Uncertain Times II

We live in the suburbs, which means that the above magazine arrives on Saturday instead of Sunday. So, we've already read it, or as much of it as we can stand. The magazine is wildly hit and miss, but it did offer one smile of the day. The "Coupling" column, which is by far the most uneven part of the magazine, in which the ratio of the insufferable to the interesting is roughly five-to-one, is about men who love cats. The teaser line for this is something like, "If you're looking for a sensitive guy, look for cat dander on his clothes."

To which Larry said, "So if you're looking for a complete p***sy, check for cat hair." I tried to give him that look, but he wasn't having any of it. "Are you kidding me?" he said. "That's like..." Here, he tossed an imaginary softball into the air and thwacked it with an imaginary bat. "Had to be done," he said.

I couldn't argue. In this economy we're taking our laughs where we can find them.

The boy book has a new editor, and that editor has an assistant. We have the copyedited manuscript in hand and it's due back in ten days. The new editor checked in to say that she loves the book, believes in it, has boys of her own, can't wait to bring it out into the world. We were so thrilled and relieved to hear it. "The biggest concern is the environment it's coming out into," she said. Or something like that. Meaning that book sales are down across the board. Apparently, even good books aren't selling.  All we can do is hope.

Uncertain Times

The news across the publishing industry has been bad and getting worse for many months. I hear from my novelist friends that they've been cautioned against trying to sell something now, that the market for literary novels is bleak, or sometimes agents use the word deadly. In addition, I've heard of top, top editors who have been dumped from their jobs, people who have found and worked on many best-sellers. 

Then yesterday, I heard this news and the recession became that much more real for me. The entire publishing division that bought the boy book just ten months ago is gone. I have no idea how many of the good and talented people we've worked with during that time are now out of a job, but it's very possible that they're all gone. It was a little under a year ago that Larry got this same news about his editorial team, so I do know what they're going through. It's awful.

Nothing has happened to our book. It sits and waits, just as we do, to see where it will go and on whose desk it will land. It has been edited, and we've seen the cover design. We were slated to get copy edits on Friday with the understanding that we would turn it around quickly. They had worked so aggressively on this book and we were so impressed with their creative efforts all along. Now, nothing is certain.

Nothing Personal

The other day I got what I thought was a rejection slip in the mail. These are easy to spot because they arrive in a self-addressed envelope. That means I can see my name and address just as I wrote them when I submitted to this or that literary journal. In the past some of these rejections have turned out to be acceptances. Apparently, some editors are so busy that they can't pick up the phone or send an email to tell you that they're taking your story. Or even to address a new envelope in which to send the happy notice along with the contract. Once I got an acceptance that looked so much like a rejection that I didn't even read it for a couple of months. I just tucked it in a drawer with the rest of the rejections.  It was a sad, crumpled little piece of paper and at the top it said, "Congratulations" and then they'd written in the name of my story. And then at the bottom I was supposed to sign over the rights and send the lonely little piece of paper back. Of course, that never happened. I never read it until the editors sent me a little note wondering where my contract was.  As my four-year-old would say, "Oops-ees!"

The newest acceptance tops this in terms of anonymity. It's a little preprinted card with the words "Dear Writer" at the top. Then a big space. Then the words "We have chosen to publish" and then another big space in which someone wrote the title to my story in ink and then the rest of the one line acceptance letter "in a future issue of" and then the magazine title. Signed, "The Editors."

That's it. Are they kidding with this? They like the story well enough to publish it, but not well enough to have any contact with the writer. They provided no phone number, no email address, no way to get in touch with them. Never mind that the story has already been accepted by another journal. I'm sort of hoping these folks don't go ahead and publish it without further contact with me. That would be awkward.

Letters to Obama

G's class is writing letters to our new president. As a parent volunteer, I get to type these up and help "publish" them. They will actually get sent to the White House, and I see as I read these that more than one student is anxiously hoping for a reply. 

What's interesting about watching a little boy in early elementary school education is seeing how much and how quickly he develops month to month. A first grader is a kid who still hasto be reminded to flush the toilet and carry a dinner plate to the sink. Don't get me started on the teeth-brushing thing or the idea that dirty clothes go in a hamper. And yet these kids have got a lot on their minds. 

What's especially charming about these letters is that the sentiments in them don't seem to have been coached in any way. The spelling, punctuation and grammar are about as inventive as you'd imagine, and some kids seem to have less trouble figuring out how to spell the big words than they do the little words.

One boy wrote:

Dear Presidentobama in our school we votd you wood wen! I dont no what the vot count wus. And please help the economy and stock market do better!! I bileve your dodr sasha is 7. I am 7 too!!

One girl wrote: 

Dear President Obama, Please exceped this note. Please help cildrins hospitals and parint hospitals. Also help the pet hospitals. And get subs for docters and get cures for a cancer cure and other stuff they don't have.

Here's what G wrote:

Dear Mr president, some pepol need help because the're poor. they mite need you to help them. they need jobs, homes, food, and money. because if they stayd poor they mite die. Sincerely, G.

Little guys. Big, big hearts.

Ireland or Bust

This is where I will be spending the last week in February. No, not at the top of a cliff, but hereabouts. A strange string of coincidences led to an impromptu trip. Can't wait. 

Zane-y History Lesson

One of the perks of having two stay-at-home parents is that we get to share visits to our children's schools. If teachers are used to dealing with just moms, well, now they get both barrels. Too bad for them.

