We have Honorable Obscurity, How 'Bout You! - The Experiental Review of "The Honorable Obscurity Handbook"

The mark of a good book on writing, whether it involves craft, theory, or the writing life, is that it causes me anxiety, and I want to stop reading it. More on that later.

The Honorable Obscurity Handbook's cover says it all: the book is a collection of writing and supporting quotations on the importance of continuing to strive for your art, regardless of recognition. When it says 'ample quotations', it means it in the same way Rubens would paint an 'ample' lady.

I've followed Cunningham's writing for a while now, so many of the essays were familiar, because I had read them on his blog, or in their original publications. But these writings are of a type that are useful to return to. They help fortify the will of self-doubting writers; writers that are beginning to lose their ambition to persevere through the mire of publisher rejections, unresponsive agents; writers who have yelled their work into the wilderness, and never received an answering call that yes, someone has heard your words and enjoyed them - please send more.

The Honorable Obscurity Handbook is Cunningham's fourth book, with (at least) one other book waiting for the diamond band of acceptance for publication. This following quote (which does not appear in the book), was written before the publication of his first book:

"The challenges never let up; after facing one you find another waiting just around the bend -- but this is what I love about it all. Nothing else could possibly challenge me, engage me, force me to confront myself as much as writing. In essence, the whole craft seems to be a game of balances. Maintaining balances."

Though a decade lies between when this quotation was written, and his the publication of his 'Handbook,' Cunningham's course has remained true. With the tailwind of praise, or bushwhacking through modern publishing, he has stayed committed to the the creation of his written art - and in this book has shared the moments on kinship throughout the ages, the communions of reading, that have kept his quest moving forward.

Before I said that good books on writing cause me anxiety, and I want to stop reading them. They cause the anxiety to be creating those 'Honorable' works, to lay down another's book to build up my own. And so fellow writers, 'Obscure' or no, I advise you to pick up your own copy of The Honorable Obscurity Handbook (the book itself is honorably obscure - don't look for it on Amazon; I couldn't even say that I've read it on Goodreads; unless you're in Portland near Powell's, buy it direct from the publisher Atelier 26 Books), and when your nerve is tested, and your vision dims, read a section, read one of the 'ample' quotes, let that anxiety crackle in your body until it must be released through your fingers in whatever your method of writing.

What I read instead of reading - The Experiental Review of "The Sweet Hereafter"

I've got three kids: 12 year old boy, 10 year old girl, 4 year old boy. They are all smart, funny, unique and beautiful. The thought of any of them ceasing to be is unimaginable, and I refuse to speculate on how I would be able to work through such a tragedy.

Now, I knew the general plot behind Russell Banks' novel The Sweet Hereafter before I started reading it - it wasn't like being waylaid and destroyed by the heartbreaking beginning of Pixar's Up. I first heard of the story through press for its film version, and then picked up the novel at a library sale. So I knew that it was a sad book that involved the death of children in an accident, but when I decided to read the novels I own by Russell Banks, I felt forewarned, and confident that I could treat it as any other tragic drama that I would encounter; I felt that I was a strong enough reader to separate the book's narrative from my own.

The book is split into five parts, with four narrators. The first section is narrated by Dolores Driscoll, a small-town school bus driver, and details the everyday procedures and bus route she takes to pick up many of the town's children and get them to school safely on a snowy winter's day, and how the mundane instantly becomes life-shattering as the bus goes off the road into a half-frozen, flooded sandpit. This section is thick with foreshadowing and imminent tragedy, with a strong-voiced narrator, and does an excellent job of introducing the community. When the section suddenly ends, just over the brink of the accident, at the starting point of action, I was compelled to continue reading.

The second section is narrated by Billy Ansel, a widower who was the only witness to the accident, who loses his two children. His narrative involves the dissolution of an affair he was having with another parent who lost a child, some back story on his past marriage and his relationship with his kids, and how his way of dealing with the tragedy is to lose himself in the bottle. As a father this section was certainly hard to read, but I felt so removed from the characteristics of Ansel that I was able to keep my emotions somewhat in check.

Now I considered taking a break from the book at this point - to read something with a lighter tone for a while - and would have if not for Banks' excellent structuring, having the narrator of the next section be Mitchell Stephens, a lawyer who comes to town looking to help out the victims' families. Now, while Stephens has his own family problems (a drug-addicted daughter), exploring the legal dimension of the tragedy provided the emotional break I needed to stick with the story.

