Month / August 2008

by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Jenny Davidson

Jenny Davidson appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #230. Davidson is most recently the author of The Explosionist.

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Investigating the veracity of explosions.

Author: Jenny Davidson

Subjects Discussed: Coincidental run-ins, the necessity of war, Edmund Burke, philosophical asides, a novelist’s use of argument, Agatha Christie novels, John Buchan, ending chapters on cliffhangers, early 20th century British adventure fiction, alternate universes, Tolstoy as theologian, research undertaken years in advance of writing a novel, forgetting things one makes up, world-building as you go along, Michael Moorcock’s Hawkmoon, thought experiments, rationality vs. emotions, historical plausibility exemplified by electric kitchens, junk science, lie detectors, spiritualism vs. organized religion, Arthur Conan Doyle, Herbert Sidgewick, radios talking to ghosts, post-9/11 sensibility, danger of terroristic attacks in public places, narrative serving the needs of the world, novels as problem-solving exercises, tradeoff between security and civil liberties, fiction as a means of addressing political issues, productive forgetting, contemplation hindering the creative process, the internal responsibility to finish a trilogy, Margo Rabb, YA and genre categorization, voracious and eclectic reading, the difficulties of writing a good book, John Banville, cynical motivations for writing genre novels, freedom afforded by academic institutions, meaningful distinctions between YA and adult fiction, Philip Pullman, Garth Nix, whether authors should worry about book marketing, leaving publishing concerns to the experts, Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows, James Baldwin’s Just Above My Head, Sigmund Freud broadcasting via pirate radio, possible references to The Man in the High Castle and Brave New World, suicide booth trope in Golden Age SF novels, inventions by Alfred Nobel’s father, seals trained to drag bombs on ships, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Sherlock Holmes, exclamation marks, italicized words, exclamations as metaphor for genre writing, cockamamie explanations in the exposition, nostalgia for British children’s literature, ratio for invention and ambiguity, classroom scenes as an acceptable setting for fiction, reclusiveness, the enthusiasm and passion of boy characters, tension between female school roommates, Muriel Spark as a “great novelist of a small group”, sociological interest in dynamics of schools and boarding houses, Scottish dialect, peculiarities of diction, willful delving into uncomfortable territory, standing by sentences, emotional ethical questions about truthfulness, relationship between style and ethics, when writing is “too showy”, Thomas Paine, self-pity as antithesis to good writing, blindness to self-justifying elements of prose, Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie novels, Ernest Hemingway’s style, David Foster Wallace as self-parody, David Copperfield, the purity of the unwritten sentence.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: Well, going back to one of the many questions that I just asked you about the idea of concocting this alternative universe, was it a matter of working within a loose world here? I mean, in a way, this book reminded me very much of a Michael Moorcock alternative history, like the Hawkmoon books that he wrote, which have only a few existing elements which suggest what may have happened. But it’s largely an excuse. This particular book gave Moorcock the freedom to explore this notion of ideas that have spun off into other terribly mutated forms. And I wanted to ask how this idea of worldbuilding relates to this idea of exploring ideologies, of which I plan to ask you more about.

Davidson: I think that’s a really fair description. And I find in my academic writing, as well as in my fiction writing, I’m strongly right now in a counterfactual mode, where it’s the thought experiment appeal. If this was different, and the thing that you make different — like, in this case, what if 1930s Scotland was still really being run in a way that was consistent with the ideals of the Scottish Enlightenment. No swerve into the 19th century and these different snails of thought. What if we really went back to those core ideas of rationality and the emotions? That was my most fundamental counterfactual for this novel. The set of questions that came up around that. And what if you were a teenage girl growing up in a country that was being run along those principles? That was at the core of my interest in the topic and what made me want to write the book. So the other stuff is for fun, and the stuff that comes up around that once you start thinking that way. But I guess in a sense, I’m not so much writing alternate history as a novel of ideas type thing. Where the premise of altering something in the past allows me to get a clear grip on some idea like that. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know how we categorize these different genres anyway.

Correspondent: So you’re saying in the end that where it’s set, or when it’s set, really does not matter because it is a novel of ideas? Is that what you’re suggesting here? And that the world, or the alternative universe, is more of a fun component towards entering the story?

Davidson: Well, I think the sense that you get — at least I hope the sense that you get — I’m clearly a writer who is in love with densely realized and realistic particulars that are historically plausible in some sense. So that, for instance, the storeroom with the electric kitchens, and all the sense that electricity is transformative and the way of future — that’s very realistic. I mean, that was a real feature. And a lot of the things in the novel that seem slightly fantastical, I drew from historical sources. I don’t mean so much to say that it’s a novel of ideas, as I mean to say it’s more like regular historical fiction than alternate history. Because, in fact, in very many particulars, the world of Sophie’s 1938 Scotland is like the world of real 1938 Scotland.

BSS #230: Jenny Davidson

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by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Ross Raisin

Ross Raisin appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #229. Raisin is the author of God’s Own Country (UK title)/Out Backward (US title).

(Please note: This discussion deals at length with many of the Yorkshire terms that Mr. Raisin uses within his novel. Please consult this lexicon if you’d like to know more.)

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Abdicating to a helium-impaired fill-in host.

