How A Book Is Born: The Making of The Art of Fielding

Chad Harbach is broke. He's spent all 10 years of his post-Harvard life writing a novel that, at one point, even his best friend calls "insubstantial." He writes, and rewrites and writes more. Then, he gets his break, and it's a big one. An up-and-coming agent falls in love with the novel, and sells it for $665,000.

That's the basic origin story of this year's debut du jour, The Art of Fielding — a novel I've been describing to my friends as The Help for dudes. (I haven't read it yet, but my copy just arrived and I can't remember the last time I've been so excited to read a book.) And the piece that describes Harbach's odyssey from struggling mid-20s New Yorker to the toast of the literary world is one of the more interesting pieces of journalism I've read in a long, long time.

The article actually takes the form of an 18,000-word e-book written by Keith Gessen. It's an expanded version of an article that appears in the October issue of Vanity Fair. Gessen and Harbach went to Harvard together, remained close in their post-college years and founded n+1 (a Brooklyn-based literary journal) together.

So Gessen has VIP access to Harbach's story. And it's a fascinating one, to be sure. But how The Art of Fielding went got published is also the vehicle that allows Gessen to give us a behind-the-curtain look at the publishing industry. Drawing on his own experience (Gessen published a novel titled All the Sad Young Literary Men a few years ago. I read it. It's okay. Not my favorite book ever, though.) and that of many of his publishing industry friends, Gessen discusses the health of the Big Six publishing houses, their often contentious relationship with Amazon, all that goes into marketing and publicity for novels, as well as how they're sold to bookstores, how a cover design comes to be, and what it's really like to be able to hear from your agent something like "Yes, David Pietsch, David Foster Wallace's editor, has said that if we accept Little, Brown's offer, he'll personally edit your book." How awesome is that?

How A Book Is Born costs $1.99 as an instant download from Barnes & Noble or Amazon. I can assure you, it's the best two bucks you'll spend this week. If you don't have a Nook or Kindle, you can download a Nook or Kindle app for your PC or Mac to read this piece on your computer; that's actually what I did. Isn't technology great?

What Should We Expect From 9/11 Fiction?

Four years ago, in a review of Don DeLillo's Falling Man, NY Times critic Michiko Kakutani noted that:

"not enough time has passed for any novelist to put the events of that day (9/11) and its shuddering consequences into historical perspective; perhaps not even enough time has passed for any novelist to grapple convincingly with those actual events, without being eclipsed by the documentary testimony (from newspaper articles, television footage and still photographs) still freshly seared in readers’ minds."

Does that seem right to you? I've wrestled with that sentence since I first read it four years ago. Part of me thinks she is right. Even now, 10 years later, it's still impossible to "grapple convincingly" with those events with any degree of perspective and detachment.

Part of me also thinks it's a too-easy dismissal for why, Kakutani would likely argue, there hasn't been a truly great 9/11 novel yet. But many readers, me included, would argue that there have been many very good ones.* And so why is historical perspective such a critical criteria for a great novel about an event? 

The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer, was published a mere three years after World War II ended, is still hailed as one of the best examples World War II fiction. James Jones' From Here to Eternity was published in 1952, seven years after the end of the war. It's also still regarded as a classic of World War II fiction.

I'll admit, two novels published half a century ago is slim evidence for the notion that it's possible to write a great novel based on an event soon after that event. But my point here is this: Perhaps the historical perspective Kakutani referred to is required not by novelists to write a truly great novel about an event, it's required by readers and critics to recognize and appreciate the true greatness of such novels. Once the historical perspective for the event itself melds with the historical perspective on the novel, then, and only then, do we recognize a novel's greatness as a depiction of that event.

In that review, Kakutani goes on to pan Falling Man as "small, unsatisfying and inadequate" — a sentiment with which I whole-heartedly disagree. If were to wager on any of the 9/11 novels I've read standing as the 9/11 novel, it'd be this one. (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a close second.)

Still, this question of what to expect from a 9/11 novel is one I think about frequently. And it's sort of shaped — positively or not, I have no idea — how I've read subsequent 9/11 novels.

