On July 21, 2014, 3:AM Magazine published the second most preposterous essay about books of this year. It was purportedly a review of Shane Jones’s Crystal Eaters, only to turn out to be a non-review that was purportedly about something else, but that was really about the reviewer gazing at his own navel. While the most preposterous essay about books of this year (published less than a month before) went to the trouble of naming names, thereby allowing all who took offense at it to align themselves into factions and swiftly attack the author, the second most preposterous essay about books of this year attacked Roxane Gay and Justin Taylor in the most pusillanimous manner possible — quoting them without naming them. The second most preposterous essay about books of this year cited Gay’s Goodreads review of Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams (offering the additional claim that Gay never read the book), Gay’s response to an AWP questionnaire, and Taylor’s HTML Giant assessment of Tao Lin’s Shoplifting from American Apparel as “a work of startling interiority.” This was not only disrespectful towards Gay and Taylor, but also greatly unhelpful for anyone wanting to piece together the purported literary world that the essay was trying to map and pinpoint. The essay was written by a middling writer named Lee Klein, who spearheaded an online literary magazine called Eyeshot for several years before running out of gas. Klein’s forthcoming novel, The Shimmering Go-Between, which was sent to me out of the blue a few months ago, is not very good. It is not very good, not because I disagree with Klein’s essay or because of any allegiance I may have for Roxane Gay or Justin Taylor, but because it fails to live up to my extremely high literary standards. Klein’s novel exists so firmly in that “not very good” realm that it isn’t even worth discussing at length — especially because it is published by a small press. This is just one man’s opinion.
By quoting people without naming them, Klein immediately establishes himself as a cowardly dick, yet claims later that, in not divulging his opinion about Shane Jones’s novel, he was somehow avoiding being a dick and a wuss:
Look: it’s not that I’m a dick when it comes to this stuff. It’s that I like to think that I have standards based on exposure to the interdependent duo of lit and life. But if I decide not to wuss out and instead uphold my particular notion of standards, I’m a dick, and being a dick could lead to dickish reviews of my own stuff from Shane Jones, his friends, and friends of the publisher.
But Lee Klein is fooling himself. His essay was the kind of gutless and dishonest omphaloskepsis (a fancy word for navel gazing, which I serve up because the look of the word makes me very happy and it slyly acknowledges a literary masterpiece, thus representing an altogether different and more benign omphaloskepsis) that does nobody any favors. The author (in this case, Shane Jones) may be left wondering why the reviewer (in this case, Lee Klein) went to all that trouble, further contributing to needless confusion. The reader has no real idea why the reviewer went to all that trouble. The preposterous essay ultimately becomes little more than performance art, one swiftly forgotten in the kudzu of assholes with opinions, possibly discouraging readers from reading anything more from Lee Klein — including the very novel (again, not a very good one) that he has hoped to get people to read in the first place by writing the provocative essay.
Here’s how I heard about Shane Jones. A number of people told me that his latest novel, Crystal Eaters, was quite good. These people had no vested interest to tell me this, other than their considerable passion for good books. Moreover, they told me this in person, not online. Now I have an independent mind that will form its own opinion, as I’m sure that you (the reader) do. I am sure that some of you are disagreeing with what you’re reading right now. But it is also a completely natural impulse to want to get in on something that other people with smart sensibilities are enjoying, unless you are a nihilist who enjoys being miserable. So if Shane Jones’s book was as good as these people were saying, it seemed worth checking out.
On April 20, 2014, I contacted Eric Obenauf at Two Dollar Radio and asked if he could send me a copy. On May 2, 2014, Obenauf got back to me, apologizing for his delay in response (entirely unnecessary, but Obenauf is a total pro) and telling me that he was out of galleys. I thanked Obenauf and told him that if he had any finished copies to spare, I’d be happy to read the book when it was available. The entire exchange was cordial. I knew Obenauf wouldn’t begrudge me if I didn’t get around to reading the book. Obenauf knew that I had been trying to write something about his excellent outfit, Two Dollar Radio, for quite some time and it was really a matter of waiting for the right book to come along, something that would cause my patch of the earth to tremble. Both of us were doing the best we could. A few weeks ago, a finished copy of Crystal Eaters arrived in my mailbox. But I had ten books I had to finish reading first.
