One of the hardest parts of being a writer is putting your work out there. Sure, your mom will love it, even if she can’t resist adding, “I don’t understand why you need to use so many bad words.” Your friend or partner will say it’s great too—but watch for eye contact. If it’s not there, maybe the story isn’t either. Then there’s everybody else: agents who ghost you or send form rejection letters; all those people on Goodreads who pride themselves in being a tough critic when they’re not disparaging sandwich shops on Yelp; and, maybe, hopefully, a few paid reviewers in prominent book publications like The New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. Please, oh please, let them say nice things.
I honestly got knots in my stomach from writing the preceding paragraph—although part of that might be on account of veggie burger I ate for lunch with a generous dollop of barbecue sauce that expired two years ago. (I’m trying to use it up.) A writer is vulnerable. Once the work is published, it’s out of the writer’s hands. It feels like a crankier world out there. Too many Statlers and Waldorfs, Simon Cowells and Twitter ranters. Hating seems to make some people happy.
As
hard as it is for novelists, I think poets, essayists and short story
writers are particularly subject to criticism. When a book is a
collection of shorter works, the quality is going to be uneven. Even
when the writing is exceptional, some pieces will wow and others
might underwhelm. When the work is varied, the reader will connect
with some writing while other work may confuse, irk or,
perhaps worst of all, elicit no response whatsoever.
It makes me a little crazy when I hear a friend say they knocked a
star off their hotel review (gosh, hotels...remember them?) because
they couldn’t check in early or the clock radio had too much glare.
I’ve read a some outstanding collections recently, most notably Samantha Irby’s Wow, No Thank You and Allie Brosh’s Solutions and Other Problems. Both writers are quirky humorists, each with her own stream of consciousness delivery which makes their work best read in small chunks (at least, in my opinion). To use a sports analogy, they go for a home run with every at bat. Obviously, there are bound to be a few fouls and swing-and-misses. Doesn’t matter. These are five-star reads. Find them. Enjoy them.
All that’s a prelude to my talking about gay Vancouver writer Daniel Zomparelli’s Everything Is Awful and You’re a Terrible Person. I don’t recall how I stumbled upon this as a reading option but I know I laughed out loud just from the title. Ballsy. Some people will be put off from that alone. (Yes, Mom. That doesn’t sound very nice.) I wanted to hunt it down. If nothing else, this guy has a point of view. When I picked it up from the library after placing a hold on it, the librarian who retrieved it for me laughed, too. So there. It’s not just me.
There’s so much promise in Zomparelli’s writing. The book offers thirty-two stories in two hundred pages, making for a quick read. Some characters and stories recur though I suspect I may have missed a few of the connections. Zomparelli often dives into his stories with things in progress and it’s up to the reader to catch up, trying to figure out the context. The characters are often unnamed at the outset so it can be challenging to know whether the story involves an already introduced character. Sometimes I didn’t want to have to work that hard because sometimes the situation I seem to have walked in on was disorienting enough. There’s a sleepwalking boyfriend who is cheating on his partner by still carrying on with his ex who happens to be a ghost. Um, what? My reaction to how they try to resolve the situation: Um, what?! There’s another story about a guy with extremely loose skin that he has to tape to stay in place. I had to abandon that piece. I’m ridiculously squeamish and the idea of skin falling out of place, however farcical, made me too uncomfortable. The character comes back in a later piece that I tolerated, the loose skin not seeming as icky. It’s possible that, by then, it even made some some sense. Really, I could have done without these stories, too out there for me. I think these pieces would have worked well enough without the experimental elements, but I suspect other readers might like the novelty that is added to the works.
A dozen of the stories involve the gay dating experiences of a character named Ryan. These are funny, often slightly tragic. Dating is messy. Here’s an excerpt from the first, titled “Date: What’s His Face”:
Ryan stared intently at what’s his face, taking in every feature.
His eyebrows were perfect. He could stand a nose job. Ryan
noticed the breakouts in the corners of his forehead.
“You’re kind of weird,” Ryan smirked.
“Why?”
“I can just tell. There’s something weird about you.” Ryan,
three beers in, began his ritual flirtation device of
insulting his dates.
“You don’t know me.”
“Oh, I know you. I can tell.”
What’s his face became irritable. “Maybe I should go now.”
“Why don’t I walk you home.”
Dating as a game. I never got my hands on that playbook, but there are plenty of Ryans, supposedly looking for love or maybe just sex or maybe a chance to mess with people’s minds. Ryan is flawed and yet someone to root for in these awkward, amusing encounters. Not everyone can be Prince Charming.
At one point, I had to do a double take, flipping to the back of the book to stare at the author’s photo. We’re both living in Vancouver. Do I know him? Worse, did our paths meet through online dating sites? It’s this passage from “Sex Date” that had me wondering:
I almost set up a date with a guy, but then I cancelled
after finding out he was a principal at an elementary
school.
“What’s wrong with a principal?” Ryan asked.
I told him that when I imagined the sex, I was worried
that I would think about his elementary school students
and that made me uncomfortable.
“Gross,” Ryan replied.
All righy then. There are a few single gay elementary school principals in Vancouver but not many. Perhaps this explains at least one occasion when I was ghosted after a few pleasant online messages, the coffee date never coming to fruition. Just as well, I suppose. No telling what story another writer might have lifted from an actual meet-and-greet. Something potentially odder than ghost boyfriends and guys with really loose skin.
Another recurring story involves a character dealing with the death of his mother. We get fractured pieces of the relationship and what happened. Sometimes the mother appears in dreams. I’m not sure I got all I wanted out of this thread, but I was intrigued enough to want to read more. There’s a brief scene in which the mother tells her son about a handsome man she dated when she was young:
Me
Why didn’t it work out?
Mother
You can never trust handsome men.
Me
I know.
The point is arguable, but it still amuses me.
There are so many nuggets in this work that are humorous and relatable. Just writing this, I was flipping back through the book, nodding, smiling and getting the impression that a second reading would be more rewarding, having a better sense of the bigger picture instead of just the wonderful details. Zomparelli’s writing is memorable. Stars? Rating? Who cares? He’s a writer whose career I want to follow.
No comments:
Post a Comment