Look, Michiko, Just Write a Damn Novel Already

When NYT book reviewer Michiko Kakutani took on the voice of Holden Caufield two months ago to review Benjamin Kunkel’s Indecision, we all sort of shook our heads politely. After all, longtime readers knew it was an intermittently recurring tic of hers—remember the time she pretended to be Ally McBeal reviewing Bridget Jones?—and we just figured, okay, it’s out of her system for another year or so.

But, no: It’s only been two months, and she’s channeling Holly Golightly to review Truman Capote’s resurrected Summer Morning. Readers who dare follow this link will be forgiven the urge to claw out their own eyes in horror.

24 October 2005 | theory |

Megan Crane and the Unimaginable Writer’s Life

Megan Crane first appeared on this site several months back, taking part in a conversation with E. Lockhart about their debut novels. Now, with her second book, Everyone Else’s Girl, about to show up in bookstores, she’s here to fill us in on how she’s handling the excitement, having been through the publication cycle once before.

Long before my first book came out, I imagined what it would feel like. I had ample time to do this while I was in that seemingly endless “sold but not published” stage. During this stage I found myself at parties, saying things like, “Why yes, I’m a writer but no, the book’s not out yet.” People would crook their eyebrows at me and then lose interest, clearly under the impression that I was the sort of pathetic person who went about making self-aggrandizing yet unproveable statements at cocktail parties.

I told myself that it would all be different when the book came out, in ways I couldn’t imagine. And of course, this was true: I really couldn’t imagine it, because I’d never had a book come out before, nor had anyone I knew. I supposed that my life would change somehow, or there might be bright lights of some kind, or even, though I was ashamed to admit it, glorious song. Why not? This was the realization of a childhood dream! Why shouldn’t there be an aria or two? People online claimed to burst into tears in the bookstore upon catching sight of their debut novels; some asserted that they kicked their spouses from the marital bed so they could cuddle up with their ARCs instead. I couldn’t quite see myself doing any of these things, but I allowed for the possibility that, perhaps, publishing a book flipped some interior switch and just like that I would go from somewhat repressed to open and emotional in ways that led to weeping in public and/or cuddling with inanimate objects.

And then, when the book did come out, it was… different than I’d imagined.

(more…)

23 October 2005 | guest authors |