PAULA WHYMAN
curiouswriter

In which we wonder about writing, food, music,  
& random curious events. 

Take a listen to this fabulous interview with author A.S. Byatt by Charlotte Higgins at The Guardian. Byatt is one of my favorite writers (you're beginning to think I have too many "favorites," but when one considers the vast number of published authors, really, my list still seems insignificant). In this interview, she touches on everything from how difficult it must be to grow up the child of a children's book author ("children's writers want to prolong their own childhood") to the difficulty with defining one's identity in the absence of a religious framework.

It's her discussion of the latter that I find most intriguing. She refers primarily to Western society when she says that the map of the world provided by religion is gone--that religion itself has "gone away," leaving only an interest in "ourselves." She talks about the various frames for trying to understand ourselves--how to work out identity--and finally identifies the "blogosphere" as the place where people are attempting self-definition. She says that everyone needs a mirror to "tell you who you are"--and that we are finding that mirror on Facebook. According to Byatt, Facebook has, in that sense, replaced God.

If we do look to Byatt's "blogosphere" for self-definition, that presents an interesting problem. Because the identity people construct, their online "persona," is just that: a construct. A fiction. Is that the primary mirror through which you see yourself, this fiction you've created?

For the sake of argument, how is this different from any other locus of self-definition? Isn't any self you put forward a fiction, exclusive and exclusionary, by definition? Shaped by you, both consciously and unconsciously?

I would think that, more than any other medium, the web's sheer pervasiveness, and the possibility of spending so much of one's time and "relationship" energy there, could make it the overwhelming source of one's self-definition.

I'm obviously not a scholar of philosophy, and I'm not a psychologist, I only play one on TV. But if Facebook (etc.) really is where we locate our primary sense of self, that seems dangerously reductive and illusory.

Byatt thinks someone should write a book about it. I think she's right.

In this enlightening interview with novelist David Mitchell at The Rumpus, Mitchell is asked about the sheer variety of his work. He tells interviewer Alec Michod that writers are like duck-billed platypuses "and critics are taxonomists, and to us duck-billed platypuses the question of whether we should be considered as an egg-laying mammal or what is a pointless exercise... A novelist’s job is to write a novel, not worry about how it fits into one’s oeuvre..."

I've always wondered what to call myself: fiction writer? humor writer? food/travel/grocery list writer? At some point, I settled on..."writer." But now I'm thinking duck-billed platypus might be a more descriptive label.

Mitchell comments on maturing over time as a writer: "...the older you get the more familiar you become with your own ignorance. Your writing, hopefully, has more spontaneity and verve as you age. Now it can take painstaking weeks...to excrete a single sentence. It can be like having a hemorrhage, but one hopes the quality is superior the greater the excretion."

Mitchell's hemorrhages are a good deal better quality than most. His latest novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, has been long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. His earlier acclaimed novel, Cloud Atlas, was shortlisted in 2004.

I'm a latecomer to James Salter's work, having just recently read and been bowled over by his novel, A Sport and a Pastime. It was published in 1967, and I expected it to seem quaint and dated. In short, it's not. Its exploration of a love affair between an American man and a French girl is probably the best narrative of "good" sex that I've read. Because face it, most of the sex one finds in novels these days is "bad" sex. You know the difference; I don't need to explain that. And when there is good sex (particularly if it's at all explicit), it's often badly written to the point of being cringe-inducing--even by the best writers. So...I humbly suggest Salter's book as a primer for those who are preparing to attempt a scene of that kind in their own fiction.

A volume of Salter's correspondence with longtime friend Robert Phelps, Memorable Days: The Selected Letters of James Salter and Robert Phelps, edited by John McIntyre, will be out this month from Counterpoint Press. Although I don't read literary correspondence all that often, what I've seen so far of these letters has led me to believe I'm missing out. In addition to which this kind of exchange may soon become a relic.

Robert Phelps, a fiction writer, literary biographer, and writing professor, sent an adoring letter to Salter after reading A Sport and a Pastime, and so began an affair of friendship that lasted until Phelps' death. Excerpts from the letters have appeared in The American Scholar.

In their letters, the two men commiserate about everything from travel to bad reviews. (On reviewers, Salter reminds Phelps that "they are not the only readers, they are the paid readers." Something to keep in mind.)

