A Writer’s Diary Entries From Late May, 2000
Sunday, May 21, 2000
8 PM. Last evening at 6 PM, I drove to Fort Lauderdale to see what I could find at Borders. I bought the Sunday New York Times, but they still had the May 8 Publishers Weekly and no TWN – but I got that at the Peaches record store a few blocks away.
In his Book Nook column, Jesse Monteagudo reviewed a novel called My Lesbian Husband, so I guess I should just give up on getting a mention in TWN.
Amazon.com Advantage ordered two copies of With Hitler in New York. I’ll mail the package at the post office tomorrow when I need to pick up a certified letter from the League of Women Voter regarding my write-in candidacy for the U.S. Senate.
I read the papers in bed till 10 PM, then fell asleep and happily stayed asleep till 6:30 AM.
This morning, I went out at 9 AM, heading first to my office to check email and to make sure there were no reviews in the Palm Beach Post or San Jose Mercury News.
There weren’t, of course, and at Barnes & Noble, I checked out the Sun-Sentinel’s book pages: nada. So I read the New York Times Magazine and Business sections and leafed through some magazines until I had iced tea refill chills and left the store.
At the corner of University and State Road 84, I decided to go to the Sawgrass Malls Borders on the remote chance they’d gotten in the May 15 PW. To my surprise, they had. It took me awhile to locate the “note” on my book, but here it is:
Compulsively talky and engaging disjunctive, the 12 stories in The Silicon Valley Diet, Richard Grayson’s ninth collection, flash snapshots of gay men in their 20s, 30s and 40s battling it out in an online world. Lighter and funnier than much gay fiction, the stories riff on contemporary consumer culture (“I’m wearing Calvin Klein chinos like the sexy adolescents I spotted this morning in full-page ads in Wired and Swing”) and introduce sweet, mixed-up characters like Terence, who has a child “slept with a teddy bear – even when he was practically, by his own admission, a teenage prostitute.” Grayson knows New York City – where many of these stories are set – inside and out. (Red Hen, $14.95 paper 182p ISBN 1-888966-23-4; June)
I was stunned with joy. I even showed it to the cashier when he rang up the sale. (Not that he’d ever ask about ordering the book, of course.)
I drove home on a cloud of euphoria. Earlier, when today’s papers and TWN came up blank, I felt like an ignored victim of a heartless media and suddenly I felt empowered.
Of course, the reality is that this review was out there for a week; I just didn’t see it till this morning.
I emailed this review to lots of people in an embarrassingly tacky mass email and added a review excerpt to the Amazon page for the book. The only response so far: Jeffrey Knapp wrote, “Mazel tov!”
I also sent the review to Kate, who might have already seen it. Since the listed pub date was June, I’m certain that my bound uncorrected galleys were responsible for the review. That’s empowering.
I think the PW review proves my strategy for the book was better than that of Red Hen Press. The review also makes me feel justified in putting the book out in the first place.
My parents didn’t seem very impressed by the review when I read it to them over the phone, but that’s probably because the gay stuff makes them uncomfortable. That’s their problem.
I’m sure that today’s glow will fall away just as fast as yesterday’s euphoria about the book’s being mentioned in Salon’s Table Talk discussion group.
And I know that if the New York Times Book Review didn’t do anything for I Survived Caracas Traffic, this little PW notice isn’t going to affect my life at all.
For today, though, I can enjoy this.
Thursday, May 25, 2000
9 PM. I’m surprisingly relaxed, considering that in a few days I’m moving to Arizona. But I can see that everything will work out.
Charmaine drove my car today and she’s going to recommend that her friend buy it for the $200 that I’m asking. We’ll do it on Tuesday if possible.
If that doesn’t work out, I’ll just sell it for whatever. It rides okay, and I’d like to see it helping out someone who needs a car, but I’m not sentimental.
I took two more packages to the post office today, and I’ve got to take my TV, VCR and microwave to UPS. But I’ll just leave the little furniture I have here and eat my security deposit.
Last evening I relaxed and watched TV. As I told Sat Darshan, I read that social scientists studying what makes people happy have come up with only two things so far: a workplace where they can gossip and be friendly, and watching soap operas. Both are about human contact.
I slept well, dreaming about New York City. Teresa says they they’re going to be “running a hotel” in the house in mid-June: Deirdre and her kids are coming for a week, Paul’s British cousins are coming the day after Deirdre leaves, and Jane is going to Italy on June 26.
I offered to change my flight date, but Teresa said that Jane offered me her bedroom – or I could stay at her parents’ house in Brooklyn the way I did three years ago. I told her I could sleep on the floor for one night in Locust Valley if necessary.
