Tuesday, October 10, 2006
I am Lazarus, come from the dead
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all
by
Daniel Scott Buck
Firstly, I want you to know that Mrs. Buck is a post-modernist, and I am not. Secondly, I am the author of a novel called The Greatest Show on Earth, which my wife describes as a work of post-modernist fiction, yet I describe it as a work of fiction about the post-modern condition. And as you can imagine, this leads to some lengthy discussions about Truth. There’s a great deal of eye-rolling, cold shoulders, and when things get ugly, fisticuffs. One should choose their battles wisely. And if there is one battle Mrs. Buck and I agree on, it’s fighting this one: Matters of Truth.
Over the past few months, I’ve been getting my lit-fix from some fantastic bloggers. Here are a few that I check out everyday: http://www.maudnewton.com/; http://www.grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/; and, of course, http://www.girlondemand.blogspot.com/.
Usually I find a thread and end up lost in the ether of the web, reading some blog I’ve never heard of, and more often than not, it’s worthwhile. Reading these blogs (not all of them are about books, thank dog) has become part of my routine, like drinking coffee in the morning. Sometimes I comment on the postings, other times I keep my virtual mouth shut, even when I’m drooling like a rat with rabies. And I have had some beautiful moments. Right now I am reading the Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, a book recommended to me by Bryan Appleyard (we were straying off topic on one of his postings), and I am grateful. It is a book that I needed in my life—at that very moment—and so there was something magical about how I found it.
Now, I’m giving you this short blogging history for a reason. Several months ago, after discovering this lit-blogging community, I sent copies of my novel to about thirty lit-bloggers who were receptive to a ten word query email I had sent them. Last summer I sent my novel to over fifty major and minor newspapers, and I did not get a single review. I used to share cigarettes with one of the book reviewers of the Portland Tribune, a newspaper located on the same block as my office. He informed me that it was unlikely that the book would get reviewed because it was a print-on-demand novel; and he was right about that.
The first review of The Greatest Show on Earth appeared on August 31st, 2006—a year-and-a-half after it was published. The review came from a well-known blogger, Michael Allen, http://www.grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/. And then another review followed at POD-dy Mouth, http://www.girlondemand.blogspot.com/, a woman who pays special attention to print-on-demand books, as well as the other varied echelons in the Dantesque publishing world.
I started writing the book in 1997. I had met Chuck Palahniuk at around the time Fight Club was being developed into a movie, and Chuck was intrigued by my project to the extent of delivering me to his mentor, Tom Spanbauer (author of The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon and In the City of Shy Hunters).
But when I got to the writing workshop, guess who was there? The dreaded Jennifer Lauck.
Lauck is the author of the fanciful memoir, Blackbird, which would soon become an Oprah favorite, however, there was no backlash after the fact was announced that many details were concocted in sessions of repressed memory therapy. And as if that weren’t enough, the memoir is told from the perspective of a ten-year-old girl.
Now, I remember Chuck Palahniuk telling me to read something really fucked up in my first workshop reading. So the first piece I read in Tom’s workshop was a piece about a repressed memory specialist seducing and molesting an underage client; the scene was set in a master bedroom, complete with champagne and roses (it was cut from the final manuscript). Jennifer Lauck approached me after class and asked if she could keep it. At the time, I thought it was a compliment. She probably burned it in a cleansing ritual.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Jennifer Lauck and James Frey, much more than I would like to. But one reviewer after another seems to take an increasing amount of pleasure in developing a special vocabulary about the man (“Frey-watch”; “Frey’em”). And I can’t read or hear the name James Frey without thinking of Jennifer Lauck, and I cannot think of Jennifer Lauck without thinking about the concept of Subjective Truth and how, apparently, that is Okay by Oprah.
So I’m in the East Village for the weekend, visiting from Portland, Oregon. Sitting at the Pick Me Up Cafe, I’m talking to my wife on the cell. I’m here at this cafe for the wi-fi and the coffee, looking at a website on my laptop where there is a group photo from the RiotLit Reading at the KGB Bar the night before; and James Frey is in the photo.
I didn’t know that I had actually met the man. I called my wife and asked her what she thought about the controversy.
“Oprah is the most powerful force in the publishing industry,” Mrs. Buck says.
“So, I guess James Frey screwed up,” Mr. Buck says. “He got busted for pulling the wool over Oprah.”
“Well,” Mrs. Buck says. “Nobody fucks with Oprah.”