What interests me most are their references to the creative process. Richard Ford is quoted in The American Scholar as saying that Salter "writes American sentences better than anybody writing today." In which case, it's gratifying to know that writers like Salter can have days like the rest of us:

"I'm still at work, disheartened, on the final chapter of my book...It still eludes me...Somewhere in all that boring clay is the shape I'm looking for." Later, he describes a play he's working on: "I don't know anything about it yet except there are parts I don't detest."

I think I can get on board for that, writing a passage that I don't detest.

Phelps says that if every writer has his given form..."I sometimes think mine is the footnote....I think I am an annotator. The story exists for the scribbled notes in the margin."

Salter, on the other hand, loves "the infinities, the endlessness..." He will clearly always find something new to say, or a new way of saying it. "We must consume whole worlds to write a single sentence and yet we never use up a part of what is available."

I can't help being struck by the likelihood that this type of relationship may never again be immortalized and made public this way. Unless of course you're a person who saves emails (intentionally--not just to avoid cleaning out the inbox), and (even less likely) you're corresponding with a person who writes emails that are worth saving.

For further insight and reflections on Robert Phelps, see this essay, written by Derek Alger, a long-time student of his and editor of Pif, the online literary magazine.

Carolyn Parkhurst is back from a whirlwind tour to promote her new novel, The Nobodies Album, which Liesl Schillinger reviewed glowingly in the NYT this past Sunday. Carolyn has condensed her on-the-road experiences into this list of hilarious book tour wisdom. Highly recommend.

A sampling:

Stay in character. When you call home, have your kids ask you a few questions about narrative voice.

In-flight writing exercise: Choose an item from the SkyMall catalog and try to imagine a character who might actually use it.

While you're on the road, you're functioning as an Ambassador of Literature. This means you can pretty much park anywhere.

(On my way to the DMV now to get one of those Ambassador of Literature hang-tags for my car...)

Susan Coll's hilarious new novel, Beach Week, is featured on NPR in Lizzie Skurnick's Three Degrees of Failure for the Recent Graduate.

I like this part: "It might seem odd to describe a novel that involves barfing in cars, stalking boys and a drunk dad playing beer pong in his underpants as heartwarming..."

Behind the barbs that Coll wields are understanding of and affection for her targets, and that's part of what makes the book's humor so effective.

Three Books is a regular NPR feature in which writers recommend their favorite three books in a given category. (You can read my contribution to the series here.)

Terrific review in The Washington Post for The Nobodies Album, which I blogged about here a few days ago. Art Taylor calls Parkhurst's novel "brisk and engaging...a meditation on writing itself and on the curious intersections between the imagined world and the real one."

What did I tell you?

I am always amazed by Carolyn Parkhurst's seemingly limitless imagination, and the unique lens through which she views the world, both of which are evident in her writing. I've known Carolyn since we were in grad school, and now we're in a fabulous writing group together. As a result, I've had the privilege of reading her new book, The Nobodies Album, as she was writing it. It's an absorbing, intelligent, complex work, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the process as it unfolded, eagerly awaiting each new installment. The structural task Carolyn set for herself seemed huge: The main character, Octavia Frost, is a novelist late in her career. Her newest book is a rewrite of the final chapters of EACH of her previous novels. These final chapters, and their revised versions, are actual chapters in Parkhurst's book. In the novel's "present" story, Frost learns that her son, a famous rock musician, has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend. Frost and her son are estranged because of something she wrote in one of her novels. The story of the murder and the mother-son relationship is told in chapters alternating with those final chapters of Frost's novels.

It sounds like one of those things one is told not to do in writer-school. But, that is because most people couldn't pull it off. Carolyn, however, DOES pull it off, which makes it a fascinating read.

It may seem like I'm putting too much emphasis on the complex structure, which I don't want to do--I don't want it to put people off. Because the amazing thing about it is that while it sounds complex in the explaining, when you read it, it's quite clear and clean and even elegant in its logic. And human--because Carolyn nails the mother-son relationship in all its strains, as well as the desire to remake one's own "story."
Booklist calls The Nobodies Album "a stunning blend of craft and ingenuity."

Publishers Weekly says that Parkhurst has "the gift of a real storyteller."

In case it wasn't enough to merely write this book, Carolyn has also created a real website for Octavia Frost, her fictional author-protagonist, which even includes book covers and descriptions of Frost's (fictional!) works. And, Carolyn has begun posting an entertaining series of tweets, which you can find on Twitter under #selfpimpinghaikus. Each tweet is a clever haiku that relates to her novel. And if you'd like to know what music inspired various aspects of the characters and story, on Carolyn's website, you can find a playlist that she used in the course of writing the book.

