Darin Strauss
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Jun 28, 2008 02:25 PM
In the way that the psychologically-wounded bad guy is more fun to read
about (and to write about) than is the grinning, problem free
crime-fighter—the dude so Hollwoodly handsome in his red cape, who
smiles as he biceps aloft the tottering tram car that has all the
hostage children aboard…. In that way, it would be no fun for you to read (or me to write up) last night’s reading at A Great Good Place for Books. It was a crowded success, and we all had fun. I’m not going to write about that. Fun doesn’t make for a good read. Fun is no fun.
I will say that Michael Chabon’s mother, Sharon, came out to hear me.Sharon is a very sweet woman, and she’s an escort. Not that
kind of escort; she’s what’s known as a media escort—a job that
constitutes one of the more interesting quirks of book touring.
There’s a sub-rosa economy out there: a system of people in every city
whose job it is to pick up writers at the airport and drive them to
bookstores, and then to their hotels. Just as—and any historian will
tell you this—it’s the White House staff that knows the really personal
dirt on any given Administration, the escorts are literature's best
gossip keepers. For example, when pressed about who's the biggest jerk
that they’ve ever had to escort, those who'll talk usually tell you
(but not for attribution): “Martha Stewart.” It’s nearly unanimous. A
surprise second-place in the SUJP (Strauss Unofficial Jerk Poll) is MargaretCho, the comedienne-author who wrote “I'm the One That I Want.”
Most
escorts are tight-lipped. But after a few days, and many 3-hour trips
to “sign stock” at each bookstore in a given city, I’ve gotten quite a
few of them to open up. One told me that she drove John McCain around
when he was promoting a book that he'd written before he was a
presidential candidate. The senator had just given a morning talk; he’d
told the crowd that he’d never lied in his life. “I asked McCain, when
he got back in the car,” the escort told me: “‘OK, be honest,
senator—when was the last lie you told?’” McCain’s answer, according to
the escort: “This morning.” Another one met Barack Obama, and told me
that—at the local NPR station where Obama was to be interviewed—the
producer,the station manager, and all the secretaries got their hair
done before he showed up. (And people say Obama has problems winning
over women….)
Many of the escorts are, like Sharon Chabon,
semi-retired people who enjoy the company of visiting writers. (Mrs.
Chabon had come to hear me read yesterday when she was off-duty, which
was beyond the niceness pale—nobody whose job it is to hear three or
four readings a week should waste a free night at a bookstore.) So,
last night, my escort was Frank Lauria, a salty ex-New Yorker who makes
great use of the chiseled language of the military. (He was drafted in
the sixties, but missed going to Vietnam by some dint of Italian luck.)
Escorts.
You drive around town with them, eat your meals with them, and
therefore—a writer isn’t used to having minders—they become your friend
for the day. (Your paid friend, but still). Some, however, are
looking not just to be friends. (It’s a small community, and I don’t
want to give away state secrets, so I’ll refer to the specifics as
generally as I can.) One told me s/he “believes in the herb” and
offered to “score” me some marijuana. Another hit on me, saying “If I
knew as a young woman what I know now about the boudoir, I’d be a
highly priced paramour.”(She also offered to come up and take a shower
with me, but then quickly said, “Just kidding.”) One is like the ghost
of Christmas Future, because s/he says: “I was a writer and had six
bestsellers,” as s/he takes your bags and puts them in her/his trunk.
One of the most beloved of all escorts actually ended up marrying one
of the writers who’d been under his/her care.
As Martin Amis
wrote: Early in a tour, the nightly reading feels like an ordeal; then
a hurdle; then a testing routine. But soon it's almost as enjoyable as
a dangerous habit. Your readers become your supporters, as he says —
they sustain the one-man team. He’s right,except it’s a two-man team.
If a writer is nothing without a reader, then a writer on tour is
nothing without a reader and an escort; who else is going to get him to
meet that reader?
Anyway, I hope you can come to my next events; they’re getting fun—as the crowds get more nicely-sized.
