Growing up, Oran Canfield’s life couldn’t have been further from the average person’s childhood experience. The son of Chicken Soup for the Soul author and self-help guru Jack Canfield, Oran spent his early years honing his juggling skills among circus people, attending punk rock shows, and just basically spending time with every possible unusual subset of fringe culture.

As an adult, Oran relocated to San Francisco, where he played drums in a number of art rock bands, opened a successful recording studio, and developed a drug addiction that nearly killed him. In his debut memoir, Long Past Stopping, Oran chronicles his long and often frustrating road to recovery with unexpected humor as he unpacks the numerous bizarre stories he collected along the way.

Chris Teja: How did the idea for Long Past Stopping come about?

Oran Canfield: The whole thing started because of a clever title I had come up with. I woke up one morning with, Give Me Some Bread with that Chicken Soup in my head, and said to myself, “Damn. I’m going to have to write a book.” I had never written anything before that.

Chris: That would have been great. So you just kept writing even after the original title fell by the wayside?
Oran: The original title was scrapped towards the end of the writing process because the book didn’t have as much to do with my dad as the proposal had. Although I agree with the decision, I still love the working title.

Chris: What effect do you think you father’s involvement will have with how people react to your story?
Oran: I think the biggest effect is the obvious irony between my childhood, my lifestyle choices as an adult, and my cynicism, and my Dad’s feel-good, self-help, Hallmark-style pop psychology. I have already received a number of emails from people whose parents made them read his books and who can relate on that level. So far the sensationalism that could have come up has has been minor.

Chris: I think people will be surprised to find out that your being the son of Jack Canfield is probably the least crazy aspect of your story. I really loved all the surreal, almost unbelievable moments (particularly your trip to Mexico). Was there anything you left out thinking that it might just be too strange to believe?
Oran: Believe it or not, I actually left a lot out. Some of it because the stories were too strange to believe, but mostly because a book only has so much room for crazy story after crazy story. In the end I even had to cut about 70 pages from the original manuscript. Very sad.

Chris: I bet. After reading about how, as a teenager, you helped a middle-aged Mexican man carry his drunk friends, who inexplicably fall asleep in the middle of the road night after night, I can only imagine what was deemed too strange. Did you have any journals to reference when you were writing or did you have to do it all from memory?

Oran: I had journals from certain time periods, but mostly I worked from memory and/or interviewed family and friends. I am actually still in touch with many of the characters in the book, and I tracked down others I hadn’t spoken to in years. It is amazing how these age-old experiences I haven’t thought about in years come right to the surface when I sit down and start writing, or how someone’s voice or even listening to music from the time period can trigger certain memories.

Chris: What it difficult to revisit some of those times?
Oran: It was possibly one of the hardest things I have ever done. Surprisingly, it was mostly the childhood stories that were hard to re-live. By the time I started writing, I had already come to terms with much of what I wrote about in the drug-using chapters. It was really the childhood stuff and family stuff that was hard to get through because writing requires a certain amount of empathy for all the characters, which I had never experienced before. All of a sudden I had to contemplate what my parents and friends might have been going through, which made it a lot harder for me to be angry at them. There were more than a few moments when I broke down crying during the writing process.

Chris: Did you have a sense that doing something as straightforward as writing your life story could be so exhausting?
Oran: Having never written before, I knew it was going to be hard, but I really didn’t have any idea what I was in for.

Chris: Is there a specific thing you hope that people will take away from your story?
Oran: Hopefully a certain amount of acceptance and even appreciation for themselves, the weird people in their lives, and their own crazy experiences. In the end, it’s all these crazy stories that made me who I am today.

Chris: And they also resulted in a completely fascinating book. So Oran, if you were to take you’re entire story and edit it down to a six-word memoir, what would it be?
Oran: Chicken Soup for the Misanthropic Soul.

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VISIT Oran Canfield’s website

Back in July, we interviewed Philip Smith about his new memoir, Walking Through Walls, which explores his late father’s fantastic life and work as a faith healer.  Now it’s out in paperback, so we checked in with him to find out how he feels about publishing his story and how people (and spirits) are reacting.

Photo credit: Guido Apicella

It’s been a few months since Walking Through Walls came out in hardcover. What’s the most surprising reaction (human or spirit) you’ve received to the book?
The response has been amazing not only from strangers, but also from people who studied with and were healed by my father. I’ve been delighted that many doctors have read the book and told me that they are rethinking how they practice medicine. However, the most surprising and satisfying reaction was both human and spirit. A few months ago a woman who had read the book called me up. After she introduced herself, she told me that my father was with her and did I have a few minutes to speak with him. She proceeded to channel my father for the next 45 minutes, and it was quite a conversation. Those 45 minutes were worth all six years I put into writing the book.

That’s amazing. It seems that your father is definitely still around you and that you are communicating with him in unexpected ways. In your previous interview with us, we learned that the spirits have told you that you’ve barely begun to become the psychic healer you’re perhaps destined to be. Have your abilities developed further in any way since you last spoke with us?
I’ve had several wonderful incidents of communication from the other side. Growing up, I would watch my father communicate with invisible spirits just as he would with the living. For him there was no separation between the living and those in the spirit world. However, I was surprised when this started happening to me.

A couple things have happened: first of all there is much, much more synchronicity in my life since the book came out. People and events seem to materialize holding a big arrow that points in the direction I need to be going. Maybe I’m more sensitive to these signs, but it seems as if my father is all over me these days. I think the book woke him up and he’s back on the scene.

Recently, I have helped several people, but I’ve always felt that my father’s ideas and energy are best manifested through my paintings. The Tibetans make paintings called Thankas that provide the viewer with a blessing or insight. Humbly, I hope that in some small ways my paintings can do the same. They all speak about my father in various ways. By the way, the woman who called me up to talk to my father also told me that I am working with a lot of his information in my paintings.

You mentioned that you stopped painting for a while in order to devote yourself entirely to the book. Have you gone back to painting? Has the experience of writing the book had any effect on your creative process?
Even though in my mind, I never felt that I had stopped painting, I was surprised by how difficult it was to really get back into the flow of painting. Writing the book engaged the less frequently used logical aspects of my brain. As a result, it took a while to reawaken the more atmospheric portion of my brain that flourishes in the creative process. It seems to me that the book writing process dramatically increased my sense of logic and objectivity that was not there before.

With painting, facts, or at least facts as we think of them, do not exist. However, in writing the book, I needed to assemble mountains of facts from his archives to make the book accurate. This required a real switch in brain function. Because my father’s life is so fantastic and stretches our very notion of reality, I needed to make sure that I worked exclusively from documentation. Writing the book was like an archaeological dig; I had to put together shards of our lives into a cohesive whole that made sense to the outside world. This is very, very different from painting.

To an outsider, it may seem that the paintings have not changed, but to me they have. They are simpler and much more charged. The lushness has dropped away and the viewer is now smack-dab in the middle of these strange vignettes, like some sort of surreal black and white movie from another dimension.

Philip Smith with his father

Now that the book is finished and you’re painting again, do you think you will ever be compelled to write more?
Possibly. When my father was alive, he wanted to teach as many people as possible his methods so that we could move on to the next level of treating human beings and their bodies as energetic entities rather than animate objects that need to be cut, sawed, and chemically repaired. I have received thousands of emails requesting more information on my father’s healing methods and techniques. So as part of my obligation to my father and his work, I do need to assemble his work in some cogent fashion that can be imparted through a book. However, there are some wonderful characters in my life that might make an interesting book as well. I’m just trying to get my sea legs back after a year of being available to the public for the book. Hopefully the next book project will unfold a bit quicker than this one did.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?
I am very, very grateful for the tremendous interest in the book and in my father’s work. During his life, he was not well received and was harassed by the authorities for his ideas. Now, fifty years later, his ideas are finally being thought about and discussed. This is the problem of being a visionary and being ahead of one’s time. But I am so happy that I was able to bring his work back to life.

And, finally, would you like to give us an updated six-word memoir?
Lucky you, lucky me.

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BUY a copy of Walking Through Walls (Now available in paperback!)

VISIT Philip Smith’s website

When an author’s first book is a memoir about childhood abuse, a teenage stint driving a hearse, messy adult relationships and, ultimately, revelations of incest, here’s one thing you don’t expect from the cover of her second: a photo of an adorable Golden Retriever puppy pawing a fuzzy toy soccer ball.

But that image—along with an impossibly cuter one of her then-preschool son Wills in a goofy red hat—graces Monica Holloway’s latest memoir, Cowboy & Wills: A Love Story, the story of how the titular dog helped her son let go of some of the social isolation and fear that come along with autism.

The experiences that inspired this book were undoubtedly wrenching: Holloway’s husband was away working in another city for much of the time (partly because of the need to pay off the sky-high bills associated with Wills’s diagnosis and treatment), leaving her largely alone as she dealt with the gut-punch of the diagnosis and the daily work of living with Wills’s autism, not to mention her own grief, worry, and always-lurking obsessive compulsive disorder. Still, where Holloway’s first book garnered praise in words like brutal and harrowing, Cowboy & Wills was recently described in People magazine as a “sweet and heartbreaking tale of boy-dog love.” Which feels, well, like quite a different thing.

Holloway got together with SMITH writer Sandy M. Fernandez over IM to explain how she got from her son’s diagnosis to the release of her book about him, how Wills is doing today, and a certain contentious review.

Why did you decide to write Cowboy & Wills?
I was working on the sequel to my first book, Driving with Dead People, when I went to lunch with my fabulous editor, Trish. I’d told her about Cowboy and Wills together and how great they were. I also told her that the sequel wasn’t coming along as fluidly as I’d hoped. Right then, we looked at each other and knew that the sequel to Driving was not going to happen—we were switching to Cowboy & Wills. I was thrilled. To write about my son, my favorite subject in the world, and our darling dog would be a joy beyond belief.

What do you think was the roadblock to the Driving sequel?
I was temporarily done with the subject of my childhood—at least, the difficult parts. I wanted very much to help other people when I wrote DWDP. I felt that perhaps someone going through childhood abuse would find, not only comfort, but hope, in the fact that both my sister and I made it out with our futures intact.

In that same vein, I was hoping to give people hope through the story of Cowboy & Wills. There is a lot of work involved when you have an autistic child, but there’s a lot of silliness and fun to be had, as well. I wanted to show other parents that I bungled my way through; maybe they wouldn’t have to make the mistakes I made. I also very much wanted people to understand that no person—young or old—should be ashamed of having autism.

Cowboy & Wills seems, compared to DWDP, pretty sunny. But in other ways, it feels like certain themes were continued, no? You’re open about your own worries & neuroses in the book, and about having OCD.
I think the theme of hope in the face of adversity is there, but I think it’s there in all of our lives every single day. Here’s the thing: The more I know about other people’s experiences, the better I become. I think most of us are looking for answers in other people’s lives (as well as books, Internet, etc). I feel great relief in sharing my life. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I just feel that secrets and shame need to be abolished—forever. So I think my real quest is to not feel shame about my life in any way, so maybe that’s why I carry a lot of things on my sleeve (or between a book cover). Put it on the table, let’s look at it.