I may be Curiouswriter, but it's very likely that Carolyn Parkhurst is Geniuswriter.

I neglected to mention that Susan Coll will read from her new novel, Beach Week, this week.

Thursday, June 3, 7pm
Barnes & Noble
Bethesda Ave. at Woodmont Ave.

See you there!

For more scheduled events, see Susan's website.

I feel privileged to present a guest blog from the funny and talented novelist Susan Coll, whose newest novel, Beach Week, will be available in stores on June 1.



Seeing as Paula was bold enough to guest blog for Alternate Sides about an embarrassing moment in air travel, I thought I’d return the favor with an anecdote about my most embarrassing moment in book promotion. I should probably add, my most embarrassing thus far.

My last novel, Acceptance, was a satire about college admissions hysteria, with some inevitable subtext about the culture of hyper-parenting in the affluent suburbs. Because I approached this book with something of a journalistic eye, interviewing academic deans and admissions officers, and using source material, I came to know a lot about college admissions. I also wrote a piece for the Washington Post Outlook section about helicopter parenting. Somewhere along the way, the line between fact and fiction became a little blurred, I suppose, and I found myself frequently being asked in interviews for advice on raising teens and on shepherding them through the transition to college. These questions caught me off guard each time, but I answered them politely, even somewhat confidently at times---hey, I may not be a child psychologist, but I am a mother!

A couple of months into the book promotion cycle I was invited onto a network news program in the New York City metropolitan area---a small coup for a novelist. Accordingly, I went all out and bought a new brown top from Banana Republic and spent a fair amount of time trying to decide whether or not to wear my glasses. I made my way into the building, past security, and up the elevators at 30 Rock, trying to channel my inner Tina Fey. But the disaster began with the first question, and I never recovered. The young producer, probably just out of college herself, clearly had me confused with Dr. Phil, and began to ask me a series of parenting questions way beyond the range of even a battle-weary mother of three. I tried to fudge my answers for a while until the whole thing began to feel dishonest; I had visions of some aggrieved parent banging on my door demanding to see my Ph.D., and in return I’d slip her a slim comic novel. I finally interrupted the interviewer and asked if she was aware that I had written a novel. Um, no, she was not. The ride back down the elevator was something of a blur, particularly as I’d removed my glasses. The segment never aired. I gave the brown shirt to my daughter and she wore it to a recent interview. At least she got the job.

Susan Coll is the author of four novels, including Acceptance, which was made into a Lifetime Network film starring Joan Cusack. Coll's new novel, Beach Week, is a dark comedy that examines a suburban teenage rite of passage--the adult-free, post-high school trip to the beach. Teenage girls plan an unhinged blowout at the beach, while their misguided, affluent parents are too busy worrying about legal liabilities to fret over some missing pills or random hookups. Beach Week will be available on June 1. Also check out Susan's funny blog, Alternate Sides: Adventures Along the Northeast Corridor.

I think the humiliating book tour story could become a regular feature on this blog, so for those of you who have such tales and are willing to publicly humiliate yourselves (a second time?) for the benefit of...art...please get in touch!

Author C. M. Mayo has been living in and writing about Mexico for many years. Luckily for me, she also spends a good bit of time in Washington, DC, and I've had the chance to chat with her on many occasions. Not only is she a wonderful writer, she is full of helpful information, innovative ideas, and contagious enthusiasm for all things writing-related, and she doesn't mind sharing with the writing and blogging community at large, to our great advantage. See for instance, her tips on "How to hang in there and finish your novel" (yes, I'm taking copious notes...) on Leslie Pietrzyk's fabulous Work-in-Progress blog.

If you have not already had the pleasure of reading C.M. Mayo's novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, which was a Library Journal Best Book of 2009, rush out and get the paperback, which is now available. The Last Prince follows Maximilian’s short-lived career as the unfortunate Emperor of Mexico, and focuses specifically on his doomed adoption of a half-Mexican, half-American boy he chooses to be his heir. This little-known and fascinating piece of history is brought to life in Mayo's novel.

Publisher's Weekly calls The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, "an engaging story brimming with majestic ambition."

Library Review says, "Mayo's cultural insights are first-rate, and the glittering, doomed regime comes to life."