Monday, June 30
7:30 PM,
POWELL'S CITY OF BOOKS
1005 W. Burnside
Portland, OR 97209
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Darin Strauss
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Jun 26, 2008 06:52 AM
Bad readings are absolutely unendurable. I should know; I’ve just endured one.
At Vroman’s—a great bookstore, by the way, in Pasadena—I read to four
people. One was an ex-student of mine. Another was his girlfriend. The
other two may have been apparitions, poised holograms.
That unmistakable vibe of futile enterprise, of haphazard ostracism
from all the best that the world will never reveal to you; also, the
vibe of eternal repetition, the utter futility of trying to make your
way an uncaring cosmos: It’s a little known fact, but Kafka wrote The
Trial in Lawrence, Kansas, on the second night of his “Metamorphosis”
tour.
But I had expected a lot from this event, from this town. Los Angeles.
The very thought of an event in Hollywood, as I cooled my heels in gray
LaGuardia, got me wishing I’d gone in for a year of push-ups and
crunches, of tanning-bed time and supersonic colonic sessions. You’ve
got to look posh for Tinseltown. Or so I thought.
I’ve done bad events before, of course. The hailstorm in Chicago, when
one of a total of two audience members stood angrily as I began to
speak, all the time glaring—he thought I’d been some nutjob who’d just
begun addressing the room uninvited; the guy seemed angry that I’d
disturbed his assignation with that month’s Omni. And there was the
time I’d been flown to Denver, Co., and then driven out to Boulder --
only to find that the two local papers had pushed back their reviews of
my book; nobody showed up. Not a single person. The bookstore kicked me
out, and I flew home the next morning, having sold zero books. Very
Spinal Tap.
But this was glittering LA now. Where I have a movie agent. Where I have a number of celebrity friends (two).
My first celebrity friend is Carrie Fisher. She’d been kind enough to
send an email after my first book came out. A friendly note, signed
simply: “Carrie Fisher.” I’d thought it was my friends playing a joke.
After I’d verified it was indeed the real her, I spent a lovely
evening in 2002 at Carrie’s guest house, from which hung a placard that
read “Men’s prison.” Her mom, Debbie Reynolds, came over and gave
us—me, Carrie, and two other guys in their early thirties whom I never
really got introduced to—a box of leftover Chinese. A memorable night.
Carrie’s very kind and almost too charming for mere humans; her
conversation takes corners very quickly, and I often find myself
skidding off into the weeds. She signed a recent email to me “P.
Leia.” How can you not love someone who does that?
My second celebrity friend is Gary Oldman. Don’t believe the hype: Gary
Oldman is as sweet a person as you’ll ever meet; when my wife was
pregnant with our twins, Gary Oldman was the only person—including
me—to give her a Mother’s Day card. When my sons were born, Gary had
his own nonagenarian mother knit two baby-size sweaters for them, along
with matching hats. He and I have worked together for the last few
years on adapting my first book into a script. It’s been fun, but the
option is soon running out. (Get on the stick, Gary!)
Anyway, they both had intimated that they’d come to my LA reading, but
they both stood me up. Each had a legit reason for missing it (giving a
speech in Orange county; a medical condition I probably shouldn’t
reveal here…) I was bummed at first, but when I saw the size of the
“crowd,” I was relieved they hadn’t come. Imagine how awkward: four
civilians, and then Gary Oldman and Carrie Fisher, sitting in the first
of many rows of empty chairs. Would they have talked? Gary and Carrie
don’t know each other. But maybe the GOFP (Guild of Famous People)
rules dictate that they have to converse.
I should have known it’d be a bust. The LA Times hasn’t reviewed the
book yet, the LA Daily News interviewed me at the book store five
minutes before the event, the great Michael Silverblatt postponed our
NPR interview because his father took suddenly sick (good luck, Mr.
Silverblatt). That’s why it’s stupid to start book tours before the
reviews all come out. Why not wait a few weeks? I guess the publisher
wants to make sure the book does well in the first few days after
publication—but how can that happen, with unattended readings? Sigh.
Anyway, I didn’t even read; I talked to the assembled few a little
while, telling some jokes, sweating my flopsweat, eventually stammering
and twittering to some kind of ending. Nothing is sadder than four
people clapping softly.
