The Funny Business of Writing: In Conversation with K. E. Flann and Jen Michalski

K. E. Flann and Jen Michalski workshopped short stories together for years as part of a writing group in Baltimore (they both hosted fiction-reading series there, as well), and they each published a couple story collections. Their latest books have taken them in different — and yet parallel ‚ directions: Jen Michalski's third novel, You'll Be Fine (NineStar Press), is a family comedy featuring LBGTQ leads, and K. E. Flann's How to Survive a Human Attack (Running Press) is a humor book, the first-ever survival manual for zombies, cyborgs, mummies, nuclear mutants, and other movie monsters. Flann and Michalski got together to talk about writing groups, persistence, and risk-taking, among other things.

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JM: Congratulations on How to Survive a Human Attack, K. E.! As someone who is a prize-winning short fiction writer, this is a new direction for you. How did the idea come about for the book? Were you anxious about writing for a different audience than say, one that enjoys literary fiction, or do you think there's an overlapping sweet spot of readers?

KF: And congratulations to you, as well, on You'll Be Fine. I sometimes still don't grasp that we are on opposite coasts after being in the same city and the same writing groups for years. It's great to mark this occasion together at long last, not least because I had the privilege of reading early drafts of your novel. It’s delightful. People are going to love it.

How to Survive a Human Attack began when my husband was watching "The Walking Dead" in the other room, and there was so much screaming. Those zombies were getting slaughtered! Someone should really help them, I thought. I wrote a short advice piece, and it was published quickly. Pretty soon, I started to suspect there were other monsters that needed help. I wrote and published a few more and a few more. And here we are.

Monsters are definitely a new audience, although I suspect a lot of us are at least part monster, even if we don't know it. I got started in the "advice" milieu thanks to the story collection, Self-Help, by Lorrie Moore, which revolutionized my thinking about form and tone. I also love pop culture and B-movies. So now I'm the horrible hybrid creature before you. I do hope there are others! We’ll see.

It seems like your trajectory has been the other way. You started with the fantastical in The Tide King, while You'll Be Fine has autobiographical elements, making it — in certain ways, at least — reality-based. How was it different to work on this book as opposed to previous ones?

JM: It's funny you mention trajectory, because when you start out with your first book, there's an assumed trajectory, in genre, in audience, in sales, but my trajectory as a writer (and published author) has been anything but an upward trajectory — it's sort of been all over the place, up and down, different mountains, even. I'm pretty undisciplined in that I write about whatever interests me at the time, because that's where the energy of the words is. And yes, my first two novels, The Tide King and The Summer She Was Under Water, both had elements of magical realism at play, and they were both serious and kind of sad in places. And it's funny, because I would meet people who'd read my books and they'd be confused, because I guess I wasn't morose enough, and they'd say, "wow, you're funny in person." Which is kind of, I don't know, weird? So I knew, at the onset, I wanted to write something a little more accessible and lighter. Something that was more attuned to how I see myself as a person. And yet, it's still a little heavy — I started working on it right after my mom died, and a mother dies in the beginning, so it still manages to squeak in a little bit of serious and sad.

Now you, you're a very funny person, and you have a lot of work out there that attests to that, in McSweeney's Internet Tendency and other places, but when we were in a writing group together, you were working on a memoir about your dog, Clark, and there was some pretty heavy stuff in it. I wonder if a lot of the variation in our work is also the result of just growing as writers and as people. Is there anything that's surprises you about the writer you are now as opposed to the writer you started out being?

KF: Ha! The same thing happened to me. With my short story collections, I had people say, with equal frequency, Wow, that book was funny and Wow, that book was depressing. It bummed me out when people told me that my books were depressing because I didn't see them that way and because I hoped to buoy people with my work, rather than make life feel heavier.

I didn't set out to write humor, exactly. I simply entertained myself writing advice for movie monsters. Then, while I was working on the book in earnest, my dad was diagnosed with advanced, terminal cancer. One night, he fell and hit his head, and he went to the hospital. It occurred at the beginning of the pandemic, when visits were not allowed. We didn’t know he was in his final decline until nearly the last moment. Thankfully, we got him home for his last few hours.

To say I was reeling would be an understatement. As soon we got home from the funeral, I started a period of composing short humor pieces that ended up in McSweeney's, The Weekly Humorist, and other places, while also continuing to work on the book. I probably needed to laugh, but there was also the element that it made me feel closer to my dad because he was so funny. I also wanted to be useful to other people who were suffering, and I wasn’t sure what else I had to offer. I have no idea if reading, for example, the eulogy I penned for Real Pants, actually made a difference to anyone. But I offered what I could. I have only recently felt emotionally equipped to work on the "serious" projects I couldn't face during that time, like the memoir project you mentioned about moving to Europe with my dog.

I wonder if it’s common to write funny stuff when we're struggling and serious stuff when we’re content. Do you find your own emotional climate and your work to have a relationship that’s more parallel? Or what about your work as editor of JMWW journal? Do you ever feel that the tenor of your own work is affected by the pieces you publish there?

JM: Wow, that's tough, and I'm sorry that you went through it. It was definitely a very fertile period for you, in terms of humor, and very bittersweet to know what was underneath the surface while you were producing those stories. For me, although You'll Be Fine did sort of mirror my life at the time and felt cathartic in some ways, most of my work is emotional prepping for the unknowns. I feel like I'm always trying to figure out how to live, because in my real life I feel like I'm just winging it. So my work is often a response to questions I've posed to myself: what if a parent died? What if there is sexual abuse by a family member? What if you could live forever? What if one's life isn't what one wanted it to be? I love that as writers we get to game out these scenarios and live vicariously through other characters and their situations, good and bad. And I love that I get to read other writers' works and respond to their characters also.

I do feel the tenor of my work can be affected by what I'm reading, but it's less emotional and more technical, more craft-oriented. Of course, it's why writing instructors drill their students to read, read, read! I love that sometimes I find the tools to address deficiencies in my own work through other books. For instance, this summer, for fun, I read a lot of Emma Straub. And although I loved the beachy read vibe (I was on vacation), her novels also helped me figure out how to be more accessible to readers through her voice and sentence structure.

Of course, another way to hone one's craft is through writing groups, and you and I are battled-tested veterans! I feel like over the past 10 years we've been members of at least two groups together! What have you taken away from being part of a writing group?

KF: It's funny that you asked about writing groups because I was just speaking to a student today about how important it is to be involved with other writers. If we see other writers only from afar, we are aware only of finished products that get published, often announced online with trumpeting fanfare. We never see (a) what didn't get published and (b) the struggle behind the things that did. This lack of information can lead to a faulty assumption that success is frequent and effortless for other writers.

Being in a writing group with you specifically has always been a masterclass in discipline. You are not only one of the most curious and imaginative people I know, but also one of the hardest working writers I know — always crafting a major project alongside smaller writing projects, as well as editing a literary journal. In pre-pandemic times, you were often running a reading series. Plus, your day job involves using your writing and editing skills. In the groups, I saw how thoroughly you revise, as well as how creatively. I remember you talking about how you wanted to challenge yourself to cut a 5000 word story down to 1000 — and you did it, which required seeing the story from a totally different angle. A beginning writer who did not have the privilege of witnessing your process might look at your five highly-acclaimed books and many published stories, and fail to grasp what goes into that.

I learn a lot besides craft and discipline from other writers when I'm in a group, too. You talked about your trajectory being all over the place, but I interpret that as creative fearlessness. You worked on a graphic novel script, at one point, and I was like, Wow! So that's how you do that? In some way, I probably absorbed a measure of your adventurous spirit, and it no doubt emboldened me to try to some new things, too. When a group works, I think it becomes a kind of organism, providing energy or nourishment to each person. I'm curious to know how you see the groups. Is it the same for you? Even though we've been reading each other's work for so long, I never asked you what the group experience has meant to you, or if the perception of their value changes over time.

JM: Thanks for the nice words! It's such high praise coming from you, whose work I have admired continually over the years. I agree completely with your assessment on writing groups. I've had the privilege of seeing early drafts of your stories, as well as many other writers, and seen the work involved in revising and revising again. In a group, you also see the life cycle of submissions, your own and other writers — I've seen writers have stories rejected twenty times but then get picked up by a high-tier journal! I remember when Roxane Gay had a blog, years and years ago when she was just starting out, called I Have Become Accustomed to Rejection, where she detailed the ordinarities of her day but at the end listed which journals had sent her rejections. It was such a brave blog, in terms of not being embarrassed by rejection but also showing how often you need to submit, to not become discouraged after a few "nos." Anyway, I love the title because, in a way, groups are where you become accustomed to rejection and the grind of the writer's life.

But the group kind of mitigates the grind as well — I always feel very excited after I attend a group meeting, ready to get back to work. Critiques constantly open new windows for you to see things in a different light, new dialogue, and I'm always so excited to respond to that dialogue. There's also the deadline of submitting something to the group that keeps one writing, if you're not inherently self-directed. I also think groups humanize the writing process. It's easy, as you said, to see someone's successes touted on social media and be jealous or depressed, but it's harder to be anything less than 150% supportive when you've had a front-row seat to the writer's journey (and all the inherent stumbles, rejections, and disappointments that happen just as often, usually more). And, in a good group, you trust the writers in it and aren't afraid, as you said, to take chances and try new things without worrying about people judging you.

