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Summer 2010 Newsletter In this issue: If you haven’t been by the store in a while, here are some things that have changed in the past year:
Young Adult Book Review: Fever Crumb
Kid Review: The Mercy Watson Series
Here’s what Charlie, our favorite seven-year-old, has to say about the series: “Mercy Watson is a pig that lives with Mr. and Mrs. Watson. They live next to the Lincoln sisters. Mercy likes hot buttered toast. Mercy drives a car, saves the day, and fights crime. I like to read the Mercy Watson books because they are funny.” Book Review: I Curse the River of Time
Petterson's prose can be breathtaking, but it is his deep characterization that will make his novels stay with you for days and years to come. RRB: The coming of age theme is common to your novel and the stories in Boys and Girls Like You and Me. Why do you think coming-of-age stories are so readable? AK: Because they’re relatable, I suppose. We all grow up. At least, we try. I wonder sometimes how many people really feel like “grown-ups.” I’m thirty-two and I have to admit that most of the time, I feel more like a child than I did when I actually was one. The older I get, the stranger the world seems to me and the more aware I am of its unpredictability, of my own vulnerability in it. When I think back on being a child, I remember that I mostly felt like I feel now, that I was still me, just smaller and with less experience. I always felt like I was a whole person, a real person, and I loathed being spoken to like I was a little imbecile, detested grown-ups who talked to me in baby-talk or sent me out of the room while they discussed “serious” topics. The bane of my existence was banishment to the kids’ table. As an adult, I cringe at the American philosophy that childhood is this precious period of sweetness and innocence, a magical, miraculous bubble to be defended and protected from the “real world.” Even the happiest childhood is pretty traumatic. Childhood is a reckless, lawless country, and I don’t know a single person who managed to escape it unscathed. I used to think that my life would be so much easier when I was an adult. That the world would make sense and people would be kinder, smarter, better. Imagine my surprise. I suppose that most of us, if we’re lucky, are adaptable and intelligent and
learn from our mistakes: we edit and revise. Ultimately, though, I think
we’re still mostly who we were when we were young. We’re just a little That’s part of what draws me to the “coming-of-age” story as a writer. The
things that happen to us that shepherd us from childhood into adulthood—things like disappointment and betrayal and longing and heartbreak— No matter how hard I try to switch gears, something seems to draw me back to the bildungsroman again and again, story after story. I suppose that I’ll finish with the coming-of-age stories in my writing around the same time that I finish coming-of-age in my life. Just guessing: It could be awhile. RRB: In the title story of your new collection and in "Captain's Club," the
protagonists experience moments of clarity and extreme beauty. With
that in mind, do you agree with the reviews that, while complimentary, AK: Reviews are strange things. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t read them or that I didn’t think about what they said afterwards. After my novel came out, I heard a lot about how depressing it was—not so much from professional reviewers, but from readers who posted their thoughts on Amazon or emailed me directly. I would go to signings or readings and inevitably, someone in the audience would raise her hand and declare in surprise, “You’re so funny! Why don’t you write something happy?” I’m still not exactly sure what that means: write something happy. As an English Lit. major, I read books like Daisy Miller and The House of Mirth, Othello, and Lolita, and The Awakening. I’m sure there are happy books out there, but I’d be hard-pressed to name very many that I’ve read. I think that, a lot of times, when people say they want to read something “happy” what they mean is that they want to read something “soothing.” Something that confirms their hope that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, that the pure of heart will be rewarded in the end with a winning lottery ticket or a big white wedding. And I don’t have anything against that—life is hard and we all want to lose ourselves in a fairytale from time to time. But as a writer, that’s not the kind of story that draws me to the page. I’m not really interested in soothing myself or anyone else. That’s not why I write. What interests me, always, is complication, contradiction, the expansive unknown of human desire. As a writer, and a reader, I don’t care nearly as much about good things happening to good people and bad things happening to bad people as I do about why good people do bad things, why smart people follow stupid impulses, why kind people engage in cruel acts. I’m much less interested in justice than I am in mercy. I don’t want to judge my characters; I want to understand them. I know that my work is, at times, quite dark, and I also know that I will lose
some readers because of that. But really, it’s hard enough to write at all
without forcing yourself to write about subjects that don’t interest you. RRB: Your female characters tend to have misplaced affection or unfortunate relationships with married or otherwise inappropriate men. What do you think we would learn if we heard the stories from the males' perspective? AK: At the time that I was writing these stories, particularly the older stories, I
wasn’t much thinking about the (few) men who appear in them. The oldest
of the stories in the collection was written when I was twenty-two, and many of the others were written not long after. The truth is that when I was
in my early twenties, I hadn’t known very many men, not the way I’d known
women. My family is largely female and as a child I spent much of my time As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to know more men, to love them and
admire them and, if not understand them, at least begin to imagine what
it might be like to walk through life as one of them. It’s only recently that Which is all just a very long way of saying that, as an answer to your question, I’m writing an entire book. But you’re going to have to wait awhile to read it. RRB: Do you have a specific writing process, like a daily schedule? What have you found to be the benefits of writer's conferences? AK: If I could wave a magic wand and change one thing about my habits, it
would be to inject myself with a work ethic. A better one, I mean. One
that forced me out of bed at the crack of dawn every morning and to the Instead, I spend a lot of time wandering around my apartment, brushing my cats, examining my pores in the mirror, screwing around on Facebook. Meanwhile, I have friends who are writing three books to my every one, mostly because they wake up every morning and sit down at their
computers like they’re punching in for their bottle-capping shift at the Shotz
Brewery. To be fair, though, many of these friends are supporting spouses For me, it’s more like feast or famine. I go days without writing a word. Weeks. And then I have days where I do nothing but write. Weeks. These periods are kind of manic—I hardly sleep, hardly eat, hardly dress or groom or engage in interactions with other humans. Of course, these “habits” of mine can make having a social life a bit of a tussle, but this is an area I’m still negotiating. Which is maybe why I love writers’ conferences so much. I haven’t been to that many, but I always come back feeling recharged. It’s not like you get much writing done at these things—they keep you hopping from reading to lecture to barn dance (it’s cooler than it sounds). But the sense of community that grows during these brief periods of time is kind of astounding. I don’t think I’m alone when I say that being a writer can feel kind of weird
and lonely. You spend a lot of time watching and listening, and it isn’t hard
to start to feel like an outsider, like you’re observing life while everyone My favorite thing about conferences is that you see this wide array of the
writing community: people who are just starting out and people who are
tremendously accomplished. There’s always a bit of the usual schmoozy- At their very best, though, I think writers’ conferences are kind of magical.
Everyone is there—young writers and new writers, writers who have been
struggling and writers who are just starting to hit, writers who have been RRB: What other writers have had the biggest influence on you? AK: Too many to name. There’s hardly a book I’ve read that hasn’t influenced
my writing in some way, even if it’s been to show me what I don’t want to
do. That said, a few of my favorites, writers I return to again and again, RRB: What are you reading now? AK: I have a stack of books (several stacks) that I’m hoping to get through this summer, which includes The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff (we were fellows together at Bread Loaf last summer and she’s so unbelievably fantastic that I’m expecting I’ll have some sort of out of body experience while reading her book); The Collected Works of Jane Bowles; Gary Shteyngart’s new novel, Super Sad True Love Story; Diana Joseph’s I’m Sorry You Feel That Way (I have a girl-crush on Diana Joseph); Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham; and Middlemarch by George Elliot (I’m terribly embarrassed that I’ve never read it). |
Reading Rock Books was pleased to have best-selling author
What: Book Signing with JT Ellison
Night of the Living Trekkie
