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Wednesday, September 09, 2009 |
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 Newsweek is running a fantastic daily series by NurtureShock authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.
Today's entry:
In American high schools today, it’s taken as a given that extracurricular activities bring students of different races together. What’s more, it’s on clubs and sports teams that the conditions of Allport’s Contact Theory are actually met – students are working together toward a single goal, rather than competing against each other.
Unfortunately, it isn't working out that way.
Clotfelter found that extracurricular activities were far from the desegregating force they should be. The average club was 39% less diverse than the school itself, meaning most of the clubs and sports teams were less integrated than the classrooms.
This book is turning much of what we know about kids upsided down. And the same for us adults that former kids grew into.
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And congratulations to Ashley and Po for hitting #23 on the New York Times extended bestseller list their first week out. (Books often debut low because of a partial week of sales.) Judging by Amazon, they will be in the top 5 next week.
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7:15:10 PM
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Monday, September 07, 2009 |
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 SEPTEMBER 4, 2009 7:23PM
Laura Bush announced the line-up yesterday. It's quite a list, and according to the Dallas Morning News story, I'm not one of the headliners. They wrote:
Headlining authors include Buzz Aldrin, M rgaret Atwood, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Bryan Burrough, Jeanette Walls, Jonathan Safran Foer and Taylor Branch.
Maybe next book. Hahaha. The official announcment cited me this way:
News and political junkies will enjoy Douglas Brinkley, Howard Campbell, Bryan Carlile, and Dave Cullen.
That's still damn good company. And there 210 authors on the complete list. Laura Bush founded the festival in 1995. It runs Halloween weekend, October 1 and November 1, at the Texas State Capitol in Austin.
They have not actually given me my time slot yet. They have a page about me, which will probably have it soon, and I'll add it to my site.
I've got several other public events coming up this fall in/near LA, Chicago, Nashville, Helsinki, Grand Rapids and Denver (Longmont). And I'll be at the VA Book Fest next April (at UVa). I've got them all listed at the book-tour page of my site.
I was just invited to speak at my hometown library the afternoon of my 30th high school reunion on Oct. 3. It's in Elk Grove Village, in the NW suburbs of Chicago. RSVP at the facebook invite so Barnes & Noble knows how many books to bring. (No purchase required, of course. And these are all free.)
And California State University at Northridge just issued a press release today about my appearance there Sep 23.
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5:45:02 PM
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AUGUST 22, 2009 12:29AM
I just got the nicest facebook msg from Ashley Merryman, who wrote NurtureShock with Po Bronson, who has had a string of bestsellers.
I have been interested in the book for months, but the msg made me watch the book trailer, and now I REALLY want to read it. (It's from my publisher, who promised me an advance copy. I'm chomping at the bit.)
I think I will be flipping straight to the chapter on siblings, after watching that video. I have eight. It's complicated. I don't expect to have kids of my own at this point, but I'm fascinated by them, and still reeling from my own childhood.
I never forgot the words of Tom Robbins, who ended (Still Life With Woodpecker? with the phrase: It's never too late to have a happy childhood. Wise man.)
This book is going to be huge. Their magazine stories leading up to it have won a ton of awards, so I expect it will live up. I hope so.
I also love the simple but appealing cover that communicates a great deal with so little.
I wondered aloud on my blog whether it might be from the same designer as my cover, and he emailed me saying that it was. He has the coolest blog on how he designs each cover. He said he'll be posting about that one very soon. Watch for it. The post on mine is here.
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5:41:02 PM
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JULY 28, 2009 12:17AM
It's my publisher's Sept book, and they are giving away Advance Review Copies (ARSc) to the public, first come, first served. (Click here.)
I thought some of you might want one.
Po wrote What Should I Do With My Life, which was a #1 bestseller.
This one is co-written by Ashley Merryman.
BTW, I think it's a pretty cool cover. I wonder if the guy who designed mine did it.
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5:25:48 PM
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MAY 28, 2009 2:37AM
Interesting NYT piece about a Kindle alternative:
Don’t Quit That Kindle Just Yet.
The COOL-ER device sounds not ready for primetime, but I like a lot of where it's going--especially on price.