That changed this week. When I read Klein’s essay, I realized that I had to put everything else aside and read Shane Jones’s book. Even if I ended up hating Jones’s book, the only possible remedy to Klein’s vulgar rejoinder was to read Crystal Eaters, feel it and think about it, and perhaps forge these thoughts into a carefully considered opinion. It turns out that I like Crystal Eaters a great deal and that Jones is a smart and imaginative writer. And I hope to write a separate essay extolling his book further.
I knew that it was possible to form an opinion without compromising my tastes or my ethics because, at some point within the past year, I read another book published by Two Dollar Radio. The author and I were bandying about the possibility of him appearing on my podcast, The Bat Segundo Show. While I liked the author, the book itself was not to my liking. I didn’t want to express phony enthusiasm for the book, but I also didn’t want to leave the author in the lurch. So I sent him the following email:
First off, my profound apologies in getting back to you later than expected. I have read ___________ in full and, while I enjoyed a chunk of the neglected perspectives you wrote about (with such details as ___________________ and the wry reference to ________________), its narrative approach didn’t congeal with me. I realize that this is part of the point, but I wanted to let the book sit with me for a few weeks before making a final decision.
I have thought about it and, rather than leave you hanging, I’m going to respectfully decline booking a Bat Segundo interview with you at this time. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I do have to trust my instincts on this one. If I’m not completely passionate about the book, then my listeners will know. And that would be a disservice to you. But I do know that several authors have enjoyed your book. Please understand that this is just one man’s taste.
If you like, I would be happy to introduce you to Gil Roth of The Virtual Memories Show. He also reads all the books before talking with his authors and yields very smart insights from this guests. You can check out his show here:
http://chimeraobscura.com/vm/
Please also keep me informed of your future work. There are often authors whose present titles don’t sit with me, but who I end up talking with later on down the line
Again, my apologies that this didn’t work out. Like anyone, I much prefer saying “yes” than “no.” But I hope my respectful candor atones for any disappointment on your part. I do wish you the best.
Thanks and all best,
Ed
The author sent back a gracious reply, fully understanding that his book would divide people. The two of us can run into each other while respecting our literary differences. Should he write a book that lights my Roman candle, I will most certainly be one of the first guys encouraging people to head to the fireworks stand. There is nothing about this that involves me selling out my principles or being a dick or a wuss. I’m constitutionally incapable of talking up a book I don’t love. This is what’s known as developing a failsafe bullshit detector — something that pinged off the charts when I read Klein’s essay.
Now doesn’t that sound a bit like Nik’s Chronicles? This got me thinking about whether Nik’s Chronicles represent a new lofty patriotism, or whether the act of plucking a lily (Paula’s question causing me to plunge further, not unlike Ada’s documentary filmmaking) from the vast swaths of electronic fallow is really what Spiotta is remarking upon. If the Battle of Stone Arabia can’t be remembered, if Colonel John Brown’s heroic actions stand no chance of being committed to memory (and we’re arguably living in a nation where our political figures commit more historical gaffes than ever before), then does Nik stand a chance?
On the other hand, I don’t have much sympathy for Nik. He may or may not be talented in an accessible way. (And I don’t award him much for his ability to mimic various elements of the creativity business.) I am not certain whether he was easily thwarted by any resistance to his ambitions (on the verge of success, his band was apparently sabotaged by one of those sharpies with which the record business is infested), but his nearly three decades as a barkeep in a Los Angeles dive bar is, at best, evidence of a pathetic lack of self-preservation. His substance abuse, which he refers to as his consolation, provides ample evidence that, whatever the obsession to fantasize a life of creativity means in his life, it does not offer (much) relief for what ails him. Did Nik kill himself? By that point in the story, I had stopped caring.
Paula: Interesting!
I want to talk about cliche, kitsch, and rock music. From the very first sentence, Nik’s story is explicitly linked to the dominant narratives of the “golden age” of rock ‘n’ roll, the 1960s — “he changed in one identifiable moment.” A Hard Day’s Night is cited by a number of groups (esp. the seminal LA band, The Byrds) as a formative moment in their evolution; similarly, John Lennon and Paul McCartney have linked their decision to begin playing music to a moment just after seeing Jailhouse Rock (“now that’s a good job,” John Lennon would say later about Elvis). The sudden appearance of a guitar, and it’s immediate transformation into an object of obsession, is also inked onto the pages of rock lore. Over the course of Stone Arabia, Spiotta links Nik’s experience — his actual experience (the manipulative managers, the strange left turns, the substance abuse) and his Chronicled experience (the motorcycle crash, “every person who did see them live seemed to have formed a band of their own,” the substance abuse) to dominant (and very cliched) narratives that characterize so many biopics and biographies about rock music, both popular and underground. Interestingly, these narratives, manipulative and often tacked on as they are, are what define the “authenticity” of ’60s and ’70s rock music. It’s why The Killers grew mustaches and went out into the wilderness to record their second album, why The Kings of Leon will always remind you of the fact that they’re all related, and how they grew up traveling the Bible Belt with their preacher father. At this point in time they’re kitsch narratives — harkening back to a time that never really existed, imitating a narrative that was already mostly a lie.
