What Is a Man's Literature?

There's much ado right now about the books I should be reading. I say this particularly as a man, having all the proper parts and such, whatever that has to do with my reading preferences.

You see, evidently, Esquire Magazine seems to think it does, having recently released their list of 75 Books Every Man Should Read. It's chock full of what you'd expect it to be chock full of: Bukowski, Carver, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Vonnegut, Hemingway, et alii. And what's really making news is that it is particularly devoid of names like Woolf, Shelley, Atwood, Plath, et aliae. Not even Harper Lee made the list. In fact, the only female on the whole damn thing is Flannery O'Conner.

I was glad to see Jezebel respond with their own list, but just as perturbed that it was titled 75 Books Every Woman Should Read. While not quite as devoid of male writers as Esquire was of females, still only 3 males made their list. And, I know, I know. Jezebel's list was made in direct response to Esquire, so there should be some expectation that they'd offer approximately 75 amazing female writers to provide some balance, but I think Brian Carr puts it best of at Dark Sky Books's blog:

"Why the polarization? Why the exploitation of emotions? Attention: as long as people pander to the edges there will be no advancement. It’s as American politics works today. Affirmation less than information. Enrage rather than engage."

Which is exactly what happened. Over at HTML Giant, Roxane Gay came out swinging.

"Esquire is a men’s magazine so it makes sense that a reading list they curate will reflect certain themes and biases. What’s troubling though, is the implication that men should only read literature written by men, that men don’t need to bother with books written by women, and of course, that the only great books are those written by men. What other message can we take from a list where seventy-four books are written by men and only one is written by a woman? Women writers are being done a disservice but the far greater disservice here is to men. This list not only perpetuates the erasure of great writing by women, it cultivates the erroneous and myopic notion that men only want to read a certain kind of book. If I were a man, I’d find this list insulting."

And, she's right. I probably would feel insulted, but somewhere along the way, I've developed some sort of thick skin. I'm not easily insulted, and to be honest, rather than rage, I felt a sadness. I supposed what I see in this list, in a disheartening and probably naive way, is a reflection of myself, an ease of forgiveness. Just last January, after putting on a reading here in Indy that included a line up of all males, I took a good, hard look at the titles on my Vouched Books table: 23 titles in all, only 2 of them by women.

I didn't even realize it while it was happening right in front of me.

I guess I'm saying I can relate, and what saddens me most is Esquire probably won't do what I did and make an attempt to balance the scales. It was easy for me to replace some of my titles with new titles by female writers. But, even if there are people working at Esquire who would like to, there's likely too much hubris throughout the editorial staff to do anything to make this right.

Of course, I don't even have the answer of how to "make this right?" Sure, they can re-release a more balanced list, but there are greater issues at stake here, to which I can't begin to pretend I have any answers.

I wonder if Esquire knew, whether it was their intention to have an all male list sans Flannery. I assume it's in large part pandering to their audience. I mean, their teaser description for The Grapes of Wrath is simply, "Because it's all about the titty." I assume it's in large part the intention to get men to read at all, to provide something of a starter list for a man who doesn't already love the word, and should that man choose at random, he's much more likely to develop a taste for books starting first with one of these more brutish books, and maybe it's their hope these men would branch out from there. But Roxane is right: whether intentional or not, it is sad and unfortunate the implied assumption that it is not necessary for a man to read female writers (except Flannery), that a man wouldn't fall as much in love with reading were he to first read The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood) or To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee).

I guess what bothers me most is the idea of "a man's literature." That a man would (should?) be most drawn to a literature that is tough--literature that might contain the phrase "muscular prose" on its jacket copy, literature about fishing, drinking, blue collars, hunting, etc.

I think about Cut Through the Bone, written by Ethel Rohan who is very much a woman. Of course it's not going to be on this list. It's less than a year old, too untested to list among so many classics, and well, let's be honest, I'd be surprised if anyone at Esquire has even heard of Cut. But, I wonder how the Esquire-man might respond to a book like CTTB. I would be talking out my ass if I tried to guess; I am not an Esquire-man, nor am I particularly interested in becoming one.

I want to believe Cut would be welcomed like a prodigal child. I want to believe in the Esquire-man, that maybe a book like Cut could speak to him, that he could see something of himself in these narrators similar to what he could see of himself in The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Mostly, I want to believe this man, or any man, doesn't need a fistfight to find himself.

Reviewing a Review: Amber Sparks at Vouched

Every Friday, my plan is to reach out into the small press community and highlight writers/readers/bloggers who are writing about Cut Through the Bone. Because I want to be honest here, I'll admit that there is some cross promotion between my internet tendencies with today's post, since I'm reviewing a review of Cut Through the Bone by Amber Sparks over at Vouched, my other baby.