Mayo's story collection, Sky Over El Nido, won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. She is also the author of the widely acclaimed travel memoir, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico; and the anthology, Mexico: A Traveler s Literary Companion. Mayo is an avid translator and editor of contemporary Mexican literature.

Here, you can watch an interview with C.M. Mayo on WETA's Book Studio, hosted by Bethanne Patrick.

Here, you will find Mayo's Library of Congress lecture about her novel.

C.M. Mayo is a blogger extraordinaire, writing-savvy and internet-savvy, and she can be found in that incarnation at Madam Mayo. I especially admire her writing exercises, known as C.M. Mayo's Giant Golden Buddha and 364 More Daily 5-Minute Writing Exercises. Honestly, I don't know where she gets the energy for all she does! I wish I could borrow one-tenth of it now and then. Maybe when she takes a rare nap, she wouldn't mind... Madam Mayo, do you nap?

Join me this Sunday, May 16, at the Writer's Center in Bethesda to hear two very accomplished Washington women read from their work.

Ann McLaughlin, with whom I was lucky enough to be in a writing group, will read from her new novel, Bayberry House, the story of two sisters who meet at their deceased parents’ country house to prepare it for sale. Their father committed suicide in the house years ago, and their return to the house spurs a return to bittersweet memories.

Ann McLaughlin's previous work includes five novels: The House on Q Street, Maiden Voyage, Lightning in July, The Balancing Pole and Sunset at Rosalie. You can read more about Ann and her work at Leslie Pietrzyk's Work-in-Progress blog.

Myra Sklarew, poet and past Professor at American University, where I was lucky enough to meet her, will read from Harmless, her new collection of poems published by Mayapple Press. Her past collections include Lithuania: New & Selected Poems, and The Witness Trees. Sklarew also writes nonfiction, and her book Holocaust and the Construction of Memory is forthcoming from SUNY Press.

Details, Details:

Sunday, May 16, 2pm
The Writer's Center
4508 Walsh St., Bethesda, MD

See you there!

Author Debra Galant has me thinking about cars. I am a person who can mark time by the types of cars I've owned--or didn't own. From my grandmother's '63 Chevy Bel Air, which didn't survive quite long enough for me to get my driver's license, to my first car, a '68 Dodge Coronet 440 (the only car my dad ever bought new)--which did survive, barely, unless you factor in how it would stall out every time I was about to turn left across three lanes of oncoming traffic. The car I drive today is the first one I really chose for myself, plus it has XM radio (my first one only had AM...), so it's my favorite.

Now, Debra Galant has brought us the funny, poignant new novel, Cars From a Marriage, which charts the important events--big and small--in one couple's relationship by way of the automobiles that drive them throughout the course of their lives. The cars steer the reader from Ivy and Ellis's first meeting, to their first fight, and down the line to a family funeral. Finally, on a drive along the Pacific Coast Highway, Ivy and Ellis come to some serious and illuminating realizations about their lives.

Publisher's Weekly calls it "an affecting and strikingly honest look at a marriage."


In an interview from Crazy for Books, Galant talks about the slightly nontraditional structure of the book:

Unlike my first two books, “Rattled” and “Fear and Yoga in New Jersey,” which are satires, “Cars from a Marriage” strove to tell a really nuanced story of the way romantic love fades over the course of a marriage. With each successive chapter, Ivy and Ellis grow further apart, telling secrets to the reader that they wouldn’t dare tell each other. This breaks one of the rules of fiction writing, which requires a single protagonist. Because Ivy and Ellis get equal weight in the story, sympathy shifts between them. In a way, the protagonist of “Cars from a Marriage” turns out to be the marriage.

Crazy for Books says the author "deftly navigates" through the lives of this couple "with humor and insight."

You can also hear Ms. Galant discuss her book in this interview with Brian Lehrer on WNYC radio.

Full disclosure: I met Debra Galant during a residency at the VCCA, where she hooked me into playing the diabolical, addicting game known as Ex Libris. I was daily entertained by her perceptive wit, and I had the opportunity to hear her read from her funny and absorbing work. I highly recommend it!

From "The Minotaur Speaks," which appeared in Blackbird:

They say this man has flaxen hair,
a mouth so fine the gods
beg him to speak. They say
my death will make him
a hero. Everyone loves a hero,
but a hero only loves you
until he reaches the next island.
This is my only island.

Sandra Beasley, essayist, former editor for The American Scholar, and acclaimed poet, will read from her new poetry collection, I Was the Jukebox at Politics & Prose Bookstore on Sunday, May 2, at 1pm.

