| A Moment of Jen | |||
 Click here to read Chapter One (PDF) To watch me read from The Guy Not Taken, click here. posted by Jen at 7/16/2008 09:02:00 PM Dani Saperstein had been living in Philadelphia for six months when she got her first email from the dead. I've got a short story in Who Can Save us Now, an anthology of brand-new superhero origin stories edited by Owen King and John McNally, that I think is pretty nifty (the book in general, not my story in particular...although I really like the title of my story. It is called "League of Justice (Philadelphia Division)," and is based in part on the premise that all of the superheroes with really cool talents have moved to New York.) For all of you Bostonians who asked for a reading, why not blow off work/school/family obligations and spend a day at the beach? On August 5 I'm doing a lunchtime event at the swanky Chatham Bars Inn, sponsored by Cabbages & Kings, with Michael Tonello (Bringing Home the Birkin) and Elin Hillebrand (A Summer Affair). Finally, a reader asks: how goes the triathlon training? The good news: I am pretty sure I will be able to finish the thing without hurling or expiring, even though coming in last remains a distinct possibility. The bad news: every day I find something new to worry about. For instance, I thought I'd be just fine with the swimming part. Then my friend who I'm doing this thing with did a group swim, and went into lengthy, vivid detail about the horrors of hacking through the water with hundreds of other people, getting kicked, getting punched, getting swum over, getting your goggles knocked off your face...oh, and by the way, did I read about the shark sightings on Martha's Vineyard? And then I started thinking, if you can't bike any more, you can coast, and if you can't run any more, you can walk, but if you can't swim any more, you can drown...or you can get pulled out of the water in front of everyone, which might possibly be worse. I'll report back post-race...or if you come to Chatham, you can ask me for details in person! | # Wednesday, July 02, 2008 posted by Jen at 7/02/2008 09:37:00 AM Generally, when things go wrong around the house, and my hardworking and handy husband isn't around, I have a simple way of dealing: Step one: ignore the situation, and hope that time will improve it. Step two: repeat step one. Sometimes this works out okay. I once had a dead Blackberry resurrect itself overnight when all I did was ignore it. But sometimes, a situation will emerge that requires immediate and decisive action, such as a phone call to someone who knows how to fix things. So it was on Sunday afternoon on the Cape, when my mother limped upstairs on her brand-new knee to report that the toilets were flushing very slowly. “Bitch, bitch, bitch,” I said. "My toilet's flushing too slowly. My new knee hurts. You never let me sell your galleys on eBay." My mother persisted. “I think we should call someone.” “Let’s just wait,” I said, handing her a plunger. “This one time, it worked for my Blackberry.” She limped back downstairs. A few minutes later, she reported that the toilets had ceased flushing, and that, when flushing was attempted, water was leaking from the bathroom floorboards out into the hallway and shooting up from the shower drain. This, I decided, was not a situation I could ignore overnight. So I called the caretaker. The caretaker called the plumbers. The plumbers gave me a stern and thorough interrogation about whether anyone in the house had tried to flush anything un-flushable. I protested my innocence. They looked skeptical, but proceeded to dig up the septic tank. Do you know how much it costs to have your septic tank dug up? It’s surprisingly reasonable! Do you know how much I would charge to have to dig up a septic tank? Ten thousand dollars. Seriously, this is my plan for the future in case the writing thing doesn’t pan out. I will show up at a house with non-flushing toilets. I will say, “That’ll be ten thousand dollars, please.” And if they scream or protest or try to bargain, I would hand them the shovel that I will carry around as a prop and say, “Hey, you’re free to do it yourself.” So the plumbers went to work, looking completely unconvinced that I wasn’t a secret potty abuser who’d spent months flinging fistfuls of paper toweling and feminine protection and crime-scene evidence and pot plants and old love letters down the crapper. Meanwhile, the caretaker said that he’d called a special clean-up crew to deal with the wet and the mess. “They’re called Disaster,” he said blithely. For reals? I asked. “Yep. They drive around in a big van that says Disaster.” Just then, the phone rang. “Hello,” said a friendly voice. “This is Curtis from Disaster.” (You have to imagine this in the broadest Massachusetts accent possible, where “disaster” sounds like “disastah.”) “I hear you’re having a crappy day.” Then he started laughing. Then I started laughing. “Sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t resist.” Resist? I thought. Why would you? You have the greatest