Edward Champion for NBCC Board Member
Written byPosted on December 3, 2007
Filed Under NBCC Campaign
This notice serves as public announcement that I am running as Board Member for the National Book Critics Circle. Several people have suggested that I run. And while my political career has been limited to running for Treasurer in the seventh grade (and losing), I figured why the hell not? Someone needs to lay down the gauntlet and address some of the major problems that have caused the NBCC to remain a rather stiff organization. The time has come to inject more fun and debauchery into an organization that can do a good deal more for readers, critics, and the general public. I’d like to see the NBCC become a place that celebrates the reader, whether she be our most revered critic or the most prolific litblog commenter. Let’s do away with the print vs. online battles. I’d like to see the NBCC listen to and embrace its misfits and muckrakers, and transform this organization into a nexus point that offers a little something for everybody. I have more than a few ideas about how the NBCC can be a major force in getting people excited about literature and how it can even help young critics starting out. And I’ll be outlining my platform and positions in the forthcoming weeks.
But in the meantime, I plan a full-fledged political campaign. There will be commercials and testimonials. I’ll shake hands. I’ll kiss babies. But more important than any of this, I’ll listen to any problems or gripes you have with the way that the NBCC is currently conducting its business. You can start by leaving comments here. Let’s make the inner workings of the NBCC public, accountable, and transparent. With your vote, I pledge to communicate your concerns directly to the Board and make things happen. As Katharine Hepburn once put it, “You’re going to get back on that horse, and I’m going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we’re gonna go, go, go!”
And, by the way, if anybody wants to start an Edward Champion NBCC Blimp campaign, be my guest!
[UPDATE: Someone has been kind enough to create a Facebook group in support of my candidacy. I am happy to address any questions or comments from my supporters (or anyone on the fence) through this munificent use of technology.]
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
I’m not sure that I can offer a blimp campaign but I might be able to muster a YouTube endorsement from my Talking Dalek alarm clock. Provided your campaign slogan is, of course, “Ex-ter-min-ate!”
Good luck!
So is that what you look like?
Oh dear, Edward, you have gotten me terribly excited! Wonder what unfathomable tricks you have up your sleeve!
-An NBCC member
Good for you. The only thing I object to is that you’re another Brooklyn writer!
It’s that picture that gets me terribly excited, baby.
Right, ed’s not uptight.