And most of all, I like the flurry of alternatives. That's likely to juice up the market, build excitement, and act as a testing ground for ideas. Designers at Amazon and Sony will discover good ideas there, and users will too, and demand them.
This is how new devices get good fast: lots of ideas, lots of choices, lots of testing in real users' hands.
I don't, however, share the author's excitement about COOL-ER slackening the rules on allowing the books to be shared more. The author sees it as a big problem that you can't do anything with your Kindle book after you're done.
Kindles are priced much cheaper than paper books, which I think is great, because it means more potential readers. But it also means much less money per book for the writer. Writers are barely staying solvent as it is.
There need to be some tradeoffs, and one per customer seems reasonable.
E files are so easy to share, I think that without controls writers and publishers are going to be left with squat and that's bad news for books in the long run.
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5:09:48 PM
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MAY 12, 2009 5:03PM
Ever since I saw the first Kindle, I've had one big complaint: the screen is way too small. It will never be widely adopted until the screen size approximates a book.
Problem solved.
Amazon announced the Kindle-DX, and the screen is as big as a book. (Though they don't have touchscreen keyboards yet, so they're wasting a lot of space, making the thing bigger than a book, but it's looking pretty good.) We have choices.
Unfortunately the price got even worse--up to an outrageous $489 for the new model--but competition and mass production will drive that down in time.
But they're getting the textbook companies on board, which are so expensive that for college students, the economics work. And if they can get a few million people a year to adopt the technology that way, eventually the rest of us will all die off.
The NY Times story led with a puzzling statement:
Most electronic devices are getting smaller. The Kindle electronic book reader from Amazon.com is bucking the trend.
That seems like s gross exageration. The iphone is significantly bigger than most of the cellphones it displaced. Desktop monitors have been growing bigger and bigger for years--and that's the area we're talking about here: the device we use to read. Laptop makers are also coming out with much bigger models.
The truth is that size moves in both directions: We want the smallest possible size that gets the job done without waste, but we can't stand devices that are too small for the job at hand. (For example, hardly anyone wants to read a novel on an iphone, and few were even willing to read the web on a device smaller than that. That size proved just about right for the web and email, at least while we're on the go.)
I don't think the DX will ultimately prove the model that will go huge, but we're finally revving up to where ebooks are a reality. They are finally getting good enough, and they finally improving fast. (Compared to the previous decade of glacial change.)
The kindle does finally seem to be igniting things. It has proved, finally, that there is a sizable and growing audience for these things. And there are a lot of competing products coming out of the next year.
Ebooks are finally arriving. How quickly they will push out paper books, no one can really know. My prediction is that they eventually will, but it will be slow. Large numbers of people will never adopt them and will have to die off. And some will live on, like vinyl. (Though we're not THAT far away from vinyl. Will vinyl really live on forever? Paper has been around a lot longer, though, and I can't see it disappearing entirely--or even close in my lifetime.)
As an asthetic choice, I'm agnostic about the future of paper. For me, paper books are still something I like, but that's probably because I grew up with them. If most people 20 or 50 or 100 years from now feel more comfortable with an ebook, then I'm fine with that. I don't think there's an innate superiority of one just because of my upbringing.
The economic impact to our profession, though, could be huge. I'm conflicted over whether ebooks are a good thing for the short- and medium-run. Long-term, I think they're great. If you can take out about 2/3 of the cost of the book, that's amazing.
(Currently, half the cover price goes to the bookseller, though in reality, the big sellers now discount that and give it back to the consumer already. But with ebooks, their cost of operations is much less. There is also no cost to print the book, ship it--often multiple times: to wholesaler, to bookstore--warehouse it. A huge cost to the industry now is returns, with about 1/3 of books being returned. The publisher has to eat the cost of producing these, and pay to ship/warehouse them the first time, and then charged again to process the return. It's a huge cost plowed back into the cost structure of every book. With ebooks, it disappears.)
Today, the average harcover sells for about $26, but the publisher only gets $1 of that in profit, if lucky, and the writer gets $4. (I'm not sure what the publisher gets to cover costs of creating and marketing.) With a $10 ebook, the seller gets $2, the writer can still get $4 and that leaves $4 for the publisher to create the book (editing, proofing, marketing, etc.) and their profit.