I Was the Jukebox (Norton) has been awarded the 2009 Barnard Women Poets Prize. Joy Harjo, in her judge's citation, describes Beasley’s work as “fresh, crisp, decisive and fearless,” and notes that "every object, icon, or historical moment has a soul with a voice." Publisher's Weekly has called the collection "more fun than most recent books," and "a book that could go a long way."

Beasley's first collection, Theories of Falling, won the 2007 New Issues Prize, selected by Marie Howe.

Details, Details:
Sunday, May 2, 1pm
Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
A reception will follow the reading.

For more insight into Sandra Beasley and her work, see Leslie Pietrzyk's work-in-progress blog, and see Sandra's website, www.sandrabeasley.com and her blog, Chicks Dig Poetry.

Kermit Moyer reads from his new novel, The Chester Chronicles, tonight at American University. Learn more about The Chester Chronicles here, and read Moyer's guest post for his take on autobiographical fiction.

Alice McDermott calls The Chester Chronicles "heartbreaking and funny," and Publishers Weekly says it "brings to mind the stories of Lorrie Moore." Kermit Moyer's first book, a story collection called Tumbling, was called "a work of ringing authenticity," by the New York Times.

The reading will take place in the lounge at the School of International Service (SIS) at American University tonight, Wednesday, April 14, at 8pm. The book will be available for purchase, in paperback.

Hope to see you there!

In my son's school, there's a period in the schedule that's called "DEAR" time. DEAR is the acronym for "Drop Everything and Read." Each child chooses a book and reads for an uninterrupted block of time (which is never long enough, according to the young readers in my house).

I try to build DEAR time into my own daily schedule, even if it comes after 11pm. And I agree, whenever it is, it's never enough. The Curious Stack on my night stand is becoming rather precarious. As is the one by my recliner. And the one in the kitchen. And the one by the exercise bike... You get the picture.

But I'm more determined than ever to get my reading time in, because this is such an exciting season for new fiction. If you have some DEAR time of your own, whether it's at 11pm or during your Spring Break vacation, here are four great new novels that will make you want to drop everything and find a comfortable chair. These books are dramatically different from each other, yet they have two important things in common: All have garnered critical praise from many quarters, and all four talented authors hail from right here in the Washington, DC, area.


THE POSTMISTRESS by Sarah Blake, a Politics & Prose Bookstore bestseller. Boston Globe calls it a "book to get lost in." Praised by novelist Kathryn Stockett.

Iris James is the postmistress of Franklin, Massachusetts a small town at the end of Cape Cod. She firmly believes her job is to deliver and keep people's secrets, to pass along the news of love and sorrow that letters carry. Faithfully she stamps and sends the letters between people such as the newlyweds Emma and Will Fitch, who has gone to London to help out during the Blitz. But one day she slips a letter into her pocket, and leaves it there.

Meanwhile, seemingly fearless radio gal, Frankie Bard is reporting the Blitz from London, her dispatches crinkling across the Atlantic, imploring listeners to pay attention. Then in the last desperate days of the summer of 1941, she rides the trains out of Germany, reporting on what is happening to the refugees there.

Alternating between an America on the eve of entering into World War II, still safe and snug in its inability to grasp the danger at hand, an a Europe being torn apart by war, the two stories collide in a letter, bringing the war finally home to Franklin.

Buy this book at Indiebound! or Amazon.

THE OPPOSITE OF ME by Sarah Pekkanen, a Redbook Magazine March pick, praised by novelist Jennifer Weiner. Booklist calls it "funny and poignant."

Twenty-nine year old Lindsey Rose has, for as long as she can remember, lived in the shadow of her devastatingly beautiful fraternal twin sister, Alex. Determined to get noticed, Lindsey is finally on the cusp of being named Creative Vice President of an elite New York advertising agency, after years of 80 plus-hour weeks, migraines, and profound loneliness. But during the course of one devastating night, Lindsey’s carefully-constructed life implodes.

Humiliated and desperate, she flees the glitter of Manhattan and retreats to the time warp of her parents’ Maryland home. As her sister plans her lavish wedding to her prince charming, Lindsey struggles to maintain her identity as the smart, responsible twin, while she furtively tries to put her career back together. But things get more complicated when a long-held family secret is unleashed that forces both sisters to reconsider who they are and who they are meant to be.

Buy this book at Indiebound! or Amazon.