What do you think? Is it reasonable to expect a great 9/11 still so relatively soon after an event? What would be the criteria for a great 9/11 novel? Or is a great 9/11 impossible until more time (how much) has passed? 

* The list I've read includes: Falling Man, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Netherland, The Garden of Last Days (Slate put this one on its worst 9/11 fiction list, with which I also lustily disagree), The Emperor's Children, and Let the Great World Spin. 

(By the way, the most emotionally stirring scene about 9/11 in any novel I've read is, strangely enough, in The Time Traveler's Wife. Henry knows what's about to happen, and gets up early just to quietly experience the world before it changes forever. Something about that scene really resonated with me. I think about it often.)

On Starting War and Peace (War, What Is It Good For?)

I know it's a tad cliché, but I can't think of War and Peace without thinking of that one Seinfeld episode. Elaine makes a misguided attempt to ingratiate herself with a famous Russian writer (hilariously named Testikov) by telling him what Jerry had jokingly told her earlier: that the original title of War and Peace was War, What Is It Good For? Things don't turn out well for her after that.

After deciding 2011 would be the year I'd finally read War and Peace, it took me eight months to gear myself up to start, but here we are. I finally started it last night. When I wrote about War and Peace as my "bucket list" novel back in March, the advice about how to read the novel poured in fast and furious. Last night, I reviewed all those comments, as well as Ingrid's (of the Blue Bookcase) post offering five tips on how to read the "greatest novel of all time." I took her advice and reviewed the Wikipedia pages on the Napoleonic Wars, specifically on the French invasion of Russia. I read Anna Karenina earlier this year to familiarize myself with Tolstoy's style. I've bookmarked the Wikipedia character page, as well as the one provided in my edition. And I've set a goal to finish the novel by the end of the year, which seems entirely realistic.

My edition is the Anthony Briggs translation, which has been on my shelf for years, and has morphed into a sort of symbol of not-yet-achieved intellectual nirvana. Several folks have warned me off of that particular translation, but I have to use this one. I just have to. It's been with me on four different moves and three different cities. I can't imagine completing this mission without this particular book. Is it strange that an unread novel could have emotional significance?

Anyway, 20 pages in, I'm having no quarrels with the style at all. It seems to read easily enough, and it includes common phrases like "the straw that broke the camel's back." So, it's very early, but so far so good. The Briggs edition also includes endnotes, maps and an essay by some British wanker named Orlando Figes. It's actually the one you can see me pretending to read in the "About Me" page.  (Have you stopped over there to check out my favorite joke, by the way?)

So, all this is a long-winded way of getting to the point. Here at the start, I need your help. If you've read the novel, what tips, tricks or (to use a tired business-speak) best practices have you used to get through the 1,400+ pages? Did you honestly like the novel (or do you just tell people that you did so they'll think you're smart)? Will I be a changed literary man four months from now? I'm looking forward to your input!

West of Here: Past, Present and One Giant Dam

On the surface, Jonathan Evison's West of Here is pretty simple: It's the story of the people who inhabit the small fictional town of Port Bonita, Washington. Two dueling story lines from two different times (1890 and 2006) chronicle the fortunes of the folks in the tiny burg located on the northern coast of Washington's Olympic Peninsula.

But when you really dig into the underbrush, you discover an incredibly inventive story that churns along at a deceptively quick pace. Having told you that, it may seem hard to believe that the centerpiece, as well as the central symbol, of the story is a dam. Yep, a dam. But it works, because the dam is really only the unifying force of the various themes of the story. This is a character-driven novel, and these characters are a lot of fun to "watch."

Ethan Thornburgh built the dam in 1890, hoping it'll be the key to putting Port Bonita on the map. Now, Ethan's great-grandson, Jared runs the last remaining processing plant of the town's dying fish industry, bemoaning what he perceives to be his inescapable past. "...he forever lived in the shadow of this obsolete dam, his fortune linked inextricably to its hulking existence, its legacy of ecological menace...Such were the trappings of history."