So, come on, Bay Area! I’m counting on you. Thursday, June 26, at 7,
I’ll be at A Great Good Place for Books, on 6120 LaSalle Ave., in
Oakland. Friday, June 27, at 7:30 I’ll be at Books Inc, at 2251
Chestnut Street, in San Francisco. I don’t think the book will have
been reviewed in the Chronicle yet, either. So help a brother out.
Darin Strauss
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Jun 25, 2008 07:46 AM
Yesterday perfectly described the ups-and-downs of book touring and even of living as a fiction writer.
Friday, because my wife and I have twins, I’d dropped her and our
8-month-olds at my parents-in-law’s house in South Carolina. Sad
leaving my family—the boys, especially; I won’t see them for weeks.
They’re so little: I’m kind of scared they’ll forget me. Here’s the
double cuteness I’m jeopardizing my relationship with:
All the same, I
left them to fly to my Manhattan book party, which seemed pretty cool
to be doing. But the plane sat on the tarmac at LaGuardia for over an
hour. In the writing
racket, that’s the way it so often is: each victory comes with its
defeat. I’ll show you what I mean.
The day before, I’d gotten an amazing Washington Post review (“If you don’t belong to a book club, Darin Strauss’s bitter and
brilliant new book is reason enough to start one”); but just as I eased
into the warm enjoyment of good press, my publisher splashed me with
some freezing-water news: another newspaper—coming later this week, so
I can’t link to it yet (thank God)—will be pretty negative about my
book.
All day surged and stopped short like that. After my long airplane sit,
I arrived home, hoping to ready for the party. Opening my door, I got a
call from New York University, which was kind enough to host the party (but not kind
enough, I’d learned after the invites went out, to pay for the food or
the wine). “Where are you?” NYU said. (The school, as you’d expect from
a university of over 20,000 students, has a large voice).
“I’m getting dressed,” I said.
“What?” said NYU, in institutional disbelief: “The party’s started,
Strauss—there are 50 students sitting here, waiting to see you read.”
Though my Website, and this blog, said that the
party would begin at 7 pm, NYU believed it started at 6. (Who in New
York gets off
work in time to arrive at a Monday-evening party at 6?) My friends, who
were kind enough to agree to perform, weren’t there yet. I
hurried over to NYU, no shower, no prep time, and stalled before a mic
to an audience of fifty, for almost a half hour. No fun—for me, for the
students or the school, for literature itself.
But then more people started to arrive. A great number, actually. Old
students of mine, a raft of strangers, even some amazing writers—along with, well, my dad. So many people came, in fact, that
a lot of them (potential book buyers all) were turned away. (The
good-and-the-bad again).
I’d drawn hundreds of people (hurray!). The air-conditioning wasn’t
working, so everyone got sticky and uncomfortable (hurray?) John Hodgman—you know him from the Mac/PC commercials, or his book, The Areas of My Expertise—read from his
impending and hilarious book, More Information Than You Require. Great! And then Jonathan Coulton played two songs. Also great,
but I’d been promised NYU would get him a P.A., and no one had.
I joined him to sing and play Paul Simon’s "Slip Slidin’ Away"—I’m a
guitarist and erstwhile singer—which was fun, but I was
promised there’d be two mics, and there weren’t……
On it went (a bunch of people hoped to buy books at the end of the
night, but the bookseller had left). Still, the event pulled in the
largest crowd I’ve had in some time, I got to sing before a few hundred
people, and I sold a few books. And, most of all, it was very kind that
so many ex-students and friends and people who just liked my work came
out on a Monday night to see me. Oh, and I got to hear Hodgman and Coulton perform—two of the best at what they do—and they were
generous enough to have done so on my behalf. Thus, as always on a book
tour, you end up feeling like an ass for having any misgivings, yet
alone complaining. And, also as always, the evening was a combination
fun event / cluster-f*%k.
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Darin Strauss
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Jun 21, 2008 04:43 PM
Friday, I saw the dream of capitalism fulfilled. I read at Google’s New York office.
