Patty Friedmann as author redux

But Shanjaya's not sixty!

The first question I asked was: Is this going to be conducted like "American Idol"? I said that if it was, then I wasn't going.

The person to whom I was directing the question--by e-mail--was the publicist for A Little Bit Ruined. Remember that book? The one that launched a little over a month ago and gave me such a final case of miseries that I swore off writing? As soon as I did my last big local reading I went deep into Elmo and Zoe and tried not to look back, finding the culture of eleven-month-olds all I needed. And then...

I heard I'd been accepted to pitch this book to the Jewish Book Network before Book Expo in New York at the end of the month. Never mind that there is zero Jewish content in it. Never mind that, aside from my first novel and my short story in New Orleans Noir, I don't ever even skirt Jewish topics. I'm a Jew, J-O-O as Eric Cartman says. And for that alone (unless I have something else going for me) I seem to have cleared the first hurdle among Jewish cultural programmers around the country: I'm among only 40 authors who get to pitch in New York.

My publicist didn't answer back about the "American Idol" question. So I started losing any ego involvement in the selection process. They don't pick me? It's because my novel's about a crazy woman in a Catholic city. Nothing personal. I get to go to New York. Whee! I'll book my flight.

Then Darcy the publicist called. Yes, we'll be winnowed down to a "chosen" few.  Too late.  I've made my reservation! So now I'm picking out what I'll wear, when I'll get my hair cut. I don't have the self-esteem of a Sanjaya. I also don't have the years ahead of me to recover and find new identities. Why am I doing this?

Just when I thought nobody was looking

Wednesday I took my final bow, Thursday I went to Jackson to confirm I was right to quit, and Friday I primped to go to my family reunion.

My plan was to go tabula rasa.  A cousin in Connecticut had hunted down 600 relatives all over the country who went back four generations and forward three--all with New Orleans origins. That makes us pretty fancy around here, tracking to before the Civil War. We weren't going to put on matching T-shirts and picnic in the park. We were going to eat an elegant buffet at the Wyndham Hotel, overlooking the river and listening to a jazz quartet. No one would know anything about me except for what my dress looked like.

I walked in and a third cousin a few times removed walked straight up to me and said, "I was going to get Newman to select you as Distinguished Alum of the Year, but you blew it!" Newman.  Newman School. Where I suffered the agonies of adolescence more painfully than most by being in an exclusive private school the year that the class coming through was filled with unusually pathologically bitchy girls. One in particular was so disturbed she eventually was hospitalized, but not before destroying at least one very sweet sixth-grade classmate.

After almost 45 years, I had written a very fine--if I must say so myself--short story about that experience, and it was included in New Orleans Noir. (The collection I've been out hawking alongside my novel A Little Bit Ruined.) It was a dead-on, powerful story, but it didn't make the experience of going to Newman in the '60s look good. It had a universal quality to it, so it didn't make going to Newman at any time look good. (Or, really, going to high school anywhere, ever, look good.)

What could I say to my cousin? I saw a nearby wall. I banged my head against it. A chance to go back to my high school, recognized, "distinguished," and I had blown it. My cousin will vouch for me. I really banged my head against the wall. "Has anyone really read that story?" I said. "Everybody," she said.

And so it comes to this, now that it's all over with. What did I want all along? As a writer, I mean. I've often been honest enough to try to sort out vindictiveness and vindication in the motives behind some of my stories.  But what about my general posture as a writer? Here I have two works out there before the public, and the one getting the screaming attention in New Orleans is the short piece. Yet it's terribly misunderstood. If read correctly, it's sensitive and honest and doesn't malign Newman at all. Instead, everyone's buzzing that I've pilloried the institution and in turn wants to pillory me.  "Go for negative publicity: any publicity is good publicity" is what I've heard. But who wants this?

