bookfraud

I just did something really, really stupid (in addition to even publishing this).

Earlier this evening, I was finding reasons not to finish a difficult blog entry regarding race relations and writing fiction, an entry spurred by Barack Obama’s now-famous March 18 speech. Instead, I cleared out some old e-mail and found the name of a person who used to be in a writing group with me.

This person had alienated everyone in the group by sending out an e-mail announcing the publication in a major lit magazine — her first published story — and how this validated her ambition; "Since I’m getting published in a magazine, I feel like a real writer!" Since publication credits were basically nil among the other members of our group, you might imagine this pronouncement was greeted with all the enthusiasm of Jeremiah Wright presiding over Rush Limbaugh’s sixth marriage.

This was all about four or five years ago. Like an idiot, I Googled this person. I knew the result could be toxic, and so it was: she has a Website that lists credits for numerous major literary publications, and she has a novel coming out soon. When I took all of this in, I calmly closed the door to my room, gently put a towel in my mouth, and screamed "FUCK!!!!" at a volume that threatened to seriously damage my vocal chords.

Now, I remember reading just two stories from this writer, one kinda bad and one pretty good, which could hardly be considered a representative sample. That she’d achieved such success in so little time — she really only started writing fiction a few years ago — is the kind of thing that makes other less-successful writers, shall we say, insane with jealous rage. 

Published novel count: This man 2, Bookfraud 0

To give an accurate description of my emotions and thoughts at this moment would be giving entree into a dark, ugly place where one has nightmares. Let’s just call it a case of sputtering, impotent rage.

It was about 7:30 p.m. when I saw this, and I knew I was in for a sleepless night of teeth-grinding, heart-racing depression. Have I just wasted the last 20-plus years of my life? What the hell does this person got that I don’t, besides talent? I feel extreme extentential nausea, panic, dread. I feel like I’ve done all the "wrong" things to further my writing career — I lack connections, I don’t submit to the right publications, I didn’t listen to advice when I was younger — and that I lack talent. Ridiculous to indulge such thoughts, but there’s no denying that these feelings exist.

It’s not that I hate this person (though I kinda do), and she certainly has done nothing to deserve any hate. OK, her Website and blog are smarmy and self-congratulatory, but if I had not known her, her success would have evoked the same emotions as when one misses the question on Final Jeopardy.

And it’s not that I’m looking for sympathy or stroking, as I already wallow in enough self-pity to drown the U.S. Olympic Swim Team, and whine enough to make Baby look like a modicum of patience (for instance, see previous entry).

Still, my anger bothers me, and not only because indulging such behavior is toxic and self-defeating; also, this is hardly the way to act as a role model for my son. Given my bitching about the ages of other novelists, I’m sounding like an insane homeless man screaming on a street corner. No, what truly bothers me because I’m 43 and altogether too old for such silliness, and, worse, I don’t know what to do next.

In the past — like 15 years ago — I would have sat down at the computer, fueled by anger, and furiously bang out fiction of dubious quality but of intense meaning (intense in my mind, at least). I would have doubled and re-doubled my efforts. I would have sent out stories to everybody and everyone that hadn’t already rejected me, and to those who had. I would get a whole new set of agents to query, or even started working on a new novel. What the fuck is the matter with these people? I’m going to fucking show them!

The Young and the Bilious

I really don’t have any short fiction to submit (it’s far too late in the year to submit for the fall, in any case), my novel is in a state of suspended animation, and I’m confused as to how to find a new agent, if that is even an option. 

Maybe I should just check in on Baby, make sure I didn’t wake him up, look upon his face, let myself be awash with love and the undeniable urge to cradle him in my arms, and realize I’m the luckiest guy in the world.

Then, I leave the room and break something. Outside. Something that can grow back. Suggestions?

Jascha Heifetz, the greatest violinist of the 20th Century, once granted an audience with an admirer, himself a famous entertainer. The entertainer mentioned he had worked in vaudeville at a young age, prompting Heifetz, who was not known to lack modesty, to say that he’d played violin professionally since age eight.

"And I suppose before that," Groucho Marx replied, "you were just a bum."

This came to mind following a story in the New York Times magazine about Charles Bock, a novelist whose first book, "Beautiful Children," has generated a good amount of publicity. The author of the article, Charles McGrath, noted that Bock is 38, which is "a little old for a first novelist."

Us yet-to-be-published novelists (and some already published) grumbled mightily about this slight, which McGrath probably intended to be a throwaway line. It’s true that most "novelists," meaning those fortunate enough to earn real coin for their literary endeavors, usually publish their first book when they’re 25, or, at most, age 30. The current career path of your typical American novelist seems to follow one of three paths:

• They graduate college, publish a novel to great acclaim, make buttloads of money, get their book optioned, make buttloads of more money, then publish a disappointing second book. They rebound with their third ("a return to form" the critics will opine), and establish themselves as Literary Voices of a Generation. See Foer, Jonathan Safran; Smith, Zadie; Shteyngart, Gary; Mitchell, David.

