NIGGERATI MANOR

Niggerati Manor Archives

2007-10-30T06:54:00.001-07:00

From October 2006 until August 2007, I wrote this blog, an attempt at an online literary salon focusing on African American literature from an in-group perspective. While the primary focus of the discussion was black literature in America, it became on outlet for other personal essays and social commentary as well. Here is a collection some of the more coherent posts, organized according to subject matter:

Requiem for a Blog

2007-09-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

This is the last official post for Niggerati Manor. As of today, I am ending the niggeratimanor.com run.

I started this blog last year for several reasons: I wanted to explore issues of African American literature in an environment unlike the predominantly white one I was teaching the subject in, I wanted to explore the idea of an online community, I was on sabbatical and had the time. Since then, my life has changed rather dramatically: I no longer live in the isolated Hudson Valley, I'm teaching at one of the most vibrant MFA programs in the country, and my personal life needs more of my focus in this period of transition.

It was my hope to put myself out there online as a lure to talk about lit issues, not to use lit issues as a lure to talk about me. My posts have moved slowly away from literary concerns and more towards personal essay, and that tells me it's time to call it quits. I don't want to be one of those literary opportunists who spends more time promoting themselves than creating work worth talking about. So I'm off to write more books.

Overall, it's been a successful experiment. When I first started I was ecstatic to get 17 visits a day, and almost 100 in the first week. Now the site averages 273 hits a day, with over 31,000 unique hits to the blog alone this year.

I don't think blogs should be forever, rather that you come, you explore a theme, and then when you get what you need from it you move on. I did about as much writing and thinking about this blog as I would have on a novel, and that's about as much as I can give. I doubt this will be my last blog in the years ahead; I'm looking forward to coming back to the form as a veteran when the feeling hits. I wasn't kidding about my idea for a black lit fiction site, and hope to get that going with other people writing and editing that sometime in the future. I already have plans for another personal blog as well, a mulatto themed blog which I'll probably get up in 2009. I'll put a link for that here if it happens.

Thank you for coming along with me, for sharing your ideas and thoughts. I will put up a Book Tour section on the main site. I should have books out in 2008, 2009 and beyond and would love to meet you in person then.

I'm Out Like Jean Toomer.

Peace,

Mat Johnson
September 9, 2007
Old Sixth Ward
Houston, TX

Announcement Coming

2007-09-10T06:42:00.000-07:00

Gorillas Love Phil Collins

2007-09-07T09:27:00.001-07:00

Gorillas Love Phil Collins.

Mulatto Nation

2007-09-05T20:55:00.000-07:00

Lezley Saar, my nomination for Secretary of State of Mulattopia.

I Need a Fucking Cigarette

2007-09-04T16:41:00.001-07:00

When I was a kid I moved around a lot with my mother from apartment to apartment, but the most memorable one of these was one we spent about three years in, from my second to fourth grade. It was a basement apartment in the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia, about three blocks from where I went to school. It was a miserable little place with hard linoleum tiles intended to look like wood. Sometimes kids would break into the back alley behind our windows and you could see them, or at least from their feet to their waists, as they basically ran through our living room. It was dark, it was damp, all the wood in the house would bend from the moisture in the summer and straighten out in the winter once more. My mom was getting her grad degree in social work at Temple at the time, working a full shift at the Financial Aid office to pay for everything. She spent all night talking on the telephone, drinking Pepsi, and smoking True Greens. This was her social life. I sat next to her and watched TV till it was time to go to sleep. The windows were always closed (because otherwise someone might climb through them) and the room was engulfed in a menthol fog by 7:30pm. I usually didn't go to sleep until eleven. (Second-hand smoke hadn't been invented yet.)

For the most part I avoided smoking outside the house; to me there was no glamor in it. So I made it through high school and college without getting hooked. Even at the University of Wales-Swansea, where all my friends smoked, I made it without the slightest temptation. Smoking was just something that other people did and I didn't.

