So there was this Visiting Writer thingie on Friday, and lo, it appeared in the local rag with a few copyediting inaccuracies, but there it is.
What struck me at Sugi Ganeshananthan’s reading was that, although the story was not particularly suspenseful, everyone in the audience was on the edge of their seats, quiet as housecats. I sat at the back of the room so I could pass notes to the well-dressed and cutely accessorized Hipster Elf, and the only thing that came to mind is ’someone should belch.’
I wrote that down and showed her — I had to be very careful because with no one else fidgeting in their seats and checking the clock I couldn’t just conceal my own fidgeting in the general shuffle. After that I decided to just sit back and listen.
Sugi’s prose was clear and brief, expressing feeling beautifully without making us wade through overbearing complexity. After the reading, someone asked her about the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
"It’s nice to be in a place where you can say ‘I’m a writer’ and not have people ask you ‘what have you written that I might have read?’"
I mouse-ishly tried to get the commentariat’s reaction.
"You can interview me," said Tanya Gonzalez, bouncing down the hall on her way out. "It was fabulous!"
I guess that says it all.
Since I was trying to commit as many journalistic ethical violations as possible, I took the Hipster Elf with me to the Cathouse to interview sources. The English department and the Visiting Writer were hanging out, in a circle, by the window.
I sat around, trying to overhear and sift through ambient conversation; Saucy Aussie, with her typical aussome, made a boo-boo and dug around in her bag for a bandage (she apparently carries around a first-aid kit everywhere? And weeps at the sight of her own blood); Sean discussed something lofty and English-ey with the Visiting Writer; Jen was being an exceptionally charming and cogent drunk.
"The way that she [Sugi] played with the theme of hurt reminded me of Midnight’s Children," she said. That was the second time in as many days an English major recommended that book to me. Everything is foreshadowing.
I also spoke to the Visiting Writer herself, which felt weird strange because she’s a real journalist and I’m, well, me. And besides the tender, intimate prose, "Love Marriage" — which I have not read — apparently has something important to say about the play of good and evil in a post-9/11 world.
"There is an idea of who is ‘good’ and who is ‘bad,’ but the truth is not always obvious," Sugi said. "There are so many different ways to be wrong and so many different ways to be right. The people who probably think of themselves as good, with a slight turn of their lives — maybe five degrees west, could probably be bad." And with that, the conflict between human and Cylon takes another angle. Nerd.
Anyway. Read "Love Marriage." Go ahead and buy it and then I’ll borrow it from you.