• They publish one totally awesome, totally amazing, totally righteous book, often before the age of 30, then disappear from public view, either publishing in hiding, semi-seclusion, or insanity. Almost always an intellectual 10 times smarter than their readers. See Pynchon, Thomas; Salinger, J.D.; Powers, RIchard; Wallace, David Foster.

• They graduate college, get an M.F.A. at the Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop or such, then publish a collection of well-received short stories. Because everybody knows short story writers make about as much as a flutist busker in the subway, they eventually write a novel that sells fairly well, gets a good amount of critical acclaim, and end up living the next several years in writer’s colonies and retreats (MacDowell, Yaddo, etc.). They land a job teaching creative writing at a college, and write six to eight books over the next 30 years. See, like, a million of them.

Insert witty caption here

Yours truly is 43 and staring 44 dead in the face with the same cold hatred visited upon such villains as  Halliburton, bad beer, and the Ohio State Chunkeyes. The last rejection letter for my novel arrived sometime before Eliot Spitzer’s boner went out of control but after Bush was reelected, which is another way of saying that it was long enough ago that I’ve lost track. The last time I spoke to my agent, he cut me off from our conversation from a more urgent matter, which involved deciding if his martini should be shaken or stirred.

This is another way of saying that I don’t expect my novel to get published in the near future, the medium future, far future, or in the dreams of my future. Of this writing, I’m 5 years older than Mr. Bock, and eight older than Mr. Shteyngart and double-digits behind Ms. Smith. I wonder if my age does indeed disqualify me from publication, at least in the minds of some agents and publishers. Though I have addressed this in the past — to get published, one should be young, hot, and have a large something or another — I sometimes worry that my age works against me.

No, no, no, I can hear the Publishing Establishment huffing and puffing, don’t be so paranoid. We don’t care about such things — it’s all about the work. It’s all about the art. Which explains celebrity authors, I realize.

Your tax dollars at work

I imagine from a publisher’s standpoint, it’s more exciting to promote a bright young star than a middle-aged, "who-the-fuck-is-this-joker?" writer.  I really can’t call it "ageism" that a younger writer may have an easier time getting published than an older one, but I can’t call it very much fun, either, living with the sinking feeling that one’s window has passed.

Pass the cyanide, please. No, can’t do that, now I got Baby. I will, however, take you up on your offer for a free night with Executive Escorts’ finest adult entertainers. A man has to have a mid-life crisis, somehow.

Not long ago, in the spirit in which this great nation was founded, I asked for your vote. And you delivered. Thanks to you, we can change America!

Oh, wrong speech.

The votes have been tabulated for the What Will Bookfraud Read Next? poll, and in a landslide, the winner is The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. Brief History received 55 percent of the vote, while the next closest candidates only garnered 18 percent each. Granted, there were only 11 votes, and some of the "votes" were extended diatribes regarding my general stupidity that required interpretation worthy of a Joyce scholar to ascertain which book was actually selected.

I could have kept voting booths open, but exit polling was showing a diminishing interest in light of a far more pressing political matter, Governors With Boners. We have to keep our priorities straight, after all.

In all seriousness, I greatly apprecate all who bothered to vote and offer your opinions, especially those who gave detailed suggestions — even if your book didn’t "win," it’s gone on the list of must-reads.

I’ll read The Brief History of the Dead forthwith, and offer my semi-coherent thoughts on it when I’m done.

Thanks again.

You should write another novel if you’re going to get a new agent. Agents don’t want to represent a book that’s been rejected by so many places. —An agent telling Bookfraud last year he’s screwed

He can’t write genre fiction. He’s genetically predisposed not to do it — he doesn’t have the chops. If he tried to write a crime novel, for instance, it would be a disaster. –Bookfraud on Bookfraud

Always write an outline for your novel — it will serve as a guide you navigate the thicket of writing and rewriting. –From Yet Another Self-Help Book on Writing

GENRE NOVEL OUTLINE

I. First Part: The Money

A. Ch. 1: "What Is This?"
a) A 10-year-old boy named Jim wakes up to find $12.4 billion in $10 bills tucked under his bed.

b) Sensing he will be capture by foreign agents, he promptly converts the money into Uruguayan pesos and buries it in his backyard.

c) His best friend Billy, also 10, finds out about the money, tasers Jim, and digs up the pesos.

