Better Book Tour

Since I started working at Porter Square Books in 2004 I have seen hundreds of author events. Some were great, others painful, and most, somewhere in the middle. Perhaps the most frustrating of the events were those in which a brilliant author, read from their brilliant book in a boring, monotonous voice. Here was this great book that I wanted readers to discover, fall in love with, and, of course, buy from the store and yet none of the audience could hear the brilliance over the author's droning. Furthermore, these authors (and their publishers) were spending the time, effort, and money, to visit stores, but their actual performances didn’t do much to create sales of their books.

I don’t remember which event in particular it was, but after such an event, it struck me how little the author needed to do to dramatically improve their performance. A different perspective, a few core principles, and some practice would be enough to transform the monotonous reading into a performance that would actually sell books. “Someone should coach these authors on performing in bookstores,” I thought. After hosting and seeing so many events, performing in various venues from book stores, to dorm rooms, to bars, to auditoriums packed with high school students, and going on my own book tour, I eventually realized that “someone” could be me.

So I am proud to announce the launch of the author education service, Better Book Tour. Better Book Tour offers three services: hour-long one-on-one workshops, feedback on performance samples, and a complete guide to performing at bookstore events.

In some ways, developing this education service, wasn't that much different from writing a book. I started with an idea and then I worked on it until I felt confident enough that I could get feedback from fellow booksellers, publishing industry professions, and other people I trust. Then I incorporated their feedback into all of the materials and read everything over another dozen times to make sure it was perfect knowing full well that I'd find a typo the instant I pushed start. And now, I'm letting Better Book Tour out into the world to see what happens.

There is an element of talent in performance, but I truly believe that a small investment in time and education, will help make any author an engaging performer who makes the most of their bookstore events.

It's Brett Conolly's Fault

Connolly in his natural habitat, not scoring.

There have been times this season when it seemed as though the sun revolved around the Earth. Early on, the Bruins' power play wasn't just the most dangerous offensive force in the NHL it was the only thing keeping them in games. They were blowing two goal leads and third period leads all over the place and their penalty kill was abysmal. The first two months or so, we had a bizarro Bruins and it looked like Don Sweeney's first season as general manager was going to be an utter disaster. The Chara window had closed. Blow up the team at the trade deadline and rebuild around Bergeron, Krejci, Pastrnak, and Rask.

But then, the Bruins figured things out. Their structure tightened. Kevan Miller came back from a stretch of healthy scratches at a much higher level of play. Even without Chris Kelly, the penalty kill fixed itself and is now as good as it has ever been. Colin Miller has been making steady progress. Brad Marchand has taken a big step forward as a goal scorer. Spooner is getting better every game. Vetrano, Ferraror and Tyler Randall are all contributing. Rask, after a shaky start, is now, back in his usual spot as an elite NHL goal tender. The team can now trust Gustafson. Krejci, before his most recent injury, was shredding opponents in the offensive zone, and Patrice Bergeron, along with everything else he's called up to do for this team, is the leading scorer and taking another big step towards the Hall of Fame. And the power play is still the most dangerous offensive force in the NHL.

But the Bruins are still only a wild card team, and with the East as ridiculously tight as it is, very vulnerable. They are fourth in their division and seventh in the conference with 3 or even 6 teams within easy striking distance. They're 5-4-1 in their last 10 (as of this writing), but 3 of those 5 wins came in their last 3 games. They blow leads. They are inconsistent.

And it's Brett Connolly's fault.

Even in the controlled space of sports, there is still enough chaos that both blame and accolades are impossible to definitively distribute, especially in team sports. We can make educated guesses, but there is still luck, there are still decisions beyond a player's control, there is still the schedule, the referees, the surface of the ice. Simply put, there is only so much any player, even the greatest players can do to influence the outcome of the game.

But Brett Connolly was brought to the Bruins to score. After eye-popping numbers in juniors, impressive numbers in the AHL, and one hell of a snap shot, it looked like Brett Connolly was about to make the transition to being a goal scorer in the NHL. Probably not a 40-goal scorer, or even a 30 goal scorer, but definitely a 20-25 goal scorer. That's why the Bruins got him last year in their attempt to make the playoffs. But right now he has 6 goals in 43 games and the gap between goal 6 and goal 7 continues to grow. Frank Vatrano has 6 goals in 30 games. Tyler Randall 4 in 20. Pastrnak 4 in 14.

