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by Edward Champion

Great Fiction Not Written by White People

As Darby Dixon III has suggested, with the exception of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Dick Meyer’s list of great books written after 1900 has all the literary sensibilities of a grand wizard. To counter Meyer’s vanilla extract sensibilities, here’s a very hastily assembled list of great American fiction written after 1900 not written by white people. This is by no means an authoritative list. It pretty much came together in one mad mnemonic rush. I have also limited the list to one book per author. But all of these books have moved me or wowed me or otherwise floated my boat in some manner and are certainly worth your time. Please feel free to add more to the list in the comments.

Chimamanda Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun
Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Sherman Alexie, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room
Octavia Butler, Kindred
Ana Castillo, The Mixquiahuala Letters
J. California Cooper, A Piece of Mine
Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren
Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine
Percival Everett, Glyph
Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying
Aleksandar Hemon, The Question of Bruno
Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Ha Jin, Waiting
Edward P. Jones, The Known World
Nam Le, The Boat
Chang-Rae Lee, Aloft
Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress
John Okada, No-No Boy
Z.Z. Packer, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Susan Power, The Grass Dancer
Ishmael Reed, Mumbo Jumbo
Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony
Zadie Smith, On Beauty
Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days
Richard Wright, Native Son

by Edward Champion

In Which I Am Interviewed by Colin Marshall

Colin Marshall, who runs the excellent KCSB program, The Marketplace of Ideas, was very kind to interview me recently. And he’s apparently accused me of being a pioneer. I wish to assure everyone that the “pioneer” label has less to do with anything I’ve ever done and more to do with a few trips for chicken through a notable fast-food restaurant chain. Nevertheless, I’m learned that the program aired today and that it will be made available through the show’s website. I was fired up on a lot of coffee when I talked with Colin. So I hope that I said a few things that were intelligent over the course of the hour. I’ll add the link to the specific show when it becomes available.

[UPDATE: Here’s the link to the show.]

by Edward Champion

Tools of Change: The Rise of Ebooks

Panelists: Mark Coker (moderator), Joe Wikert, April Hamilton, David Rothman, Russell Wilcox

If I had to compare Tuesday’s panel with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, I would say this. Claire Danes was superior to April Hamilton. Russ Wilcox, a rather cocky gentleman who spoke like some snobby Yale know-it-all with his head held high and dashed off a number of wild and extravagant and unprovable claims, would be comparable to Nick Stahl. The difference is that Wilcox isn’t living off the grid. Indeed, despite the technological benefits of his E Ink invention, he’s all too happy to smudge his fingers and sell the human race to Skynet. David Rothman was Ah-nuld, and he did okay. Regrettably, there wasn’t a nude T-X character who liked to seduce and kill, but I suppose Mark Coker, who started off stiff but began to prove his sardonic worth upon poking holes in Wilcox’s extravagant vale, will fit the bill. But Joe Wikert was the smartest guy on the panel: open to present technological realities and a man who, unlike all the other panelists, was not entirely willing to buy into all the hype.

While I will confess that the Brad Fiedel theme played in my head at numerous points, I can say this. With Coker and company relying on Amazon’s dodgy 10% figure, along with Sony’s extravagant claim that 300,000 Readers had been sold, I was skeptical. Ebooks, after all, represent only one half of 1% of the total market. And to my knowledge, there hasn’t yet been a figure from an independent third party to determine if ebooks are indeed the great white hope that will decimate print and get all of us fighting robots in an apocalyptic future.

Rothman said that Amazon’s DRM was what was really killing this natural evolution. In order for the ebook market to expand, it’s going to be necessary to consider open source. Wikert likewise agreed that DRM had to go away, but added that any e-reader should consider adding value to the print products. If future e-readers didn’t do this, then they would eventually hit an artificial ceiling. “When you’ve got a hammer in your hand,” said Wikert, “everything looks like a nail.” He hoped to see more exemplars of rich content. Video and dynamic possibilities. Fancy little bells. But nobody on the panel chose to consider the issue of whether it would be the author or the publisher that would provide this additional content. Still, Coker did joke that the iPhone might be programmed to vibrate at a certain tone upon a new e-volume of erotica cascading against the technological shoals.

Wikert elaborated further. One product, he said, could be calibrated based on what that person wanted to do with it. He urged the audience (and those who work in this industry) to not only study the latest technologies, but to be actively involved in using these technologies.

This sense of play and flexibility did not apply to Russ Wilcox, who should have worn a T-shirt reading I’M HERE TO PIMP MY GOODS in large lettering readable from half a mile away. Wilcox suggested that Moore’s Law now applied to e-readers. The speed of E InkTM innovations now doubles every eighteen months, all contingent upon brightness, contrast, and speed. He foresees this future: In 2010, the flexible displays expand, with a larger size permitting an advertising-driven model in which the profit machine becomes self-aware. By the end of 2010, a full color e-paper device hits the market — initially limited to pastels. Over the next eight to ten years, various color e-readers duke it out with each other and geeks presumably choose sides in the forthcoming jihad. He also cavalierly predicted — with no hard sales or trend data; because we all know that he’s sworn to corporate secrecy on the subject — that in eighteen months, 2-3% of American households would have e-readers in their homes. Coker quibbled with this, pointing out that he would need an enormous growth rate for this massive jump to happen. There was no mention of the limping economy, much less the incentive for Joe Sixpack to buy the latest Kindle at a gargantuan cost, only to see another version released less than a year later.