How do you square that with the fact that you write under a pseudonym? You’ve gotten flack for that before.
Here’s the poop. Only two weeks before we were to go into galleys with DWDP, I got a call from Simon & Schuster. They’d suddenly decided that, for legal reasons, I had to change all names. The final blow was that I could “keep” my first name, but my last name had to go.

I spent the next two weeks changing 265 names (people and places, including the name of my childhood dog.) Absurd. Finally, I changed my last name to Holloway—after my great, great grandmother who, according to my grandmother, was a strong, single-minded woman. And DWDP was published under the new name. (This is all in an article I’m working on entitled, “The Year of Writing Dangerously” about wanting to tell your truth, but not wanting to be sued over it by the same people who abused you in the first place.)

Under normal circumstances, there would be no reason to change my name for Cowboy & Wills. But aside from confusing my readers, I was surprised to find that there was no longer a “Monica Buckley Price.” I used to insist that the one thing my abusive father couldn’t take from me was my name, but what I failed to realize was that every time I spoke, wrote, or answered to that name, I was associating myself with not only him, but my entire hellish childhood. “Monica Holloway” is my name now. I’ve decided to change it legally and actually feel, for the first time in my life, completely independent from my past.

Any memoir involves revealing not only yourself, but parts of other peoples’ lives. In your first, your family’s, for example. But your first book was mostly your tale—you were revealing your stuff. To me—and correct me if I’m wrong—C&W belonged to Wills. So did it feel different to you to be carrying his story out there for him?
Yes. My first book was about my journey, and C&W always goes back to Wills. Trish, my editor, was constantly reminding me to bring the story back to Wills. I made it sound like a snap decision [to write the book], and Trish and I deciding on it was. But after that, my husband and I worked with Wills and his therapist to make sure that this book was something that he could not only handle, but be proud of. His life. His autism. His struggles as a young boy. I don’t believe a parent can ask a twelve-year-old (Wills is 12 now), if it’s okay to write his life story. It’s not fair. He’s too young to know the consequences. That’s the parents’ job. But we did talk for hours and hours about the book and Wills, and I shared many stories about Cowboy and also about his struggle in those early years. I can’t say that down the line, Wills won’t look at me and wish I’d never written a word of this, but my biggest hope is that he’ll read the book (he’s reading it now), but when he’s older, and see how amazing he was and is. But it’s a good question—a fair one. He’s working on a book of his own right now, called Buddy & Wills. (Buddy is the second dog he gets at the end of the book.) He’s writing it as a children’s book. And he’s illustrating!

So cool. Was there anything that he told you when you were talking to him in prep for the book that surprised you?
I knew, obviously, that Cowboy’s death was devastating to Wills, but I had no idea that the wound was still so incredibly fresh. I had a book launch party last weekend and he’d seen the movie we were going to show of the two of them, but when it came on, he really cried hard. So it’s been positive in letting him finally get some of those old very sad feelings off his chest. Not that he’ll ever “get over” the loss of Cowboy—that’s impossible—but his grief needed to come out.

How old was he when she died?
Wills was 9.

I could see how that’s still fresh—no insult to Buddy.
No. I say in the book that Cowboy was Wills’ “first love and first love lost.” And that’s entirely true. And he has a completely different relationship with Buddy. He no longer needs a dog beside him to be present in the world—even though he prefers it. Those two are inseparable, but not because he’s traumatized. Cowboy held him up through (what I hope to be) the worst of times.

OK, stay with me because this is related but: Did you read the Washington Post review of your book? It seemed like there were parts of your book the reviewer was very concerned about, for example, that parents of autistic kids take away that all they have to do to “cure” their child was get a dog. And she took issue with what she called a lie when you didn’t immediately offer up that Wills had autism to a snoopy mom at school. (Full disclosure: I used to work at the Post.)
OH MY GOD! I’ve been dealing with phone calls ALL DAY LONG about that. I’m shocked and furious. That “we did not get services for Wills.” WHAT? MOST OF THE BOOK TALKS ABOUT THAT. That we dropped Wills in a pool of water “and hoped he’d make it” (something like that)? My husband just posted a comment I’m really proud of: We never owned a guinea pig, my husband’s not a screenwriter, Wills didn’t “get” jokes. (There’s a whole scene in the beginning, where I talk about getting monkeys instead of fish [for the aquarium] and explain that Wills DOES NOT GET JOKES.) Did she even read the book?

Now I’m going to get all intrusive: Of 100 percent outraged, how much of it is as a mother and how much as a writer?
Both! But 95 percent mom. To imply to any parent that they did not get services for their disabled child is infuriating! We practically went bankrupt doing it. Wills is our heart! And I would never, in a MILLION years, “lie” about his autism. If you read the scene she quotes, you would know that is not at all what happened. [It was me dealing] with an inappropriate, cruel mother [at his school]. So as a parent, I’m furious for being misconstrued in every way; as a writer, I’m furious that she didn’t write a fair and unbiased review. Calling me a liar at the end was the real shocker!

This is exactly why I partnered with Autism Speaks when this book came out. We don’t need the autism community split by deciding that I was a mother who didn’t care or do enough.

Not that you’ll be happy to hear this, but the review really stuck in my mind. She really stressed how alone you seemed, not only because your husband was away and you didn’t have a lot of family support, but because she read you as being somewhat in denial about Wills’s autism, and isolated by that.
Well, that’s a true statement for sure. I was in denial about Wills’s autism in the beginning and I was certainly isolated by that. I make that very clear in the book. Listen, if someone doesn’t like my writing and the book doesn’t hold up for them, fine. But get your facts straight.

OK, so going a little sideways: I found myself unexpectedly moved by the little YouTube video you guys put up about the book—in a way I normally am not at YouTube videos of other people’s kids! It was sort of amazing to actually see the moment he got Cowboy. How much input/influence did you have over putting together the ancillary products (marketing, book cover, that film) for the book?
I sent a box of pictures and a box of home movies and [the media production company] TurnHere put together the video for Simon & Schuster. Trish and I changed only two photos from what they originally picked. I did have say in what pics went in the book, but it was a group effort. I had no input on the cover pics—in fact, the pic they used of Wills was really surprising to me, not that I don’t love it, but because it was hanging on my fridge for years with all of this food and stuff on it, and when I was walking out the door to put the box in Federal Express (not easy to put original photos of your child in a FedEx box), I grabbed that one off the fridge and threw it in. I’m just glad you can’t see the food all over it.

I can only imagine the conversation in the art deptartment.
I’m not a fan of taking movies or pictures or thinking of a book as I’m living my life. When those pictures and movies were taken of Wills, I wasn’t even writing yet.

What about your piece in Leslie Morgan Steiner’s anthology, <em Mommy Wars, which featured Wills? Was that written before you knew you were going to be doing C&W? Or after?
I had to run and check the copyright date. Mommy Wars came out in 2006. At the time, anyone in my writing group would tell you, I was more obsessed—literally obsessed—about my first book being DWDP.

When Mommy Wars came out, did I consider a book out of the essay? I guess I probably did. Probably in the back of my mind I thought I’d write about Wills eventually.

Which will let me come around and end on one of my first questions: You said the sequel to DWDP wasn’t working out, so you moved on to C&W. I still think that C&W is more of a traditional sequel than one would think. In fact, it feels to me like DWDP is sort of submerged in C&W, coming through every once in a while in moments like when your OCD takes over and you spend all that time cleaning baseboards. But it also feels like a sequel in that, for as hard as that time with Wills clearly was for you, the book overall comes across as pretty optimistic—you’ve made it through. What do you think?
I’m smiling. You are definitely on to something. Maybe the “sequel” I thought I was writing to DWDP wasn’t working because C&W was knocking. Interesting.

Last question: what’s your six-word memoir?
Babies cannot fit through a vagina.

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BUY Cowboy & Wills: A Love Story.

WATCH the Cowboy & Wills video on Monica Holloway’s web site.

HEAR and audio excerpt of the book on Simon & Schuster book site.

Kamila’s story reads like a novel: she was born in Lebanon, never allowed to attend school, and married against her will when she was only 14 years old. She could not read or write for herself, something that bothered her all of her life. What she wanted more than almost anything else was to tell her own story; she wanted her voice heard. So she called upon her daughter.

Hanan Al-Shaykh was a respected novelist who had used her past for inspiration, but she intentionally avoided picking up a pen on behalf of her mother for years. Al-Shaykh already knew a fair amount of her mother’s past: she remembered when her mother asked for a divorce from her father (a man 18 years her senior) to marry the man she had been seeing in secret for years. Al-Shaykh remembered how her mother had not fought for custody of her two children during her divorce. She remembered her mother leaving the family to begin her life again. What she remembered was hurtful, and she was less than eager to devote time and attention recounting it.

It was only after she finally agreed to write her mother’s story that Al-Shaykh was able to uncover truths she had never known. Her mother was willful and brave. She dreamed of attending school, and when that was not a possibility, she found an escape in films at the local theater. She dreamed of a rich life, based not just on material possessions, but also on the comfort of love. She dreamed of the kind of romance she was denied during her first marriage. When she found love, she jumped at the chance to hold onto it.

The layers of Kamila’s story are complicated, and certainly not made any less so by the fact that her memoir was written by her daughter but told in her own voice after her death. Hanan Al-Shaykh rose to the challenge when she agreed to tell her mother’s story. She used her gift as a storyteller to not only explore her own memories, but to finally grant her mother the recognition she desired all her life. Al-Shaykh used her pen to give her mother a voice, and the result is The Locust and the Bird. We recently asked her a few questions about the book, her writing, and her life.

Your writing deals with subject matter that is controversial throughout much of the Islamic world. Does your work challenge your own personal beliefs?
I depict on Arab societies in my novels, and yes, my subjects are controversial due to my strong feelings towards the complex society I lived in which, alas, is now more stifling and wrenched with sorrow and backwardness.

What was the process for obtaining the information you needed for the book? How much of it came from your mother, and how much came from other family members?
The miracle happened when I first pricked up my ears and opened all my senses when my mother was telling me her story; when I asked her many questions; when I revisited my own hidden memories of her; and when my brothers and sisters gave me all Muhammad’s (her lover, then husband) diaries and his letters to my mother, though she was illiterate.

The book was published in Arabic a few years ago, and it ignited in some members of my family and mother’s friends many forgotten stories and episodes. Of course, I was enchanted with what I heard and included these stories in the English edition.