I think, even outside a group, though, it's important to take chances. Sure, the publishing industry is very much about brand, about building one's platform in one genre or another, I think it's important to write about what resonates with you emotionally, even if no one ever sees it. I've written novels that are just for me, because I know I have a particular taste and the fun for me is in writing it. And I really love that you started out at the very serious literary end of the pool but now you're books about monsters! It's very brave, because humor is hard and can be just as insightful and deep as literary fiction, but then all of sudden you're not supposed to write a novel that's a contender for the National Book Award because you've been pegged as "funny." But I'm totally sure you're going to write a book that's going to be a contender for the National Book Award, so screw those guys.

After writing You'll Be Fine (which is kind of funny but also sad), I realized that novels don't have to be either "serious" or "funny." A good novel can be both, and a good novel should be both. This blew my mind and it's strange that I finally "got it" after writing some pretty sad novels and novellas. Oh, and I wanted to point out that you wrote a freaking craft book (WRITE ON: Secrets to Crafting Better Stories) right before you wrote How to Survive a Human Attack, speaking of creative fearlessness. What are you working on now?

KF: Well, one aspiration is to write a novel, something in the long-form. I tend to be full of ideas. I bing-bong from one short thing to the next. I mean, no regrets. Certainly, my short story skills provided a great foundation for other short-form work, like essays, humor pieces, and the columns that led to the craft book, and short story skills even help my work in the classroom. Aspiring novelists I teach sometimes get lost in the woods of their own narratives, and as someone with a succinct vision of plot, I can help them counter-balance some of that. But can I find within myself the commitment novelists demonstrate to one project? How is it for you working in both forms? Did one come more naturally to you? Were there times in this latest novel when you weren't sure if it would come together?

JM: I tend to keep a lot of balls in the air, working on short stories and novels at the same time (sometimes even two novels, ie, going back and forth between them when I become stalled on one or the other). I'm happiest when I'm working, and it's the process of putting words on the page, rather than the long-term goal, on which I try and focus. It's kind of like running for me, which I know you'll appreciate — run the mile you're in. However, I have a harder time writing short stories, so I admire your succinct vision of plot! 

In terms of You'll Be Fine, this novel felt pretty cut and dry while I was writing it — for once, I didn't try to make this big literary statement — it doesn't try to be something it's not. I wanted to write something that entertained the reader, and that's it. That's not to say it didn't go through many drafts to be what it became. And I was very open to criticism from all comers — I tried to recruit as many people as I could to read, and I promised myself at the onset to be very open to any advice because I wanted it to be the best novel it could possibly be and not let my own hardheadedness get in the way. 

Critiquing can be hard, though, both receiving and giving criticism. Giving criticism, there's what you think should happen and maybe what you want to happen, but what matters is helping the author get their vision on the page. Conversely, when receiving criticism, it's very subjective, with people saying, "Well, I think that character should be different" or "I don't think that's how this situation should unfold," but how much of the critique is just their personal preferences or how they would write it? Art is really hard. It's not like being an accountant. But you absolutely shouldn't forgo the critique process, because there's always some piece that will resonate with you and you never know from whom it will come. I remember working on a novel when I was in the master's program at Towson, and in my novel critique class there was this guy I just couldn't stand. You know, he was that guy. And yet in one offhand remark, he solved a huge problem hanging over the plot of my novel, so I was grudgingly grateful, LOL. So the process can be infuriating but also mysterious and wonderful — writing in a nutshell.  

Speaking of clouds, we haven't talked about that mysterious fog writers must fight through after publication, you know, how to actually get the word out to readers and convince them to buy your book in a field of 30 million others! Has the pandemic impacted your book tour plans, or the way in which you hope to market your book, or maybe some new and different opportunities have emerged in the process? You've been teaching on Zoom now for over a year, and you're such a natural on camera! I would totally go to a virtual K. E. Flann reading. 

KF: I couldn't agree more about the experience of being in a workshop with someone I find, ahem, challenging. I have seen this both as a workshop participant and a workshop facilitator. Quite often, there's someone whose interpersonal skills leave something to be desired, and yet has razor sharp insights about the other writers' stories. That's a hard combination. If someone has bad interpersonal skills and little insight about the work, we can dismiss that person's opinion. Or conversely, if someone has great interpersonal skills and great insights, well, we love that person. So in either direction, that relationship is easy. But someone who offers razor sharp insights with a razor-sharp delivery style can be tough to take. And I think the knack to receiving criticism is finding a way to hear that person and even to relish that feedback because it is direct and easy to understand, not obscured by niceties. We don't have to incorporate that feedback, but we don't have the chance even to consider it if we're not willing to listen. I've had the same experience as you have of receiving a key piece of criticism, something that solved a big problem, from someone who rubbed me the wrong way in that moment.

Speaking of big feelings, though, you asked about the post-writing fog — that period of promoting something that's finished. I'm sure you're going through that right now, too, and with so many books under your belt, maybe you can give me some advice. I'm so nervous about the release of How to Survive a Human Attack that I find it hard to focus on loading the coffee maker, let alone on writing something new. Also, I drop items made of glass and bump my head on open cabinets. It's like the Benny Hill show at my house. How do you cope?

JM: Oh no, K. E., I see you! I totally understand. And the experience is different every time you have a book out, depending on your publisher, your intended audience, what's expected of you in promotion. I always tell people that promoting your book is your second job, the one you go to after you get off work (or maybe before work), on weekends, on vacation. You have to keep your book out there, make it feel inevitable in people's lives (and bookshelves) while at the same time not turning people off. It's almost an impossible equation, and people tend to scatter to two opposite poles — those who are too timid, embarrassed even, to promote their work and those who are the marketing equivalent of a flamethrower, piling it on everywhere and anywhere. I tend to fall into the former category (I literally cringe sometimes before I hit the post button to share something), but at the end of the day, the only person who really cares about your book (unless you're Stephen King's agent) is you. No one else is going to do it for you, and although you may have varying levels of help, it's up to you to make the case for your work. 

And you should promote it how you're comfortable (or to the edge of your comfort zone). I know someone who only visited book groups — for his debut novel, he scheduled visits with 50 groups! Other people might not be able to handle such repeated intimacy, and maybe online marketing is better for them. Maybe you do a lot of giveaways. For my first novel, The Tide King, I did a lot of readings — I visited bookstores, colleges, reading series, classes, and a few book groups. But I found that I didn't sell many books that way, or I couldn't figure out which venues produced book sales. Once I had an event of 50 people, and nobody bought a book, and another event, 6 people showed up and I sold 6 books (weirdly, they were all bought by the same person — I always wondered what happened to her). It was then I realized, unless you are a highly industry-supported author with some Reese Witherspoon movie option, your book's success is really a crap shoot.

Which was kind of freeing! There's so much you can't control, from how the publisher promotes your book (eg, either spending tens of thousands of dollars on your campaign or giving you a stack of bookmarks and wishing you good luck) to a 2-year pandemic that obliterates family, friends, and book tour. So this time I didn't set a goal for the "success" of my book. I literally don't have any expectations. There was a time when I was extremely worried about being a "successful" author, and it really was depressing and an awful strategy for maintaining a healthy self-esteem. Now that I'm older, it's not the most important thing in my life anymore, thank goodness. (I still have "I'm such a failure" days, but that's sort of like a colonic for my soul.) Being healthy, the people I love being healthy, and trying to have fun amidst random body pain are much more important. Plus, you get to define what makes you a "successful" author. I'm happy my book is out, I'm happy I wrote it, I'm happy that strangers so far seem to like it, and that's good enough for me. 

This was a long way of saying, I think as long as you're genuine, people understand, and they're not going to roll their eyes when you've posted for the 50th time on Instagram about your book. It's a hard job, I have an instant soft heart for every post I see on social media of someone hawking their book. Also, I hope everyone buys your book — you always make me laugh, and having your book is like having you make me laugh whenever I need it! At any rate, if I may quote myself, you’ll be fine.

KF: This is reassuring to hear, Jen. I’ve appreciated the advice (from several corners now) to do as much promotion as one is comfortable doing. I mean, if we took that advice too literally, we might do none? But I think the point is that there’s an endless amount one could do, and at some point, we have to say, Okay, I’ve reached my capacity for now.

I wrote the book out of an urge to make people happy. Life is hard, especially now, and what can you do sometimes but laugh? Yet, out of that urge to buoy people in some small way, I’ve ended up the recipient of support from so many people in the literary community. It’s enough to make you think humans are actually all right sometimes.

Memory vs. Truth: a Review of Oliver’s Travels by Clifford Garstang

All novels are mystery novels, a seasoned author tells hopeful writer, Ollie. At the core of everything we read about a character is their greatest desire. The mystery, as in real life, is what will the character do, and to what lengths will they go to attain this desire?