B. Ch. 2: “On the Run”
a) Billy changes his name to Ulysses P. Goldberg, buys a Cadillac Escalade, and heads to Mexico.

1. Short scene with haggling with car dealer; Ulysses asks for and finally gets the 60,000-mile powertrain warrantee
 2. Before he leaves, says goodbye to his parents, his sister, his dog Freckles, and tries to set the house on fire, but only after taking his Pokemon cards.

b) On his way to Mexico, Billy/Ulysses stops at a diner and falls in love with a waitress named Edna St. Hubbins.

c) Edna lures Billy/Ulyssess to her trailer home with the lure of sex, but ties him up, takes the $12.4 billion in Uruguayan pesos, and drives the trailer home into the Grand Canyon, getting out before it goes over the cliff.

If the only Wang Chung song you know is running through your head, kill yourself now

C. Ch. 3: “Go Mental”

a)Billy/Ulyssess spends the next three weeks in a coma, then wakes up in a hospital having metamorphasized into a 54-year-old grandfather. He is permanently left with a Boston accent like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting and the song "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" by Wang Chung running constantly in his head.

b)Soon after Billy/Ulysses wakes up, Jim arrives at the hospital with his new friends Vito “The Pipefitter” Gallano and Johnny “The Cockroach” Palamanti, and ask politely about the money.

c) Jim threatens Billy if he doesn’t tell, but all Billy can say, “Pakh the cah in Havahd Yahd.”

1. Coma dream sequence: train going through a tunnel.
2. Coma dream sequence II: Billy turns into Judy Garland.

d) Jim, Vito, and Johnny The Cockroach force Billy on the road to find Edna.

D. Ch. 4: "Vile of Lesbos"

a) On their way to meet Edna, Vito and Johnny throw Jim and Billy out of the car. The mobsters use their GPS to find Edna but end up driving their Lincoln Town Car through a pool hall in Upper Skankton, Ohio.

b) Jim and Billy pick up a ride from an 18-wheeler driven by a Canadian named Gordie McGord, who says he’s a BIG Calgary Flames fan and asks the two if they’re a couple and says he could drive them to Canada to get married, if they wanted.

c) Sick of hearing McGord play "Convoy" repeatedly, Jim and Billy coldcock the driver as they head down a 10-degree grade in Wyoming, crashing the semi. Jim and Billy are thrown out of the cab and fly 23 miles, landing through the roof of Edna’s new home and into her bed, where she’s making sweet love to a 300-pound lady who nicknames her sensitive part "Cloris the Clitoris."

d) Edna and Cloris the Clitoris fight Jim and Billy/Ulysses. Edna knocks Billy into a wall; Cloris nearly asphyxiates Jim by jumping off the bed and landing on Jim on the floor. The force of Cloris the Clitoris’ belly flop smashes a hole in the floor, and Jim falls into the basement, where he finds the $12.4 billion, now converted to Mongolian Tugriks. Jim escapes Cloris, gets Billy out of the home, and they steal Cloris’ 4-wheel drive pickup.

Speaking of songs that make you want to commit suicide…

E. Ch. 5: "Yellow Fever"

a) Jim and Billy decide to split the money, and drive to Mongolia.

1. They encounter a talking polar bear in Alaska.
2. They find the Unknown Land Bridge across the Bering Strait.
3. They stop off in Tokyo, where Billy is poisoned by blowfish. Billy almost dies, but wakes up in the arms of a geisha named Psycho, who tells him they’ve been married 18 years.

b) Jim drives to downtown Mongolia, and buys a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom condo with a wet bar, shag rug, pool room, and 3 TVs, just like he saw at Graceland when he was eight.

1. Jim falls in love with a Mongolian yak herder named Sarangerel (Moonlight), they live in a yurt, and she gives birth to a 15-year-old child named Morris.
2. Sarangerel leaves Jim after she discovers he’s been taking Morris to Ulan Bator Showgirls, Mongolia’s premier showcase for adult entertainment.

c)Devastated, Jim goes back to the United States, broke, but with his family welcoming him with open arms.

d) Jim wakes up. It was all a dream.

II. Second Part: The Reality

A. Ch. 6: "Untitled"

a) Jim goes to school that day, and tells everyone about his dream.

b) When he looks in his locker, he finds $12.4 billion in $10 bills.

The End.

Publishers, just make your check out to cash.

The polling places are still open for voting on which book I’ll read next. Be sure to weigh in on this pressing matter. As P. Diddy Dingdong Dog said (and South Park brilliantly parodied), Vote or Die!

With the latest brouhaha over the latest bogus memoir, the concept of the "unreliable narrator" has been percolating in my brain, which is a dangerous thing indeed, as it will likely spill over and burn someone unfortunate to read further.

Specifically, I speak of the unreliable narrator in literary fiction. Or rather, I speak of how people speak about the unreliable narrator in literary fiction. In MFA workshops.

I have heard such discussions far too many times. "You have an unreliable narrator, so I don’t trust what he says," you are likely to hear. It seems to be one of those criticisms, like "the story doesn’t start until page ___" or "the story doesn’t rise organically from the text," that a person will say when they really mean "I have no more idea what I’m saying than a talking shitstick."

