Misery Memoirs Love Company

In today's morning blog reading Grumpy Old Bookman had some interesting info on WanderingScribe a woman who claims to have been living in her car all the while blogging about her homeless life and her quest to get a book deal. WanderingScribe has now received said book deal from Harper Collins UK. However even though Miss Anya Peters (WanderingScribe's nom de plume) is a self proclaimed writer, Harper Collins has decided to have famed ghostwriter Andrew Crofts step in and help. I took a looky-loo at the WanderingScribe site and boy do she have a tendency to ramble and her writing content is pure drivel.
Quote: "I would rather sleep in my car through every winter there is, than have anyone know how deep the absence of love is."
How very bohemian of you.
Not to mention I detect an odor of James Frey Bullshit in the air. Enter what is now referred to as The Misery Memoir. Basically the idea is write about your miserable life, and a big publisher gives you money, and the publisher markets your book like crazy, and people read your book, and if your really lucky Oprah will pick your book for her book club and then you'll make millions! And if they find out you're lying Oprah will publicly flog you. (She will also attempt to publicly flog your publisher but that won't go nearly as well.)
Oddly enough after the Oprah incident part deux, the market was flooded with memoirs. Notably the two who are my favorites are the ones who were established long before the Frey incident. David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs have published a handful of books each and I find that their dry, sardonic presentation lends itself to the memoir as feeling more truthful. Information is merely presented for the reader to take as they will. They see the humor and irony in their crazy lives as opposed to Frey and Peters who take a "poor me" approach.
So is Anya Peters, Wandering Scribe the real deal? This remains to be seen. There is a lot of speculation that she's not, but proving this is difficult since we are not privy to her real name. But it is good that folks like the Wanderingego are looking to watchdog this before publication, and before millions of readers and Oprah are once again duped. (Seriously, Oprah has made it clear she does not like being duped.) My take is I don't think it's fair that someone gets to tell huge lies and then is rewarded for it. And I think publishers need to be more accountable for the accuracy of the books they publish. This fakery has always happened but has become far more commonplace in the last few years. Again it raises the question what is fiction, what is memoir, what is nonfiction, where is the line, and who decides? Given all the prepublication controversy over Abandoned it's certain that Oprah, Queen of All Media won't be touching this one with a ten foot pole.

The Corrections

By: Jonathan Franzen
This book has been incredibly interesting to read, due to the hype surrounding it. First off there's the famous Oprah incident, and subsequent debate over what is "literature", and what is "popular fiction", and whether the Queen of All Media gets to decide which is which. Second, as I sat reading it in the Green Room, this book more than any other drew comments from passers by. "Ohmygod that's my favorite book!" "Oh that book is sooo good but it's really depressing, especialy if you have elderly relatives." "I love that book! It really nails the character of the midwesterner. Are you from the midwest?" And so on.
So I was curious, was this a good piece of literature? The answer is yes. Was I going to see myself and my family in these characters? Kind of, but (thankfully) not really. After finishing the novel I think of it as an alter reality in which my family could have turned out like this had my parents stayed married and grown old together. In effect, miserable and co-dependent.
And I wonder if I would have been more involved in the book had I not heard these opinions from others.
That is not to say I didn't find the book engaging. At times incredibly funny and by turns incredibly sad. I also found it to be a good picture of society today, and not only for midwesterners. Frantzen taps into the materialism of America with a nice touch of the absurd. From Chip's desire to impress his parents with his New York life-so he steals a salmon filet, to Edith's obsession with her baby Jesus advent ornament made of a walnut, the characters are constantly striving for more and as usual for American's it is never enough. The culmination is Edith's (the matriarch's) desire to have one last Christmas in St. Jude. Which happens-but not in the Norman rockwell card that was envisioned.

