspirations early, marrying proper Jewish men and raising their children. How they manage just fine now, thank you, on their own. Their stories are so similar that Lerner defines them more clearly as a group than as individuals, but she does come to respect them, and she and her mother edge closer to spiky affection.
Lerner’s memoir makes a case for spending time together under the rules of neutrality imposed by a game, an approach to living that refrains from over-sharing and outward complaint to concentrate on the task at hand. The bridge ladies are there for one another, even as they keep their feelings to themselves and play on.
Last night was a first. I was invited to a Book Club. Until now, I’ve been doing readings and events. This was more intimate. Up close and personal. Dinner. There were ten women. I knew a few from summer camp and high school — hadn’t seen them in more than thirty years. It was at a house on the Connecticut shore line, calm with the sun setting. The women were all about my age (the first thing they asked me was how hold I am). THey had all read the book. One woman’s book had post- its. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as touching in my life. The best part is that they are readers. Real readers. Always had books going. Every book mentioned, when they were deciding on their next, someone had already read. Music to my agent’s heart.
They wanted to know the usual things: what did my mother think of the book? What about the other ladies? My sisters? How did I get the idea? WHat was I working on next? ONe woman asked me what my father would have thought of the book. That was a first. I don’t think he would have liked it. My dad was from the school of stiff upper lip. They praised my ability to weave so many topics. SOme said they even wanted to try Bridge. They even invited me to join.
People ask me what I like about Bridge (usually with some disbelief). After all, how many former poet potheads think a good time is sitting around playing cards? Poker sure. But Bridge? Here’s my answer, aside from the fact that it’s a highly competitive and challenging game that involves both team work and individual skill. It’s the way Bridge pre-empts all other thought. When I play Bridge, all the noisy voices in my head (and in my head those voice are usually nasty) quiet. You need to concentrate so deeply when you play that you can’t think of anything else. Hours slip away. It’s intoxicating and absorbing, and it reminds me of only one other things: writing.
Did any of you see Genius,the new movie about Maxwell Perkins and his relationship with Thomas Wolfe? It’s a fantastic story of an editor and writer whose connection goes deeper than most until it implodes completely. I’ve always nursed a theory that all editors have one writer with whom they spend endless amounts of time editing — far more than they would devote to other writers. THey are more invested in their success, lending them money, going out on limb with the publisher, throwing publication parties. I’ve also suspected that this writer speaks to the creative soul of the editor. These relationships are uncommon, exquisite, and fraught. I felt this way about a writer, heart quickened when her pages arrived, went above and beyond the call of duty, moved mountains where I could. I was truly, madly, deeply in love with her writing.
What kind of relationship have you had with your editor?
There were a few redeeming passages but for the most part I had to drag myself through it.
I considered giving up reading it many times.
I wouldn’t recommend this book unless you want to read about a boring self absorbed author.
Overall, this is an “okay but not great” read, kind of like a Big Mac that provides a little nourishment without a lot of flavor and wasting the day’s reading calories on mostly empty calories.
Tomorrow, I’ve signed on to live tweet with Poets & Writers. What this means exactly is hard to say. But from 12-1, I am meant to field questions about being an agent/editor/writer. If you want to participate but can’t think of any questions, here are some starter questions:
who is the sexiest publisher in NYC?
how many pages does an editor read before typically rejecting a manuscript?
do you have to know someone to get published?
What is the most important social media a writer should be on?
What are publishers looking for?
So if this sounds like your idea of fresh hell, please join us on #agentadvice
I’m going to read Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson. I’ve pretended to have read that book for over 25 years. Whenever people talk about how AMAZING it is, I always nod in complete agreement. I’m going in. I’m gonna read the fucker. I’ll report back!
What book have you lied about reading that you haven’t. It’s just us.
This is my 30th anniversary of working in publishing. I’m not looking for a party or a Timex watch. I just need to say it: thirty years. Fifteen as an editor and fifteen as an agent. People always say that life happens in a flash, where did the time go, etc. Not so much in publishing. It’s a slow grind. Writing books is slow, publishing them is slow, recovering from publishing them can take an eternity. Still, and I know I sound like some kind of half-full gal, but it’s been extraordinary. Front row to writers doing their work, amazing colleagues, some who have become life-long friends. The parties, the drugs, a writer winning a prize, a book climbing the bestseller list. Every day going to the office, large Starbucks in hand, saying good morning to Pat at the door, and walking into a book lined office, my name on the door, simpatico people inside, talking their clients off the ledge, opening a new carton of galleys, going over a submission list, making a lunch date, chasing a check, another day.
How do you pad your brain in cotton? Why do people keep talking? Are all the lights still flashing? How long can a canoe drift down a black lake with no wind or current. I am not going to say what I’m trying to say. In graduate school, a professor once described my poems as incoherent imagery connected by bad grammar. C’est moi. When I was in junior high and high school, I truly believed that poems were difficult to understand because they were meant to hide the truth because the truth was too dangerous. Just sensing what they were about was intoxicating enough for me. Sometimes at readings people ask me if I still write poems. I always feel I’m letting them down when I answer no, I don’t. Though I can still glimpse myself.
No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.
It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Ollie has no breaks. Amy can't get her life started. Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet coming of age story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental illness, boundaries, loss and the limits of love.
Betsy Lerner 