PAULA WHYMAN

I've been thinking about heat. If you live in the DC area, you will know why. For those of you who don't, be glad, for now. Today is the 10th day in a row with 90+ degree heat, and there have been a total of 17 such days in June so far. This is the kind of summer, already, that turns into one in which people talk about only one thing. The upside of that is they stop talking about politics for five minutes. All right, maybe three minutes.

Yesterday, my dashboard thermometer hit 101. Arizona: You think you're tough? You and your "dry heat." You haven't experienced true torture until you've stood on an asphalt parking lot in broad daylight in the DC suburbs with 90+ degree temps and 75% humidity pressing you into the pavement. It's like being sat on by a Sumo wrestler. Not that I know what's that like.

The novel I'm working on is set in the summer of 1980, when there was another severe heat wave in the DC area. I was trying not long ago to remember the feeling of day after day of meteorological oppression. Before computerized forecasts gave us some indication of when relief might come, the days could stretch on indefinitely like the big sticky vinyl seat in my dad's Pontiac. Now, at least, we have some idea what the future will bring (I can hold out until Thursday, I think). Heat like this changes things. It can change history in the big picture, but what I'm interested in is how it changes history on an individual level. If heat is a character, its goal is to break you. It seems worth asking: Which alliances shift, which decisions are ill-considered, which relationships fail, which disagreements takes a violent turn, when even the people who never seem to sweat are sweating?

I just finished reading Scott Turow's New York Times review of Mr. Peanut, the new book by first-time novelist Alex Ross. The book sounds marvelous, exactly the sort of story I'd enjoy reading. It's about three faulty, possibly deadly marriages, and includes a character based on the real-life Sam Sheppard, who was accused (and then acquitted) in the murder of his wife. All three husbands portrayed here consider killing their wives. Which made me want to ask my husband a few questions. Anyway, the plot is complex, the story multilayered, and Turow describes it as "daring, arresting" and praises its "audacious and moving honesty." So far so good; it sounds brilliant, and I can't wait to read it.

And then Turow interrupts himself midstream to congratulate Ross on tackling such a forbidding topic: Marriage.

Really?

Turow tells us that back when he was in writing school, Richard P. Scowcroft, then Director of Stanford's Creative Writing Center,
"told those of us in the advanced fiction seminar that the one subject he had always feared writing a novel about was marriage, because it still seemed to him the most complex and frequently unfathomable of human relationships, notwithstanding his own long and successful marriage. Scowcroft’s remark is a testimonial to Ross’s bravery. In many ways it would have taken less courage to present a sympathetic portrait of Osama bin Laden than it did to write this novel, which flouts the treasured conceptions of love and marriage many of us depend on to make it through the day."

Wow. Did I read that correctly? Less brave to write a sympathetic portrait of an international terrorist than to write a deep and accurate portrait of marriage? Flouting treasured conceptions? Maybe it depends on who's doing the flouting.

If all novelists did was reinforce conventional wisdom, I suppose that would be pretty dull stuff. So, is that what most novelists who write about marriage are doing?

My complaint about Turow's review has nothing to do with what sounds to me like an intriguing book that I'd love to read. It's about Turow's puzzling assertion.

Normally, when one writes about marriage--attempting to get to the meat of it and portray, deconstruct, analyze, explore, whatever--well, such books are not often called out for their brave importance, are they? The authors are not usually lauded as fearlessly confronting this awesome yet central human territory. And yet, there are so many that do it. I'll leave their mention to others. (Yes, I'm being lazy, but this is my blog... so I'll just say that the first one that came to mind was Nadine Gordimer's None to Accompany Me, and the second was Paula Fox'a Desperate Characters.)

I'm led to wonder--I just wonder...whether the topic of marriage is suddenly deemed such a difficult and brave one to tackle because a man finally decided to write about it.

Those of you who know me will know that I'm not given to knee-jerk feminism, and usually I pay little attention to these kinds of inequities. That's because I'm not interested in keeping score or evening out a playing field just for the sake of it. And frankly, I want some help changing that flat tire. But this strikes me as all too rich. Our little novels of domesticity written by women are considered a dime a dozen, but as soon as a man tackles the subject, whoa, what courage!

One would think that women rarely produce myth-busting examinations of marriage, and only the husbands lie in bed at night dreaming of murder.

The other day, I wrote about Stoic Man who got on the elevator with me in a parking garage. Today I will tell you about Zipper Guy.

I am leaving the office when a man gets on the elevator with me. We do the polite elevator nod thing. He is fumbling with a soft-sided briefcase, which is wide open in his arms. It's stuffed with supplies, and this is a small elevator, so if I wanted to, I could take an inventory. Things look precarious.

He says, "Damn zipper won't close." He tries a couple more times, and then gives up, holding the whole thing shut.

Then he grins (leers?) at me and says, "At least it's not my pants!" A moment later, he adds, "I thought about whether I should say that. I figured, what the hell."

You did? So I look like a person strange men can talk to about their pants. And now, whenever I see him, that's what I'll think of. Zipper Guy.