After college I was a Watson Fellow, jumping around Europe and Africa. Mostly though, I was jumping around London, and it was while I was there that I started hanging with "K." K worked the graveyard shift at a video warehouse, a boring, undemanding job that could only be made bearable by being stoned out of his head. The thing is, spliff was expensive in London, and usually came in the form of hash bricks, so it had to be sprinkled into a tobacco cigarette and re-rolled. I spent months like this, going over to K's at 6pm when he woke up, shooting the shit with him as we passed the joint until it was 11:30pm and he was off to work and I was off to a club or bed.

When this era was over, and I was back in Philly and on the verge of a massive depression, I found that to top everything off I was going through, I was going through withdrawal too. Not from the cannabis, which is what I had been conscious that I'd been smoking, but from the nicotine I hadn't given two thoughts to.

Without even realizing I was joining the hellbound club, I had become a smoker.

I never fully gave in to the urge, or at least accepted my reality. Usually, while in grad school, I would buy a pack, or two, or three, or damn all the way up to five, and I would smoke them obsessively, smoking till I was sick, all the while telling myself that I was getting my fill and that this would allow me to stop. And I would stop, for a month or two, maybe even three. And then I would have one more and then I would be back puffing again. Trying to quit after this pack, or trying to quit after the next one. I have never been good at moderation with anything in my life. If I were one of my own fictional characters, that would be my tragic flaw. This over the top obsessive behavior is what makes me good at writing novels, and not good at life itself. I tried cold turkey, and it didn't work (it never does). I tried acupuncture, which kind of turned me on in a kinky way but that was about it. So I smoked and stopped and smoked and stopped, for a decade. Squashing it at home and binging on the road. Hating myself for it but doing it anyway.

When I went back to London last spring, I didn't see K., but I did see "B.," his ex and my friend. When she saw me light up at a little cafe in Brixton, she was shocked that I was smoking, something I actually didn't do when I lived there. When I told her how K. had hooked me, she told me that K. had quit a decade ago, right after I left for the States and was just getting started on my habit. The fucking bastard.

Worse yet, all of London was going smoke free. The gray city itself, the place where people smoke everywhere and cancer seemed like a nasty rumor started by the Germans, even London was moving on without me.

So Vic and I went to a pub, and we drank our pints, and then I left my pack of Nat Sherman MCDs on the table there. Left them to disappear into the nicotine cloud behind me.

And I haven't smoked since.

THE END[ing is not here]

Wouldn't it be great if that's where the story really did end? Well it would but it didn't because you can't turn desire off and on like that. It's not that I've smoked since: I haven't, I really fucking haven't. But shit I want to. I want to bad. I want to so bad that an improved chance at an extended life means little to me. Be around to see my grandkids? Shit, I don't even know them. Live a better life? What good is a life where you can't have what you want? Life is overrated to beginning with, with all of its loss and disappointments. Give me a fucking cigarette.

But still, I'm not smoking.

You know what's keeping me from smoking? I'll tell you. It's not love, it's not responsibility, it's not all the little mortality facts that assholes tell you when you've got a fag in your hand, it's not having to stand out in front of bars and restaurants on cold days to get my embarrassingly little nicotine fix. It's that first cigarette back. That first cigarette back after you've quit for a while tastes like pickled cat shit. And not only does it taste horrible, reminding you of what a crap addiction cigarettes are in the first place, but on top of that you get hit with the crushing wave of guilt because once again you fucked up, you couldn't hang, you couldn't hold out, and even though that first cigarette tastes absolutely awful you know you're going to smoke another one right after. Because that's how it works. And then, no matter how long you stopped or how bad you tortured yourself, you're right the fuck back again.

That's what keeps me from smoking. Because without the crutch of a cigarette to lean on, I don't think I could handle that shit.

(Smoke'em if you got'em.)