Author: Ross Raisin

Subjects Discussed: Schizophrenia, designing a particular voice and the relationship to environment, talking in a peculiar way, reference books, snickets, the relationship between topography, reference books, and reality, looking through books, cookbooks, foreshadowing, talking with animals, verbs transferred to nouns, subconscious immersion into language, the third-person origins of God’s Own Country, the rhythmic origins of the lexical voice, “gleg” vs. “gawp,” the frequency of words for specific meaning, the Yorkshire vernacular, working as a waiter vs. working as a writer, nouns from specific regions in England, trunklements, the etymology of “bogtrotter,” crammocky creel, jarp and Easter, Nobbut a Lad, ferntickles, “upskittled” and ninepins, nouns transferred to verbs, “normaltimes,” “gleg,” and “chuntering” — the most frequent words in the book, snitter, references to Dracula, the concern for backsides within the book, The Butcher Boy, literary attempts to understand the monster, being ransacked by Raisin, Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory, separation between style and content, tankards and chalices, the historical cycle of gentrification within bars and restaurants, and stools vs. metal buffets.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Correspondent: There are a number of Yorkshire terms in which you take a verb meaning and you transfer it into a noun. And so everything is inverted. Even his communicative methods with the animals, as well as his particular idiosyncratic way of talking to the reader, which is presumably the only person he has to talk with aside from his parents and the like. And how this notion of inversion essentially announced itself. Was this more of a subconscious immersion in language on your part? Or a conscious decision to take a verb and transfer it to noun form and the like?

Raisin: The whole thing with the language being in that peculiar idiomatic language didn’t come about immediately. It came about as a result of thinking about character and wanting to think about a character who was very much inside their own strange little world. And one of the main ways you can achieve that is through language. And so I started experimenting with different ways of working with language. And that’s how it turned into a first-person book. Actually, it was initially third-person. Okay, some of the language in it. Most of it is a real Yorkshire language. Sort of a different melange of different parts of Yorkshire, to be honest. And a lot of it is invented. It actually came more out of rhythm — it began with rhythm — more than actual lexicon. And so I got a real feel for this rhythm of the landscape, and the way that transposed into the voice. And then through the second draft, I suppose, I started inserting all these words. And a lot of them are verbs actually. Like glegging and blathering and all these kind of blunt Yorkshire, quite masculinized words that he peppers his language with.

Correspondent: But “gleg” comes from the Scottish noun. Alert and quick to respond.

Raisin: Is that right?

Correspondent: That’s at least what I discovered. And I’m wondering where you transformed it into more of a verb. And also the difference between “gleg” and “gawp” as well. Because he gawps at some points and glegs at others.

Raisin: Well, a gleg is more of a brief look. It’s more of a glance, I suppose. And a gawp is a more of staring. But that’s quite an interesting point actually. Because when you’re writing the book, you become so observed with it. And I’m convinced that these words that I’ve researched, they’re Yorkshire words. And I hold them very preciously. They’re Yorkshire words. And then you tell them to somebody else, and they say, “Oh yeah. We use that word.”

BSS #229: Ross Raisin

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by Edward Champion

Responding to Orwell: August 11

George: Good to hear from you. No mist here, but some rain. Windows closed, so no mist inside. But I do wonder what kind of snuff-box you’re using and whether I should be using one. Surfaces of desk are laden with books and papers. On deadline and all. Also damned lazy. What have you been reading these days? Can you at least spill this much to us? Not as hot here as it was last week. There was rain in the morning and there may be rain in the afternoon. The super here cowers at grass snakes, doubt he has even seen one, but is braver when it comes to catching mice and cockroaches. Even though he seems to leave these duties to the tenants. I wonder what you’d think of the early 21st century American class system. Suspect there’s some beauty here in New York, although there are many glum faces. Spoke to a man in the elevator yesterday. Both of us agreed that it was the economy that was making it hard for both of us, but we planned to carry on surviving. Georgia’s on my mind. Saved a cabbie last night from a possible accident when I shouted at him to turn on his lights as he was driving. Was he absent-minded or as glum as the guy in the elevator? You tell me, George. By now, I suspect you may be coming up for air.

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes died over the weekend. It’s particularly creepy that both men appeared in a film called Soul Men with Samuel L. Jackson. It’s bad enough that these two men are gone. But in considering the old adage that these things happen in threes, let us hope that Mr. Jackson is somewhere safe drinking carrot juice.
  • Pretty Fakes quite wisely calls out J.G. Jones on his inept Final Crisis #3 cover. And, yes, let’s be clear on this. There is no sense of wonder on Supergirl’s face. Supergirl’s eyes roll upwards as if she is a mere bimbo who has just spent thirty minutes trying to compose a text message to send to Comet. Her left hand appears to be hiding a cell phone. Her right hand seems to be waiting for a tube of lipstick. Of course, J.G. Jones’s upcoming cover for Final Crisis #5 isn’t exactly respectful to Wonder Woman. Jones is more interested in depicting Wonder Woman’s star-strewn ass than her golden lasso (conveniently hidden behind her right thigh). The upshot is that J.G. Jones seems to think it’s 1958, not 2008, and has a major problem depicting women in a position of power. But then when Jones is busy joking with Newsarama about having his groceries “delivered by a really cute girl” with this “date” getting to sit and watch him draw, and fumbling about in another interview about how great it might be to hear a beautiful woman like Angelina Jolie beg over the phone, it isn’t much of a surprise to see his work reflecting his perceptive limitations. Why Feministing or Feministe aren’t all over this is a mystery to me.
  • Why is dwelling upon DC’s actions in the present so important? Well, consider how Jones’s indiscretions mirror troublesome sexism in the past. Jeff Trexler offers a summary of some fascinating correspondence between DC and Superman artist Jerry Siegel. Among some of the startling Golden Age sexism: “[W]hy it is necessary to shade Lois’ breasts and the underside of her tummy with vertical pen-lines we can’t understand. She looks pregnant. Murray suggests that you arrange for her to have an abortion or the baby and get it over with so that her figure can return to something a little more like the tasty dish she is supposed to be.” (via The Beat)
  • The Orwell Diaries are now being distributed in blog form. Sunday’s entry: “Drizzly. Dense mist in evening. Yellow moon.” Okay, so he’s just warming up.
  • The New York Review of Books has jumped into the podcasting game. The podcasts are very rusty at this point. Interviewer Sasha Weiss sounds like a humorless human resources manager incapable of loosening up. But maybe they’ll work out the kinks in this operation as the podcast continues.
  • One fifth of American television viewers are watching online. What’s more, the largest group of online television watchers were well-educated, affluent women between the ages of 25 and 44. I have a feeling that they also buy books. Given that demographic, perhaps the time has come for those who complain about the paucity of literary programming on television to begin setting up their hitching posts on the new media frontier. It also means that publicists of all stripes really need to start paying attention to where and how the audiences are shifting.
  • This year’s Hugo winners. With her eleventh Hugo Award win, Connie Willis has now beat out Harlan Ellison for multiple Hugo wins.
  • The Chronicle of Higher Education profiles George Lakoff.
  • Ira Glass on storytelling and taste. Once you get past Glass’s regrettable tendency to use “like” in every other sentence, he does have some insightful things to say about constant production and dissects an old clip produced when he was 28. (via Booklist)
  • Quiet Bubble offers the latest annual open letter to Woody Allen.
  • Playgirl couldn’t make it in today’s economy. Here’s a postmortem from an editor, which is more interesting than you might expect.
  • Jonathan Raban on Neil Entwistle.
  • A list of SF pornography. (via Locus)
  • Steve Wasserman and Ray Bradbury. This is an utterly bizarre interviewing dynamic that must be seen to be believed.
  • And it’s good to know that Kafka was as red-blooded as the rest of us. No word yet on whether any unusual stains have been located.
by Edward Champion

