Pittsburgh and Syracuse

This blog has been much neglected, due to all the travel lately. The account of my recent trip to Pittsburgh, though, has just been posted on Debutante Ball. (Plus, some thoughts on truth, fiction, and cell phones.)

I’m getting more and more acquainted with our local Hartford airport. But the latest trip was to Syracuse and thankfully, didn’t require flying. The drive took 4.5 hours – I was hoping for less, but nope, it’s almost as long as it was from Boston to Syracuse. I’ve found a long time ago that the best way to deal with long car trips is by listening to books on tapes. This time, I started with The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, read by John Cleese, which was fabulous, but a bit hard to follow while driving. So I switched to The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, gruesome but thoroughly captivating, and that got me to Syracuse.

As I was crossing Erie Boulevard, grey and desolate and full of garish car-dealership signs, I suddenly felt as if I’d never left. It was all too familiar. I mean, it was good to be back, but also a little sad. My teachers were still there and also a couple of my friends, but the overall MFA community was different now, full of new people, and I wondered what it was like to be them. I had these moments of nostalgia all through the evening, though I also remembered the peculiar Syracuse loneliness: living within the structure of classes, readings, receptions, parties, everything nearby, always somewhere to go – and yet, and yet…

On the other hand, Syracuse now has a small independent bookstore on Westcott Street. With a coffee shop and an extra “study” room. Very cozy. I only wish it was there back when I was at Syracuse. I’m also happy to report that the Empire Brewery is back in business – it closed sometime during my 3rd year – and it looks exactly the same and probably has the same menu as before. We went there after the reading. The following morning I drove home, and the book-on-tape this time was One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Thank you to Movie Dictator for the stellar books-on-tape selection!

Wisconsin

Madison airport doesn’t have free wireless. Nor does Detroit airport, which is huge and full of restaurants and shops, a high-speed train that takes you from gate to gate, and at lest one concourse with the walls that change colors – moody violets to flashy reds to ocean greens -- all of it set to music.

Wireless at Hartford airport is free. Also free is Staten Island Ferry in New York. Free, free, free… You can see the Statue of Liberty and everything. You can buy some excellent books on the streets of Fort Green, $1 for a paperback. But that was a whole different trip.

This trip was to Madison, and Madison airport charges $6.99 a day for its wireless, which is surprising – because everything else about Madison is inexpensive and easy. Hotels dispatch free shuttles to pick you up from the airport, serve free (hot) breakfasts in the morning, and free wine at night. The airport parking – should you ever need it – is 50 cents an hour. The drinks are generous. And the streets are full of people.

It was lovely and strange to walk the streets of Madison again. Lovely because it was just as I remembered it. Strange because I wasn’t a part of its life anymore. I went to the Farmers’ Market – the biggest in the country! It was late and many vendors have already left (or were about to), but the selection was still amazing. I found my favorite cheese stand – the one under the big red tent – and splurged on my favorite cheddars (horseradish and kalamata olive) . (Which reminds me, I must unpack my suitcase and see how well the cheddars have survived.)

Another indulgence involved stopping at one of my favorite coffee shops (Espresso Royal, the one closest to the Capitol), and spending a few minutes there with a cup of hot apple cider and a copy of Isthmus.

State Street, which connects the Capitol and the UW campus, was crowded, lively, and full of very good street musicians, and I couldn’t remember whether it was like that every weekend, or whether a football game or the book festival was to blame. Which, by the way, brings me to the reason for my trip to Madison – the Wisconsin Book Festival.

My first event was a panel on fiction writing, organized by the UW Creative Writing program. It was held at the building known as Red Gym. (I don’t think there’s a gym in there now.) The panel before ours was on atrocities, so we had to keep our voices low. Are you here for atrocities? No, fiction. Ah, okay.

I can’t vouch for the atrocities, but our panel was a lot of fun, moderated by the incomparable Judy Mitchell, who asked the best questions.

It was nice to be among my fellow UW people – old friends and new. After the panel, some of us walked to Crave, a stylish – if somewhat overpriced -- local restaurant, decorated in lovely greens. We used to go there a lot during my year in Madison.

Later I did a reading with Meena Alexander, a fabulous poet, originally from India. We were supposed to read and then have a conversation about writing in our second language – or something like that. But the festival organizers allocated only 50 minutes for the whole thing, so of course we ran out of time and ended up conversing and signing books out in the hallway.

Part of the fun of these readings is the chance to reconnect with old friends. But it’s equally thrilling (and kind of unbelievable) to speak to people whom I hadn’t previously met, people who came to hear me read, people who responded to something in my writing.

The other day, in an e-mail interview a fellow Russian asked me if I thought Americans liked to see immigrants portrayed as “helpless, confused, but trying to find themselves in American reality,” or as she put it the “right” sort of immigrants. “Is this the type of newcomer they want to see?” she asked me.