Through the Walls

2007-09-03T20:09:00.000-07:00

When I was doing my MFA thing I lived in a shitty little tenement apartment in Harlem with Victor Lavalle, there we both finished the first books that would get our careers off the ground. The place was mouse infested, falling apart, and loud, but for a while it was home and a place to hide from the rest of the city in. At night though, usually at about 10pm or so, I would hear this sound through the living room walls. Somewhere in the next building over, at full volume an old record player would drop its needle down and after a few loops of scratches a melancholy song would come on that would start out sorrowful and then slowly build to agony. Even through the walls it was clearly the most beautiful thing, and the most heartbreaking. And then at the end of the song, the needle would pick up, and there would be silence for about two seconds, and then the needle would drop back at the beginning, and the song would play all over again. This audio cycle would continue until 6:30 in the following morning.

Some older man came home and drank his sorry black ass to the point where he could wallow in his own loss and misery, and then he put on that song so he could wallow some more. And then he passed out, I assume, the sound of his ruin repeating endlessly beyond him. This is what I decided. When the music stopped a few months later, I decided as well that the man (and I assumed it to be a man) had either been gentrified out of Harlem or had finally died. But I didn't know. Part of me didn't want to know. Whatever his loss, whatever wrong turn he had taken in his life, it seemed like if you knew of it the weight it would crush you as well. It was enough to imagine him reeking of Colt 45 and English Leather in his 1960s polyester thrift shop clothes, his hair dyed and greasy and showing its grey roots against too black ends, waking up to his urine stained pants in the morning in a room decorated in stained photos of flair suited men and woman with big glasses, both standing besides Lincolns and Cadillacs. But what I did wonder was, What the hell is that song?

After that, I forgot about it for a while. One time, years later, I was watching a documentary about the Stax record label, and instantly I recognized the basic sound of the band and knew my mystery song had to be a Stax song. There is a line in Drop about the music through the wall, where I cannibalized this experience for some ambient description. But besides that, there seemed nothing more to learn about it.

Then one day about two years ago I was traveling through an airport for some literati thing, just trying to make my connection, and I heard the song. I hadn't heard or thought about the thing in years but I heard that bop-bop-bop-bop beat and instantly it all came back to me. I stopped what I was doing and headed into the Starbucks it was coming out of. The woman behind the counter looked at me like I was nuts when I asked desperately for the song's name pointing me towards the cd basket. The song still playing, going into its last screaming throws, I searched through their pre-packaged compilation trying to find it, but nothing there was even close. In desperation, I turned to the long line and said loudly over the airport bustle, "Does anybody know what song this is?" Most people seemed to have another answer on their minds, specifically to the question "Is this dude crazy?" One guy in the back, seeing that I was standing there waiting for an answer, said, "I think it's Otis Redding." Others agreed, although I think they would have agreed to anything to keep the line moving.

After that I went through iTunes entire Otis Redding catalog trying to find the song. I figured it was an obscure b-side, so went through everything but the greatest hits album to find it. I'm glad I did this, not because it was faster (it turned out the song was #1 of the "Best of" album), but because I fell in love with Otis Redding's music utterly and completely in that brief time.

This is the song, Otis Redding's "These Arms of Mine":

If this was a fair universe, all men would be able to sing like Otis Redding when they wanted to, when they needed to. Not to diss Marvin Gaye, or Teddy Pendergrass or whatever brother is your favorite crooner, but Otis Redding sang like a man. Utterly strong but completely vulnerable, smooth without affectation, without restraint but still like he could carry the world in his big brown hands. Sensitive and heartfelt and masculine all at the same time.

Fuck Elvis, I want to impersonate this man.

Penguin- Official Bird of Mulattopia

2007-09-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

For a version that's actually readable, head to Salon: http://www.salon.com/comics/opus/2007/07/22/opus/

[Sitting through a quick ad for a daypass may be required]

Feel like a genius

2007-08-28T22:17:00.000-07:00

I believe the children are our future...

...and I also believe that our future is fucked.

Mulattopia, Stage One

2007-08-28T11:58:00.001-07:00

Beige people of the world, crack your windows, because when the Mulatto Revolution happens, the above song shall be the sound you will hear!

When the last mixed Negro gets tired of having to prove their racial worth to the black world, and the last halfbreed Oreo gets sick of being the only cookie in their circle with chocolate encircling their cream filling, a new way will be found, a Third Way, a way filled with intricate harmony and devoid of contradiction, and the Mulattoes will join in the streets and start walking out to the countryside to form a new nation, a land of the Other, where the Third Way will be defined as it never could before.