Real Simple

I've just finished this month's Real Simple Magazine. I subscribe to three magazines, Vanity Fair, Real Simple and Entertainment Weekly. Unfortunately due to the financial cutbacks I need to make I am only keeping the Vanity Fair subscription. This is beacause it is only $12.95 and it seems to be the last journalistic endeavor not controlled by the GOP.
I rarely ever read the editors note at the front of the issue but for some reason this issue I did. It's goes on about the little patience the editor has for folks who stress about having the "perfect holidays." I have to say I agree. There is no reason to quelch all of our enjoyment during the season of joy by freaking out about something that will not be important 6 months from now.
And the editor goes on to say "...I would be lying if I said I didn't feel a bit overwhelmed, too. A few years ago a friend who has spent most of his life in therapy told me that if your depressed, it means your are facing a decision....and the holidays are nothing if not one giant decision making minefield."
I was struck by the idea of depression meaning you are facing a decision-and subsequently stalling out in depression-land because you don't want to deal with said decision. I decided long ago no more traveling on airplanes during the weeks of Christmas and New Years. I decided long ago to take holidays as they come. To not overplan as you are inevitably dissapointed in the fact that your plans have gone astray. I decided long ago to plan for christmas gifts early to avoid holiday shopping. Subsequently the last three years have been better than ever and I find myself looking forward to the holidays as opposed to dreading them.

Son of a Witch

By Gregory Maguire
Shame on you Gregory Maguire. As if you didn't have enough money from the publication of Wicked, and other fairy tale retellings, and your children's books. And let's not forget Wicked the Broadway musical, which if you're smart-you negotiated residuals. So now you further capitalize on the success of Wicked that you write a sequel. Folks were skeptical, but I believed in you. I believed that you had been so clever in all the other books of yours, you'd be clever with this too. And have to say I am sorely disappointed.
Mr. Maguire spends 350 pages essentially telling us that Liir is indeed the son of Elphaba. Now while it is not explicit in Wicked it is implied and I came away with the understanding that Liir was Elphaba's son. While Son of a Witch does have Mr. Maguire's sardonic voice (which I love) I was constantly thinking it would get somewhere and it never really did. It constantly fell short for me, which I'll admit is the point of Liir's life really-that it never really lives up to Elphaba's. But then why write a book about it?
Now it's certainly not as bad as some sequels (cough...The Lost World) and I don't feel my time was completely wasted. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone other than a die hard Maguire fan.

Specimen Days

By: Michael Cunningham
The author of The Hours brings us another threesome of characters with lives centered around a piece of literature. In this case it is Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. I enjoyed the book and I love Michael Cunningham's language, it's so lyrical. The three stories are always about a man named Simon, a woman named Catherine, and a boy named Luke. The POV changes with each story, as do the ages, races, and deaths of each character. One story is set in 19th century industrial New York, one is New York today, and one is New York of the future. Writing the future is tricky business and despite my initial skepticism, Cunningham does an excellent job of telling the story without jumping to much into the sci-fi realm. The thing with a future world (or a fantasy one) is that you often have to spend a lot of time explining the world to the audience. Cunningham does this very succintly and boy do I appreciate that. The only thing I didn't care for was in the future story the planet is also now inhabited by refugee aliens that look like lizards. Which unfortunately for me initially brought up images of the GEICO Gecko. (Who want's free pie and chips?) Fortunately I got over it.

Empire Falls

By: Richard Russo
Richard Russo deservedly won the Pulitzer for this book about the residents of a small town in Maine. My usual literary connection to Maine is through the eyes of Stephen King. Needless to say Russo's Maine is quite different but no less compelling. In a dying factory town the characters struggle to get by in a story revolving around Miles Roby and his family. Through present day and flashbacks we see Miles's struggle to escape a small town life.
Coming from a smallish city in a rural area I can relate. When you first leave it is a fight to stay away. It always seems as if something is conspiring to suck you back in. I think most people stay in those situations because it's the easy thing to do. It's harder to make life work without a support system, and hometowns usually have that in abundance. It's sad to see Miles fall back into Empire Falls over his mother's illness when she fought so hard for him to get out. But when he finally sees how much she really sacrificed for him it affects him enough to change up his own life to secure his daughter's future.
Today we live in an age where communication is faster than ever and I think it's going to become easier and easier for people to break their molds. Amen to that.