So I do a little research and find this posting about the James Frey controversy, posted by Jennifer Lauck herself on her own personal blog:
“I think Mr. Frey should be thanking her. Look how many books he sold, in the beginning and now will sell and how much personal growth (which is priceless) he will receive from her efforts... Most of all, the entire U.S. publishing industry should be thanking her.”
But that’s not all. Jennifer Lauck has some last words:
“We are all indebted to Oprah Winfrey and this is a debt that I am very intimate with. This is what I think about the James Frey controversy. Thank you, Oprah, for your committment to truth and thank you for all you do!”
Truth? Truth? Truth? Jennifer Lauck has already told us her truth. Her truth happens to be historically incorrect. So I call my wife with this nugget.
“Here’s further evidence of the failure of post-modernism,” Mr. Buck says. “If Jennifer Lauck praises Oprah for her commitment to the truth; this being, of course, after Oprah Winfrey’s standing ovation for Jennifer Lauck’s knack for telling lies, then how could you expect James Frey to amount to anything else? At least he tried to sell his book as a novel.”
“Ah, honey,” Mrs. Buck says. “Doncha see? Oprah Winfrey is the Architect of Post-Modernism for the 21st Century. James Frey didn’t pull the wool over her eyes. She pulled the wool over his!”
Sources:
http://www.jenniferlauck.com/more-writing/2006/01/dear-oprah-thank-you.html
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:OB2A-CN73wsJ:www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/31/reviews/001231.31kantort.html+%22jennifer+lauck%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=10
by
Daniel Scott Buck
Firstly, I want you to know that Mrs. Buck is a post-modernist, and I am not. Secondly, I am the author of a novel called The Greatest Show on Earth, which my wife describes as a work of post-modernist fiction, yet I describe it as a work of fiction about the post-modern condition. And as you can imagine, this leads to some lengthy discussions about Truth. There’s a great deal of eye-rolling, cold shoulders, and when things get ugly, fisticuffs. One should choose their battles wisely. And if there is one battle Mrs. Buck and I agree on, it’s fighting this one: Matters of Truth.
Over the past few months, I’ve been getting my lit-fix from some fantastic bloggers. Here are a few that I check out everyday: http://www.maudnewton.com/; http://www.grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/; and, of course, http://www.girlondemand.blogspot.com/.
Usually I find a thread and end up lost in the ether of the web, reading some blog I’ve never heard of, and more often than not, it’s worthwhile. Reading these blogs (not all of them are about books, thank dog) has become part of my routine, like drinking coffee in the morning. Sometimes I comment on the postings, other times I keep my virtual mouth shut, even when I’m drooling like a rat with rabies. And I have had some beautiful moments. Right now I am reading the Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, a book recommended to me by Bryan Appleyard (we were straying off topic on one of his postings), and I am grateful. It is a book that I needed in my life—at that very moment—and so there was something magical about how I found it.
Now, I’m giving you this short blogging history for a reason. Several months ago, after discovering this lit-blogging community, I sent copies of my novel to about thirty lit-bloggers who were receptive to a ten word query email I had sent them. Last summer I sent my novel to over fifty major and minor newspapers, and I did not get a single review. I used to share cigarettes with one of the book reviewers of the Portland Tribune, a newspaper located on the same block as my office. He informed me that it was unlikely that the book would get reviewed because it was a print-on-demand novel; and he was right about that.
The first review of The Greatest Show on Earth appeared on August 31st, 2006—a year-and-a-half after it was published. The review came from a well-known blogger, Michael Allen, http://www.grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/. And then another review followed at POD-dy Mouth, http://www.girlondemand.blogspot.com/, a woman who pays special attention to print-on-demand books, as well as the other varied echelons in the Dantesque publishing world.
I started writing the book in 1997. I had met Chuck Palahniuk at around the time Fight Club was being developed into a movie, and Chuck was intrigued by my project to the extent of delivering me to his mentor, Tom Spanbauer (author of The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon and In the City of Shy Hunters).
But when I got to the writing workshop, guess who was there? The dreaded Jennifer Lauck.
Lauck is the author of the fanciful memoir, Blackbird, which would soon become an Oprah favorite, however, there was no backlash after the fact was announced that many details were concocted in sessions of repressed memory therapy. And as if that weren’t enough, the memoir is told from the perspective of a ten-year-old girl.