Delving too far into the reliability of narrators can be like trying to ascertain the brainwaves of a teenager who gets drunk and drives his parents’ SUV into a ditch. Or, more recently, of a governor who goes online, launders money, and hires prostitutes. There’s really no point to it, unless you’re into literary theory.

It’s kind of interesting so much is made about narrators’ veracity. If the narrator is lying or is massaging the details, it means she’s lying for a reason. She may be delusional, psychotic, or have an agenda. There may be more at stake than what’s in the boundaries of the story. Then again, there may not be.

I first encountered this dillema in "Wuthering Heights," where Nelly Dean may or may not be telling the truth to Lockwood, who may or may not be telling the truth to us. I got caught lost in all the possible permutations of what this might mean to understanding Heathcliff, Catherine, Cathy, etc., that I forgot to enjoy the damn thing.

Another famous example of the unreliable narrator is "The Turn of the Screw," Henry James’s classic could-be-might-be ghost story that has the distinction of ruining literature for at least four generations of American high school students.  

The problem is that when critiquing a work — you know, actually trying to help the writer make his or her story a better one — discussing if a narrator is reliable is about as fruitful as trying to figure out the artistry in "Who Let the Dogs Out." Knowing that a narrator is unreliable might help you better understand the narrator’s motives, or see the story in a new light. But I can’t remember one conversation about how an unreliable narrator affected the quality of the work or led to some suggestion to make it any better.

Kinbote’s a Zemblaniac

Let’s take one of the most unreliable narrators ever to hit the page of literary fiction. Charles Kinbote can’t be trusted. We figure this out after about three words. There probably is no Zembla, and some may argue that there’s no Charles Kinbote, either, that the author of the poem "Pale Fire," John Shade, also wrote the commentary that provides the primary narrative of the novel Pale Fire.

"The problem, Vlad, is that you have an unreliable narrator," I can hear one particular workshop dork preaching to Mr. Nabokov. "Kinbote can’t be trusted. He has an agenda, and that colors how the reader approaches the work."

Well, duh. You can end up going round and round and round on the unreliable narrator merry-go-round for about an hour, and suddenly, it’s time to look at someone else’s work and you didn’t get your $3,000 worth of criticism that you’ve prorated your tuition to be.

Why has this exploration of narrator’s reliability become one of those workshop warhorses that never goes out of style? 

For the simple reason that it takes workshop criticism out of the realm of a workshop and into the realm of criticism, of a university setting, where, if you’ve been paying any attention at all, is where most literary workshops are held. This is not to indict students, for I’ve had many a professor bring up this Unreliable Narrator Problems as if it Held The Key To The Fiction Universe.

The ultimate unreliable narrator

"If you have an unreliable narrator…" or "The problem with this narrator is that he’s unreliable…" they will say, going off into a tangent on the Meaning of Fiction, or rather "I didn’t read this story until six minutes before class, so I have to come up with something to talk about to make it seem like I had read it and actually thought about what can make it a better story."

Does it sound like I’m ranting? That I’m using this forum simply to address past grievances with incompetent teachers, disinterested students, and the MFA writing-industrial complex? You bet your sweet bippy I am.

So prove me wrong. Tell me how pointing out that my narrator can’t be trusted or isn’t telling the truth affects whether or not the story is worth a damn.

Grumble, grumble.

Now that the issues of fabulist memoirs, horndog governors, Hillary’s Nietschean Will to Power and Obama’s Wacko Spiritual Guide have received proper treatment, let’s get to something far more important: what book will I read next? 

I’m close to finishing Sean Wilsey’s "Oh, the Glory of It All," a heartbreaking (and true) memoir of growing up with narcissistic parents who put the "fucked up" in "fucked up family." But with all my books in storage for another year, only a handful of slim volumes populate the bookshelves, encased in Ziploc bags (see above).

What’s more, Wife has gotten all medival on my ass, and has strongly suggested that we limit purchases of new books until the bedbug plague has been eliminated. With a paucity of choices, I should have a simple time making a decision, but oddly, it’s had the opposite effect: with limited resources and being too lazy to walk the five blocks to the library, I can’t decide what next to read.

So I’m going to let you do that for me.

Vote for one of the three texts below in the comments section. I’ll read whatever gets the most votes; if you feel strongly about something else, you can mount a write-in campaign, and I’ll beg Wife to let me buy a new book.

Then I’ll review it in this space with all the wit and wisdom you’ve come to expect from me, which is minimal.

 THE CONTENDAHS

1. Ralph Ellison by Arnold Rampersad

Author of my favorite American novel of the 20th Century, Ralph Ellison has been an inspiration as a writer, if not a person. I’ve had this on the shelf for a bit, unread. The big question no one has ever adequately answered: after publishing "Invisible Man" to universal acclaim in the early 1950s, why couldn’t he finish another novel?