And to this song we will till the land on our compound and with earth under our nails we shall create a space for ourselves in the world without compromise, where we will be half of nothing and whole of all. And this will be our Homeland, because everybody should be in the majority at least sometimes, even us who are minorities within our own families.

(And then, when the music ends, we'll awake from our spell, miss our loved ones and lovers, and be reminded that beige people are pretty annoying in large doses too, and try and figure out how to get the bus out of there...but we will exchange emails or business cards or something before most of us slink back to our realities.)

Until then, you mixed masses, get prepared. Immerse yourself in Mat Johnson's Mulattopia Master Mix. Find a country within the wall of sound:

EMILY KING
Emily King

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CREE SUMMER

SLASH and LENNY KRAVITZ

FINLEY QAUYE

BOB MARLEY

AFRO CELT SOUND SYSTEM

CORRINE BAILEY RAE

SADE

Music in My Head- #1

2007-08-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

I didn't know who Elliot Smith was when he was alive. I never heard him until someone burned me a copy of the Royal Tenenbaums Soundtrack, and there was "Needle in the Hay." By then he was already dead.

St. Ides? Do they even make that shit anymore? And if they did, what kind of white boy would drink that poison and also sing about it on an acoustic guitar? But that's part of the excitement here: the improbable mix of folk sensibilities with Bukowskian darkness and hip hop bravado.

If you listen to this live recorded version of "St. Ides Heaven," you can hear how thin Elliot Smith's voice was, how weak. Based on this, Smith's use of multiple layering of his voice for his studio albums makes sense. For a minute, I was disappointed that his voice was so small, and off tune. But then beauty of it hit me: even the ugliest, screeching little malcontent can sound like an angel if given enough time and attention, which Smith gets in the album version of this song:

The moon is a light bulb breaking
It'll go around with anyone
But it won't come down for anyone

The first line of this stanza is brilliant, and the way he sings it lets it resonate for you. The second and third lines though, those are the killers: the fact that he gets away with the word repetition just by being intentional and profound.

This music tells me that it is okay to be insolent and malformed in this world, that a constant smile is more horrific than the worst frown. That life is finite and it is better to live openly disdainful of its limitation that to cow before the inevitable.

"Chocolate Rain" Ringtone

2007-08-22T15:49:00.000-07:00

Sometimes even an agnostic like me can get a prayer answered in this world.

Get your FREE "Chocolate Rain" ringtone here!

How Houston Is

2007-08-21T19:11:00.000-07:00

To all the well wishers, player haters, acquaintances, family and friends who have emailed me over the last few months asking how me "How's Houston?" I now have an answer for you. Now, I've only been here four days, but this is what I have to say to you all.

Yes it is fucking hot, and yes it is humid too, but believe it or not I don't mind it. The heat just reminds me that I'm not in the woods of New York State anymore, and the humidity feels like I just walked away from the best sex of my life (I guess that's what they mean by sultry) and unlike the industrial shit stain that is Northeast Philadelphia, where I spent the beginning of my summer, there seems to always be a breeze blowing here in the Gulf, which gives the surface of your skin hope. Besides, the majority of my time is spent in central air. The only time where the power of the heat really hits me is when I first get into my car, which sort of feels like getting into an oven preheated to 350 and then turning the air conditioner on.

Houston is also exponentially cooler than I even thought it was. I'm living in a neighborhood that I thought would be a lot like the neighborhood I grew up in, Germantown, meaning that it would be a few historic houses renovated into a posthumous respectability amid a larger ghetto environment, a place where inner city dysfunction co-exists with white liberal dysfunction, and crackheads crept past porches covered in anti-war slogans and cat shit. But the neighborhood I'm subletting a house in, The Old Sixth Ward, is so much more than that. In a city with architectural amnesia, it's one of the only places that brings the past comfortably into the present. A little tropical oasis that sits improbably between an industrial rail area, downtown skyscrapers and the theater district, this odd, miniature residential neighborhood (that no one in Houston seems to know exists) is full of stunning woodwork, beautifully renovated craftsman bungalows, and people who say hi to you from their porches or to yours. Hello there.