The Art of Self Defense

RELATED: Bas Rutten’s Lethal Self-Defense System. The whole thing appears to be available on YouTube and it’s even better than the above self-defense video. Rutten prides himself on his resourcefulness: “This thing? Very violent. Pick up the cap. This is metal, ladies and gentleman. That’s a great weapon right there.” Witness also the way that Rutten tells the audience to never underestimate the kick in the groin, followed by Rutten kicking his imaginary opponent with intensity, only for this moment to be repeated for the audience in case they didn’t understand how serious Rutten is. And what other figure but Rutten would urge the audience to smack the opponent “into the ambience of the place.” I also want to know who composed the music.

by Edward Champion

While the Rest of You Dwell on the Olympics and John Edwards…

Times: “More than a thousand civilians were reported to have been killed and large parts of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, were reduced to ruins as a conflict with potentially global repercussions erupted after months of rising tension. Georgia announced last night that it was withdrawing half of its 2,000 troops from Iraq as it ordered an all-out military mobilisation.”

by Edward Champion

Roundup at an Ungodly Hour With Lengthy Asides

  • On this blog, if I read an author and I think that the author in question is the cat’s pajamas, I can instantly declare this to an audience. The approbation may be fleeting. It may not be quite thought out. But it does represent the current moment. It does signal a natural reaction. This is not so much the case with a newspaper. If I am commissioned to write a review, I am forced to withhold my enthusiasm for an author until the review runs, or perhaps allude to the author’s considerable worth in an oblique manner. There is indeed a tradeoff here. Many newspapers, for understandable ethical reasons, don’t want authors or publishers to know precisely how reviewers feel about a particular book in advance. But the editors can help me to shape a piece or demand more of me (knowing full well that I have a tremendous work ethic) and, since it is a professional gig, my work ethic compels me to write at peak form. Alas, the conundrum remains. There is one such author I wish I could tell you about, but I cannot right now, but will elsewhere. And so my lips remain tight. But I do intend to check out this author’s backlist. Perhaps the immediacy I wish for now in the present can be atoned somewhat by this future dip into the past. I am sure that other reviewers have this problem. I am sure that the declining level of passion seen in certain reviewers I could name, but won’t, is largely because the journalism game demands that something so innately joyful, such as enthusiasm for a book, must be curtailed. Which is a bit like demanding that one withhold a giddy scream while throttling over the hump of a rollercoaster. Humans aren’t in the habit of doing this. Not unless they are also in the habit of always keeping the top button of their shirt fastened. (Aside: It should be noted that Nixon jogged in a shirt and tie. Yes, he actually exercised this way. And yet it is the famous photo of Lyndon Johnson pulling the ears of his dog that makes Johnson seem more of a scoundrel by comparison, if we use just these two examples. And while LBJ was in many ways an SOB for other reasons, I think it could be sufficiently argued that Nixon’s devotion to daily exercise is equally inhuman, perhaps more so. Which is not to compare literary people to U.S. Presidents, but to suggest a finer point about how we judge the inhuman nature of people by certain qualifying factors that involve others.) (Another aside: I wrote this paragraph before stumbling upon Wyatt Mason’s blog post concerning enthusiasm and reviews, which also has a few interesting thoughts on this dilemma — albeit not pertaining to the instant visceral response I am trying to describe.)
  • This post was intended as a roundup, but I see that it has transformed momentarily into something else. Were I employed as a USA Today copy editor, I would not have allowed this headline to pass. I would have demanded more wordplay in the headline. I would have spent thirty minutes attempting to persuade someone that this was an insufficient headline that didn’t perform complete justice to the presented possibility. We are told that Meyer’s fans “light up.” But while fans, meaning those on a literal level who are acolytes, certainly do “light up,” if we consider a double meaning, fans are not in the habit of “lighting up.” Perhaps they might “whirl” over the saga’s end. I could live with that. But I presume “light up” was settled upon because some member of the top brass did not wish to offend the devoted Meyerites. There are indeed comments on this article. And someone at USA Today is obviously employed to moderate these comments. So perhaps “light up” was settled upon to save the moderator some work. In the end, the headline suffers. And I can only hope that the people at USA Today put some more thought into their headlines in the future.
  • James Miller is causing something of a stir across the pond. I’m becoming a bit suspicious of novels that concern themselves with privileged children or adolescent wunderkinds or behavioral generalizations that stem from such topics. Personally, I’m fascinated by the kind little girl who lives on the first floor of my apartment building. She spends her summer days looking outside the window, clearly fascinated by every observational possibility. She says hello to everybody. And we all say hello back. She enjoys this. And yet because we’re all in a rush, we don’t stop to ask her what her name is or why she is so drawn to the window. That sense of kindness and curiosity is considerably more interesting to me than another hackneyed variation on how today’s emerging youth want this or demand that. Let us consider Miller’s hasty generalization: “They feel powerful playing those games, because in real life they feel powerless. One 12-year-old girl I taught was an advanced wizard in the World of Warcraft, who would trounce adults in magic battles.” The subscriber base for World of Warcraft is estimated to be somewhere in the area of 16 million. But while this is certainly a large number, there are 73.7 million children in the United States alone. If we assume all Warcraft players to be children (which is folly, but provides us with a working statistic to put Miller’s generalization into perspective), then what of the 80% who don’t play Warcraft? What of those who prefer to spend their time looking out the window? This may sound like some overly sincere A Tree Grows in Brooklyn premise, but it does nevertheless offer a less premeditated starting point with greater possibilities than Miller’s overly simplistic viewpoint. All one has to do is start asking questions.
