Tag: William Gaddis

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In a Perfect World

Last Friday was my final day at my job. I quit it to launch a new business (sorta; it’s complicated).

The last time I was unemployed was 1995. I was 24, finished grad school in May, moved back to NJ, and started looking for a gig. I pored over the local papers’ and New York Times’ help wanted ads (this is 1995, remember), looking for writer, copy editor, and other writing-related jobs.

I had some interviews that didn’t work out. At one, I explained to the publishers of a massive, multi-volume hotel/resort guide for travel agents that they should be working to create a digital version that would be accessible via CD-ROM (it was 1995, so the idea of having all that stuff on a website was still nascent), and updatable more often than the print schedule permitted. They were looking for a “wordsmith.” I didn’t get that job.

In another interview, I was asked, “In a perfect world, what would you be doing?”

I thought it was diplomatic of me to say, “In a perfect world, my girlfriend would have a high-paying job and I’d be free to work on my fiction,” because my real answer was, “In a perfect world, I’d have heat vision and be able to destroy my enemies with a glance.” I didn’t get that job.

Another place told me that the starting pay was $18,000; that meant I was likely going to lose money just commuting back and forth to NYC for that one. They didn’t offer me the job.

During the months of unemployment, as my savings ran down (I was living in my old house, and my dad was covering the mortgage, so I wasn’t as desperate as a lot of people), I read The Recognitions, the 956-page first novel by William Gaddis. It had been recommended to me over the years in college by people who took my Pynchon poseurism as a genuine sign of literary connoisseurship.

I don’t know how much I got out of The Recognitions in 1995. My mind was faster back then, but I wasn’t as smart as I am now; that is to say, I knew so much less when time and swiftness were on my side.

By October, I cashed in a $250 savings bond given to me as a baby or something. It was the last of my assets. A week later, I finished Gaddis’ book. One day after that I was offered a job as an assistant editor for two business-to-business magazines. I went on to another company 17 months later, worked on more trade magazines, and got to launch my own in 1999, where I stayed until this past Friday.

On my podcast a few weeks ago, I mentioned a passage from The Recognitions that always stuck with me, except it didn’t stick with me well enough to remember it exactly. One of my listeners e-mailed to let me know where the passage is, so I opened that book up again to check it out. The line doesn’t say much by itself — Now, what if there was no gold? — but it implies the absence of God by pondering the use of alchemy in a goldless age (or the point of art in an age without genius). I backed up around 10 pages to the beginning of that section, and found myself getting drawn back into that immense, artful, postmodern cosmos of a book.

Gaddis published The Recognitions in 1955, at the age of 32. It wasn’t a critical or financial success, and he worked in corporate gigs for 20 more years until publishing his second novel. That one, J R, won the National Book Award and he was pretty much able to write full-time after that, thanks to grants and awards.

Tomorrow will be the first day that I’m not employed in almost 19 years. I have some paying gigs that’ll help me get by until I can afford to pay myself. No need to cash in the last savings bond — or take a loan from my 401(k) — yet. Startup costs will be hairy, but I’m confident I can make it work.

I’m tempted to take up The Recognitions again, to read it from a 43-year-old perspective. But I’m afraid that I won’t get my first big business win until the day after I finish it, and who knows how long that’ll take this time around?

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Podcast: Wine, Women, and Novel-Writing

Charles Blackstone on The Virtual Memories Show

Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 23 – Wine, Women, and Novel-Writing

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“Restaurants follow the opposite direction of stories: they’re like finding a book of blank pages and trying to come up with something to fill the space. That’s not how it goes with stories.”

Charles Blackstone, managing editor of Bookslut, joins us to talk about his new novel, Vintage Attraction, out this week from Pegasus Books! We recorded in Chicago last April, so he wasn’t in full book-publicity mode, and I hadn’t read the book. Instead, our conversation veers all over the place, covering his descent into post-grad career madness, the problems with getting mired in literary theory, what he does at Bookslut, how he deals with the sheer volume of books published every day, Chicago’s restaurant culture, the similarities between deconstruction and molecular gastronomy, and how to master the party-throwing art of taking a guest’s coat while handing them a beverage.

But we really do talk about Vintage Attraction (which has great blurbs from Jay McInerney and Gary Shteyngart)! I promise!

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Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes! Related conversations:

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About our Guest

Charles Blackstone is the managing editor of Bookslut, as well as the co-editor of the literary anthology The Art of Friction: Where (Non)Fictions Come Together (University of Texas Press, 2008) and the author of the novel, The Week You Weren’t Here (Dzanc and Low Fidelity Press, 2005). His short fiction has appeared in Esquire‘s Napkin Fiction Project (the piece was also selected for the &NOW Awards: The Best Innovative Fiction anthology), Lewis University’s Jet Fuel Review, and the University of Maine’s Stolen Island. His short plays have been produced by Victory Gardens and Lifeline Theaters. He is married to Master Sommelier and television personality Alpana Singh. He currently is a ghostwriter, coach, and editor for clients at all stages of the publication process in private practice. He and his wife live with their pug, Haruki Murakami, in downtown Chicago. His new novel is Vintage Attraction.

Credits: This episode’s music is Graceless by The National. The conversation was recorded at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago on a pair of AT2020 cardioid condenser mics feeding into a Zoom H4n recorder. The intro and outro were recorded in the InterCity Hotel in Frankfurt on a Samson Meteor USB Studio mic. File-splitting was done in Audacity and all editing and processing was done in Garage Band on a Macbook Air. Photo of Charles Blackstone by me.

