The Rake Magazine

Tag: darin strauss

  • Lolita Barbies!

    For all this talk about the decline of literary reading in America, there’s really been very little offered in the way of solution. As per usual, I’m probably unqualified to be writing this (caveats seem to have worked for Britt; maybe they will for me too), but I think I have an idea that might possibly save the book world: Better advertising. At the very least, it’s worth a shot.

    I think it’s time that publishing houses – Penguin, Random House, Harcourt, et al – take seriously the notion that the American entertainment economy is saturated and competitive (duh…) and therefore that books shouldn’t be competing against other books; rather books as a medium should be competing against movies as a medium, or music, or porn, or anything else that might take time away from reading.

    If this is already their mindset – many of them are incorporated, after all – then they need to pull their heads out of their asses and be more effective. Where do I see advertisements for books? In the New Yorker, in the New York Times Book Review, in Harper’s, in literary journals – places readers already are. And while there’s something to be said for targeting your audience, in order to thrive, I would think you need to attract some new customers.

    According to tradition, a potential convert to Judaism is supposed to be turned away by a rabbi – three times. If that person persists in his effort to convert after the third rejection, he is considered serious enough about the faith, finally, to be allowed in. The publishing world seems to make their barriers similarly ridiculously high; advertising, like religion, is a means to access mass amounts of people, but literary advertising seems to confine itself only to people already of the faith, so to speak. In Judaism, we bitch about intermarriage diluting and possibly annihilating the religion. Likewise, the publishing world bitches about the reallocation of words from the well-regarded print periodicals to poorly edited blogs (hi!).

     

    But neither Judaism nor literature, it seems, proactively recruit fresh constituents. Is it elitism? Is reading something so holy that it shouldn’t need to be marketed? Something so inherently valuable that people should flock to it of their own accord, and any need for a commercial here and there is preposterous? Yes. But then there’s reality to deal with.

    Right now the most vibrant literary events in Minneapolis are the Books and Bars series, Talking Volumes, Talk of the Stacks, and the existence of The Loft. (Doubtless there’s some great stuff I’m leaving out, like the reading series at Spoon River … feel free to PR and big-up yourself in the comments section below, and I’ll throw in a hyperlink if you don’t. I’m making a different point, though … right … about … now:) As far as I know, these goings-on are funded by independent bookstores, bars, the library system, and MPR – not by Random House, Penguin, and so on.

    Meanwhile, the most effective advertising for books is done, I think, by Amazon, which tells me what books I might like, based on what books I’ve previously bought. Again, the publishing houses aren’t behind this, I don’t think – rather it’s simply Amazon’s self-interest in promoting sales.

    Furthermore, it seems publishers are incompetent with the money they actually have for marketing. Last night, best-selling author/sometimes-musician Darin Strauss was in town to promote his new novel, More Than It Hurts You. About fifteen people showed up at the Galleria Barnes & Noble to hear him speak. Maybe five of them, he estimated, bought his book –– totaling roughly $125 for penguin, minus B&N’s take, minus cost of printing, etc. This, Strauss said, was a fairly typical turn-out for his current tour. He explained that the real intent of an author tour is to generate publicity, via interviews and reviews on local radio stations and in local newspapers.

    But, aside from this amazing piece of writing, Strauss had nothing lined up in the Twin Cities. Neither the Strib nor the Pioneer Press has yet run a review of the book, nor did he get on the radio. I think City Pages mentioned he was coming in a blurb on their A-List.

    And yet he was here, which means Penguin (his publisher) shelled out for his flight, his hotel, and a hired car to take him to his reading. That’s got to be getting close to $600, if not more. There are about twenty stops on his tour. This is money that could be spent buying print or radio or television or (gasp) movie preview slots to advertise, which one hopes could generate more than five book sales.

    So – and feel free to amend – a few thoughts on what publishing companies can do to help save books in the modern world, without resorting to E-Books, God willing:

    – Take a big chunk of the money allotted for author tours (except in cities guaranteed to get a big audience draw) and spend it on advertising.

    – In the short term, forget specific authors and books, and do a good campaign promoting books in general, with a heavy, heavy emphasis on literary novels by current authors.

    – Advertise in ways that will draw new readers. (Oprah’s great for having her book club, but it’s a little scary that she’s the pre-eminent bookseller of our times.) This may take some thought. Product placement? We’re all suckers for it, anyway. So why not?

    – Merchandising! On The Road – the Toilet Paper Scroll. Are you telling me you couldn’t have a Holden Caulfield action figure, which actually broods? A Lolita doll? Or less perverse toys thereof?