  • Slushpile interviews Benjamin Wallace.
  • Forget quotidian hazards such as beer and hot fudge sundaes. Email is the new peril. I do not know anyone who has personally died from email. But it is possible to keep up. Particularly if you type at a very high speed. I am not as efficacious as I’d like to be with my Yahoo account, in part because this represents a secondary account. But I do respond to just about every email on the main one. Of course, I’m also unafraid to respond at extremely strange hours. The way around email, of course, is to kill about 20 emails with one two-minute phone call. But then people are also terrified of picking up the phone. I do not believe that a 1,500 word article on the subject was necessary. At least not with this “email is the new ebola” angle. It is, oddly enough, just as troublesome as a rambling 1,500 word email (and I sometimes write these; I apologize; I am only responding). But then the nice thing about a silly article like this is that you don’t have to hit the reply button. (via The Book Publicity Blog)
  • And now another conservative has written a book bemoaning hip-hop, suggesting that it cannot affect social change. This is mostly true, but I believe that this misses the point of hip-hop. I find myself more in Michael Eric Dyson’s camp. Why can’t pop music also serve as social criticism? Pop music can certainly serve as a weapon. Consider the relentless music used to torture Abu Ghraib prisoners and the hard rock employed to smoke out Manuel Noriega.
  • Locus lists this year’s World Fantasy Awards nominees.
  • RIP Jack Kamen.
  • The making of a book cover. (via Book Covers Blog)
  • This is not the way to make poetry accessible for Web 2.0. This looks like it was made by a 15-year-old who has just discovered After Effects, with Lemm Sissay resembling a man who has spent the last two decades pining desperately for a small role in an Antonioni film. Too bad Antonioni’s dead.
  • Christ, another one. RIP Simon Gray.
  • I have my issues with Obama, but Largehearted Boy’s “Why Obama?” series is worth a look.
  • Take it from me, Rebecca Johnson. A blurb from Ann Patchett will not induce me to pick up your novel. Nor will any blurbs for that matter. The real question that should be asked is whether blurbs actually sell books.
  • Is Muhammad the new publishing taboo? (via Michelle Richmond)
  • And is it really that late?
  • The question of whether it is really that late is, of course, determined by what you consider to be late.
  • It is late. Later than it should be. Later than when I had started. Later than I anticipated it to be. There is work to do. And this will mean sleeping less, so that I will not be late on other things. To bring this roundup full circle to the initial question, perhaps staying up late is comparable to Nixon jogging in his shirt and tie, while turning in work late is the equivalent of LBJ pulling the ears of his dog. It’s all in the angle.
by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Ethan Canin

Ethan Canin appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #228. Canin is most recently the author of America America.

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Examining his miserable relationship with America.

Author: Ethan Canin

Subjects Discussed: Neil Diamond’s “America,” the stuttering titular impulse, the Corvair, journalists as heroes, intentional vs. unintentional symbols, the reporter’s instinct, “the ingenuity of the working man,” ideology, the politics of generosity, didacticism in fiction, writing a novel from the point of view from Karl Rove, the four things it takes to be a writer, the declivity of politics during the past thirty years, economic opportunities, philosophy and fiction, print vs. blogs, journalists exploited by big money, Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, Mike Gravel, Lyndon Johnson’s body language, Robert Caro, Ed Muskie, Corey Sifter’s possible alternative history, the Washington Post revisiting the Condit-Levy affair, playing with the public record, the first draft of America America, the risk of reading books while writing, speeches and autopsy reports embedded in the text, playing with names, David Duke, names serving as placeholders, John Updike’s review, subconscious references to the exchange of information, Geoffrey Wolff’s spoiler review in the NYTBR, Ed Muskie’s tears vs. Hillary Clinton’s tears, the emotional connection of narrative, drawing from reality vs. drawing from objective data, authenticity, and writing short stories vs. novels.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Canin: I wish I could act as if there was something more intentional. I’m a little tired here.

Correspondent: Oh, that’s okay.

Canin: Perhaps there was a little more intentionality on my part, but there really wasn’t. But that was just one of those things.

Correspondent: I hope this conversation is intentional. Or unintentional.

Canin: Yeah, it will start to get intentional.

Correspondent: Okay, let’s go into greater ambiguities. This is quite a pasture that you have in this book. The protagonist, Corey Sifter, he writes repeatedly about operating on a reporter’s instinct. Likewise, you have Liam Metarey and the Senator frequently invoking the ingenuity of the working man.

Canin: Right.

Correspondent: And yet, it seems to me that all parties — both these two parties — don’t understand these ideologies that they inhabit, or that they endorse in some sense. And so it seems to me that this particular book is almost this interesting glimpse into ideology. I wanted to ask how much ideology was encroaching upon you during the act of writing or…

Canin: Could I go back? Just stop a sec.