Ollie’s desire is multifold: his most urgent need is to find his Uncle Scotty, and ask him why Ollie is haunted by childhood memories related to him. Underneath this urge runs the very familiar, existential dread of the recently graduated. But in Ollie’s case, this includes the question of his sexuality. In Oliver’s Travels, Clifford Garstang interrogates the folly of memory and meaning through a deeply flawed, possibly traumatized, occasionally problematic main character, asking, how do we know a thing, or how do we come to accept something as known?

Oliver’s Travels is indeed about travel, including the travels Ollie should have taken; “I should have gone west, like the man said,” the novel opens. But rather than follow this romantic cliché of young adulthood, Ollie does what many young people are forced to: move back in with a parent. At first it is in Indianapolis, with his divorced father and “wounded warrior” brother, Q in the house where Ollie grew up. One day, Ollie is looking through family photographs when he becomes curious about his father’s estranged younger brother, Scotty. His father tells him Scotty is dead. His mother tells him Scotty is dead. Neither of his siblings, Q or Sally-Ann can recall what happened to him. But Ollie’s memories of his adventurous uncle, and his lack of memory of his death, point to different conclusions.

When staying with his father becomes unbearable, Ollie moves in with his mother in Virginia. Once again, he fails to go west. He admits, “I’m deficient in the courage department.” There Ollie accepts a job as an adjunct professor of English at a community college. He meets another teacher, a prim young lady wearing a cross necklace named, appropriately, Mary, whom Ollie begins half-heartedly dating. Immediately he begins projecting a version of himself that he suspects she wants: a passionate teacher, and a nice guy certain of his future.

But Ollie is anything but certain of his future. What will he do with a degree in Philosophy? He realizes he greatly misses the structure and challenge of school. He was inspired by his relationship with one professor in particular, which ended abruptly. Yet the influence of Professor Russell is clearly embedded in Ollie’s consciousness, as Ollie’s chronological narrative is interspersed with his memories of the professor’s lectures and their meditation sessions.

Meanwhile, Mary and Ollie are all wrong for each other. They disagree on nearly everything, with little crossover in interests and tastes, to a comical degree. Ollie is a wimp and Mary is a ninny. As such, their convergence only makes sense, the one too scared to leave the other, despite their obvious incompatibility. Mary, he thinks, represents things he should want: a nice, churchgoing girl who reads books (albeit not “good” ones), plays piano, sings “like a Siren,” and knows she wants to be a teacher, a wife and a mother. She has also continued living with her parents for three years after graduation, a thought that is mortifying to Ollie. But when he meets her brother, Mike, suddenly Ollie wants to spend as much time with Mary as possible. Why can he not get him out of his mind, Ollie wonders? And does it have to do with his patchy memories of Uncle Scotty?

Since cowardice and indecision render him incapable of running the trodden path of young male fortune-seekers, Ollie lives out his fantasies another way: on the page. He invents “Oliver,” an alter-ego who possesses the adventurous spirit Ollie lacks, journeying to distant lands with an “exotic” woman by his side. As Ollie develops Oliver’s character, anyone who has attended a freshman creative writing workshop will be amused to recognize the young writer trope of prosaic fantasy-fulfillment, the way a twenty year-old reveals their gushiest visions of their ideal selves, while casting love interests as props to their main character’s self-discovery. With characters’ names barely changed from their counterparts (“Oliver” and “Maria”), Ollie re-imagines himself as charming and courageous, and Mary as exciting and dangerous. It is at times agonizing (read: triggering) to watch as a scared young man wastes an ambitious young woman’s time, abusing her trust while he figures himself out. And yet Mary may have a secret or two of her own. Meanwhile, the possibility of his childhood trauma looms heavily over Ollie. We are beckoned, if not compelled, to give him a break.

Ollie’s relationship with his father is especially pertinent to his wavering confidence. Ollie was born with only four toes on each foot, a harmless expression of some genetic trait. “One of the clearest memories I have of my childhood,” Ollie recalls, “is my father’s insistence that I wear something on my feet while in his presence–socks, shoes, slippers.” When one day young Ollie compares his number of toes to his brother’s, he finally notices the discrepancy and begins to cry. “But it wasn’t the missing toes I was crying about. I had finally understood why my father hated me.” Reading Ollie as a possibly-not-heterosexual character, this strikes an especially emotional note, as he realizes his father hates him not for his choices, but for the way he was born.

As snippets of his childhood return to Ollie, he wrestles with the imperfect and erratic nature of memory and truth. If others have no memory of an event, and your own is patchy, did it happen to you at all?

Ollie and Mary have a memorable (and cringe-worthy) fight related to the nature of memory, faith, and truth. A shaken Mary confides in Ollie when a student of hers tells her she has just been sexually assaulted. In response, Ollie enters interrogation mode: “So she called the cops? Went to the hospital? No? Why the hell not?” He questions whether or not she would have reason to lie (Mary has said the student is prone to embellishment in her essays, she had an exam that day, etc). He suggests that “maybe she needs some attention.” One wishes a tug on the ear could make him shut up as he presses on. Surely no one could be so oblivious, so lacking in emotional intelligence, as to not recognize the real stakes in the conversation (i.e. his relationship with Mary).

To her credit, Mary reminds him of the emotional nuances of sexual trauma, and even introduces him to the student in person. But this backfires, as Ollie doubles down on the issue of the student not reporting her attack to the police. “If you don’t,” he warns her, “. . . eventually even you will begin to doubt that it happened. It will fade from reality and become just a bad dream.” The fight illustrates Ollie’s attitude towards his own trauma: if certain facts are not known, the event cannot be said to have taken place. And yet, based on his vague memories of his uncle, and the fact that no one in the family can say where he lives or whether he is living at all, Ollie is already convinced that: 1. His uncle is alive and 2. His uncle did something to Ollie that has bearing on why Ollie cannot know himself. He feels he knows these points inherently, what one would call faith.

Throughout the novel Ollie is in a state of questioning, seeking to illuminate truth even as he obscures it from those around him. “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth. Repeat a memory, whether or not the memory is flawed, and the same thing happens.” Ollie’s reaction to Mary’s student mirrors his own, inner interrogations of his imperfect memory; his defensiveness actually having to do with the possibility that he was himself a victim of abuse. “Do I doubt Sylvia’s story because I’m uncertain about what happened to me? Am I a victim? Or have I imagined it? If it happened, why didn’t I tell someone?” Implied but not overtly explored is the question of the gender divide in terms of sexual abuse; perhaps Ollie feels there is more shame in being a man and having been abused by a male member of his family, than there is in a male-female date rape scenario.

In the last third of the novel, Ollie convinces Mary to move abroad for a couples’ adventure, his secret agenda being, of course, to track down Uncle Scotty. After awkward family engagements, travel gaffes, and a few truly lucky breaks, Ollie’s journey comes to a peak. And while the story lands safely, I can’t help but acknowledge lingering resentment for the very character I also rooted for. Ollie’s complexity is at once overstated (by himself), and also understated by his oafish actions. I was often frustrated with Mary, the put-upon girlfriend who attempts to reclaim the power imbalance with soapy manipulation tactics. Ollie’s highly serendipitous dalliances with other women on his travels, exotic beauties that appeared solely to comfort and assist him in his not-quite-Homerian quest, felt so fantastical and idealized as to suggest that he is merging with his literary alter-ego, becoming more Oliver than Ollie.

Garstang’s dry humor and tight, aphoristic writing make for an engaging, unstoppable read. The Philosophy classroom discussions frame and inform the narrative, and provide context for Ollie’s actions. The author’s close attention to structure and tone support the reader’s emotional journey, and enables him to balance the richness of Ollie’s interior monologues with those facepalm dialogues. Ollie’s eventual discovery of the truth arrives padded with tenderness, yet the impact resounds. We are not so much left with questions as we are rewarded for the search. Oliver’s Travels was indeed transporting, challenging, and provocative, drawing me in as the mystery unfolded.

A Review of Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

In Honey Girl Morgan Rogers explores themes of institutionalized racism in higher education, and societal, personal, and parental expectations. The novel follows Grace Porter, who has a freshly acquired PhD, a brooding tri-life crisis, and the foggy memory of marrying a stranger in Las Vegas when she was drunk. Despite her uncharacteristically impulsively marriage, Grace doesn’t rush to annul it; instead, she uses her marriage as an escape as she struggles with her mental health and a job market that doesn’t seem to have a place for her. As the story progresses, Grace balances the relationships in her life as she learns about her own boundaries and needs.

One of the strengths of Honey Girl is its cast of characters. Grace does not have a single group of friends that follow her everywhere like a sitcom ensemble. As Grace changes settings, the people around her change too. I appreciate this because one of my pet peeves is when a protagonist attends classes with a handful of people, who also coincidently live in the same building and work at the same establishment as the protagonist, becoming essentially accessories. Instead, Grace realistically has a different group of friends in Portland and New York, as well as separate work friends. This serves the plot well. Not only does it allow the reader to meet many fleshed out characters with diverse gender identities, ethnic backgrounds, and sexual orientations, but it also contributes to the sense of burnout and frenzy, as Grace has social and emotional obligations to so many people. The world of Honey Girl feels full. Even when it is not explicitly described, I imagine the bustling streets on New York and Portland because Rogers establishes early on that Grace is surrounded by people. In this way, Rogers avoids another common romance trope—that of the romantic leads always being alone, longing for each other in some miraculously unpopulated area.

