Tag: authors

Novels that created me

I woke up this morning pondering the novels that had the biggest impact on me. Of course, whenever I complile a list like this, I forget something. But here are the books from today’s memory banks.

To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s hard for me to separate the movie from the novel. It’s rare that each is as good as the other, or that a film truly captures a book. I simply find both profound. Atticus Finch is one of those individuals by whose moral ruler I measure myself. If I measured my work by Harper Lee’s, I’d quit writing. In fact, so did she. Or at least she never published another novel. When a novel is this true, it only takes one.

The Women’s Room. I don’t know if this novel is dated or not. I haven’t read it for many years. But I knew when I read it the first time that I’d never be the same. Marilyn French changed the eyes through which I see the relationships between women and men, and I haven’t been as comfortable since. If ignorance is bliss, I suppose this book ended bliss.

In Cold Blood. I hate this magnificently written book, and it’s not really a novel, so it probably doesn’t belong on this list. But it took something from me when I was seventeen that I’ve wanted back ever since and have often sought in fiction, so it stays. Funny that Truman Capote was the model for Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird. I won’t even see the movie Capote because I’d love to never think of this book again.

The Edible Woman. I stopped eating for a while after I read this novel by Margaret Atwood. It disturbed me on the same level that The Women’s Room did. I can barely remember the novel now, but I haven’t forgotten how it affected me.

The Grapes of Wrath. Another book that took away any desire to eat. It also made me lie on the bed for hours at a time and stare into space feeling anguish on a cellular level about the injustices humans commit against other humans. This book drove me to read everything John Steinbeck wrote that I could get my hands on.

Sophie’s Choice. Proof that big, fat Southern writing can still strip everything down to the barest bones of human experience. Also a movie I didn’t watch because the book was hard enough. This is a novel that confirmed something I learned by reading the next one on this list.

Michel, Michel. I know only two other people that have read this novel by Robert Lewis. It brought a deep awareness of the complexities of genocide and nationalism into my consciousness at an early age. It made me cautious about reading books or seeing movies about the Holocaust, WWII, and maybe all wars, because of how I internalize too much. (See The Grapes of Wrath.)

Eighty-Sixed. Greater books may have formed the foundation, piled the bricks and the mortar on the frame, supplied the windows. But David Feinberg’s is the novel that opened the door. I stepped through it and the housing of my mind and heart has never been the same–in the best ways possible, I hope.

When I look at this list, it appears that I never read a happy or light book, which is so not true. I read everything, and a lot of what I read fires my imagination, develops my humor, and expands my world. But with the exception of In Cold Blood, these particular books weren’t just about suffering, injustice, or inhumanity. They didn’t give me dogma or rules They just opened my eyes to ways I could, no, had to, live with integrity and compassion so that I wouldn’t contribute to suffering, injustice, and inhumanity.

Novels are such amazing gifts and unique in the ways they appeal to us and shape us as individuals.

Harper Lee: [W]riting is a process of self-discipline you must learn before you can call yourself a writer. There are people who write, but I think they’re quite different from people who must write.

Marilyn French: I wrote for twenty years, sending novels and stories out, and I got rejected for twenty years. For twenty years the world of publication told me I was no good. The last fifteen they’ve been telling me I’m good. I can’t believe one any more than I believed the other.

Truman Capote: I always felt that nobody was going to understand me, going to understand what I felt about things. I guess that’s why I started writing. At least on paper I could put down what I thought.

Margaret Atwood: As for the writing part: don’t look down. Just pretend you’re crossing Niagara on a tightrope. Don’t look down. Just one step ahead; one foot in front of the other. Don’t worry about large issues. Worry about the page. The page is all you’ve got.

John Steinbeck: I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

William Styron: A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live several lives while reading it.

A dog’s life

Those who know me know at least two things: I love my dogs and I love reading dooce. The best of all worlds is when Heather talks about her dog Chuck on her blog, and of course, Chuck Friday, when I know there’ll be a photo of Chuck.

I won’t go into all the reasons why I like Heather’s blog. She’s got a zillion readers, and probably all of us think we “know” her (I think we only know what she wants us to know, and that’s just good writing).

Evil Internet

I remember times, writing in the middle of the night, when I needed information that was available only in a library or a bookstore. I remember when I could call telephone operators (and get REAL PEOPLE!) in another state and ask them questions about where they lived and they would answer me and be glad I gave them a break from their 3 a.m. boredom.

