Author Archives: Kris

Oops: Pardon Our Screw Up

Buried in the bottom corner of Sunday’s “Week in Review” section of The New York Times is a picture of Jonathan Franzen, dirty blond hair neatly tousled, black hipster glasses firmly in place, lips drawn in a tight semi-smile. The title of the six sentence news story reads, “Franzen’s Message to Fans: That Is a Rough Draft.” Apparently Harper Collins UK published and distributed 80,000 copies of a draft version of his new novel Freedom by mistake. So sorry old boy.

Some news groups are reporting that the misprint will be pulped and that the 8,000 copies already sold can be exchanged. While others are saying that for “logistical reasons” the books will not be tossed in the shredder. What is not clear in the second version of the story is whether the publisher intends to sell the misprint.

In the meantime, Victoria Barnsley, Harper Collins UK CEO, is blaming the typesetter, a small Scottish outfit called Palimpsest, though no one is saying who sent them the wrong version and who failed to read the final proof. These are the real questions that need answering. But for now, damn those blimey Scots.

So if you find a typo in this blog, don’t blame me. The Scottish typesetter did it.

Favorite Troubled Women in Fiction

Last May the Guardian published a list of ten troubled men in literature. A student of mine emailed it to me because in my Coming of Age Literature class we had read about several of the characters who topped the list: Holden Caulfield, Dean Moriarty, “you” in Bright Lights, Big City, and Jake from The Sun Also Rises.

British novelist Tony Parsons, author of the list, defined a troubled man as one who is “working through his problems, and trying to make sense of the world and his place in it.”

The genre of coming-of-age literature is full of both young men and women who are trying to navigate the world and its conflicts. So, of course, Parsons’ selection of troubled men leads me to ask, what about the women?

Of course, I have several favorites: Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar, Emma Bovary, Shakespeare’s Cleopatra. And most recently I’ve been touched by Ree’s story in Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone. Her troubles are inflicted on her by her father and extended family, crank dealers who cook up their product deep in the Ozark woods. Her recently arrested father uses their house as collateral to post bond and then disappears. If he doesn’t show up for court the house is lost and Ree, her catatonic mother, and two younger brothers will be tossed out. As she searches the frozen winter landscape for signs of him, dead or alive, she is pulled deeper into a lawless society that lives according to an ancient and brutal code.

Perhaps my favorite troubled woman is Lisbeth Salander from Stieg Larsson’s millennium series. In this case, skip the books and go straight to the Swedish movies: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire. The role is perfectly cast; Noomi Rapace plays a tattooed, pieced, leather-jacket wearing genius hacker who has been abused by the male authority figures in her life. Now she doesn’t like guys, though through a series of accidents she becomes reluctant friends with middle-aged journalist Mikael Blomkvist.

Lisbeth is one of the most memorable cinematic antiheros since Le Femme Nikita. Though she’s tiny and lithe, you believe she can fight off a series of attackers in the underground, ride a motorcycle, and exact all matters of revenge. She also cleans up well. When she dons a blond wig and Chanel-like suit, she wouldn’t be out of place next to Anna Wintour at Paris’ fashion week.

Those are a few of my favorites. How about one of yours?

Book Bags: Literary Classics as Fashion Accessory

French fashion designer Olympia Le-Tan, formerly of Chanel, feared that her favorite literary classics were being forgotten because of the Internet so she decided to turn them into clutch-style purses or “literapurses” as they are being called. The collection, “You Can’t Judge a Book By Its Cover,” includes sixteen first-edition cover designs of such literary classics as Lord Jim, Moby Dick, The Catcher in the Rye, and For Whom the Bell Tolls. The covers are hand-knitted and embroidered with silk thread over finely crafted Italian leather and lined with liberty-patterned fabric.

Stocking your shelves with Le-Tan’s handiwork will set you back about $1,500 a clutch, almost as much as a first edition.

You can take a look at her handiwork at www.olympialetan.com

A Plain English Major

“My mother kept telling me nobody wanted a plain English major. But an English major who knew shorthand was something else again. Everybody would want her,” says Esther in The Bell Jar.

I was reminded of Esther’s self-questioning a few evenings ago when I got together with several of our interns and poetry editor to review Editors’ Prize contest submissions.

One of the poetry interns was graduating in December to return home to an uncertain future. He wanted to go to law school but didn’t have the money. He thought he might enlist in the military. The other two had sent out graduate school applications and were waiting to hear if they were admitted for fall.

All three had what you might call “buyer’s remorse.” They openly wondered where an English degree from a state university would get them. The figured, at worst Mom and Dad’s basement and a counter-culture career, at best more school and, if they were lucky, a teaching job.
One regretted not going to J-school. Another thought he should’ve gotten a teaching certificate. All of them knew how to write decent papers for class, but wondered what explicating a text had to do with the “real world.”

I told them if they knew how to write they were already ahead of the competition on the job market. I said, “Writing and editing is a valuable commodity. Employers are desperate for workers who can put together a sentence.”

One of them admitted that he wasn’t even sure he was such a great writer.

We passed the bottle of wine and refilled our glasses.

Twenty years earlier, I was one of five who graduated from my small liberal arts college with a BA in English. Most of my classmates had BS’s in business management and computer science and were going onto jobs as soon as they turned in their caps and gowns. My career trajectory was slow and roundabout, but somehow I had ended up with the work that I wanted: writing, teaching and editing. Looking back, I made my way by accepting little bits of work that became increasingly steady and higher paying. Rather than talent, I’ve always had a simple willingness to work.

I know our three poetry interns will be fine. It will simply take them awhile to find their ways. In the meantime, I know where you can find three bright, funny, and energetic English majors for hire. Will work cheap.