Correspondent: Oh yeah.

Canin: Because that’s too many ideas for me to hold at once.

Correspondent: Oh sure.

Canin: But the first thing you said was probably the thing that motivated me to write this book. And then when I get through that, I’ll be able to grasp the other question.

Correspondent: Sure.

Canin: I think writing a book is asking a question. It’s not answering a question. At least for me. And one of the questions that evolved as I wrote this was this history of public-minded, empathetic — what are supposed to be called liberal-minded politicians. And my own term, that I’ve been using during the past few days, is the politics of generosity. And there’s a history of them. From Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Ted Kennedy. Great liberal public-minded people who are also unquestionably from the land of gentry. And the central question — there was a reviewer in the Washington Post who said something very interesting, I thought. Which was that the book boils down to the narrator wondering whether he’s been helped or used.

And that’s right. That’s what it felt like to me. That’s what I was writing about. A narrator wondering whether he’s been helped or used. Whether these great public-minded political figures are, in fact, public-minded or self-serving. Or whether that even matters, as long as they’re public-minded. And how far that public-mindedness goes. I’m enough of a realist to think that everybody is self-interested. And we have to just use politicians who are at least generous in their interpretation of self-interest.

Correspondent: Yeah. But there is this notion of ideology that all the characters seem to cling to. Particularly the antipodean ends that we’re talking about. Of the working-class journalist-to-be vs. the Senator and this monied family in this particular town. And this makes me want to ask you about the idea of didacticism in fiction. It’s almost as if you’re skirting around that by exploring these questions in this particular book in a manner that leaves a sliver ask these broader questions without necessarily being didactic. And I’m curious about the element of didacticism in this particular book. It’s not overtly didactic. But the irony, such as Glen driving the Corvair and the like, certainly cause one to think that this is essentially a dialectic involving ideology in this particular book. And I want to ask you about this.

Canin: I was reading last night at the Upper West Side. And somebody asked me if I could write a novel from the point of view of Karl Rove.

Correspondent: (laughs) It would be interesting.

Canin: (laughs) Well, I actually think I could. I don’t think I could do anything. But I think I would be interested in doing that. You know, I don’t know what succeeded and what didn’t in this book. And I never will. But I do know that I certainly intended every character to be a mix. I certainly intended every character to be part good, part bad. From the heroes to the obvious villains. Those are the books that I like. I don’t like movies with heroes and villains. I don’t like books with heroes and villains, which is even worse. I think empathy is the thing.

It takes four or five things to be a writer. Decent prose style.

Correspondent: That’s one. What are the other four? (laughs) I want a list here, man.

Download BSS #228: Ethan Canin (MP3)

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by Edward Champion

The Bat Segundo Show: Kathryn Harrison

Kathryn Harrison appeared on The Bat Segundo Show #227. Harrison is most recently the author of While They Slept.

Condition of Mr. Segundo:: Grappling with death and emergencies.

Author: Kathryn Harrison

Subjects Discussed: Opening the novel with a stark transcript of a 9/11 call, exchange incongruities, differences between text and spoken word, lack of annotation, true crime as a writing choice, the Keddie murders, not being a journalist, Binky Urban, impetus for writing about the Gilleys, Random House contractual obligations, voice of reason versus “gut-level” response, Jody Gilley’s memoir attempts, compartmentalization, investigating other people’s lives, a “blow-by-blow” account of murder, depending on and reconstructing other people’s memories, boundary issues, having “the same painful interview over and over again”, similarities to police officers and lawyers, Jody’s severing of her previous life, constructing a linear timeline, index cards versus notebooks, repeated viewing of traumatic events like 9/11, collating differing accounts to create a “master version”, letting the reader decide the final word, credibility with regards to interpretation, Billy Gilley’s continued appeal of the murder conviction, prison interviews, underwire bras, advice about what to wear to prison, weird overtones, Thad Guyer, fear that Billy wouldn’t see Harrison after she drove to prison, writing about things “not discussed in polite company”; sitting in a prison visiting area, Billy’s loneliness and lack of contact with the outside world, not letting him get off-topic, her husband not relishing continued correspondence with Billy, dishonesty about feelings with regards to his little sister Becky, evading direct questioning, Becky as a “wet bar of soap” in conversation, depersonalizing murder victims, Harrison’s theory of the murders, Billy’s volcanic rage against his father, Harrison mixing in her own story, The Kiss, misconception about revisiting hot-button subjects, the unnatural prospect of Harrison “getting over” her incestuous relationship, breaking lives into two pieces, seeing aspects of herself in the Gilley children, fantasies about killing her father, memoir/true crime hybrids, the conceit of the first draft, Harrison’s personal experience as a “hook” to tell a story of 20-year old murders, the process of narrative and what it can do, truth and subjectivity in memoir, the mutual exclusiveness of facts and story, James Frey and Augusten Burroughs memoir fiascos, self-mythology in A Million Little Pieces, memoir as a narcissistic process or digging around in the muck, emotional truth, Peter DeVries’ The Blood of the Lamb, ethical issues of Harrison giving money and magazine subscriptions to Billy, potential for compromised content, Jody’s bookishness and craving Harlequin romances, Flowers in the Attic, reading voraciously and defensively as a way to escape reality, The Brothers Karamazov, using romance novels as a means of finding out how normal people treated each other, reverse escapism, the disconnect between Jody’s current accomplishments and what is inside her head, balancing the Gilley murders with Harrison’s family life, unwitting parallels, family as salvation from becoming a monster, obsessive work habits, burdens sliding off her shoulders.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Harrison: I worked from a number of documents and sources. And I didn’t feel that I could do better than to begin with that exchange between Jody and the 911 operator. Because it really showed so much about who she was. The level of her diction. Her way of saying what had happened. “I think my father’s killed my parents and my sister.” And the 911 operator’s conversely saying, “What? Did he not like them or something?” And she’s saying, “Well, I guess.” It was an economical way of introducing a number of things that would come up later in the book. And it’s pretty compelling, I think.

