I walked into a bookstore and looked at the person I know who works there. I said, I’m so tired.
He said, Step on something.
I looked at his feet, at his boots.
He said, Come here. He licked the cigarette paper he was rolling.
I said, Can I step on you?
I looked at his boots and he said, You have to step on someone’s head.
He looked tall. I couldn’t possibly step on his head. Then I thought about how no one I knew would lay down on the floor and let me step on their head and how maybe I wasn’t the type of woman to do that anyway. I looked disappointed.
Sorry, he said.
Does that work? Really?
Yes, he said and put the cigarette in his mouth.
I was tired enough to believe him. I walked out the door and over to a place to get a pint. I sat down at the bar, made some calls, read some pages of “The Adderall Diaries.” I thought about how writing a blog is self-indulgent and memoir can be too, if you write it that way.
Someone asked if I wrote. He knew the answered but asked anyway. I said, I write and left it at that. I’m drinking my coffee and writing in this blog and thought I had something to say but guess I don’t.
I have a comedy show to go to at the Center of the Arts in Eagle Rock. I’m going to laugh but mainly I’m going because my friends are going. I thought writing could be foundational but it’s not. So many things come before it. So many people I love. It took me a while to understand …
Hi Zoe,
I read your essay about Amy Fusselman’s “8″ right after it was published on The Rumpus, then bought the book immediately. As with a lot of books, I cracked it open as soon it arrived at my house. I read the first 36 pages and lost interest. It’s been sitting next to my reading chair, with dozens of other books that haven’t made it over to the bookshelves, for over a year. I see its spine often. And think, Yeah, maybe I’ll get back to that thing at some point.
A book has to be overwhelmingly catchy, like a Nirvana hook or something, for me to get excited about it. “The Adderall Diaries” did that, as did “Permanent Midnight,” “Education of a Felon,” “A Million Little Pieces”, and hundred other books that grabbed me from the get, most of which were memoir or memoirish. I’ve said often that when a [pun alert!] book clubs you over the head it’s all about Right Place, Right Time. You and the book have to arrive at the intersection at the same moment for the crash to happen. The good kind of course.
I picked up a short book by Leonard Michaels–b/c Elliott has mentioned in his Daily Rumpus how good that guy’s first collection is–at a thrift store about a month ago. Thought, What the Hell. It’s called “Sylvia” and Michael’s called it a ‘fictionalized memoir.’It’s about a woman he married in NYC back in the 60′s. Instantly, it became another book that I couldn’t set down. Read it in a day and was in tears by the time our time was up–finished’er in a couple sittings.
Today, I picked up “8″ again. For no reason. I just noticed it sitting there and I didn’t feel like doing anything else. Within 3 sentences, I was snatched up by this thing. I read forty pages or so, went for a run, then came back and finished it. When I was done, I started over at page one and read up to 36, where I’ d originally stopped. It was exhilarating and perfect in too many ways to describe.
Fusselman’s voice is such a perfect mix of pathos, sense of humor, deep poignancy, and inner struggle. It hit me like a train, this book. I wanted to run out and tell everyone I know that I had just read the apotheosis of memoir. But unless it’s their time to intersect with this little masterpiece, likely they won’t get much from it. Since you already know how special and perfect this book is, I just wanted to holler your way. Not just to tell you, “thanks,” but to tell you something else you already know: some books are just THAT GREAT!
**
On a different note, I noticed some resignation in the tone of your above blog entry. The comment “I thought writing could be foundational but it’s not” piqued my writer brain. Wondering what you meant, what kinds of struggles you’re having with the Word, or World. I’m having my own lately. Maybe I’m just looking to commiserate. Take good care and then some!
–Dave