Conversations with the Fat Girl

I had the privilege to interview the author Liza Palmer yesterday. She just published her first novel, Conversations with the Fat Girl. We met up at a coffee shop in South Kensington and talked about many things - among them how long it takes her to write a book, what advice she would give other budding artists, how she feels about the market.

I can't give away too much since I'm supposed to be writing up her interview for a magazine story to be published in September, but I can say I was awed and inspired by how incredibly encouraging she was of other writers. She lacked that negative competition bug I see in so many of my compatriots. She actually wanted to end our interview so that she could ask me about my own work.

So, please consider picking up her novel at your local bookstore. You'll be supporting a good egg.

You Say Capote. I Say Capote.

I am once again reading a book for the first time because I've heard way too much 'hype' about it. Am I the quintessential People magazine reader or what? I hope not.

After seeing the film Capote, I asked my husband (who has already read some TC) what he thought of the film's adaptation of the 'In Cold Blood' story. He was impressed. But he was less impressed when I divulged that I'd never actually read ICB. "You of all people..." he seemed to say.

Yes, it's a tome every good journalist-cum-novelist should read. Apparently (so the critics still say), it changed the way we look at the modern novel and memoir.

So, a few weeks ago while strolling through the Portobello Road market, I spotted a copy at a used book stand and bought it for 4 pounds (about 7 bucks). I know, not necessarily a cheap roadside purchase, but that's London for you.

I started the book two nights ago around 9 p.m., read until midnight (at which point I was at page 78) and continued reading yesterday evening until midnight. I am now at page 135 and can't get enough of this book.

When I finish, I'll let you know why.

Vienna to Budapest

I just returned from a whirlwind tour of Vienna and Budapest. Maybe it was all the kaffee (Viennese coffee with chocolate, liqueur and whipped cream), hazelnut schnitten (wafer cookies) and sachertortes, but today I'm reflective.

Vienna is a beautiful city. There is certainly no denying that. The Hapsburg family really did it up. But, that's just it. It's almost TOO beautiful. I know, barf, right? But, hear me out.

Budapest had the grunge factor I sometimes admire in a place. It feels "lived" in. Maybe it reminded me more of New York. Who knows. Certainly, scaling the small mountain that leads to the old Hungarian Citadel and taking in the view from Budapest Castle at night is not what you'd call low-rate or ugly. But, the streets were more kicked up, the markets more alive with hagglers and gamblers. In Hero's Square, children rode bicycles and skateboarded in an empty manmade lake. On Andrassy Utca, which they call the Champs-Elyssees of Budapest, my husband and I strolled past old, run-down mansions.

And, the people just seemed more passionate. Here's an example. On our last day in Budapest, my husband and I took the underground train service from Hero's Square to the Danube. We purchased tickets from an automated booth. Even though you could press a button to read the directions in English, my husband felt it was more "legit" to order tickets from the machine in Hungarian. So there we stood reading long words with few vowels trying to determine whether we wanted ticket A or B. We chose ticket B.

Five stops later, we alighted from the train much to the delight of a transit worker checking tickets. We held up our tickets for inspection and she promptly took them out of our hands and explained we had purchased cheaper tickets than warranted our longer journey. The only option was to pay a fine of 2,500 Hungarian marks per person.

We asked if we could just pay the difference between the two tickets. You see, we hadn't understood the instructions on the machine.

She said, "It's in English too. You can read it in English."

Oh yeah, but we wanted to be 'legit'.

We had a long, drawn out argument in which the transit worker yelled Hungarian insults at my husband and he yelled back, "What was that?" or "You talking to me?" It was bad, people. Bad. Not one of our finer moments. Then, she scribbled something on a piece of paper and told us we would now have to pay 7,000 Hungarian marks per person.

My husband got red. He demanded to speak to her manager.

The transit worker thus threatened to call "polizia" because we weren't complying. My husband said, "Fine. Call Polizia." She phoned someone on a cell phone. My husband still thinks she was really just calling her grandma to say Happy Easter. Fifteen minutes later and the polizia still hadn't shown up.

"Where's the polizia?" my husband asked, "I don't see any polizia."

"They are coming," she gave him a scowl.

We sat on a bench underground. We waited.

Still no polizia.

My husband whispered, "She's trying to shake me down. I know it. Let's just run for it."

I declined his offer. We waited for about twenty more minutes until the transit worker's boss arrived and in a much more calm way explained the situation. We would need to pay a fine. That was the law. Since we were first offenders, he suggested we could pay just one fine of 2,500. So, we agreed. Better to get out of there and move on. We asked his colleague, our lovely transit worker, to provide us with a receipt. She filled it out for 14,000 Hungarian marks (the 7,000 per person she had so thoughtfully quoted us earlier).