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Podcast: Readercon 2013 – Fairies and Zombies

Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 15 –
Readercon – Fairies and Zombies

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It’s time for a two-part mega-podcast! I visited the 24th annual Readercon, conference on literary fantasy & science fiction (or “imaginative literature,” as it’s known) in Burlington, MA in July, and came back with a ton of interviews! Readercon is a fantastic (ha-ha) event, with great programming, a good booksellers’ hall, and lots of fun conversation; you should make a point of attending it if your tastes run toward the authors who come up in this and the following episode.

I (not-so-wisely) conducted five interviews in one day so, rather than make a 3-hour episode, I decided to split them up between boys and girls. This time around you get interviews with authors John Crowley and Scott Edelman!

“The big books I’ve written have never had a genre at all. They were certain kinds of fictional possibilities that interested and intrigued me and that I wanted to try to achieve. I wouldn’t say there’s an awful lot in Little, Big that’s realistic, but there’s plenty that was based on my daily experiences of life in New York City.”

–John Crowley

John Crowley is the author of Little, Big (or, The Fairies’ Parliament), which I consider one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. I’d known about it for a long time, but only read it a few years ago, after learning that my wife has been re-reading it every year or two since it came out in paperback in 1983 or thereabouts. You should go read it now or wait for the deluxe edition from Incunabula Press! (He’s also written other amazing books, like the Aegypt cycle, Engine Summer, and more.)

I talked with Mr. Crowley about readers’ devotion Little, Big, the problems he faced in writing it and how surmounting them opened the doors to his subsequent books, how the fantasy genre developed during the course of his career, what his favorite imaginary books are, why I felt unprepared for our conversation despite having read six of his novels, and what it was like to write copy for Maidenform bras when he was starting out.

“One of the most amazing things about writing to me is that, even though you’ve read, and heard, and seen thousands of stories, when you sit down to write one, you have no idea how to begin!”

–John Crowley

Even if you haven’t read Little, Big, you’ll find this a fascinating conversation about the writing process, literary reputation, and what it means to tell a story!

“You have to write the things you love. They have to be extremely important to you, to give you that tingle when you read them. Because if you’re not moved by it, I don’t see how anyone else is going to be moved by it. . . .”

–Scott Edelman


Then I talk with Scott Edelman, a longtime writer, editor and Con-goer, about his zombie-fiction, being an editor at Marvel Comics in the 1970s, his storytelling tips and his pros and cons of workshops, whether he pays attention to literary markets, what Readercon means to him, and what it was like to move from one side of the convention table to the other.

“Why zombies? Because zombies are the closest we’ll ever see to what we’ll really become. Because there’ll be that day when we’re all walking husks without memory.”

–Scott Edelman

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Enjoy the conversations! Then listen to part 2 of our Readercon conversations with Theodora Goss, Valya Dudycz Lupescu, and Nancy Hightower. Meanwhile, check out the archives for more great episodes!

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About our Guests

John Crowley lives in the hills above the Connecticut River in northern Massachusetts with his wife and twin daughters. He is the author of Little, Big, the four-volume Aegypt cycle, The Translator, Novelties & Souvenirs, Lord Byron’s Novel, and Four Freedoms. You can find out more about the special anniversary edition of Little, Big here.

Scott Edelman has published more than 75 short stories in magazines such as Postscripts, The Twilight Zone, Absolute Magnitude, Science Fiction Review and Fantasy Book, and in anthologies such as The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Crossroads, MetaHorror, Once Upon a Galaxy, Moon Shots, Mars Probes, Forbidden Planets. His poetry has appeared in Asimov’s, Amazing, Dreams and Nightmares, and others. What Will Come After, a collection of his zombie fiction, and What We Still Talk About, a collection of his science fiction stories, were both published in 2010. He has been a Stoker Award finalist five times, in the categories of both Short Story and Long Fiction. He is the editor of Blastr at the Syfy Channel. You can find more about him at his site.

Credits: This episode’s music is Fairy Tales by Style Council. Both conversations were recorded in a room at the Burlington Marriott on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 mics feeding into a Zoom H4n recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Blue Yeti into my Mac Mini, at my Ikeahack standing desk. File-splitting is done on a Mac Mini using Audacity. All editing and processing was done in Garage Band. Photos by me.

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Podcast: Sound Before Story

Virtual Memories – season 3 episode 5
Greg Gerke – Sound Before Story

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To celebrate the publication of Middle C, the new novel by literary legend William Gass, I sat down with writer Greg Gerke, who interviewed Gass for Tin House literary magazine. We talked about Gass’ position in the postmodern literary tradition (as it were), what Greg learned over the course of reading much of Gass’ writings and interviewing The Great Man, what it’s like to construct a literary monument to horror, which authors Greg discovered through Gass’ essays over the years, how you can’t judge a man by his (roommate’s) bookshelf, why Gass holds self-publishing in disdain, and how one can build a powerful literary career by putting Sound Before Story.

 

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Enjoy the conversation! Then check out our archives for more great talks! And buy the issue of Tin House with Greg’s interview with Gass, while you’re at it!

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About our Guest

Greg Gerke‘s fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Tin House, The Kenyon Review Online, Denver Quarterly, and Mississippi Review. He’s the author of the short story collection, There’s Something Wrong with Sven. You can read his work and find links to his criticism at greggerke.com and Big Other.

Credits: This episode’s music is Life’s a Gas by T-Rex. The conversation was recorded at Greg Gerke’s apartment in New York City, on a pair of AT2020 mics, feeding into a Zoom H4n recorder. I recorded the other material on a Samson Meteor Mic USB Studio Microphone into Audacity. All editing and processing was done in Garage Band.