VINTAGE VERONICA by Erica Perl, for young adult readers (and the young-at-heart!). Booklist calls Perl "masterful" and the story "earthy and real."

Veronica Walsh is 15, fashion-minded, fat, and friendless. Her summer job in the Consignment Corner section (Employees Only!) of a vintage clothing store is a dream come true. There Veronica can spend her days separating the one-of-a-kind gem garments from the Dollar-a-Pound duds, without having to deal with people. But when two outrageous yet charismatic salesgirls befriend her and urge her to spy on and follow the mysterious and awkward stock boy Veronica has nicknamed the Nail, Veronica’s summer takes a turn for the weird. Suddenly, what began as a prank turns into something else entirely. Which means Veronica may have to come out of hiding and follow something even riskier for the first time: her heart.

Buy this book at Indiebound! or Amazon.

MAJOR PETTIGREW'S LAST STAND by Helen Simonson, a Politics & Prose bookstore bestseller and Indiebound March Pick-of-the-Month. The Washington Post praises the book's "crisp wit and gentle insight."

When Major Pettigrew, a retired British army major in a small English village, embarks on an unexpected friendship with the widowed Mrs. Ali, who runs the local shop, trouble erupts to disturb the bucolic serenity of the village and of the Major’s carefully regimented life.

As the Major and Mrs. Ali discover just how much they have in common, including an educated background and a shared love of books, they must struggle to understand what it means to belong and how far the obligations of family and tradition can be set aside for personal freedom. Meanwhile, the village itself, lost in its petty prejudices and traditions, may not see its own destruction coming.

Buy this book at Indiebound! or Amazon.

Now, no more excuses: Flop down on that beanbag chair, Drop Everything, and Read! (And, by the way, while you're down there on the bean bag chair, could you please pick up those hard bits of popcorn that are ground into the carpet from last time? Thanks...)

Lately, I've been asking myself, what good is it having a blog if you don't use it to shamelessly promote the work of your friends and family members?

I'm lucky in that my friends and relatives who do creative work are very talented and their work is of such high quality that I would read (or look at or listen to) it, even if I didn't know them personally.

Sure, fix me with that skeptic's smirk, but I don't think I've steered anyone wrong yet.

So, when I announce this new volume, I'm not telling you about it only because it was written by a family member. I'm telling you about it because I know it's a good book. It's already garnered praise here and across the pond, as we say. You don't have to take my word for it.

March 12 is the official U.S. launch date for The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800... by Susan E. Whyman. Yes, there's a similarity in last names. You might say the last names are identical. That's because Dr. Whyman is my mother-in-law. And I'm not doing this for brownie points, not at all! She really doesn't need my help.

According to a History Today review by James Daybell, The Pen and the People is "[an] impressive new book...breaks significant new ground [by] arguing for the 18th century as the period that witnessed the emergence of a popular culture of letter-writing. [It] will undoubtedly have considerable impact on the field while the fascinating case studies will appeal to the more general reader."

The author spent more than 10 years poring over original documents, unearthing new treasure troves of letters that other historians were convinced did not even exist. As a result, The Pen and the People explores original, cutting edge ideas on the history of writing, reading and the novel. There are actual discussions, found in these previously unknown letters, of marriage, poverty, poetry, and the emotional lives of servants.



The book interests me as an illumination of a newly uncovered piece of history, but also because letter-writing is a disappearing art form. Please don't suggest emails are the new letters. Emails are not letters. They're built for speed and brevity, full of abbreviations, typos, and ill-thought-out expressions. They're meant to be disposable, more often than not, and they only hang around when they're meant to embarrass CEOs and government officials.

When something is handwritten, the words seem much more carefully chosen. The labor of writing by hand makes the letter a project in itself. How many of you had a pen-pal when you were a kid? Do you remember the eager anticipation, waiting to get a letter back? No more; everything happens instantly. There is no time spent in the pleasurable agony of waiting for some special communique. What about love letters? You know you saved them. Somehow, a flip email punctuated with emoticons just ain't the same.

Think how the sense of urgency of so many of our communications would be redefined if we had to write them by hand and then wait for a response for more than the minutes it takes to get a return email? Believe me, I wouldn't want to return to those days completely, but on the other hand, I can't remember the last time someone wrote me an actual letter on actual paper. I'm not a luddite (here I am, blogging---), but I miss that.

In Susan Whyman's book, you can see some of what we've lost. Ordinary people began to speak their minds, and, 300-plus years later, their handwritten words remain. What's the message there?

