My Life and Thoughts

Inexorable readers!  I write to you with wonderful news!  It looks like FSG finally caved under the pressure of all those 3-star reviews… because The Possessed is now available on Kindle!  My one regret is that there is now pretty much no incentive to develop the S W Foska’s brilliant idea about making the paperback edition convertible into a Brita filter.  I guess it’s proof that great minds think alike, because my my smartest intern, Friday, who is also in charge of R&D here at My Life and Thoughts, actually explored this idea a few months ago by spilling a large glass of water onto my copy of The Brothers Karamazov, which promptly expanded to approximately 250% of its original, already non-negligible, size.  Notwithstanding these spectacular results, there are still a few bugs that have to be ironed out before we can go commercial—e.g., the water that actually made it through the “filter” looked sort of gray and unpalatable (I guess these are the visible traces of literary knowledge).

Prolific readers!  I can’t thank you enough for all the kind and entertaining communications I’ve received since the release of The Possessed.  I fully intend to answer all of them as soon as possible (as long as a return email is given)—but I’m afraid I need to call a hiatus, just for a week or two, while I cope with the rigors of maintaining my foothold on the C-list.  It’s no joke up here, let me tell you.  This week I not only did three interviews with Turkish newspapers who are proud of me for being a Turkish-American writers, and an interview with the Voice of America Central Asia program to share my thoughts about Uzbekistan, and four other interviews, and a trip to L.A., but I also had my first experiences with making up lists of things.  I didn’t realize this before, but making up lists is a huge part of promoting a first book.  Apparently, nothing reassures the book-buying public more than knowing that an unheard-of author is capable of identifying 5–10 related entities and designating them with consecutive numbers.

List aficionados should definitely check out my Dangerous Friends–themed reading list for Bookforum, as well as the Possessed-related playlist for Largehearted Boy. Coming up soon they can also enjoy the alternative Russian canon I made up for the Daily Beast, which took all day because the more I thought about it, the more I realized I actually think the existing Russian canon is OK.  Just wait and see how I ingeniously solved this problem.

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg of venues for C-list writers to publish their lists of things. A couple of weeks ago, at my publicist’s suggestion, I also submitted a pitch to the NPR “Three Books” series—it took me a whole day just to wrap my head around the concept.  First I was like, “Wait—why three books?”  Then I read on their website that it’s because “we live in a three-dimensional world, colored with hues that break down into a trio of primary colors.”  Then I was like, “Huh.”  Then I ate a sandwich.  Then I decided, “You know what, never mind why three books, let’s just look at some examples.”  So I looked at the Three Books list from the week in question:

This year, Valentine’s Day shares the 14th with Chinese New Year. Cupid had better flap his wings because it’s the Year of the Tiger, and tigers don’t eat chocolate. To commemorate this rare alignment, here are three books about love in Chinese families.

I spent another hour trying, unsuccessfully, to think of a list of three books that exploited the cosmic convergence of Ash Wednesday with the US-Germany Women’s Curling match, but then my publicist said that actually what I should be compiling were some idiosyncratic lists containing Russian books, to remind people that I have an idiosyncratic view of Russian literature.  I eventually thought up no fewer than five such lists—that’s fifteen books!  and fifteen is the atomic number of phosphorus!—so you can just imagine how proud I was.  Puzzlingly, it seems that NPR was less pleased with me than I was with myself, because I never heard anything back from them.  Well, you know what, NPR?  You can have your three books, because lists and I are through.

Coveted readers!  I have to leave you now to go watch some visionary masterpieces of Armenian film, so I can write a review of them, thus simultaneously promoting my book among the readers of obscure movie reviews, while taking bread from the mouths of writers who actually know something about Armenian film.  Talk about two birds with one stone—because you know all those other C-listers aren’t going to elbow themselves in the ribs!!  Hopefully next time I can tell you about the wonderful 36 hours I spent last week in Los Angeles.  In the meantime, many many thanks to Louise Steinman, David Ulin, and everyone who made it to the LAPL on Wednesday!

Tags: d-list, events, libraries, music, religion, reviews, THE POSSESSED, Turkey

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