Add to that the endless number of great bars, consignment shops, and dirt cheap modernist loft living, and having made the decision to head south seems increasingly wise. Especially since Hurricane Dean made a left turn away from hitting town (although rains and flooding last week did lead to the cancellation of our Houston Callaloo reading, oh well.)

At one time, I felt that I was living in Houston to teach at the university. But the more I walk around this town though, see what it has to offer and the people offering it, the more I think the truth might be that I'm teaching at the university to have the opportunity to live in Houston.

Callaloo Living

2007-08-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

I am not particularly good picture taker. It's not the technical aspect, I can manage that okay, it's the stopping to take the actual photo that I never seem to be able to do. When life is going well my primary impulse is to live it, to enjoy it for everything it's worth before the darkness comes back again.

Thank god this year's Callaloo has someone who seems to be able to both enjoy the moment, and capture it as well. Check out the flckr journal of Lillian Bertram, a poet with a considerable talent for the visual image as well. See how Bertram captured the essence of Callaloo '07, the beauty of the vibe as well as the people.

Indiana is Funky

2007-08-14T11:39:00.001-07:00

Abdel Shankur at the Indiana Review contacted me about sending the word out to the Niggerati audience that the magazine is looking for submission for their upcoming funk-themed issue. The Indiana Review is a well respected literary journal that has a distinguished history. If you've got work that fits this bill, submit:

"Indiana Review is planning to bring the funk in summer 2008. Our 30.1 issue will feature a special "Focus on the Funk" section, with art, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction that has a uniquely funky aesthetic. As we have been informed, funk has the power to move and re-move, and it also has the power to defy definition. So please don't ask us to tell you what funk is (although the Godfather of Soul may be helpful). We're looking for work that makes you want to jump back and kiss yourself.

When our reading period opens September 1st, we'll also be accepting regular submissions, but if you have work you'd like us to consider for this special section, please mark it "Attn: Funk Editor". Indiana Review can only contain so much funk, so we'll only be reading for this section during the month of September. Any submissions after that will be returned. You can check out more specific guidelines on our website.

But whatever you do, no matter what anyone tells you, no matter what you see on TV or in the newspapers, no matter what it says on wikipedia, please, please, make sure that whatever you do, you do it on The One."

Tayari Jones has an interview with the editor about this issue on her blog.

Confessions of a Bad Blogger

2007-08-11T20:29:00.000-07:00

I am a bad blogger. It's not that I have had nothing to say to the world, it's just that every moment I have had to write I've tried to dedicate to the completion of my current novel. I've been teaching this summer, and the experience has been so intense that in some ways the regular school year seems like a vacation in comparison. The workshop at the Hurston/Wright Writer's Week was exceptional, largely because of all of the students who attended, as well as for the opportunity to hang out with my boys Chris Abani and A. Van Jordan. One week into the Callaloo Writers' Workshop, I'm similarly impressed with the submissions. I get the feeling that I'm witnessing the future of African Diasporan Literature, in its basest form. In College Station Texas, I'm teaching along with talents such as Tracy K. Smith, Terrence Hayes, and Tayari Jones, the latter of which is a very good blogger and you can read some of her takes on events here (including a rather surreal encounter with rural Texas public radio).

The four of us will be reading in Houston at the Ensemble Theater this Thursday, August 16th. I'm looking forward to it: it feels like it's going to be my first home game for my new team.

In Praise of Black Nerds, Part 2

2007-08-02T11:25:00.001-07:00

I was ambivalent about whether to post this video or not, largely because almost everyone has seen it. Then, when I knew the subject couldn't be avoided, I hedged again, thinking that I might curse you to hearing this song in your head all day, walking around screaming "Chocolate Rain!" all day for no apparent reason, just as I am. And you will be singing "Chocolate Rain!" This video is sort of like marijuana; the first time you experience it you think 'What's the big deal?' Then later, when the effects kick in, you realize you've been kicked down the stairs and onto your ass.