And speaking of Harry Potter...

Recently I went out for lunch with my freind Melissa and we stopped in at the Yale Bookstore for some browsing. She was looking for a birthday gift for a friend and this brought us to the Italian Literature section of the bookstore. Her friend has been studying Italian for the last few years and Melissa had previously purchased HP and the Sorcerers Stone in Italian for her. We didn't find any of the other Harry Potter's but we did find Sorcerers Stone with this curious cover.
My question is, what the hell is on Harry's head? A rat hat? And is that supposed to be Scabbers lying next to him looking drunk? I understand the dancing chess pieces, but these rats perplex me.
Any ideas?

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

By: J.K. Rowling
Ahh...Harry Potter. One of my favorite book series ever. What can I say I'm a sucker for an epic hero story. This was my second read of Half Blood Prince, with assistance by Jim Dale on audio book. If you have not heard the Harry Potters on audio read by Jim Dale-you are missing out. There's a reason he's won a Grammy Award. (Well, and a Tony too for that matter.)
In this book we discover more about Voldemort and Snape. It is still unclear who's side Snape is really on. My theory is he's out for himself, many references are made in all 6 books about how Slytherin's are always out for their own ends. Which means being a Death Eater will get you nowhere.
Part of me wants Book 7 NOW, and part of me wants to wait. I love the journey that I and so many others have taken with these books and I will be sad when all is said and done.

The Children of Men

By: P.D. James
In September I went to see The Black Dahlia, which was not nearly as exciting as it should of been. However there was an excellent preview for a movie called Children of Men. As I often do when I see a good movie preview I wondered if there was a book involved somewhere in the life of the story. As it turns out the movie originated from a novel of the same name by P.D. James. I immediately retrieved it from the West Haven library and devoured it in three days.
By the year 2021 everyone on the planet has become mysteriously infertile, there is no one under the age of 18 left alive on the planet. Society is crumbling, England is run by a dictator, and Theo (incidentaly the dictator's cousin) a washed up professor is coerced by a group of revolutionaries to join them on their crusade. Their crusade being the protection and hiding of a pregnant woman.
The story zips along despite a strange writing style. James flips from Theo's first person diary to third person action with no real rhyme or reason. But the story and characters are compelling enough to overlook my issues with story structure. It's an interesting thought, the idea of everone becoming infertile. What struck me the most was the way society had just become so beaten down. "No children. No future. No hope." is the move tag line and an apropriate description of the attitudes of the society.
I cannot wait to see the movie. It has to be better than Black Dahlia.

Ladies and Gentelmen...

For your reading enjoyment...My Book Blog. Here are the answers to the classic small-talk question "What are you reading?" Although I usually hear this question at work and people there are genuinely interested. Recently, during the last show at the Yale Rep an actor told me he had never seen a person read as fast as I do. And I do read fast. If left uninterrupted I average about 100 pages an hour. During the last show I finished 5 novels, 2 plays and I am halfway through another novel. Granted I didn't have much to do during the show so I had more reading time than normal.

I rarely read only one book at a time. I have the book I read before bed, the book I read at work, and occasionally the audiobook I listen to on my ipod in the car or even when I'm ironing at work, or cleaning the house. As a book nerd one of my favorite things to do is read the book when I can sit down, and then synch up the audiobook to listen to as I go about my day. I can then conceivably be involved in a book for all my waking hours!

Along with being an avid book reader I am also an avid blog reader. These little windows into people's lives are fascinating to me. It also allows me to keep up with friends when we are too busy to talk to one another. I have long wanted to start my own but stalled on the idea of writing about my life, which is not that exciting. So I thought why not share the books I've read in a blog.

So what am I reading? Stay tuned to find out. Check out my favorite book reading links to the right and let me know what you're reading in the comments section. Happy reading...