Sat Darshan keeps telling me how hot it is in Phoenix, but at 7 AM here the relative humidity was 97%, and that can feel pretty hot when the temperature is “only” 88°. At least in desert-dry Phoenix, I won’t sweat as much as I do here.
Wade offered to email his friend Dan Bivona about me – “to put in a good word” he said – and I’m grateful to him.
Sat Darshan said she always liked Wade, “although it’s not politically correct to say so in my family. So he was a lousy husband, but I’ve never met a man who wasn’t.”
She also asked – rhetorically – why none of the guys she’s been involved with became financially successful, but that was only after I said Scott Koestner’s six-figure income didn’t make him very wealthy: not for a New York attorney at his stage of life.
Jenafer sent me a photo of herself after I sent her mine when I replied to her question about my age. She said I look at least fifteen years younger than 49.
She’s trying to arrange readings and is in touch with a friend who belongs to various gay groups. I’ll do all I can, but like most literary fiction writers, I need to adjust to the awful realities of the current publishing climate.
It’s actually easy for me, since I’ve never sold books or made “New York money.” I feel worse for the midlist authors who got used to modest five-figure advances. With only a thousand copies of my book in print, I just have to do all I can to remember that.
At 10 AM, I went to Taco Bell for a large Diet Pepsi, and I read about half the paper before returning to my office. I got two more department store credit card refund checks today, so I deposited over $100 in the Bank of America ATM.
At 4 PM, I went over to the house where the Women’s Resource Center is located. Suellen showed me around to see all the rooms – they have great stuff like clothing and toys for battered or needy women and their kids – and then I joined the little party.
Several people from the Liberal Arts Division were there: Santa, Ben, Maria, Jim, Charles and Carmen. Ben said he emailed and snail-mailed my letter of recommendation to ASU, and I’m sure he said nice stuff.
Spotting a young woman who looked very familiar, I finally realized she was Jennifer Wiggins, the star soccer player who was in my Language 1500 class years ago.
Jennifer is now teaching at Hollywood Hills High School, and after she gets her B.S. in sports and wellness next year, she’ll go for a master’s in education.
Teaching can be wonderfully rewarding, but God, I still hope to avoid ever having to teach public school.
Jennifer said she would always remember how, when she suffered a concussion in a game, I told her I would fail her only if she did any work for my class for the next two weeks, that resting was the most important thing she could do.
Someone at the party asked if I were sad to be leaving. I haven’t really thought about it yet. Leaving South Florida is something I’ve done again and again for various periods of time, and I assume that someday I may come back.
Suellen said if I ever need a place to stay in Broward, I should let her know. I kissed and hugged her goodbye. I’ll see the others tomorrow or on Tuesday.
There was a gorgeous sunset in the western sky at 8 PM, after our late-day thunderstorms had passed.
My body isn’t too alert now, so I’d better lie down and close my eyes.
Friday, May 26, 2000
9 PM. I’m going to try to enjoy the holiday weekend and not get stressed out about moving. While I’ll probably have moments of anxiety, everything will get done, and once I’m on that plane Wednesday morning, this part of moving will be over.
This morning I took over my TV and video cassette player (yes, the one that’s 15 years old and doesn’t record) to Mailboxes Etc. to ship them to Apache Junction.
It cost over $70, and it’s made me decide just to leave the microwave; I’ll buy a new one in Arizona. It probably wasn’t worth it to send the TV and VCP, either.
Most of my clothes have been shipped, and whatever I can’t get in my luggage, I’ll just leave. I’ll pack over the weekend and see how it goes.
I spoke to Charmaine’s friend Gail, and we’re going to try to arrange for me to get the car to her during her lunch hour at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. Gail told me she didn’t get paid till Wednesday, and so – probably stupidly – I said I’d take her father’s check.
I guess if I get screwed the way I did when the guy on Salon’s Table Talk never paid me for the book I sent him, I’m just getting back some karma from when I didn’t repay the extra University of Florida paycheck from CGR three years ago.
Besides, if this sale doesn’t go through, I’ll just give the car away to someone else. Maybe I’ll get some good karma out of that.
I went to the Nova campus after eating breakfast and found a message on my voicemail from Suellen at 11:30 PM last night, thanking me for “honoring” her with my visit yesterday and reiterating her invitation to stay with her and her husband when I come to South Florida.
I emailed back, saying that it was I who felt honored, and I sent her my books through interoffice mail.
While in the Liberal Arts office, I found my student evaluations for the final term, and they were as good or better than the excellent evaluations I got for the first eight-week semester last fall.
The surprise was the good reaction from the night class, where I felt poorly prepared.
The Constitutional History II class also was very good, except on “knowledge of the subject matter,” and that’s probably because I kept telling them I wasn’t a historian.
These evaluations are good enough to keep and use when I apply for teaching jobs this fall or afterwards.
