Photo op

I had photos taken by Sarah Gwidt Photography for use in publicity materials to go with my book (I'll be doing some signings and readings soon). It's the first time since forever that I've actually had real photos taken. Anyway, here's one pic of me, and you can see some more at the photographer's website.



Great job making my mug look good - thanks Sarah!

More reviews...

I would like to thank Cheryl at Cheryl's Book Nookand Michele - only one l for being kind enough to review Entropy on their blogs.

Cheryl did enjoy the book, but I’m sorry to say Michele didn’t love it, which makes me even more appreciative of her taking the time to read and review the book – it takes self-discipline I don’t have to keep reading something you clearly don’t like. She also posted a mini interview with me, so you should check it out.

I have to admit, it was a strange feeling getting a negative review. It kind of felt like being dumped, or maybe more accurately, like going on a blind date and finding the person really hated you. I feel like I want another chance at a first impression (read my short stories Michele! Give me another chance!). I guess this feeling comes from the same place that defensive feeling I get when people joke about the novel comes from (I wrote about that in this post).

An interesting thing about the review is that it mentioned things I had been self-conscious about with the book – namely the sex, and to a lesser extent the drug use. My short stories generally have little or none of either. So it was a bit different for me writing scenes like that. As most writers know, once you start writing, the characters take away the book, and this is what happened with Entropy. I do feel like the sex and drugs are not gratuitous. In writing Entropy, I had to put out of my mind my own inner censor. I felt I was a chronicler of the characters and couldn’t impose myself on them. The only thing that really hurt was when Michele said she felt the book was pointless – I obviously don’t think this is the case, and I wonder how I could miss the mark so badly with this reader. Perhaps another good lesson for me is that some people will not see in the book what I think is there to be seen. Books are such a one on one thing - when I was doing standup, if most people laughed, I was doing great - the ones who didn't like it were drowned out. Not so with novels, that's for sure.

Anyway, thanks again to both of them.

Something Old, Something New

Well, it’s official. I’ve broken ground on a new novel. I won’t discuss the book in detail, because as Hemingway said (to paraphrase), if you put your mouth all over something then you ruin it.

I will say this; I’ve had a bit of a dilemma. I started this new novel, but then, Nick, from my novel Entropy, started intruding on my thoughts. I started to see what was happening to him and found myself wanting to write that book. I wanted to see what was going to happen to him.

I held back though. For me, a story or novel will spend much of its time rattling around in my head. Writing itself, I guess. It changes a lot after it comes out of my head, but the basic work is done in my mind. I turn over ideas. Work out situations. It’s very much like writing without the physical output.

Which comes in handy when I haven’t written in a long time – I can say I was writing in my head the whole time!

It's all personal, in a public way...

Scene from a bar:
I am sitting at a bar enjoying drinks with friends, coworkers from my real job -- not writing co-workers. The subject of my book comes up and there is a little good-natured ribbing about the somewhat steamy scenes it contains. I go along, but then the joking moves on to other topics regarding the book. I feel my face getting hot and I grow silent. After a couple more comments (none mean-spirited mind you) I say very calmly it’s time to change the subject. There is literal awkward silence until someone gives a drawn out “Okay.” Luckily everyone moves on and the subject is forgotten.

Retrospect:
But the next day, one of my friends asked why I was bothered by the jokes. How does a writer explain this to a non-writer? An artist to a non-artist? I tried to make clear that the book, although fiction, contains a lot of me, of my thoughts and ideas, and that it was very personal feeling to have it talked about. Oxymoronic, I know, since how can a publicly published novel be personal and private? But it is. Writers know this; whether one writes books, articles, or blogs, fiction or non-fiction, writers are attached to their work in a way other artists are not. Writing is putting yourself out there for everyone – opening the blinds so everyone can see. No doubt that is why criticism can be so hard to hear.

And it makes even good-natured joking impossible.

A Book of Few Words

On NPR I heard a story about how they challenged listeners to come up with a 12 word novel. Sounded fun, so I thought I'd give it a try. It so much harder than I thought it'd be....

My 12 word Novel
Finally the bottom. No lower, he hoped, and sipped at his whiskey.

