New Home, Again (Yes, again)

I've decided to consolidate this here blog and my Tumblr blog and various other things to make one MASSIVE UBERBLOG, viewable here: www.hopeeewing.com.  That's right--my own domain!

All future updates and clips available there.

The Wrong Tack

Dawn Raffel's editor's letter from the latest issue of The Literarian, the lit mag produced by one of my favorite New York literary institutions, the Center for Fiction, included this tongue-in-cheek commentary about the phenomenon of "beach reads" in attempting to endorse its lineup of literary authors: 

My husband has pointed out to me that normal people don’t enjoy reading Dante’s Inferno on the beach, but hell, I’ve never understood the point of reading junk simply because it’s hot and waves are breaking. If you’ve got some extra hours for reading, why not make the time worthwhile?

And damn... though I appreciate the sentiment that we don't have to get all Brown-y just because we're trying to relax, the tone of this made me want to faceplant on my AC-refrigerated cubicle desk.*  Worthwhile? Is she telling me that what I thought was going to be a magazine full of cool, entertaining lit stories is actually going to be an educational experience? But, but... I'm on vacation....**

Two things this brings to mind.

First, Lev Grossman's WSJ essay about critical aversion to plot and how "genre" is becoming more "literary" these days, and vice versa. Grossman blames the Modernists for instilling in us the idea that for something to be good, it has to be hard. These attitudes are changing, says he. We can have fun, plot, adventure and gob-smacking good writing all in the same volume.

Secondly, D.R. Haney's gloriously depressing humor piece Failed Artist (tm) line of children's books. The third in the series is a cautionary tale, I Am A Book, wherein a boy sells his soul to the devil to be an author, only to find out:

"Then the book was published, and no one bought it, except for a few writers in Brooklyn. “I’ll read your book if you read mine,” they told the boy. The boy agreed, and he read one book after another about professors getting divorced."

Now, on one hand, if one more person hands me an Anne Rice-phoned-in-umpteenth-in-the-series-fang-banger novels telling me it's sooo good, I might tear my face off. On the other hand, I will probably have the same reaction to some Franzenmulator writing about the intricacies of family dramas in suburban Iowa. Add to that books that are assumed indelible because they are so em-effing difficult to get through without re- and re-reading on the syntactical level.

I like pulp sometimes, I like quiet, contemplative lit sometimes. It's just a matter of taste.  Persisting in the idea that a "fun," "quick-reading" book is inherently less "worthwhile" is incredibly self-defeating for a writer.

Bringing this back to Ms. Raffel's mostly-lovely letter in The Literarian, the most annoying thing about bringing Dante into the equation when talking about beach reads is that most of the stories the magazine features in this issue are from authors who can be incredibly engaging, even (gasp) plotty sometimes. Downplaying their popular appeal is unfair to them.  Or, do we agree with Mr. Haney's fake kids' book's assessment that only "unusual" people read?

*I'm office temping again. Partly for the money, and partly because my apartment has no windows.  

**Obviously not really.

Patti Smith: No. 1 Fan

I'm about two-thirds of the way through Just Kids, extremely belatedly, as it was almost a year ago  that I got the book at her reading/talk for the PEN Festival at Cooper Union. The reading was awesome, but because it takes me years to read anything that's not under deadline, here I am.

I can't effing believe how much I like this book.  It's chock full of dropped names from late-60's rock & roll and early punk rock, laundry lists of folks she met and hung out with at Hotel Chelsea and Max's Kansas City, yada yada.  Usually this would be annoying.  But in Smith's voice, being the quintessential fan that she is, it's more like she's telling you a story one-on-one--"Hey, did I ever tell you about when I met Jimi Hendrix?" or "Yeah, that time I hung out with the guys from Television at CBGB's"--you don't want to roll your eyes and say "YES, ma, you used to be SO COOL." Nah, every time she mentions Sam Shepherd or William Boroughs or Bebe Buell, it's more of a "No way! Really?" moment.

Cuz Aunt Patti, you know, she is SO COOL, but such a big fan herself, it's like she doesn't even know it. What would be pretentious in anyone else is somehow here sublimely sincere.

Busy, Busy

Who's hit the big time of badass free content? That's right. This girl. With the thumbs.

Check me out on the The Nervous Breakdown.

Interview: Molly Jong-Fast

Interview with Molly Jong-Fast, author of The Social Climber's Handbook (Villard 2011)

In the world of Molly Jong-Fast’s comic novel The Social Climber’s Handbook, zip codes and social status go together like white on rich people. Her cast of Upper East Side mums and philandering financiers function as if morality, like riding the subway, is something poor people do. Set in the summer of 2008 during the onset of the credit crisis, Handbook introduces UES anti-heroes Dick and Daisy Greenbaum, a power couple holding onto their Brahmin existence by doing What’s Necessary: covering up fraudulent lending, silencing rogue sex bloggers, or old fashioned murder.

Coming from un-humble literary roots as the only daughter of what she called “the short and ill-fated union” of Erica Jong and Jonathan Fast, this 32-year-old mother of three and lifelong Upper Eastsider satirically eviscerates her neighbors in this intelligent beach read. Jong-Fast recently spoke at The New School about the credit crisis, children named after fruits and why women can too be serial killers.