The job of the General Manager is to present the head coach with an array of talent and most often that includes a mix of top players and role players. Top players use their talent to contribute in all parts of the game, whereas role players are expected to do well in specific parts of the game and hold their own in the others. So even if Connolly were just level with Jimmy Hayes (who, it should be noted, got 40% of his current goals in a blowout of the Senators) or Matt Beleskey, at 8 goals, both of which I think we'd still consider as under-performing, the Bruins could easily be second in their division or even their conference. A team can struggle when top players aren't contributing, but also when role players fail to fulfill their roles, even when they play well in other aspects of the game.

Which is why I feel doubly bad for calling out Brett Connolly. Not only is it rare for blame to be reasonably affixed to an individual player, but he has actually been playing pretty well. He is winning puck battles along the boards. He is playing well in the defensive zone. He is getting opportunities. But when you go through the Bruins' recent personnel moves, extrapolate the various players' roles, and look at their stats, Jimmy Hayes at 10 goals and 11 assists for 21 points seems OK, even if you want to see his +/- a bit better, and Belesky at 8 and 14 for 22 is lower than what we'd like but not catastrophically so, especially when he's sitting on a +10, and the B's haven't gotten much from Talbot and Rinaldo, but I don't think they expected much from either one of them.

In short, if you imagine what Don Sweeny saw when he looked at his roster this summer, and what he expected to get from every player on that list, really only Connolly is not meeting the expectations.

This is mostly good news, especially given how the Bs started this season. They are in the playoff structure, have sorted out the problems caused by adopting a new system, have maintained the success of their power play, and Brett Connolly (or anybody else) isn't dragging the team down despite his struggles with his particular role. And if the Bruins want to make a deal before the trade deadline, assuming no injuries, they know what they need; someone to make up for the 10-15 goals expected from Connolly that haven't materialized. And, it should be noted he could always turn his season around, go on a hot streak, and land the 20 or so goals the Bruins expected from him.

Though the Bruins don't necessarily need to do anything, I think the “healthy scratch” is under-utilized coaching tool that might do Connolly a lot of good. First off all, given how much of playoff success is drawn from, if not based on, the health of key players, I'd like to see Julien use the healthy scratch as a way of preserving the health of players in general. Second, I don't think it would be that difficult to re-frame the healthy scratch away from punishment for poor play and towards a learning opportunity. You can see things watching a game that you simply can't playing a game. Third, it matters who is also in the booth with you. From what I've seen, Connolly's biggest problem might be his spacing, that he is not quite in the right place to cash in on his opportunities. Loui Erikkson is very good at being in the place to score goals, so maybe giving Connolly a two or three game break with one of those games with Loui Erikkson with him to talk through spacing around the front of the net is exactly what he needs to break out of his goal scoring slump and help the Bruins secure a playoff berth. And you know, it probably wouldn't be that bad of an idea to check his hand.

So, where do the Bruins go from here? What does the rest of the season hold? Have you been watching the season? Did you think the Capitals were finally going to pull it together? And what happened out West with the Kings and everybody else? And what happened to the Canadiens? Sure, Price going down is big, but as far as I know, Markov is technically not injured. And how are the Penguins so bad? And what the hell happened with John Scott? And how the hell do the Bruins, the Claude Julien Boston Bruins have the best power play in the league, by a wide, wide margin. I'm not much of a fan of prognostication in general, but anyone who says they know what's going to happen to any team in the NHL this season is lying to themselves.

Mining The Maltese Falcon

I found myself with a detective novel. I started An Exaggerated Murder in 2002. It's been altered, shuffled, changed, set aside for five years, rethought and rewritten. People have asked me about its origins and I've never had a good answer because I don't really remember how it started. (I suspect Trike and Lola's names came first, but where the names came from is a complete mystery.) I know I was reading pulp fiction and Poe. The detective character generally permeates our artistic and entertainment cultures. I might have started reading Conan Doyle by then. And, of course, Ulysses was in my head and Ulysses can make detectives of us all. I found myself with a marble slab of language and ideas whose contours suggested a detective story. It doesn't take much research to learn you've got to read The Maltese Falcon if you're an American attempting a detective story. (Especially if you want to put your detective in a trench-coat.)

Reading is not a homogeneous action. It is a genus of actions and interactions, relationships and efforts, dialogs and dialectics. You read differently when exploring a book's potential, as I did the first time I read The Maltese Falcon, than you when are interrogating it as a guide for your own creative endeavors, as I did the next five times I read The Maltese Falcon. In the later reading, every event is itself and its rationale, every image itself and its composition, every sentence, every line of dialog, every word, itself and the choice to include it.