    – A rough idea: Fuck hardcovers! I’m not sure what their function is anymore, except to make people not buy books. Fairly frequently I hear someone browsing the new releases section at Magers and Quinn and hear, "Oh, I’ll just wait until it’s in paperback." Yeah, buddy – I bet you will. I’m not sure this testing-of-the-market to see if it justifies a paperback run is useful anymore. With the advances of
    immediate and on-demand publishing, why not just spend an extra nickel on a more-endurable paperback to begin with (Penguin Classics-type quality), and use the extra cash on, I don’t know, more advertising.

    – Community involvement. If Target can sponsor free museum days, Random House can sponsor outreach programs, too. According to me, at least.
    Check this: Even B&N and Borders are struggling now in the giant commercial suction cup that is the Internet. The dominant bookstores soon might be those that people feel personal connections to. So maybe instead of paying to put shitty cardboard displays with books We’ve All Been Meaning To Read up front, publishers should finance Independent Bookstore Community Involvement Stuff. What about a tutoring program inside a bookstore? Kids could get help with their English homework for free and get comfy with the environment of must and dust. Booksellers and publishers would be seen as giving back to their communities (more than they already do simply by peddling great books). If the program were two days a week for two hours, you could pay one employee (if volunteers are unavailable) probably less than $10,000 a year. Would other infrastructure be needed? I’m sure English teachers would promote it to parents. Just a thought.

    One last cheap tie-in to religion: Without playing the advertising game, reading looks to be going the way of Reform Judaism – something its practitioners respect, and probably hope to pass on to their children, but which is really only observed once or twice a year.

  • A Rakish Interview with Darin Strauss — Part II

    Part II (To see the first part of this interview, click here)

    "If you don’t belong to a book club," Ron Charles wrote in The Washington Post last week, "Darin Strauss’s bitter and brilliant new novel is reason enough to start one." The novel – Strauss’s third – marks a departure from the author’s previous books, both of which were (somewhat incidentally) historical fiction. More Than It Hurts You sets us in über-modern Long Island, a place where George Clooney, Austin Powers, and "Everybody Loves Raymond" all figure into the collective consciousness (while Fitzgerald and Tolstoy hide in the shadows).

     

    The book finds its thematic center in a rare disease called Munchausen by proxy, in which a mother will harm her child to get attention forherself. Playing out the drama are three principal characters: Dori Goldin, the young mother accused of Munchausen; her unknowing husband Josh; and Dr. Darlene Stokes, an African American physician who suspects foul play when Dori brings her infant into the ER.

     

    As their lives tangle in the courtroom and in the press, morals are trumped by flashy headlines, and relationships become so clouded that Josh doesn’t know whether to trust the doctor or his wife. Before long, More Than It Hurts You transcends its storyline, as the syndrome becomes symptomatic of something larger – America’s masochistic obsession with attention in general, and the ramifications thereof.

    The Rake

    With all its references to pop culture, it’s clear you were aiming for a contemporary feel in this novel. Another aspect that makes it feel so contemporary is its use of dialect. Was this something you knew was vital to making the book current?

    Strauss

    I was really conscious with the Intelligent Muhammed stuff [Darlene Stokes’s father – a newly released ex-convict]. I wanted it to be authentic, but it’s always risky being a white guy writing a black guy’s voice. You don’t want to sound like a caricature. Actually I listened to a lot of hip-hop, and I went down to where the ex-cons are dropped off. It’s actually a place, where if you don’t have anyone to pick you up from jail, that’s where you go.

    The Rake

    Did your students unwittingly help out with some of the dialogue?

     

    Strauss

    Teaching definitely helps with keeping your ear fresh. There’s one point in the hospital, in the first chapter, where Josh comes across an email, and that comes I think from emails I get from my students.

     

    [The email goes like this: "what up kid im so sorry im not around for you but U will beat it lookemia is "BULLSHIT" I am here with Marisa who thinks I am SO into nice walks on the beach under the sunset lol"]

     

    But a lot of the speech came from a friend of mine who’sactually in ad sales, and had the job that Josh had. I was able to watch him interact, and see how that happened. Also I read a lot of Don Delillo – I think he has modern-speak down.

     

    The Rake

    Is listening to your characters talk a way for you to understand them?

     

    Strauss

    Yeah, going back, with Chang and Eng I was thinking, ‘How am I going to make characters from men that are so different from me?’ I thought their speech might be a decent way to do it. Then I found out neither spoke English, though, so that wasn’t going to help me. I had the thought that I should make one speak better than the other. Because if one speaks better, that can mean something: He’s more studious; he’s more serious. And so on. Pretty soon character begins to emerge.

     

    The Rake

    A book I hope you’ll riff on is Anna Karenina. You use the word ‘Happiness’ in the first sentence of the More Than It Hurts You, and happiness/unhappiness is a theme that recurs throughout the novel, which seems to be a sort of tip-of-the-cap to Tolstoy.