The Pen and the People: English Letter Writers 1660-1800 by Susan E. Whyman is the author's third book. It can be ordered from Amazon or directly from Oxford University Press.

Kermit Moyer, author of The Chester Chronicles, which I discussed here, has interesting things to say about the intersection between fiction and autobiography. After I heard his quote in a Writerscast interview, which I mentioned here, I knew he had only scratched the surface of his thoughts on the matter. Here, then, more on the subject from Kermit Moyer (and enough said by me).

I believe that the best way to tell the truth about yourself and your experience is to lie—that is, to write fiction rather than a memoir. Having just published an autobiographical novel called The Chester Chronicles, I can tell you that, first of all, it’s simply easier to tell uncomfortable truths about yourself when you seem to be talking about someone else. As the poet Richard Hugo has said,

The poem is always in your home town, but you have a better chance of finding it in another. . . . Though you’ve never seen it before, it must be a town you’ve lived in all your life. . . . [Here] it is easy to turn the gas station attendant into a drunk. Back home it would have been difficult because he had a drinking problem. (The Triggering Town)

But there’s another, even more crucial way that fiction is necessary if we’re going to tell the truth about our lives. If my recounting of my experience is to be as detailed and as richly textured as my experience has been, I have no choice but to use my imagination as much as, or more than, my memory. Because it’s simply impossible to do justice to life’s intricate and filigreed surfaces, its detailed particularities and varied textures, without resorting to imaginative invention.

And who can do without dialogue? But if dialogue occurs in a memoir, it tends to be suspect, to partake of the imagined rather than the remembered, since we can’t usually recall whole past conversations verbatim. So the inclusion of dialogue tends to compromise the memoirist’s primary obligation, which is to be true to the actual facts of the author’s life. The fiction writer’s primary obligation, on the other hand, is to be true to feeling rather than to facts. As E. L. Doctorow says:

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader—not the fact that it’s raining, but the feel of being rained on.

Finally, I think the special power of fiction has something to do not only with the way it can render a felt sense of life in all its intricacy but also the way it can render life’s moment-by-moment spontaneity and its constant openness to surprise. I may start with the feeling of a remembered situation, but to be true to my experience, I have to let things develop on the page as they will, just as they do in life. Sometimes they take a course I’m familiar with; sometimes—in fact, more often than not—they don’t. Unlike the memoirist, I am free to allow my narrative’s course to be open to the living moment and to unfold as organically as life itself does rather than being predetermined by the facts of my life.

Which is also why I opted to use the present tense for The Chester Chronicles, even though the point of view is retrospective: the present tense indicates that the recounted experience is happening again right now in the memory and imagination of the narrator, and of the reader. And if the reader is living through it imaginatively along with the narrator, the effect is to make readers feel like the story has happened to them too, that it is actually part of their own experience. And when that happens . . . well, that's it, isn't it? That's what we're aiming for.

Kermit Moyer grew up an Army brat in the 1950s. He got his BA, his MA, and his PhD in English from Northwestern University and in 1970 joined the faculty of American University in Washington, DC, where he taught literature and creative writing for 37 years. His short fiction has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, The Sewanee Review, and The Hudson Review, and he is the author of Tumbling, a collection of stories published by the University of Illinois Press. He lives with his wife Amy and their dog Zora on Cape Cod.

1. We were both born in February! Happy Birthday, Mr. Ford!

2. We are both writers! (Bet you knew that was coming...)

3. Richard Ford is one of my favorite writers. (I'm sure he is one of his favorite writers, too. Why not?)

4. We both write novels. Richard Ford's novels have been published!

5. Some of Richard Ford's books take place in New Jersey. I have been to New Jersey many times. (See how these commonalities start to pile up?)

6. We both used the expression "gorked off" in a book to indicate someone dying. Richard Ford may have used it first.

7. Richard Ford keeps his manuscripts in the freezer. I keep pizza in the freezer. We both use our freezers!

8. We both attended that gala award reading last spring! We both had a few drinks, got our courage up, and had a nice conversation. (Maybe that was just me with the drinks. And the courage.)

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Mr. Ford, from a big fan.
Hope you have a great day, because before you know it, the good times are gone like a fart in a skillet.

Listen to the podcast of my NPR commentary on Independence Day, and two other books about desperate suburban men. Angst Lurks Behind the Lawn Mower was broadcast on All Things Considered.