The actual share each party gets is sort of up for grabs at the moment, though writers aren't going to get the $4. I'm not sure it will end up that way, though. Will writers still get what they do now? I need to check my contract on what I get on a kindle. I'm pretty sure it's much less than on a hardcover, where the writer makes most of our money, but more than on a paperback. Will that make us come out even?
In theory, though, there is dramatically less waste, so readers can get much cheaper books, without writers or publisher having to suffer.
Significantly cheaper books are a very good thing. Hardcovers are ridiculously overpriced in today's entertainment market. Our industry and our art form will be much healthier with a much cheaper product. Over time, we will hopefully find many more people willing to buy books.
But once again, we sort of got rushed into the ebook agreements, with no one knowing how it would end up. When the rules get rewritten, they tend to stay that way for decades, even if the rewrites were arbitrary and/or unintenional. Writers could come out with a smaller share of the pie, and that could be disastrous, since most of us already unable to support ourselves writing.
For a long time, I've also thought that the end of the hardback/paperback distinction will be great. More than half the population feels they can't afford hardcovers, and waits for the paperback. It seems like professional suicide for our industry to kee all the hot books away from all these people for a year or more--until they are much less interested. What a stupid approach. I understand that we are trying to bilk much more money from the people who will pay more for a year, but it's making books less relevant and desirable in a world that is already losing interest in books. Shouldn't we be winning them back by tempting them with the hottest new books that they want from Day One?
In the long run, that seems much better for the health of books. And ebooks may well be the answer. There is no distinction: a book just comes out day one, and you get it for $9.99.
Here's a hitch, though. Currently, most books that come out in hardcover get two chances at the market: one in hardcover, and a sort of rerelease a year later, with a new marketing campaign (and book tour, etc. for the big ones). It's like a few decades ago, when movies had multiple runs at the box office. It would be rereleased months later and then years later. You get multiple times to build up sales. Also, books that stumbled for whatever reason the first time, get a second shot in paperback. Some break out that second time.
In the long run, maybe that's fine. If every book only gets on shot, we'll have half as many new releases, so there will be more shelf space, media space, etc., for each on the first time. But it's that changeover process that's a killer. I'd hate to invest several years working on a book, hoping to recoup some of that when the book comes out, and then have half of that disappear because there is only one issue of the book instead of two.
Assuming the ebook becomes relevant slowly, though, this will be a gradual process.
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4:36:40 PM
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APRIL 4, 2009 1:17PM
My friend David Yoo just got a rave review in the New York Times for his novel  Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before . (Yes, it's a riff on The Smiths' song.)
Here's a bit of the review:
It wouldn’t seem possible to make high school jocks, popular girls and losers fresh and hilarious, but Yoo does it. His Romeo and Juliet story is a winner . . . but it’s Albert’s ice-dry telling of his tale of woe that sets it apart.
I just shortened it for length. There is not one negative word in the review.
This book deserves attention. It's classified "young adult" and aimed at the high school to college market, but I think anyone who remembers high school will be laughing all the way through it, and wincing sometimes, too--in a good way. High school isn't easy. David doesn't sugar coat it. But he's got a great eye, with sharp insights.
(Yes, he's my friend. That's why he's my friend.)
The book is told by a Korean high school kid named Albert. He's just about given up on his tragic adolescence, when he falls for stunning Mia Stone. Everything is looking glorious, until Mia's ex Ryan is diagnosed with cancer. Ryan wants Mia back and totally uses the illness to his advantage. The whole town rallies behind him, and Albert is kinda screwed.
It takes off from there.
I knew David had a winning idea as soon as he described it to me. I wanted to read that book. And man, did he come through.
Don't take my word for it. Read the Times, or check out other reviews here.
Or listen to the great Jonathan Lethem:
David Yoo's voice is so witty and charming it only seems fair to give warning: he'll break hearts of teenage readers of all ages with this bittersweet love story.
Then check out the book. You'll be glad you did.
Here's the book trailer. I think you'll enjoy it.
I've also got links to a lot of great books by friends and colleagues here.
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3:13:05 PM
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FEBRUARY 9, 2009 5:58PM
"Brace yourselves:" a column in today's Westword, begins: "The tenth anniversary of the attack on Columbine High School arrives this April -- and it will be accompanied by a media avalanche that will hopefully add enough perspective about these horrific events to at least partially offset the pain many locals will feel at being forced to relive one of the grimmest periods in metro Denver's history."
