A Writer's Diary

“The problem was this: writing made Leonard feel anxious and ashamed. He felt, while sitting in front of his computer screen,, watching the words stack up in ways that were somehow less than he’d hoped, pressed up against his inadequaies,forced to face his creative limitations, tormented by the awareness that this was the best he could do.”

Reading Sarah Dunn’s funny and smart new novel Secrets to Happiness with its cast of angsty New Yorkers (including Leonard and his writing partner Holly) when I should be reading Beowulf. But this book is a delight, particularly but not exclusively its bits on the writing life. Also, I had four glasses of Chardonnay last night, so today I don’t feel a whole lot of ambitious.

Tomorrow, Beowulf. Today, Holly, Leonard, Betsy, and that crazy adultress Amanda. Plus the Big Buddhist.

“The act of writing about writing should carry with it a bright flashing neon warning sign that reads Danger: Potential Self-Absorption Ahead.”

The quote is the first line of a review in EW by Keith Staskiewicz. (The pink neon is mine; I couldn’t figure out how to get it to flash.) It reminded me of yesterday’s post, but also made me buy the book, particularly when Staskiewicz went on to praise it. 

Other people might think writing about writing is self-absorbed, but it endlessly fascinates me. Especially when other people do it.

 This memoir, about Tom Grimes’ relationship with his mentor, Frank Conroy, is not for writers with a tendency toward literary jealousy, as early in the book, Conroy, who heads up the Iowa Writer’s Workshop at the time Grimes recounts, tells Grimes he’s writing the great American novel. He clearly dotes on Grimes above all the other Iowa students, offering almost immediately to introduce him to one of the top literary agents in the country.

That kind of thing never happens to me. My first mentor stuck his hand down my blouse when my little boys were in the next room. I was so shocked and appalled it almost put me off poetry forever. Then my next mentor, after publishing more than a hundred poems, developed severe writer’s block soon after we met and wrote no more than a dozen poems for the rest of her life. Then there was the mentor who offered me a golden opportunity that somehow went all to hell. Wait. I had three of those.

As a teacher, I’ve been a mentor myself. I’ve been stalked and disdained, adored and ignored, hounded and hated. It’s not an easy gig, although Conroy and Grimes make the whole thing look charmed. At least so far. I haven’t finished the book yet, although I fell asleep last night reading into the wee hours.

Finished a fast, fun read newly available on Kindle. My blog buddy Bob Sanchez has a few books out, and although I enjoy his travel posts and pictures, I had not gotten around to reading his novels because they weren’t available on Kindle.

The minute When Pigs Fly got Kindled, I bought it, read it, and loved following the high-jinks of an inept gang of thieves in the fast-paced, action-packed, verbally astute mode of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen.

Not everybody’s a bad guy. The titular pig’s pretty cool, and Mack, the protagonist, is a retired cop, grieving for his wife of thirty years,  in an extended trip in the southwest. When his folks send his best friend’s ashes to be distributed wherever Mack thinks best, he decides on the Grand Canyon, not realizing the urn holds more than ashes, or that he’ll have company on his journey.

Diet Cola is a smelly ugly brute who, before heading off to serve time, tucks an item of value into the urn while robbing Mack’s folks. He figures on retrieving it when he gets out of the slammer, and when he returns to find it gone, terrorizes the old folks into telling him where it went.

Diet Cola then heads southwest toward Mack, picking up a freak show of lowlifes that include an Elvis impersonator and assorted other goofballs with specialized skills but not much common sense. How these people end up in the desert together for a final showdown displays Sanchez’s plotting skills. He gets ‘em there with plenty of style and a pace that never lags.

My reading tastes don’t usually tend toward the underbelly of society, but Sanchez’s  idiot crooks and loose women made me laugh. Diet Cola is cruel enough to give readers the creeps and a sweet love story adds hope to Mack’s crusade to let his wife go, scatter his friend’s ashes, and save his parents from a homicidal maniac.

All that and a flying pig dressed like Elvis who gets his own happy ending makes for a smoothly snappy summer read.

This is my first Carolyn Parkhurst novel, and it’s pure delight. I sort of knew it would be, just by the premise: a novelist writes a book, a compilation of the endings of every single one of her previous novels. Then she revises every ending. As the story opens, she’s sending this manuscript off to her agent and publisher.

On the same day, she gets some horrible news: her estranged son, a famous rock musician, has just been arrested for murdering his girlfriend. Though he’s cut her out of his life after reading one of her novels, the one that most closely fictionalizes a traumatic event from their shared past, she nevertheless rushes across the country to be near him because she absolutely knows he is innocent.

So, there’s a murder mystery, and a mother and son story, and the story of what it takes to become a writer, also the novel endings plus revisions, not to mention the traumatic past event. All of it gets stirred up in a ripping good read that delves into a central writerly question: do fiction writers use their lives in their stories?

Parkhurst’s protagonist says that the writer’s life as it relates to her fiction is like butter in a cookie. You need it for the cookie to taste right, but it’s not an obvious element. It’s not a chocolate chip or a walnut. One of the many fun parts of this novel is that as the story unfolds, the reader gets to see whether she’s right or wrong about that.

This is my favorite book so far this summer. Way yummier than cookies.