In my intro/launch post this past Wednesday, I mentioned briefly how Rohan doesn't just leave her readers with loss in her stories, but allows readers a space to grow in the absence of what was lost. And what I loved about Spark's review was how she focused on that aspect of these stories:

"I feel that many of the reviews I’ve read of Ethel’s book have focused mostly on the loss. With good reason: the characters that walk through these pages are all missing something, whether it is a leg or breasts or a child or love. They have all suffered a great and scarring rending away of some kind. Yet to me, the real wonder, the bright discovery made within these stories was not so much the losses sustained, but what was gained with some uneasy grace, after the initial shock."

One of the aspects of Cut Through the Bone I love so much is how Rohan doesn't provide her readers with some epiphany brought about from the loss in these stories, but allows us to find it for ourselves, or perhaps in ourselves. I've always been wary of stories that try to wrap these themes up so neat and tidy with some, "All of a sudden, s/he realized," sort of moment, because anyone who's dealt with loss, whether the loss of a pet or the loss of a close friend/relative/loved one, knows it just doesn't work like that.

Dealing with the grief of loss takes work, dammit, and that's what Rohan lets us do: work. She doesn't patronize or coddle us. She trusts us to have the strength and courage necessary to make our own bright discoveries.

I strongly believe how you respond to Cut Through the Bone will reflect how you respond to loss in your own life. If you read these stories and respond with the simple, classic classroom question, "Why is everything we read in this class so sad?" then I'll be frank with you: you're either ill-equipped to deal or inexperienced in dealing with grief and loss.

Sure, loss is sad, but it doesn't end there unless you let it. And of course some people give way to that, and a collection of stories centered around this theme wouldn't be complete without recognizing that, which Rohan does, as Amber writes:

"This description may be too pat, may make it seem as though this was one of those books, where the women are strong and the men are weak, where the women are good and the men are all assholes. Not so. Ethel is far more of a complex, nuanced writer than that. True, her men are more often than not in need of help, morally weak, or just the less able of the partnership; but there is not too much bitterness in the extra help the women lend. Instead this seemed to me a deep understanding Ethel has of the weight and balance of love, and the special kind of strength women have always had to possess. Sometimes, too, the women are fragile, are weak, break under their burdens. In “Lifelike,” and in “Make Over,” the women collapse into their own fantasy worlds, unable to cope with life as it is."

I don't remember much about the week after my mother died. I didn't shave and I slept little, but I only know that from a picture my uncle took after the funeral, a tired sag in the skin around my eyes and my face buried beneath a brush of stubble.

My body moved apart from me. There were things necessary to be done, and my brother and I moved about doing them. I let my girlfriend empathize, let myself cry against her chest, because I knew how she needed to be needed. I let people hug me, give me their condolences. I didn't argue when people told me Mom was in a better place, that I'd see her again. They needed that.

What I needed was a book like Cut Through the Bone, a book that would show me how to respond with grace to what had been so unexpectedly amputated from my life, and wouldn't try to tell me how it would be all right, wouldn't try to sell me on an epiphany or a grand scheme of things. I needed a friend who trusted that the turmoil beneath my skin could be contained there, who didn't start every conversation with, "How you holdin' up?" as though I was some sort of staggering Atlas, who gave me stories other than my own for awhile, stories that made me work a little to find the hope and joy in them. If this sounds like the story of a life, okay.

Let's Collaborate on an Interview

My plan for posting here at TLP is to post every MWF, but whenever something feels pertinent, you'll see me pop up here on a Tuesday or Thursday. Like today.

I have an idea I want you to be a part of.

I intend to interview every author I feature here at TLP, but I wanted to involve the Lit Pub community in some way, so I thought, "What better way to involve the community than to solicit questions from them?"

So, TLP community, what is a question you've been dying to ask Ethel Rohan, about Cut Through the Bone, about any of her other work, about her life (no marriage proposals--I think she's already got one), her writing ethic, thoughts about the lunar landing conspiracy?

Leave your questions in the comment section. I'll do some curating of them, send them along to Ethel, and post the resulting interview here at TLP.

Stay classy, internet.

100% Real Ice Arena: Who Is Ofelia Hunt?

When we think of famous Ofelias, we first try to remember how Shakespeare spelled it, then we realize that isn't going to help. As we start talking about Today & Tomorrow, there will be a lot to dive into: zambonis, grandfathers, violence, trauma.

But first: who is Ofelia Hunt?

True, she blogs and she seems to like the poet Kenneth Koch a lot, but is she even real? Several people who are familiar with her work have contacted me and asked me to spill the beans.

