Judging a Book By Its Lover

by Lauren Leto

  PART IV

  Snark Bait

  Twitter-Sized Reviews of Memoirs

  MEMOIRS SEEM TO BE a target for pithy reviews by critics. And let’s face it, plenty of them deserve it. Memoirs bother me because they’re too easy. Instead of worlds created out of imagination, they’re descriptions of one’s own life, and plenty of those lives are a bit too boring to have deserved a book deal. They tend to consist more of navel-gazing than of action. Memoirists are the stars of their own story, even when they are writing about their famous sibling. Sometimes they have astounding true tales that are worth sharing (looking at you, Jeannette Walls) but often they’re just a person riding the wave of a burst of popularity or exaggerating life experiences to make them seem exotic (hi, Snooki).

  If alien life forms were to come to Earth and examine the memoir section for an idea of what it is like to be human, they’d see five possible roads to take in life: fifteen minutes of fame, misery, celebrity, literary, and family member of celebrity.

  The memoirs by those experiencing their fifteen minutes of fame don’t have to be written well; they have enough hype from CNN and other media outlets. The misery memoir usually begins with the author’s awful childhood of mean mommies and daddies and not a lot of money. Celebrity memoirs are often ghostwritten and not too revealing but always released first in hardcover with a beautiful face on the front. Memoirs by literary figures regularly straddle the line between misery memoir and celebrity memoir, depending on how good of a writer they are; the more miserable, the better. My personal favorite type of memoir is the kind written by a (nonfamous) family member of a celebrity. These start out the same way, every time: watching their beautiful and famous mother put on makeup, in the audience of their Casanova father’s performance, or switching on the television to catch news of their famous daughter’s latest scandal. The author crams more gossip in them than you’ll find in any of the other categories; they often don’t have allegiances to the famous friends who cameo in their relative’s life and need to create waves to boost their sales. What better example of this than Mommie Dearest?

  Here are critiques of memoirs that are as quick as I can possibly make them. If you’re going to package and sell a book of your life without having a full enough life to warrant a narrative, I’m going to give you as little of my time to review it as possible:

  “Annoying blond woman harps about her extravagant vacation and upper-middle-class premenopausal problems for four hundred pages.”—Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert

  “Young New York Jewish girl has same boring life experiences as every other young New York Jewish girl, gets book deal.”—I Was Told There’d Be Cake, Sloane Crosley

  “Teaches you the ways to seem super narcissistic and annoying to clients. Also, how to exploit international economies!”—The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss

  “Should’ve been titled I Enabled My Son to Become a Drug Addict and I’m Getting Rich Because of It.”—Beautiful Boy, David Sheff

  “Never mind.”—A Million Little Pieces, James Frey

  “No, really, I loved my dad.”—High on Arrival, Mackenzie Phillips

  “How to make growing up destitute with completely insane and irresponsible parents kind of seem cool.”—The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls

  “Your eyes may never roll back to the front of your face after reading this book.”—And the Heart Says Whatever, Emily Gould

  “Oh look, he found a way to get a blow job without having an intern do it.”—My Life, Bill Clinton

  “Is this really by the same person who wrote The Liars’ Club? You sure? Because that woman was interesting.”—Cherry, Mary Karr

  “OMG OUR PRESIDENT TOTALLY DID BLOW A FEW TIMES IN HIS LIFE!”—Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama

  “I didn’t read the book, I just think Ayaan is super hot.”—Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali

  “Handbook on how to get an eating disorder and maintain it, marketed to adolescents.”—Wasted, Marya Hornbacher

  “A valid case for why celebrities should never write anything, ever.”—Storitelling, Tori Spelling

  “Sensationalism at its best.”—Bad Mother, Ayelet Waldman

  “Barbara Sinatra was such a bitch.”—My Father’s Daughter, Tina Sinatra

  “There is no way I can make this joke without using the phrase ‘wire hangers.’”—Mommie Dearest, Christina Crawford

  Book Critic’s Bag of Tricks

  USE THIS HANDY GUIDE like a cheat dictionary for how to make your sentences seem smarter. These words often appear in conversation when someone is aggrandizing or debasing whatever is on people’s radar. Consider this your SAT vocabulary-word cheat sheet, where “SAT” stands for “Snarky Author Types” instead of “Scholastic Assessment Test.” For the love of God, please use these words sparingly.

  CULTIVATED

  Refined; required in the New York Times Style section.

  The intelligentsia working the shop cultivated local flavor with their organic, homemade kombucha and an interactive Tumblr account.

  MOROSE

  Sullen; hipster-style depressing.

  The dark, plaid wallpaper and antlers perched above the fireplace give the Brooklyn bar a morose atmosphere.

  COMPELLING

  Interesting; for when you’ve already used “interesting” in the sentence.

  It was interesting to see the congregation of authors speak on the topic of self-promotion via social media tools at the book festival panel, but the most compelling aspect was the denunciation of Twitter as a spam portal for your latest book reading by the moderator.

  INEFFABLE

  Indescribable; a food reviewer’s favorite crutch.

