Read This: An Object of Beauty

My reaction to the backlash against Steve Martin’s appearance at the 92nd St. Y earlier this week is, I admit, colored by my perspective as a literary event organizer. I was not present for Deborah Solomon’s interview of Steve Martin, which apparently frustrated audience members who wanted to hear less about Martin’s long familiarity with the art world and how it’s reflected in his new novel, An Object of Beauty, and more about, for lack of a better summation, Steve Martin being “Steve Martin.” So I don’t know, maybe the interview was terrible—I’ve certainly had my negative reactions to Solomon’s work in the past—but based on what little I know it sounds an awful lot like the interview Martin did with Charlie Rose, which I have to tell you was pretty riveting stuff, if you’re seriously interested in creativity (and applying yourself to being creative) and about art.

So I’m a bit disappointed in the 92Y for immediately agreeing with the protestors in the audience that the event was a disappointment and giving everybody a refund. Although one always tries to put on a show that speaks to the audience’s interests, that doesn’t mean the audience is always right. Now, maybe there was some miscommunication between the 92Y administration and the “on-stage talent,” or between the venue and the audience, about what the evening’s theme was going to be, and maybe there wasn’t; again, I’m not privy to any of those kinds of details. But I do know that it’s hardly a secret that Steve Martin has been a thoughtful, informed collector of art for decades, and a fiction writer of gradually increasing critical regard over the last decade, and if he wants to spend an hour talking about art and literature at your cultural venue, that’s a pretty good get.

(UPDATE: Soon after posting this, I got feedback directing me to eyewitness accounts identifying Deborah Solomon as the problem, specifically that, as an interviewer, she was “boorish, blundering, unperceptive and obscure.” Although I wasn’t there, based on my experience reading Solomon’s interviews, I concede this to be highly plausible.)

Anyway, the whole thing pretty much guaranteed that An Object of Beauty became my subway reading today; I’m about 100 pages in, and I have to tell you, it’s awfully good. You couldn’t call it a literary revolution—narrators reflecting on the rise and fall of a social climber were probably old hat when Fitzgerald wrote Gatsby—but it’s a solid story set in an affluent New York subculture that would do Dawn Powell proud. The color illustrations of paintings that come up as the plot unfolds—a device Martin confessed to Rose was a way to avoid the pitfalls of trying to use words to describe a purely visual experience—are an excellent touch, and never feel intrusive. I’m very much looking forward to seeing how it all turns out.

(And I’m hardly giving up on the 92Y; in fact, I’m headed there later this month to see Ian Frazier and John McPhee, for what promises to be a fascinating conversation about reportage and nature writing, among other possibilities.)

2 December 2010 | read this |

Kathy Reichs’ Holiday Gift Suggestion

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Kathy Reichs when she came to New York to have lunch with a few bookish sorts (librarians, journalists, that sort of crowd) and tell us about her first YA novel, Virals. It’s a suspense-mystery with a twist: The crimesolvers are a pack of teenage boys and girls, and I use the term “pack” advisedly, because fairly early on, a canine parovirus gets into their DNA and… well, to avoid giving too much away, let’s just say their puberty involves more than the usual changes. (There’s also a tangential connection to her previous thrillers, as the teenage protagonist talks very early on about her famous aunt, Temperance Brennan…)

Anyway, shortly after that lunch, I asked if Reichs had any holiday gift suggestions, and she was enthusiastic about the most recent John Irving novel, Last Night in Twisted River. But she also wanted to mention another of her favorite Irving novels…

The World According to Garp is one of my favorite books; its take on writing, and being a writer, always stuck with me. Garp is a book that can’t be summed up, it must be read cover to cover. Comedy and tragedy at the same time. A great choice for aspiring writers.

1 December 2010 | gift ideas |