PROS: He lived a fascinating life, was a brilliant writer, and penned the novel that, more than any other, inspired me to want to write fiction.

CONS: After reading about his sudden ascent to fame and subsequent inability to finish another book, I may want to kill myself. I’ll probably get so depressed, I’ll quit after reading 100 pages.

2. Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris

It’s "The Office" meets "Catch-22" meets "The Brothers Karamatzov." Meets a novel.

PROS: The book has been called a brilliant debut with heart, humor, and compassion.

CONS: Ferris is half my age. Bastard. I’ll get pissed off at this fact, and probably quit after reading about 100 pages.

3. The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier.

I have no idea what this book is about, except it’s in the bag of books.

PROS: Could be a pleasant surprise. Nice blurbs. It’s nice to read a book without any expectations.

CONS: The clothing on cover reminds me of Keanu Reeves from "The Matrix" from the head down. Unable to shake that image, I’ll probably quit after reading 100 pages.

4. Write-in vote

If you think of something that’s not on the list above, you can write it in, and hopefully someone will vote for it.

PROS: I could discover unknown or unread authors that make me look at the world in a whole new way.

CONS: You could pick "The Bridges of Madison County." Or "The DaVinci Code." Or "Mein Kampf." Which I’ll quit after reading 100 pages.

There you have it. Remember, my happiness for the next week or so depends on your vote. I’ll keep the polls open until I reach 100 comments, or perhaps when I just get tired, and quit.

Oh, if the book sucks, I’ll never listen to you again, whoever you are.

MEMO

To: Honorable Gov. Eliot Spitzer

From: Bookfraud

Re: Rehabilitation

Oh, dear.

You’re in a bad spot, soon-to-be former Governor Spitzer, but you don’t need me to tell you that.

However, I have good news, and it has nothing to do with Geico. If you wish to salvage what’s left of your career, you should listen and do as I say — immediately. You’re getting savaged in the press. Your political enemies are buying drinks for everyone in the bar. The over/under on your term as governor is at 5 hours as I write.

And all because you couldn’t find the courage to masturbate instead of buying a hooker.

I can help you make a stunning comeback to public life. I’ve offered my services to others in the past, who were in circumstances far less dire. But they ignored my pleas, and they have fallen even farther than can be imagined. Look at what happened to Michael Vick. Look what happened to Britney Spears. Had Vick and Brit followed my advice, their lives wouldn’t be such a mess. So listen very closely when I say this:

Let’s write your memoirs!

Look, I know this sounds silly, with everyone from the FBI and the IRS and every member of the press on your back. But you should write this book, NOW. With my help, of course.

The typical steps in a public rehabilitation is to confess one’s sins, ask for forgiveness, and do some type of community service as contrition.

Why wait — you can do that all in a book! Explain yourself in a book, and nobody can ask you questions at a stupid press conference, everybody will buy the thing, and unless you’re sloppy like Margaret Selzer or James Frey, nobody will ever figure out if you’re lying. And you can do it the comfort of your office, in the company of your favorite gal from Horny Ed’s Escort Service and Rifle shop!

Imagine the positive public reaction if you were to publish the following:

Looking for some way to update my frequent flyer miles, I was calling Executive Government Concierge Services — or at least I thought I was — when someone answered the phone, "Executive VIP Club." Thinking that this was the same outfit, I continued talking. Before I even realized what had happened, 45 later minutes a "six-diamond" escort was in my hotel room, wearing a leather bondage outfit and spanking me as I barked like a dog.

Think about that, Mr. Governor. All you had done was dial a wrong number!

She’s got shiksappeal!

Or consider this approach:

Shortly following my erection, I mean election, to governor, I was deluged with offers for sex from total strangers — young women, middle-aged men, grannies offering to give me all the enemas I could handle. Naturally, I turned them all down. But, given that I am a public official and must keep my constituents happy, I had to give a good reason — and saying that I’d spent the last 12 hours with and $30,000 on "Crystal"  seemed as good an excuse as any.

You’re giving the people what they want, like any good public servant!

Or, perhaps this risky, risque attempt:

Here’s something nobody knows about being governor of New York — your penis needs to measure at least 10 inches before taking the oath of office. (Yes, the Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court brings a ruler to the swearing in). My baseball-bat-sized appendage is, in fact, capable of delivering to women unheard of levels of sexual ecstasy. The thing about having such an enormous, thick, meaty pleasure pole is sometimes it takes on a life of its own, like Godzilla trashing Tokyo. Sometimes you have to just have uninhibited sex all the time to keep my gigantic, horse-sized heat-seeking moisture missile in line, so to speak. Since it’s my job to promote employment in the state, buying $5,000-a-night prostitutes was the best way to fulfill my penis’ needs.

A sad tale indeed

You see! You’re a pornstar with pornstar-esque talents! But you can’t control your desires — it just happened.