The gay book distributor said that Valentine Publishing Group (Mark, I assume) asked for too steep a discount for him to make a profit and said that as a result “no bookstores will carry that title.”
I’m not sure whether he’s being honest or just self-interested, but I know that Kate and Mark have their own way of doing things and will keep doing the same despite the fact that they never really work: the blurbs, the bookstore readings, their totally ineffective Web pages.
So the book won’t be in gay bookstores. But on the other hand, gay bookstores are dying off, victims of the megastores’ LGBT sections.
Tonight I found TWN at Barnes & Noble, and of course there’s no review and no mention. For some reason, TWN seems to hate me; I can’t figure out why they’ve always ignored me.
Jesse had a column rather than a book review this week. It was about Daniel Curzon, who’s obviously been known only as a gay author. I’ll always be grateful to him for his great review of With Hitler in New York in the San Francisco Voice 21 years ago.
I’ll keep looking for a review in the Sun-Sentinel, Palm Beach Post and San Jose Mercury News, but I think the Publishers Weekly notice – which showed up online at Lexis today – will be the high point of publicity for The Silicon Valley Diet, just as the New York Times Book Review notice was for I Survive Caracas Traffic.
I see that Diet is now listed on the Web stores of Barnes & Noble and Borders as a “special order – ships in 3-6 weeks” item.
Patrick said he got his copy in three days from Amazon. I went to see him at his office late this morning, bringing my last batch of small press books for him to put in his little library at BCC’s South Campus.
Patrick told me about going to the beautiful Wildacres Retreat in the North Carolina mountains for conference on Writing Across the Curriculum, and we chatted about writing, publishing and college teaching for several hours.
After hearing thunder, I figured I’d better say goodbye and get back to Davie. For once, I initiated a hug. I will miss Patrick.
Saturday, May 27, 2000
6:30 PM. Last evening I read The Chronicle of Higher Education till 11:30 PM. I am sure I could get one of the jobs advertised for community college English teachers at terrible small towns or in rural areas, but the thought of living in places like that makes me ill.
Whatever I face in Phoenix, I’ll be in a big city. Two years ago, when I arrived in Phoenix on June 2, 1998 after six weeks in Wyoming, I felt as if I were back in civilization when I saw the New York Times stands at Sky Harbor.
I woke up after 3 AM after a dream in which I was bicycling through New York City streets and finally found Grandma Ethel sick in bed on the second floor of a brownstone. I may have drifted back to sleep for twenty minutes or so, but mostly my mind was too active to sleep.
This morning I exercised to an audiotape of Body Electric and left the apartment for the 10:10 AM matinee of Woody Allen’s new old-fashioned comedy Small Time Crooks at the Sawgrass Malls megaplex.
Alone in the theater in my stadium seat, I was watching close to the end of the movie when an elderly couple came in and asked me, “Is this movie almost over?”
“How should I know?” I said. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“Well, it’s supposed to start again at 12:05 PM.”
“Is it 12:05?”
“In 15 minutes.”
“Well, I guess it will be over by then.”
When I left the theater I felt like telling the people that the movie wasn’t over, but I was walking out in the middle because it stunk.
The wife would have probably said, “See, I knew we should have seen the other movie!”
I had a better laugh about this old couple’s stupidity than I did through the whole film.
Back at home, I started packing and called Dad, telling him I don’t need to be picked up at Sky Harbor because I plan to rent a car there.
I made three trips to the office today, but there was no real email. Igor called while I was out, but when I phoned the number I have for him, I got a fax machine or modem.
Sunday, May 28, 2000
9 AM. I was wrong about the Publishers Weekly review being the high point of my book’s publicity. It got a review so wonderful in today’s Sun-Sentinel that I couldn’t have written a better one myself – and God knows, I’ve considered it.
So for two Sundays in a row, I’ve experienced the elation that a good review can bring and the satisfaction that I was right to have faith in my work and in this book.
Though I got into bed very early last night, I couldn’t fall asleep easily.
I was still wide awake when Igor phoned at 10:30 PM. He told me about his weeklong visit to New York. Igor attended Richard Kostelanetz’s 60th birthday party. The new edition of The Dictionary of the Avant-Garde is out, and there’s an entry on me, though I’m not sure it’s been updated.
Igor said he’ll be happy when Violetta finishes optometry school next year and they can end their “Southern exile.” I still think Igor is a little over-confident about his literary talents and background, but maybe he will find it easier to publish when he’s in a “scene” in New York.
I slept all right, and by 7 AM I got out of bed to do the laundry, eat breakfast, glance at the New York Times and exercise.
At 9:30 AM, with my laundry put away – mostly in a suitcase – I went to Barnes & Noble, where I almost forgot to look at the Sun-Sentinel’s book page.