I smiled cooperatively. At least I didn't say what popped into MY head at that moment: "No big deal."

Elevator rules: Get in. Nod at the interior. Whomever is in there will think you're nodding at them. Push a button if necessary.

That's it! It's that simple.

Susan Coll's hilarious new novel, Beach Week, is featured on NPR in Lizzie Skurnick's Three Degrees of Failure for the Recent Graduate.

I like this part: "It might seem odd to describe a novel that involves barfing in cars, stalking boys and a drunk dad playing beer pong in his underpants as heartwarming..."

Behind the barbs that Coll wields are understanding of and affection for her targets, and that's part of what makes the book's humor so effective.

Three Books is a regular NPR feature in which writers recommend their favorite three books in a given category. (You can read my contribution to the series here.)

From a letter sent to me by the Montgomery County Council in response to my letter to the Gazette about parking. Proof that sarcasm works on public officials?

"Dear Citizen [strangely Orwellian phrasing]:
Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding proposed increases to parking fees and the potential for extending charging hours to Saturdays. I distributed your correspondence to Councilmembers when it was received. I am pleased to let you know that the Council declined to either raise parking fees or extend the charging hours to Saturday..."

They sound embarrassed by the whole thing, don't they? On the other hand, I don't think I was protesting the fee increase; rather, I was calling attention to their unsupported assumptions about commuters and spending patterns and cart-before-horse development plans. So is this a win, or not? At least I won't need more quarters...

This morning I got on the elevator in the parking garage, and there was a man in there holding a briefcase. His back was toward me and the door, and he was looking out the window (there's a street-side window). His body was rigid, and he was completely still. It seemed like he wasn't breathing. He stayed precisely that way when the doors closed and the elevator started to move down (we were almost on the top floor). I glanced at his profile and wondered what he was thinking about, his eyes not moving even to acknowledge the passing of treetops and streetlights and roofs and office windows. He seemed instead to be staring at a fixed point inside his head. I wanted to know what happened in his house before he left for work. What phone call came that preoccupied him? Whose birthday did he forget? What earth-shattering decision had he made over breakfast? When we reached ground, and the door opened, I was almost afraid to see him from the front, like that scene in Psycho where you find out who's sitting in the chair. When he turned to go, his face was expressionless, but in a way that held intent, like his stance. I couldn't escape the impression of something being kept in check. He got off the elevator first (polite, too, ay?), and I watched him walk past my building, his movements perfectly balanced and controlled, his eyes still fixed straight ahead, determined. To do what? I noticed his briefcase was open. I was dying to know what was inside.

The elevator is a great place to find stories. The problem is having time for all of them.

Terrific review in The Washington Post for The Nobodies Album, which I blogged about here a few days ago. Art Taylor calls Parkhurst's novel "brisk and engaging...a meditation on writing itself and on the curious intersections between the imagined world and the real one."

What did I tell you?

I am always amazed by Carolyn Parkhurst's seemingly limitless imagination, and the unique lens through which she views the world, both of which are evident in her writing. I've known Carolyn since we were in grad school, and now we're in a fabulous writing group together. As a result, I've had the privilege of reading her new book, The Nobodies Album, as she was writing it. It's an absorbing, intelligent, complex work, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the process as it unfolded, eagerly awaiting each new installment. The structural task Carolyn set for herself seemed huge: The main character, Octavia Frost, is a novelist late in her career. Her newest book is a rewrite of the final chapters of EACH of her previous novels. These final chapters, and their revised versions, are actual chapters in Parkhurst's book. In the novel's "present" story, Frost learns that her son, a famous rock musician, has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend. Frost and her son are estranged because of something she wrote in one of her novels. The story of the murder and the mother-son relationship is told in chapters alternating with those final chapters of Frost's novels.

It sounds like one of those things one is told not to do in writer-school. But, that is because most people couldn't pull it off. Carolyn, however, DOES pull it off, which makes it a fascinating read.

It may seem like I'm putting too much emphasis on the complex structure, which I don't want to do--I don't want it to put people off. Because the amazing thing about it is that while it sounds complex in the explaining, when you read it, it's quite clear and clean and even elegant in its logic. And human--because Carolyn nails the mother-son relationship in all its strains, as well as the desire to remake one's own "story."
Booklist calls The Nobodies Album "a stunning blend of craft and ingenuity."

Publishers Weekly says that Parkhurst has "the gift of a real storyteller."

In case it wasn't enough to merely write this book, Carolyn has also created a real website for Octavia Frost, her fictional author-protagonist, which even includes book covers and descriptions of Frost's (fictional!) works. And, Carolyn has begun posting an entertaining series of tweets, which you can find on Twitter under #selfpimpinghaikus. Each tweet is a clever haiku that relates to her novel. And if you'd like to know what music inspired various aspects of the characters and story, on Carolyn's website, you can find a playlist that she used in the course of writing the book.

I may be Curiouswriter, but it's very likely that Carolyn Parkhurst is Geniuswriter.