From your prologue, it’s clear that you were quite reluctant at first to tell your mother’s story. Was there any point while you were working on the book that you had second thoughts about finishing it?
Yes, I had second thoughts about finishing the book when my mother suddenly changed her mind about being very descriptive and frank about her poverty—especially a description of how she used to search in the soil of her village for something to eat. But a wise friend of mine pushed me to write the chapter and read it to my mother; and this is what I did. My mother became so happy, and at the same time so emotional. She cried and said “Go ahead, my daughter, I trust you—write whatever you want.”

Are there any aspects of the story which you improvised? How did you go about writing dialogue that had originally taken place so many years earlier?
Because my mother was totally illiterate, she had sharpened all her senses and had to memorize proverbs, dialogues of films, and people around her…she was so sharp and obsessed in saving every word she heard.

How difficult was it to write a memoir in your mother’s voice compared to writing fiction?
Difficult only emotionally. Otherwise, it was easy to inherit her personality. Whilst writing, I discovered great similarity between her and me. But as a fiction writer, I felt frustrated here and there. I wanted to intervene and change things; to give a bigger impact. Also I couldn’t just use one word or two to show my father as kind and a humanist, which is how I saw and knew him.

Though the memoir is written from your mother’s point of view, you have written a prologue and an epilogue in your own words. Do you see parts of your own memoir in The Locust and the Bird?
In writing my mother’s story, I had discovered my tangled emotions, the pain I must have felt of feeling abandoned when I was only six or seven years old, and my confusion about her deception while she was living two lives—with us and with her lover Muhammad.

What’s your writing process like? What do you do if you get stuck?
I write and write, searching for the narration voice and for what I want to write about, though I always start with an idea. I don’t want to sound conceited but I don’t remember ever getting stuck, except that once or twice I remember calling a friend to ask her what she thought character of mine should do. She always had the answer immediately.

Many of your books—including this one—have been translated from Arabic to English. Do you worry that anything will get lost in translation? Is it hard to trust someone else with your words?
I don’t worry at all when my stories are translated to the English language because I get involved with the translation. I am blessed with the translator Catherine Cobham, who has translated most of my books and plays. Why am I blessed? Because she is like a novelist herself and has a feel for the text. She preferred not to translate The Locust and the Bird because it wasn’t a novel.

Do you think that Islamic voices are underrepresented in the Western world?
Unfortunately yes, they are underrepresented, not because of the numbers of the writers, but because of the stereotypes the West seeks to find among Moslem voices such as Hirsi Ali and Manji. But what about a Moslem like my mother who, without a shred of timidity or discretion, recounted a life story of a Moslem woman who was a flawed woman, wickedly witty although female. Subjugation is alive and well in the book.

I feel as if her life and essence mock Western stereotypes that obscure, much like the actual veil itself, the face of many an Arab woman.

What are you reading right now?
I am reading Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig, and Valley of the Assassins by Freya Stark.

What is your six-word memoir?
My six-word memoir would be: When I nearly stroked a peacock.

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READ an excerpt The Locust and the Bird

BUY a copy of the book

CHECK OUT Hanan Al-Shaykh’s novels

David Small’s graphic memoir, Stitches, is a beautifully rendered account of a horrifying childhood, drawn in shades of gray—”a silent movie masquerading as a book,” as he describes it on his website. Small recently sat down and answered a few of Rebecca Touger’s questions on his childhood, his color choices, and his creative process.

You’ve had a long, award-winning career as a writer and illustrator of picture books for young children. But your illustrated autobiography Stitches is not children’s lit, and the subject matter is definitely geared towards adult readers. Is this the first time that you’ve drawn on your painful childhood for material, or has personal experience found its way into your other work in subtler ways?
With one exception, that being the poem “George Washington’s Cows,” my picture books are all metaphors for actual experience. The dark elements are overlain with humor and fantasy. With Stitches, which is a straight memoir, I felt I had to drop all the veils of metaphor—for a while at least—and look directly at the source.

Silence reigned in your household, blanketing some toxic family secrets. Instead of dialogue, your narrative is driven by child’s eye glimpses, often using no words at all. How long did this illustration process take? What materials do you use?
All the silence and the necessity for learning to read body language as a means of survival, those elements made the graphic form seem an appropriate medium for my tale. I worked about three years on the book very intensely and always at night, after a full day of work in the studio making picture books.

Materials: I drew with a brush and ink, a fine-point nib pen (the kind you dip, gets your hands dirty and splatters you with ink). Except for the lettering—which was done from a font of my own printing, and which lends a nice element of regularity to my loopy line work—Stitches is “computer-free!” (Heh!) Also, though most of the sketches—and even some of the final art—were made on junk paper (card stock, bought by the case from an office supply store)—most of it was completed on a nice, and rather more expensive piece of Bristol board. As you see, all very real, tangible, hands-on stuff.

Your book jacket is a striking Creamsicle orange, but the inked artwork within only uses shades of black, white and gray—perfectly conveying the smokestack haze of industrial Detroit and the dark turn that the story takes. Was the contrast intentional? Did you always imagine the book in black and white?
I couldn’t conceive of it any other way. Color always confuses the issue. My favorite films have all been either in black and white or by a director who thoroughly understood black and white before moving on to color (Hitchcock, Polanski, Bunuel, to name a few). Take a look at Bunuel’s Tristana, and you’ll see it is mostly monochrome, earth tones. When he throws in a red or some other color, it wrenches you in a specific direction he intends. Because every color elicits a different emotional response—the full spectrum can divert you from straightforward storytelling…if, that is, there is a story there to begin with! (So often, nowadays, the picture is drenched in wild color. Maybe this is a diversion from the essential vacuum at the center? I don’t know.) I’m not ruling out color from my future work in this medium, but it will have to be very limited color. By the way, it was Paul Buckley—a great designer—who came up with that stunning jacket.

The plain realities of your family history of dysfunction are plenty horrifying: despotism, philandering and gross neglect. But your illustration also veers into surreal fantasy, as when the grotesque fetus in the pathology lab of your father’s hospital comes alive and escapes his jar of embalming fluid. Were some of these arresting images inspired by real nightmares?
All of the dreams in the book are real dreams. I don’t keep a written journal, but I do keep a dream diary. I think of my dreams as a continuum of my life. They tell me stories and make up metaphors, which I couldn’t possibly concoct out of thin air, not in a zillion years.

Do you have a favorite image?
I have some favorite stills and some favorite sequences. Among the stills I’m fond of are some of the transition pages, such as the one on p. 185 showing that Ford Fairlane zipping down Woodward Avenue under an abstract mess of Googie-style architecture, urban signage, and utility wires. I like the transition pages where the stitches in my neck transform into the staircase in our house, which my legs are seen climbing up.

Of the sequential parts, I’ve just been discussing with a writer friend pp. 98 to 101: the scene in the bedroom with my mother. This sequence of panels is loaded with the weight of what has just happened (a sudden outbreak of physical nastiness by my Grandmother), of my trying, in my inept, six-year-old way, to tell my mother about it, and of Mother—because of her own history with the same crazy woman—suppressing it all, because of her own fear. It’s really two people whispering in a tight space because they know there’s a large mad animal prowling in the corridor outside. Much of the effect of all of this—as my friend so sharply pointed out—is done with a play of light and dark.

Your psychoanalyst plays a pivotal role as a stand-in parent. Why did you choose to cast him as a white rabbit?
Yes, my analyst was like a perfect father to me. But after the experience of my home life it was all a little unreal. The White Rabbit, in Alice, is the usher into a subconscious world, which Alice sees as nonsense. (She is like a patient rejecting the “curious” evidence of her dreams, which tell her that all is not right in her life.) So, the Rabbit seemed a perfect stand-in for the analyst, who ushers us into the world of the subconscious, where the truth is told at last.

Your relationship with your brother was always distant, even when you were six and he was ten. But, like you, he found home life difficult and often retreated into music and his drumming. What was his reaction to Stitches and your depiction of your parents?
My brother got out of home as fast as he could. He eventually became a percussionist, playing with the Colorado Symphony for over 30 years. He and I hardly spoke to one another before this book got made. It was too painful for either of us, having anything or anyone around, who reminded us of our early lives. Now, we talk.

Ted said my book was like a snapshot of his youth. (He asked if he might show it to his therapist.) I think—I hope—it made him feel less crazy, less personally responsible for the family nuttiness. Ours may be the last generation to carry on the traditions of selfish, silent, confused and confusing behavior in our family. It’s something to wish for, at any rate.

Can you talk a little bit about your writing and illustrating process? Do the images come first, or the words?
I wrote out almost every scene in Stitches before I drew it. It was the only way I could begin. Only language brings order to the chaos of memory. I have boxes full of manuscript—embarrassingly bad, I’m sure—which helped me grope my way toward a coherent shape for my book.

Which illustrators and/or authors do you most admire?
Among the dead artists: Daumier, Heinrich Kley, George Grosz, Kathe Kollwitz, Egon Schiele. Among the living artists: Jules Feiffer, Blutch, Sylvain Chomet, Nicholas de Crecy, Gipi. Frederick Peeters. As for authors: Chekov, Flaubert, James, and Thomas Mann.

What are you reading right now?
The Idiot by Dostoevsky and Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker.

And, finally, we always want to know: What’s your Six-Word Memoir?
Drawing well is the best revenge.

All images are from STITCHES by David Small. Copyright © 2009 by David Small. Reprinted by permission of W.W. Norton & Co.

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Depression, as we all know, can be deadly. Writer’s block is lethal. Combine the two, toss in some ADD, and it’s a wonder that writer Stephen Elliott would ever get out of bed, let alone pick up a pen and paper.

Fortunately, for the past eight years he has, delivering a huge body of work since, as he explains, “I sold a couple of books and got a Stegner Fellowship at the same time and just like that I was a writer.” He’s written seven books, including his 2004 Happy Baby, an autobiographical novel about an adult who’s survived numerous juvenile detention centers. Told in reverse chronological order and edited and designed by Dave Eggers for his then-young McSweeney’s Books, it won Elliott accolades from Salon, the Village Voice and others—and marked his spot on the map as an emerging writer to be reckoned with. That same year he published Looking Forward To It, about the quest for the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination. Elliott’s also been a frequent writer, in both fiction and nonfiction, on S&M and sexuality. Most notably, in 2006, he authored an erotica collection of short stories, My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up.

Last fall, during a time when he “couldn’t imagine writing another book,” Elliott launched an online literary magazine that is very much a reflection of his passions and personal tastes. The Rumpus boasts a healthy obsession for cultural coverage that’s typically not found on the front page of the New York Times style section.

While Elliott’s writing is both eclectic and prolific, in his life there’s been one constant: a mental state that’s terminally up and down. By 2006, at age 34, he was fully depressed. He couldn’t write, his relationships were less than stellar, he was broke, and he had a new addiction: Adderall.

