Rick Kleffel talks with Jeff VanderMeer.

Also, Gwenda offers a thumb’s up for Shriek.

After twenty-two years of hard labor, my 1,468-page experimental novel, Dan Buys a Sofa on the Installment Plan, has received a total of one review — a 300 word blurb written by Cletus Garfield in the Penny Saver, who declared “quite possibly the worst book to take a crap to.” I have since learned that a San Francisco writer may have ghosted this review, but thankfully another San Francisco writer — someone referred to as a “blogger,” who I presume is some kind of German dancer — has permitted me the space to express my grief, with the proviso that my byline includes the nickname “Sore,” which he tells me is Hungarian for “sublime.”

It’s petty and unreasonable for authors to dispute this kind of reception. But since Michael Laser has demonstrated that there is a market for sour grapes, I, Michael Loser, must also join the chorus. Besides, expending energies to whine is better than paying some quack three hundred dollars an hour and, if I play my cards right, I might just get Salon to buy this piece too.

I had high hopes that readers would see my clear homage to Celine, beginning with the way I used “installment plan” in the title and consistently referred to “installment plan” in my work. Consider this excerpt from Page 432:

Dan installed himself on the installed sofa and picked up his guitar, which he had also purchased on the installment plan. He strummed D minor and, five minutes later, he had penned a ballad: “Installment plan / I’m living on the installment plan / I’m breathing on the installment plan / Have you got an installment plan too?” Tunes came easily for Dan. He had a five-subject notebook filled with fresh ballads and had often bartered his ballads away for other home furnishings. A few burly furniture store owners had agreed to an installment plan deal, in which Dan would offer his ballads piecemeal for tables, armoires and chiffoniers — a grandstanding installment plan that would include installation. Could they not see his latent talent? Would he ever compose a masterpiece? Or was he leading up to it with these songs, all of them written on the installment plan?

If Mr. Garfield could not see the clear metaphors and imagery here about how we are all, in some sense, living on the “installment plan,” if he can’t supplicate upon my genius and if readers, in turn, cannot see the true valor of my words, then I may just have to slice my wrists.

Then again, if Salon accepts this piece (and given its history, I am certain they will), then I may just find life worth living after all. I might even be a Great American Writer. After all, writing is all about the roses they throw you at the dais.

I am now working on a second novel called The End of Dan’s Sofa, which was inspired by the great A.M. Homes book and deals with a sofa cruelly ejected from Dan’s apartment, taking up residence in a jail cell, where the sofa strikes up a correspondence with an abandoned Windsor chair.

If the reading public cannot understand the human condition through Installment Plan, then perhaps exploring the consciousness of furniture is the next best thing.

For the moment, I just want an intelligent review. I just want a sale. I just want a hug.

Love me. I’m fragile.

It’s been said several times already, but I feel the need to point out that I am not a spokesman, no matter how much beer, nickel bags, or underwear you send me.

I’m responding to the suggestion put forth by various folks in Josh Getlin’s article, which chronicles the often desperate ploys used by publishers to generate title awareness. Let’s get a few things straight:

1. If you send me a book, I am under no obligation to like it.
2. If you send me a book, I am under no obligation to read it.
3. If you send me a book, I am under no obligation to review it.
4. If you send me a link to some soiree, I am under no obligation to mention it or attend it.
5. If an author comes through town, I am under no obligation to interview her.

(I am, however, under the obligation to acknowledge thoughts and various sweet snacks from other journalists and, as I can, various readers. This is what is known as “breaking bread” in the real world, a concept lost upon poor Sammy Boy.)

Of course, ask nicely, tickle my fancy, and consult the secret “How to Communicate with Ed Champion” pamphlet now making the rounds in certain publishing circles and you may just find a way to twist my arm.

Likewise, I also understand that authors and publishers are under no obligation to accommodate me. But I do appreciate their position and try to respond to any and all pitches and/or queries that come my way.

What does that make me? A very strange media outlet? Perhaps. An opinionated one with esoteric references, a highly subjective approach, and bad puns. Sure!

But none of this makes me (or, for that matter, any of my blogging companions) a marketing tool. In fact, I regularly say no to very nice people and still feel bad for doing so. My time is limited. But this is not marketing. This is a form of opinion journalism.

I think it’s important to lay down a distinction between one who loves books and one who markets books. I love books. No question. I love books so much that I’m often a vocal skeptic about them. But if you want to ensure that your book gets a rave, send it to Harriet Klausner, not me. Of course, your guaranteed plaudit comes at a cost. After all, is there anyone who really takes Klausner’s reviews seriously?

• Historian Frederic Wakeman has passed away.
• Prognostication has begun for the next round of Nobels.
• The Cleveland Plain Dealer‘s Karen R. Long talks with Alison Bechdel.
• Maud Newton reviews Aminatta Forna’s Ancestor Stones.
• Scott wonders if giving Murakami the Frank O’Connor Prize was a way to build up the award’s reputation.
• David Orr returns to the NYTBR‘s pages and takes on Stephen Fry’s poetry.
• Peter Lurie’s “The Rush to Judgment” (via wood s lot)
• Matt Cheney, Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer seek your recommendations for The Best American Fantasy.
• The Telegraph has printed excerpts from Michael Palin’s 1976 diaries. Lots of inside dirt, including a surprise revelation that Graham Chapman was into ichthyophilia, but no fish slapping dance.
• Roald Dahl’s 5 Books to Take to a New Planet. (via So Many Books)
• Colin Burrow has an interesting article on John Donne and literary biography.
• The difficulties of food critics photographing meals. Given low light conditions and the need for a flash, there is nothing surreptitious in taking out a camera and snapping your red snapper. These critics may as well paint their faces, wear a neon polyster suit, and scream, “I am a food critic and I can write this off!” just after being served the meal.
• Publisher L. Gordon Crovitz on the new WSJ: “The product span of this Journal is not going to be 50 years. It´s not going to be 10 years. It’ll be closer to 5, or maybe closer to 2 or 3.”
• Also from Editor & Publisher: It looks like the Gray Lady underreported the “Gettysburgh” Address. The Times regrets the error.
• Gnarls Barkley, “Gone Daddy Gone.” Crazed animated fleas and more.
• CultureSpace on Olivier Assayas.
• Miss Manners meets casual sex?
• Publishers target bloggers, in part because they publish too many books and can get more of a guarantee from them. Then again, if you’re getting an inarticulate response from a MySpace page, is this really a good way to go about publicizing? (via Bookninja)
• Pictures from The Golden Encyclopedia. (via The Beat)
• Terry Teachout on YouTube.
• An interesting inner-city London reading campaign.

New York Post: “Thomas Pynchon, the legendarily reclusive author of such celebrated novels as ‘V,’ ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ and ‘The Crying of Lot 49,’ has a XXX-rated skeleton in the family closet – his brainy niece stars in and directs hard-core porn flicks.” (via Maud)