But then there was the fourth section, which is narrated by Nichole Burnell, a fourteen-year-old girl who was paralyzed in the accident. Her voice, and the layers of emotion and tragedy that come out on top of that of the accident (such as a history of sexual abuse by her father), sapped my motivation to continue the story.

It was summer vacation for me by the time I got into the fourth section. I had time on my hands for reading, and didn't want to read my book in progress. Now, where was an avid reader to turn, to take a break from a heart-rending story? Should I read a lighter book in the interim? A so-called "summer-read?" A trip to the local library gave me the answer: graphic novels!

In high school I was an dedicated comic book collector. My interest waned in college, but I would pick up the odd graphic novel or comic collection from the library every once in a while to feed my love of graphic narration. My early tastes in comics were heavy on Marvel, with only a smattering of Batman comics, and John Byrne's "Man of Steel" mini-series comprising my DC holdings. Over the past decade my graphic novel reading has mostly involved DC's Vertigo imprint series (Alan Moore's "Saga of the Swamp Thing", Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" & "Black Orchid", Bill Willingham's "Fables", anything with John Constantine) some mature Indies (Robert Kirkman's "The Walking Dead", Alan Moore's "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" & "From Hell", Frank Miller's "300") and titles I could enjoy with my kids (Jeff Smith's "Bone", Kazu Kibuishi's "Amulet", David Peterson's "Mouse Guard"). Besides Kevin Smith and Frank Miller's work for DC, I generally had no interest.

But, driven by my desire to read anything else but The Sweet Hereafter, I read a few DC graphic novels, including:

Batgirl: Year One
Batman: Battle for the Cowl
Batman: The Black Glove
Batman: Blind Justice
Batman: Death in the Family
Batman: Golden Dawn
Batman: Haunted Knight
Batman: Hush
Batman: Hush 2
Batman: Hush Returns
Batman: Heart of Hush
Batman Incorporated
Batman: Private Casebook
Batman R. I. P.
Batman: Under the Hood
Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?
Blackest Night
Blackest Night: Rise of the Black Lanterns
Brightest Day: Volume One
Brightest Day: Volume Two
Brightest Day: Volume Three
Catwoman: When in Rome

Final Crisis
Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds
The Flash: Rebirth
The Flash: The Dastardly Death of the Rogues
Green Lantern: Secret Origin
Green Lantern: Rage of the Red Lanterns
Green Lantern: Agent Orange
Green Lantern: Brightest Day
Green Lantern: War of the Green Lanterns
War of the Green Lanterns: Aftermath
Green Lantern Corps: Fearsome
Identity Crisis
Ronin

Like I said, a few graphic novels.

Then I read "Kick Ass: Hit Girl", and finally, all five volumes of Brian K. Vaughan's brilliant and affecting "Y: the Last Man" which was the first time I can remember being moved to drop a tear for a graphic novel.

At that point, though there are a few more random graphic novels available at my two local libraries, I broke down and finished The Sweet Hereafter in the waiting room while getting my car serviced. It did not wring any tears from me, but I think that it because the sadness the novel instills in its parent readers is like a deep ache. But I was able to use denial that such tragedy could occur in my family to finish my reading: I was able to stop questioning how I would ever get through losing a child, and keep the story's characters at a distance. So, as another Dolores Driscoll section bookends the narrative, and the characters are shown beginning to move on, I moved on as well, and finished well before my oil change and tire rotation did.

Next on my reading list is Russell Banks' Cloudsplitter - and I have no idea what it's about. I just hope it's not as sad as The Sweet Hereafter - I don't have enough graphic novels available to get me through!

A Note to My Future Agent

I just wanted to write this in advance as a thank you for being the first to judge my book in the aggregate. Though I have gotten some encouraging feedback from agents who read the first few chapters among the slew of boilerplate and silence, most notably Judy Heiblum at Brick House, who represents the wonderful writer M. Allen Cunningham, who wrote, “The work is imaginative and your writing shows both power and fluidity,” and gave a perfectly respectable, constructive rejection with, “For my taste, there was a bit of a sense of the language getting in the way of the writing, if you know what I mean. Also, I am perhaps a bit too traditional to get really excited about the format you propose for the book,” I congratulate you on seeing the potential in our partnership, especially beyond the terrible copy of my query (I’m assuming it was terrible to be so off-handedly rejected when it pimped something unique, and exceptionally constructed – this is where I’m supposed to be humble and discount how excellent I believe the work to be so I don’t seem conceited, so all I will say is that I wrote a novel I would love to read: innovative, but with a soul; characters that breath, laugh and cry and leave you in similar attitudes; with descriptions outrageous while simultaneously piercing – but then you’ve read the book, so you know how great it is, and I can be an openly proud Papa with you).

