Should there be a different standard of quality for fiction and memoir? My point, perhaps buried under the glibness below, was that the book was repeatedy deemed unsaleable as a novel–it didn’t meet many, many editors’ standards for artistic merit in its original form. That’s true of a number of very fine and indeed classic novels–save your comments–but in this case, an editor/publisher who’s been around the block just a tad looked at this manuscript and said, “It doesn’t work as a novel, but it’ll sell as a memoir.” From the get-go, the viability of the book hung on its perceived truthfulness, not on the storyteller’s craft.
In the old days, editors who saw promise in a rough novel manuscript would work with the author to realize its potential. As a novel. I understand that the business really doesn’t allow for that anymore, and I don’t blame Talese for that. (I blame chain bookstores who demand absurd discounts; moguls who decide to accessorize their media empires with publishing houses, like bimbos donning glasses to look smarter; and hell, even Bennett Cerf for setting the consignment precedent that to this day permits booksellers to dump whatever they don’t sell right back on the publishers, which means they can just hire illiterates and train them to move high volumes of coffee and inspirational fridge magnets.) But I do blame her for being so cynical as to repackage shitty fiction as gripping non-, specifically to capture a different market than the book was originally intended for, and then act like we’re just quibbling over semantics here.
Interestingly, one of the people who agrees with me is her husband.
All of this is making me wonder whatever happened to the words “Based on a true story.” Didn’t that used to be enough for people? Has the market for fiction gotten so utterly abysmal that authors and publishers need to lie about the real nature of a book?
Don’t answer that.
here, here, i got published, but it wasn’t my novel.
at the risk of sounding like bill o’reilly, the people want what they want. chain bookstores, moguls, and bennett cerf aren’t to be ‘blamed’ for the fact that the people, now in possession of myriad choices for approaching the sublime, are looking to forms other than the novel. – col (a huge fan of your musings, good novels, and a capitalist pig to boot).
i just read the “beautiful, shattering” excerpt on random house’s website. remember how we were talking about writers who capitalize on the suffering of others to self-aggrandize, and how that should pretty much eliminate any piece of writing in terms of art?
uh, yeah. so gotta get on that blonde essay about dave eggers. NOW.
in the meantime, i’d like to proffer janet maslin’s review as proof that while many american women are nuts, others are quite sane and funny.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/21/books/21MASL.html?ex=1137560400&en=90caa9c879353882&ei=5070
On the smallest possible note, I love how mean people are about his use of Random Caps.
On a larger one, Col, I actually agree with you… to a point. But to clarify, I wasn’t blaming the public’s taste for mem-wah on all of the above, but the lack of editing going on these days. It’s a business decision not to allow the bucks or the time to edit things well–or at all–and I think it’s pretty inextricably related to those things. (You could argue that the public doesn’t give a rat’s ass if things are well-edited, so why should they spend the money? But that’s a different question.)