Toward the end of the book, Grace seeks a therapist. While this isn’t an uncommon situation in fiction, I had never seen a portrayed the way it is in Honey Girl. Grace visits a few different therapists, moving on when someone isn’t a good fit for her. This is a marker of growth for Grace, as it shows she is ready to better her mental health, and she is confident enough in her understanding of herself to know when a therapist won’t meet her needs. I found this really refreshing. When I think of the therapists I have seen portrayed in literature, TV, and movies, I think of characters instantly connecting with their therapist, or begrudgingly going to appointments despite a lack of connection. I had never thought about this before reading Honey Girl, but it makes sense to portray “the search” for a therapist in fiction, as that can often be a daunting part of committing to a mental health wellness plan.

While I enjoy the variety in Grace’s relationships—some characters are described as chosen family, others as close friends, and some are new, budding friendships—I found myself wanting more of an understanding of Grace’s wife, Yuki. Yuki is a waitress by day and a radio host and monster hunter by night. While it is clear that Yuki is creative, intelligent, and romantic, I wondered how characteristic or uncharacteristic the sudden marriage was for her. I would also have liked to have seen Grace and Yuki’s initial meeting, as it would have given insight on the bond they have. At the end of the book, Yuki still felt like a stranger to me. It’s true that Yuki and Grace don’t know each other very long, but at one point, they do live together and presumably get to know each better. I would have liked to have felt like I was learning about Yuki as Grace was.

While it didn’t take up much of the word count, as a self-proclaimed sea monster lover, I am compelled to mention how excited I was when the Lake Champlain monster, Champy, made an “appearance” in this book. As someone who has gone monster hunting for Champy and written him into my own fiction, I was excited to see Yuki in action. I wanted to see how much work Yuki put into researching monsters, and perhaps see her interview locals, or maybe even locate Champy landmarks that they must have been around. I felt like this was a moment for Yuki’s personality to shine and to show her knowledge of mythology and history. Instead of seeing a different side of Yuki, the characters sat by the lake and she spoke beautifully and poetically, as she did for the duration of the book, but nothing she said couldn’t have been said back in her studio. Regardless, I still enjoyed “seeing” Champy in this book!

Honey Girl is a joy to read. It’s full of strong, well-developed characters who are funny, fun and kind. It handles topics of mental health empathetically and shows both the relief and stress that can come with diagnosis and treatment. It is a book I have no doubt I will reread.

Fields of (Missed) Opportunities: A Review of Shawn Rubenfeld’s The Eggplant Curse and the Warp Zone

In many ways, it’s easy to think of the 1995 film Mr. Holland’s Opus as a feel-good movie. When Glen Holland (played by Richard Dreyfuss) retires as a musician and composer to become a high school music teacher, he’s hopeful that he will spend more quality time with his wife and compose his own symphony. Although over the next 30 years Mr. Holland inspires students to become passionate about music, even when budget cuts threaten the arts program, he never spends the time he thought he’d have on his own work, and after being let go, he’s merely left to conduct his final performance with the help of an auditorium full of ex-pupils. While the ending may appear to put a neat bow on Mr. Holland’s career, what is apparent to the close observer is that he settled for a job that although he was suited for, didn’t measure up to his dreams. In Shawn Rubenfeld’s debut novel The Eggplant Curse and the Warp Zone, Joshua Schulman’s life in many ways follows a similar trajectory to Mr. Holland’s, and when he convinces himself that the sudden opportunity to teach at a prep school a few thousand miles away from New York is the right choice, his goal of collecting the most prestigious retro video games begins to slowly dissolve, and the feelings he develops for a fellow teacher become much more complicated that he expected.

A debate that has arisen within academia lately is the extent to which attaining a PhD is worth pursuing. The job market, especially given the past year and the pandemic, is not necessarily the best for recent graduates, and academia can be a cutthroat world when job candidates are attempting to move into more secure positions. While Joshua recognizes the reality that awaits him, his life during the course of his studies is falling apart: divorce, mother with cancer, father turning exclusively to religion. Inevitably, Joshua loses interest in his own work, which he comes to believe might not have any real-world application and point (his research centers on Yiddish dialectology). When life doesn’t go our way, we all turn to something that helps us cope, and for Joshua it is collecting retro video games, a casual hobby that turns into a passion that turns into an obsession he becomes increasingly good at. Joshua’s pursuit comes with online bidding wars, constant monetary transactions, and gaming conventions, and it is at one of these conventions where he makes the mistake of tripping The Eggplant Wizard, a character from the Kid Icarus series (imagine an anthropomorphized eggplant with one giant eye and a staff). Conventional gaming wisdom says that doing such a thing will lead to a dreaded “curse,” but Joshua’s luck doesn’t seem to change for the worse, at least not initially. In fact, he receives an email shortly after with a job offer to the Fairbury Academy of Roll, in Roll, Iowa, population 1,412. Seeing that there is little left from him in New York, Iowa seems like the best idea, but Joshua quickly discovers that when that landscape becomes barren, and there is not much else to do than refine his online buying skills, the need to connect with something more becomes overwhelming. Enter his coworker Natalie Grey, a married woman with her own interests in higher education.  

This is the classic “boy falls for girl” narrative, but what Rubenfeld does so masterfully is show how sometimes simplicity has the power to sway even the most skeptical of people. Natalie is not remarkable in the traditional sense of the word, but she is honest, witty, and true to herself, and her stability (marriage, job, the desire to learn) represent for Joshua everything his winding days in New York didn’t. She makes Joshua laugh. She pushes him beyond his comfort zone (convincing him to go on a hike), and most importantly, she takes an interest in his video game collection. The irony in all of this, however, is that Natalie is by no means the model of stability, at least not on the surface. While divorce has become quite common in many societies, there are a number of reasons why people still remain in a marriage they deeply want out of, and though there are hints here and there with her conversations with Joshua about wanting to break free from her stasis, it’s evident that Natalie believes that her marriage and her future are set in stone. She recognizes that despite her attention to Joshua—holding hands with him on their hike, rubbing the tension out of his neck, going over to his place to enjoy a few hours of gaming—she can never be with him, and—call it fate, responsibility, obligation—she knows she has to distance herself from whatever it is they can claim they had, which becomes a much clearer task to do when she learns Joshua’s been lying repeatedly.

Part of the stipulation for Joshua’s employment in Iowa was that he continue and complete his PhD. Even though he acknowledged to himself that he was not returning to that path, he indicates, in a state of panic, to Dr. Kirkland (the Head of the School) that he was well on his way to attaining his degree. We all know how one small lie can lead to another, and another, and another, and Joshua’s own experience was no exception. While he knows his lies will eventually catch up with him, he continues lying, even saying to Natalie that his wife (who in the spur of the moment he calls Natalie too) has recently died. Joshua suffers what we all suffer in our lives: he yearns for affection and attention, and because he fears that the real him will not live up to how he thinks others view who he is, he digs his hole even deeper.

The guilt that he begins growing inside him, however, starts to manifest as an old foe, The Eggplant Wizard. He sees the character, in the same custom as at the convention, randomly throughout campus, and these sightings intensify when he fails to receive the coveted game BattleSport from an online buyer. The buyer avoids Joshua’s follow up messages and begins taunting him in online posts. Subsequently, Joshua loses all concentration and even becomes physically unwell. He eventually loses in the game Splat (a game the students and staff at Fairbury Academy participate in and whose objective is to smack your target with a stick when they don’t have their own stick in their hands). In the end, Joshua succumbs fully to his guilt, since he knows that he can no longer pretend to incorporate huge details of his life that are untrue. In confessing everything to Natalie, he understands that he has closed the door to their relationship, and even though he suspects he will continue with his job, he won’t be able to share the joy he finds in it with anyone else.

It’s never revealed who exactly is The Eggplant Wizard was (best bets, however, would lie with Dr. Kirkland), and there might be parts in Rubenfeld’s novel that feel slightly underdeveloped—the teachers-student relationship he has with Tyler, the banter with the other staff members. But even if readers don’t find the answers that we were hoping to find, there is no doubt they will see part of themselves in Joshua Schulman, and just as with Mr. Holland, or any character of that matter who has had their dreams interrupted, you will find yourself rooting for him every step of the way.

A Review of David Salner's A Place to Hide

“Tsedekah…It is an old Jewish term. It refers to our obligation to right the injustice of society. I feel that obligation but don’t always know how to let it guide me.” These words are spoken by Virgil Pushkin Shulman, a resident, along with his wife Rosie and daughter Sylvie, of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, to his new friend Bill. Virgil and Bill have been recruited to work as “sandhogs” in the construction of the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River. The work is grueling and dangerous, but the pay is good. Bill is new to the city, and Virgil makes it his mission to help him out by offering him a place to stay. Bill is a man with a past which he must keep hidden because he is a fugitive from the law. In fact, Bill is not even his real name. Bill is Jimmy Little, the younger brother of Frank Little, a man students of history may recognize as the labor organizer for the IWW who was lynched in Butte, Montana in 1917.