What is so intriguing about Tay Zonday's little ditty? Is it the fact that his head appears, gnome-like, at the bottom of the screen before jumping into action? Is it that during the song he dodges to the side, lizard-like, to breath? Is it that he looks like he could be 14 or 40, male or female, but whoever he looks like doesn't look like someone who would sing with that bass voice? Perhaps it's the lyrics themselves, serious words that are easily misinterpreted as scatalogical humor. Or maybe it is just the way he stares at the camera at the end, with a look that is either the most innocent expression in the world or the most creepy. Maybe it's just that the song goes on for four minutes without break or hook or self-consciousness about this fact.

Here's to Tay Zonday, for being black and intelligent and eccentric and creative and completely unapologetic about that fact. So unapologetic, in fact, that when he does a reading to show viewers his speaking voice, he chooses as his source material Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried." No Maya Angelou for this brother.

This is exactly what the world needed: a nerd Jon Lucien! For those who have slept on the magic of JL, click here to be initiated:

CHOCOLATE RAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!

In Praise of Black Nerds, Part 2

2007-08-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

I was ambivalent about whether to post this video or not, largely because almost everyone has seen it. Then, we I knew the subject couldn't be avoided, I hedged again, thinking that I might curse you to hearing this song in your head all day, walking around screaming "Chocolate Rain!" all day for no apparent reason. And you will be singing "Chocolate Rain!" This video is sort of like marijuana; the first time you experience it you think 'What's the big deal?' Then latter, when the effects kick in, you realize you've been kicked on your ass.

What is so intriguing about Tay Zonday's little ditty? Is it the fact that his head appears, gnome-like, at the bottom of the screen before jumping into action? Is it that he dodges to the side, lizard-like, to breath? Is that he looks like he could be 14 or 40, male or female, but whoever he looks like doesn't look like someone who would sing this song? Perhaps it's the lyrics themselves, serious words that are easily misinterpreted as scattalogical humor. Or maybe it is just the way he stares at the camera at the end, with an look that is either the most innocent expression in the world or the most creepy. Maybe it's just that the song goes on for four minutes without break or hook or self-consciousness about this fact.

Here's to Tay Zonday, for being black and intelligent and eccentric and creative and completely unapologetic about that fact. So unapologetic, in fact, that when he does a reading to show viewers his speaking voice, he chooses as his source material Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried.

In Praise of Black Nerds, Part 1

2007-08-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

Rise, Oh Black Nerds, rise! The day is ours to have!

Cast off the voices that seek your conformity! Banish those who would challenge your love of critical thought! Dare to be unique in a community that deems deviation of interest as cultural treachery!

Storm the gates of unexamined thought, Infidel Guy, for I am right behind you, with my plus +5 for dexterity +7 in melee from strength, and +6 sword in hand!

Role of the Writer

2007-07-31T14:12:00.001-07:00

A few months back we had a lively discussion here about the role of the writer, specifically in regards to his or her audience interactions on a personal level. Since then, I've had several book club experiences that I would define as...awkward. I did a video cast on the subject to vent, but this vlog was deemed by several of my peers to be unfit for wider circulation.

As proof that none of this is new, or ethnic specific, here is a lovely story by Edith Wharton that I must admit seems eerily familiar to me. Edith Warton's "Xingu" is available both in text and as a free podcast from Selected Shorts (click this link to the story if you have iTunes). The Selected Shorts reading is well done, and it is the second half of a two-story show. The first story is by my new collegue, the stunningly talented Antonya Nelson, who is one of the reasons I am heading to Houston, TX.

Thanks to Professor Bertram Ashe for the heads up.

Incognegro Cover

2007-07-28T10:49:00.001-07:00

When Jon Vankin and Karen Berger at Vertigo were planning the cover for Incognegro, they decided that a photo of an undercover mulatto done in an early 20th century style would go a long way to convey the idea of the book. The thing is, while these mixed race African Americans are ever present in black literature, actual high yellow negroes who can "pass" for white are rather rare. Conveniently, I am one of them. So they asked me to model for the cover. I was a bit apprehensive — I don't like putting my persona in front of my work — but it seemed like the right way for this project should go. So I agreed.

