brianrayfiction.com Blog

After a “long time” of writing about people and things for newspapers, there’s now a story all about yours truly in The State. Mother Nature made a considerable effort to stop this one. Being the obsessive “get it done now” maniac, I returned Bertram Rantin’s call while driving through a rocky patch of West Virginia and tried to give an interview at a McDonald’s fenced in by mountains on the heels of a storm. Not a great idea. He asked a question, and then the connection died. I called back. The interview got rolling, and then the connection severed. I called back and called back. Finally, we finished with my car on the outskirts of Louisville. We’re both patient and determined fellows. The interview went well once my phone cooperated, and we wound up talking about teaching and books. Hope everyone enjoys this as much as I do. I have to read this story out of the corner of my eyes – still a bit timid when it comes to attention.

Been away so long I hardly knew the place. Gee, it’s good to be back home. Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case. Honey, disconnect the phone. I’m back in the USSR.

Wednesday night a girl hops up and says, “Will you marry me?” I say, “Sure, but why?” She says, “Because I get 50 more points.” Then she slips a ring on my finger and throws her arms around me, shouting “yay!” Such is the neon smothered tourist-friendly area of downtown Louisville. Bachelorette parties roam the streets looking for defenseless young men. Horrible karaoke blares from the rooftops. I’ve completely underestimated how much soul-force AP grading takes. By 5 pm I have just enough fumes left to hit the gym and then be productive for two hours before 1) giving in to peer pressure to “check out the night life” or 1) lying on a sofa in a state of despair at the thought of tomorrow. I’m in bed by midnight all week, so I can be on the way to our convention center by 7:30 am.

Percival Everett is not Sidney Poitier. Likewise, I am not Robert Pattinson – who plays Edward Cullen in the Twilight movie. (I appreciate the compliment.) Yesterday a noisy woman I’ve been scowling at for days, as I’m trying to grade 150 essays in 8 hours, stops me coming back from the bathroom and points at me. “Edward,” she says. “That’s who you look like.” I think, “Edward who? Edward Scissorhands? Edward Norton? Edward…Hopper?” Upon explaining, she tells me the movie isn’t worth seeing unless it comes on cable – but the books are fun.

Copies of my novel arrived today, the hardback. They look swell; I like the compact dimensions, a little smaller than the usual size. The cover image is sharp. Even if you think my writing sucks (which it doesn’t), you can rest easy that your money has purchased a true work of art that’ll look wonderful on your bookshelf or toilet.

Right now is a helluva a time to head for the Smoky Mountains. I drove slow through them on the way back from KY. All I have to say is wow.

Saturday I continued conducting top secret activities for the College Board. I’ve found the snack bar for readers that runs 7-11 pm and has unlimited chips, guac, soda, and coffee. I’m also told that the hotel I’m staying in, Galt House, was occupied by the great Charles Dickens at one point. I did not go to Churchill Downs for the big race, which I hear was filled with beautiful drunk people with lots of money to burn. South Carolina had gamecocks. This place has horses. I almost hit someone who cut me in the coffee line this morning.

Helena Maria Viramontes will read for English teachers tomorrow night. My first major presentation in college was on this writer. I did a mediocre job with Under the Feet of Jesus. Maybe I can redeem myself by going and taking good notes.

Salinger must not be that reclusive, or else his lawyers are the ones mainly behind the suit against this much talked-about sequel to Catcher in the Rye. Although I hate to admit it, I don’t feel strongly either way, and yet I can explain my apathy. First, let’s think about the title- 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye. Frankly, author John David California deserves what he gets for dreaming up such a horrible name for a book. Second, let’s think about the plot. A 70-something Holden wanders through New York after escaping from his nursing home. Don’t know about the rest of the world, but that sounds as interesting as a novel about 18 holes of golf. I mean, what all can we expect? Ancient Holden C visits the graves of his sister and favorite teacher? Gets beat up by some college girl’s pimp, again, except this time a hip’s broken in the struggle? This Holden wouldn’t just write laughably ignorant essays about mummies. He’d be a mummy.

Why not give us a Holden in his mid 40s? Holden in the midst of a midlife crisis. Let’s give him a wife, or an ex-wife, and an estranged daughter who he sneaks into the house to see as he did Phoebe. Why not a merry-go-round scene with his daughter reaching for a brass ring? Or if that sounds cheesy, how about we take her to an Apple store?

