Reading: Adam Haslett and Sam Lipsyte

Two hot young writers reading from their hot new novels.  I'm feeling not so hot at all, on the tail end of a cold.  For my "welcome back taste buds" meal:  pho. 

The audience seemed particularly keen on process questions:  how long did it take you to write your novel?  (5 years)  What's the difference between writing a novel and writing short stories?  (Length)  Is your work fiction or non-fiction.  (Fiction).  I wondered if the young woman who asked that last question had accidentally stumbled into the reading.  Adam, incidentally, is repped by Ira Silverberg, with whom I have a secret love affair.   

It occurred to me that many of the questioners -- most likely many of the attendees -- were aspiring writers themselves.  There were a handful of the older Philly literati who were drawn to this reading perhaps from Adam's appearance on the Today Show Book Club, but also a large number of late 20s/early 30s hipsters.  Also:  the occasional homo.  And my signing friend, Matt, who brought his son.

But when it came to question and answer time, one gentleman in the front kept needling Sam about studying with Gordon Lish.  What's the one piece of take home advice you learned from Lish or that you teach to your students at Columbia?  Both Sam and Adam gave the same approximate advice:  listen to your sentences.  Later, he had asked another Lish-related question:  what's the one piece of advice from Lish that you've had to forget or ignore?  And Sam, after relating the oft-told tale of Lish stopping students, mid-sentence, to tell them why they were fraudulent, said, "I've had to learn to let go of the fear."  The questioner revealed that he, too, had gotten a Master's in creative writing.

I think all young writers want the one-line answer to make writing seem that much easier.  The one piece of advice that makes everything snap into place. The truth of the matter is, however...

My post-reading, "welcome back taste buds" dessert:  star fruit and tart lime gelato from Capogiro.

New Potential Boyfriend: Ira Silverberg

Pity Ira Silverberg. He may be an incredibly powerful literary agent, but he's had a rough streak of authors. Last year, there was that whole JT Leroy incident. And now, there's the Ishmael Beah scandal. Isn't anyone who he says he is? Given the explosion of memoirs-that-really-weren't (James Frey, Margaret Jones) and given the numerous self-effacting interviews that Silverberg has had to give, won't someone cut the poor guy some slack?

Yes, I say, yes! I will! Setting aside his knack for representing powerhouse queer authors (Kathy Acker, Dennis Cooper, Adam Haslett), he's quite fetching. He looks determined, forthright; he continues to champion Ishmael Beah's veracity even though the evidence to the contrary seems quite convincing.

A joint Ira Silverberg venture isn't necessarily just about advancing my literary career; it's about fulfilling his life on an entirely different level. No longer would he have to fear of some concocted identity: why, I've been right here all along, making toast and buttering your muffins. Good morning! And the possibility that he'll be burned by another concocted memoir? Forget it; I'm fiction all the way. (At least until I get around to my memoir. But even then it'll be 100% true. And mostly verifiable.)

I urge Mr. Silverberg to take me on as a client at his earliest possible convenience. It's in his best interest, really, considering all the cheats and frauds littering the marketplace. In fact, it may be his only safe bet.

Possible positive boyfriend aspects: Shameless literary hucksterism. I'll no longer have to send out stories; Ira will do it, and the New Yorker will clamor to rush me into print. "Alice Munro who?" they'll say.

Possible negative boyfriend aspects: If I'm not mistaken, I believe his current partner works for the New York Times, in which case, Michiko Kakutani might come gunning for me.

Reading: Chip Kidd

Valentine's Day.

Is there anything more romantic than going to see a potential new boyfriend? Yes, I suppose, if said boyfriend lives up to your expectations. Chip Kidd (about whom I've rhapsodized in a previous post) visited the Library in support of his new novel, The Learners. But the audience -- young, hip -- most likely know Kidd for his comic and graphic design work. Give the man his due.

Kidd didn't give a traditional reading; instead, he opted for a PowerPoint presentation: humorous, erudite, and filled with both his successes and failures. So while displaying some of his upcoming book covers (Oliver Sacks, Augusten Buroughs), he also ran through slides of jacket designs that didn't make the cut (Fangland, early attempts at Cormac McCarthy's The Road). The latter was accompanied by a wicked Binky Urban impersonation, which only made me want to be her client even more. Not because she's a powerhouse. Because she also represents Kidd himself.

When Kidd reached to "reading" part of the presentation, his grand, theatrical style carried over: he didn't just read dialogue, he embodied the characters, especially the Norma Desmond-like Himillsy Dodd. And while this wasn't as enthralling as his impersonation of, say, Peter Lorre singing "Sugar Walls," Helen Hayes singing "Nasty," or a newborn hamster performing Hamlet, I can imagine him concocting these characters by becoming them first, testing out their voices outloud, and transcribing what comes out of his mouth.