If you had asked my advice before all of this kerfluffle, I would have told you to do what men in your position of power have done since the time Plato and Aristotle held forth on the nature of government: get a mistress. Did Bill Clinton or JFK even consider getting hookers? No! They, like all men with great power, easily found a willing accomplice in their sexapades.

But of course you wouldn’t ask my advice — I’m just a humble scribe. Most of us writers are just hired hacks, literary wannabes, and screenwriters with a dream. But we do have a vital function in society, and, unlike flaks, consultants, and other types of political prostitutes, you don’t have to feel sleazy when contracting our services.

We’re all human, Mr. Spitzer, and even though you came across as a sanctimonious, holier-than-thou steamroller, many were rooting for you to clean up the disaster of New York state government. Nobody believes that anymore. But I can help you rehabilitate your shattered image.

Remember, that if you want one-star service, it will be $300 an hour, but if you want "everything" in your memoir, my rate is $1,000 an hour. Of course, I know you want "full service." But I won’t do anything risky. Or that involves enemas.

If Richard Dawkins’ "The Selfish Gene" didn’t change my life, it’s fair to say the book caused me to look at the world in a whole new way.

No, I didn’t become a biologist, geneticist, or scientist of any stripe. I didn’t stop fantasizing about every semi-attractive woman within six square miles, and I didn’t stop getting drunk when every woman within six square miles rejected my advances.

But, at the risk of hyperbole, it’s fair to say that my understanding of how the human race functions had been fundamentally altered.

"The Selfish Gene" is basically a primer on Darwin’s theory of natural selection, done with such flair and verve that you might think that John Kennedy Toole or Kingsley Amis wrote it. Though Dawkins has written many more tomes on natural selection, the origin of species, and, recently, atheism, "The Selfish Gene" will probably the book that obituary writers will mention most prominently once Dawkins leaves this mortal coil. 

If you believe that a supernatural force created the human race and you don’t change your mind after reading "The Selfish Gene," it ain’t ever gonna happen.

One of Dawkins’ ideas in "The Selfish Gene" is the "meme," or an idea that gains currency in society using the same principles as natural selection. A meme could be an idea, phrase, brand of beer, or TV theme song. This was the only part of "The Selfish Gene" that felt forced, yet Dawkins said he wanted "memes" to be his primary legacy.

Dawkins had no idea of the forces of nature he’d unleashed.

It’s not obvious unless you blog. You don’t see mentions of "memes" in the mainstream media ("The Clinton campaign’s ‘If Obama wins, terrorists will kill your children’ meme took hold in Ohio"); I don’t see talk of memes in current movies, television, music, or other form of pop culture. Kids aren’t texting about memes, and 50 Cent isn’t rapping about them, either.

What Dawkins hath wrought

In my chosen field of creative frustration, I doubt that a novel or short story will be written about memes, though, given current events in the field of autobiography, one could write a hell of a bogus meme memoir:

When I child, I was the most hated meme in my family. I was so radically different, I was despised, hated, and treated differently than my siblings. I tried mutating and adapting to the environment, but the harsh realities of natural selection kept me repressed. At school, the other memes stole my lunch money, and beat me so bad that the lifeguards wouldn’t let me swim in the memepool. My parents didn’t notice: Mamma Meme was too busy with her "latest idea boyfriend," and Daddy Meme was always drinking, embittered by by the fact he never made it into the realm of ideas.

Though they seem to have gained some currency in sociology and scientific circles, memes have found their true place in the blogosphere, where its progency, in classic style of natural selection, has obliterated all other memes about the nature of the meme. (In other words, this meme about the meme has survived, while the other memes about memes have gone extinct.)

I speak of being "tagged." You know to what I refer: posting on one’s blog a "meme" regarding one of many curious lists or such. You list the five books/albums/movies you’d take to a desert isle, or form a word with the first letter of the title of one’s seven-favorite poems by Symbolists; your 56 most embarrassing moments not involving a penis.

I had avoided being tagged for lo these many years, probably because most bloggers find me an irritating, ingratiating, and generally masturbating presence on their sites. However, Collin Kelley, a poet, novelist, and all-around mench who runs the excellent Modern Confessional blog, finally did what I had been dreading — I was tagged for his meme*.

Silly meme

It is the etiquette of such things that if I do not respond, a man named Ubaldo will come to my home and break my ankles. 

So I will submit to the inevitable, and fulfill my duties as a blogger. To borrow an evolutionary perspective, I can’t think of the utility of such things as a writer or how they help me survive. But I if you blog long enough, you’ll drown in the memepool.

Just remember — "meme" is "me" written twice.

If that is supposed to meme anything. Because I had a really bad meme about it last night. As nothing is as it memes. Don’t wear your blue memes to shul. And I’ll shut up now.