How Jimmy/Bill winds up in New York City after running from the law in Montana is the subject of a stirring first novel A Place to Hide by David Salner. Not only does one man from one side of the continent become close friends with a man with an entirely different background from the other side of the continent, but they each have vivid and horrible memories which they share with each other, the one intimately involved with the Speculator Mine Disaster in Butte, Montana, which killed 168 miners, and in it’s wake resulted in the death of his brother Frank, the other intimately involved in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in Greenwich Village, in which his mother died along with 145 workers, most of whom were women and children. Both historically true disasters occurred only a few years apart, and a reader might do well to scan youtube and other sources for detailed descriptions of the disasters, as well as the construction of the Holland Tunnel. Through their shared sorrows and bitterness, Bill and Virgil find an unshakable bond centered on what it means to be a laborer in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Salner knows of what he writes. Like his main character Bill, he has traversed the continent working at a great variety of jobs, most of them as back-breaking and perilous as those of his characters. He has been a steel worker, miner, garment worker, and longshoreman, among others. His experiences are evident in his descriptions of the work environments in the novel, in which, detail upon detail, the reader is invited to experience the sweat, grime and near suffocation of working underground, be it under a river or under a mountain. Take, for example, the following description of the work of “sandhogs” on the Holland Tunnel.

“Together they began filling a cart from the dirt piled by the bulkhead. It was loamy and damp and had a brackish stink., which was unpleasantly multiplied by the high-pressure atmosphere…When the cart was full, they pushed it down the tracks to the other end of their giant work chamber, to a door where a man waved, shaping the words, “Hurry, push, push!’…it was heavy with sodden earth and the weight of the air…They turned back toward their bulkhead, where another man had positioned a new cart just in time to catch rocks and mud deluging down the chute.”

Add Salner’s many work skills and experiences to his skills as a writer, and the result is a winning combination of verisimilitude and lyricism. Because David Salner, as many readers might recognize, is an accomplished and widely-published poet and has put his experiences in four books of poetry, among them Blue Morning Light and his latest, The Stillness of Certain Valleys, which describe the hardships, frustrations, and camaraderie among workers. A reading of any of his poems quickly demonstrates an acute attention to the details of the world of work, whether it is underground or above. But, more to the point, the reader is witness to the great heart Salner has for the men and women he describes. That same devotion to detail and affection is present in A Place to Hide. In addition to Bill and the Shulmans, there is a cast of characters, fellow workers in the Holland Tunnel and the mines of Pennsylvania, as well as the inhabitants of the roach-infested tenement building where Bill and the Shulmans live, one of whom, a woman with an illegitimate child, becomes Bill’s lover. And, of course, there are villains, most notably a man named Arnoldson, who is constantly on Bill’s trail, eager to return him to a Montana prison. Some villains go unnamed, the vigilantes, gangsters, and the police used to suppress and round up strikers, who have earned the distrust of working stiffs throughout the broad landscape of the novel. Others have names writ large in history: John D. Rockefeller, John D. Ryan, the chief executive of the Anaconda Copper Company, Max Blank and Isaac Harris, the owners of the Asch Building that housed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.

It should not be surprising if even a quick look at A Place to Hide reminds a reader of such classic works of labor fiction as those of Sinclair Lewis, Jack London, or John Steinbeck. The history of labor is in large part a history of struggle and repression. Pressed between the bookends of the Speculator Mine Disaster and the opening of the Holland Tunnel, Salner makes us acutely aware of how difficult and arduous has the push in the arc of Justice been in the struggle for workers’ rights. It is Bill/Jimmy’s crime, for which he was handed a life sentence, to have led strikers, as did his murdered brother before him. What moves a man to take the giant step from grief to action is poignantly underlined in Salner’s descriptions of the aftermath of mine disasters, euphemistically called accidents by the powers in control.

“They found some bodies perfectly intact, huddled against those concrete bulkheads, intact except for fingers that were worn down to bone scrapping against the barrier as lungs filled with smoke. Bill had worked for days laying out what was left of the bodies… They carried stretchers…Some were as light as feathers even with the remnants of more than one man. They couldn’t tell how many were jumbled together.”

This is a story not only about the few characters who weave through the pages of A Place to Hide, but of every man and woman who has played a part in the advance of humane working conditions and freedom from preventable work disaster in America.

A Decorous Way to Explode: An Interview with Avner Landes, author of Meiselman: The Lean Years

Control

Stuart: Martin Amis has this great line about early Roth, that he was “always looking for a decorous way to explode.” I don’t necessarily sense this in your meticulous writing but I do sense it in Meiselman himself. At one point he says, “Jews don’t believe in controlling emotions. Jews believe in controlling actions.” Meiselman might know this intellectually, even theologically, but it doesn’t always work out for him in that way. The novel deftly introduces this idea early on when you write: “After thirty-six years, Meiselman had reached a limit, a breaking point.”

Avner: Yes. Meiselman thinks the “breaking point” is that he’s done taking everyone’s abuse. In reality, the breaking point is that he’s done sublimating his emotions. Of course, this isn’t something someone simply decides to do, and, in Meiselman’s case, it swings too far the other way, where he suddenly can’t control his emotions or his actions. Most of us wrestle with this question of how do we know when to act on our emotions. We have to learn to hear what the world—people, situations—is telling us. It comes down to self-awareness, but even the most self-aware person will get it wrong some—or most—of the time, but we hope that awareness of getting it wrong will lead to a better outcome the next time. As the story progresses, Meiselman loses any ability to control his actions. Can he reverse this before the story comes to a close?

Fatalism

Stuart: There are so many strong observations in the novel about what I would call Meiselman’s fatalism; he’s doomed, he deserves it. When he has car trouble he thinks, “Meiselman would never pull over for Meiselman.” You counter this with a comical strain of American self-improvement: he’s reading Lee Iacocca and Sam Walton and Ray Kroc, he’s wondering what Colin Powell would do. Meiselman wants to change his luck, even though he thinks his “luck breaks even.” This is such a rich source of return throughout the novel. And in many ways it works for him. Toward the close of the book, he is playing to win. Where do you locate the origins of this, and how did you think about luck and self-improvement when writing the book?

Avner: Early on, when I thought about the book’s shape, I used Bruce Jay Friedman’s Stern as a model. In the beginning of that book, Stern’s wife suffers an assault and humiliation at the hands of a neighbor, although we’re never fully sure what happened. Stern determines that he will eventually have to confront the neighbor and defend his wife’s “honor.” I was taken with this idea of Meiselman identifying a possible moment of redemption or liberation, which he does right after suffering his own humiliations at the story’s outset. When writing the book, I believed that this was a make-or-break week for Meiselman. Everything would change or he’d be doomed to a life of repeating the miserable patterns that had defined his lean years up until this point. But when I finished writing the book, it occurred to me that maybe this isn’t a unique week, a moment when the light bulb went off. Maybe this too is a pattern, where Meiselman identifies an upcoming moment that will act as a test, a moment when he can take an unexpected action and change his luck. Meiselman says at one point, “Every day, every waking moment, we torpedo potential paths to redemption…” Maybe for Meiselman every week is a week like this one.

Jewish writers

Stuart: Meiselman is an orthodox Jew from suburban Chicago who works in a library, so let’s start crankily with what it means to be a Jewish writer. I’m thinking of recent takes on this question by critics like Adam Kirsch and Joshua Cohen, who generally conclude that it’s the non-Jewish lions – Updike and Franzen come to mind – who long to play the Jew, while writers like Roth and Bellow wanted only to be Americans. What does identifying as a Jewish writer mean to you? What does it mean to write a ‘capital J’ Jewish book; Meiselman is not a Jew because he likes pickles and Crossing Delancey — he’s a believer. What are your hopes in publishing such a Jewish book, an American book?

Avner: Roth, Bellow, and Malamud definitely influenced my writing early on, but I took the wrong lessons from them when it came to the question of being a Jewish writer. I appreciated that they wrote stories that were heavy with Jewish content and populated with Jews because this was their world. Even if one can argue that Roth, especially, does end up saying a lot about Jews and the Jewish experience in America —you and I have been discussing The Counterlife, to pick one huge example —it would be presumptuous to assume that this was his goal. Well, I made this assumption when I started writing. And I strived to do similar things with my own work. I wrote a story called "My Trip to Poland," about a formerly religious guy who goes on a JCC heritage trip to Poland with a bunch of retirees. He ends up getting drunk every night in the hotel bar with one of the Polish hotel workers, and too hungover to ever join the group for the tour of Auschwitz. Is that funny? Hell, yeah. But the story bothered me as I developed as a writer, because it had nothing to say about people and why they do what they do. The humor felt cheap and obvious. To paraphrase something David Bezmozgis once said, irreverence implies that something is revered, his point being, I guess, that irreverence isn't something a nihilist can pull off, and if we can't access a character's soul then it's tough to know what he or she reveres. Eventually, I grew as a writer and became more interested in the characters themselves, as opposed to using them as vehicles to deliver a message, Jewish or otherwise. Readers can feel free to identify me as such but they shouldn't expect any grand or guiding statements. I don't speak for Jews. I don't even speak for me when I write. I speak for the characters I'm writing.