Just out of curiosity, would you mind going through my query and enlightening me to the pratfalls I fell into composing it? Thanks:

A victim of rape at fourteen, the songs Lucy Faas initially writes as therapy bring her more fame than she was prepared for at seventeen, so after her second album receives critical but lackluster financial success she enters a self-imposed suburban hermitage.

[So, in this revision of the query I strove to put character first, introducing my heroine Lucy as “the hook,” establishing in this single sentence that she carried the ultimate personal usually private pain of rape heavily upon her back in a too full frontal view to the public; that though talented, and still quite young, she already had significant issues with the byproduct of her expression: celebrity – enough to drop out of her career for a considerable span of time; issues that would make her impressions an interesting mix of insider and outsider.]

Emerging seven years later with aspirations to revive her abandoned music career, she joins the crazy assemblage of actors, musicians, directors, significant others and an heiress at architect Alexander Murphy’s celebrity haven – hidden and secure in the Montecito hills above Santa Barbara – there to preempt or hide from scandal, or simply dwell in a paparazzi-free zone. Amid her efforts at composing her comeback, Lucy decides to investigate the enigmatic Mr. Murphy’s origins, discovering aptitudes and interests enticingly adverse to musicianship as she learns more than any prior guest, and cultivating love for more than just the character of The American Riviera. But then she stumbles upon the secret that may bring this celebrity Eden to an ignominious end.

[So, here I laid out the unique plot of the book, my heroine’s conflicted journey through it, hinting at the interesting characters she will interact with, presenting setting as an equally rich character, and establishing intrigue behind the titular character driving Lucy through the book, portending an exciting climax.]

Incorporating Lucy’s songwriting, mock nonfiction articles, and sections of pure play-style dialogue into the narrative, and with a cast of celebrities alternately real, inspired, and imagined, Alexander Murphy’s Home for Wayward Celebrities is a literary novel, not so erudite that it will not appeal to a mainstream celebrity-hungry readership, completed at 92,000 words.

[Here I outlaid the singular narrative structure of the book, setting the genre as literary just in case the theme of celebrity left doubts to the seriousness of the novel – but also grounding the novel from the ether of literary works for a general readership, providing an ancillary marketing idea, while conducting the business of a attention-barbed title and reasonable word count. Trivia: I considered qualifying “mock nonfiction articles” with “mock architectural-themed articles,” but decided against it for the reasons of brevity that all the books and websites I researched on query-writing beat me over the head with.]

Studying creative writing at Westmont College in Montecito, graduating with a degree in Art, my seduction by Santa Barbara County – where encountering celebrities in their sweatpants at the supermarket was a common, humanizing, occurrence – mirrors the character of Lucy Faas. I currently reside in the San Francisco Bay Area with my wife and two children, have had several short stories published in various literary journals, including The First Line, who graciously nominated my Summer 2005 issue story for a Pushcart Prize, and am hard at work on my next novel, which will integrate my experiences as a substitute teacher.

[Here I gave a bit of biography that concurrently qualified me to express the setting and themes of the novel in a fresh voice; then another bit on my current situation, modestly showing that others have found my work not only publishable, but among the best they had published that year. Then I finished the paragraph with an assurance that I am a working writer, burgeoning with ideas, which interred in your stable, will be a productive, long range asset.]

I am querying you because...[-]. I look forward to sending you the manuscript for review. Feel welcome to contact me anytime from the contact information below. Thank you for your consideration.

[and, of course, here is where I proved to you that I had researched and handpicked you as a potential agent, offering my reasons in a hopefully flattering way. And then wrapping everything up sedately, belying my overwhelming desire to see my novel published because to admit my frustration with the inherently drawn out process of book publication may make me seem desperate.]

So what do you think? Too How to Get Your Novel Published formulaic? As I said, this is just for curiosity sake, so don’t put yourself too out with your commentary. (Blog readers listening in, I welcome your comments as well).

I should let you go; I respect how valuable your time is. I just really wanted you to know how much I appreciate your faith. I’ll have my next novel in soon as I can (how you worried that that was simply a ploy in my query!). Looking forward to all the marketing and touring, and, of course, a long and fruitful partnership.