Then he discovered the case of Hans Reiser, a computer genius who was charged with murdering his wife. Elliot attended the trial and became consumed with the case. It reminded him of his life, especially that of his own father, who Elliott notes in his new book, The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder, “may have killed man.” In a spirited g-chat conversation with Abby Ellin, Elliot shares his thoughts on writing, drugs, love, S&M, and how some of the worst people and most addictive drugs crawled inside his head and ultimately may have saved him.

aellin123 (Abby Ellin): So here’s the big question: Are you still taking Adderall? You say you are at the end of the book, but it’s been a while since you wrote it.
nowhere50 (Stephen Elliott): Yes. I state that in the book, near the end. I talk about all these memoirs, with their false optimistic endings. I didn’t want to do that. I know the reader wants me to get off the Adderall. That would give a much more logical narrative arc, but it would be staged and false. I still take ten milligrams a day, five days a week.

I don’t know that I want you to get off Adderall. I mean, if it helps you…
It probably doesn’t have much of an effect on me at this point, and that’s a pretty low dosage.

What do you do on the last two days? Do you rest, like God?
Not like God.

Did Adderall ever make you spacey?
No. Forgetful, maybe.

But it also saved you. You have a love/hate relationship with it.
That’s true. But ultimately I think it’s bad for you. You become dependent on it, and then you can’t do anything without it. And you have no idea who you would be if you weren’t taking the pills.

What’s the message you were trying to convey with the book? There are so many things in there—S&M, murder—which I found fascinating—your relationship with your dad, depression, relationships in general…
That’s an interesting question. If I were to boil it down to one thing: it’s really a book about writing and being a writer. And identity. And the search for the self.

Yes, and the creative process. And how brutal it is, especially when you were a wunderkind. I thought it was interesting that you threw Elizabeth Wurtzel in there. She’s 40 now…ancient!
Yeah, well, she’s not ancient, but she has an interesting story. Also, she writes these memoirs, and they end on upbeat notes, and next thing you know she was actually suicidal. And it’s interesting that she seems to have given up on writing, decided that it can’t give her what she needs.

From reading her books, it seemed like nothing ever gave her what she needed. But I don’t know if any writer is fulfilled. I suppose some are–but there is an inherent dissatisfied temperament, no?
I think you’re right. I think part of being a writer is being unhappy. But of course, you need massive bursts of confidence to do the work, to believe that anyone could be interested in what you have to say. But the dissatisfaction is part of what keeps us going. We have to keep creating our way out of this box we put ourselves in.

I wrote a book, part memoir of my experiences as a kid at fat camp, part investigation into fat kids and what makes them lose weight. And I struggled mightily on why anyone would care about my story. Who am I? Who gives a hoot about my life?
Did people care about your story?

Yes. It was fascinating–because the memoir part got excerpted all over the place. The reported stuff did not.
So people did care about your story. Your story was the most successful part of the book.

People only cared about my story, and that worried me. Because I am not that interesting. So I guess my question is–is that something you think about? Or thought about, as you were writing? Like, Who am I?
I believe that everybody has at least one story, and if it’s well written people will care. Some of my favorite books are memoirs about people whose lives haven’t been particularly interesting. Like Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick. Also, my favorite novel, or one of them, is Stoner by John Williams. There’s a lot to learn from uneventful lives. It’s the writing that’s important.

Everybody has unique experiences. And the way you process these experiences makes you different from everyone else in the world. The question is how well you access that information, and how honest you’re willing to be with yourself and the reader.

I worry–as a writer, and as a reader–that we should be telling stories about other people rather than about ourselves; that the confessional/memoir is not too easy an out for those of us who suffer from writer’s block.
To be a writer is to be indulgent. Art is indulgent, narcissistic. Those are not fair criticisms. Was Hemingway self-indulgent? Sylvia Plath? Charles Bukowski? Jack Kerouac? Yes. They were all self-indulgent. Sitting around cafes writing on napkins or beer coasters. But I’m glad for the art they created.

It’s a common misperception that for some reason we should be telling stories about other people instead of ourselves. It’s completely wrong because it overlooks the most important person, the reader. Writing a book without accessing your experiences is like building a house without a hammer. The person living in the house doesn’t care whether or not you used a hammer. She only cares if the roof leaks. The book is no more or less valuable because the writer is present within the text. It’s a false concern. It’s like when we were adolescents and we couldn’t wait to denounce our favorite band. It’s not really about anything. It’s just bitter cynicism. And it’s irrelevant.

Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys worked really well, I thought, as a movie–much better than the book. I know it was fiction, but the protagonist was a writer, and he had writer’s block, and it seemed too easy for a writer to write about that. Whereas as a film it worked great.
We have a huge disagreement when it comes to Wonder Boys. I think it’s easily Chabon’s best book. And you have to be crazy not to think Fortress of Solitude is Lethem’s best book. And certainly Kerouac never wrote anything as good as On the Road.

You could argue that On the Road was Kerouac’s best book. But that was way before we all started sharing our neuroses in public.
You’re so wrong about sharing neurosis in public. What about Catcher in the Rye? What about A Fan’s Notes, or The Sun Also Rises?

Yes, but Catcher in the Rye was fiction, as were the other two. I am talking about using the first person, the I, the solipsistic I.
The confessional question is not something that’s up for debate. It’s a non-question. You’ll never convince me that Joan Didion isn’t a genius. Or that [Nick Flynn's] Another Bullshit Night in Suck City has less value than a good novel.

And if On the Road were published today it would be a memoir.

You were influenced by Hemingway and Kerouac. Who else?
Joan Didion influenced this book a lot. It’s not as good a book as Didion’s The White Album, but that’s really what I was trying to do, to understand myself and my place in the world by connecting my interior life with the world happening around me, which, in this case, included a fairly dramatic murder trial.

Here’s a quote from Philip Lopate: “Strive for honesty, but admit that you can delude yourself as well as the next guy. Ironically, it is this skepticism that uniquely equips the personal essayist for the difficult climb into honesty. So often the ‘plot’ of a personal essay, its drama, its suspense, consists in watching how far the essayist can drop past his or her psychic defenses toward deeper levels of honesty. One may speak of a vertical dimension in the form: if the essayist can delve further underneath, until we feel the topic has been handled as honestly, as fairly as possible, then at least one essential condition of a successful personal essay has been met.”

Do you think you did that? It’ll be interesting to see what people excerpt, the memoir or the reportage.
Some people don’t like memoir. They don’t like books where they feel the presence of the author. But I like books where I feel connected to the writer. I like writers like Raymond Carver for the same reason. I prefer first person books, though I like plenty of third person books as well. But my preference is for a connection with a character. do you see what I’m getting at? Some people read to escape; I read to connect.

And regarding your question about honesty, I think I succeeded at being as honest as I’m capable of being at this point in my life. You know, our honesty is bordered by our self-knowledge. You can only be as honest as you know yourself. Being honest in your writing isn’t about just not telling lies.

I’ve always written. I’ve written since I was ten. I don’t know how else to process the world. What screwed me up, and the reason I think I was suffering from writer’s block, was because I started trying to write for other reasons.

Such as?
Such as because writing suddenly became my “career.” I didn’t do an MFA or study writing. I had never approached writing as a career or thought of it as something I would make a living at. Then I sold a couple of books and got a Stegner Fellowship at the same time and just like that I was a writer. And people started asking me questions like the ones you were asking. “When are you going to write about something else? Are you going to write fiction this time?” because all my books were about group homes and BDSM and other topics of personal interest to me. I always said yes, but I never did.

Let’s talk The Rumpus. How did that come to be? You must have been pretty focused to start it. Organized! Not depressed!
When I finished The Adderall Diaries I didn’t know what to do. I had scraped myself clean. I didn’t want to write another book. I’d already written four novels, a story collection, and a campaign trail book. Everything I wrote was very autobiographical, but The Adderall Diaries went further. I couldn’t imagine writing another book. So I started The Rumpus.

You’ve come up with some pretty interesting marketing strategies.
It’s funny, I hate the term “marketing,” even though I know it’s accurate. I feel like marketing is something Starbucks does. I just want people to read my books. And so all the “marketing” ideas I have are really just about that, about getting people to read my books. Which is different from making money. Way different.

The first thing I did with this book, was my publisher gave me a bunch of galleys to send to all the journalists and other people I’ve met over the years. So I started The Adderall Diaries Lending Library, where anybody could request an advance copy of the book as long as they were willing to forward it to the next reader within a week. About 400 people read advance copies of the book that way.

It’s quite smart, even if you do hate the term marketing.
The lending library resulted in a lot of talk about the book. Interviews, blog posts, early reviews. Also a lot of personal correspondence with readers. It was one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done.

Then, a couple of weeks ago Dave Eggers told me I should go on tour–do a big tour. I was already booked into half a dozen bookstores in various cities and the idea of doing a massive tour seemed depressing to me. But then I had this other idea. I wrote all the people that participated in the lending library and asked if they would like to have a party/discussion/reading in their home. So now I’m doing like a 25 city book tour reading in people’s homes. And I’m excited about it. These are people who read the book already and like it enough to want me in their living room and to introduce me to their friends.

We ended the lending library when the book became available. But there are still fifty people with galleys who have promised to mail them to the next reader. So I put out the word that we would send free galleys to people who requested them who make less than $25,000 a year.

Doesn’t it feel good to know you have that many fans?
Ha. Yeah.

Does it help keep the depression away?
When you’re depressed you’re depressed. It’s really nice that people read my work, but that’s not how you treat depression. You have to work on yourself. You can’t fight depression with external validation.

Finishing a book is very depressing. Almost everyone I’ve ever known who’s published has been less happy after publishing their first book than before. It tends to be a really sad event for people. Which is too bad. It takes a while to get perspective.

What would you like to tell your happy friends at SMITH Mag?
That I love you. That you should write for yourself. That the rewards of writing are not material. That you need a through line in your lives. You can’t just go from project to project, from book to mountain. You have to have community, continuity, rituals that keep you even as you change. That’s what I would like to tell my happy friends at SMITH.

And, finally, what’s your current six-word memoir?
Be careful who you write about.

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On May 5, 2007, Floyd Mayweather meets Oscar De LaHoya at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The fight has been hyped for five months. Floyd will make more than twenty million dollars and De LaHoya will make more than thirty. De LaHoya is heavier and Mayweather faster. Mayweather goes running late at night in Las Vegas, three a.m. sprints in the dark. The underlying drama is that Floyd’s father had been in jail for drug running. Floyd trained with his uncle instead.

The boxers move quickly inside the ropes, sweat pouring down their backs like a glaze. Mayweather peppers the older De LaHoya, landing a shot in the tenth that snaps De LaHoya’s head back like a spring toy. De LaHoya, well past his prime, comes out hard in the final rounds, his shoulders turning as if on rotors, delivering a flurry of jabs into Mayweather’s ribs. Mayweather just barely wins the fight and tells anyone who will listen, “This proves I’m the greatest fighter of all time.” But it doesn’t. Floyd Mayweather was supposed to win big, and he squeaked by. Floyd’s father sits ringside, a guest of his son’s opponent. The father has long braids and cheeks so sharp it’s as if his face was engraved. After the fight the older Mayweather says he thinks De LaHoya won.