But even now with the Internet, research can be a painful process. While everything you could ever want to know and all its inaccurate versions may be available, finding it is challenging. First you plow through the million things that have nothing to do with what you want. Then you begin to weed out the unreliable information. And there’s a delicate balance between giving a search engine too many parameters and not enough. Then…you are constantly diverted to other places where you never intended to go.

Shannon asked why I was up so early in the morning. Actually, I was up so late at night. I just wanted some simple answers to a few questions, and I ended up spending all night reading about the NYPD, finding a fascinating blogger who got a book deal for his blog, checking out his links to other bloggers who got book deals for their blogs…. Is it possible that there’s much of anyone left who DOESN’T have a blog and ISN’T being offered tons of money from Big Publishers to write a freaking book?

I’m not saying some of those who are writing memoirs at 22 haven’t led fascinating albeit brief lives and aren’t good writers. But on behalf of those who’ve spent decades polishing their fiction-writing skills and don’t get six-figure advances for writing disparaging things about their families, coworkers, professions, and certain ethnic groups, may I just say….

Aw, never mind. I’ll save it for my memoirs.

Is AIDS still part of the plot?

One of the panels I was most eager to attend at Saints and Sinners was “Is AIDS still part of the plot?” Moderated by Thomas Keith, the panelists were Jameson Currier, Martin Hyatt, Robert Taylor, and Patricia Nell Warren. I was pleased to see a good turnout, and a lot of excellent points were made by those in attendance as well as by the panelists.

I’m still mulling over those discussions. AIDS was the biggest reality of my life from 1990 to 1997, at which point, like many people (most of whom endured a hell of a lot more than I did), I had to back away. Exhaustion, grief, rage, caregiving, activism, despair–all took a toll on those who survived the massive losses of the 1980s and first half of the 1990s. Two major changes required new approaches to the epidemic–the affected population and the appearance of protease inhibitors, and those new approaches needed people with fresh energy and commitment.

I would still donate a voice–I’ve never stopped advocating on behalf of those with HIV/AIDS–and I would still donate money, but it was necessary for me to take some time to grieve for my own personal losses. I knew many people who died, but four of them were among my dearest friends. Although those four had encouraged me never to shut up about the things I’d seen and the things they and their friends and lovers went through, they also wanted what anyone wants for those they love–that I be happy.

When the last of the four was gone, I was left wondering if I’d ever laugh again the same way. Feel joy. Hope. Optimism. If I’d ever know friendships again with that kind of intensity and loyalty and depth.

Of course, I have. Along with those who supported me during the hard times, I met friends who were willing and uniquely able to help lift the baggage I came with. Oh, even more. Friends who were willing to let me open those bags and show what was inside over and over, as often as I needed to, until finally it wasn’t baggage at all. It was part of my history and part of what kept four men I loved from being only names on Quilt panels.

I think it’s vital that people write their AIDS realities into fiction. I often read blogs of people who survived those first fifteen years; they are riveting. And their stories still provoke discussion and arguments. Those are the stories wherein AIDS is often the entire picture.

From the last ten-plus years, we also need stories wherein AIDS is, as Patricia Nell Warren said, “part of the mosaic.” Not the whole story, but part of the story. The storytellers need to come from all of the affected populations and speak to all of the affected populations.

Writers of gay fiction faced a challenge in that readers were tired, so tired, of tragedy and heartbreak. Just as my friends hoped for me, people wanted to laugh again. To feel joy. To read about love that wasn’t doomed and sex that wasn’t fatal.

Although in the six novels I’ve helped write, we’ve lost an important character because of AIDS and referred to the deaths of several others, I, personally, have never been able to fictionalize what happened to me between 1990 and 1997. I think there’s one circumstance in IT HAD TO BE YOU and one line in HE’S THE ONE that came directly out of my experience. Beyond that, the most I have consciously done is make safer sex and HIV/AIDS part of the awareness of the characters I write.

The way that I do honor my friends, the living and the dead, and all the friendships that were written about and so profoundly affected me from that first AIDS fiction, is to write about people who are fiercely loyal to one another. Who are there for each other across many years. Who transform their breakups and their rivalries and their misunderstandings into forgiveness, support, and friendship. Who still believe in love and hopeful endings. Those are the qualities of the friends I knew and lost. They are the qualities of the friends I still have.

If it’s an organic part of what we, or I, write, I hope that HIV/AIDS will always be some part of our novels. I only want to make sure that it’s written authentically.

If I’d gotten nothing else out of Saints and Sinners (and I got more than I ever imagined I would), the thoughts this panel provoked about my writing made it worth it.