If every company were as profitable as Google is, we’d be the
happiest nation in the history of the world. (Truth is, we’re not even
the happiest in our world. The new Division I Champion of happiness is Denmark.)
But I urge you all: go to see a Google office. It’s the workplace as
fantasyland. All their employees eat lunch for free, five days a week,
in two cafeterias; both cafeterias are manned by a guest celebrity
chef, and both offer even entry-level day-laborers the joy of
all-you-can-eat celebrity shrimp or celebrity steak or celebrity vegan
surprise—(let me repeat) for free!
What’s more, throughout the office, every hundred yards or so (the
space is huge), snack islands give bottled water away—and nuts and
cereal and granola-bars and gum and breath mints—plus a lot of other
things I didn’t have time to sneak into my pocket on the way out. Of
course, being hyper-profitable buys one a kind of generosity turbo
charge; a sense of everyone’s racing together toward perfection; the
wind whipping a pretty color onto the whole world’s cheeks. It’s nice.
I wonder how many companies have ever gotten the chance to be so
munificent?
Anyway, another perk Google affords its employees (along with the
Razor kick-scooters that people use to get around, and the indoor
basketball court, etc.): free books. Once every week or so, the company
invites authors to give readings. Then, it gives every employee who
shows up a free copy of whatever the author’s hawking. On Friday, I was
that author, selling my wares.
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Darin Strauss
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Jun 18, 2008 09:52 PM
1) I’m writing the first hunk of this entry on a plane to do the Craig Ferguson show on CBS. I’m nervous, and the best way to convey the sharp flavor of the anxiety is to start now—when I don’t know whether I’ll bomb or not—and finish up by telling you how it went.
I have two things working against me: I woke up at 5 AM NewYork time, to give my wife another few hours of sleep while I cared for of our baby twins. (Turn to uxorious in your dictionary; you’ll see my baggy-eyed likeness, weeping (depending on the edition)). And now I’m flying a six-hour economy class to LA, on which the screams of two red-headed babies (a touch of home) keeps me from sleep. They’re sitting right behind me. So I’ll be too tired for the show—not quick enough for Craig’s celebrity-grade banter. The other handicap: my book isn’t really meant to be funny. I wish those babies behind me would shut the hell up. I mean, I tried to sprinkle moments of dark comedy into my novel. But More Than It Hurts You is about a child in terrible jeopardy, about corporate greed, the modern mania for attention, loss of privacy, the maddening even-handedness of media coverage, about a family’s dangers from within and without — all the threads and fears of contemporary life. Including, too, race and gender. I don’t regret making the book about serious things (just look at the current political landscape to see how important those last two subjects still are). But it might make for awkward late-night comedy material. Where are those red-head kids’ parents, already?
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Darin Strauss
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Jun 12, 2008 11:45 AM
This is the first post on our new blog, “Booked” — where I’ll be sending updates on my 22-city book tour. Think of it as your behind-the-scenes look at the least exciting of all the performance arts:public readings!
A book tour is a mixed bag: part Spinal Tap, part—well, I guess there is no other part. So it’s just a bag. I don’t mean, or have any right, to complain; there’s nothing more pompous than an author whining about having to go on tour. But if I’ve told them once, I’ve told them a thousand times: Put the writer’s name first, the puppet show after.
Of Jews and Love Matches
I started my tour three weeks before my book comes out – excellent planning! – and at one of the most stressful events there is: the Jewish Book fair try-out. Run by a generous woman from Long Island named Carolyn Hessel, the tryout has been called a combination of speed-dating and “The Gong Show.” I, and about seventy other writers, got two minutes each to pitch our books to hundreds of Jewish Community Center representatives from around the country. (If they like you, you're picked to go on a Jewish book tour.) We all gathered in a large auditorium in Los Angeles’s “American Jewish University”—who knew such a place existed? And what does that do Brandeis’s confidence?
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Newsweek
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Jun 11, 2008 12:16 PM
Darin Strauss hits the road for in support of his new novel, "More Than It Hurts You." A calendar:
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