Once I was familiar with the story, I was able to examine its composition directly, reading less for the art of the book and more for how the effect of art was generated. I paid attention to the words Hammett used to describe the characters and the setting. I looked at how information was given to the reader; whether it came from dialog, a statement by a character, or included in the narration. I listened to my own emotions and reactions and tried to isolate the exact sentences, and the emotional, information, and significant composition of those sentences, to determine, as much as possible, how Hammett made me feel and think what I felt and thought. I maintained a split consciousness with Josh the Reader relentlessly surveyed by Josh the Writer.

I underlined phrases. There is more color in a book you read for guidance. I transcribed the annotations in a notebook. Faces have more features. I subjected some annotations to study, others to alchemical permutations. Bodies have more dimensions. I reapplied those permutations in my book to join and sustain a conversation. Cities are more certain. I exploited connections. I expanded my lexicon. I closed my eyes and saw yellow-gray eyes even though I'm certain I've never actually seen yellow-gray eyes. I learned a thing or two about what to tell readers about what is going on. I mined the source for all its worth and ended up with a battered book and a notebook of additional potential.


But I didn't want to be Borges' Pierre Menard. Not every lesson was applicable. Not every reference productive. Not every storytelling technique was right for the story I was telling. There was far more in that notebook left out than incorporated. Some examples. Sam Spade is so consistently surrounded by demonic imagery, being described as looking like a “blond Satan,” you wonder if Hammett wants us to see him as a hero. The Maltese Falcon is deeply misogynist, yet includes Effie Perine, one of fiction's most inscrutable female characters. The hubris of knowing the truth. The playful character names. The choice between justice and love. The casually mysterious disappearance of Gutman's daughter. The difference between postmodernism and cynicism. The moment Sam Spade knew who killed Archer and the long wait before he told us. And then there's the falcon itself, the engine and fuel for all this conflict and death. I won't spoil it for those unfamiliar, so I'll just say that in 1929, Dashiell Hammett created one of the most coherent and evocative images of postmodernism in that lacquered statuette.

But if there was one particular moment in that first interrogative reading that showed me how much more The Maltese Falcon had than I needed for my project, it was the moment I re-examined the Flitcraft Parable. Spade tells a story about a man who had a near death experience and then completely vanished. The disappearance baffled the authorities and eventually the formal investigation was called off. A few years later, Flitcraft was found, in Spokane instead of Tacoma, but otherwise living the exact same life he'd lead before nearly being killed by a falling girder. It was not the complexity of the statement on identity that struck me, at least not in the course of this particular reading, but the fact of the digression in and of itself. Detective stories, including those inspired by The Maltese Falcon usually don't include idle conversation. And yet, here is a scene in which the characters are just killing time. Instead of an expository sentence or two getting them through the night and back to the action, we get a three-page parable about the nature of identity and its relationship to death-denial. Jesus Christ, a cornerstone text in the hardboiled detective fiction genre includes a three-page parable about the nature of identity and its relationship to death-denial.

As An Exaggerated Murder neared completion, I found myself with every specific needs from The Maltese Falcon and so read it in yet another way, this way closer to an archaeologist sifting sand for artifacts. In some ways, it could hardly be called reading at all and yet the archaeologist was easily vanished by the moments of art that resonate beyond detectives, con artists, and statuettes. When I read Spade saying, “If they hang you, I'll always remember you,” for the first time or the fifth time, my breath fell out of my body and it felt like underlining it would somehow be an affront.

At the beginning of a literary project, I see no benefit in tempering your ambition. There is no reward for humility in the first draft. Joyce should be in your sights. Your goal should be to write the greatest whatever it is that has ever been written. But, at some point, you have to grapple with what you've actually accomplished, to confront the work's actual potential, and then strive to make it the best whatever it is that you can write. When I confronted the actual potential of An Exaggerated Murder, I knew I needed a source of diction, technique, guidance, and inspiration and when I mined The Maltese Falcon as a source, I discovered another impossible target.

The Book Pile as of September 30th, 2015

I am very much a polyamorous reader. I'm always reading multiple books, sometimes up to a dozen. There are a few reasons why I prefer to read from a pile, instead of focus on one book in particular. As a bookseller, I try to be as aware of and knowledgeable of as many books as possible, even books I don't end up reading, or finishing, or even liking, and juggling a bunch of books extends my libromancing awareness. I also review books both for this blog and for other venues, so along with reading books I'm actually reviewing, I like to test drive books I might pitch for reviews. Reviewing a book takes time and effort and you have to spend that time and effort whether you like the book or not. Sometimes I like to have a sense of whether or not I'll like a book before pitching reviews of it. Finally, as a reader, I have different moods, different energy levels, different whims at different times and in different situations, so I try to make sure I have a book handy for every mood, energy level, whim and situation. So, I read in piles.