Westword is Denver's alt weekly, and Michael Roberts is the leading media critic in town. The deluge will be a lot stronger and more sustained here. But you'll get your share, too, if you're in earshot of this blog.
Hopefully he's right and some of that coverage will lead to real understanding. And of course I'm hoping it will direct some people toward my book. I'm grateful to Michael for the second sentence and what followed:
"The book likely to receive the most attention is Columbine by Dave Cullen, a local author whose writings about the killings have appeared in Salon and other nationally known media outlets. The tome is being issued by Twelve Books, an innovative, and relatively new, publishing company that puts out one book per month, thereby allowing the firm to put all of its resources behind a single project. Christopher Buckley's Supreme Courtship is among the house's success stories thus far -- and it's already contracted with ailing senator Ted Kennedy to publish his autobiography."
(Unfotunately, they pictured a locally-produced and distributed book also coming out, but you can't have everything. And hopefully his book will do well, and shed some light, too. I have not seen a copy yet.)
I think this is officially the first news or feature story to appear about my book. I'll try to avoid posting about all of them. LOL.
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12:48:04 PM
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FEBRUARY 7, 2009 1:06PM
I got my first prepublication review for COLUMBINE this week. It's from Kirkus Reviews (2/15).
Most of it is glowing, with a few jabs. I agreed with my publicist that I would post only his edited version:
Comprehensive, myth-busting examination of the Colorado high-school massacre . . .
“We remember Columbine as a pair of outcast Goths from the Trench Coat Mafia snapping and tearing through their high school hunting down jocks to settle a long-running feud. Almost none of that happened,” writes Cullen, a Denver-based journalist who has spent the past ten years investigating the 1999 attack. In fact, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold conceived of their act not as a targeted school shooting but as an elaborate three-part act of terrorism . . . Drawing on a wealth of journals, videotapes, police reports and personal interviews, Cullen sketches multifaceted portraits of the killers and the surviving community. He portrays Harris as a calculating, egocentric psychopath, someone who labeled his journal “The Book of God” and harbored fantasies of exterminating the entire human race. In contrast, Klebold was a suicidal depressive, prone to fits of rage and extreme self-loathing. Together they forged a combustible and unequal alliance, with Harris channeling Klebold’s frustration and anger into his sadistic plans . . . Poignant sections devoted to the survivors probe the myriad ways that individuals cope with grief and struggle to interpret and make sense of tragedy . . .
Carefully researched and chilling.
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Cary, my publicist, also sent out a press release with the following, including confirmed tour dates:
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Several prominent national magazines are currently scheduled to feature the book.
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Dave’s book tour is still coming together, but so far includes the following (all events in evening):
- April 7—Tattered Cover, Denver, LoDo (16th St. @ Wynkoop), 7:30 p.m.
- April 13—Barnes & Noble, Upper West Side, Broadway @ 82nd Street, NYC
- April 15—Politics & Prose, Washington DC
- April 16 & 17—Books & Books, Coral Gables, FL
(one event at the store, another at a school with teachers, parents and students)
- April 27—University Bookstore, Seattle
- April 29—Books, Inc., San Francisco
April: Borders has just scheduled four more events around Colorado. These four are tentative, with dates and locations awaiting final confirmation:
- April 8th at Park Meadows (8557 Park Meadow Center)
- April 9th at Northglenn (241 W 104th St)
- April 10th at Boulder (1750 29th St)
- April 21st at Colorado Springs (2120 Southgate Rd)
Memorial event in Littleton, CO (possible).
Events may also be scheduled in Los Angeles and Portland, as well as additional events in Colorado.
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12:42:04 PM
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I think I got over my car robbery so well last week, because I discovered it while calling my parents to deliver some good news. All I could think on the drive to the gym thirty minutes later was, "The lord giveth and the lord taketh." (Feel free to substitute "karma" or "the universe." Works the same.)
He, she, it or they have been giving a lot more than taking for me personally, lately, and even that day. I decided if I had a choice on living the day over again, letting go of either both or neither, I'd take it. Worth a robbery for this email from my editor:
One of the most highly regarded independent booksellers read COLUMBINE and has recommended it as a selection for the IndieNext pick. Actually, what he's written is more than a recommendation. I think you'll be pleased. His note is below.