     

    Strauss

    Definitely I had that book in mind. I wanted Josh to be a bit like Stepan Oblonsky – just a very likeable guy, despite his infidelities.

     

    James Woods argues that Tolstoy’s characters are all symbolic of one thing, all have one primary element to their natures, but then they’ll often surprise themselves by going against that. I wanted to create Darlene in the same way. The way she walks gives her a false impression of weight. I tried to make her multi-dimensional by having her surprise us, like when she’s trying to figure out how to tell Leo she loves him, which is not very natural for her. Heaviness is her norm, but she tries to break through it. But then she always falls back into herself. Actually I was thinking of a bunchof Tolstoy books. The flashback of Darlene’s life is based on something from The Death of Ivan Ilyanich.

    The Rake

    You’ve said your method for dealing with historical fiction is to do as much writing with as little research as possible, and then when you’re done to go back and make sure the facts match. Were you able to use the same tactic here, with all the hospital content?

     

    Strauss

    I blew it in this. With Chang and Eng, I wasn’t sure if the manuscript would get published. So I think I was a little more relaxed with it- I wasn’t afraid of people going over it with a fine-toothed comb, because I wasn’t sure if anyone was actually going to read it or not.

     

    This one I knew would get published. Doctors would read it, and I didn’t want them to say, ‘No no no – this isn’t how it is.’ The first chapter, which is set in a hospital, took me a year to write, but then it was way too researched and jargon-heavy. It seemed like a bad episode of "ER." I ended up taking a lot out, and realized that so long as I knew what I was writing about, and had a sort of command over the material, I didn’t necessarily have to add every little thing in.

     

    The Rake

    You are not one half of a conjoined twin, nor are you a turn-of-the-century flim-flam artist/boxer. You are, however, an assimilated Jew who grew up in Long Island, and has spent time both at Tufts and NYU, much like the characters of this book. Was this a conscious decision to align your biography with theirs?

     

    Strauss

    I was thinking, as long as it’s set in contemporary America, I might as well set it in some place that I know. Actually it was partially so I wouldn’t have to do so much research, I could save myself some time.

     

    But even though I knew the setting, in a lot of ways this book was harder than Chang and Eng for me. People said it must be hard to write that one, from the perspective of a conjoined twin, but it was kind of easy. All I did was think about how I would act if I were attached to someone.

     

    But it was much harder to make Dori relatable andsympathetic. In my first draft I thought I was being subtle, but then I showed it to friends, and they all said, "Oh, so she’s crazy." I had to tone it down abit.

     

    I wanted to examine parenthood from different angles, and Dori’s was a difficult angle. How could I make her poison her kid and still be likable? It was tough to get inside her head. In any relationship there are alot
    of ambiguities, and that’s another thing I really wanted to examine, especially through Dori and her marriage to Josh. This book is very much about how you can never know someone fully, no matter how close you think you are to them.

     

    Part II (To see the first part of this interview, click here)

    Darin Strauss is the author of the international bestseller Chang and Eng and the New York Times Notable Book The Real McCoy. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. The recipient of a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction writing, he lives in Brooklyn, and teaches writing at New York University.

     

     

  • A Rakish Interview with Best-Selling Author Darin Strauss

    "If you don’t belong to a book club," Ron Charles wrote in The Washington Post last week, "Darin Strauss’s bitter and brilliant new novel is reason enough to start one." The novel – Strauss’s third – marks a departure from the author’s previous books, both of which were (somewhat incidentally) historical fiction. More Than It Hurts You sets us in über-modern Long Island, a place where George Clooney, Austin Powers, and "Everybody Loves Raymond" all figure into the collective consciousness (while Fitzgerald and Tolstoy hide in the shadows).

    The book finds its thematic center in a rare disease called Munchausen by Proxy, in which a mother will harm her child to get attention for herself. Playing out the drama are three principal characters: Dori Goldin, the young mother accused of Munchausen; her unknowing husband Josh; and Dr. Darlene Stokes, an African American physician who suspects foul play when Dori brings her infant into the ER.

    As their lives tangle in the courtroom and in the press, morals are trumped by flashy headlines, and relationships become so clouded that Josh doesn’t know whether to trust the doctor or his wife. Before long, More Than It Hurts You transcends its storyline, as the syndrome becomes symptomatic of something larger – America’s masochistic obsession with attention in general, and the ramifications thereof.

    The Rake: All your novels have a vital thematic resonance to them. In Chang and Eng, for example, Eng wants to physically detach himself from his brother; meanwhile it’s set during the American Civil War – two halves of the same country with one wanting to secede. More Than it Hurts You contains several of these resonant components…Are these ideas you develop before you start, or do they progress as you write?