It was the last review I saw – “Snapshots of Modern Humanity” – and I skimmed it and felt an immediate high. I was so excited that I left the store and drove around aimlessly till I headed to Starbucks, where I ordered passion iced tea and tried to concentrate the Times.
It wasn’t till I was back at home at noon that I carefully read the review, which was quite long. It seemed like the reviewer, Pat MacEnulty, had understood totally what I was trying to do.
Here is some of the review:
Most readers will find something familiar in the ninth collection of short stories, a paperback original, by the Fort Lauderdale author and college instructor Richard Grayson.
I, for one, enjoyed revisiting my old stomping grounds of Plantation and Tallahassee, and being reminded of the taste of croissants from Zabar’s in Manhattan. I nodded as I read Grayson’s renditions of the daily dramas that unfold in e-mails, the concerns with what we eat, the trauma of teaching community college students to write five-paragraph essays and the quest for good, if not always true, love.
Gay readers will most likely appreciate the affectionate and funny portrayals of gay men in tender and troubled relationships. Straight readers shouldn’t have any problems identifying, either. . .
Although memorial services for young men seem commonplace in Grayson’s fiction, the stories are not tragedies. They serve up slices of life as we know it right here and now with hate crimes, weight worries and easy money for Internet whizzes. . .
. . . the stories overall are funny, intelligently written and original. “Spaghetti Language” mixes the narrator’s love for a dead grandfather, a friend’s beautiful 4-year-old child, and his lover, Terence, a gorgeous, tall, young black man who appears in several stories with learning computer programming language. There is a connection.
“Boys’ Club” drops the reader smack dab into the lives of a gay punk band. This is probably the most traditional story and my favorite. The narrative voice is so authentically young and misunderstood and rebellious and poignantly philosophical: “Anarchism doesn’t only mean destroying the government. It could also mean destroying the forces dictating how people have to live. It was more acceptable to be out in the punk scene than in mainstream music culture even before you were able to slam around with other boyfags in lingerie.”
Grayson’s writing is full of delicious nuggets. Here’s an insight in the title story about the narrator’s hunt for a meaningful relationship: “I’d long ago given up going to slaughterhouses and trying to approach aspiring Abercrombie & Fitch catalog models emitting radiation from isotopes of unobtainium. After enough `access denied’ messages, you don’t want to do anything but log off.”
Other cool stories include “Those Old Dark, Sweet Songs,” about the narrator’s complicated relationship with Terence; “The Five Stages of Eating at Cuban-Chinese Restaurants,” in which Terence breaks up with the narrator; and “Anything But Sympathy” about a 30-year-old man’s first relationship with another man.
These stories accurately capture snapshots of our culture at a very interesting moment. The Silicon Valley Diet and Other Stories sets out to prove we haven’t really lost our humanity under the deluge of technology. And we probably never will.
MacEnulty is a former Sun-Sentinel staffer, now a fiction writer in Charlotte.
After lunch, I went to Nova and saw Chris Jackson leaving the Parker Building. She asked if Oline Cogdill of the paper had gotten in touch with me about the review they wanted to print.
I said no, but that I’d seen it this morning. It turned out that the review actually had been posted on the Sun-Sentinel website on Friday night. As I emailed in my thanks to Chauncey, it was the best going-away present I could have received.
Funnily enough, I got an email from Ray, one of the students I’d given my books to. He’d read them and passed them around to other students who have, he said, formed a “Richard Grayson Fan Club” and want to know where they can get other books. I told him about today’s review and then said the book was available on Amazon.
I saved the review and sent it to people who probably didn’t like my last mass email on the PW review. The Sun-Sentinel review will probably annoy a lot of people, including Josh, who can’t be happy for anyone, and Tom, who didn’t like the book at all and who will think I’ve gotten undeserved praise.
I also put excepts from MacEnulty’s review in my CV and added a 20-word (their limit) blurb to the Amazon web page for Diet.
At this point I no longer care that the book didn’t get a review in the Palm Beach Post or Mercury News. The Sun-Sentinel is a good paper with a large circulation, and even though the review is easy to miss, I’m sure plenty of people who know me saw it.
I spent much of the afternoon at my office, which I’m almost ready to vacate. Karen came by, saying she locked her car keys in her office, so we called security from my office to get her door opened.
I called Mom to wish her and Dad a happy wedding anniversary. (A line in the review said, “All the protagonists in these stories seem to be looking for the lifelong commitment that Mom and Dad embodied.”)
The review was way too long for me to read it to Mom over the phone, but I emailed a copy to Marc. I probably shouldn’t have sent out another mass emailing after I’d done that last week with the PW review.
Realistically, there’s not much more I can hope for in the way of reviews, though of course I’m still going to try to get more publicity and make things happen for the book.