Every once in a rare while a book arrives to bear witness and such is the case with Columbine. This definitive account of the Colorado high school tragedy will not only surpass all others, it will endure and take a rightful place on the shelf along side In Cold Blood and The Executioner's Song.
Bill Cusumano, Nicola's Books, Ann Arbor
Nice. From now on, I want everyone to compare me to Truman Capote. Norman Mailer optional. Hehehe.
It was the second blurb in a week comparing my book to In Cold Blood. You can never have too much of that. So please allow me to use this pleasant opportunity to whine about something. I have spent decades in bafflement at authors/artists who complain about comparisons like that. (Pop stars seem most heavily prone.)
The complaint tends to runs along the line of wanting to be original. I'd like that too, but I know I didn't invent the form of narrative nonfiction. It would suck to hear that I had shamelessly copied one of those books or was a pale imitation, but I'm not getting that here.
I felt I had to reserve a little judgment, though, because you never know. I might see the comparison differently if I were ever so lucky to provoke it. I am now that lucky. And eager for more.
Also feel free to compare me to Nabokov. Hahaha. I don't think I write anything like him, but I'd like to.
I named my blog after him: Conclusive Evidence of my existence. (Explanation at the link). I used to post a Nabokov of the Day occasionally, just to hear a great prose melody again. Here's a quickie:
People in trains, who lay their newspaper aside, fold their silly arms, and immediately, with an offensive familiarity of demeanor, start snoring, amaze me as much as the uninhibited chap who cozily defecates in the presence of a chatty tubber, or participates in huge  demonstrations, or joins some union in order to dissolve it.
-- Speak, Memory / Conclusive Evidence, p. 108 (Vintage Edition)
That's my all-time favorite book, in a tie with Catcher in the Rye. I have still not decided between them, and don't intend to.
I have a few quotes from it I like even better, but I can't find them on my blog archives. (That one was from 2003.) I may have to go find the book. I only keep three copies in my apt.
Oh, I was saying . . .
I decided the night of the car-theft, that I'd gladly trade that blurb for a robbery. I got some even better news the next day, which I can share in about a week. Hopefully I won't have to get mugged. 
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3:29:56 PM
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I got a really nice message from my editor today. Alexandra Fuller, who wrote the critical hits and bestsellers Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, sent a really nice blurb for my book Columbine:
"Like Capote's In Cold Blood, this is a vivid exploration of the broken logic that drove two young men to commit a terrible, senseless crime. A stunning achievement -- clear-eyed, compassionate, thoroughly researched. However much we may want to, we cannot afford to look away."
How cool to get compared to Capote, and In Cold Blood. I freaking love that book.
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FYI, here are the previous blurbs. (My editor says I can't repeat them too much. hahaha. So I just added them to the sidebar, too):
"Half the anguish of Columbine is our mystification. How did those boys get so twisted, so murderous? Now, after nine years of great reporting, Dave Cullen has done the impossible: you will know these killers -- and it will shake you up. This is a big-time work that will endure."
--Richard Ben Cramer, author of Joe DiMaggio and What It Takes
"Dave Cullen is the Dante of this high school hell. I came away from it thinking of Jack Nicholson hollering 'You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!'. Read this quietly powerful account of Columbine and find out if you can."
--Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler and The Shakespeare Wars
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BTW, I would greatly appreciate any links to my book site -- http://davecullen.com/columbine.htm -- preferably with "Columbine" as the anchor text--so that google searches on "Columbine" find it. I'm currently ranked #16 on that keyword, and need to break into the top ten. So the completed link would look like this: Columbine.
Thanks.
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10:10:29 PM
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Tuesday, September 19, 2006 |
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And the book looks pretty damn good, too, from my quick stab, tonight.
Frank Rich's The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina came out today, and is already #2 at Amazon, so you're prolly going to be hearing a lot about it.
I checked it out tonight at Denver's great local bookstore Tattered Cover. Really interesting opening, written in Frank's usual fluid style. And I was really glad to read this in the intro:
This book is not intended to be a harangue about George W. Bush or the war in Iraq, though my views will certainly be evident. What it is instead is a critical retracing of the sophisticated steps by which some clever people in the White House, handed an opportunity and a mandate by the shocking events of 9/11, unfurled a brilliantly produced scenario to accomplish a variety of ends . . .
