| Wednesday, April 25, 2007 6:17PM | | | | Granta: Best Young American Writers | Posted By: Mindy Aloff
|
| Tags: Granta, novelists | The young men of The New School’s maintenance staff—seeing that the Tishman Auditorium was only a third filled by 8:30 p.m., when the Granta reading by some of “The Best of Young American Novelists of 2007” was supposed to begin—tied off the last three rows of seats with Tyger Twine in order to push the audience forward and make it look more like, well, an audience. As it turned out, the concern was a little premature. By 8:45, when Granta editor Ian Jack walked up to the podium, so many people had suddenly arrived that the latecomers hopped over the Twine to fill the back rows. The audience seemed to be mostly men and women in their 20s and 30s, with a sprinkling of middle-aged men, two (by my count) middle-aged women, and one leonine matriarch with a walker and an attendant.
Mr. Jack began by telling the crowd that he was very glad to see us, considering that PEN had simultaneously scheduled all those other writers at Cooper Union. He went on to explain that he had been part of the editing team who had chosen the 21 Granta honorees this year; however, he “was about to stop doing that,” i.e., to retire from his position as editor. Later in the evening, we learned he was leaving to get in some writing of his own. He explained that Granta had begun its periodic culling of the “Best of Young” British novelists in 1983, when, in the U.K., it was “thought to be vulgar, odd,” to link “young” and “novelist” in the same sentence. (The ’83 choices were judicious in terms of both literary achievement and commercial potential: Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Martin Amis were among them.) The first American “Best of Young” awards were conferred in 1996, and Mr. Jack was also a judge there, along with Anne Tyler and “Skip” Gates, neither of whom he ever met, because Ms Tyler made her selections from Maryland and Dr. Gates from Harvard. Among that team’s picks was Jonathan Franzen, whom Mr. Jack described as being “like a shy but very rueful horse, who had to be coaxed into success.” Mr. Franzen wasn’t sure he wanted to be chosen as one of Granta’s “Best of Youngs,” apparently—perhaps the only honoree in the short history of the program to have entertained that variety of doubt.
Since ’96, the judging procedure has been restructured. Of the current American citizens who won this year, Daniel Alarcon (born in Peru), Olga Grushin (born in Russia), Akhil Sharma (born in India), and Gary Shteyngart (born in Russia) read in Tishman, after which they were joined by Nell Freudenberger, Gabe Hudson, Uzodinma Iweala, Jess Row, and John Wray for conversation with the audience.
Mr. Jack noted that this year’s “Best of Young American Novelists” were, as a group, stronger and more reliable writers than in ’96. (He could say this, he added, because he’s retiring.) He pointed to the fact that when he asked the ’07 Best of Youngs for unpublished stories or excerpts from novels-in-progress for Granta 97 (“Best of Young American Novelists: Now Even Younger! 2”), just published—and available at The New School for $13 each—everyone sent something good, and Mr. Jack didn’t have to resort to republishing a transcript from a BBC4 program even once. Incidentally, this year’s crop of “Best of Youngs” is younger than the crop from back in ’96. At that time, the definition of “Young” was “under 40,” but this time it was “under 35.” The definition of “American” is the possession of an American passport. Indeed, many of the 21 were born outside the U.S. All of the writers on stage write their fiction in English, or primarily in English. (Akhil Sharma, for instance, writes dialogue in his native Hindi and then translates it into English.) As Mr. Jack discusses in his Granta intro, the experience of being a non-native American is one of the earmarks of many Young American novels today, supplying the tension that, in British fiction, develops from confrontations between social classes (a subject that Mr. Jack says is not permitted in American fiction) and that replaces the more interior themes of Young American fiction of 20 years ago, principal among them, the anxiety of being an American.
Mr. Jack’s introduction to the Granta 97 issue analyzes these important changes and provides much else of interest, including the names of some of the writers whom various judges felt should have been included and, in the final flurries of judicial compromise, got left out. Given the hothouse prodigies of fiction writing who now hold American passports, it may not be long before the age is lowered to “under 21,” or lower. (Perhaps Granta could add a second competition, called something on the order of Aging Best of Young.)
As for a comparison between the Best of Young Novelists of Great Britain and those of America, Mr. Jack does address that in his Granta intro. Those prodigious Best of Very-Young Novelists who intend to be “Best of Young” in Great Britain should plan to attend either Oxford or Cambridge: 60 per cent of the most recent (2003) choices are Oxbridge alumni and alumnae. Meanwhile, the prodigies in the U.S. . . now that I think about it, “America”—the word of choice for the evening—is only politically correct these days when it includes our NAFTA partner, Canada, yet Mr. Jack and all but one young novelist used it to indicate the U.S.; oh, what the hey. . . anyway, as I was saying, prodigies in North America should plan on attending one of the Ivies, Yale preferred, or other schools (as Mr. Jack puts it in his intro) “of equal expense and reputation,” where 14 of the current 21 “Best of Young”s went, and perhaps the M.F.A. program at Iowa. In other words, if you and/or your family can spend upward of half a million dollars on your education, exclusive of the private schooling and tutors leading to the undergraduate experience, you’ll have a much better shot at the Granta honor than those writers who must resort to attending state schools or community colleges.