job ever! You get to drive around in a big van that says Disaster, and call people up and tell them they’re having a crappy day! Okay, maybe the mopping up after suicides and meth lab explosions isn’t so great, but working the phones and driving the van has got to be fantastic. Anyhow. The plumbers found roots growing into the septic tank, and reluctantly absolved me of illicit flushing. The Disaster guys took up some floorboards in the halls, and left an industrial-strength dehumidifier running in the hallway and a jukebox-sized dryer in the offending bathroom, and the insurance appraiser said that our homeowner’s policy would cover the clean-up and the repairs. So now I get to pick out pretty new tiles for the hallway, and we all live to flush another day. In other non-toilet news, editor Jonathan Karp reports that Clay Aiken gave him more trouble than Manuel Noriega, which somehow isn’t surprising. There is a book, and a website, called Slow Fat Triathlete, which means I’m not the first. And the New York Times Book Review doesn’t think there have been any recent novels written about work except for Personal Days and Then We Came to the End. This is great news, because it means that I hallucinated In the Drink and Piece of Work and The Second Assistant and The Devil Wears Prada and Chambermaid and Sammy’s Hill, and I Don’t Know How She Does It, and Citizen Girl, and I can now write them all myself! (Surely the reviewer and his editors didn’t just ignore them because they’re, you know, women’s work. Maybe it's just that they failed to employ the magical first-person plural. We will have to give that some serious thought). | # Sunday, June 22, 2008 posted by Jen at 6/22/2008 01:13:00 PM Summer story I’m most interested in following: the war on public sex on Cape Cod beaches. The headline from the Provincetown Banner: No Buts About It: Seashore to Crack Down on Public Sex. Best quote from favorite story: Seashore Superintendent George Price explaining that “If you can see it from a whale-watch boat, it’s not discreet.” (Do you think a lot of people read the story and thought, “If you can see it from a whale-watch boat, give him my number?”) Summer activity I am most dreading: in a fit of unbridled delusion about my current level of fitness, I signed up to do a sprint triathlon. You have to swim a third of a mile, which should be fine, except it’s in open water, and all of my open-water swimming’s been in ponds, not the ocean, and also sharks. Then you have to bike about 10 miles, which I would normally be okay with, except I’ve never done it on the heels of a swim. Then you cap off the fun with a 5-K run, which I am not even letting myself think about. Favorite comment, from my Nanna. “Is it for charity?” Me: “No, but I guess you can send me money if you want to.” Other favorite comment, after asking my husband to watch both kids for the morning. Me: I have to go to the gym! Do you want me to disgrace the family name? Husband: I don’t care. It’s not my name. | # Monday, June 02, 2008 posted by Jen at 6/02/2008 01:16:00 PM At my older daughter's preschool, they ask the kids a question of the day. Sometimes the questions are yes/no ("Do you like snow?), and sometimes they're more involved ("Do you have plans for the vacation?") The other morning, the question was, "Can you write a friend's name?" Two of the kids had written "Lucy." My heart melted. My eyes welled. She has friends! I thought, sniffling. People like her! Then I realized that, in addition to being well-liked, Lucy also has one of the shortest names of all the girls in her class. In other family news, finally, somebody explains what my husband does all day long! Thank you, Philadelphia Inquirer! | # Tuesday, May 27, 2008 posted by Jen at 5/27/2008 08:35:00 AM When you begin to think the advances of doled out to writers by major corporations possess anything but an accidental correlation to artistic worth, you are finished. Everything becomes publicity. How many writers now refuse to be photographed? How many refuse to sit for idiotic "lifestyle" pieces? Or to write supplemental reading group "guides" for their paperbacks? Everyone along the chain of production compromises a tiny bit and suddenly Jay McInerney is a guest judge on Iron Chef….In the age of BookScan, only an unpublished writer is allowed to keep his dignity. Gee, I think sad young literary man Keith Gessen’s feeling kind of bad about inviting the New York Times Styles section along to watch him play touch football. (Also, Jay McInerney is not only a novelist, he’s the wine columnist for House & Garden, so the idea that he’s judging Iron Chef does not exactly prove Gessen’s point that all publishers are pimps and all writers are whores). Anyhow. Apologies for the anemic posting. I blame the baby. She has figured out how to roll from her back to her front. She can also roll from her front to her back. She will demonstrate her gross motor proficiency on any day of the week, except Friday, because she’s shomer Shabbos, and she doesn’t roll on Fridays. All