bookfraud

Amid all the brouhaha surrounding Bret Easton Ellis’ new novel, “Lunar Park,” no one has asked my opinion about it. Since nobody asked, I’m going to tell it anyway.

I haven’t read “Lunar Park,” nor do I intend to. To all of his fans reading this, I admit that I’ve never read a Bret Easton Ellis novel, though I did get through the first five pages of “Bright Lights, Big City.” Oops, wrong writer! I meant “Less Than Zero,” of course. Five pages, front and back.

“Lunar Park” has generated quite a bit of press since its release, most of it negative. (For an excellent review, read Steve Almond’s perspective in the Boston Globe.) A few critics have defended Mr. Ellis, who traffics in graphic sex, gore, and clothing labels. Ellis, who became famous with “Less Than Zero” way back in the 1980s, has (apparently) gotten grosser and nastier with each book, the apex (or nadir) of violence being “American Psycho.”

Now, I could actually do some research, or even read “Lunar Park,” and pretend that I have something substantial to say about the novel. However, there’s precisely 2,395,087 books ahead of “Lunar Park” on the must-read list. I can’t comment if the blood-and-screwing aspect to Ellis’ work is brilliant commentary on social mores or sensationalistic crap. You won’t hear me weighing in on his (reported) obsession with designer names, which (apparently) are meant to say something about our consumption-driven society.

But I am familiar with the man’s career track, and anyone with a passing familiarity with Mr. Ellis can see a clear arc to his work. Note that I don’t have any opinion on any of his books — like I said, I haven’t read them.

His career has been as improbable as it has been successful. Put yourself in his shoes, and you’ll see what I mean.

Start out as a collegian with a modicum of writing talent and lots of ambition. A well-known author teaching an undergraduate class reads your tale of adolescent ennui in Los Angeles. The author helps get the manuscript — christened “Less Than Zero” — published to great fanfare. Critics are generally not moved, but because of your age and inexperience, they cut you some slack. The sensational aspects of the book are praised for their realism and cutting satire.

Unlike Bret, Andrew McCarthy didn’t stay famous

Even the critics who don’t like “Less Than Zero” think you’ve got major potential. Some go as far as saying you could be the new Voice of a Generation; you get lumped in other writers of lurid urban tales, say, Jay McInerney and Tama Janowitz. “Less Than Zero” sells a bazillion books and its wunderkind author gets a whopper movie deal.

So you’re suddenly famous, rich, and barely of legal drinking age. And you write a second book, “The Rules of Attraction,” which is similar to the first, simply moving the action from L.A. to a college campus. And it sells another bazillion copies. However, it doesn’t quite generate the buzz as “Less Than Zero.” Sure, there’s another movie, and lots of dough, but fewer critics are hailing you as the voice of a new generation.

And then, several years later, your contemporaries start to drop out of the literary scene, one by one. Their books aren’t hot anymore. Neither are yours. Suddenly, you’re lumped with them, even if you’re still publishing. No longer are you the Bad Boy of modern fiction. In fact, things are worse than getting bad reviews. People are forgetting about you.

But you’re used to the attention, the partying, the models. So what do you do? Simple. You write “American Psycho,” a book illuminating violence of such a grotesque nature that everyone from Michiko Kakutani to George Will writes about it — they hate it, of course, but they’re writing about it. Your star is shining bright again. “American Psycho” sells a few metric tons, and the producers of the film version cut you a seven-figure check.

Next step: “Glamorama,” which partakes of the same themes as your other books — except you’re supposedly commenting on yourself, really, and the vapid world of models and blow that you’ve inhabited the past decade. The positive reviews are less than zero, but you’re back on your best-seller game. The critics say that you’ve got some talent, sure, but it’s all wasted on rote descriptions of exteriors and lacks any depth; you can spot a pair of $2,000 shoes, but can’t examine the soul. Ms. Kakutani slams “Glamorama” in the N.Y. Times and you call the woman “Bitchiko” in a magazine interview, but never mind.

So there’s your career up until now. What can you do to keep up the big ‘mo? Start “Lunar Park” in the first-person as Bret Easton Ellis, writing a mea culpa for all the nasty sex n’ gore you’ve peddled the past 20 years, then turn the narrative into a suburban phantasmagoria — with all the nasty sex n’ gore you’ve just disowned. You get to “comment” on the vicissitudes of literature and a society obsessed with sex and violence, all in one swipe.

Get a few positive reviews, get many negative ones. Don’t worry about those naysayers. You’ve cracked the formula. Each book needs to be more attention-grabbing than the last, which means more sex, violence, and rhetorical tricks.