Correspondent: Yeah. I was actually going to ask you about that exchange, where he brings up, “I guess he didn’t like your parents.” It just struck me as so — where did this come from? It’s as if he couldn’t process what had happened.

Harrison: Yeah. That, and just the incongruity of it. It had that sort of immediacy and authenticity that spoke for itself. Not the kind of thing that you could — I couldn’t have synthesized or summarized anything as eloquent as that tape from the 911 operator. And it really just introduced what the book was about. This is also a story about a family being murdered.

Correspondent: Was it also a case too — I mean, text can only go so far. Is there something that may be missing because we aren’t hearing the actual audio transcript? Like even without that exchange that we just talked about, are there inflections within Jody’s voice of just being in shock or being in catatonia?

Harrison: Oh, I’m sure. That would be true of the written word as opposed to the spoken word. It does have annotations about points in which she starts to cry and she hesitates. I think that some level of panic and disorientation comes through. But it’s never going to replace the sound of the voice.

Download BSS #227: Kathryn Harrison (MP3)

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by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • If anti-Obama books are the new bestsellers, I intend to write an anti-bestseller that is the new literary Obama. The novel will presented with a hopeful corona, keeping you spellbound in its initial narrative campaign, only to betray you midway through with shameful appeals that confirm the prejudgments of literary cynics. But since you’ve read this far into the book, you’re obliged to go the distance. Even though you’ve realized that the book in question is just another pandering novel. (And perhaps this type of book may be close to what Wyatt Mason describes.) I do not know if anyone can make money from an anti-bestseller structured along these lines, but if someone can make a persuasive case that one can, I may commit a modicum of labor for such a narrative experiment. (Latter link via The Publishing Spot)
  • I’m with Matthew Tiffany on this: This has to be one of the most appalling literary interviews I’ve read in a while. Who is Drew Nellins? And why is he wasting Chris Adrian’s time? One could easily obtain more substance from a telemarketer trying to sell you a $16.99 delicacy, with dung and a chickenhawk’s cloaca listed as the main ingredients, shipped third-class from an island nation that you’ve never heard of, than the hopeless results emerging from Nellins’s bradykinetic four-lobe throttling pattern. Step it up, Mr. Nellins. Intelligence will be rewarded, but slum it at your own peril. This has been a shot across the bow.
  • Tayari excavates an ethical dilemma brought on by the Stephenie Meyer contretemps, where loyal Meyerites have become heartbreakingly aware of the author’s deficiencies: Should you return a book to the bookstore if the book fails to live up? I think Ms. Meyer represents a very special case. Particularly when this trash, in turn, causes a reviewer to waste her talent on a needlessly long and quite ridiculous essay.
  • And while David Kipen continues to speak to the buttoned-up crowd, Jeff unearths a more hearty stratagem in New Zealand.
by Edward Champion

Scarlet Fervor

I’m placing my energies into muchas ollas right now. Lengthy dispatches and bulleted bundles will return at their regular frequency just as soon as I take care of a few things. But I wanted to thank everyone who has contributed to the latest Segundo pledge drive. I have had to refund a few offers because of the conflict of interest policy, and I’m looking into the possibility of anonymous donations. Alas, short of a masked bagman in Midtown answering to the name of Emmuska Orczy IV, Paypal does not appear to have an option along these lines. This may be just as well. I’m still pondering the precise ethics of this.

Nevertheless, if you can throw in a few bucks to help us secure operations through the early fall, it would be much appreciated. (And remember, $10 gets you a chapbook!)
















Thanks again!

by Edward Champion

The Novels of John P. Marquand

This morning, at the Barnes & Noble Review, you’ll find my essay on John P. Marquand. Several critics, including Martha Spaulding, Terry Teachout, and Jonathan Yardley, have attempted to revive Marquand’s flagging reputation. I reread six of Marquand’s novels for this piece, as well as Millicent Bell’s biography, and I was surprised to discover that they spoke more to me this time around than when I first read the books in my twenties. A Marquand novel may present a narrative not dissimilar to another Marquand novel, but it can always be counted upon for a veritable codex of human behavior. (And, incidentally, Marquand is very much an influence on Humanity Unlimited. The rereading here helped me very much to tighten a few places in the novel.)

by Edward Champion

The Save Segundo Campaign

First off, I want to thank all of the people who have written with their concerns and kind words about The Bat Segundo Show. I have received messages from listeners all over the world — including France, Sweden, Japan, and Norway. I was also extremely honored by Colin Marshall’s kind writeup at The Sound of Young America blog — especially humbling, given that I’ve greatly enjoyed both Sound and The Marketplace of Ideas — and Carolyn Kellogg’s post at The Los Angeles Times. This has all stunned me. The upshot is that, while my stats have reflected a solid audience of roughly 5,000 to 10,000 listeners per show, it appears that more of you may be listening to this show than I’ve realized. I’ve learned from some of you that podcasts downloaded from this site have recirculated. MP3s have been burned onto CDs for road trips. Files have been swapped onto other computers and MP3 players.

Because of this, I believe we are in the position to not only set a major precedent for a web-based radio program, but at a juncture where we can ensure that these interviews keep on going.

Here is what we have done. There have been talks with a number of parties about how we can sustain Segundo. And we’ve come up with a few ideas. We intend to carry out a three-prong plan that, if successful, will keep the show running through the end of the year at a rate of eight shows per month. Should this plan work, I believe that we can make Segundo self-sustaining, increasing both the program’s frequency and its range.