Fertility

Stuart: Meiselman and Deena’s fertility struggles are a source of humor and pathos throughout the novel. This made for some colorful passages. “Deena ate mandrakes, drank willow water blessed by an Israeli seer, recited Psalm 145 daily, and visited the graves of rabbis. Deena’s barrenness, though, could not be cured, and frustration ended this routine.” Talk about what this plot line meant to you and what you were trying to accomplish.

Avner: It came from my reluctance to give Meiselman and Deena a kid. At the time I started writing the book, I didn’t have a child and wasn’t confident I could pull it off. But here was an Orthodox couple that had been married for four years, and, in that world, fertility issues are one of the only reasons why a couple like that wouldn’t have a child. In the end, this plot line did a lot of work of manifesting Meiselman’s delusions, starting with his blaming their difficulty conceiving on “Deena’s barrenness,” when it is his own sperm count issue that is the problem. Then there is his reluctance to consider adoption, his belief that genes are all that matter, and not because he believes in nature over nurture, but because he assumes adoption will paint him as a sterile, and, therefore, unmanly man. But the real question I hope readers will ask is, “Is Meiselman prepared in any way to parent a child?” On some deeper level, is this why he can’t impregnate his wife? The thought does eventually occur to him. 

Food

Stuart: When Meiselman acts out, it is often through eating. I would say he has a borderline eating disorder in these, his lean years. How did you think about using food (and candy) in the novel?

Avner: Meiselman eats the same bowl of oatmeal at breakfast every morning and the same peanut butter and jelly sandwich, bag of chips, and apple juice box for lunch. Every Friday night, Meiselman and his wife eat dinner at his parents. Mealtimes in Meiselman’s life, in other words, are ritualized, providing him with the order he strives for in every other area of his life. How else will he keep his impulses at bay? He has even come to expect certain types of conversations at each meal. Breakfast is lighthearted, he and his wife sharing news stories from the papers. Sunday lunch is for serious matters. As his wife, Deena, remarks at one point, “It’s fun watching you with your parents at Shabbat dinner. Everyone giving rundowns of their week.” In Deena’s mind, mealtimes are about connecting. In the book, however, mealtime usually ends up exposing the frayed lines of communication between the people sitting at the table. Because food can only occupy people for five, ten minutes. Then they are full. Then they need to do something with their traps, which usually results in talking and saying the wrong things. At one point Meiselman comes across the name of the actress Christina Ricci and we get the line, “Meiselman rented one of the actress’s movies thinking it was about football. Turned out it was about a miserable family sitting around a dining room table spewing bottled up grievances at one another.” This is a more accurate description of how mealtimes unfold in the novel. The movie is Buffalo ’66.

Our entire discussion could have been about food in the novel! But I’ll just add something about candy, or, more specifically, non-kosher food in the novel. When you grow up Jewish Orthodox, you are surrounded by people from your community and you have little awareness that most of the world doesn’t share your lifestyle. Food plays an outsized role in those moments when you make contact with the “outside world” and its divergence from how you live; ballgame hotdogs; commercials for candy; the bar and bat mitzvahs of cousins who don’t keep the laws of kosher. Through a child’s eyes, food, more than anything else, becomes the symbol for how the other half lives. So, yes, he acts out and briefly breaks free from his confinement through eating. But these forbidden foods he eats are also about his appetite for exploring new tastes. Change isn’t easy for any of us, and it usually does look juvenile.

Therapy

Stuart: I really enjoyed the resistance and acceptance of therapy in the novel. I'm curious how you see therapy functioning in Meiselman’s Orthodox community? You write that he doesn’t like people who think of God as your pal. Is a therapist your pal?

Avner: This book is a subtle love letter to therapy. Sure it engages in all of the stereotypes about therapy but only because they are all true and funny. Meiselman, we can all agree, is a prime candidate for therapy, the three-days-a-week variety. We learn he went in his twenties for a year, but, for an inexplicable reason, his mother took him out of therapy. From Meiselman’s memories of his time with Dr. Lin, we detect regret over his not having had more time with the doctor. It was having some type of impact on him, however small. Later, when it’s decided that he’ll return to therapy after an eight years absence, we sense his excitement but also his anxiety. He knows it’s what he needs to finally let go of certain things. But who will he be once he lets go of those things?

Now to answer your question about whether a therapist is a pal: It takes years and years of therapy to understand that the answer is no, a therapist isn’t a pal because what friend would put up with so much complaining; a therapist is a therapist.

Losers

Stuart: The Capitol Riots have gotten me thinking a lot about the history of losers. I read this provocative idea about losers recently, in an essay about how the Hebrew bible could be historical fiction to soothe a nation that lost. I was reading your novel at the same time and I couldn’t help seeing this “history of the loser” in Meiselman. I’m curious what you think about this idea in relation to Meiselman: “History may in the short term be made by the victors, but historical wisdom is in the long run enriched more by the vanquished  . . . Being defeated appears to be an inexhaustible well- spring of intellectual progress.”

Avner: “Soothe a nation that lost” seems to indicate a sugar-coating of history, which wouldn’t be enriching but impoverishing. But maybe a people, or a person, need both things along the way. We first need to feed ourselves a soothing explanation, something to get our breathing under control. Then, one day, we’re ready to confront what happened and deal with the cold, hard truth of it. That’s how I see Meiselman’s processing the history of his loserdom. So many books treat traumas as if their interpretations are clear-cut to the victims and readers. That they unlock a deeper mystery, explain motivations. (I want to be clear that I’m not talking about violent, severe traumas. We’re talking garden-variety traumas.) I’ve tried to treat the interpretation of the traumas in Meiselman’s past as something ongoing. At age forty, we’ll look at something from our childhood in a much different way than when we were twenty. We’ve identified other patterns. We’ve learned more about our own tendencies and the tendencies of others. Or maybe we’re not more enlightened and we’ve sunk even deeper into our own delusions.  

Subtitles

Stuart: Finally, the full title of the novel is Meiselman: The Lean Years. What made you decide on a subtitle? Was the book ever just called Meiselman?

Avner: There was a point late in the game when I considered dropping one of the titles, but my publisher, Jerry Brennan, urged me to keep both of them, and I’m glad I took his advice. The subtitle? I always thought calling a 420-page doorstopper The Lean Years was a solid joke, one that was even funnier when it was 550 pages. I also like the idea that we can look at this one week in Meiselman’s life and know that all of his years until this point have been lean. It does prompt the question whether fat years are on the horizon for poor Meiselman, a thought Meiselman has at one point in the book, although he can’t recall the biblical story and is unsure of what precedes what. But the book takes place in 2004, and Meiselman’s beloved, long-suffering White Sox haven’t won the World Series in 86 years, a streak that will end the next season. Why the Meiselman part of the title? Because this is not a parable. I want to make clear to the reader from the get-go that no matter what you may think of him, I’m here writing this book, standing up for him, when nobody else in the world will.  

In the End, It's All and Always Metaphor: An Interview with Rone Shavers, Author of Silverfish

Micah Zevin: Your book Silverfish reads like an instant dystopian science fiction classic that may have already happened in reality. What are your influences, and what are the origins of this unconventionally told narrative that employs dialogue and interviews with characters as a tool to move the plot forward?

Rone Shavers: In a way, it’s safe to say that Silverfish, like a lot of first novels, was influenced by almost everything I’ve ever read. But if I had to name names, I can cop to the fact that the thumbprints of William Gaddis and Samuel R. Delany—that should be fairly obvious—stain nearly every page, and the work of authors such as Ishmael Reed and Percival Everett loom large, too. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention or William Gass, Don Barthelme, or David Markson, especially for the latter authors’ use of fragments and fragmented narratives which nonetheless somehow add up to a whole. To be frank, also add a little Dos Passos into the mix, as well as Lynne Tillman. And frankly, I need to also shout-out Cris Mazza, who taught me equally as much about the hows of novel writing as she did about what it is that actually makes novels successful. Really, I should say that I’ve been stylistically influenced by a lot of male writers, yes, but reading and learning from women writers is what best taught me how writers actually think, make, and do, especially in terms of narrative economy and compression. I could go on about it, but instead I think it better to be clear, direct, and maybe even offensively assertive: read more fucking women writers! And read more BIPOC authors, too! In that vein, I wish I could claim Renee Gladman as somehow having an influence, but I came to her work well after my book was done. Also, a whole lot of people whom I absolutely trust have made comparisons between my book and Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ M Archive, but alas, I’ve yet to read Gumbs’ very well-acclaimed work. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m scared it might be better, and better thought out, than my own.

Still, that said, I also have to admit that I was as much influenced by music (and by both examples and the idea of the musicality of language) as I was by past literary production. In fact, there’s an almost criminally under-regarded American BIPOC author by the name of Ricardo Cortez Cruz who published several very interesting books in the 1990s (Five Days of Bleeding is one title; the name is an intentional riff on a Linton Kwesi Johnson song), and one can basically draw a line between his work and my own, especially in terms of how we both re/appropriate song lyrics as a means of signifying, doubling, and magnifying-meaning. His approach probably definitely floated around in my subconscious for a while. So yeah, really, music and the treatment of music as a form of text, as just another language, also played a part in how I conceived of the work. 