One day last April, I got out of the shower and shaved off the light beard I've worn in one form or another for almost 20 years, reducing my facial hair down to a cheesy, 1930s style mustache. The results were rather dramatic. When I came out of the bathroom, my 18 month old daughter immediately broke into tears, wondering who this drifter was walking through her house.

My little girl wasn't the only one. My own mother's response to the photo was, "That's nice, but why didn't they just use you as the model?"

My thanks to the charming Stephen John Phillips, who created the above picture. I always loved Vertigo's photo-surrealistic covers when I was reading Sandman and Sandman Mystery Theater. To actually have my own image in a Vertigo cover is an honor I never anticipated.

Harlem Renaissance- The Movie

2007-07-22T05:05:00.000-07:00

How to Become a Bestseller

2007-07-16T04:22:00.000-07:00

The Atlantic currently has one of the best articles about the business of writing, and the difference between the world of genre fiction and the world of literary fiction. The essay, written from the perspective of a literary fiction writer Eric Konigsberg, examines the hugely successful career of Harlan Coben.

It's a fascinating piece for a number of reasons. Coben's understanding of the minutia of the industry of publishing is rather amazing, epitomized by his knowledge of even Sam's Club's book stocking methodology. In Coben we see how a writer becomes a mutli-million dollar bestseller, and what he gains and losses in the process. The profile, written by Eric Konigsberg, is fair and honest, and the same can be said of Coben himself. Take this excellent analysis, which points out something I don't think I've ever heard someone say aloud before:

The average detective story is probably no worse than the average novel, but you never see the average novel. It doesn’t get published. The average—or only slightly above average—detective story does … And the strange thing is that this average, more than middling dull, pooped-out piece of utterly unreal and mechanical fiction is really not very different from what are called the masterpieces of the art. It drags on a little more slowly, the dialogue is a shade grayer, the cardboard out of which the characters are cut is a shade thinner, and the cheating is a little more obvious. But it is the same kind of book. Whereas the good novel is not at all the same kind of book as the bad novel. It is about entirely different things. But the good detective story and the bad detective story are about exactly the same things, and they are about them in very much the same way.

This is particularly fascinating considering our debates in African American lit about what is genre writing and what is literature. In Coben we find an author who is completely conscious of what his position in the publishing universe is, and embraces it. Instead of seeing his massive commercial success as proof of his work's artistic genius, he maintains a realistic grounded understanding of his career. His job is to write gripping thrillers that play on our fears for ourselves and our families in a way that is both engaging, gripping, and comfortably repetitive. His job is not to give a social message, or waist time with character beyond the archetypes. It's to create books that are fun and familiar, just like his last book his audience loved but just new enough that they can buy it and repeat the thrill.

“It’s not like I’m an artist,” he said. “If this book doesn’t do well, and I say to my publisher, ‘I want the freedom to do what I want,’ well, they might say, ‘We want the freedom to take back some of this money.’”

Coben understands that his career is built on creating a very specific product for a specific audience; this realization is one of the key's to his success. Unlike some Black commercial fiction authors of late who have cried racism in response to the refusal of their publishers to accept manuscripts outside the author's existing genre and audience, Coben does not confuse corporate reality for anything other than what it is. If you sell oranges, and you have regular clients who come just for your oranges, you can't just start selling beets and think that won't effect business.

It is this understanding of his audience, and his belief that creatively his work showed conform to his readers rather than his readers make the effort to interpret his work, that also separates Coben from the majority of literary writers:

At another bookstore talk, Coben made fun of “the kind of writer who says”—here, he adopted a mopey zombie’s voice—“‘I only write for myself; I don’t care who reads it.’ That’s like saying, ‘I only talk to myself; I don’t care who’s listening.’”

(Biggups to Submariner for the link)

Ghetto Literature 101

2007-07-14T05:58:00.001-07:00

Read a &$*%@ BOOK!

2007-07-14T05:29:00.000-07:00