David Thayer

Yeah, the gap. Not the store, not the house of fashion, but the gap, that dead space between the false start and the true beginning, the sage brush tumble down ghost town of discarded words no reader will ever see. Whenever I start a new novel, this is what I do. Fill it up with soon to be forgotten prose, get the characters talking, create some conflict. Everyone walks barefoot across shards of broken glass. The carpeting is shag, golden shag, the ceiling stained, the larder bare. He or she, not certain yet, may have a temper, one of those character issues that will help bridge the gap. There is no setting yet except the sky above and the dirt below, a chill wind off the prairie or a balky transmission in the urban core. Forget about setting, it’s too soon.

Timing? Back in time, current time, future, past, yeah, I know the timing but not sure how to fill it up, plant the flag, make it snap. First bridge is chapter break, a dangerous moment, because man, that’s a good place to fall into the crevice to await rescue. Shoot the gap to chapter two and maybe this project has a prayer. Okay, chapter two. New point of view, more dilemmas, backing and filling with the opening, some kind of foreshadowing. Let all the ideas in. Give it hair, teeth, bad breath, a job, an ex, an SO, kids, dogs, French lessons, exposure to a rare disease, bullying parents, dangerous friends, wants, needs, not enough caffeine, too much education, faulty wardrobe, male pattern baldness, a bad Young Republican experience.
Fill it up.

It’s been just over three decades since Erica Jong drove a stake through the heart of Certified Public Accountants and their generally accepted accounting practices. GAAP regulations require a great deal of focus. With forecasts, historical results, unexplained trends, SEC enforcement rules dancing in their heads, CPAs have fallen behind rock stars on the inverted libido curve. Just when CPAs were gaining a measure of respect from pop culture they went and got all tangled up in the Finite Risk Scandal.

How sexy is that? Well, some guys are going to serve hard time for unauthorized balance sheet arrangements disguised as legitimate reinsurance transactions. Try explaining that to your psychotic cellmate. See, it looks like reinsurance, but there’s no risk transfer…

The only thing a CPA facing jail time can do is read some crime fiction. Pump a little iron, get a Golden Earring. Jam Radar Love non-stop until you understand the lyrics. Go ahead and urge friends to buy tax shelters. Yeah, just rip it. If you’re looking at federal time try JA Konrath’s Whiskey Sour ( just don’t order a whiskey sour in front of the other inmates.) If it’s a State Pen, try Harley Jane Kozak’s Dating Dead Men. I know the author is a woman, but you’ll get extra macho points for that as long as you don’t panic when the guys start mocking you. Remember, you understand the lyrics to Radar Love. You’re Golden.

As Bouchercon approaches next weekend the crime fiction world will descend on Chicago for a Labor Day Weekend confab of enormous proportions. Numerous awards are up for grabs including some of the most prestigious in the crime fiction world. The Anthony Award nominees for Best Novel include the following luminaries of the Biz: Ken Bruen, John Katzenbach, Laura Lippman, Julia Spencer-Fleming, TJ Parker, and William Kent Krueger. The question is, who is going to win?

Laura Lippman won last year for Every Secret Thing. Spencer-Fleming won two years in the best first novel category. I think Ken Bruen will win in 2006 for The Magdalen Martyrs, a far better novel than the Killing of the Tinkers. My hunch is that TJ Parker will win for California Girl. It’s an ambitious novel, one part mystery, one part family drama spanning decades along the jeweled shores of Orange County. Parker has been a fixture since Laguna Heat was released back in the late Eighties. He’s a fine writer and deserving of the recognition.

Lippman is another crime writer pushing the envelope, expanding the genre in the literary direction with her social awareness. She is walking a tricky road, risking an existing audience in search of more complex and powerful stories. Unlike Dennis Lehane, who announced the end of his PI series, Lippman is moving more gradually away from her Tess Monahan roots, alternating between standalones and Tess books. I admire her work and the guts it takes to do what she’s doing.

This may not be news in the usual sense. It may not inform the greater struggle against encroaching trends that stifle the life of the mind. But, Godfrey Daniel, your reporter is pleased to report that this humble blog is now listed at the Complete Review.

The Complete Review is Waldorf Astoria of residences for litbloggers far and wide. Inside its halls are the elite of the literary blogosphere, and I am honored to be listed among them.

Thank you Bud Parr for releasing us froml night vigils, candle light, and the earthy aroma that rises from the nave of obscurity. You know what I mean, the mighty cathedral’s shadowy corners.