With that said, it’s somewhat hard to describe the novel’s origins; there is no origin. As Ishmael Reed or James Weldon Johnson would say, Silverfish “jes grew.” That is to say, all I did was think about the social conditions inherent to late capitalism—its avatars, its neoliberal posturing, its love of technological advancement as a means of geopolitical hegemony, etc.—and take things to their logical extreme. People keep saying how weirdly prescient the novel is, but that’s only because it reflects a future we’ve already chosen to inhabit. When everything becomes thought of and treated as a commodity that can be bought, sold, marketed or traded, everything including one’s opinion or identity (and yeah, I’m talking about all the social media “influencers” out there), then the future presented in the novel reflects our present reality; we live in a future that’s already here.

MZ: What does the character Sergeant Clayton symbolize or represent in this society totally ruled by the DOW, labelling anyone else as primitive and outside of society if they don’t or can’t follow the rules or strive to reach its heights in spite of their likely deaths?

RS: I’m afraid I don’t think that much about symbolism or write with specific symbols in mind, so for me, Clayton doesn’t symbolize anything other than what he is. He’s just someone trying to live the life he wants to live but finds himself beholden to (although hampered may be a better way to put it) social forces well beyond his control. If anything, Clayton is a bit cleverer than most, because he understands that the social system doesn’t work, not at least for people like him. Yet, while he’s well aware of the system’s flaws, he doesn’t know how to get around them. The way the world of Silverfish is set up, it’s set up so that he can’t get around them. At the very least, it’s set up in a way that makes it extraordinarily difficult to see or even think of a way around them. That’s a problem in Clayton’s world, but it’s also a contemporary problem, too. As the underappreciated French speculative writer Al Thusser pointed out in his groundbreaking work, “ISA,” capitalism is an ideology, and like any ideology, capitalism interpellates. And it’s hard, if almost impossible, to see your way outside of something when you’re interpellated by it. I’m paraphrasing one of his main themes, of course, but you get the gist. In Clayton’s world as in our own, we’re taught to neither question nor think too deeply, and instead are taught to act and react in ways that deflect or detract from any notion of real, radical, life-altering change. We can’t conceive of an “outside” of commodity capitalism because it’s totalizing. It’s our worldview and therefore there is no outside of it. And even when we imagine or actually do fight against it, our attempts are weaker than weak. I mean, how many of us are willing to give up our laptops and Instagram feeds and broadband access so that dozens a day (if not an exponential amount more) don’t suffer for our need of Coltan? How many would shudder a moment before they shrugged it off and opted to intentionally forget (what’s Coltan again?) about the whole thing before deliberately pulling out their phone in order to focus on something else? That, my friend, is interpellation. That’s how interpellation into a commodity capitalist system works. So no, Clayton’s not a symbol. He’s a subject. 

MZ: What’s the purpose of the Angel and the silverfish in bringing down a fragile world controlled and run by financial dealings that clearly seems to criminalize or penalize empathy, personal feelings and language?

RS: If you believe empathy and a belief in the dogged accumulation of wealth are compatible, especially within a neo-liberal capitalist system, then boy, have I got an exciting investment opportunity for you! All to say that Angels and silverfish are the products of a totalizing system that seeks to limit how those within it are capable of responding to (or even effecting change within) it. In other words, the “purpose” of the angels and silverfish are evident fairly early on in the book. The Angels destroy people, the silverfish destroy things. They do so because whatever is destroyed can then be rebuilt (in terms of things), or replaced (in terms of people). Destruction as a way to effect change, even if it’s unneeded or unwanted; planned destruction as an excuse, a necessary rationale for “growth”.

I know it sounds farfetched, but it’s really something that happens. Again, it’s just a neo-liberal, market-based solution taken to its logical conclusion. For example, here’s just one way this manner of destruction-as-growth plays out: If, say, you own a factory and you have a glut of non-unionized, low-wage workers doing jobs that require little training or skills, and one day something happens which threatens your factory’s profits, well then, one of the easiest ways to turn things around and ensure your costs stay low is by simply eliminating or replacing your workforce. And you’ve more likely to want to replace your workforce if there is pressure or talk of having increase their wages. To the owner, the worker’s wages are yet another expense, and the worker becomes not a person, but a symbol of that increasingly burdensome, frustrating, maddening expense. Thus, the best way to keep costs down in your factory is to hit the reset button by getting a whole new set of workers (or even better, machines—they don’t take breaks or talk back, and inanimate things certainly don’t ask for a living wage), because they’ll do the same job at what you can downwardly define as either a stagnant (or lower, if you can manipulate or misinform them enough, or well, just relocate the factory altogether) or a starter, “entry-level” wage. This happens all the time, and it destroys sympathy and empathy—yes, feelings—as much as it does families, all in the name of financial growth, aka, profit. I say that because even you, Mr. factory-owner Micah, even you, regardless of your sentiments and possible sympathy towards your workers, you can be forced to lay off your workforce. And especially if your factory is a publicly-traded entity or you have business partners who don’t feel the same way as you, if your partners or enough shareholders accuse you of deliberately denying them profit, well then, you can be sued and your ownership taken away and given to someone else. There are even some instances in which one is legally bound to turn a profit, with little regard to resulting emotional impact or cost. So then, basically, what I’m saying is capitalism has little room for feelings, save for those feelings which motivate people towards more accumulation, such as greed, avarice, and schadenfreude.

MZ: How is this story tied to the happenings in our present world’s troubles?

RS: See my response(s) to the question(s) above, as well as below.

MZ: In Chapter V, Dr Beagel’s ‘reprogramming of the Angel and its language speaks to the notion of repression of language, our human language as well as self. Can you elaborate on this and the purpose of the directions he plants in the Angel’s mind?

RS: What’s a “human” language? How does human language differ from a means of communication such as whale songs? Or birdsong? How does human prepositional usage differ from an ant’s use of complex movements to convey accurate and often extremely vital information? In other words, what, precisely, is language, and how do you classify it? What are the particular triggers that allow you to recognize a language as language? And yeah, these questions may come across as somewhat arch or trite, but I’m dead serious when I ask them. We may think of language as simply human (or species) vocalization that conveys clearly-defined sets and subsets of information, but then, what are doing when we hum or sing? For example, if I were to chant “fa la-la-lala,” or “scooby dee-do-bop boo,” from what globally-recognized language do those phrases spring from? It’s all to say that we yoke the concept of language together with what should be properly called rhetoric and rhetorical strategies, when those things are actually quite very different. (And yes, there’s even a whole heap of issues that need to be unpacked regarding the very idea of “our”—let alone “human”—language, but that’s a can of worms best left tightly sealed for now.)

But still, yeah. While I could kick these tires all day, it may just be better to say that rather than language, there is something more important to focus on, especially in terms of ways of intellectually framing the novel. More than the concept of language, one should focus on the concept of metaphor. Specifically, the use, misuse, and purpose of metaphor as a driving force in the work—even on a meta-level—because in the novel, “language” itself functions as a sort of metaphor: it becomes a way of ordering, organizing, creating, and reconceiving of the world. All to say that the book contains few overt symbols, but it does have an awful lot of stand-ins, things that represent something other than just themselves. One of the great contradictions of the society portrayed in Silverfish is that it’s one that attempts to enforce a type of communication that avoids all types of ill- or miscommunication, yet also totally relies on verbal indirection and misdirection. Nearly every conversation contains a word or a phrase serves as a stand-in for something else. Their attempts to avoid metaphor can only be done by speaking (and thinking) metaphorically, and it’s something the Angel figures it out halfway through: Their world, the ordering of it, the organization of it, even their perception of it, everything, it’s not some mild euphemism, it’s all one big, essential, extremely uncomfortable metaphor. Then again, in the end, it’s all and always metaphor, isn’t it? Because well, isn’t that what it means to be human? Seriously, asking for a friend…

MZ: Nerd question: Are Angel’s partly human or are they purely androids with implanted memories and information that can be altered or manipulated?

RS: Nerd answer: The Angels are human-based, cybernetic organisms; thus, they’re human. It’s mentioned in the text that Angels can be stripped down to their “chassis,”—that is, their organic parts (which are those things solely needed to maintain optimal brain functionality and individualized cerebral output: heart, lungs, and a few other equally as important squishy bits), so yes, Angels are partly human. But note that this is a world where cybernetic implants are not that uncommon. The combat associates, for example, have subcutaneous receivers and various other electronic “imbeds,” and if a silverfish detects an imbed, a silverfish will go after it and eat it. That’s what makes people so afraid of them.  

That said, as for your questions about memory, I was lucky enough to read Jean-Claude Forest’s Barbarella when I was young, and there’s a famous line in it that’s always stayed with me, if solely for its conceptual fecundity. In fact, I liked the line so much that I thematically alluded to it, if not outright included it in my own book. The line is, “An angel has no memory.” And when you think about what that means, the implications are totally wonderful, an almost limitless philosophical playground in which to explore. I mean, a big part of what forms our sense of self, as well as our moral and ethical core, is our collective and individual memory. But what would things look like if memory wasn’t there? How would we act and respond to events? In what strange, new, or staid ways would we think and react? The answers are as myriad as they are fascinating… and well beyond the scope of this one, small book. 