"But, your boss just told us we only had to pay 2,500."

"No, no!" She rolled her eyes. "You pay two fines. One per person."

Another argument ensued. We called over her boss who was busily checking tickets as passengers arrived in the station. He yelled at her in Hungarian at which point she reluctantly crossed out the 14,000 and wrote 2,500. My husband handed her the cash. We ran up the stairs and out of there. As we retreated, she was still yelling at us in Hungarian.

So, this makes me think: should everything be beautiful and perfect? For hours later, we discussed our less-than-perfect transit experience. Until then, all Budapest natives we'd met were sweet, friendly and helpful. Should this taint our experience? No, it made it even more interesting and unique. Or maybe not. A few hours later, we spoke with some other tourists who said getting stopped by transit workers was par for the course. Oh well. We learned our lesson.

From a friend come the words of Alex Chee...

A friend recently posted a comment here after I wrote about A Million Little Pieces. I feel inclined to republish what he sent. The words of the writer Alex Chee:

"There would seem to be plenty of object lessons in view for those interested in What Happens When You Lie In Nonfiction. And yet the problem continues. A reader of a memoir or a personal essay is typically interested in the struggle of the writer with the personal moral complexities of their situation. Their interest in the writer cannot survive a falsehood. Much more so in the case of journalism.

"I don't know the man, but the way I understand the story is that James Frey was someone who wrote a novel and had no success selling it, and so he called it a memoir and handed it over, and now he is in the place he is in. He admits in the Washington Post's coverage of this to trying to be 'badder' and 'tougher' than he was. Given that he was in rehab, I am in mind of how I have heard repeatedly from every recovered addict I know that addicts usually lie to cover up their self-loathing.

"It looks in one way like a fairly cynical act, to resubmit a rejected novel as a memoir. But there's also a good chance that Mr. Frey wasn't sufficiently real to himself when he resubmitted his book this way, and thus he wasn't in a place to understand that he could have an impact on people's lives: himself, his readers, his publisher and everyone who works for them. This inability to perceive oneself as real and capable of having an impact is referred to as a temporary narcissistic condition, in which someone, faced with a condition they imagine to be permanent, acts out narcissisticly. I see it in my writing students when they imagine that what they write will never be finished or published. If this was the case, then, it turned out he was wrong: it would get published. And there would be consequences.

"When my students in nonfiction ask me what they can invent, the answer I give them is that at best, they can invent the local color, at the edges---if you don't remember what someone was wearing, for example, or what was eaten. But the best nonfiction is written, to my mind, about, to quote Sarah Orne Jewett, 'That which stays a long time in the mind.' You're best off writing about the things you just can't forget, in personal essays. This would include the local color. It is a plain bad idea to invent conversations, much less events, though in both cases, a recollection of their approximate shape is allowable---everyone understands that memory is subjective. This isn't, however, a license to lie. It's also a good idea to remember that most living people reside uncomfortably in prose---they dislike being described and will take issue with it usually, even if the description is complimentary.

"What's interesting about the writing of nonfiction for me is the struggle with what is or what was---the struggle to understand the patterns that are present inside information, events, anecdotes. To lie about it is to engage in a kind of self-loathing that projects outward onto the material, and the chance to reach for any authenticity in what is there is lost, as the writer reaches instead for some mask for the material that they imagine is more interesting, more charming, than what they had. The chance to create an intelligent articulate complexity out of what might otherwise be the random chaos of your existence vanishes.

There's always a student of mine who insists the distinctions between fiction and nonfiction don't matter. I never agree. It's the end of your career and your reputation, for sure, but what's at the heart of that deathblow is the pact between a reader and a writer, a pact that fiction is an invention to fit the shape of a truth the writer guesses at, and that nonfiction is the shape of the truth the writer has found in his or her own presence, through research and memory. It doesn't matter that it's hard to work under these conditions. These are the conditions. Why should it be any different for you?"

Sunday afternoon thoughts...

Just a few things...

I recently reread the most wonderful book and I wanted to recommend it. If you haven't read The Lover by Marguerite Duras, please consider picking up a copy. I read this mini-novel a long time ago, but sought it out again on a friend's recommendation.

After you've read it, let me know what you think.

Additionally, I cannot recommend Read It Swap It enough. I use this site for book exchanges all the time and love it. I'm sure there's a similar system in place in the U.S. too. I spend little to no money on books and I can swap the ones I don't feel like keeping for books on my wish list.