The mailman woke me this morning from a dream about camels (the animals not the cigarettes, with apologies to Tom Robbins and redleatherbound), which you don’t need to know because it’s entirely possible it’ll be good for four pages in the novel I’m trying to finish.
After I was coherent enough to turn on the computer, one of the first things I did, as I do every day except maybe weekends or when he decides to take a hiatus, which, by the way, sucked for me but it’s over so I’m moving on, was check out FARB’s blog. Last night, thanks to him, I got sucked into reading the story of the author who has apparently conned Oprah, and today, I got sucked into reading the story of the author who has apparently conned almost everyone else. (Note to FARB: That article includes something like, We’re the Von Trapp family, and I think you may have read it at some point, too, and that’s why that song was in your head and THANK YOU FOR THAT, yo-de-lay-who-who).
All of which started me thinking that these posers have gotten scads of publicity and apparently money for writing books that purport to be nonfiction (or nonfiction disguised as fiction; it gets complicated) because they couldn’t get published as fiction writers. Literary hoaxes have a long and illustrious history and sometimes they are entertaining, and though they are undoubtedly hurtful to someone, basically, it comes down to this for me: Did you write something of merit that can stand alone without the bizarre persona that you created to publicize it? And more often than not, if the whole thing is about conning people and not about a genuine desire to find an avenue to express yourself artistically (because tons of people write under pseudonyms for tons of reasons), then you’ll probably ultimately end up like those poor souls who win zillions of dollars and three years later have even less than they did when they plunked down their four quarters for their lottery ticket.
As someone who is part of a collaborative fiction writing effort which has sometimes been questioned–“Are there really four of you?” “I think it’s all one person and she’s a sixty-year-old woman living in North Dakota.”–I can say that being forthright about our identities has not brought us similar fame and riches. For a while I brooded about that. “They” say that any publicity is good publicity, and controversy sells books, but at least we have our integrity and would never stoop so low as to run with a silly rumor like, say, I don’t know, Tim being the secret offspring of Cher.
Ha! Who am I kidding? If I could mine some scandalous trivia from my life and blow it into a tale that would get me on the talk shows and sell our books, I probably would. But frankly, I don’t think that one tube of lip gloss that caused me some grief when I was fourteen could be turned into tabloid fodder, and anyway, Winona Ryder already did that, and since she started from the position of being younger, prettier, skinnier, and already famous, it just doesn’t seem viable.
Anyway, I’m not sure that any publicity is good publicity. Like Brent Hartinger’s and Greg Herren’s experiences. I don’t think having your book banned or having your author appearance nixed is a pleasant experience, especially when accusations leveled against you and your work are unfair and, frankly, stupid. We don’t need to “protect the children!” from the big news that there are gay people in the world or that teenagers talk to other teenagers on the Internet, because I’m relatively sure that almost anyone under the age of 20 already knows this, and they need to explain it to their parents, who apparently live in Pleasantville. I guess I could ask those writers if any ensuing publicity is worth it, and if they say yes, I could probably pull off acting like an enraged mother, write a letter to an editor in some town far, far from me, and demand that a school pull He’s The One from their shelves and not dare, DARE invite the author (who may or may not be four people) to talk to teens about it or about writing, except that I don’t think He’s The One is in any school libraries. And even if it is, it seems like a lot of trouble and might entail my leaving the house, and right now, I’ve got a camel story to write. Or something.
For some reason, all of this led to my thinking about Brokeback Mountain, because doesn’t everything lead to Brokeback Mountain? And I thought about how Towleroad has been discussing Brokeback Mountain practically since before it was broke and when it was only a little hill, and now, if you want to know anything that’s going on with Brokeback Mountain, don’t bother googling or yahooing or whatever you do, just read Towleroad, because he’s doing all the work for you and honestly, I think they should pay him whatever they’re paying their publicists, because he’s even had pictures from the very beginning, and damn, pictures of hot gay cowboys–I mean of straight, very straight, one hundred percent woman-loving actors playing gay cowboys–are worth a thousand words.
Maybe that’s the way I should go. Maybe I should find a movie that’s barely been mentioned in Variety as going into production and give you daily updates on how it’s progressing, which of the actors has a cold, what the key grip’s cousin has to say about it, and whatever other minutiae I can come up with, until finally, when the movie is released, I’ll be the go-to person for information. This will only work if the movie’s going to be an Oscar contender or controversial, so if anyone knows of one, let me know, because I don’t read Variety and I’m hardly on the cutting edge of popular culture, and anyway, I have to do something now about those damn camels before Cher’s son comes over.