The Imaginary Last Moments of Egon Friedell

Friedell was a Jewish intellectual in Austria who committed suicide rather than be taken by the Nazis (see this post). As the title suggests, it is fiction based on the historical event.


He saw them from his bedroom window. It was a third story window that allowed him to see the bustle of the street. He still liked to stand at the window, push the curtain slightly to the side with his hand that held a cup of coffee or tea (both becoming more scarce during the occupation) and watch the ongoing life in the city. It seemed normal still. It didn’t seem like the normal life of the city was gone, sucked away, replaced with a false normalcy that the people accepted either because they had to or because they wanted to.

He used to love watching the activity. Men standing at the door of this or that café, saying their greetings and goodbyes in the same breath, promising to meet later, perhaps one pushing a rough draft of a current manuscript into the hands of the other as they hurriedly passed on their way to somewhere. Children crossing the street incautiously as they laughed with each other or ignored the shouts of their mothers or au pairs.

This was before the Anschluss. Now the streets were filled with clicking boots of men -- men whose heels clicked to the rhythm of death. Groups of boy soldiers flexed their sudden power by beating Jews as they wished. Sometimes communists got beaten. Sometimes being an intellectual got you beaten. Just being one of the “them,” whichever of the myriad definitions of “them” the clicking boots chose to use at that moment, put your life at risk.

It was thoughts of laughing children and rough written poetry that were in his head when he spotted the Gestapo walking so importantly down the streets and to the entrance of his apartment building. He’d been expecting them of course. He’d long since given up the idea they would not come for him, given up this idea about the same time it occurred to him and many others that they had squandered, through their self-delusional denial of reality, any chance to escape the city, the country. To escape the click booted death.

How different the Gestapo was from the regular soldiers. If the regular soldiers were purposely ignorant of events, the Gestapo was purposely proud of their role in them. He watched them disappear into the doorway. He thought he could hear their boots on the steps leading to his door.

Suddenly the loud knock. The knock that says we do not have to knock, you know that and we know that, but it is understood we will observe this convention so as not to make it seem like we are here to take a man to his death, although that is precisely why we are here. So stupid he thought. Their brazenness. If the Nazis had been just a little subtle they might have taken the entire world without a shot. As it was, their fits and starts of subtly had accomplished a lot.

He heard the housekeeper arguing with the men who were there to lead him to his death. A horrible death? he wondered. Who could say? There were stories, hard to believe stories of such despair. He imagined a quick shot to the head would be their choice. Efficient and easy.

As he heard the argument coming to an end, he began to do what he had prepared himself to do. He had imagined it just this way. Funny how it was playing out in exactly the manner he had envisioned. Well, that was one for his side.

He sipped that last bit of his luke warm, weak coffee and set the cup down. Pulling the curtains aside with an unintended dramatic flourish, he pushed open both sides of the window and stood on the sill. He looked over the edge, looked at the sidewalk below. A couple, intellectuals he had gotten to know well in the last few years were walking towards where he would land – perhaps even now on their way to visit him. He wanted to wait until they passed before he jumped.

The talking in the other room ceased, and the clicking heels came to claim him. Hurry he thought, tried to send this message to his friends, hurry and get by me. As he thought this they looked up and noticed him, looked up bewildered and slowed their pace. The door to his room began to slowly open.

He had to do it now.

“Watch out,” he yelled, and at the same time launched himself through the window. Watch out, he thought, not just for me, but for all that he knew was to happen. Watch out.

He continued sounding his warning until the ground cut it short.

Clive James and Egon Friedell

Ever since I heard an interview with Clive James in which he discussed Egon Friedell I’ve been thinking about the story of Friedell’s death. Friedell was a Jewish writer in Nazi controlled Austria, and as James told the story, when the Gestapo was on its way to arrest Friedell, he threw himself out of his apartment window and fell to his death. The part that amazes me, according to James’ account, is that as Friedell flung himself out the window, he shouted a warning to passersby so that they might not be injured by his falling body.

And yet, I wonder, was he warning of something else? Friedell studied culture and civilization. Was his warning more that just a “look out below” to those on the ground? Was it more?

This is what I wonder.