Jennifer Weiner is back home and she notes this strange question about a woman asking her at the San Francisco Barnes & Noble if she was “self-actualized.” This is not much of a surprise, as this Barnes & Noble is very close to the Marina. Such strange terminology is bandied about by residents there on a daily basis. Although for those of us in the Haight and the Mission, we would never think of asking any distinguished lady if she was “self-actualized,” as most living bipedal mammals, are by their very nature already quite actualized by way of living, breathing, thinking and feeling. On behalf of my fellow San Franciscans, I apologize to Ms. Weiner for being frightened by the Marina people and hope that the publicists book her in safer quarters for the next book.
Year / 2005
“Mr. Franken, I Served With Jonathan Franzen. I Knew Jonathan Franzen. Jonathan Franzen Was a Friend of Mine. Mr. Franken, You’re No Jonathan Franzen. And Nix the Tie While You’re At It, Sir!”
Colors of the Rainbow
William T. Vollmann’s The Rainbow Stories, the illustrated version. (An incredible find from the Rake.)
Excerpt from Lewis Libby’s Next Novel
CBS News: From 1982 until 1985, he served as director of special projects in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. It was perhaps this post that inspired him to write “The Apprentice,” his 1996 thriller that takes place in 1903 Japan.
BREAKING NEWS ITEM: Libby, inspired by the turn of events while serving as Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, has decided to return to novel-writing. Return of the Reluctant has obtained an early excerpt of Mr. Libby’s next novel, tentatively titled The Yesman.
Synopsis: It is the winter of 2005 and an anal retentive yesman, not above lying and obstructing justice, finds himself plunged headlong into the world of unemployment and possible prison time in this gritty new thriller from Lewis Libby.
EXCERPT:
I stood in the dole line, lusting after my ex-boss’s cherubic head. It was all I had left. The vicious scowls he gave reporters had always excited me. But I knew that my ex-boss had a lot more going on than a bum ticker. That’s why I took the bullet. That’s why I was breathing in asbestos from the cracked tiles below. It was the kind of devotion that most people don’t understand. Because corruption’s a bit like an afternoon cookie: warm, comforting yet somehow sinful if you have more than one. Me? I wanted the whole jar. Can you crucify a man for having a large appetite?
The least my boss could have done is let me kiss him: the way that LBJ was always fond of kissing Sam Rayburn’s head. And now I was here, waiting for a measly unemployment check, surrounded by smelly people who were scaring the hell out of me. My ex-boss wouldn’t write me a letter of recommendation. But then he had always rebuffed my advances. That’s why I crossed the line in the end. Now I was standing in one.
This was one of many reasons why I had started using crutches. Perhaps people would feel sorry for me. I was a victim, after all. Perhaps they’d understand that, despite my despicability, I was a wounded man. In need of a cookie. Or maybe a hug.
You work in this town long enough and you find that everyone needs a cookie in the end. And not just a harmless oatmeal one, but maybe a chocolate fudge-striped cookie loaded with additives that isn’t all that good for you.
Well, as my ex-boss always told me, sometimes you have to live a little. Sometimes you have to cross the line.
Sometimes you have to eat a lot of cookies.
Lost & The Third Policeman
The Book Standard asks if a reference to Flann O’Brien’s great classic The Third Policeman on the television show Lost has had any sales impact. Aside from confusing O’Brien’s book with an O’Brien title I wasn’t aware of (The Last Policeman? Man, I wish that wasn’t a typo.), it’s revealed that Dalkey Archive ordered an extra print run of 10,000. Lost writer Craig Wright has also gone on record, suggesting that the O’Brien book would be “invaluable to fans seeking to unravel the island’s mystery.” I find this claim skeptical, given writer David Fury‘s remarks in Rolling Stone a few weeks ago, where he suggested that the show’s producers were making the story up as they went along, concluding, “It’s a brilliant trick to make us look smart.”
Subterfuge or no, at the time of composing this post, The Third Policeman has an Amazon rank of #1,518. And the Book Standard reports that Dalkey has shipped 15,000 more copies to meet increasing demand. That’s pretty remarkable for a casual reference in a hit television show. Of course, one wonders if these sales would have happened had Craig Wright not insinuated a tie-in. But if it gets people reading Flann O’Brien, perhaps they’ll devote their energies to discussing bicycle metaphors rather than deconstructing a highly addictive show that might be less profound and symbolic than we’ve been lead to believe.