MZ: I dig the invented terms and phrases such as “species agnostic,” “webblind” and “wetworked.” How did you come up with this language? What influenced you?

RS: What influenced me? Science! Good old-fashioned, hardcore, word-nerd type, imaginary, made-up science! I mean, geez, show me the real-world ship that has matter transporters or can fire a photon torpedo! (Although to be fair, the subtle, referential elegance of “Heisenberg couplings” being essential to warp drive technology earns all the special merits. Kudos to the writer who thought up that one!) What I mean is part of the writer’s job, especially when writing about an imagined, possible future, instead of an improbable one, is to use words that are readily available as a means of describing what everyone either already knows or is quite capable of understanding through contemporary context. All to say that while I’m wary of any hard and fast rule, when writing sci-fi, a good rule of thumb is to invent new words only when absolutely necessary. The invented terms and phrases that I use in the novel are really just extensions—one-word summations, actually—of how we currently conceive of things.

That said, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was also thinking about the concept of networks and the various forms of networks already present in the world. By way of example, and even to flesh out the three terms that you cite, there’s stuff like this (and what the heck; for shits and giggles, let’s define them in reverse order):

1. “Wetworked” came to me because most combat associates have intra- and internet-ready implants embedded just under their skin, thus their network capability, as well as their relation to their cybernetic devices, is biological, bloody, messy, sloppy, “wet.” Perhaps the most basic way to say it is that during the time of the novel, implants have replaced internet-accessing cell phones. The data networks still are there, only now you carry them in your body. Therefore, one acknowledges that the global network of information-as-capital exchange is a part of you; it’s in you. It’s not a cold, sterile “net,” it’s wet. There’s also another referential aspect to the term wetworked, but I won’t say what it is. An author has to keep some secrets, and in each life, there are mysteries.

2. Part of the Angel’s consciousness is housed on the internet, aka, the world wide web, aka, a network of information. I don’t go into great detail about it in the novel—it wasn’t necessary to the plot—but part of why people say that Angels can’t die is because if placed under extreme duress, they can simply shunt their consciousness from server to server, meaning that they can just travel the web, extracting, collating, and recombining information into new and novel patterns (in the book I call this process “spooling”). It’s what makes Angels so effective at seeing, knowing, and identifying things that other people can’t. Therefore, I thought up “webblind” to refer to those instances when an Angel—or anyone else, really—has somehow been cut off from the internet. With no access to information, it’s as if they’re literally blind to the events going on in the larger world. And given that the world of Silverfish is so relentlessly fast-paced, being webblind is a cause of great stress and anxiety. I guess a contemporary way to describe it would be if I were to ask you to imagine if you lost your smart phone, then tell you that whatever sense of anxiety and disconnectedness you may feel for having lost it, increase those feelings exponentially.  

3. As for “species agnostic,” even a first-grader can tell you that we exist within a network of living things, so…so well, we’re in the midst of a global pandemic, and what we’re actually experiencing every day is a species agnostic organism going through its motions. That is, the novel COVID-19 coronavirus has infected big cats, bats, humans, pangolins, if I’m correct the occasional dog, minks, domestic housecats, and about a dozen other species we haven’t discovered so far because we really haven’t been looking that hard for it in anything other than people. In other words, I used the phrase “species agnostic” because there are organisms such as viruses and microbes that really don’t care one whit what species you are; what matters more to them is their propagation and survival. If they can live and breed in the wet and possibly warm protein sack that is your species, then so be it. In short, the planetary network of living things is more than just the mammalian animal kingdom, and we’d be wise to remember it.

MZ: What makes this novel experimental and what is your opinion of the current landscape of experimental writing whether it is science fiction or other genres?

RS: What makes this novel “experimental” is that I’m completely uninterested in overinflated, supposedly “novelistic” concerns such as plot, characterization, or a reader’s emotional response to the work. All of it bores me. (And as an aside, the inane privileging of someone “feeling,” rather than thinking, while reading fiction has been the cause of many a writer’s and reader’s undoing.) If anything, I’m more of a Formalist. Aesthetically, I’m likely what you could call a “New Formalist,” but I digress….

What makes this novel experimental is that it doesn’t attempt to tell a conventional tale in a conventional way. That’s about it. (But of course, one should realize that the word “experimental” is often pejoratively used by publishers to indicate that a book has no mainstream commercial appeal. That wasn’t the case with Clash Books, my publishers, but a lot of the really big publishing houses still label and attempt to discredit books and authors through the use of a “Scarlet E”.) Still, to get at the root of your question, the one regarding the current landscape of experimental writing, I must say that my use of the term to describe the novel is quite deliberate. I chose to purposely call the book experimental because when it’s not used as a pejorative, the term experimental also unfortunately gets used in a very racialized way.

I know I’m going to stir up a whole hornet’s nest here, but BIPOC work that takes informed, literary risks in terms of either its form or its content often gets read and treated as something separate, something outside of the standard (basically, cis white male) tradition of literary fiction that tests the boundaries of narrative and novelistic conventions. Fiction by BIPOC authors is too often said to represent some sort of oral or socio-cultural tradition—it’s read as an expression of one’s particular ethnicity—instead of being read and treated as a literary object, and that’s just flat-out wrong. Of course, a book can do both things simultaneously, but you wouldn’t know it, at least not based upon how an experimental BIPOC work is positioned in both the literary and cultural landscape by both critics and PR people alike. That’s to say, with a few notable exceptions, the category of experimental literary fiction often gets treated as the last bastion of white intellectual activity, complete with its own methods of cultural and aesthetic policing. And if you don’t believe me, here’s just one example of how it all plays out, phrased in the form of a query: How many postmodern BIPOC authors can you name off the top of your head who get mentioned in academic discussions and writings on literary postmodernism? I bet the answer is not that many. In reality there are quite a lot of BIPOC postmodernists (and experimentalists—the two categories aren’t mutually exclusive), but part of the problem is that they never get labeled as such. Instead, they’re categorized by dint of their race, and in that way get recognized as something other than what they are, at least in terms of aesthetic groupings and categorization. To rephrase all of the above in a much more provocative fashion, it’s extremely tough for BIPOC authors to create experimental work that gets solely judged according to an aesthetic standard, mainly because of a deep-seated expectation that the work must be solely a reflection of one’s social (racial, gender, etc.) background instead of one’s literary background. In fact, the work is judged to have merit only according to how closely it hews, and in many cases, reaffirms preconceived ideas of what it means to belong to a specific social, racial, or cultural background. And when you’re trying to make work that does indeed depend upon the reader having at least a modicum of literary awareness as well as cultural awareness, you get doubly-marginalized, and that absolutely sucks. Basically, what I’m detailing is the same damning conundrum that Percival Everett wrote about in his aesthetically stellar and infamous work, Erasure—which was published 20 years ago! But unfortunately, the same problem still holds true today. 

MZ: I often hear the words ‘elegiac,” ‘prophecy’ and ‘incantation or conjuring’ used when describing or reading sci-fi novels or stories. How do these terms apply to this book?

RS: To be honest, I don’t really know if they do. I didn’t set out to write or do any of those things. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I was more concerned with questions and concepts of language and literary form than I was attempting to be prophetic. Really, I’d like to turn the question around, and instead ask you (and by extension, the novel’s reader), Would you apply the above terms to my book, and if so, why? In what particular manner? What is it about Silverfish that lends itself so easily to these descriptors? Better yet, what is it about the novel that doesn’t match the terms? What was it about Silverfish that surprised you?

MZ: In conclusion I really enjoyed and was fascinated by this book and would read it over and over to find clues and details I have missed. It reminds me of the best of J.G. Ballard, Asimov, Bradbury and Octavia Butler. How did you apply both past and present history to inform your work, which expresses many ideas related to class, technology, good and bad? What do you see in your writing future that you are ready to talk about?

RS: Well, I’m gonna say this is an instance where the question answers itself, in that I applied both past and present history to inform my work, as well as the ideas in it. It wasn’t that hard to do, really, and hopefully this interview explains several of the whys and how I did what I did, without straying too far afield.

That said, in terms of what I’m gonna do next (or what I’m writing now), well, lately I’ve been taking the idea of working in fragments to its logical conclusion by writing short prose works that resist easy narrative coherence. Basically, I’m writing crônicas. For those who don’t know, crônicas are a Lusophone literary form that perhaps can best be described as a combination of diary, observational flash fiction, and prose poetry. They don’t have to add up to highlight or illustrate a simple, unified narrative or meaning of any particular sort, and I’ve been having lots of fun writing these while ideas gestate for my next longer work. In fact, I have a chapbook of crônicas coming out in about six weeks through Magnificent Field Press, so if others want to get a more concrete idea of what I’ve been doing or what my crônicas are like, they’ll have an opportunity to read a collected volume containing a bunch of them. Other than that, I can’t talk too much about my future projects, except to say that in my next book-length work, themes and issues centered around the economy and the letter K will likely play a very significant role. For now, that’s about all I can say about it.