Here, in a Lit Pub exclusive, I'm prepared to tell you this: get a copy of Today & Tomorrow, look carefully at the copyright page, and then think about those times when you were a kid when you put on your favorite holster and smudged your voice. Or, if you played role playing games, how you made up the best names you could think of. Or how before high school tennis matches, the coaches had to formally introduce each player: "Blurgity will be playing #1 against Blurgity, Glurgity will be playing #2 against etc." And sometimes I convinced my coach to introduce me as Xavier Damocles or Daradamand Fashuga, and I would pretend to be a foreign exchange student. All of which goes a little way toward the idea of how our imaginations construct their own ways of self-understanding, and the way writing a novel turns you into someone somewhat beside[s] yourself.

* * *

In an interview with NOÖ Journal's Alicia LaRosa, Ofelia Hunt playfully talked about how being Ofelia Hunt is a process:

AL: Do you take on a specific persona as Ofelia Hunt? Do you dig deep within yourself to find this person, detach yourself from reality this way by projecting this personality, or do you simply act au naturale?

OH: I'd like to say I put on a special bathrobe and eye makeup and kitten slippers. But I'm far more boring. I decided Ofelia liked a number of specific things and typed them out: 11 point Garamond, hyphens, repetition, trickery, 'math rock', parking lots… I made a list of writers Ofelia admires: Jean Rhys, Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner, Stacey Levine, Franz Kafka, Lydia Davis, Kenneth Koch, Kurt Vonnegut, Lisa Jarnot, Diane Williams, Joy Williams, etc... Ofelia Hunt does not like or understand plot. Her favorite move is Suicide Club (a Japanese movie sometimes called Suicide Circle). I woke every day for about two years at four a.m. to write and revise for sixty to ninety minutes before work. This may have detached me from reality. I remember feeling tired a lot, and listening to a lot of hiphop. Ofelia often writes about the kinds of things I muse about throughout a day, the things I find funny or strange. I think of Ofelia as both the "I" in the novel and the writer of the novel, so the novel may be a memoir.

AL: Are any of the characters in the novel based off of people you know personally? Related to?

OH: No, or not really. At most, certain moments, memories, instances, are based on reality. I grew up near Highland Ice Arena, and throughout middle school the Friday night skate was the place to be. I'd like to say that every character is a composite of every person I've ever met if that composite had been born me. The grandfather character is probably the parent I wish I had, and to some degree, has a sense of humor very much like my mother's.

* * *

As June continues, we'll be having more interviews with Ofelia and more discussion about identity and more talking about how who we are copes with who we imagine we are.

Before you start the novel, I think it's interesting to think about notions of authorship, and to try imagining Ofelia Hunt less as an "author" and more as an identity for testimony. After all, there is a long and rich literary history of pseudonyms, anonymity, authors putting themselves into their books, and other such identity shenanigans.

So what do you think of all this? What books have you read by pseudonymous authors? What do you believe to be the author's role in claiming their voice? What exactly is a "voice" anyway?

Sunglasses For Your Brain: Ofelia Hunt and How Reading Changes Seeing

When movies show you how flies see, they always like to focus on the fractals. How, supposedly, insects see like kaleidoscopes: lots and lots of tiny windows, all showing duplicates of the same image. Of course, this isn't how insects actually see, but it's fun to think so. What's even more fun about being a fly is: flying. You get to fly. And flying, of course, is a way of moving that's also its own way to see.

In 2006/2007, I first discovered Ofelia Hunt through her blog and later her Bear Parade e-book My Eventual Bloodless Coup. You've probably already guessed this, but now I'm going to try making an analogy that Hunt writes like a combination of the way Hollywood thinks insects see and the way insects fly into thinking. Here we go: Hunt's narrators see the world divided into fantasies, daydreams. A girlfriend tells a boyfriend that she wants her "left eyeball and right ear removed while you watch through a two-inch glass panel," and then she proceeds to keep telling him every intricate detail she can make up because he doesn't stop her. Finally her boyfriend looks at her forehead and says:

"Why do you say things like that?"

"I was joking."

"I don't think you're joking, you're always saying stuff like that."

"I'm just being funny because I'm bored and tired of watching TV with you and I wanted to know how long I could talk without you stopping me but you didn't stop me because you don't care about anything and are a nihilist or something."

The lies and delusions and whimsy of Hunt's narrators are undercut by concrete realities of violence and trauma, the reasons and results of too much making up. People are kidnapped and stuffed into refrigerators. Sisters punch their eight-year old sisters and apologize by saying "I thought your face looked kind of like a speed bag or something, and I thought I could be a boxer, and boxers need to practice." A masked man waves a knife and tells the world to admit that he's a sloth bear, that his genes were spliced. This exploration of how imagination intertwines with violence, how the imagination makes objects of everything, runs through all of Hunt's work, and gives it an existential awareness and a contemporary significance that I find hypnotic and true, true as any buzzing daydream that seems incapable of landing.