I know why I'm bothered. Because I was a cut-up in school. I was one of two people in the history of the school voted down by the faculty for the National Honor Society. (The other served as Chief of Protocol in the Bush White House; talk about ignominy.) I've already been badly behaved. I might not be the most distinguished alumna, but they might give me a shot at Most Improved.

The fat-in-her-mind lady sings

There wasn’t a dry eye in my head. On Wednesday night I launched my novel A Little Bit Ruined, and before I read told the gathering of people I loved deeply, without benefit of alcohol, that I was calling it quits.

My ten-month-old granddaughter was there, and I held her before the audience like Kunta Kinte before the moon and recited the book’s dedication. “For Summer Amalia Roberson, the love of my life, with apologies for calling you Katrina Fema while you were in utero.” I didn’t go into my usual apology for her having that silly first name, which I’d lobbied against with literary offerings like Flannery most of the time she was gestating. I just stood up there and announced that she was good enough reason to quit writing. She would fill my days.Though I added, even in the deeply kind presence of Susan Larson, my friend and everyone’s best book editor, that I couldn’t stand the having-written part of writing.

I couldn’t stand what was, in effect, that part of being a writer. Of counting the house. Of being reviewed and feted, in some measure or other. The party was pretty wonderful, with a gathering of some of the greatest people who still live in New Orleans, writers and artists and every other kind of fine mind. Much better than a funeral. Altogether a group of great laughers who I think listened to me while Summer mugged in the front row.

The next day Julie Smith and I drove three hours up—and three hours back—to Jackson, Mississippi, to do a signing with Ace Atkins at Lemuria Bookstore for our anthology, New Orleans Noir. Ace is a hot commodity in Mississippi, and he’d done a noonTV show in Jackson. We drew six people. It was a perfect final lesson in book marketing. A perfect capstone to a writing career.

Why, you'll ask, do I call myself the fat-in-her-mind lady? I answer this only because I don't want any "you're so thin!" comments. I was a fat, miserable kid. Once fat, always fat. It made for a rotten childhood--with a lot of help from external circumstances--so I had the requisite baggage to grow up to write. And now I have those requisite insecurities that eventually take their toll of having to walk out of the marketplace. The fat girl takes her leave. Except to tell the truth.

The joys of the gimpy wildebeest

Technically I'm involved in three books coming out just about now. So I can see how it feels to have different roles: as the author of a novel released in a new paperback edition (Side Effects), the author of a new novel fresh out in hardback (A Little Bit Ruined), and the contributor to an anthology (New Orleans Noir) that's being published with all writers--I think--waiving their monies to benefit Katrina victims.

And now I know what kind of writer I want to be.

I want to hide in the pack. Maybe I'm not the lame one: so far reviewers have been generous to me. Maybe I'm not going to get any share at grazing time; I'm giving away the money. But I'm not out there alone, completely vulnerable. In all the years when I've been out promoting books, I've never had a moment's fun doing public appearances and interviews. Now I'm simultaneously promoting my own private books and a collective book, and I'm here to tell you that it's a blast being in the crowd.

A few nights ago, five of us--Julie Smith, Jimmy Nolan, Chris Wiltz, Ted O'Brien, and I--gathered at the corner of Bourbon and Orleans to do a photo shoot for the front page of the Times-Picayune "Living" section. No holds barred. I walked right through the French Quarter in a black slinky outfit cut wa-a-ay down, in fuck-me heels, more makeup collectively than I've worn in a lifetime, and an 18-inch knife in a Whole Foods bag. Sunglasses, fedoras, trenchcoats, bandoliers, guns, a police badge, a mink coat that I threw furiously over my shoulder: we festooned ourselves with props and hammed it up on the sidewalk. New Orleans being New Orleans, over the two hours we were there, no one paid any attention. And we had great good fun. Of course, Julie had selected writers whom I adored, none of the people at the wedding two weeks ago who give me nightmares. I was in the pack of like-minded wildebeests.