Jay McInerny has a long review in the NYT on Indecision, the debut novel from Benjamin Kunkel. Jay discloses early on that he’s a fan of these bildungromans, novels of development, as he defines the term. Ffity years after Holden Caulfield reinvented coming of age, Jay finds the genre compelling, noting the effects of feminism and urbanization without mentioning his own contribution, Bright Lights, Big City. As a foil to the piece he mentions a middle aged successful writer who looks down her nose at the stylings of anguished twenty year olds. Jay taps her with a dig about literature’s narrow focus while managing to imply that success in middle age carries bittersweet baggage of raging envy. Look at the author photo! It’s young Sonny Crockett, and,wonder of wonders, he’s written a novel. Stunned by the blur of speeding youth, older people can tend to discount a new generation’s rites of passage.

The plot of Indecision registers low on the originality index, as McInerny casually dissects the necessary moving parts by offering a checklist and using the word ’slacker’ in the text. I have to admit that alarm bells were sounding as I envisioned Josh Hartnett cast in the lead, sleepwalking through a story so familiar that no screenwriting credit is offered, just a generic nod to standing on the slumped shoulders of previous slackers too numerous to mention. Literature’s narrow focus? Let’s hurry through the Wanderjahr, the first turning point where girl of mystery incites latent idealism heretofore thought to be puberty’s natural adjunct. But, no, this is a journey of the mind.

McInerny offers a spirited defense of both the novel, and the coming of age story’s place in the pantheon of literary works. Perhaps these books would have broader appeal if the prerequisites for the character’s bildung were not limited to white kids who attended prep school. Disposable income, disposable children, no one doubts the ill effects, but if you to go to Ecuador to become aware of poverty, then you are in the process of coming of age.

Picture this: you’re driving along in your automobile. The New York Times is on the passenger seat already in a strap hanger fold in case fourteen people pile into the car and you’re squeezed for space. Old habits die hard. There’s a new biography of Hendrix. Big crowd at the light by Dunkin’ Donuts. You zip through the opening paragraphs and then this line hits the synapses: “before Hendrix everything sounded like Herman Hermits.” Woke up this morning feelin’ fine…sepia lighting from out of nowhere suggests flashback. Cousin Brucie is squealing, Murray the K is speaking pig Latin. Your car is a 59 Plymouth with a pushbutton tranny. The last movie you saw was Beach Blanket Bingo.

Brucie dissolves from a Meshugenah Merv commercial into I’m Henry the Eighth I am. Your fingers locate the AM dial, but it’s too late. You’re in Hermit country. Inside Dunkin shaking like a leaf, same song blasting from the speakers…you can only hope and pray it will end soon and the DJ will astound you with something like Not Fade Away or Little Red Rooster.

Back in the car. Read more, there’s a Kurt Cobain reference, a parallel to Jimi’s impoverished youth, bad ending. Okay the donuts are kicking in, flashback receding. You’re good, the Times is back in a straphanger fold. A little Curtis Mayfield takes the edge off. Hey, your friend Norm just pulled in for a dozen donuts. He rolls down his window…woke up this morning feelin’ fine. Norm is speaking pig Latin…no, say it ain’t so…he’s in Hermit country.

One of the blogging literary agents, Agent 007, has posted a witty reply to remarks offered here and elsewhere about the value of insider information. She chooses Jerry Maguire’s famous mission statement to refute the notion that her blog isn’t offering writers valuable information. It’s a good post, one worth reading and considering.

Ric Marion, a blogger at Publishers Marketplace, dropped me a note to say that he started the conversation by asking Miss Snark a question about agents. Miss Snark tossed it to 007, who wrote a column that revealed all agents are not equal in the eyes of NYC editors. Indeed, the opposite is true, something Ric and Vera Nazarian find “extremely depressing.”

The mail is running against your correspondent. Added to that, the many comments posted at 007’s site reveal that most readers enjoy 007’s input. A couple of commenters referred to my attitude as ‘cynical’ for suggesting that this kind of insider reporting offers nothing of value to the great body of writers out there struggling to make a go of things.

The context for this discussion is the explosion of helpful hints for writers categorized in my post as ‘crap.’ Another post of mine referred to this same genre of revelation as ‘toxic horseshit.’ That is to say that I think the cottage industry springing up around the walking wounded of the publishing wars exists to exploit writers. It wasn’t fair on my part to lump 007 in with the opportunists. She’s not blogging for commercial gain and seems genuine about wanting to put her experiences out there for the rest of us. I owe her an apology, so here it is. I apologize for assuming to know your intent, 007.