I know everything there is to know about fathers who root against their sons.

The morning after the fight I get a call from Josh, a staff writer at Wired Magazine. He’s working on a profile of Hans Reiser, a brilliant computer programmer accused of killing his estranged wife.

I helped Josh track down Hans’ former best friend, Sean S. Sean and I have several girlfriends in common and I once did a bondage photo shoot in his apartment when he wasn’t home. I don’t remember ever meeting him but our paths have crossed so many times it almost doesn’t make sense. Josh is calling to say he found out something incredible about the case. “Your guy Sean just confessed to eight murders, maybe nine.”

“Why maybe nine?”

“He isn’t sure if one of the victims was dead.”

Josh says Sean’s not under arrest and he’s refusing to tell the District Attorney the names of the people he killed. Sean told Josh that he confessed to the DA because he’s a born again Christian and thought the jury would want to know, it seemed the right thing to do. Or rather, he posed it as a question, “Don’t you think the jury would want to know?” But then he said Hans knew about his murders and he was confessing in order to beat Hans to the punch. Maybe he confessed for both reasons. Or maybe he confessed for reasons that had nothing to do with Reiser or the jury. He denied having anything to do with Hans’ wife’s disappearance. He told Josh, “Give me some sodium pentothal or any truth serum, put a little ecstasy in there and ask me if I killed Nina. I have never been a threat to her.”*

Sean told the police and the district attorney that his victims had physically and sexually abused him and his sister in the East Bay commune where they were raised. He claimed he hadn’t killed anyone since 1996. The commune interests me. I know the places where adults come in contact with unsupervised children. Between fourteen and eighteen I was in five different state funded childcare facilities, including three group homes, a mental hospital, and a temporary youth shelter that stuffed thirty children in each room. In those places you can never tell who to trust.

When I’m done talking to Josh I feel like I’m waiting for something. The group homes were a long time ago. It’s still morning and I put a pot of water on the stove. I call Josh back and ask him for Sean’s phone number.

If Sean committed eight murders it’s a huge story, I think. Here is a man willing to wait years to get revenge on the people that stole his childhood. I think of In Cold Blood and The Executioners Song, two of my favorite books, both set around spectacular murders and written by novelists. I know people who have known Sean for more than a decade. I have the inside track. And there’s something else about the case; Nina Reiser’s body was never found.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I don’t know if Sean will talk to me. If he did kill eight people, surely the police would have arrested him by now. And why isn’t he a suspect in the disappearance of Nina Reiser?

After calling Sean and leaving a message I bicycle through the city, down Market Street toward the Castro, my right pant leg rolled up so as not to get caught in the chain. My bicycle is my prize possession, an old Peugot I picked up for $150 nine years ago. I live a spare existence. I haven’t owned a car since I first got to this city.

I cut right, past the Gay and Lesbian Center and the Three Dollar Bill Café. Something’s tugging on me. I had heard of Nina’s murder, but never the full story. I had heard about Sean and how Nina’s disappearance crushed him. He took to bed, paralyzed with grief. He was in love with his best friend’s wife. It was all just passing information. But eight murders? Revenge killings? Eight murders isn’t revenge. Eight murders is a serial killer.

I go to the park to meet a girl I know. Someone who has taken a habit of coming to my readings. She’s engaged and lives with her fiancé between the Marina and Russian Hill. I’ve only seen her once before and she’d explained their relationship. It was simple. He was monogamous and believed in monogamy. She cheated on him and always would.

She arrives wearing a black dress and sandals. Her skin is so pale all I can think of is milk. I don’t think of my complicity in her unfaithfulness. I don’t want to. I don’t love her; she’s just someone I know. I wait as she walks across the grass in her sandals. A man stops her and asks if she is willing to be in one of his paintings. She talks with him for a moment, her head turned his way, her body pointing toward me. He doesn’t have any paint. He wears dark, heavy clothes, his belongings bound in garbage bags around him.

The sun is brilliant and the colorful houses are brightly lit along the hills. On some days the fog catches on their drainpipes like cotton, but today it’s easy to see why people want to live here. Easy to see San Francisco for the gentle paradise it is.

We lie on the grass with my shirt pulled up. I forget all about De La Hoya’s fight and Sean Sturgeon’ confession. I ask her to pinch my nipple and she does but it isn’t enough. I ask her to do it harder and soon there is blood everywhere. There are people nearby but they don’t seem to notice. For most of it she keeps her hand over my mouth and I close my eyes and drift away. “It’s OK,” she says.

That’s only half the day. There’s a barbecue, and then a reading, and then a party. There’s always a party. I dance with a girl. “How do you know Eric?” I ask between songs. “I don’t,” she says. “My boyfriend knows him.” I dance better after that. It’s still the weekend, after all. It’s still San Francisco. Everything is beautiful. Really. It seems perfect. The DJ looks like Napoleon Dynamite and spins pop from the 80s on vinyl. I’m thirty-five years old. The woman I’m dancing with has curly black hair and moves with steady grace, her silk dress rolling in waves down her arms. I feel loose and fine. I take five dollars from another writer, who put his money, inexplicably, on De LaHoya.

“Always bet on youth,” I tell him.

It’s one in the morning. I don’t imagine anything could ever go wrong.

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*Josh Davis, Wired Magazine, June 2007

Excerpted from The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder, by Stephen Elliot, published in September 2009 by Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota. Copyright © 2009 by Stephen Elliot. All rights reserved.

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The mommies in Amy Sohn’s satiric third novel, Prospect Park West, are nobody’s idea of first pick at the babysitting co-op: There’s on-the-prowl Rebecca, fuming because, 16 months after the birth of their daughter, her husband has still not deigned to have sex with her; Lizzie, haplessly up for anything after leaving her girlfriend (and her job) to raise a son with a constantly-on-tour black musician; Karen, the over-protective “helicopter mom” with a scary celeb fetish; and Melora, a former child star who wants to resurrect her career only slightly more than she wants to avoid interaction with her adopted toddler. (Read an excerpt from Chapter 1.)

As over-the-top and loony tunes as the characters are (and really—they’re nuts), they exist in a landscape of Google Street View-level reality: the shops, cafes, and playgrounds of the book are actual mom favorites in Sohn’s own Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope. What’s more, Sohn, a former sex columnist whose first book, Run Catch Kiss, was a “69 percent autobiographical” novel about a sex columnist, mixes some local occurrences into the plot as well: A spate of pick-pocketing that happened at the food co-op; rampant diaper-changing on the benches outside a popular mom spot called the Connecticut Muffin shop; an infamous online parenting board post, purportedly from a couple looking to swing.

This stagecraft might be part of the reason why so many have taken the novel’s acidic observations for a straight-forward assessment of Park Slope and its denizens. The local blogs have (shocker!) harbored strong opinions, from calling the novel “insulting to Park Slope moms” to labeling Sohn “the most self-aware Park Slope breeder in the history of breeders.” But even The New York Times titled its profile “A Park Slope Novel Seems a Little Too Real”—an interesting frame for a book in which, to name one just one antic example, a hipster accidentally sets a celebrity on fire.

With Sarah Jessica Parker’s production company having optioned the novel for an HBO series, I caught up with Amy Sohn on, appropriately enough, the first day of school in Park Slope. In what for Sohn one senses is a typically spirited conversation, we talked about the thin line between fact and fiction, love and hate, and the (unsurprisingly) strong reaction to PPW.

What’s the history of this book?
I like to say that I was marinating in it for about two years before I wrote it. I wanted to do a collection of comedic essays about motherhood. So when my daughter was around one in 2007, I started writing original nonfiction pieces beyond the few I’d had published. I was calling it “a Gen X I Feel Bad About My Neck.” Then I think it was my editor who said, “Why don’t you do this as fiction? You could riff with more impunity.” I could use all these funny one-liners about the alienation I was feeling as a mother in Park Slope and not have to worry about getting people to sign legal waivers and stuff like that.

Now, I’m writing a sequel, so I’m still with all of the characters. I didn’t deliberately end the book with thoughts of a sequel; but I’ve been working on it for the last couple of months.

So it worked. You were able to riff with impunity.
It certainly helped me with the writing, because I was able to create fictitious amalgams of the most extreme Park Slope mothers I’d come in contact with. I deliberately took the most over-the-top and easily satirized aspects of the neighborhood, such as attachment mothers, the food co-op, unhinged celebrities, sexless marriages and sort of took a ride with all those things. Park Slope’s such fertile ground because of the unique combination of affluence and liberalism. There’s a line in the book: “It has the worst of Berkeley, California combined with the worst of the Upper East Side.” In three weeks, I wrote the first four chapters.

But whether or not I have more impunity, I think remains to be seen! I guess I find it somewhat charming that there are people that have such a deep and abiding love of the uniqueness of Park Slope, that they feel … the only analogy I can think of is that saying bad things about Park Slope is like saying bad things about the Jews. Even when it’s very clearly satire, it’s unkosher. Which is ridiculous to me, because anyone, even someone who doesn’t live in quite as extreme a neighborhood, has things they like and don’t like. I used to joke that this would be the book that would force us to move. But ultimately, I don’t want to. I love Park Slope much more than I hate Park Slope.

Do you think the backlash comes from you making fun of motherhood, or you making fun of your own neighborhood?
I do think that motherhood is a sacred cow, to the detriment of motherhood. And there are jokes in the book about Park Slope mothers being overweight or wearing cargo shorts. But all of that is coming from the perspective of a specific character, Rebecca, who because of who she is needs to distance herself from those women. She’s galled by what she sees as the unattractiveness of the mothers for the precise reason that it just might be they’re having more sex than she is.

So, for example, I personally think that the perception of Park Slope moms as unattractive is exaggerated. Yes, you see the women who don’t color their hair, the women in t-shirts, the women breastfeeding until the children are very old. But I’d say the 60 to 70 percent majority are doing their best to maintain their appearance with all the challenges of going to the playground and pushing the baby around and all that.

But I feel like suddenly I’ve turned this into a defense of the book and I don’t know if that was your angle, ’cause I don’t want to elevate the humorless.

I was interested in whether a novel could be as self-exposing as a memoir. It does feel like it was a little for you, from what you’re saying.
I do understand why I’m a particularly easy target for speculation on the real true-life grounding in fiction. My initiation into book publishing was that I had this nonfiction column in the New York Press, and I used a lot of [that material] in my first novel. So people go, “Wait a second, she’s using nonfiction in fiction …” I always tread the line.