Here is the second installment in my infrequent series detailing current book piles. (If you're curious about the first installment.) From top to bottom.

The Familiar: Vol 2 by Mark Z. Danielewski
I reviewed Volume 1 here, and I want this project to continue so I'm reading Volume 2. So far it continues apace from Volume 1, though the connections between the various story arcs are slowly being revealed. Given the scope of the project, I wouldn't be surprised if the opening “movement” of the story is three or four books long and, personally, I plan to stick with The Familiar at least that long. I think Danielewski is a brilliant and important author and I want to live in a world where 20+ volume serial novels are written and read and sticking with Danielewski's The Familiar is one way to make that world.

The Lost Detective: Becoming Dashiell Hammett by Nathan Ward
I think The Maltese Falcon belongs in the canon right next to The Great Gatsby and given how important TMF was for my novel, a book about Hammett's life as detective and how that influenced his writing is obviously going to be interesting. It also falls into the category of “maybe someone will pay me to review it for them so let's see if it's a book I actually want to work with.” So far so good. Apparently, Pinkerton detectives were constantly required to write reports back to their superiors about their research and activities for the day, and, their superiors often actually edited those reports before passing them on to the clients. In many ways, the Pinkertons acted like a newspaper and, even though there are no records of Hammett's reports, it's not hard to imagine how that report writing would contribute to the greatest novel in the detective genre.

Target in the Night by Ricardo Piglia
Weird detective novel from South America with a Dupinian detective and a slippery sense of identity and community. Sign me the fuck up! So far I'm reminded of Where There's Love, There's Hate, the moments of sustained “sanity” in some of Cesar Aira work, and the more detective-y mytery-y sections of If On a Winter's Night a Traveler. Another weird, awesome book from Deep Vellum. Home by Leila S. Chudori will be in the next pile.

The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro
Maybe I'm a weird guy, but sometimes I find nothing more relaxing to read before calling it a day than a gigantic fucking work of history. Honestly, I don't get it either. So I found myself in need of one of these monstrosities and in discussing this with some of the other booksellers, it was also revealed that I hadn't read any Robert Caro. Sarah from the bookstore kindly lent me The Power Broker and the second volume in his LBJ epic and I decided to go with Moses. Reactions thus far: This is exactly what I look for from giant, dense history books; Caro can write the hell out of a sentence; Moses embodies pretty much everything wrong with white “progressive” reformers. Seriously, what a bastard.

Chelsea Girls and I Must Be Living Twice by Eileen Myles
Eileen Myles is about to blow up. (Or has blown up, depending on when I get around to posting this.) She's a writer I've always been aware existed, but never read anything by her. Then a couple of weeks ago, her publisher Ecco sent me finished copies of their reissue of Chelsea Girls and a new and collected work of poetry, I Must Be Living Twice. I could probably write a whole wonky post on how brilliant a publicity move that was, but basically, the fact of the mailing made me say to myself, “Huh, Eileen Myles must be about to blow up.” So far, I Must Be Living Twice reminds me a lot of Bukowski in that Myles seems to have extended the best parts of Bukowski's reportage voice. In terms of Chelsea Girls, when I'm an eccentric millionaire and have all the time in the world to write all the critical essays that kick around in my head, it's in the middle between Insel and Green Girl on a spectrum demonstrating the disintegration of agency from modernism to post-modernism.

Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Twenty-First Century by Nato Thompson
As an artist, who is politically active, I do believe I have a responsibility to be political with my work. However, in a world where corporate media can appropriate any fashion or image in weeks and where directly didactic literature is read with suspicion, I have no idea how to be effectively political in my work. I'm not sure Nato Thompson knows either, but he's been directly engaged with this question at a level far beyond anything I've done. And when I noticed it was a Melville House title, I figured I'd be able to wrangle myself a copy.

Valeria Luiselli's Delightful Post-Modernism

Post-modernism is in a weird place. It's been declared dead for a decade or more, and yet there is still plenty of interesting work being done in the ground it broke. Actually, that part's not weird. I'd argue there are still plenty of Romantics writing today, plenty of Victorians, even more Modernists, and more Medievalists than I feel comfortable considering. As handy as it is for structuring syllabi, survey courses, and textbooks, literary and artistic movements aren't strictly delineated. But even given that standard-issue, chaos-of-existence inherent weirdness, Post-Modernism is still in a weird space. (Postmodernism? You guys have a hyphenation preference?) We all kind of accept that something new needs to replace it, and yet I don't think there's evidence that any particular philosophy or aesthetic has congealed into an identifiable replacement. Add in the fact that the very nature of post-modernism tore down the structures that are usually used to build, identify, and study literary movements, and you get to a very weird place.