But before I reveal the details of our campaign, I have some news. There have been a few conversations with radio stations about distributing Segundo. While talks remain ongoing with a few of these outlets, I’m happy to report that, on August 2008, Litstation will be airing the first 230 installments on a nightly basis over the next year. The show will air at midnight. Some of the shows — meaning those that run over an hour — will be slightly modified to fit programming needs. But they will more or less be airing as they originally appeared here. Shortly after I finish with this project, I’m also going to be splitting the shows up into 28:30 blocks. The idea here is to have syndication packages ready for both one hour and half-hour formats so that the show can be distributed in many forms. If you are a radio program director interested in distributing Segundo (the perks include custom intros for your station and a few other frills), please email me and I’ll be happy to discuss the details.

However, I believe that the Web is Segundo’s predominant home. It is the Web that I plan to prioritize first. The biggest problem in getting public radio interested in Segundo is the show’s rather eccentric format. And I believe that the show’s strengths will be better served if Segundo remains fun, passionate, informed, and slightly idiosyncratic. In other words, on the Web.

I’ve also made a few cosmetic changes to the Bat Segundo site so that it’s a little less cluttery and easier for you to subscribe via iTunes.

I have set up a few more interviews for August, ensuring that eight shows will be aired this month. This should take us up to Show #234 before the end of the month. In an effort to keep the Segundo schedule more consistent, I will be putting up at least one new show every Friday, with the week’s second show (or, in some cases, a third show) appearing at some random point in the week.

I am currently in the financial position of keeping Segundo going through the end of August and through a good chunk of September. My operating costs essentially entail enough money for me to pay my rent, keep up the hosting costs, and a few other comparatively meager expenses. (Pedantic expenses such as ConEd and the like.) Over the past year, I have made enough freelancing money each month to keep Segundo going. I still intend to carry on freelancing as much as I can and as long as the editors will have me. But I also realize that, because of recent newspaper developments, it is no longer tenable for me to rely on this shaky income. I am not too proud to take up a full-time job. But if I do become employed on a full-time basis, I will not have the time I need to produce these shows with the same frequency and quality that I have in the past. There was a point when I was putting out Segundo while also working a full-time job. But to do this, I nearly drove myself insane. There were far too many nights in which I would stay up mastering until 4 AM or so, finish a podcast, and then wake up a few hours later to go to work. These considerable demands have become greater over the past year. As the show’s demands upon my life have increased, I do not believe that sleeping three hours a night is a tenable scenario. Each podcast now involves some twenty to twenty-five hours of work, and often considerably more. This time goes into reading, research, booking, production, post-production, et al.

For those who have full-time jobs and compare my creative life to that of a bum’s, I assure you that I am not a loafer. I have continued to work 90 to 100 hour weeks as a freelancer and a podcaster, frequently starting my day at around 6:00 AM and ending it sometime in the evening hours. This is hard work and I do my best to keep things as fresh and vibrant as I can. Some friends have informed me that I live a rather preternatural existence. But I also realize that I am not entitled to this existence and I hope that the product of my considerable labor will permit me to carry on doing this. While I can certainly see Segundo continuing as an intermittent series of specials, I feel that this program is important enough to warrant its continued rate of production. Judging by your emails and support, I believe that you feel similarly.

So here’s the plan:

1. Sponsorship. Because Segundo reaches a very specific niche audience, and because nearly every existing survey I have consulted concludes that listeners don’t mind a 15-second advertisement before a podcast, we plan on initiating an unobtrusive form of advertising along these lines. At the beginning of each program, we’ll feature a quick 15-second audio advertisement. Like old time radio, each program will feature a sole sponsor. For less than the price of a business card advertisement running for a week in the Brooklyn Paper, you’ll get a reasonably priced form of radio advertising that (a) singles out a more targeted demographic, (b) doesn’t have to compete with other advertisements to grab the listener’s attention, (c) permits your product or service to stand out in a way that is unlike any other, (d) treats the audience intelligently and respectfully by not overstaying its welcome, and (e) gives you radio advertising that you don’t have to pay a $2,000 minimum for (believe it or not, that’s the standard cost for a local radio station advertising bundle).

Here’s a look at some advertising rates with other podcasts.

Blogger & Podcaster: $450 for a 30 second ad. (Claimed audience: 20,000)
Blog Talk Radio: $350 per 15 seconds. (Claimed audience: 5,000)
Colorado Hockey Insider: $200 per show. (Claimed audience: 9,000)
Geek News Central: $1,000 per show for 30 to 45 second ad. (Claimed audience: 18,000)
Small Business Podcast: $500 per show to be mentioned in the podcast. (Claimed audience: 3,500)
A Very Spatial Podcast: $250 per show, 10-15 seconds. (Claimed audience: 1,500)

After looking at these figures (and it’s worth noting that all of these podcasts, to my knowledge, were able to obtain advertising at the rates they offered), we concluded that $350 per show would be a very fair market rate to start out with. We took some of the excellent advice and honesty given by podcaster Michael W. Geoghegan about operating as an independent podcaster and set to work on a media kit.

We’ve now prepared a media kit that offers a program overview and includes many details about sponsorship. If you’re interested in setting up the deal, feel free to check it out. You can contact me if you have any questions.

If you’re an advertising agency or a third-party individual who would like to set up advertising for us, I should note that we’re offering a 25% commission. (The standard commission rate given to ad agencies is 15%. And in light of what they do to support big magazines and the comparatively picayune amount we are asking for, I have decided to up the percentage. If you can get one client to sponsor a month of Segundo, that’s $600 that goes directly to you when the deal goes through. If you can do that in about four hours of time, then that’s $150/hour.) However, a few volunteers will be approaching potential advertisers in a very pro-active manner during the next few months. Our goal is to get five of the eight programs set up for sponsorship during August. If we can do this, and maintain a sufficient momentum, then we’ll keep on doing this. And we’ll report on the progress of this experiment as it happens.