As Mr. Jack observed, “having nine people read would be like speed dating.” (He also said something about “the old New Yorker” that I couldn’t decipher.) So four of the novelists read excerpts from stories or novels, and then the rest who were present joined the readers on stage for a q-and-a with the audience. Both the readers and their stories were quite wonderful, and I urge you to purchase a copy of Granta 97 to read them for yourself. I will say that I didn’t hear a single adverb in any of the readings and very few complex-compound sentences or nouns longer than three syllables. Joseph Conrad and Henry James—for that matter, most of the 19th-century—have little obvious muse-business here; this is not to say that the 19th century is absent. Gary Shteyngart, for example, would be “happy to read Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons every day.” I was also interested to see that, for Young Novelists, this was a rather conservatively dressed crowd. The one wild card, 30-year-old Daniel Alarcon, wore a t-shirt, khakis (I think), and a bright red headband. A surprising number of the writers admitted that they wrote because they’d been fired from every other job, but Mr. Alarcon is currently the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College and so, one guesses, he doesn’t need to impress a prospective employer. In the event, he looked kind of cute, like the pre-electric Bob Dylan.
The trains ran on time. Most of the readers announced that they would read for six or six and a-half minutes, and they kept their promises. Some sample comments from the q-and-a:
Q: Why did you start writing?
“Writing is as natural to me as breathing.” (Jess Row)
“I was unhappy and I wanted to see if I could make other people unhappy in the same way. And I don’t want to be an investment banker.” (Akhil Sharma)
“I backed myself into a corner.” (Gabe Hudson)
“Because telling stories is how we organize the world. And I’m confused by everything.” (Daniel Alarcon)
“Because other people write.” (Uzodinma Iweala)
“Because you love to read. It’s a habit—not as natural as breathing, but as breathing while you’re jogging.” (Nell Freudenberger)
“I began writing as a little girl. I have a poor memory: I write so I can remember.” (Olga Grushin)
“I’ve been fired as a social worker, a custodian in a nuclear power plant. . . .This is the safest thing I can do without endangering others. Thank you for supporting me.” (Gary Shteyngart)
Q. Those who didn’t read tonight: what do you want us to know about your work?
“It’s excellent.” (John Wray)
“It’s available at your local independent bookstore.” (Jess Row)
“Maybe nothing.” (Gabe Hudson)
“It’s on amazon.com.” (Uzodinma Iweala)
“I’m amazed there are so many people here!” (Nell Freudenberger)
Q. Do you have an audience in mind?
“It’s difficult in a country as inward-looking as our country to capture the reader’s attention. . . .[difficult in the context of] our larger sense of cultural obliviousness.”
When Mr. Jack asked the group, “Is America a good country to work in?,” every person on stage answered, individually and collectively, “Yes.” | | |
|
3 Comments | Add a Comment |
| |
| 7-3-09 12:04AM: Crystal said...
Nicholas Montemarano (Jess Rowe), Salvador Placenzia (not sure who recommended), India(n?) Mackenzie and Eliot Agula (can't read my writing of the recommender's name, alas), David Besmazu and Benjamin Kunkel (Nell Freudenberger), Erstin Eliot (this spelling is very wrong, I'm sure--from Olga L.), Sam Lipsyte (Gary Shytengart--""one of the best writers working in England today"), Joshua Ferris (Ian Jack--he also mentions Ferris in the Granta introduction).
----------------------------------------------------------------
Herpes Simplex
|
| 4-28-07 2:43PM: Mindy said...
I have some of the names, but since I'm sorry to say I don't know most of the writers, they're probably misspelled.
Nicholas Montemarano (Jess Rowe), Salvador Placenzia (not sure who recommended), India(n?) Mackenzie and Eliot Agula (can't read my writing of the recommender's name, alas), David Besmazu and Benjamin Kunkel (Nell Freudenberger), Erstin Eliot (this spelling is very wrong, I'm sure--from Olga L.), Sam Lipsyte (Gary Shytengart--""one of the best writers working in England today"), Joshua Ferris (Ian Jack--he also mentions Ferris in the Granta introduction).
|
| 4-26-07 3:26PM: Mike M. said...
I thought they answered well cosidering the questions they were given. Did you happen to catch the writers mentioned who they thought were doing good work, I only remember Benjamin Kunkel- because I'd heard of him- and "I don't read much contemporary literature."
|
| |
| Post a Comment: |
| | |
|