But even though post-modernism is a weird place, or perhaps because it's in such a weird place, a lot of good writing is still coming out of it. Cesar Aira, Mark Z. Danielewski, Kate Zambrano, Blake Butler, and Karen Tei Yamashita (have I written that post about why I Hotel should be considered one of the great giant-post-modern novels along with Infinite Jest, Underworld, Gravity's Rainbow, The Recognitions, Deflategate, and Kim Davis walking out of jail to “Eye of the Tiger?” I'll add it to the list) all spring to mind. And, of course, a few of post-modernism's avatars like Thomas Pynchon and Lydia Davis are still kicking it. Furthermore, not every reader has caught up to post-modernism yet (Shit, not every reader has caught up to modernism yet) and not all the problems in our culture that post-modernism (see above) addresses have been solved, so it's only natural, if weirdly so, for writers and readers to continue the post-modern project even as we concurrently tear it to bits in order to replace it.

In her first two novels, Valeria Luiselli is continuing that post-modern project. Her debut, Faces in the Crowd, featured the author as character, a shifting perspective, problems of authenticity, fraud, and consideration of the nature of art, identity and narrative. Her new book, The Story of My Teeth, is, in many ways, even more archetypally post-modern as it is a collaborative work that complicates the idea of authorship (Luiselli collaborated on it with the workers in a juice factory), structured around a made-up system of categorization, that examines consumerism, appropriation, the cult of celebrity, and the meaning of objects, while referencing art, literature, and history. One of the sections is even a chronology of events assembled by the book's translator. At one point, the main character auctions off himself, to help support a church he doesn't particularly believe in, to his own estranged son. You could almost hear Pynchon kicking himself for not coming up with something like that.

But even if she is continuing the post-modern project, Luiselli's work is different. Her work is not paranoid, corrosively ironic, or toxicly nihilistic. Though post-modernism's decades-long sneer at convention was, in my opinion, productive, vital, and often satisfying and entertaining, it has run it's course. Luiselli doesn't sneer. She grins. In Luisellis' work all the anger, the frustration, and the powerlessness that defined earlier post-modernism, are replaced by delight.

Though present in Faces in the Crowd, especially in the voice of the narrator's child, The Story of My Teeth might be the most delightful book I've read in ages. The delight starts with Highway and the opening sentences; “I'm the best auctioneer in the world, but no one knows it because I'm a discreet sort of man. My name is Gustavo Sanchez Sanchez, though people call me Highway, I believe, with affection.” From there Highway tells us the story of his rise and fall, his marriage and divorce, his estrangement and reconciliation with his son (which naturally involved Highway being locked in a really creepy clown-based multimedia art piece that actually exists), his acquisition of the teeth of celebrities and his auctioning of the teeth of celebrities, and, of course, the philosophy of auctioneering he received from the “grandmaster auctioneer and country singer, Leroy Van Dyke.” Through all his ups and downs, all his triumphs and failures, Highway maintains that same “I am a discreet sort of man,” voice. Despite or because of the weirdness or even silliness of the story, the book is a joy to read and that joy remains no matter how critically you might delve into the book's headier ideas.

The best concerts are those where the musicians seem to be having as much fun as the audience. To me, there is something infectious and exhilarating in watching someone in love with what they are doing. Somehow, Luiselli makes it seem as though the person most delighted by Highway, his antics, his philosophy, his auctions, his bravado, the contorted references to other literature, with the images in the back of the book including a Google Maps image of Disneylandia, the use of art, the intrepid potential biographer, and the play of cultural attribution, narrative, and language, is Luiselli herself. All writers love to write. It wouldn't be worth it if we didn't. Very few writers, however, find a way to demonstrate that love at all and even fewer do it so overtly, so joyously, and so, well, delightfully, as Valeria Luiselli does in The Story of My Teeth.

Post-modernism has spent a lot of time and energy tearing down. I like to think of it as an un-fettering process, in which the ideologies most easily leveraged by systems of power to control the creation and interpretation of art were torn away, leaving the artist totally free to approach the content and method of her art. Since we have deconstructed, now we get to reconstruct. I don't know what we're going to build in the open space created by post-modernism but I think we should all be grateful, that Valeria Luiselli, at least, is going to build a playground.