There is one stipulation. Because Segundo is a program that strives to maintain its journalistic integrity, we will not be accepting advertising from publishers. We want to avoid anything that resembles a conflict of interest. (Historically, the shows have gone out of their way to include an eclectic mix of publishers, both large and small.) Segundo is what it is because it remains fairly autonomous. And we’re hoping that we can keep things this way. This is not to say that we’re ruling out companies that provide study guides, notebooks, or fancy pens, or those who host book fairs and trade shows, et al. But we do want to run the most ethical ship we can under the circumstances. And, besides, one mistake made by newspaper advertising departments has involved the failure to consider that book people do indeed go to restaurants, shop, travel, et al. We’re going to try and atone for this mistake. And we’re also going to reach out to smaller companies.

I should also point out that, unlike radio, we’re also open to individuals who wish to pay for a crazed message. And if you’ve been having trouble getting a particular kind of ad on television and radio because these networks and stations have cold feet, well then, why not try podcasting?

2. Donations. Of course, we realize that it may take a good month or two to set up advertising. We’re under no illusions that any of this will work. So we will simultaneously be launching a new pledge drive in August for a sum of $1,600. Should we obtain this modest sum in the next three weeks, this will permit us to stay alive during the next month and conduct numerous interviews in September and early October with many important authors in the fall. We’ll also be placing some of this money into a low-cost marketing campaign that we’ll be carrying out in August and September to increase the show’s audience. I can’t yet tell you the details of this marketing yet, but I can say that no podcaster has tried what we’re doing and we believe that it will be successful enough to increase our audience. This audience increase, in turn, will make us more attractive to sponsors. (After we carry out this marketing, in the interests of total transparency, I will report on its degree of success.)

Like our pledge drive from last year, if you contribute $10, we’ll send you a chapbook which contains a special message from Bat Segundo, an excerpt from Humanity Unlimited (my novel in progress), and an excerpt from Wrestling an Alligator (a play I wrote and directed a few years ago). If you’ve already received a chapbook and you choose to contribute again, we’ll be sending a supplemental chapbook that contains an excerpt from a noir novel that is also in progress.

If you’ve enjoyed Segundo over the years and you’d like to see us continue, feel free to donate.
















I should also point out that the conflict of interest clause also involves donations. If you are an author and I eventually do interview you, then I’ll have to return the money. (In full transparency, we had one author who contributed last time. But we avoided a conflict in ethics by having somebody else interview this author.)

Now because our previous posts on the near demise of Segundo have resulted in a few donations, we’ll be including them in this $1,600 figure. Fair is fair. So the tally that we now have to beat is:

In the event that donations and sponsorship don’t yield the results, this brings us to Point #3.

3. Reading Fundraiser: I’ve contacted a few authors who have generously offered to give up some of their time for a Segundo fundraiser sometime in the fall. We’re currently looking around for possible venues. (If you have any ideas, again, please email me.) But what we have in mind is a reading fundraiser that would be hosted by Bat Segundo. (As our most recent podcast has made clear, Mr. Segundo was not, contrary to the events depicted in Show #199, shot to death.) Those attending would pay an entrance fee. But if the authors reading at this fundraiser aren’t enough of a draw, we’ll also be handing out CDs, which will contain a selection of the best Segundo episodes (along with a bonus or two that isn’t available online). In addition, should we find a sponsor who is willing to underwrite this event, we could waive the entrance fee and simply hand out the CDs.

We should have more on this fundraiser once we’ve managed to organize.

I realize that this is an elaborate plan that will require a good deal of hard effort. But I firmly believe that together, we might be able to do something quite amazing.

As my advertising rates indicate, I’m sure as hell not doing this for the money. My aim with Segundo has been simply to attempt something a little smarter than other radio shows who talk with authors.

I am being as transparent as I can with you because I do recognize that we’re trying to do something here for community. We’re trying to do something here for democracy. We’re trying to do something here for integrity.

This experiment may work. It may not. But it’s certainly worth a shot. And however it turns out, I’ll keep you posted on our efforts.

Thank you again for listening. And thank you for supporting us.
















MEDIA KIT:

Bat Segundo Media Kit

by Edward Champion

A Quick Roundup

  • Solzhenitsyn has kicked the bucket, traveling to that great gulag in the sky. That is, if you believe in that stuff. I’ll give him “One Day” and Cancer Ward to some extent, but I never quite took to Archipelago. Thought Gulag was turgid stuff that preached to the converted. (Explain yourself at length! Well, maybe one day.) Then again, I’m one of those odd readers who looks to the text, rather than an author’s miserable experience, for merit. The biggest upset here is that nobody thought to book Solzhenitsyn and Elie Wiesel for some demented pay-per-view boxing match.
  • Warren Ellis on the reality of SF magazines. Much of this, I suspect, has to do with the graying of science fiction fans. Or rather the graying of austere acolytes hostile to emerging voices and pining for hard science fiction the way that the rest of us look for a grand cross between Kierkegaard and a roller coaster. Don’t worry. The dour codgers will die off eventually, their unsmiling lips tarnished with talcum and a mortician’s assiduous cover. Unfortunately, Ellis is right. There are few ebullient pubs that will pick up the slack in print. Maybe if Gordon Van Gelder submits to disemvoweling, there might be some hope for tomorrow’s speculative Coovers, if only by accident.
  • Nicholson Baker has written a delightful essay about obsession with the OED!
  • What the hell? Ed’s writing something positive about the New York Times? Yes indeed. And I should also point out that I absolutely loved the theme for Sunday’s crossword too! I mean, that kind of wordplay takes an adept hand, depth and wit, if I do say so myself.
  • Aside from John Leonard’s pardon in Harper’s, it appears that Matthew Price is one of the few critics to get Thirlwell.
  • And Michael Martone has some damn interesting thoughts on blogs.