Thank you to Ed for doing this roundtable. I am so grateful for all the time everyone put into the discussion. I knew this was a book that would elicit complicated reactions, but I was so pleased to see people found so much to discuss. What thoughtful and interesting responses. How generous you all are to read the book so carefully. With so many books in the world, and so many other things demanding attention, a novelist is extremely lucky to get serious readers. 
During this same period, I read two Ross Macdonald novels. Because I had this feeling that Dana Spiotta had an interesting, concise/succinct tone echoing Macdonald, a way of describing a person just as sharply and perfectly as he did. People often overlook his California. Writers haven’t overlooked Spiotta’s Southern California — Casa Real, Hollywood Boulevard, the clubs, Topanga and the Valley — but she still did things with them that I liked.
Odds: I liked “pain tourist” and the idea that Denise goes to SymptomSolve.com (is that a real site?) to learn about “déjà vécu,” or fake memory. That sounds so damn fake. Half the memories in the novel, or all of them, could be fake. I thought it was weird that she goes back to Casa Real at the end and talks about memory palaces, since Tony Judt’s excellent memoir is called The Memory Chalet. The Judt memoir and Mira Bartok’s memoir, The Memory Palace, were everywhere this spring, reminding me how obsessive American culture is about memoir and memory, and not fakeness or that fine line between any of it. Spiotta seems to make fun of all that — with The Chronicles, with her own “journey” to meet some woman who she doesn’t even know (if she really took that trip), and with Ada’s film.
I related to this book a lot. And not just this book, but Spiotta’s first book, Lightning Field, too. (I reviewed Lightning Field in 2001 for a highly superficial glossy, and I think the review was mixed. But I definitely remember feeling uncomfortable while reading it and relieved when it was over — though my twenty-three-year-old reviewer self probably wasn’t old enough to just fess up that it was my problem, not hers.) I am a suburban LA kid. Plus a wannabe punk and an ol’ baby scenester, the type that lived for music yet bought ripped T-shirts at malls and probably played Groupie #1 more in memory than in reality. A poseur through and through. Plus, even more specifically here, I have a brother who’s a bit of a rock ‘n’ roll prodigy, who is also my best friend. Sure, I’m in my thirties. And I’m a product of growing up in the ’80s and ’90s — unlike Denise in her forties, growing up in the ’70s and ’80s. But I feel very much a Spiotta subject: as much as any of her characters. And the Los Angeles she writes about is very much mine: dystopian, dark, and dismal LA; the quieter, more dreary, and desolate side of my other LA, which is also the unbearably dark but more manic LA of Less Than Zero. I get where she’s coming from and I hate where she’s coming from. It’s an LA I very much ran away from at eighteen.
Lightning Field was saturated in Los Angeles, literally dripping with consumer name-dropping, and LA facts and figures. It was lyrical to the point of reading like a long poem which meditated on all things Angeleno. Stone Arabia is less on that end of the spectrum; it focuses on time rather than place. Post-9/11, War on Terror-era American life is in it everywhere, competing against the sepia of Nik’s former and fake lives, which Denise has been an arguably key figure in. Maybe this setting feels less personal. Because I lived for all the SARS stuff, the Abu Ghraib mentions, the Kerry name-drops, the YouTube comments, and all things of the last decade. They felt authentic and accurate, sans irony and kitsch. Nothing vintage, retro or camp about it — unlike some of the Angelophilia and Angelophobia within Lightning Field. It is the past that we are still entwined with. But we can somehow see it outside of ourselves. Spiotta rendered this well: not too hot or too cold, but with a sort of narrative nonfiction cool that really glitters in the best realist fiction.
And also: I don’t think it’s wrong for you guys to mention Egan. There will undoubtedly be comparisons. I admire both brilliant female authors for doing something outside of the oppressive, psychological-realist, American female author “norm” (I’m mainly avoiding a word that roughly rhymes with “piglet”). But Egan seems to wear it more naturally for me and goes further into true feral experiment. Thus, her book becomes infectious and addictive. Goon Squad hooked me in a way I did not feel here.