Thank you! As much as our fearless leader irks the hell out of me, I don't really need to spend time on a detailed analysis of how. The man will come and go as a mediocre to horrible president, and I've already lost interest. He's just not an interesting guy. But, the way the media has been co-opted and participates in promoting these preposterous fictions upon us--that's important.
That's exactly what The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are ultimately all about, and that's why they are insanely popular, and brilliant at the same time. (And most of the press still doesn't quite get them--or chuckles along with them, but doesn't get that they are the butt of the joke more than the politicians. Either they don't get it or can't figure out how to change.)
Those shows do it on a daily basis, bit by bit, but so nice to have someone pull the whole picture together.
And what a gutsy move by his publisher to devote 100 pages to a timeline, showing side-by-side what the white house was saying internally, and the alternate reality they were pitching to us. That's worth the price of the book all by itself. (The book says the timeline will be updated continually at his website. It's not live yet, but there's a "coming soon" sign.)
So far, so good. I'll let you know more as I get further.
Meanwhile, he's going to be the guest on Fresh Air on NPR Wednesday.
And here's the PW review:
Starred Review. This blistering j'accuse has vitriol to spare for George Bush—calling him a "spoiled brat" and "blowhard"—and his policies, but its main target is the PR machinery that promoted those policies to the American people. New York Times columnist Rich revisits nearly every Bush administration publicity gambit, including Iraqi WMD claims, Bush's "Mission Accomplished" triumph, the Swift-boating of John Kerry and the writing of fake prowar letters-to-the-editor from soldiers. He uncovers nothing new, but his meticulously researched recap-cum-debunking—complete with appended 80-page time line comparing administration spin to actual events—builds a comprehensive picture of a White House propaganda campaign to bamboozle the public, smear critics, camouflage policy disasters and win the 2002 and 2004 elections through trumped-up security anxieties. Along the way, he pillories a sycophantic media (Bob Woodward gets spanked hard), spineless Democrats and an infotainment culture that happily accommodates the Bush administration's erasure of the line between reality and fiction. Sometimes Rich's critique of Republican politics as cynical image-manipulation goes overboard, as in his "wag the dog" theory of the Iraq war as a Karl Rove electoral maneuver; more often, though, it's on target. The result is a caustic, hard-hitting indictment of the Bush administration, timed to make a splash in the upcoming election campaign. (Sept. 19)
Amazon link here.
Wednesday Update:
Frank was on The Colbert Report last night, and NPR's Fresh Air today (the first 3/4 of the show). Listen to Fresh Air show here.
Comedy Central repeats Colbert endlessly through the next day, and a lot of stations play or replay Fresh Air at night, so you still have time to catch both. He was great on both.
(And if you watch Colbert, tune in two minutes early to see the preview on The Daily Show. Nothing to do with Frank, but it involves Stephen's word-a-day calendar, which I won't give away, but it still has me snickering just remembering.)
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10:53:07 PM
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Sunday, November 06, 2005 |
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I swore off blogging for a bit to stay focused, but this I need to talk about.
Just saw Capote. Extraordinary. Especially for a writer. What a gift to get such a glimpse at his process. But . . .
Huge but. But what a cynical take on him. I just don't buy it. He got all those people to open up to him by faking empathy? When he was truly just cold blooded, calculating and entirely manipulative? I guess there are con artists that good out there. I just found it way too hard to swallow.
Now I totally buy that he manipulated people. And that he was routinely conflicted: horrified and saddened, while at the same time at work--he could spot great potential for his own gain at the same moment he experienced great sorrow for them.
But this film showed only half of that equation, hence very little internal conflict. He cared only about himself in this version. Monstrous megalomaniac.
I wrote down CYNICAL! on my note paper about 20 minutes into it. Later I replaced it with cruel. Eventually, comical. Mommy Dearest level ludicrous when he whined that they were torturing him by keeping his alleged friend the killer alive.
Maybe he really was as cold blooded as the killers. But I found that aspect of it exceptionally unconvincing.
And just about everything else about the film pitch perfect. Unfortunately, that was the central conceit.