The dam is a symbol both of progress, as well as attachment to a flawed past. Exploring that idea of the past's link to the present is what drives this story. That in itself is less original than some of the ways Evison chooses to tell the story, sprinkling in a little Native American mysticism, providing a hugely diverse cast of characters, and shifting perspectives among them to keep the story fresh. 

Like Ethan and Jared, each of the novel's character from the 1890s story has a sort of counterpart in the 2006 story. In addition to the past-present link, this also gives Evison fertile ground for examining another main thrust of the story: the age-old nature vs. nurture question — or, as one character asks, "Do you think people are born a certain way? Or do you think people are made?"

West of Here is far from a perfect novel — for instance, there's a scene told from the perspective of a mule about to be shot, which is just silly. And some of the parts in which characters are exploring the peninsula start to sound repetitive — but I really enjoyed it. What you have here is a touch of David Mitchell (in terms of story originality and fluid prose), a sprig or two of David Guterson (in terms of writing about the natural wonders of the Pacific Northwest), and a pinch of Richard Russo (in terms of vivid, empathetic writing about small-bust-town life). Give it a try if you're a fan of any of those three novelists, or if you like the dueling past-present storytelling strategy, or if you simply like an original story that explores some common themes in new ways. 

Post #200: A Late Summer Edition of Literary Links

A busy week at work last week led to me stockpiling several literary articles to read when I had time. With such a wealth of literary miscellania saved up, I figured I'd spend a post resurrecting a past monthly New Dork Review feature: The Compendium of Literary Links.

Also, since this is the 200th New Dork Review post (that means it's my 100-week anniversary), check out my top 5 five favorite discussion-inducing posts below. After all, the discussions and comments are still the reason this blog is fun. Cheers!

But first, here's a late-summer, spaghetti-at-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks edition of literary links: 

1. Interview with Paul Murray — I knew nothing about this fella before reading Skippy Dies, but it's clear from reading this interview that a lot of his personality came out in that brilliant novel.

2. Book Review Cliches I'd Like To See — This is a great take on how, when reviewing books, we can sometimes write ourselves into inescapable patterns. But more importantly, it's good advice on how to emerge from those patterns.

3. Top 100 Most Sought-After Out-of-Print Books — Pretty, pretty interesting. Madonna's #1. You pervs! 

4. Interview with Ann Patchett — I haven't yet read her new novel State of Wonder, but people keep raving about it. And I love how the interview starts by discussing Patchett's penchant for creating setting. A good setting can make a book almost as much as a plot or characters, right?

5. The Decemberists' Calamity Song video — This could not be more awesome; it recreates the game Eschaton from Infinite Jest. I've probably watched this about two dozen times in the last week.

6. Reading: Free entertainment, for life — Great op/ed on CNN. Even if you did nothing else for the rest of your life but read, and even if another book was never published, you'd still have plenty of material.

7. Back From the Dead: The State of Book Reviewing — This long piece in Poets & Writers does a brilliant job of describing the changing landscape of book reviewing.

Top 5 Discussion-Inducing New Dork Review Posts
5. Top Five Sins of the Book Reviewer — This post holds the New Dork record for most comments — 52. I loved hearing that most people agreed about most of these, or disagreed just in shades of degree. 

4. My Top Five Literary Nemeses – This was probably the most fun post to write, and the comments were great! We effectively panned all the posers in the literary world!

3. The Play's The Thing: A Look At Literary Gimmicks — This was one of those posts where readers really came strong with additional recommendations. That's another one of my favorite things about this blog — discovering new reading landscapes.

2. A Reasonably Short, Fairly Impassioned Defense of Reading Fiction — If you've read the blog for any amount of time, you know David Foster Wallace was one of my heroes. So I drew from his influence for this post about why reading fiction is important for the real world. (The title is of the post is his influence as well, of course.)

1. Should Art Be Separated From Artist? — This discussion went on for several weeks with a total of 38 comments. This was the most challenging post to write, and the yielded the most stimulating comments.

As always, thanks for reading. I hope you'll still be here at post #400!