  I thoroughly enjoyed the moules marinée’s hearty, dense garlicky flavor, but the lamb chops with pistachio tapenade were ineffable!

  UBIQUITOUS

  Everywhere; kaffiyeh scarf in winter 2009, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest circa summer 2010, hot toddies at the start of winter, unemployed actresses in any Los Angeles It spot.

  The ascent of Charlie Sheen into a ubiquitous meme rendered him played out in the media within weeks.

  PITHY

  Snarky; Gawker, years ago.

  Her pithy comments while reviewing Sarah Vowell’s latest work earned her the ire of NPR fanatics.

  UNTENABLE

  Indefensible; for the girl who went to Harvard and doesn’t want to directly admit her employer fired her.

  The situation at dinner became completely untenable when his droll date announced that she thought The Book of Mormon was unfunny.

  SUPINE

  Lying face-upward; the position of models in American Apparel advertisements.

  She thought her supine position on the bed made her look sexy; he thought it made her look drunk and listless.

  INDELIBLE

  Unforgettable; Nicki Minaj’s pink dildo accessory at concerts.

  The indelible impression left by Jonathan Tropper’s The Book of Joe made her positive that she’d never agree to her agent’s request that she write a memoir.

  FRISSON

  Excitement; what you don’t experience when you find out the girl/guy you like owns a bichon frise dog.

  Their frisson at the idea of starting their own literary blog was not tempered by the group’s previously unsuccessful attempts at getting published; in fact, it fueled their ambition.

  DIDACTIC

  Intended to teach; your high school boyfriend’s father. The quality of a person you don’t want to bang.

  Ryan’s didactic father always took the five minutes before we headed out to teach me some mundane fact about the movie’s historical setting or the restaurant’s marinating process.

  AUTODIDACT

  A self-taught person; the person you should’ve banged in college but they probably didn’t stick around for long.

  He played up the idea of himself as an autodidact by stressing how he taught himself computer development and French in order to land that job in Paris. />
  LUVVIE

  Ebullient actress; Bette Midler.

  She didn’t mind that they called her a luvvie in reviews of the Off-Broadway play; she was getting plenty of requests to appear at drag clubs around the city.

  DIGRESS

  To go off-topic; what happens too quickly whenever one is trying to have a serious conversation while drunk.

  It was hard to get a read on how much she actually knew about the plot of the novel; she kept digressing into who was playing whom in the movie version.

  DEUS EX MACHINA

  An unexpected twist that provides a contrived solution to a problem; the device that ended the Dynasty television series.

  I’m not sure if I believe her deus ex machina of a taxi that arrived at just the right moment to save her from having to sleep at his place in Jersey.

  PORTMANTEAU

  Melding of two words: “jeggings,” “gaydar,” “frenemy.”

  I thought the portmanteau of “soundscape” was pretty self-explanatory, but he seemed uninterested in my suggestion once I explained that we’ll listen to music to create the atmosphere of Paris on our staycation instead of actually visiting it.

  ACERBIC

  Sharp; the best way to hear someone’s wit described.

  Her acerbic comment about the event’s being “a grandiose celebration of not being very grand” made me spit out my coffee with a chuckle.

  ENNUI

  Boredom; the attitude of the main characters in an independent French film.

  The ennui of the group made it clear they were uninterested in participating in his plan to start an ironic Avril Lavigne fan site.

  OEUVRE

  Complete collection; West Wing boxed set.

  Due to the author’s oeuvre it was surprising when it was announced that his next work would be science fiction.

  HAM-FISTED

  Clumsy; your attempts at writing poetry.

  His ham-fisted arguments rendered him more incoherent than Glenn Beck.

  ESOTERIC

  Understood by only a small group of people; the ending to Lost.

  I found the lecture to be fairly esoteric, specifically when he started referring to the motivations of individual Star Wars characters as they applied to our subject.

  INEXPLICABLE

  Unable to be explained; Kardashian fame.

  Her inexplicable arrival at the bar made the others wonder whether she had been watching their Foursquare check-ins.

  LIMPID

  Clear; Friday Night Lights’ eyes.

  He spoke in limpid tones so there was no misunderstanding about the fact that this would be the only time he’d let them crash on his couch.

  PEJORATIVE

  Belittling; how Mel Gibson treats everyone.

  She found it pejorative when her friends giggled at the news that she had obtained a job as a social media manager.

  LACONIC

  Concise; text messages to that ex-boyfriend/girlfriend.

  His breath was so awful it was a relief that he tended to be laconic whenever he’d talk to her at work.

  Give It to Me Cheap

  I NEVER CARE WHAT a book looks like. In fact, I’m more likely to scorn the overpriced and overdone hardcovers in favor of a flimsy paperback. When confronted with a slew of editions of the same book, I’ll go with the ugliest and cheapest, feeling sympathy pangs for the odd one out. Crappy paperbacks are tributes to use. They allow for cracking the spine and folding pages and rolling the book into a purse or shoving it into a cramped airplane seat pocket. Hardcovers always feel like a weighty, pricey possession. Something to be cared for, with a dust jacket to keep on the book and sometimes a small, overly delicate ribbon attached to the binding to be used as a bookmark. The day I change my reading habits to preserve the appearance of my books is the day I start to die inside, for surely I’ll have stopped loving to read. My relationship is with the stories; the book is merely the portal that must be able to meet whatever obstacle comes our way so I can comfortably proceed with the story.