In changing combinations we'll do appearances in the coming weeks. And in between, I'll do solo appearances to promote A Little Bit Ruined. I'll field all questions. I'll count the houses. I'll watch the cash registers. I'll go home depressed no matter if it's standing room only. I'll lament my write-ups because of course one writer can't get a hilarious front of the "Living" section spread. Never mind that I've had it twice. I have a short memory because I'm miserable alone. I think from now on if I write anything it'll be in the company of others. It's not so hard when I edge myself into the middle and hope somebody else gets picked off by the predators.

Something personal

My children marry in varying degrees of haste and so far show no signs of wanting to repent now that they have leisure. This means that weddings--which seem to be the family's only sacrament--are not huge state occasions. So I don't invite the known world. For me that would involve gathering together the literary community in New Orleans, which would feel like stepping into a Bosch tryptich.

Yesterday a friend married off her daughter. The wedding was a pluperfect affair, and because she is beloved among book people and others of the word, all my friends and ex-friends were there. It was my ultimate nightmare, several shades blacker than going back to high school. I moved through a minefield, skittering quickly over to the table where the T's were seated with W because C had gone out for a cigarette. C had written me off cruelly and unnecessarily. I had fantasies that C would take this blissful occasion to come over, put his hand on my shoulder, apologize, pick up where we left off three years ago. It didn't happen. On the other hand, M also was there. She wrote me off for no good reason, and I hated her for it. I assumed it was because I kept selling novels, and she couldn't. She won a short-story prize, and everyone in town surmised that she won because the person behind the prize also had redecorated M's kitchen. Losing her friendship was fine with me. Except that she always seemed to sail her big old body right through literary gatherings, leaving a wake that my 110 pounds would drown in. I stayed home from any party I thought she might attend. And that often included launches for anthologies in which we both had stories. At the wedding, she had seated herself at a table, the better to feed her great appetites, also the better to visit with my friend L. I spent a lot of time with some very splendid people last night, but I went home feeling like I was thirteen and needing my mother to tell me that I should focus on the good friends, not the bad. Oh, wait, my mother never did that, or I wouldn't have this problem now.

I suppose my spirits somewhat can be buoyed by another incident this past week. It didn't start out as a good thing: on Wednesday R died at the age of 78. She was an English PhD whose mind deteriorated to taking pleasure in the Food Channel. For some strange reason, the minute I heard, I picked up the phone and phoned S. I hadn't talked to S in over four years; something about something I'd done wrong. A hurricane and a lot more had intervened. S probably has more literary chops than everyone in that entire wedding reception put together. She and I picked right up where we left off. She is a class act. After I hung up, I remembered the finest moment I ever had with her. It was an evening many years ago when she and the man I call C and I went out to dinner. Afterwards we went back to her house for several rounds of drinks. Deep into his cups, C said, "S, what do you look for in a friend?" S thought it over for a moment. "I suppose I look for someone who can take fun where he or she finds it," S said. And then she told the story of how she and a friend found themselves stuck in Scotland one evening after missing the last train to London. So they just got drunk and hung around until the first morning train, having a hell of a good time. C then asked me what I looked for in a friend. "Cynicism," I said. Of course C wanted us to ask him what he looked for, and S obliged. "I look for devotion and loyalty," he said.

"Ah," S said. "You meant something personal."

Ya got me where I live

I know authors aren't supposed to respond to reviews. To believe a good one gives a false sense of achievement; to believe a bad one gives a false sense of despair. But my first pre-pub review just came out for A Little Bit Ruined, and I have to react, because it got me where I live. Literally. One line says that Eleanor Rushing "is perhaps the wrong narrator to drop into post-Katrina New Orleans."

Excuse me? Eleanor Rushing is my alter ego. I can channel her voice on a dime. Yes, she is nuts--delusional and out of control--but there is a little of Eleanor in all of us. Eleanor's contorted story is the vehicle in which I convey my own experience of entrapment in a destroyed city. Eleanor learned the lesson I learned. For those caught in the city after the storm, loss leveled the playing field: white, black, rich, poor--no one had electricity or gas, water or food, communication or transportation, no safety or future. I was rescued in four feet of water. I know on the most visceral level that Eleanor is a true New Orleans character. I am Eleanor. She is the genuine article--or I'm not.