But the easy comparisons of Rebecca to me have been frustrating. I wrote four characters, I want people to talk about all of them! Rebecca is the first introduced, she’s Jewish, she’s a writer. If this book has a protagonist she might be it, therefore, people tend to associate that with the writer. But I was really drawing on a person who uses her body because her face isn’t as attractive, which is a specific type of person not based on me. She’s way more interested in fashion than I am. And I love my husband and have a wonderful relationship with him—and I can safely say that I’ve had sex in the last 16 months!

There’s something that’s going on in book reviewing where the personal speculations are printed as objective fact, and that bothers me.

How do you feel about your characters overall?
Well, I have my favorite which I won’t name—

Come on!
It’s like you can’t say that about your children, right?

Yes, you can—they’re characters.
I guess I liked writing Melora the most, because I just love downward trajectories. That’s been a theme in all three of my novels: A series of negative events happening to someone precisely at a time when she has a lot riding on good things happening.

Who was the furthest from you?
That’s Lizzie. A little overwhelmed by childcare, maybe not the most verbal person. She’s not a plotter or a planner, she’s more of a feeler. I’m a very literal person who overanalyzes situations. So that was a challenge.

But Lizzie was a very important character because she’s the only one that you see showing any physical affection to her child. That was very important for me to include, because some of these others are so dysfunctional with regard to their children. Karen logs the most time with her son, but you don’t see a lot of hugging and kissing, it’s more protecting and bandaging.

That’s one of the things that I’ve noticed in my neighborhood. I watch for mothers to be kissing or holding their children. After they start walking, I don’t tend to see a lot of smiling, touching, kissing. I don’t see mothers’ joy reflected in their own faces in the playground. Maybe I look too hard. Maybe there’s another woman in that corner of the playground and I’m not noticing her. But I think there’s so much worry, that’s the primary emotion. Oh god, he’s going to fall.

Maybe because of that sort of thing, I half expected you to say you felt most distanced from Karen.
Yeah, but see, Karen has ambition. She’s a go-getter. She’s a conniver. And I definitely have that side, too. Lizzie, I think part of the reason that she’s struggling is that she doesn’t have that one [desire], aside from maybe a husband who helps her out a little bit more. She’s really at bay.

OK, so you’ve talked a little about the points of difference. Where is the memoir within this novel? What parts are you?
I’m definitely in the riffs, [such as] that stuff about the inanity of new mother dialogue. For example, there’s a moment when Lizzie’s talking about the new mothers’ group ["It was depressing, all that bullshit about how many ounces of milk a baby needs and whether it can sleep on its stomach. It was like Consumer Reports: The Play."] Wait, was it Lizzie? The fact that I can’t even remember the character means that ultimately it was the authorial voice coming through.

I think of you as a very New York writer. Is it fair to say that it’s a richer experience reading the book if you have this local knowledge of what’s real and what’s not?
I hope for the people that live here, it’s really fun because suddenly these bits and pieces of true stories are coming to life in fiction. I’d be like, “Oh my God, the swinging, I remember that post!” My personal opinion is that the swinging post was a joke, but I thought it would be much more interesting if it turned out not to be a joke.

So is it fair to say that’s the richer experience?
Yeah, right. For the people who don’t know any of these stories, the question would be: Oh my God, does this stuff really happen? Is the co-op really like that? Is it so PC?

I have to add that the only thing that makes me really nervous [in this interview] is my husband and the Rebecca thing. People are so literal in this neighborhood. If you quote me as saying, “I’ve had sex in the last 16 months” do you think that makes it sound like, “but not much more recently than that”?

No. I think that points out the differences between you. Plus, I actually think it’s her acerbicness that might make some people think that Rebecca’s you.
Right, that you get the authorial voice in her perspective on the neighborhood.

And she’s pretty critical…
But so’s Melora. And I don’t consider myself critical. I love my neighborhood and don’t traffic in snark. I could use a little work on my own “Connecticut Muffin top.”

How psyched are you that Sara Jessica Parker optioned the book?
It happened a few months after the sequel deal, and I have the opportunity to write the script for the pilot. It’s only an option deal and only a script deal so nobody knows where it might go, and it’s very early in the development process, but I was thrilled, of course.

You’ve written a few six-word memoirs, including, “Gave commencement address,
became sex columnist.” What’s your current one?
Sweetest bête noire you’ll ever meet.

+++

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Unlike many people who make a living writing about their lives, Esquire Editor-at-Large A.J. Jacobs hasn’t been cast into unusual circumstances by fate. Instead, he creates unusual circumstances and willingly throws himself into them. His latest book, The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment, is a follow-up to the enormously successful The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World and The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. In The Guinea Pig Diaries, Jacobs continues to experiment on himself in a collection of hilarious and thoughtful essays.

I recently chatted with A.J. Jacobs where, among other things, we discussed inordinately extravagant recliners, nude photo shoots, and his relentless enthusiasm.

Photo credit: Julie Jacobs

Chris Teja: Should we go ahead and get started?

A.J. Jacobs: Sure thing! Oh, and sorry for the exclamation points. I’m a fan of them. I think they get a bad rap.

Chris: Not a problem. I’ll take enthusiasm over indifference any day of the week.

A.J.: Excellent!!

Chris: So it was really tough for me to put your book down. It’s just absurdly funny and interesting. Was your plan always to eventually publish a collection of your experiments?

A.J.: Thanks Chris! (there’s the exclamation points again). I wish I could say I had a grand plan. But honestly, I had about four previously published experiments from Esquire. And then I had a bunch of other topics I was really interested in exploring. And it seemed the theme of experimentation ran through them all, so it seemed a good way to link them all together. Plus, it’s my favorite kind of writing—just immersing myself in a topic and seeing what happens.

Chris: So when you did your first experiment (where you test drove a ridiculously plush La-Z-Boy recliner for an Entertainment Weekly piece), did you have any idea that you’d be spending the next 15 years doing this sort of thing?

A.J.: Ha! No, I didn’t see that coming. But I feel very lucky that I’ve gotten to do this for a living. (Though sadly, I didn’t get to keep the La-Z-Boy).

Chris: It just seems wrong to give somebody what sounds like the Cadillac of chairs only to take it away.

A.J.: Exactly. But I guess that’s journalism. I wouldn’t want to be in the pocket of La-Z-Boy.

Chris: Has your writing process changed much since that first experiment?

A.J.: Some of it’s the same—I like to take a topic and really experience the most extreme version of it. Whether that’s sitting in a La-Z-Boy or following George Washington. But over the years, I’ve tried to incorporate a lot more independent research into the writing. I dive into the literature of the topic as well. So when I spent a month trying to be the Ideal Husband, I read tons about the history of marriage. (And learned that being a ‘hen-pecked’ husband actually used to be a crime in centuries past).

Chris: That bit was surprising. I definitely didn’t expect to be that interested in the life of George Washington, but the information you include about him really brings everything weird and interesting about him to light.

A.J.: Glad you liked reading about George Washington. I always thought of him as the blandest Founding Father, but I was completely wrong.

Chris: Some of the experiments in the book placed you in some pretty difficult situations. Was there one that was particularly trying for you?

A.J.: There were quite a few situations ranging from awkward to humiliating. Certainly the month I spent practicing Radical Honesty was particularly difficult. This is the movement that instructs you to say whatever’s on your mind. No filter between your brain and mouth. Like Jim Carrey’s Liar, Liar, but the real-life version. Every day was filled with hundreds of little confrontations.

Chris: I’d never thought of myself as a liar, but when I was reading that chapter I kept thinking, “There is absolutely no way I could ever do this.”

A.J.: It really did make me realize how much of our lives are based on deceit. I’m actually not totally against deceit. I don’t believe in full Radical Honesty. I try to practice Sustainable Radical Honesty…

Chris: That seems like a solid policy. The experiment where you posed nude for Esquire also seemed like it was a little traumatizing. Are nude photographs really ruined for you forever?

A.J.: It was a bit traumatizing, that’s true. First, there was the problem of being naked in public. Then there was the double insult—that all the young, attractive photo assistants at the shoot had no interest in my naked form. It changed my view of nude photos for sure. I now think much more about what the situation must have been like—what did the photographer say, what was served at the buffet, did they liquor them up? (they did me)

Chris: At least you got a few drinks out of it.

A.J.: True. There were some upsides.

Chris: I really enjoyed two of your experiments in particular: The one where you impersonated your young, attractive nanny on a dating website and the one where you disguised yourself as Noah Taylor and crashed the Oscars. What was it like for you to be met with so much praise during an experiment instead as opposed to doing something that just made your life more difficult?

A.J.: It really was strange, because in both of those experiments, people were heaping praise on me like I’d never experienced before. With the dating, I was told how hot I was 50 times a day. And with the Oscars, it was five hours of ass-kissing. I knew deep down that these compliments weren’t technically for me, but when you’re given that much positive feedback, it just feels good, no matter what.

Chris: I can imagine. I really liked that Noah Taylor sent you a thank you note. It’s such an unexpected reaction to finding out that someone impersonated you at a major media event.

A.J.: Yes! I was delighted. If he has any other award ceremonies that he’d like me to attend in his stead, I’m available.

Chris: In the book you talk about how as a writer you like to insert yourself into interesting situations because you had a very typical, no at all weird upbringing. Do you think you would have ended up in this very specific line of work had that not been the case?

A.J.: Good question. It’s hard to know. I will say that despite my relatively uneventful childhood, I did develop a mildly obsessive personality from very early on. And I think you need an obsessive personality to dive into these topics.

Chris: That makes sense. Does a small part of you ever wish that maybe you had a slightly more difficult childhood so that you could have been, let’s say a screenwriter, and avoided all these awkward situations?

A.J.: Ha! I will say there’s something exciting about awkward situations. The founder of Radical Honesty talks about the thrill of saying what you want. And it certainly gets you out of a rut. I do think it’s important to force yourself to try new things, even if those things are awkward at first. And even if it’s something small, like trying a new toothpaste or a weird entree at a restaurant.

Chris: I think your book might give people some ideas for trying new things. I know I was sort of half-experimenting with Radical Honesty for a few days after I read that chapter.

A.J.: Excellent! I hope it didn’t cause any friendships to end.

Chris: Luckily, I managed to return to my old lying ways just in time. There’s a lot of attention on you right now from all this experimenting. I read that a movie version of The Year of Living Biblically is currently in production. How do you feel about seeing a fictional version of yourself on the big screen?

A.J.: I think it’ll be wild. Though who knows if it’ll happen. That’s up to Paramount Pictures and God (not necessarily in that order). If it does, I’m hoping they’ll put a tiny Moses on top of the mountain in the Paramount logo at the start of the movie.

Chris: And I know you’ve also become a regular fixture on NPR. How are you enjoying doing radio?

A.J.: I love it, and love working with “Weekend Edition Saturday.” Though last time I was on, I spilled my iced coffee all over the desk, and they didn’t edit it out, so everyone got to hear that I was a klutz.

Chris: And finally, it’s been a while since your first six-word memoir. Would you mind giving us an updated version?