Were you personally affected by the 10021 split?
I’ve always been obsessed with zip codes and phone numbers. For a while I had a [212] 772- number; I was really happy with that. I am still 10021, though I think some people fancier than me were changed to 10028. But that’s right next to 10128, so…

The Social Climber’s Handbook is your third novel. Did you start writing because of your parents?
My mother wrote Fear of Flying, my grandfather was Howard Fast who wrote Spartacus. When your entire family has the same profession, you think: this is easy, this is what I’m going to do. It’s proven to be absolutely horrible and really hard, but now I’m in it. I tried to be a literary agent for a while, because when you’re surrounded by writers you think being an agent is a leisurely pursuit. It turned out that wasn’t the case. Writing is like being in the witness protection program, once you’re in it, you can’t get out.

How has their fame influenced your career?
It opens a lot of doors, then slams them on you. Sometimes I think nobody has as much mean stuff about them on the Internet as I do. I have medium-to-low self-esteem. I love the process of writing; being a public figure is the hard part.

I actually haven’t read my mother’s books, for obvious mental health reasons. There are people who love my her work and hate mine because it’s so different, or hate her and are looking to hate me, by extension. The way I figure it you can either hate her and like me, or vice versa, but not both.

You’re from the Upper East Side. Were you concerned about your neighbors thinking you were trashing the hood?
I wasn’t trashing the Upper East Side. It’s my home. I grew up in a townhouse on 94th and Park, went to NYU and Barnard and got my MFA from Bennington College. I’ve never lived anywhere else. But you do encounter ridiculous things every day, like children named after royalty or fruit. You meet unbelievably wealthy people who will never want for anything and are still unhappy, and you feel sorry for them. There are questionable people everywhere, this happens to be the world I know.

What made you want to write about a serial killer? 
 I read a lot of mysteries and I love Patricia Highsmith’s work. I wanted to write a female Mr. Ripley, or a female Dexter. I read an interview a few years ago with Bret Easton Ellis [The Guardian, 2001] where he said he didn’t think women had it in them to be serial killers. I was like: Fuck you! Women can totally be serial killers!

It also occurred to me that if you wanted to commit a crime, it would help to be a woman with a really nice handbag. If I actually was a serial killer, this book would be the perfect cover.

The book is set during the 2008 credit crisis and you use a lot of detail about shady bank practices. Any correlation to your murdering anti-heroine?
What the credit crisis taught me is that people can commit unthinkable crimes and absolutely get away with it. My husband works in finance and when this happened, neither of us could believe the kind of criminal behavior these guys had gotten away with. I still don’t think people understand how close we were to breadlines, to going to Starbucks and there not being coffee. The taxpayers got screwed and almost all the banks got away with it.

Molly Jong-Fast, The Social Climber’s Handbook, Villard 2011. On sale April 26.

Review: The Social Climber's Handbook (Villard 2011)

The Social Climber's Handbook: A Novel by Molly Jong-Fast

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is funny.  It's self-aware. It's a smart beach read. Breezing through my advance copy on my commute every day, I wished I was reading this at the Hamptons, preferably wearing a black sarong and a huge-brimmed black hat with sunglasses that cover at least 1/3 of my face.

The first thing I learned when I started a career in NYC fund-raising is that social status and zip code go together like white on rich people. This is the world where Jong-Fast's characters shop, lunch, woo and murder each other. Children are named after cheeses and English prep schools. Women in improbable shoes beat each other to death to save face and retain their choice soup kitchen Board positions.

Are any of the characters particularly likable?  No. But they are fun to follow. Jong-Fast is a quintessential New Yorker, the daughter of two smart writers, this Upper East Side mother of three is chipping out a place of her own with a brand of smart chick-lit.  She goes there when she has to, sometimes a little too far, with a subtextual wink to the reader saying she knows we love it.

View all my reviews

Infidelity's Not So Bad

Things Worse Than Cheating

"In a committed relationship nothing hurts more, or is harder to recover from, than infidelity, and this is even truer when it’s the female partner who’s been doing the cheating." Ian Kerner, Sexuality Counselor, CNN Health

There are some things a significant other can do that will make you wish she had just gone ahead and cheated on you before all this happened.

Paranoia After the sixtieth phone call of the day, you’ll wish Cyndi had other interests.

Chrystal Meth  “Joan cheated on me with Ted in the Hardees bathroom during happy hour,” vs. “Joan withdrew 8 G’s from my savings account while I was at work and filled up the side yard with empty cough syrup bottles.”

Ponzi Schemes She was too busy swindling charitable funds and pensioners out of their lives’ savings to buy blood diamonds for anyone else but you.

Permanent Vegetative State A custody battle featuring your ex’s new beau, or a feeding-tube-removal battle?

Permanent Vegetative Relationship You wish she would have an affair so you could have something to fill the super-massive black hole of your conversations.

Sweatshop Ownership Finding out Linda has been sneaking out to rendezvous with Jeff instead of going to Zumba, or finding out she’s been sneaking off to Indonesia to exploit underage workers?

Khakis No one thinks you look classy, Carleton.

Traumatic Brain Injury “Deborah, how could you do this to me?” Vs. “Deborah sweetie, it’s time to change your catheter.”

Serial Murder Your feelings are hurt, but you and the rest of the rugby team are alive and kickin’.

Being “Really Into” Jazz There is nothing quite so life-ruining as having to sit through a 15-minute bass solo for the thirtieth time.  Nothing.