Now, I remember Chuck Palahniuk telling me to read something really fucked up in my first workshop reading. So the first piece I read in Tom’s workshop was a piece about a repressed memory specialist seducing and molesting an underage client; the scene was set in a master bedroom, complete with champagne and roses (it was cut from the final manuscript). Jennifer Lauck approached me after class and asked if she could keep it. At the time, I thought it was a compliment. She probably burned it in a cleansing ritual.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Jennifer Lauck and James Frey, much more than I would like to. But one reviewer after another seems to take an increasing amount of pleasure in developing a special vocabulary about the man (“Frey-watch”; “Frey’em”). And I can’t read or hear the name James Frey without thinking of Jennifer Lauck, and I cannot think of Jennifer Lauck without thinking about the concept of Subjective Truth and how, apparently, that is Okay by Oprah.
So I’m in the East Village for the weekend, visiting from Portland, Oregon. Sitting at the Pick Me Up Cafe, I’m talking to my wife on the cell. I’m here at this cafe for the wi-fi and the coffee, looking at a website on my laptop where there is a group photo from the RiotLit Reading at the KGB Bar the night before; and James Frey is in the photo.
I didn’t know that I had actually met the man. I called my wife and asked her what she thought about the controversy.
“Oprah is the most powerful force in the publishing industry,” Mrs. Buck says.
“So, I guess James Frey screwed up,” Mr. Buck says. “He got busted for pulling the wool over Oprah.”
“Well,” Mrs. Buck says. “Nobody fucks with Oprah.”
So I do a little research and find this posting about the James Frey controversy, posted by Jennifer Lauck herself on her own personal blog:
“I think Mr. Frey should be thanking her. Look how many books he sold, in the beginning and now will sell and how much personal growth (which is priceless) he will receive from her efforts... Most of all, the entire U.S. publishing industry should be thanking her.”
But that’s not all. Jennifer Lauck has some last words:
“We are all indebted to Oprah Winfrey and this is a debt that I am very intimate with. This is what I think about the James Frey controversy. Thank you, Oprah, for your committment to truth and thank you for all you do!”
Truth? Truth? Truth? Jennifer Lauck has already told us her truth. Her truth happens to be historically incorrect. So I call my wife with this nugget.
“Here’s further evidence of the failure of post-modernism,” Mr. Buck says. “If Jennifer Lauck praises Oprah for her commitment to the truth; this being, of course, after Oprah Winfrey’s standing ovation for Jennifer Lauck’s knack for telling lies, then how could you expect James Frey to amount to anything else? At least he tried to sell his book as a novel.”
“Ah, honey,” Mrs. Buck says. “Doncha see? Oprah Winfrey is the Architect of Post-Modernism for the 21st Century. James Frey didn’t pull the wool over her eyes. She pulled the wool over his!”
Sources:
http://www.jenniferlauck.com/more-writing/2006/01/dear-oprah-thank-you.html
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:OB2A-CN73wsJ:www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/31/reviews/001231.31kantort.html+%22jennifer+lauck%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=10
# posted by Daniel Scott Buck @ 10:32 PM 
Comments:
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Nice to hear, Daniel. I've mentioned our Gilead story in a piece in The Sunday Times. I'll send you the link.
Oh, of course I have thoughts about this. I believe we spoke of this subject at length the other night.
As an idealist & memoirst, I look forward to sharing my perspective.
But...sadly, I must away. The city is calling me. Hopefully I will be around tomorrow night.
As an idealist & memoirst, I look forward to sharing my perspective.
But...sadly, I must away. The city is calling me. Hopefully I will be around tomorrow night.
Ok, I got a chance to read this. Interesting. I never did hear about Jennifer. I wonder why it didn't get any attention because of that.
One of my best friends and all around favorite person believes that the truth shouldn't get in the way of a good story. I don't completely agree.
I'm more upset about the J.T Leroy situation than the James Frey deal. I believe that from what I know about James Frey is that his intention was good. He meant to put the book out there an inspirational book and I think he succeeded in doing so. Many people I know love "A Million Little Pieces".
...more later....have to get back to work!
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One of my best friends and all around favorite person believes that the truth shouldn't get in the way of a good story. I don't completely agree.
I'm more upset about the J.T Leroy situation than the James Frey deal. I believe that from what I know about James Frey is that his intention was good. He meant to put the book out there an inspirational book and I think he succeeded in doing so. Many people I know love "A Million Little Pieces".
...more later....have to get back to work!
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