I know the whacked perspective from which this reviewer writes because I used to be a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, where this review appeared. I reviewed The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta and gave it a starred review because it was fine writing. Later I was given Election by the same author and said it paled in comparison because it was a shallow story that I thought pandered to commercialism or some such thing. Sure enough, Election became a hit movie starring Reese Witherspoon. I quit soon after that because I realized that book reviewing had nothing to do with literary merit. I could tell that I was seen as having made a bad call on the Perrotta novels when I knew I hadn't.

That's what's so ridiculous about this review. Is there one word about its literary merit? No, it's all about the reviewer's skewed perception about what he/she thinks is going on in New Orleans. The national view of the city is that we are a bunch of black welfare mothers trying to break into the housing projects and loll around on the dole. What's that have to do with fiction?

In an interesting footnote, the review also begs the question of Eleanor's obsession with plastic surgery as a metaphor for New Orleans's ruination. On January 16, 2007, the full front page of the Times-Picayune carried a feature titled "Best Face Forward," with the subtitle reading, "Disheartened by a disfigured city, many Katrina survivors are turning to plastic surgery as a pick-me-up."

Too bad the review wasn't written by someone who understands what's going on in New Orleans. But as with most reporting about this city, that's usually the case. It's just that this time it got personal.

Cue the shark

Forget the wailing jazz trumpets: the music on the streets of New Orleans these days ought to be the theme music from Jaws. You know: Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water...

Earlier this week I had a houseguest, and I was giving her the complete tour, the "disaster tour of me." She was a friend I knew through her days in publishing, so we were dealing on a metaphorical level in some ways. When we went to the Lower Ninth Ward, she saw devastation, even though I saw huge improvement from when a mutual friend had been here in January of '06. The miles and miles of destroyed houses were gone now, and in their place were small concrete pilings and miles and miles of empty green spaces. I realized I was seeing a new kind of sadness.

The next morning, the day we planned to tour the virtually untouched French Quarter, we woke up to learn that the reason we had no electricity was that a tornado had touched down mere yards from my house. So we could tour fresh rubble on foot. We could see victims on their porches with that terrible hundred-yard stare that I once had. But in the place of deathly silence that I experienced when I was trapped in New Orleans after Katrina, the neighborhood was buzzing with activity, with chain saws and emergency vehicles, with the Salvation Army and volunteers. City Councilman Oliver Thomas was on the spot, and of course the mayor was nowhere to be seen. Within 48 hours, recovery was about as good as it could get if we were in the Midwest.

So how do I feel? Well, two things have brought back the mental paralysis that it took nearly eighteen months to break out of. The first was the loss of electricity. I'd been told it would last about three days. I'd still have phone and gas, but without electricity I'd have no heat. That meant a winter version of hurricane survival mode. That's not good for a person with PTSD.

And then...

The New York Times, New Orleans's greatest advocate outside of Brian Williams, ran a piece this morning about the sorry exodus of people, a sort of brain drain, from the city. It described every grim reality of life here--even finding an instance of excrement on someone's roof. Yes, it's based on probably good statistics. Yes, it's happening in some parts of town. But why couldn't they skew it a little and talk about how well we did in my neighborhood? We proved how well we can mend if the disaster is reasonable.

Now if only I can learn to wrap my mind around the concept of reasonable. Unfortunately, reasonable and rational are closely related. And fiction writers are neither.

LOL: the Big Lie

I've been annoyed for weeks now, because recently I've made a few attempts at entering the New Yorker cartoon-caption competition--with no luck. The cartoon each time has inspired me to submit a splendid caption. I've never come close to winning, but that's not what chafes. I'm peeved because the finalists--not to mention winners—didn’t make me laugh.