Just last week, Larry and I went to G's first grade class for "beach day." It's a day when the kids wear shorts and t-shirts and sunglasses and flip flops to school and shiver in the inadequately heated rooms while pretending it's summer. We were instructed to send a beach towel to school that day along with beach-y snacks and such to complete the illusion, as it were. The only thing missing was actual heat.  

There was also a party at which the kids ate the aforementioned snacks and made crafts. They made little crabs out of egg cartons and beach scenes on paper and the like. Larry and I were one of a half dozen parents who showed up to chaperone. Larry was the only dad, of course. We ran the "games" section of the party, which was this sad little bingo game with a nautical theme. There were these oversized bingo cards with pictures instead of letters. The pictures were of things like bivalves and the Indian Ocean and scuba gear and coral reefs. At first Larry took the educational part of this very seriously. He would draw a card and call out the name of the picture, say "stingrays" and then read all the information on the back of the card about where they live and what they eat and all that, when the kids just want the next card. They want to win. Also they pretend to know what you're talking about when they don't. First graders are over everything. Over it. And when you try to tell them something, they say, "yeah, we know," even when they clearly, clearly don't. 

So, eventually, the game picked up pace. And the kids were really into it. Seven-year-olds are pretty competitive, it turns out. And they pout when someone else is winning. So, Larry got to the card for the Titanic, and he'd learned his lesson. He didn't read out any of the information. But one of the girls playing said, "We know all about that. We read a book." I said, oh that's great and all. She said, "The boat hit an iceberg and it sank and everybody got on lifeboats." I said, well, that's pretty close. And one of the other girls who was playing said, "Well, not everybody. Just the women and children." And the rest of the kids playing all started nodding. "Yeah, women and children." These kids. They know it all.

And for some strange reason, Larry said, "Yeah, except for that Billy Zane." He was saying it mostly to me, trying to get me to crack up. "Sneakin' on that life boat," said Larry, shaking his head in disappointment. I was holding it together, but then one of the boys shook his head sadly and said, "Yeah, that Billy Zane. Sneaking on the wife boats." And then they all started saying it. And they were serious.

As we were leaving, G's teacher thanked us. She told us that the bingo game looked very intense. Larry said to her. "Um, if you're ever talking about the Titanic and the name Billy Zane comes up, just play along, okay?"

She just stared at him. I don't think we'll be invited back next year.

Just Thrilled

 I have a half dozen books piled next to the bed (as always). They include this and this and this. All important books that I should be devouring in the cold months. 

Not so. I've read nothing but thrillers all winter. Shameful. Among them, are this one and this one. They were both pretty good. Interesting narrative stance, good characters, a few emotional surprises. 

There's no explanation for this neglect of good books, except that our days are filled with hammering and sudden shots from nail guns all fueled by roaring compressors. At night, the blue tarp of doom covers the half finished renovations. We pray that no snow will fall, and wonder how much money we have left. 

Perhaps that's why this book by Morag Joss is such a fun read. In it, the setting of a house is a major character, as our house is for us just now. Also, I think it's ballsy for a thriller to be funny, and this one is. Each clever line is a happy surprise. 

The story is about Jean, an aging house sitter on what she knows will be her last assignment caring for an enormous estate while the owners are away on a summer-long vacation. She has had a tough life and a couple of events just send her right over the edge, where she decides that she owns the house. Then she decides to reclaim a son she gave up for adoption years before, even though she acknowledges that she's never been pregnant. She puts an ad in the paper for this son and attracts Michael, who is a petty thief and my favorite character in the book. He steals from churches, and he's not very good at it. There's an early, hilarious scene in which his getaway car breaks down. "The bloody van! On the way here he had been so busy feeling like Jeff Stevenson coping with a dodgy alternator or gearbox or whatever that he had not stopped to think about the van's next journey; it fell a little short of Criminal Mastermind standard for the getaway vehicle to be on its last legs." Michael acquires a stray character, too, a pregnant young girl on the run from her abusive boyfriend. The three of them make up a sort of family on this estate. And yet the way they manage this is through pretty dark means that get ever darker as the story progresses. 

But back to the humor. What I love is that the narrator has such wicked fun with the story, and especially the minor characters. Late in the book we meet Shelley, who is Jean's manager at the house-sitting firm and who is not a nice person. She's made an impromptu visit to the estate to check up on Jean and she's likely to learn that Jean has been selling off the furniture and drinking the expensive wine from the cellar. But we slow down as she arrives:

"Jean came out from the back of the house at the sound of Shelley's car on the gravel, patting her tidied hair and intending to give the impression that she knew her place and never used the front door. She had an idea that Shelley would notice and appreciate that sort of observance. But all of Shelley's attention was concentrated on heaving herself out of the hot car. She moved with a sense of grievance, as if she were being made to carry a weight that she considered privately was heavier than anything she could reasonably be expected to shift."

There's a very tense scene in which Jean introduces Michael and his new girlfriend, the runaway, and their ridiculous cover story. Then they walk together into the house as Shelley's phone continually sounds to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy.

"But Michael had started to lead the way down the path between the rose beds and Jean rather delicately dropped back and allowed him to. He was striding along rather fast now. Behind Jean, Shelley struggled along last with a lumpy shoulder bag on one arm and a ladylike black briefcase in the other. There was another volley of Yankee Doodle Dandy, which Shelley this time silenced with a couple of exasperated stabs. Jean turned and watched her. She was wearing low-fronted black shoes with heels like short pencils, which gave the impression that her thick legs ended in hooves. With each step her foot sank deep into the gravel, so she was taking dainty little steps, as if doing so would somehow make her lighter. The effect was of a cow trying to tiptoe."

Sometimes as a reader, I'd just rather have fun.