I enjoyed this book for a lot of weird, small, personal reasons. My mother makes me diagnose all medical concerns for her and my father via Dr. Google. So I related to Denise using the Internet to self-diagnose. I spend an inordinate amount of time on It was one of those human details I enjoy in fiction. As someone just past her mid-thirties, the stuff about an aging parent, managing adult sibling relationships when you’re very close with your siblings, grappling with middle age or at least the onslaught of it, all of that was also relatable. It was, in many ways, easy to like this book. I also liked the level of detail with which Spiotta chronicled The Chronicles; though as I noted in my first message, I really wanted the book to deal more with The Chronicles on a design/conceptual level. You really expressed my reservations with regard to The Chronicles in that it was dressed up as experimental work but surrounded by a rather commercial traditional narrative. As I read this book, I thought of Ander Monson’s Vanishing Point, which had 
I find it interesting, Porochista, that you say that, as a woman, you should be 100% behind any woman writer. I have struggled with this too, at times: this idea of solidarity when we have so much evidence about the ways in which women writers are fighting an uphill battle in the publishing industry. However, that attitude does women writers a disservice. The vagina does not exempt us from critique, nor should it. Women don’t require special handling or consideration. (I know that’s not quite what you’re saying.) As a writer, I don’t want my writing to be supported by other women just because I’m a woman. I don’t want my gender to have anything to do with how my writing is received. Unless money is involved. (I kid. Sort of.) I want my writing to be supported because it’s great. If a critic doesn’t think my writing is great, I’ll cry about the negative review, curse the reviewer to hell, and drink to make it better. As a book reviewer, I rarely write negative book reviews. Because life is too short. If I don’t like a book, I don’t talk about it publicly (there are exceptions). Because I’d rather spend what little time I have writing about books I love. This approach raises questions. How can you trust the judgment of a critic who loves everything? I don’t know. But for every book I review, there are three or four books I’ve read, gathering dust and going unreviewed because I really dislike them. Even though I don’t feel obligated to be 100% behind any woman writer, I do spend more energy promoting/reviewing books I love written by women. It is the one modest thing I can do. And I’m happy to have a few platforms available to me to do so. I liked Stone Arabia just enough to review it, but I’d rather be honest in my review and address some of the weaknesses I perceive in the book.
Why then this postmodern take on the handmade? I ask because I did not read this book as a postmodern novel, although I guess there’s postmodernish stuff inside it. There’s some framing going on and a little bit of self-reference. But it felt well-contained to me; the effects are just means to an end. This is essentially representational work; neither Nik nor Denise feel like ciphers or “texts” to me, but, rather, realist characters with real issues drawn in a real manner: each drawing himself or herself into being. Maybe the mirrored back cover is a superfan-level Easter egg, a nod to whatever mirroring is happening between Nik and Denise. They are two creators, two storytellers: one far more gung-ho and self-assured than the other. But as I type that thought, my internal editor is all like, “Uh, really?” So. 
So the next book I picked up was The Secret History of Costaguana by Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel Vasquez — mostly because I had tried to read his American debut, The Informers, with little pleasure. Another chance for Vasquez, and a trip to beleaguered Colombia with Joseph Conrad as a character, seemed enticing. And I was digging my way in when I received Stone Arabia and remembered my intention of participating in another Ed Champion extravaganza. 
I think here we get Denise’s answer to Sarah’s question about the value of art, purity, etc.: Thomas Kinkade’s “art” vs. Nik Worth’s music and Chronicles.
I don’t know if Nik is an artist, but he certainly performs the part of the artist very well. I was fascinated by the sheer extent of how he chronicled his imaginary career and the obsessive attention to detail, and how Spiotta was able to convey the obsession so convincingly. I would not say Nik is an impostor as much as he is a coward. He believes in his art enough to make it, but he doesn’t believe in his art enough to push it beyond the claustrophobic community he has created himself — people who, for the most part, have a certain obligation to love and appreciate his art. I thought of Hoarders, which airs on A&E, as I read this book. The show follows people who hoard trash, dolls, beer cans, and other strange ephemera that holds some deep emotional significance, even as it threatens to drive these people from their very homes. I read Nik as hoarding this chronicle of his imaginary life, slavishly devoted to the upkeep of that imaginary life even in the face of what would be deemed, by many, as abject failure.