Humor's my stock in trade. It has been ever since middle school when I became the fat Jewish girl who could only win friends by making them laugh. With me, not at me. I'm not fat or particularly Jewish anymore, but I still use dark comedy in my everyday interchanges and in my novels. I'm not bragging when I say some pretty smart people have said I'm the funniest person in New Orleans. It's not an accolade everyone strives for. Particularly in a city that skitters close to losing its sense of humor on a daily basis lately.

I want to know I'm funny wherever I go; I want to go onto the back page of The New Yorker. But for as long as I can remember, I've never been able to define what humor is. Reviewers say mine is full of irony and a "can't believe she said that" quality. I know that, but I don't understand it. I want to stand in front of crowds and hear the laughter. I want readers to tell me they laughed out loud when they read my books. There's just one problem. I'm not a big laugher, so I find it hard to believe I make other people laugh. If I send an e-mail, and the response is "LOL," I figure that person is a liar. I can count on one hand the number of times I've read anything in the past year that made a happy whoop come out of my depths. And I never roll on the floor.

Maybe that's the nature of humor: it's best when the clown doesn't know it. And this clown never LOL, much less ROFL.

Post-traumatic reading disorder

Before the Great Cataclysm of 2005, I was a non-reader. By that I mean that I read no fiction. I'd explored my reasons, and I'd come up with two. First, reading fiction had been ruined for me by being a reviewer for Publishers Weekly for seven years. PW requires word-by-word documentation of every fact and opinion. There was no fun left in reading. Second, I felt that other writers' voices would creep into my prose if I read their work. I wanted to be fresh and pure.

And then came Katrina. After the storm, I had no mail delivery for several months, and when mail started up again, it was all first-class. No magazines. Few bookstores and no libraries were open, but then I didn't read fiction, so that was manageable. Even newspaper was hard to come by: with no home delivery, I had to drive to a box for a copy each day.

The upshot was that every scrap of paper with writing on it was a treasure. If I owned a piece of writing of any sort, I felt obligated to read it in its entirety. I became a strange sort of reader: starved for printed material, I consumed anything placed in front of me. When my sister bought a copy of The New Yorker on a trip, I read every word. Nobody reads every word of The New Yorker--at least not in the parts of the world where another issue will arrive in a week.

I still feel that same obligation to read what's placed in front of me. Today my friend Sarah gave me a copy of The DaVinci Code along with some of the furnishings I'd loaned her after the storm took her house. I owned the book now, so I felt I had to read it. But after about ten pages of pedestrian prose, I said to myself, Hey, cut it out. I wasn't having fun, because I still have PW Syndrome and read too critically. And the last thing I'd want when I'm writing is to have another author's style seep into my work. Especially that style. I'm putting it in my giveaway pile. I'd rather be a non-reader than an omnivorous one.

Nine hundred eighty-one words

I love that tool icon that scrolls down to "word count." It was designed for the anal-retentive, or obsessive-compulsive. Or maybe just for the hopeless writer who wants math on her side. The way I write a novel is, I pound away until I get to 80,000 words, and then whatever I have is a book.

I've written 981 words. So I'm past the one percent mark on a new novel. Way past "I need a very high fever," my first line. It's a complete prologue. And as any writer who writes beginning to end knows, setting the stage is bigger than just three pages. It's pasting the roadmap inside the front cover.

What was my impetus? Dare I say hope? All the scary, beyond-my-control publishing cataclysms seem to be taking place beyond the life of my April-release novel. I keep my star publicist. Distribution is uninterrupted by Chapter 11. "Having written" that book might not be unbearably painful. I needed a worst-case scenario to see that bad scenarios aren't as bad as they could be.

So I can start another one. That means I can do what I do. I write. It feels good. If I find by May that "having written" is once again worse than bamboo shoots under my fingernails, I will jettison this new and untitled novel. So far it's only on diskette. Not even on my hard drive. Definitely not on paper. Gone with the flick of a wrist.