I’m now in Kentucky. Rain pours on statues of horses on street corners. At Borders, you can buy four books and get the fifth one free. The International Convention Center served Cajun chicken for lunch.

Book Tour ‘09 begins after a week in Kentucky, where I conduct top secret activities. The thing about Louisville I noticed, last year, is they have lots of pictures of horses but few actual horses downtown. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places. They also have fancy hotels, a room in which I have the distinct pleasure of sharing with another grad student. Once there I’ll try to hit the Frazier International History Museum and maybe even swing by Thomas Edison’s house.

On to book tour notes. Most of the dates are posted on the website. As the first leg nears, a TV spot, I find myself returning to an Ann Patchett essay in The Atlantic’s fiction issue from last year. She recounts a conversation in which Allan Gurganus says “The only thing worse than going on book tour…is not going on book tour.”

Yet her own publicity run for her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, began like a soldier’s tour of duty: she covered 25 cities and “kept my expenses under $3,000.” Armed with one good dress she “would drive to Chicago, find the McDonald’s closest to the bookstore, change clothes in the bathroom…and present myself [once inside the bookstore] to the person behind the counter” as “the seven o’clock show.” Each sparsely-attended night of the book tour ended in despair and embarrassment despite a solid performance or at least an hour of friendly conversation. Maybe the most poignant anecdote involves the story of a woman Patchett meets – who abandoned her favorite author after hearing said author read aloud. Why? Because the woman couldn’t stand this author’s voice. Just goes to show that authors can never predict what effect they can have. Maybe I ought to practice my Truman Capote impression.

But the essay ends on a positive note. An equally poignant anecdote describes a meeting between Patchett and a girl whose mom drove her several hours on a school night to hear Patchett read. Heart warming, or something. Anyway, on this last day of actual “rest” before a hectic summer gets underway, I look forward to surprise and yet knock on wood for no car trouble.

Off the cuff, I’d say the publishing business has grown as tangled as the Christmas lights in someone’s attic. If it were ever simple, everybody knows those days are now gone – and big name authors can’t even agree on the ethics of e-books. Take Sherman Alexie, for example, who said at the latest Book Expo convention in NY, that he would rather sell his books on a street corner than sign off an e-book rights. (That’s my metaphor, not his, although that’s what Luddites might be doing ten years from now).

Alexie went on to say that he finds the Kindle an symbol of elitism in the publishing and literary world. But that statement strikes me as an oxymoron. The publishing world already has a large, entrenched elitist faction who decries things like Kindles and e-books. Isn’t it elitist to call the Kindle elitist? And why would Alexie want to hit a woman on an airplane reading one, as he said? These gadgets do cost about $400. However, I tend to want to hit people who carry on interminable-loud-conversations on airplanes or folks who crank up the volume on their I-Pods on cross-country flights. Nope, I have to say I’d be happy to see a cabin full of people quietly ensconced in Kindles any day.

In fact, I think we should go ahead and empty the libraries now. In fact, I advocate this: all libraries can be relocated inside drab gray buildings where librarians do nothing but scan, scan, scan, until the world’s books are efficiently and conveniently stored in cyberspace. Imagine the crystals Jerel gives Superman that contain the knowledge and literature of a dozen worlds. Next, let’s build an enormous temple out of all the books in stores and libraries. Next, let’s douse the temple with gasoline, now only $3 a gallon, and then light it up. Third, turn the libraries and bookstores into Apple retailers and McDonald’s. Okay, okay, some of them can be Applebee’s.

What else about Book Expo? Ah, there’s the issue of trend chasing (as opposed to trend setting). Apparently this year the tables were stacked with vampire novels attempting to snatch a small piece of that Stephanie Meyer market. It’s good to know that at least one thing hasn’t changed thanks to the Internet. There will always be a herd of copycats.

Of course, I wasn’t at the Expo. The past several days I’ve been scrubbing every inch of my apartment in preparation for a move. Ironically, the dogs have stopped barking. Maybe the fumes of cleaning chemicals wafted upstairs and drove my neighbors away. If so, that would be good incentive to clean more often.