of this is great, except sometimes she’ll roll from her back onto her front, decide she doesn’t want to be there, forget that she actually knows how to reverse it, and then squawk and wave her arms until somebody flips her back over and reassures her that the world is not cruel and unjust. At least, not all the time. In between the not-sleeping, and the working on the next thing, I’ve been reading a lot. Daughters of the North is more convincing in its description of landscapes than characters, but its vision of the future is Handmaid's Tale-level chilling. Janet Maslin’s review of James Frey’s latest eradicated every bit of desire I might have had to read the book (plus, the excerpt on Amazon struck me as a classic example of telling, not showing). I bought Andrew Vachss' latest instead. Conversely, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s pan of Barbara Walters’ bio made me run out and buy it: okay, Walters was the death of serious journalism, but! Dishy! | # Sunday, May 04, 2008 posted by Jen at 5/04/2008 04:21:00 PM So there I was in Los Angeles, on a balmy Tuesday night. It was about seven o’clock. We’d gone out for sushi, and were waiting, as you do in L.A., for the valet to bring our car, enjoying the balmy evening, bouncing the baby in my arms, when a man with a video camera wandered over. “Hi, baby,” he said. “What’s her name?” “It’s Phoebe,” I said, bouncing her in my arms. The man flicked on the miniature floodlight attached to the body of the camera and pointed the lense at Phoebe’s face. “Hi, sweet thing,” he crooned. Phoebe gave him her biggest, gummiest grin as he asked questions: how old is she? Where’s she from? I answered, thinking, This is awfully strange. Probably he’s a tourist, but why would a tourist want video of a random baby? Then my assistant spoke up. “Are you from TMZ?” she asked the man with the camera. “This isn’t about you,” the man said with a friendly smile. “This is HER big moment.” Phoebe was enjoying her moment, smiling and giggling, and I was thinking, Is this weird? And exploitative? Is my kid going to wind up in therapy because I let TMZ tape her? Then a car pulled up, a door opened, a long, high-heel shod leg poked out, and the cameraman and about a half-dozen of his brethren took off at a sprint down the street, cameras poised and lights glaring, to catch a glimpse of…Tia Carrerre. At which point my thoughts switched instantly from This may be exploitation to Hey, get back here you fickle bastards! Tia Carrerre! Come on! If you’re going to blow off my baby, at least do for Lindsay or Britney! Hmph. In spite of my paparazzi moment, I had a wonderful time on the West Coast. Hung out with the family. Took a few meetings. Had a wonderful reading in Santa Monica, attended by both of my brothers and fabulous Left Coast novelists Liza Palmer, Megan Crane, Julie Buxbaum and Bill Folman, whose first book is coming out soon (so of course I gave him the “Do not check your Amazon rankings every ten minutes, you will drive yourself mad!” speech). Starting Monday I’m going to be answering questions about CERTAIN GIRLS and anything else on people’s minds over at Goodreads. I hope you’ll log in and join me there. In unhappier news: a few months back I was asked, along with big-name, prize-winning, best-selling writers Susan Choi, Laura Hillenbrand, Sara Gruen, Jane Smiley, to judge an essay contest for Glamour Magazine. All of the finalists were impressive: closely observed and wonderfully written. Some of them were heartbreaking. Our winner, Andrea Coller, turned in a sharp, irreverent, moving, mordantly funny piece about getting a cancer diagnosis in her twenties. It could have been sappy, or saccharine, full of all of the typical life lessons you can find in cancer memoirs by the dozen…but it wasn’t. It was bitter and black and bracing as a double espresso, the no-holds-barred story of a woman who’d gotten hit with something she didn’t deserve and was furious, and furiously funny, in the face of it. Waking up with a hospital with a breathing tube down her throat, Coller was given a board with words so that she can communicate…and she looks at it, thinking, This will never work. Where’s vodka? Where’s Starbucks? Andrea Coller died last week. She was twenty-nine. I was shocked and saddened, as I imagine the other judges were, to get the news. It’s always a tragedy when someone dies so young. In Coller’s case, you can’t help but wonder how she might have honed her voice and used her gifts, and what kind of stories she might have gone on to tell if she’d had more time. You can read an interview with Andrea here...and the June issue of Glamour hits the stands this week. I hope you’ll pick it up and read her essay for yourself. | # Wednesday, April 23, 2008 posted by Jen at 4/23/2008 11:12:00 PM Attention Philadelphians: I'm going to be on The Michael Smerconish Show Thursday morning around 8am. If you're not in the area, it looks like there's a link on the website to listen live. | # |
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