I am not really certain why April Hamilton was on this panel. But she brought up a notion even more preposterous than the failure to consider the time and money it would take for authors and publishers to generate dynamic content. She believed that smartphone applications would be the future. Never mind that the book is a rather specific medium and that, indeed, some books may not necessarily work this way. As Rothman observed, because of an iPhone’s limited storage space, apps have the tendency to be deleted. This prompted a rather defensive answer from Hamilton, delivered in the timbre of a beauty pageant contestant, “I would say there’s no single answer.” Well, can you perhaps agree that you might be wrong? Can anyone at this damn conference confess that they really don’t know where things are heading?

Actually, yes. Wikert was wise enough to point out that the early version of the iPhone in 2001 looked rather silly and that the current version of the Kindle will look silly in five years. It helped to talk shop with rapid technological evolution in mind. Wikert expanded on the panel’s general anti-DRM sentiment by suggesting that a Kindle App Store might open up Amazon’s possibilities.

Wilcox suggested that Stanza wouldn’t exist without Kindle. This gave him a ripe opportunity to trot out a catchphrase pertaining to the unit: “the container affects the experience.” And just as he was about to get beyond the topic of E InkTM, he then suggested that E InkTM wouldn’t really make its way onto cell phones. The outside of cell phones maybe. But I wondered whether Wilcox might somehow find a way if Nokia came to him with millions of dollars. Then he might appear on another panel, hold his haughty head up high, and remain absolutely convinced that he was right. (Note to Wilcox: If you’re going to talk like a snob, it helps to speak like William Buckley.)

I don’t want to delve into Ms. Hamilton’s Indie Author Movement (almost TM, but since it represents “the people” in a rather naive manner, I will leave subscript silliness outside of my report). Mainstream publishing just doesn’t have what the Indie Author needs. And how dare these other authors tsk-tsk their fingers against self-publishing? It’s not vanity at all to pay your hard-earned money for a slapdash operation without editorial oversight. The books industry, Hamillton proudly declared, is now as ignoble as the movie industry. Nothing more than highly commercial fare! I mean, they haven’t thought about the niche markets at all! An author publishing her work was never vanity.

“Uh, great. Thanks,” responded Coker.

By the time Wilcox brought up “tipping points,” I wondered if the bright young thing had ever considered the common reader. Fortunately, the next panel brought this very important subject to the center.

by Edward Champion

Tools of Change: Initial Report

During a morning in which news of layoffs at HarperCollins and the future of BookExpo America was severely reduced in time and topography, here at the Marriott Marquis, Tools of Change rolled on. I appear to be the only guy here wearing a T-shirt, but not the only one nursing a hangover.

I’ll have some reports of the panels later in the afternoon. But I can report that the crowds here are largely male, that the recent publishing news has left those attending this conference with their hopes somewhat crestfallen, and that Tim O’Reilly and Cory Doctorow offered a few contrarian questions to Jon Orwant — that too cocksure man from Google, who answered in response to a critical query, “It’s not me; it’s the algorithm.” Orwant’s answer is quite fitting, because nobody here I’ve talked to really does have the answers, nor do they want to take responsibility. A CEO insisted to me that his POD machine will change the world, but when I asked him about whether or not an independent bookstore could afford to lease it, he refused to divulge the details. A new e-reader displays a crossword puzzle, promising “annotations and marks,” but one cannot so much as fill in the letters for 4 Across. Peter Brantley lectures to his audience like a New Age dope hoping that we’ll accept his mantras about “social community” without question, but there are considerable holes to his sunny utopian vision.

Nobody knows anything. But people wish to carry on as if they somehow do know everything. And that means being on the cutting edge for any half-assed technological development that gets people’s eyes bulging out of their sockets.

That’s not the change we were promised. And these aren’t necessarily the tools you’re looking for. But we all carry on. Let us hope we aren’t fiddling while Rome burns.

by Edward Champion

Cry of the Hornet

The loud flashes pierced into his eyes as they ushered him before the cameras. The shrapnel of sharp questions sliced into inextricable loss that the men behind the massacre could never tally up or scratch away, and for which they still hadn’t apologized.

He still flinched from the stench left in the wake of the carcass that had once been his home, the hillock of his humble life, the now obliterated pile for which he had moved hard mountains. He had wanted to die with them, but he was halfway through a twelve-hour shift when he got the call. At the moment his cell phone chirped, he was selling a pack of Marlboros to a gloomy guy sliding dimes across the counter, grumbling about the economy. But he knew he had to go on.

He couldn’t believe the news and he couldn’t close the store. There was nobody else. And if he didn’t move a hundred dollars by day’s end, they’d be short for the month. There were no savings.

The pilot had lived, ejecting just before the Hornet rammed into their humble stucco home. He wanted answers, but his neighbors only offered spooky silent stares. Shadowy details loosened once they saw his dark inquisitive face. The deaths had been sudden. The wreckage would be remunerated. The tall thin plumes could be seen as far away as Poway.

Now he was here. Lost in a crackling haze of slapdash queries he’d somehow felt obliged to answer. The journalists asked him what he thought of the pilot, but they’d never know the fluke of this sacrifice. They asked him what he was going to do next. Forgive so that he could go somewhere and grieve, but not forget.

God, he had loved them. It wasn’t so much not seeing his daughters grow up or his wife grow old or even his grandmother’s kind smile, but the comforts of their happy routine. The knowing twinkle that came when she read his mind. His kids discovering some pedantic joy he’d somehow overlooked. All now dry and irreplaceable rivers frozen into the hazy pool of memory.

He couldn’t remember the words that the cameras and the microphones had recorded. But he must have said something. The phone never stopped ringing. The letters kept coming. They’d even tracked down his email address. They called him a hero, but he had only done the right thing. And he wanted to go back to work because it was the only regular routine he had left. Even if it meant crying and remembering in the lonely terrain of the dark while they sung the stark ballads now attached to his name.