A.J.: Torture self. Write book about it.

Chris: Well that sums it up pretty perfectly. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me.

A.J.: Thanks to you, Chris. It was fun, and I’m being radically honest.

++++

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240 Minutes of Fame

In my real life, I’ve had just the tiniest taste of what it’s like to be famous. Three instances come to mind:

1. The book festival in Texas where I met my one and only rabid fan—a man who took off his sweater to reveal passages of my book scrawled on his T-shirt in Magic Marker. (Later, Israeli writer Etgar Keret would tell me that one of his fans got a chest tattoo of his book’s cover, which made me feel small and inadequate.)

2. The time my mother-in-law called in a tizzy and said, “You’re a clue in the New York Times crossword puzzle!” This was a dream come true. A bona fide mark of fame.

“It’s forty- eight down,” she said.

I grabbed the Times and opened to the puzzle. The clue was “Reads the encyclopedia from A to Z.”

The answer was N-E-R-D.

Huh. Nerd. I would have preferred my actual name, but it was something. Just to be certain, I e-mailed the crossword editor, Will Shortz—whom I had once met at a crossword puzzle tournament—and asked if maybe I was the nerd in question; he said I wasn’t consciously the inspiration, but that I might have been an unconscious factor. Might have been an unconscious factor. That’s something, right? Good enough for me!

3. And finally, there was the awkward, Borscht Belt-like exchange with a passenger in the New York subway. “What do you know about Q?” he asked me.

Hmm. The Q train. “I think you can catch it on Fifty-seventh and Seventh.”

He paused. “No, the letter Q. What do you know about the letter Q.”

He had seen me on Book TV talking about how I read the encyclopedia, and thought it’d be fun to quiz me about one of the volumes. I was so disoriented, I couldn’t process it. I just don’t get recognized in public.

As for actual fame, that’s about it. I’ve published two books that sold moderately well, but they haven’t made me famous. Not in the real hounded-by-paparazzi sense of the word. On a good day, I’m “somewhat noted in certain quarters.”

But if actual fame has eluded me, I have gotten to experience an odd simulacrum of fame thanks to an immersion experiment. The result was, as they say during Entertainment Tonight interviews—surreal. And it also convinced me that lack of fame can be a good thing. Or so I’ve told myself, anyway.

This experiment was actually one of my first, back in 1997. Early in my career, I worked as a writer for Entertainment Weekly magazine. My job usually consisted of interviewing B-list TV celebrities, writing down the type of salad they were eating, assembling a few quotes, and passing it off as an article.

But not always. There were exceptions. My most memorable assignment came in January 1997. The indie movie Shine had recently been released to an orgy of critical praise. Maybe you remember it? It was based on the true story of Australian pianist David Helfgott, who suffered from schizophrenia.

The adult Helfgott was played brilliantly by a stammering, tic-afflicted Geoffrey Rush. But the younger Helfgott—the post-adolescent Helfgott—was played by an up-and-coming Australian actor named Noah Taylor.

As it turned out, I looked exactly like Noah Taylor. Or at least like his slightly older brother. We had the same thin face, the same gangly body, and the same- sized nose, which in polite circles is called “prominent.”

Even more striking, though, is that Noah Taylor and I shared the same haircut and eyeglasses. For reasons I’m still puzzling out, in my mid-twenties I decided to let my hair grow down to my shoulders. This wasn’t cool long hair, mind you. It was shapeless and stringy, like Ben Franklin or a meth addict. And the glasses? They were thick, black, and clunky. I suppose I was going for a retro intellectual vibe, something in the Allen Ginsberg area. What I got was Orville Redenbacher.

Julie has told me several times that if I’d asked her out during my meth-addicted-popcorn-king era, we would not be married today. She would have told me that she was getting over a relationship and/or life-threatening, still-contagious illness.

The only upside, if you can call it that: my status as Noah Taylor’s doppelganger, whose character sported the same unconventional look. From the first weekend Shine opened, I’d hear it at least once a day: “Hey, you look like the guy from Shine.”

I’d humbly nod my thanks. If I was feeling generous, I’d mime playing some piano keys.

My editors at Entertainment Weekly noticed the resemblance as well, and were determined to exploit it. Turned out the real Noah Taylor was skipping the Academy Awards—the film was nominated, he wasn’t, and he’d decided to stay in Australia. So my bosses came up with a plan: send me to the Oscars undercover. As a star. “I want to know what it’s like to be a celebrity,” my editor told me. “Do they have a secret handshake? How does it feel to be recognized everywhere you go? Will you feel the urge to open a theme restaurant?” (This was the height of the theme restaurant frenzy, when everyone with a SAG card had his or her own eatery.)

A couple of days before the Oscars, I fly to L.A. I rent a tuxedo, get a limo on the magazine’s dime, and adopt my version of a Melbourne accent—which, unfortunately, sounds exactly like the Lucky Charms leprechaun. It’s the best I can do.

On the big night, the limousine picks me up, inches along the traffic-choked streets, and pulls up to the red carpet at the Shrine Auditorium. I start to open my car door, but the driver stops me. “Wait a minute,” he says. He comes around and opens it for me. Oh yes. Of course.

My forehead is already damp with sweat. I’m worried the ruse won’t work—I don’t carry myself like a star. I’m too slump-shouldered, too self-conscious. But as soon as I step onto the red carpet and wave, hundreds of fans in the nearby bleachers roar.

It’s been thirty seconds of my life as a celebrity impostor and already I’ve experienced more power than I’ve ever had in my life. It’s positively Pavlovian. I move my hand, several hundred people shout. Move it again, they shout some more.

“Shine guy!” they scream. “Hey, Shine guy!” A few actually shout my/his name: “Noah! We love you!”

The red carpet is surprisingly long. It goes straight for a few yards, then makes a right turn and flows a block or two down to the Shrine doors, which are flanked by four enormous Oscar statuettes. The statues look, as essayist Stanley Elkin once wrote, like “sullen art deco Nazis.”

The rope line is jammed with hundreds of journalists and photographers. The drill is the same year after year: The journalists are like dog trainers and the celebrities are a bunch of unruly, uncooperative fox terriers. “Noah! Noah! Over here! Come! C’mon! Sit! Do interview!”

I wave off most of the pleading press with mock humility.

“I don’t want to take away from Geoffrey’s big night,” I shout to MTV’s Chris Connelly. (Geoffrey Rush is nominated for an Oscar—and will go on to win later tonight.)

“But Geoffrey said your performance inspired him!” Chris shouts back from behind the barrier.

“Sorry, mate,” I say.

I finally stop for an interview with a Norwegian TV show. I figure it was an appropriately obscure place to make my media debut.

“What will you do next?” the square-jawed Norseman asks.

“I want to do some big event movie with earthquakes and hurricanes,” I say.

“Thank you. You were wonderful. I wish you luck.”

As I break away from the Norwegian team and continue down the carpet, I hear a roar behind me. Claire Danes has emerged from her limo. All the cameras and microphones swivel toward Claire like a crowd watching Wimbledon. I am last minute’s news. Fame is fleeting.

Luckily, more positive reinforcement awaits me inside. The lobby of the Shrine looks as though it hasn’t been refurbished since it was built in 1926. It’s got a faux Middle Eastern theme going on—lots of domed doorways and arabesque designs in the ceiling.

But you’re not supposed to be looking at the design. Because there’s Ed Norton! And Tim Robbins! And Joan Allen! I know it’s obvious, but the density of celebrities is stunning and disorienting. This many famous people shouldn’t be clustered in one place like that. It’s not natural. It’s like going to a wedding where you’re the only guest and everyone else is a bride or groom.

I was told by a friend who works in Hollywood that you’re not supposed to sit in your seat. That’s for suckers. The real power players just mill around the lobby, congratulating each other and ordering vodka tonics at the bar.

So I mill around. And am swarmed. The attention is overwhelming. Dozens of people—producers, execs, agents, and seat fillers—jostle to get close to me. “Phenomenal.” “I love you.” “Big fan.” And most common, “Love your work.”

“Love your work” is the standard celebrity greeting. When you meet a widow, you say, “I’m sorry for your loss.” When you meet a celebrity, you tell him how much you love his work, even if you think he’s got the charisma of drywall. As an entertainment reporter, I’d said it many times. Brad Blanton would be appalled.

One man asks if I know that fellow Aussie Paul Hogan is a fan.

“Isn’t that nice?” I reply.

My admirers are outraged I didn’t get nominated. “You were robbed!” says one. I agree, noting that I’ve been so bitter, I’ve trashed eight hotel rooms. “Good for you!” he said.

Usually, though, when I’m praised, I just respond, “Thanks. But I’m no hero. Just doing my job.”

It’s not a joke, really. Just some words to fill the space. But it always elicits an appreciative whoop from the listener. Because when you’re a celebrity, anything that emerges from your mouth that vaguely resembles a joke is cause for gut-busting laughter from everyone within earshot.

I’ve seen this phenomenon from the other side many times. I saw it with alarming clarity when I spent an hour with the most famous person I’ve ever met: Julia Roberts. I met her because, for a few months in the 1990s, I dated one of her many assistants. Rachel worked in Julia’s vanity production company, which didn’t actually produce movies or anything, but which occupied a beautiful loftlike office in Soho. Rachel’s main job, as she’d tell you herself, was to be responsible for the office aquarium. It was home to some lovely tropical fish. And it was probably the most tangible thing the production company had successfully developed. Every few weeks, Julia would announce that she planned to visit the New York office, and Rachel would be sent into a frenzy of Windex-ing and filter cleaning.

Anyway, Rachel was sweet enough to wangle me an invitation to the premier for My Best Friend’s Wedding. I’d be her plus one. Julia Roberts was actually friendly and charming—she gave me her famous smile, shook my hand, told me she loved working with my girlfriend. But the night left me drained and sad. Being around Julia’s posse, especially during the ten-minute limo ride from the office to the premiere, was an exercise in exhausting forced merriment. It was the same vibe as New Year’s Eve—You will have fun! (said in Colonel Klink accent).

A typical exchange:

Acolyte: “Have you had dinner yet, Julia?”

Julia: “No, I am starving! I could eat a horse!”

We all erupt in laughter. We laugh like the crowd at a Chris Rock concert. Like we all just sucked down a tank of nitrous oxide. Like my two-year-old son laughs when he’s getting tickled on his belly till he’s gasping for air. We look at each other in amazement. Did you hear what she said? Marvelous! Imagine a person eating a horse! The very idea! A horse is so big!

A couple of years later, I interviewed Conan O’Brien for Entertainment Weekly. He was talking about what it’s like to be famous, and he brought up the braying phenomenon. Conan said he actually liked to test the limits of this. Sometimes, he said, he’d be walking through an airport, and someone would shout, “Hey Conan!”

And he’d reply with a string of nonsense syllables—“Squidleedoo!”