  When I close a book after finishing, I like when it’s unable to rest tidily together, its edges furled out from being open for so long. The cheap books are the ones that get me. Tissue-thin paper begs to be abused. I fold over five pages at a time to mark my one spot. I flop the book open at the center and hear the creak of the binding as I make the back and front covers touch. Sure the font in this five-hundred-page book is only eight points and the pages are so thin I can see the type on the other side, but a real reader doesn’t wait and save up for an expensive printing of a book. No, the world inside the book transcends the minor inconvenience of transparent pages and a visit to the optometrist afterward. By the end, the book has been used up, but I’m of the opinion that a good book should wear its readability, should bear the remnants of when the owner turned the page too quickly or couldn’t put the book away while cooking a meal. I like to revisit it and find pages full of life from when I was reading the book. Annotations, dog-eared pages, coffee stains, and pasta sauce splashes—the only torture I won’t put a book through is tearing out a page; the thought of it, missing a couple paragraphs of the narrative or more, gives me deep anxiety.

  As for book covers, there is something to be said for covers that present nothing more to you than the title and the author. Receiving the Back Bay editions of J. D. Salinger, with their only flourish being the calligraphic titles, made you feel the potent, controversial nature of reading the book. The understated goes far when you’re holding a book that speaks for itself. I wouldn’t mind owning a whole collection of books that were adorned with nothing more than the title and author.

  I’m aware there are some book covers out there that can double as art but I’m unable to find the interest to invest in them. For those who do, I recognize the magic in a cover that strongly brings forth the message of the book. There are artists, like Chip Kidd and John Gall, who have created careers out of interpreting stories in beautiful forms on book covers. Great covers are not a graphical summary of story; they’re the artist’s comment on the message, their interpretation of the images inside. Take, for example, the brightly hued cover by David Pelham for Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, with the protagonist Alex’s countenance completely featureless, except for one wide eye, set against an empty backdrop. After reading through the book, the featureless face and barren background along with the garish colors highlight the dystopian mind experiments done on the incorrigible teenager.

  Give me books cheap and dirty. I won’t say no to plain or unadorned books because I’ll feel less guilty when using and abusing them. Books shouldn’t come with accessories like dust jackets, embossed lettering, belly bands, foil stamps, and the like; the reader should value the story, not an expensive cover. Happiness is a bent page.

  How to Succeed in Classifying Fiction Without Really Trying

  WHEN IT COMES TO determining the genre of a book, there are two things to keep in mind. First, it doesn’t matter. The only advantage to identifying which movement a work belongs to is you can anticipate the possible themes and techniques in that book. It has the appearance of being the shortest distance to determining what you want to read. It makes the job easier for the marketing departments of publishing houses and sales assistants at bookstores. In the mood for some repressed sexuality? Pick up some Romantic authors. Want to get tossed around with fragmented thoughts? Grab a seat and a modernist. You love some blood and guts mixed with the prosaic? Stick with transgressive fiction.

  This advantage is dampened by the second point—that someone somewhere disagrees with the stated genre of the book. For every mention of Ulysses as the pinnacle example of modernism, there’s a scholar crying out that it’s actually a sort of pre-postmodernism distinct from both modernism and postmodernism. Movements in fiction are fluid; there has never been a work isolated from both its predecessors and its successors. Due to this, classification is a wholly subjective event; the pendulum can swing greatly, with nuances seen by s
ome readers and not at all by others. Is David Foster Wallace to be classified as a post-postmodernist because he employs a metafiction narrative at points where postmodern writers highlight reality? Do we follow James Wood’s prompting and call Zadie Smith an example of hysterical realism because of the desperateness in the daily life of her characters, or are her themes of futility solidly postmodernism? These questions cannot be answered.

  So, classifying fiction is a nebulous process, the outcome of which will never be accepted by all. Why bother? I have two points to argue for that as well. First, understanding the movements leads to a better understanding of literature. The fact that movements seemingly spill into each other, each influencing the next, gives us otherwise inaccessible context around the author’s motivations with theme and technique. One can realize George Eliot may have bucked the common Romanticism of the time in favor of realism so she could more adequately address her politically driven views. One has the ability to predict that a surrealist work might contain themes of reason being usurped by love. Second, the marketing departments are onto something: the attempt to classify does, for the most part, make the gist of the book more accessible and thus make it easier for readers to determine which books to buy. Stark differences do exist between the genres, even if they are all leaking at the seams and there is no consensus on the exact components of each categorization.

  Due to all this, I broke down the genres as simply as possible in case you ever find yourself browsing the demarcated sections of a bookstore. In the guide below, I’ve included authors who tend to embody the genre, a description as short as I can make it, and, for extra context, an example of a movie containing many of the same elements as the style.