Perhaps I’m not jaded enough, but I haven’t experienced that degree of condescension, at least not from the people I know or those who’ve read the book so far. On the contrary, most American readers I’ve met identify with immigrants, see immigrant stories as part of their own history. In Madison, a couple of people told me that they too were Jewish of Russian descent – though it was their parents/grandparents who immigrated – and that connection was important to them.

But wait, I didn't mean to get all serious here! After the reading, some of us relocated to the bar across the street. Paul’s, I think, it was called, the one with a tree in the middle. Apparently there had been a game earlier that day and it hadn’t gone well for UW. So the bar was full of these anguished UW guys who wanted to know what we had thought of the game. One of them was especially persistent (and seriously drunk). I told him I was Russian and knew nothing of sports. Well, he said, that was great, ‘cause he had some problems with Russia, particularly with President Putin who just hadn’t been behaving well lately, and what did I have to say about that? Not much, as it turned out. I assured him I would convey his concerns to President Putin the next time I see him, and on that note, we parted.

So that was Wisconsin. My only regret is that due to my travel schedule I didn’t get a chance to attend some of the Book Festival events. Michael Cunningham was reading on Sunday (that’s today!) So was Patricia Hampl, who will be visiting us here at UConn in the spring. I was hoping to catch her reading in Madison, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I was on the flight home at 7 in the morning. And let me tell you, it's good to be home.

Pub. Date/Anniversary

Today is the official pub. date for the Chicken. Not sure if it means anything in practical terms -- since the book has been already selling for a couple of weeks on Amazon and some bookstores. But still, the pub date!

By sheer coincidence, today also happens to be the 15th anniversary since my family and I came to the US. (Cue in “Memories” from Cats.)

By way of celebration, I got interviewed by a local paper (Chronicle) this morning. It was fun, and I got to see what their office looked like.

And now I must run to school: today is the first installment of the student reading series. I really like the graduate students at the English department here. (Which is not to say anything bad about undergraduate ones – I just haven’t met many of them yet.) But the graduate students seem to have a really strong and supportive community, which reminds me of the way it was in Syracuse among MFA students.

P.S.

I’m still figuring out the way blogspot works in terms of moderating comments. I don’t want to have to “approve” (or “reject”) each message. I will however delete the abusive ones.

So to the “fluffy” in question, who’s been trying to post more flaming comments here, I have this to say: Please get a life. Yes, you’re entitled to your opinions, but I’m not obligated to provide a forum for them. Start your own blog, or write your own book if you wish. There are plenty of ways for you to express yourself. This blog, however, is not one of them.

They hate me! They really hate me!

Okay, not “they.” Just one of them. A young Russian lady, formerly of Squirrel Hill, has posted a hateful and very personal review on Amazon. How do I know that this lady, who identified herself on Amazon only as “fluffy,” is from Squirrel Hill? Easy. She first posted an equally mean comment on this blog, signed it, but then removed it (smart girl!). I’m not sure what the point of her outburst (I mean, review) was. She seems to be under the impression that writers earn loads of money. Oh, and she called me self-hating, which is kind of cool. That’s what critics called Philip Roth, and look where it got him!

Aside from this, though, the reviews have been good – see the new ones from the Moscow Times and LA Times -- and what makes me most happy is how positively the reviewers see the characters in the book. They see them as sympathetic, struggling, and human. They identify with them. So no matter how conflicted I might feel about real or fictional Squirrel Hill, I think I’ve done my characters justice.

What I’ve been wondering lately is how this online culture of ours, with its forums and blogs, seems to encourage meanness, pettiness, and outright abuse. Take, for example, Steve Almond’s tender, beautiful Babble.com blog on parenting. And who is this stalker-like troll who week after week posts the most obnoxious comments, in which he insults Steve, his books, and his family? What personal agenda is at play here? What sort of sick satisfaction does he (or she?) derive from this exercise?

Others get attacked as well. Parents get criticized for their parenting. Immigrants get flamed on immigrant forums – just because someone is having a bad day. A months or so ago, a well-known writer got torn apart on Gawker.com when a personal e-mail about his family situation got “leaked” into the cyber world. Now, I’ve met this author on a couple of occasions, and each time he was gracious and generous. But the Gawker crowd doesn’t care. To them, he was fresh meat, and though they’d never met him – and some had never heard of him -- they nevertheless attacked him in the most vicious and personal way.

The scary thing is, in regular life, these might be normal, maybe slightly gossipy, but basically well-meaning people. But in the privacy of the Internet they turn into monsters. I wonder what makes them lash out like that. The media? The boredom? The repression of their day-to-day lives? I don’t know.