Her language, too, flies and divides. The physical world is rendered through repetition, the world boring as the world. Station to station, parking-lot to parking-lot, the world wheezing along like a strip mall of hyphenated connections, temporary sidewalks. No wonder we imagine ourselves away, into flights of imagining Bill Murray driving a giant robot in the Carlsbad caverns and then the next thing imagined and the next, because any stopping of the "ands" means the attention is no longer suspended and we have to get back to paying attention to a world where—as one boyfriend in a Hunt story says— "One baby is like any other baby so who cares what baby you brainwash or whatever?"

After I read My Eventual Bloodless Coup, I started reading Ofelia's blog, where she was posting excerpts of the novel that would later become Today & Tomorrow. I emailed asking if I could publish one of the chapters in this literary journal I co-edit, NOÖ Journal, a chapter about the narrator as a child at the zoo with her grandfather. This was about a year before I started Magic Helicopter Press. Later, when I decided I wanted to start the press, I knew I wanted to publish chapbooks and books by writers whose voices rendered an uncompromisingly honest and singular worldview, but whose work challenged that voice, put it through the ringer of a world that doesn't care about any view at all.

That's what I say now, anyway. That's me trying to describe a feeling without just turning the feeling into a description.

In high school, I read Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, and then I walked around thinking everyone had a secret phone number, that the world was basically a Thomas Pynchon novel. This, I realized, was the benchmark of a certain kind of great book. It takes over. When I read T&T, I walk around seeing the way Ofelia Hunt's imagination swoops. Reading certain great novels is like wearing sunglasses for your brain, and Today & Tomorrow has frames shaped like anarchist penguins.

Many thanks to Molly and Chris for hosting me in the Lit Pub's inaugural month to talk about T&T and other great books. Thanks to you for tuning in, and please feel free to join the conversation with any thoughts you have about insects, small presses, novels-as-ways-of-seeing, and whether you yourself are actually Bill Murray.

Cut Through the Bone: And So It Begins

Where to begin? There's so much I need to tell you, so much I need you to know. My first post, first impression. I want you to like me. I want you to like this book I like: Cut Through the Bone by Ethel Rohan. I want you to like what we are doing here at The Lit Pub. This is all new to us. This is all new to you. We are on the same page. Let's begin.

Hello.

I'm Chris Newgent, and this is my little corner of The Lit Pub. I wish I could offer you a drink, maybe some snacks: chips, peanuts, party mix, what have you. I can offer you this book by Ethel Rohan, Cut Through the Bone, published by Dark Sky Books. See, The Lit Pub is something of a car crash of online bookstore/online publicity/Book of the Month club.

Each month, we're featuring 1 of our favorite books; we're talking about it for a month; we're encouraging you to talk about it with us. If you've read it already, if you already own it, that's fantastic! I hope you stick around and talk to us about how much you loved it (or didn't, okay; that makes for interesting conversation, too, just please be respectful). Ethel is a really awesome, gracious person, and there's a good chance you'll see her around in the comments at some point, too.

If you don't own it and you think, "This conversation is compelling. I'd like to read this book," then you're in luck! You can buy it from us! (Technically, there are a lot of places you can buy it, but if you like what we're trying to accomplish here, it'd be rad to have your support through your purchase.)

A quick "about this book":

You probably want to know a bit about this book, about what we'll be talking about this month, about why you should be interested.

Cut Through the Bone is a collection of 30 short stories about loss, about absence and wanting, about quiet grief bubbling to the surface. In "How to Kill," Ann feels the hollowness of an intentionally empty belly. "Gone" reads like a retelling of Robert Hass's classic "A Story About the Body," in which a woman reflects on the loss of her breasts to cancer, and bares herself to an artist attracted to a body she knows he does not understand.

But of course, Rohan's expert storytelling doesn't leave the reader with mere loss without the realization of what's gained. Tracy's humiliation in "On the Loose" gives way to finding it in herself to fight, to breathe, breath as an act of truly living. Similarly, in the titular story, massage therapist Joyce is asked to massage an amputee's phantom limb, "her heart knocking against her ribcage, and [she] reminded herself to breathe."

Throughout Cut Through the Bone, Rohan explores what it is to find life and hope and renewed breath through loss, which is perhaps why this book affects me so. I tend to get pretty personal in my blogging, allowing myself to reflect on personal experience in reviewing and expounding. So if you stick around here, you'll learn about some of the loss I've found hope and breath and life through, you'll learn why a book like Cut gets straight into the very marrow of me.

I hope you stick around.