And they’d crack up, shaking their heads in wonder at his wit.

So it is with me at the Oscars.

“How are you?”

“Great, mate!” I answer.

I’m bathed in a cascade of laughter.

It’s not just laughter, though. I amplify every emotion. One fortyish producer, with no provocation, takes me aside and tells me about how his father was disappointed he didn’t go into the family business of making linings for sport coats. It is clear he’s tormented by his long-ago decision. But I—Noah—would understand. Because in the movie, Noah’s dad was overbearing. So thanks to a mirage of intimacy, Noah has become this man’s
tuxedo-clad confidant. I listen and nod attentively. I tell him his dad must be proud of him. He seems relieved.

I continue squeezing my way through the crowd.

“Noah! Over here! Sign this! Sign this!”

I scribble the crowd-pleasing motto “Shine on!”

By the way, I never actually signed “Noah Taylor.” I didn’t even say “Hello, I’m Noah Taylor.” People just assumed I was him, and I never corrected them. At the time, this somehow seemed more ethical than calling myself “Noah Taylor.” Now I’m not so sure.

“Noah, just a word if you would!” “Noah, can I have my photo with you?” A lot of celebrity life consists of saying no. Or more precisely, having someone say no for you.

I know it’s hard to feel sorry for celebrities, but I can see how these constant little requests can get irritating. I can see how you can get hardened.

A quick detour on the topic of celebrity requests. During my tenure at Entertainment Weekly, my night at the Oscars was the most bizarre experience—but it was followed closely by the time I stepped over a line and asked a celebrity for a favor.

This one happened when I was assigned an article on Sex and the City.

At this point, I had been dating Julie for a few months, and we both knew we were on the marriage track. I just needed to make it official by popping the question. I strongly suspected Julie would want a creative proposal. One hint came when she told me, “I want a creative proposal.”

Julie has been a fan of Sex and the City from the time Carrie Bradshaw made her very first racy pun. (I believe it was something about “rising to the occasion.” But I could be wrong.)

I called the Sex and the City publicist and popped the question: Would the actresses be willing to help me propose to my girlfriend? It wouldn’t take more than two minutes of their time. I’d written a script and wanted to videotape each of the four actresses saying a line related to Julie. As in “I hear A. J. Jacobs wants to marry Julie Schoenberg. Which is strange. I thought A.J. was gay.”

So the dialogue wasn’t going to win any Peabodys. But it got the point across, and Julie would just be happy to hear her name pronounced by the Sex stars. The publicist called back the next day. The girls had signed off. They thought it was sweet. Yes! I was in.

I figured Julie would appreciate it. She loves her celebrities—but not in an unhealthy way. Julie has absolutely no interest in being famous. It just doesn’t appeal to her. Nor does she want to be friends with celebrities. Her relationship to celebrity is like that of a visitor to the aquarium. She can enjoy watching the sea lions from afar, but she has no desire to climb onto a rock and start barking and diving for salmon herself. Interactions with famous people should be an occasional treat, like fudge or a pricey vacation. But she does love her treats, and I hoped to be able to provide her one.

I arrived at the set with my borrowed video camera. The show was spending the day filming at a beach in Brooklyn—which would be magically transformed into a posh Hamptons beach by the time it aired.

“They aren’t quite ready for you,” said the publicist.

The actresses were between scenes. I could interview them when filming was finished. About thirty yards down the beach, I spotted Sarah Jessica Parker (who played Carrie) talking to Kim Cattrall (the randy Samantha). A dozen greased-down extras in bikinis lounged on towels nearby.

“Do you want a pair of headphones?” the publicist asked me.

“Sure, thanks.”

She handed me one from her stash. The headphones are tuned to the actresses’ mikes—it’s so the director and crew can listen to the dialogue. But here’s the thing: the mikes are rarely turned off. So you can often eavesdrop on whatever the actresses are saying between takes.

I put the headphones on and heard the following from Kim Cattrall:

“Why should I help this reporter with his goddamn proposal? It’s not my job.”

I pulled off the headphones. Oh man. This was not good. In fact, it could not be worse unless Kim Cattrall kicked me in the throat with her spiky Manolos.

“Um, I think I won’t do the proposal stuff.”

The publicist told me not to worry.

“Did you hear what she said?” I asked.

The publicist said that everyone but Kim Cattrall had signed off on the idea. It’d be fine.

I had a stress stomachache for the next four hours. But the publicist was right: the other three actresses recited their lines without complaint. Kristin Davis seemed to actually enjoy it, suggesting I do a few takes. Perhaps because she was the only single one at the time and so still had an untarnished view of marriage.

Kim Cattrall later apologized in her typically candid way: she explained she was “on the rag.”

The next week, I spliced my footage into a tape of an upcoming episode. I slid it into my twentieth-century VCR and played it for Julie. Unfortunately, I chose the least romantic episode in the history of Sex and the City, one that features Miranda in stirrups at her OB/GYN for much of the show. It finally cut from Miranda’s raised legs to Sarah Jessica Parker, who said, “My relationship with Mr. Big was going nowhere, and I had no possibility with A. J. Jacobs because he wants to marry Julie Schoenberg.” To which Julie responded “What? . . . What’s going on? . . . Oh my God . . . Is this my proposal? . . . But I’m wearing my ex-boyfriend’s T-shirt!”

For some reason, that was the first thing that popped into Julie’s brain. Then she hugged me. Then she demanded that I get down on my knees and propose like a proper gentleman. I couldn’t delegate it all to the videocassette.

It worked out okay, but it was a humbling experience. I got schooled in my place in the caste system of fame. It’s not the place of the Vaishyas to ask the Brahmins for favors.

The night of the Oscars, however, I’m on the other side. I’m the one getting requests. I’m the aristocracy. “Noah, come meet my friend!” “Noah, an autograph for my sister? She’s a huge fan.”

My friend Jessica Shaw—a fellow Entertainment Weekly reporter covering the event—has joined me at this point and is acting as my publicist: “We’ve got to keep moving, people,” says Jessica, who’s wearing a bright red dress. “Got to keep moving.”

Things are going smoothly. Nothing can stop me. Across the lobby, I spot Geoffrey Rush, my co-star. Should I say hello? Yes, why not! I wait for him to finish his conversation, then approach.

“’Ello, Geoffrey!”

No response.

“It’s me! ’Ow’s tricks, mate?”

He looks at me. Alarm spreads over his face—the exact same expression my son had when he first saw the child-catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I’ve gotten so cocky, I forgot that I don’t exactly resemble Noah Taylor. I forgot Geoffrey Rush actually knows the real Noah Taylor.

Geoffrey glances around, hoping to lock eyes with a security guard. And then backs away without a word.

Shaken, I head back into the crowd for the deep-tissue ego massage of my adoring fans. “Congratulations, man.” “Wow.”

The (late) comedian Chris Farley grabs my shoulder as I walk by. “You were wonderful,” he gushes, adding that he loved the piano playing. “Well,” I confess, “that was done by a double.”

I get a few more “I’m a fan of your work” remarks but it’s almost over. Billy Crystal is about to crack his last joke. It’s the usual four-hour triathlon for those watching at home, but I could have kept going for a day and a half.

The theater doors open and those of us in the lobby are engulfed by a throng of exiting actors and hangers-on. I’m pushed down a hallway. I accidentally step on the long train of the green dress worn by Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of Will Smith. The dress catches and she jerks back.

“Watch the dress! Watch the dress! Don’t step on the dress!” Will Smith says. He isn’t angry, just authoritative, the same way he handled the panicky crowds in Independence Day. He’s even charismatic when he scolding you, that guy.

My friend Jessica and I are limoed to an after party. I give respectful nods to the Gold’s Gym rats at the velvet ropes. I bask in the giddy welcome from publicists with headsets and clipboards.

Inside, more fans. I meet a screenwriter who tells me I have to go to Burning Man. I make sure to take time out and thank the cater waiters for bringing me my chicken satay. Noblesse oblige. Jessica and I linger for a while. But we both sense the night is over.

I go to my hotel room, undo my bow tie, and collapse on my bed, knowing that people like me, really like me. Or at least someone who closely resembles me.

For two days after the Oscars, I am on a high. I feel different, special. I get annoyed at the indignities of everyday life. Why am I waiting on line at the pharmacy? With all these . . . people. It’s so . . . ordinary . . . Don’t they know who I am?

I mean, I know, deep down, that all the gushing at the Oscars wasn’t actually for me. But the intensity of the praise was such that it penetrated on some level. As with my stint as a hot woman, the lines between me and my subject have blurred.

Then the crash. The inevitable and depressing acceptance of my anonymity. You know what? I deserve to wait on line. I’m not special. Paul Hogan is not a fan of mine. In the span of three days, I go through a microwave version of the famous person’s life arc: from a nobody to a god on earth to a has-been.

Coda

My night of fame put me in an altered state. I was drunk with fame, and not just buzzed, but seven-vodka-tonics drunk. The question is, Would I want to be drunk all the time?

I don’t think so. I hope not.

Why? Because fame messes with your mind—even the fleeting version I had. In fact, if you believe a Cornell professor named Robert Millman, I might have been suffering from an honest-to-God mental disorder. Acquired Situational Narcissism. This is a multisyllabic way of saying that celebrities often become wankers. When you’re famous, when everybody stares at you, flatters you, insulates you, you start to think you’re the center of the world (a thought that has a grain of truth to it).

You gain the classic narcissism symptoms: lack of empathy, grandiose fantasies, rage, and excessive need for approval. It’s why, as Stephen Sherrill writes in the New York Times, celebrities are so prone to throwing tantrums, getting married in the morning and divorced by the afternoon, demanding a private chef for their pet ocelot, and so on.

(Incidentally, not everyone buys the notion that people become more narcissistic as they gain fame. An opposing study argues that narcissists flock to show business in the first place. They arrive in Hollywood pre-deranged. Especially reality show stars. See note in back.)

You can see the quandary here. Fame makes people role models, whether they like it or not. It also probably makes them immature schmucks, if they weren’t already. Therefore, our role models are immature schmucks. Which then creates a new generation of immature schmucks. Which is how we’ve arrived at the Kardashian sisters.

I don’t know what the solution is. Term limits on celebrity? Five years as a movie star, and then you’re shipped off to work at a T.G.I. Friday’s? Should we boycott anyone famous who throws iPhones at their assistants? Should we do what the Romans did with their generals during the triumphal march? They put a slave behind the general to whisper in his ear that he was mortal, so his ego wouldn’t expand.

Or maybe we should only support humble celebrities. Not all famous people are twisted monsters. Consider this: After the Oscars, I got a call from Noah Taylor’s agent. Apparently Noah was shy and not into all the pageantry, so he was grateful I was there at the Oscars to represent him. He figured better me than him.

From THE GUINEA PIG DIARIES by A. J. Jacobs. Copyright © 2009 by A. J. Jacobs.  Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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