I admit: I was feeling giddy throughout, grinning maniacally, staring at his shoes (brown, with an slash of orange on the side) and admiring his sartorial sense (vintage tweed, shirt collar hanging outside the lapels). He has much more upper-body bulk than I imagined -- his Marion Ettlinger portrait in Author Photo shows a much more trim Kidd (he laughed obligingly when I called it his "beefcake photo"; he compared himself to Stanley Kowalski). Whatever the case, he mentioned how his glasses were custom-made in London, reflecting his love of Bauhaus, and if that wasn't enough to get me swooning, I'm probably dead inside.

Not to mention Kidd is the first author I've met who signs the page edges.

Reading: Manil Suri

Matthew was particularly excited about seeing Manil Suri in person. After all, his picture, a yellowing rectangle snipped from a Texas newspaper, was magnetized to our refrigerator for years, until we finally invested in stainless steel. And there's no doubt, Suri is a striking man: thin with prominent features, salt and pepper hair, a mathematician's exacting eyes, thick lips that make you think bad thoughts when you look at them.

He read from his new novel, The Age of Shiva, the second part of a trilogy (although he preferred to call it a "tryptich," after one audience member asked why the characters from his first novel, The Death of Vishnu, weren't reprised). The audience was sparse, with a few South Asian faces sprinkled in. He seemed composed throughout, with a stately bearing, and his voice maintained a steady tone. He didn't demand attention -- he wasn't showy whatsoever -- but you could imagine him as more of a slow seducer, someone who works his way into your subconscious until you're madly in love.

Okay, maybe I'm projecting now.

Still, he had a mischievious sense of humor and promised a free DVD of an audience member who asked a "secret question." It reminded me of the old Groucho Marx TV show, You Bet Your Life, and when I asked about balancing a mathematical life and a writing life, a duck dropped from the ceiling. It was an easy question to guess, really. This makes two giveaways that I've won at Free Library readings. Time to play the lottery? Perhaps.

In the end, I got to take my picture with him, as is my custom, and he signed his photograph in my book of Marion Ettlinger portraits. I put my arm around him and could feel all the layers of air in the space between his clothes. He's a slender one, that Manil, but when you make contact, you know you want to hold on.

New Potential Boyfriend: Chip Kidd

Buddhists say that desire is the root of all suffering. To that, I would add that these roots grow long and deep. Witness: I want to publish a book. I want to publish a book with Knopf. I want to publish a book with Knopf so that Chip Kidd can design the book jacket. I want to publish a book with Knopf so that Chip Kidd can design the book jacket whereupon we two will fall madly in love and live in a spacious New York City apartment, living off my royalties alone.

Alas, until then... suffering.

Much in the way that Vaughan Oliver changed album covers, Chip Kidd revolutionized book jackets. Think Jurassic Park. Think The Secret History. I rarely buy art books, but each time I open his Book One: 1986-2006, I'm dazzled by the way he juxtaposes image (both found and created), text and color to create a new narrative. It's one thing to read a book and enjoy the beautiful prose (or, conversely, to have the pleasure of throwing it across the room in disgust), but to have the physical object match the interior content -- isn't this what sublimity is all about?

So: author photo taken by Marion Ettlinger (who took the picture of Chip above), book lovingly wrapped around a Chip Kidd design -- who needs nirvana when you've obtained perfection?

Possible positive boyfriend aspects: Since Kidd is also a comic book otaku, I could finally catch up on 10+ years' worth of mind-dizzying storylines in the X-Men (since I stopped buying comic books). Ancillary benefits include: awesome business cards, wowie-zowie greeting cards for Christmas, and an endless supply of free books and ARCs from Knopf. Not to mention: Kidd is himself an author. I wouldn't have to go past my own door to be able to seethe in literary jealousy.

Possible negative boyfriend aspects: I'm pretty sure his current boyfriend, poet J. D. McClatchey, could beat the tar out of me.

New Potential Boyfriend: Alain-Philippe Durand

I came across Monsieur Durand while researching the age-old job interview question: "What sort of literature classes would you like to teach?"

My answer: "The Literature of 9/11." Sexy, no?

I suppose it gets to my enduring interest in disaster -- how they change people, how they don't change people, how everything changes and nothing changes all at the same time. In researching this class, I came across Durand's own class of the same topic. And, being a good academic, I stole from it. Liberally. Because that's what a liberal arts education really means.

Possible positive boyfriend aspects: aside from his Gallic good looks and the quasi-queer charm that all Frenchmen-of-a-certain-age seem to possess, his research seems fascinating. Technology and hip-hop in modern French literature? Be still my heart. I do have a soft spot for academics that I've never been able to articulate. Give me discourse, give me rumination, give me your sweet, sweet lovin'.

Possible negative boyfriend aspects: This may come as a shock, but even though many Europeans seem gay in their mannerisms, inflected speech and cheek-kissing, most of them are not, in fact, gay. Stuffy academics, with their penchants for fine wool suits and elbow-patched tweed coats only exacerbate this image, but I need to remind myself that the line between homo and homme is a treacherous one, and one that must be tread lightly.