Congratulations. You’ve found your voice. Better yet, you’ve got an audience.

Is Bookfraud jealous of a career like that, with best-sellers and loyal readers? You betcha. Does my assessment have the whiff of disdain? All the way. Am I being objective, since I haven’t read Ellis’ work? No way in hell.

But like a friend once told me when I expressed a desire to be rich, in order to have Bill Gates’ money, you have to be Bill Gates. In order to have the kinds of things Mr. Ellis has, you have to be a writer like Mr. Ellis. And that’s just not going happen, even if I tried. I just don’t have that kind of talent.

Wife is about to leave for a week to visit her family, leaving yours alone and running the ship. Unrestrained by spousal nagging and endless verbal abuse, I’m going to be “living large” and “do whatever the hell I please” because the “ball-and-chain” isn’t around “to kick my ass.”

Here are my top 10 disgusting habits that will come “out of the closet” as soon as Wife shuts the door:

1. Download copious amounts of Ron Jeremy video.
2. Leave tire-tracked undies on the floor, clean ‘em in the dishwasher.
3. Smell the nasty parts; decide which clothes to wash.
4. Ted Nugent-a-thon!
5. Clean the toilet, especially the dirty brown film that attaches to the inside. Remove film by urinating on it.
6. Dust Bunny Olympics.
7. Pick, pick, pick my toes.
8. Drink white wine with red meat, red wine with chicken. (Really pushing it here).
9. Dinner: “Chomp-O Sugar Bomb Flakes.”
10. Readjust myself anywhere, anytime, all the time.

Sound awesome or what? I’m taking reservations at the Hotel Bookfraud.

To say that Wife takes care of me is gross understatement; I’m the driver who never changes the oil, I’m the cook who never cleans the pot, I’m the surgeon who doesn’t bother to scrub. Things kinda go to hell when she’s not around — not that Wife cooks and cleans (though she protests that she bears the burden of such tasks — not true, I swear, baby!), but she has an eye out for my health, and makes sure I don’t get into too much trouble. The better half thing and all that, and I am fortunate to have her.

I have known relationships quite different than the one I enjoy now, characterized by mutual selfishness that produced a great deal of drama, tears, and totally hot sex. The volcanic lovemaking was rather nice, though it came at a price. Not that this a commentary on my current love life. OK?

Living large

But it does bring up an interesting question for writers, and artists of all stripes. In what situation do we thrive? Can a writer in a normal, happy relationship create art, or does it have to be Sturm und Drang back at the ranch?

We could go through the pantheon of great writers and artists and get different answers, of course. Moving through the centuries, for instance: Shakespeare, kinda fucked up; Beethoven, really fucked up; James Joyce/Woolfe/Hemmingway/Faulkner etc., astoundingly fucking fucking fucking fuck fuck fucked up.

Then again, Nabokov had Vera, who rescued a draft of “Lolita” that Vlad had tossed into a fire. And I’m sure there are countless other artists who had a normal life at home. I just can’t think of any right now. Everybody can list them in the comments section.

For my own self-interested purposes, I can say that having stability has indeed made me a better writer, for I do not spend my waking moments agonizing over the myriad problems at home. Plus, Wife kicks me in the ass when I feel sorry for myself. A good person to have around, that Wife.

Ever had one of those days when every word is torture, every preposition feels wrong, and every simile comes across like…like…like…hell, I dunno.

This is one of those days.

I had planned to write for this space a contextual analysis of Cicero’s later speeches, but this writer has no energy for it. In fact, I have no energy for anything except saying that I have no energy for anything and repeating it henceforth. I don’t know if this is a cold, allergies, or the effects of repeated exposure to the harsh elements of the Northeast. Maybe due to those goddamn moths that have infested our apartment all summer. But the last frickin’ think I want to do is write, fiction, blogging, or otherwise.

I’ve bellyached about my health in the past, offering it up as an excuse for a lame posting. And I’ve recently sang the many virtues of coffee. That made me wonder what, precisely, is more fun to write: bitching or praise?

Bitching, hands down. I could sing the praises of Jackie Chan, Judge Judy, Invisible Man, and Schubert until my fingers are ground into dust. I could say how great a writer Wife is, scoring many brownie points to cash in when eventually I make the inevitable Husband Fuckup. I could tell you why the Cubs epitomize good, why Pynchon is a god, and why Kurosawa rocks my world.