When the mean-spirited comment appeared on this blog, Movie Dictator said, Delete it! And though I hesitated for a moment – free speech and all – he convinced me. “It’s your blog,” he said. “It’s your space. And you don’t want anyone to poison it.” Which is true. It’s not a public forum. And while I love getting questions and responses – whether from friends or people I don’t know -- I don’t need abuse. Fortunately, before I could get to it, the poster was gracious enough to remove her own comment.

The Life of Fame and Glory

I got recognized yesterday. At the post office. By a fellow Russian. I was standing in line, waiting to pick up a small parcel. It was noon, only one service window was open, and the woman behind the counter was helping a man with a large box. They were having a discussion. She kept suggesting ways to ship the box, and he kept rejecting them.

I don’t like standing in lines. That’s an understatement. Lines turn me into a mean, angry person. You’d think that after years of lines in Russia, I would develop some level of acceptance, or maybe tranquility, or grace. But no. I stand there with an expression of total disgust, and sometimes make snide comments under my breath.

So when a man in line behind me asked me if I was Russian, my first thought was: Is it that obvious? Or is it my clothes? Or my face? Then he said he’d glimpsed my name on the slip of paper I was holding. Wasn’t I the one with a book? Doing a reading next week? He said he already ordered the book.

After I picked up my parcel, the man asked me to wait for him. On the one hand, I was grateful for his interest; on the other hand, I was late for work. He was mailing a whole bunch of little packages, each of which had to be individually weighted.

I felt like a jerk at this point. There I was – an author! — acting impatient and peeved at the world in general and postal services in particular. Not at all the way I’d like people to think of me. And another thing: I love doing readings and meeting people, and I think I’m quite sociable at work. But at times, I like to step back and be invisible. I rarely get into conversations with strangers, and I tend to avoid eye-contact while shopping, walking, or using public transportation – which, of course, makes my meeting Movie Dictator on the T even more unbelievable.

He and I occasionally debate whether we’re extroverts or introverts. He seems to think that extroverts are people who do all-night parties and dance on tables, naked. I think he’s confusing extroverts with exhibitionists. Years ago, a friend characterized me as an introvert with occasional spikes of extroversion. That sounds about right. I mean, I can be outgoing, but I can also run out of steam, like last afternoon at the English-department party. By the end of the second hour, I found myself incapable of carrying a conversation.

And then there are whole days when I feel (and act) like a total misanthrope. Go figure.

As for getting recognized, today I arrived at the office only to be greeted by a poster (complete with my photo) of my upcoming reading at the university bookstore next week. This damned poster seems to be everywhere in the department, on every door or wall. It's a nice poster, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful. But it’s also a little unnerving, especially when you suddenly see your face in the bathroom, right next to your reflection in the mirror.

Out or Not?

The big news is, Chicken is available on Amazon. Really available. Not for pre-order, but actually in stock, “will ship the same day,” and so on. That’s almost two weeks before the official pub date. A good problem to have, right? Except I’m not quite sure what to do about it. Should I alert the whole world that my books is out? Beg for good ratings and Amazon reviews? Or should I wait until the official date – September 17th – at which point, the book will be in actual stores? I think I might break down and send a mass e-mail this weekend – because it’s just too sad to see it listed on Amazon, unnoticed by everyone.

In another news, I did my first radio interview yesterday. And let me tell you, I wasn’t prepared at all. I’m participating in a reading next Tuesday (9/11) at Real Art Ways in Hartford. The event is called The Evening of Literary and Patriotic Dissent, and I’m reading with Steve Almond and Alistair Highet. So the interview was to promote the event (and, to some degree, myself), and it was kind of a last-minute thing. I got the e-mail from Real Art Ways in the morning and did the interview at 4:40 pm. And we’re talking live radio, people! To say that I was stressed is to put it mildly. It’s one thing to screw up an interview that’s just about my book, but it’s a whole other thing when it’s to promote the venue, event, and two other readers. On the one hand, I knew it was an awesome opportunity. On the other hand, I’d never done anything radio, and I had serious doubts I could manage to be coherent let alone eloquent.

To do the interview, I would need a land line. No problem. While I don’t have one at home, I have a normal phone in my office at UConn. I figured I’d get there and do some prep and research for the interview. What happened next is referred to as Murphy’s Law in America and The Law of Bread-and-Butter in Russia. Earlier yesterday morning, the university had a power outage. By the time I got to campus, the power was restored, but the internet was out. (And it stayed out for the rest of the day.) There I was, in my beautiful (if somewhat Spartan) office, with no access to e-mail, no way to read the Press Release for the event, or the bio for one of the fellow participants. Nothing! I was reduced to using telephone!

In the end, I did my best. How it came out, I’m not sure, and I really don’t want to know. Like many people, I hate the sound of my voice and my accent. In my imagination I sound a lot better than in real life, and that's one illusion I think I can live with.