It has come to my attention (perhaps a few months late), that the FTC wants bloggers to disclose when they're endorsing a product because someone gave them that product or paid them to say something nice about it. Because as everyone knows, when people give us free stuff, we think it's nice. We may even, subconsciously, be kindly disposed toward said stuff, merely because it's free. Or not. But there is that risk.

From the FTC: The revised guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.

So, I just want to say right here and now, that no one ever gives me free stuff, and when I say nice things, it's because I mean it. Some of you have heard me say not-nice things on occasion, so you will know that what I'm saying now is true.

A bigger issue here is, who are all these bloggers getting free stuff, and why am I not one of them? I mean, remember those sample boxes of new cereals you used to get in the mail? Not even that.

Okay, I will tell you about the one occasion in which I got something for free. Someone sent me cookies after reading my piece in the Washington Post about how I can't eat dairy. They wanted me to try their dairy-free cookies, and if I liked them, of course they hoped I'd tell people about them. I gave them permission to send me the cookies, because: FREE COOKIES!

Anyway, I'm sure they were delicious (they smelled very good), but they contained coconut, which I can't eat, so I only had a tiny bite. One of my kids liked them. The other one does not like coconut. I also thought these cookies, while possibly very good, were similar to some that I make myself, without coconut. I happen to be a good baker. (It doesn't count as an endorsement if you endorse yourself; thus, I can give myself some excellent free cookies every so often.)

The point is, I didn't mention the cookies one way or the other, and if I had, I would've noted that I received them for free. Okay, now I have mentioned them, but not really, because I haven't mentioned who sent them. My little description of them would probably not be helpful to anyone, regardless.

I often talk about books in this space. Many, but not all of these books, are written by people I know. However, I always buy copies of the books I mention. I never expect to get them for free. I want the people I know to sell their books, not give them away. On top of that, I am lucky because the writers I know are GOOD writers. Some are even GREAT at what they do, in that transcendent way that you only encounter rarely. I'm not necessarily going to tell you which ones I put in that category. But I will tell you about their books, because I think all of them, Good and Great, deserve a wider audience, and because I want people to read more--and I want them to read stuff that's good, not just stuff that they've heard of that's on that first shelf where you walk into the bookstore. Publishers PAY for that positioning. You may already know that. Sometimes it means the book is really THAT good. Sometimes it only means the bookstore, and the publisher, expect the book will sell many copies for a number of other reasons having far less to do with "good" than one would hope.

But the bookstore, when it sells a particular position in the store for prominence, doesn't widely disclose that fact to customers. You just have to know. I presume that the FTC thinks this is okay because bookstores are in the business of SELLING things, so of course they will place things in a certain way to persuade people to buy them. They are not pretending to be unbiased.

Reviewers, of course, get books for free. But they don't feel any obligation to give positive reviews as a result, and we generally (with some exceptions) trust they're giving us their true opinion about a work. I would not want reviewers to have to pay for books; this would threaten their livelihoods even more than they already are. I am not officially a reviewer. But you can trust me.

I may have gone off track a bit.

The point I want to make here is: I will not be swayed by free stuff. So, it's okay if you want to send me something. In fact, I encourage it, because it will give me the opportunity to prove once again how I will not be swayed by free stuff.

The UPS man comes at 2pm.

I'll be waiting.

The American Independent Writers' annual conference is fast approaching. This year's theme is "New Realities: The (R)evolution of Writing and Publishing." The conference takes place on June 12 at GWU's Cafritz Center.

I'll be moderating a panel that afternoon called "Where to Start and When to Stop: The Art of Judging Your Own Work." Panelists are Danielle Evans, David Taylor, and Mary Kay Zuravleff. Please come by!

The conference will include:

More than a dozen panels, from technology for writers, to research tips for your next book or article, to breaking into magazine writing.

Seventeen literary agents serving on roundtables and panels, meeting one-on-one with conference attendees, and even getting there at the crack of dawn for an Agent Breakfast with YOU (assuming that YOU sign up in time!).

Forty-five speakers and presenters, including plenary speaker, Writer’s Digest Books Editor Chuck Sambuchino; and keynote speaker, Jill McCorkle, novelist and North Carolina State University creative writing MFA professor.

Here, you'll find more information, including a complete list of panels and agents, and info on how to register.

See you there!

I met Tim Kellner at VCCA in 2008, when he was a visiting Fellow from Germany. He was working on a series of black & white photos as well as some videos. He asked me to pose for him (okay, okay, get your mind out of the gutter--this is ART!), and he subsequently used some of what he worked on at VCCA in exhibits back in Germany and elsewhere. So, I just learned that he has received a big award, the Art Prize of the City of Rostock. The feature photo in the exhibit announcement, shown in the link, is called, "Paula Shoots Me." He combined a photo he shot of me taking a pic of something else with a different photo taken of himself.

Below is another photo Kellner took during that residency. The sign in the background is one I put up on the wall in my studio. I was writing from the point-of-view of a sociopathic killer, and reading the sign now and then helped remind me of the character's mindset. It says, "What if you never had to care?"