    Strauss: I just sort of write, and then figure out what the book’s about. Typically I write a hundred pages, and then see what I’ve got, and throw out stuff that’s not useful. With this one, I was just grabbed by the story of Munchausen by Proxy. My first two books I just sort of ended up with historical fiction – I wasn’t planning to be a historical fiction author, though. I was just going after stories that could engage me for three hundred pages, for three years.

    If you pick a rich subject matter, the themes figure themselves out. You find resonances in the book you hadn’t planned on, and then in the second or third draft you can eke them out. Otherwise, if you try to plan them all out beforehand, you can seem like you’re theme-mongering.

    The Rake: What’s perhaps most remarkable about More Than It Hurts You – what a lot of critics are praising it for – is its mashing together of both highbrow and lowbrow styles. Was that your intent from the get-go?

    Strauss: I wanted to set out to prove that you could write a literary novel that’s also a page-turner. I didn’t want to make it a cheesy genre book, but you know, it can be literary and an enjoyable read at the same time. I remember this quote from Updike, where he said that, ever since Melville, writing’s been broken down into two camps. There’s the Dreiser camp, which has the plots, and there’s the Henry James camp, with the finely wrought prose, and Melville kind of joined those two streams, but nobody else really has since then. I was thinking a lot about that.

    Also, I was thinking a lot about Updike when I was writing this. I wanted to make it kind of like the Rabbit books, where you have a theme, or a hook, that keeps popping up. Like the second Rabbit book – Rabbit Redux – has the moon landing as this big news story, but Updike just uses that as a platform to study what’s going on in America. That’s what I was trying to do: To use this kind of page-turner-y condition – Munchausen – because it’s a standard story of a child in jeopardy.

    But then also it says a lot of interesting things about our culture, like about what people will do just to get attention. Munchausen really only happens in rich countries, like the U.S. and the U.K., and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these are the countries with the ridiculous reality TV shows. And so I wanted to use that as the engine of the book. But I also wanted to examine bigger subjects of America like gender and race and class. Then I thought it would be interesting if the doctor was black and the family was white. I thought it would be interesting if the family went to the press, and the doctor couldn’t defend herself. And that’s when it started drawing me in.

    The Rake: The most apparent theme of the book is that of acting versus living, and I wonder if you’d speak a little bit about that, in terms of how you see it in the real world.

    Strauss: It’s just the culture now. I tried to be careful about not overwriting the point, but I wanted it in there. It was more of a vague idea than something I wanted to hit people over the head with. I remember this line from Saul Bellow, who said that it’s better for a writer to have a vague idea than a fully formed one.

    But yeah, I kind of thought that’s the way we go through life now, with crying for attention the way Dori does, and the whole reality TV culture, and always thinking you’re acting in some movie that other people are watching.

    The Rake: With all the pop-culture references – George Clooney, Kanye West, "Everybody Loves Raymond" – your intent was clearly to make this book as current as it could possibly be. Some of the observations, though, have turned out to be kind of prescient.

    Strauss: A couple reviewers have said that the character of Darlene Stokes personifies both Barack Obama’s campaign and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, because it deals with race and gender. So I got kind of lucky that this presidential season happened when the book was coming out. And in the novel Darlene is attacked for some group she may or may not have belonged to in college – and I saw something recently where people were going after Michele Obama for some African American organization she belonged to in college. And the Reverend Wright stuff reminded me of the way, in the book, they go after Darlene for having a father who’s got a shady past. So it’s been very interesting to watch all that play out.

    As I wrote the book, I felt these things bubbling under the surface in America, but by the time the book came out, they weren’t under the surface anymore. I turned it in before Obama was even ahead in the polls – he had actually just announced he was running.

    And I also wrote the media stuff before the Duke lacrosse case, which my wife, a journalist for Newsweek, covered. I went with her to a lot of TV things, and I got to see backstage how the race issue plays out in the press, which was interesting because it was exactly what I was writing about at the time. It was gratifying – I felt like I got it right.

    The Rake: And then there have been coincidences within your personal life, too.

    Strauss: There are a number of coincidences. I started writing this book four years ago, and I didn’t know I was even going to have kids. And Zach, the child in the book, is eight months old when the story starts, and my kids were eight months when it came out.

    The Rake: Oooooooooooh…

    Strauss: Ha. Yeah — and I wrote a book about twins and now I have twins…And our twins were premature, so I had to read the proofs of the book in the baby ICU. So I’m reading this chapter about the hospital, while I’m in the hospital, and that was very weird, because I was reading a description of a beeping hospital room filled with babies, and there I was sitting in a beeping hospital room filled with babies, and that was really just kind of incredible.

    [For a continuation of this interview, click here to see The Rake‘s "Cracking Spines" blog]

    Darin Strauss is the author of the international bestseller Chang and Eng and the New York Times Notable Book The Real McCoy. His work has been translated into fourteen languages. The recipient of a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction writing, he lives in Brooklyn, and teaches writing at New York University.