Like every other poor slob in this racket 007 had me at hello in the sense that, having lost at Jeopardy, the last thing we want to know is that the game is rigged, that the winner didn’t know that Nixon was a Quaker, or that Mussolini dug Mozart. Last year my agent marketed my novel to the big guys in NYC. I was puzzled by his analysis of a rejection letter, as he focused as much on who responded as what they said. He was delighted by the responses. I was thinking, come on, man, they’re saying no, but looking back, I think he was working out in his own mind whether the submissions were being read by the right people.

Does it help writers to know all this? I guess that’s in the eye of the beholder. My parting thought for writers is this: be careful. It’s easy to lose heart, so put all this into perspective, and keep working.

What a vacation for President George W. Bush. A man can’t head down to Texas to clear some brush, read some hefty books, and maybe have some barbeque without fifty seven varieties of hell breaking loose. Sure, some pinkos were upset about sliding John Bolton into the UN during recess. While all the senators and congressmen were out on the playground, climbing and sliding and playing dodgeball, John Bolton and his mustache got under the tag and the umpire called him safe.

Week three and there’s Mrs. Sheehan, guntoting neighbors, coverage twenty four seven from the liberal media. Just when that fracas started to settle down, something moved Pat Robertson to suggest we take out the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. Pat mentioned the Communist Threat, one of the tried and true bogeymen since Harry Truman dumped Dewey. Advisors to the President are divided over the salability of the Communist menace since the fall of the Soviet Union. However, they are all pretty certain that advocating the assasination of foreign leaders could alienate people.

Pat did apologize. I don’t know what Hugo Chavez is thinking now that televangelists are gunning for him. President Bush should be contemplating sending a special ops group to keep Chavez in one piece because if someone were to shoot the guy, plausible deniablity would shrink to fig leaf dimensions. We can’t have that, dad gummit. We’re on vacation.

Cheap suit, black tie, probably one of the miracle fabrics, rayon, nylon, or polystyrene. Post war shades in the event paparazzi rise up to flash and dazzle. Shoes with a reinforced sole, providing lift as well as stamina. No designer drugs needed here. He’s reading the Book Babes.

Muttering to himself. Still thinking about the time a thirty foot wave rolled under his feet on a forty foot trestle facing the sea. The wave broke…wood splintered, the entire structure shook. Long walk off a short pier. Where was he? Oh yeah, Book Babes. They’re writing about MP3s. He’s not impressed. The old man was an MP5, his pal Harry a GS19. He used to drive a 240z. The number is way too low.

Still they might come in handy. He’s into audio books although he prefers to read. Bad headphone experience on the LIE. Too much technology, electricity, plugs, wires, life support. A tangled web. He likes the low tech way, pick up an object that is not connected to the wall or a jack or one of those power strips.
Not at all sure he’s following the Babes logic stream now. Who mentioned power strips?

The brim of his Borsalino is in the way. Book Babes unreadable. The news is good though, encouraging, bubbly in a disconcerting way, perky. Though unsure of the substance of their report, he’s pleased to have read the Book Babes. He feels better, his watch appears to be running again. Maybe after some coffee he’ll read them again. It seems important. MP3s. Something about e-books and a revolution.
He’s always up for a revolution.

James Woods in his book The Irresponsible Self reminds us that humor is essential to a successful novel. He traces the lineage of his thesis back to the source, Cervantes. With a warning that humor is in the eye of the beholder, Woods details the elements of farce, satire, whimsy, and physical comedy Cervantes used to tell his story. Don Quixote is the first novel ever written, with the second part written ten years after the first. There is a parallel to Goethe who wrote Faust, Part Two, a decade after finishing Part One. Goethe was urged by Schiller to complete the story. Cervantes does a little Brett Easton Ellis gag in part two describing a scene where he, the author, is mistaken for his character.

Last spring Little Brown released The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea, a man who clearly understands the legacy of Cervantes. Reading his book is not the first time I’ve wished I understood the Spanish language, but don’t worry about the translation. The story of Teresita shines through. The contrast between Spanish language literature and novels written in English isn’t language, but scope. English speakers are constantly stunned by the power and beauty of writers whose first language is Spanish. The Hummingbird’s Daughter is rife with humor and Urrea doesn’t shrink from poking fun at the pretensions of his protagonist, something of a high crime and misdemeanor these days.

I don’t know how the book fared in terms of sales in North America. Its release was sort of lost in the shuffle of The Historian and, God help us, The Traveler. I hope it caught on enought to capture an audience.