*The meme is to turn to page 123 of a work of fiction, go to the fifth sentence, and copy it and the following three sentences. This is from Brock Clarke’s "An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England":

"And what does one do when finally becomes a grown-ass man? Why, one goes back to the people he’s loved and lost and tells them, as the poet says, the whole truth and nothing but and then refuses to go anywhere until he is forgiven for lying in the first place. It was time. Hopefully it wasn’t past time."

Now that I’ve done that, I tag Gawker, Daily Kos, and right-wing cybernut Michelle Malkin.

Technorati Tags: genes, ideas, literature, Memes, obama, Richard Dawkins

Chapter 1: My mother _____________ (was a prostitute/shot up heroin/watched way too much reality TV), and I was abandoned at birth, and raised by a _____________ (bi-racial foster family South Central L.A./commune of gay hippies/pack of wolves). I wasn’t like other kids, and I hated _____________ (everything/church/Tater Tots).

Chapter 2: I suffered horrible abuse at the hands of _____________ (horny uncle Ted/horny Aunt Ida/Dr. Seuss). I started smoking Virginia Slims when I was 6, and by the age of _____________ (17/10/five), I was doing (drugs/dealing drugs/playing Tiddly Winks with drugs) while living my days in the service of  (a street gang/my friend Leonard/Keanu Reeves).

Chapter 3: When I was _____________ (16/12/eight) I  _____________ (gave birth/sired/won on "The Price Is Right!") a _____________ (baby/alien baby/alien baby named "Travis") who at birth _____________ (was addicted to pooping in his diaper/was born with a hammer in his hand/asked to read "A Million Little Pieces").

Chapter 4: Devastated, I sold him for _____________ (an 8-ball/for a gun to kill myself/for a three-year lease for a sweet-ass cherry red ‘Vette).

Chapter 5: Hounded by the authorities for my crime, I _____________ (went underground/slept at a homeless shelter/got a job at the Olive Garden where I won employee of the month of December for my exceptional “Hospitaliano!”). I lived this way _____________ (for seven years/for a week/for the fuck of it).

Chapter 6: But finally, I was arrested by _____________ (the police/the Gestapo in the Black Forest/Ed McMahon and the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol).

Chapter 7: In jail, I met a person named _____________ (Michael Vick/Martha Stewart/Jesus) who showed me _____________ (his scars from dogfighting/how to make a killer plum pudding/how to turn water into wine and rise from the dead).

Chapter 8: But I made my turnaround when I left _____________ (Attica/San Quentin/the prison known as Celine Dion’s Vegas show) and checked into _____________ (Hazleden/the Betty Ford clinic/Joe’s Rehab and Auto Repair). After _____________ (living on the streets 29 years/reading every book in the library/discovering my love of "The Dukes of Hazzard"), I enrolled at _____________ (Harvard/Yale/the Hair Club for Men).

Chapter 9: Then I decided to write this memoir at the urging of my _____________ (rehab counselor/psychologist/editor at Riverhead Books). Today, with the help of my friend _____________ (Margaret Seltzer/James Frey/JT LeRoy), I publish this memoir, in honor of my dead mother/father/editor.

Epilogue: To them, I owe _____________ (everything/nothing/public humiliation for the rest of my life).

All writers know that inspiration will strike in unlikely places. I, for instance, was buying birthday cards when it occurred to me how to save the publishing business.

Three of my family members have birthdays within a week of each other, so I was tooling around the local card store, trying to find semi-witty greetings with that soupçon of offensiveness that my family has come to expect. 

If you’ve been to a Hallmark shop of late, you’ll know that boring, plain cards are so, well, 1990s. The kind that simply have art on the outside and a message on the inside. No, today’s hip cards have sound. Open such a card, and you’ll hear a few bars from a popular song or a skien of dialog from a movie or TV show.

For instance, you can get birthday card in which you hear Steve Carrell scream from the chest-waxing scene in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" or a card that plays Napoleon Dynamite muttering an incomprehensible koan. There’s a card celebrating an anniversary that plays Dan Ackroyd’s classic "Bassomatic" routine from Saturday Night Live. Or you can get a card for a terminally ill person that plays, "Don’t Worry, Be Happy."

As the other patrons tested each card, the store sounded similar to a dorm hallway in which eight different stereos were playing eight different genres of music. But it was in this cacophony that I realized what publishers have been lacking all these years, what will get the "public" back in the "reading public":

Sound. Books with sound. 

Before you dismiss this as a crackpot notion from a man whose other brilliant ideas included a Pac-Man novel, a combat robot named Harmpit, and a story based on spam (the e-mail, not the food), hear me out. The conventional wisdom is that fewer Americans read because decades of television has rotted our attention spans. With video games and the Internet, it’s just gotten worse. The non-reading public wants something to engage its senses that isn’t too mentally taxing (like reading) yet is still gratifying.