Born to write

But why do that when I can say that the Cardinals embody evil, Raymond Carver is a fraud (keep those cards and letters coming!), and why The Pillow Book sucks ass. That’s more fun, less challenging, and ultimately more rewarding, if only because all the Cardinal, Carver, and Greenaway fans reading this are feeling their blood boil to the temperature at which steel melts. Forget the love, feel the hate!

It really is remarkable how much jealousy and anger fuels writers, particularly writers of fiction, whose jealousy of another’s work can destroy their own fragile sense of self-esteem.

But I’m thinking of something else, actually. Once, in college, some friends and I were going to take some extremely attractive ladies dancing, but a brain-dead co-ed got the idea it would be wonderful instead to see a midnight showing of Purple Rain (which she’d already seen six times). Everybody thought this a good idea except for yours truly, who was never a Prince fan and didn’t envision getting any bootie in a movie theater.

As a result, I went home in a fury, and composed a three-page letter outlining Why I Hate Prince and Why People Are Stupid. I mailed it that night to a friend. I never know what happened to that letter (the friend and I haven’t spoken in 13 years) or even if the letter was any good (no computers in the good ol’ days of the early 80s). But it did get my juices flowing.

So much, in fact, that the mere thought of it has gotten me to write this entire posting without help of coffee, bootie, or “1999″ ringing in my ears. Who needs coffee? Let’s hear it for bitching! Hoo-fucking-ray!

Who says that the Cubs are a buncha losers? They know how to produce steroid-chompin’ ballplayers.

Take the latest steroid scandal. The Ex-Cub Steroid Twins now reside on the Baltimore Orioles — Rafael Palmeiro, who looks like a melted candle and was busted for steroids, and Sammy Sosa, who looks like a Panzer tank and has so far beaten the rap.

Palmeiro made a finger-wagging appearance before Congress saying he’d never ever ever ever taken steroids. He all but swore on his sister’s virginity. Now, he says he doesn’t know how he tested positive. Something about dietary supplements. You know, Anabolic PowerBars.

Steroid Sammy also denied taking performance enhancing drugs, which I found as convincing as our fair president claiming Sadaam Hussein had 500 million tons of chemical weapons or mobile anthrax labs or that those steel tubes were for enriching uranium.

But, as I am wont to do, I wonder how all this Roid Rage applies to me. Specifically, how it applies to writing fiction.

I look at my current writing output, and see I am in sore need of some writing steroids. What are steroids for writers?

Coke, speed, and crank don’t count, despite their obvious allure (their benefits, in order: acting insane, insaner, and insanest). I have found that by far, I am most productive between the hours of 11 am and 2 p.m. That is, if infused with the proper amount of caffeine. I then become the fiction writing equivalent of Sammy Sosa taking batting practice, swatting one over the fence after another. I’m unstoppable. A machine of words.

Coffee is my steroid, heroin, and gambling addiction wrapped into one. Without it, I am a creative train wreck, Dickens’ Micawber come to life (all talk, no action, throw me in debtors’ prison). With it, I am brilliant. (Or perhaps because I’m so hopped up on coffee, I simply think that I’m brilliant).

It’s simple. Coffee is the Magic Bean.

As you may or may not know, I am obsessed with the amount of fiction I write — my moods are directly proportional to the volume and quality of the day’s work.

A coffee achiever

To see how much others produced is an exercise in self-loathing. I’m currently reading a biography of Alexander Hamilton, and it is humiliating to see how much this dude wrote. His life consisted solely of reading, writing, making speeches, reading some more, writing some more, and shagging like a tomcat.

Hamilton wrote the vast majority of the 85 Federalist Papers while he was working as an attorney — sometimes at the rate of five or six papers a week. We’re talking about the Federalist Papers here. Perhaps the most important piece of American political philosophy ever published, and the guy wrote it in his spare time. The guy was to words what I am to beer — the stuff just passes through him.

And he drank coffee. Strong coffee, every morning. Bless him.

Things don’t always make sense in the world of the Magic Bean. Wife does not drink coffee, writes much more and better than me, and these two facts seem to me a fundamental contradiction in the Laws of Man. She is High on Life, the Writing Life, that is. Sure, she’ll have a cuppa tea or a Coke-Cola here and there, but nothing like the Caffeine Dream.

I used to think I had to get the coffee monkey off my back, but I’ve changed my mind. As addictions go, it’s fairly harmless, except when I start shaking and vomiting out strings of profanities worthy of someone afflicted with Tourette’s syndrome.

Voltaire was told that coffee was a slow poison. “It must be,” he said, “because I’ve been drinking it 50 years and I’m not dead yet.”

I’m going to write some more. Pass the cream and sugar.