So I still admire it greatly, with one gigantic reservation.
Mark it a deeply flawed masterpiece.
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Note: I don't fault Philip Seymour Hoffman's acting, by the way, which was stunning. (And everyone else in the film was exceptional, too.) Unless they left the other half on the editing floor it was clearly written that way and directed that way. Not his decision, it would appear.
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12:05:34 AM
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Monday, September 26, 2005 |
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In honor of--or rather in order to market--the new Capote film, The New York Times is running something called "A Sponsored Archive," with free links to some of its most important pieces published about him over the years.
(Normally, they charge for archive stories.)
Can't wait for the film. In Cold Blood has been in my top five books ever since I read it about five years ago. And I do hope to knock it off its pedestal one day. Eager to see Hollywood's take on the ghastly compromises he made to create it.
(And as a bonus for visiting the site, you might get to see it much earlier. If you live in Denver, just clicking on it will generate an invite to a free preview screening this Thursday. I assume similar previews are set in other cities.
I am still wading through the archives, but the two richest pieces I found so far are A Book in a New Form Earns $2-Million for Truman Capote, published two weeks before the book, and The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel, an interview by George Plimpton. The intro to the latter:
"In Cold Blood" is remarkable for its objectivity - nowhere, despite his involvement, does the author intrude. In the following interview, done a few weeks ago, Truman Capote, presents his own views on the case, its principals, and in particular he discussed the new literary art form which he calls the nonfiction novel. . .
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Note: Had to break my weekday silence to let you know about the free tix, and cause it's nearly 11 p.m. and I'm done working for the day. So one more in a sec, since I'm here.
Update:
Trailer for Capote. And great story in the Times: Answered Prayers: How 'Capote' Came Together.
Synopsis from RT:
In November, 1959, Truman Capote ( Philip Seymour Hoffman), the author of Breakfast at Tiffany's and a favorite figure in what is soon to be known as the Jet Set, reads an article on a back page of the New York Times. It tells of the murders of four members of a well-known farm family—the Clutters—in Holcomb, Kansas. Similar stories appear in newspapers almost every day, but something about this one catches Capote's eye. It presents an opportunity, he believes, to test his long-held theory that, in the hands of the right writer, non-fiction can be compelling as fiction. What impact have the murders had on that tiny town on the wind-swept plains? With that as his subject—for his purpose, it does not matter if the murderers are never caught—he convinces The New Yorker magazine to give him an assignment and he sets out for Kansas. Accompanying him is a friend from his Alabama childhood: Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), who within a few months will win a Pulitzer Prize and achieve fame of her own as the author of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Though his childlike voice, fey mannerisms and unconventional clothes arouse initial hostility in a part of the country that still thinks of itself as part of the Old West, Capote quickly wins the trust of the locals, most notably Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent who is leading the hunt for the killers. Caught in Las Vegas, the killers—Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino)—are returned to Kansas, where they are tried, convicted and sentenced to die. Capote visits them in jail. As he gets to know them, he realizes that what he had thought would be a magazine article has grown into a book, a book that could rank with the greatest in modern literature. His subject is now as profound as any an American writer has ever tackled. It is nothing less than the collision of two Americas: the safe, protected country the Clutters knew and the rootless, amoral country
inhabited by their killers. Hidden behind Capote's often frivolous façade is a writer of towering ambition. But even he wonders if he can write the book—the great book—he believes destiny has handed him. "Sometimes, when I think how good it could be," he writes a friend, "I can hardly breathe."
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10:48:46 PM
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Hey. You might have noticed I'm rarely here during the week these days.
Yes, by design. Trying to keep my focus entirely on my book during the week. Hence the big one-day bursts on Saturdays and Sundays. So look for me then. (Or on Mondays when you get back to trolling the web at the office, while your boss is away. heeheehee.)
OK, better try that bigger:
LOOK FOR ME MOSTLY ON THE WEEKENDS UNTIL THIS BOOK IS DONE!
Occasionally I may stop by in an evening, if I've had a great day and deserve an indulgence, or maybe once in awhile for a quickie. (Like just now. I figured since I was here to let you know this, I could pound out a quick reaction to the Housewives.)
But hopefully you'll see a lot of self-control.
See you Saturday.
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11:17:40 AM
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