Abandon all hope, he who open here

That’s where Books With Sound can bridge the gap. Say you’re reading a Jonathan Franzen snoozefest after hearing about the book on "Oprah," and just as you rue the hour in which you spent $29.99, you turn the page and hear James Earl Jones intone, "Luke, I am your father!"

Or  imagine you’re reading, I dunno, "Pray, Love, Eat," which, if my eyes tell the truth, is being read primarily by women. Perhaps a page ends with the word "food," and when you turn the page, John Belushi’s voice screams out, "Food fight!"  If the publisher is desperate, they can have a page following one that ends with "eat" have a porn star scream something rather salacious, shall we say. Crass, anti-intellectual, mysogynist, yes. But think of all the guys who would buy the book! 

Now, now, I can hear the naysayers out there. I didn’t buy a book to get spoken to — if I wanted that, I would have bought one of those newfangled "books on tape." I want the book to exist in my own thoughts! I don’t want some fratboy yelling at me when I’m enjoying the subtle pleasures of the mind!

Read all about it

But you miss the point, dear reader. Books are no longer "mere words." Novels are no longer just maps of the writer’s imagination. There are books based on movies based on books. Books based on video games. Books with advertising, books with product placements. There are books on electronic readers like the Kindle, and it’s only a manner of time before books are supplemented with video streams — who needs to read a boring, text-heavy scene when we can show it to you! Especially with kick-ass fights and explosions!

For trust me when I say this: in 20 or 30 years, books as we know them now will cease to exist. Books With Sound is a simple, cost-effective way to "bridge the gap" between the old-fashioned, archaic, antiquated technology of paper and words and the Brave New World when we won’t need words at all! This way, those publishers and editors can work another few decades before being replaced by someone in Bangalore or a computer program.

Don’t fret the end of the existing order. After all, look what you have look forward to hearing.

Given my feeble attempts to resurrect my novel — OK, I haven’t done jack shit on it lately, though I’ve done much cogitation — it’s occurred to me that a writer’s skills can be as much hindrance as help.

To illustrate, let me go back to grad school, figuratively speaking. There was an unspoken rule (one of many) in my MFA program that posited, "If your imagination is too active, your story must suck."

Not knowing this, for my first workshop I submitted a story about a pizza delivery driver. The rub was that homeowners could shoot a small-caliber weapon at a driver when a pizza order took more than 30 minutes to deliver.

It was intended as satire (duh), but that part seemed to go over most of my classmates’ heads. The general question people had was thus: What about the relationship with his girlfriend? I looked at the floor, murderously.

Granted, the story about the pizza delivery driver did suck, but not because it needed more information on the driver’s gal pal. Instead, the writing was pedestrian; the characterizations were weak. There didn’t seem to be much at stake for the narrator/protagonist except staying alive, which, to many in this world, is motivation enough.

Fawkes: father of all plots, and bad hair

But it did have something going for it: a plot with an actual story in which things actually happened. Compared to the following: a 5,000-word epistolary about Why I Broke Up With You, a three-paragraph meditation on packing peanuts and Why I Broke Up With You, and the guts of a novel about life in rural Wisconsin in the1920s by someone who had never been there. In each, I couldn’t have cared less (though I tried). There was no story in the stories.

Now, I’m more likely to volunteer for experimental ass-transplant surgery than tout my virtues as a scribe, but one thing I am excel at is plotting, be it a piece of "sudden fiction" or an 800-page doorstop. For me, the other aspects of writing are like sweating blood, but I can always come up with a smart twist or clever narrative, and can bring together disparate strands of the story into a cohesive whole.

In the hands of Salman Rushdie or Margaret Atwood, to name two current Great Writers, a big, messy story isn’t a hindrance but a vehicle to get at a larger truth. While I couldn’t explain "The Moor’s Last Sigh" without a syllabus, and Wife and I have argued about precise plot of "The Blind Assassin," the complicated threads of story work in service to the book as a whole, not conversely.

Rushdie and Atwood’s characters are blood and flesh, their pacing is impeccable, and I would give my left one to write half as beautifully as either.

Faulkner was not drunk when he did this

The ability to write good narratives is as much crutch as aid; when I’m stuck writing fiction, I do one of three things:

1. Describe the room, the characters’ clothing, or something else. Or make a bad joke.
2. Add a new plot thread.
3. Log on to Bonerfarm.com and log off three days later.

You know which one wins. Instead of activating the senses, have a character take action that illuminates his or her motives, or even just describing trees and flowers, it’s more plot, plot, plot, or feed the livestock on the Bonerfarm.

(In a different life, I would write for television or the movies, I imagine, but it may be a little late for that. I could always do reality television. Bookfraud TV.)

Which begs the question: should I just abandon pretense and make the most of the tools I have, and write genre like crime or science fiction, which puts a premium on plot and less on the aspects that make literary fiction, you know, literary?

And for those of you who do write fiction, do you find yourself relying upon your strengths too much, so they become weaknesses?