by Lauren Leto
Kid genius invests single share wisely in order to make a fortune.
Five words: Dialogue unattributed, scathing satire mastered.
A Frolic of His Own
National Book Award–winning examination of the legal system’s inherent flaws and its failure to deliver true justice.
Five words: “Justice in the next world.”
DETAILS
Gaddis was a Harvard Lampoon writer but dropped out of college and moved to Greenwich Village to work at The New Yorker (as a fact-checker, not a writer) and hang with the Beats. Now is a good time to mention some other famous Lampoon writers: Robert Benchley, John Updike, and Simon Rich.
Real Gaddis devotees read Swallow Hard by his daughter, Sarah Gaddis, a horrifyingly bad, bitter novel about a girl’s novelist father who is more obsessed with his work than he is concerned about the well-being of his family.
Esme’s apartment from The Recognitions on 23 Jones Street in New York City was the real-life apartment of the inspiration for the character, Sheri Martinelli. Suggest a pilgrimage there as a date idea if you’re into a Gaddis freak.
How to Fake Like You’ve Read Marcel Proust
BASICS
This reclusive novelist wrote all seven volumes of his opus from the comfort of his bed. A favorite for those who have too much time to kill while in college.
ESSENTIALOGRAPHY
In Search of Lost Time (or Remembrance of Things Past)
Seven-volume work by Proust that details the narrator’s coming of age. Characters in a state of preadulthood whose adventures in love and society seem familiar to contemporary readers despite the setting of early twentieth-century France.
Five words: Memories are luggage, madeleine episode.
DETAILS
Use the word “Proustian” often and use it well. His largest literary contribution is likely his establishment of the concept of involuntary memory. Involuntary memory is the feeling you get when you smell one of your mother’s old sweaters or walk into your old high school. It refers to the emotions a place can conjure without even an intentional thought process on your part. Those are Proustian moments.
The very best move you can pull is a correct French pronunciation of À la recherche du temps perdu—it’s “ah la ruh-SHAIRSH due TOM pair-DUE.” Also, be sure you say “Proust” correctly. It’s “proost.”
You got through the first two books swiftly but your interest lagged after the drama between Swann and Odette was resolved.
A sick child who grew into a feeble adult, in his teens and early twenties Proust was a social gadabout; as he got sicker (especially after the death of his parents) he became more and more of a recluse. Oft mentioned is his bedroom, cork-lined to keep out sound. Say you want to “pull a Proust” and install cork next time you’re complaining about your thin walls.
How to Fake Like You’ve Read Cormac McCarthy
BASICS
A real man’s man, Cormac (birth name Charles) McCarthy has admitted in interviews that he doesn’t “pretend to understand women,” which is why his books rarely contain them as main characters, if at all. He’s also stated that he doesn’t think Proust is literature. Basically, if you pantomime a McCarthy fan, you can be ignorant of all other literature and still be completely in character as a cultivated member of the literati.
ESSENTIALOGRAPHY
All the Pretty Horses
Runaway boys try to find work as cowboys, instead find corruption and time in a Mexican prison.
Five words: Lacey is a male name?
Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West
Runaway’s experiences with gangs, violence, and meteor showers.
Five words: “The kid” becomes “the man.”
No Country for Old Men
A drug deal sets a series of unfortunate events into action.
Five words: The movie version is better.
DETAILS
Cormac McCarthy unsurprisingly shared an editor with William Faulkner.
McCarthy never uses semicolons or quotation marks. Before officially hitting it big as a writer, McCarthy was so poor and determined not to get a regular job that he and his second wife would bathe in a lake. To fans and detractors both you can say, “He’s so stubborn.” Fans admire him for it; haters use it as evidence of his ineptitude.
Tell people they should read Suttree, McCarthy’s novel about life as a Tennessee fisherman, before they ever pick up Huckleberry Finn. In fact, if they’ve been lucky enough to make it through their primary school education without reading Huckleberry Finn, they shouldn’t ever read it. Twain has inspired so many other writers that you already know the story without reading the words, and most other books are better. (Sorry, I’m still bitter about the three different public school English classes that made me read Huckleberry Finn.) Suttree is one of the best examples of Twain’s influence.
Say that when your ex-boyfriend read the ending to The Road it was the only time you’d ever seen him cry.
How to Fake Like You’ve Read Kurt Vonnegut
BASICS
Curly-haired bespectacled novelist whose wild prose aptly sums up the irony of life. The craziest people I know are the biggest fans of Vonnegut.
ESSENTIALOGRAPHY
Vonnegut once graded his own works; the grades are included in the five-word descriptions below.
Cat’s Cradle
Bokonism, a made-up religion touting foot touching as worship, and ice 9, a weapon more powerful than a nuclear bomb, lead narrator Jonah on a quest to escape the island of San Lorenzo.
Five words: A+ — Man’s enemy is man.
Slaughterhouse-Five
Protagonist Billy Pilgrim transcends time in order to revisit his experiences in World War II and other episodes from his life. Vonnegut himself famously lived through a horrific experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden, the same town Pilgrim is imprisoned in.
Five words: A+ — Reflections on life’s fatalism.
Slapstick
In a New York of the distant future, twins try to implement a national plan to abolish loneliness as the world falls apart.
Five words: D — An examination of loneliness.
DETAILS
Vonnegut’s chief contribution to society was his coining of the phrase “flying fuck.” Without him I’d have no way to tell Jennifer Weiner that I don’t give a flying fuck about her writing.
When speaking to fans, claim that “Harrison Bergeron” first got you interested in politics. It’s a short story about an American teenager’s struggle in a society that forces people to be truly equal—as in equal in looks, athleticism, and intelligence.
Vonnegut’s nickname in high school was “Snarf,” a term for someone who sniffs girls’ bicycle seats. Huh; mentally adding that to my insult dictionary now.
He called semicolons “transvestite hermaphrodites.” Bring that phrase up next time your friend e-mails you with a litany of them.
How to Fake Like You’ve Read Jennifer Egan
BASICS
A novelist and journalist, this Brooklynite is a favorite among those who know better than to claim Jonathan Franzen as their contemporary favorite. It’s interesting to note that she dated Steve Jobs, the Apple visionary, for a year while she was a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Plenty of her stories involve the threat of technology engrossing individuals to the point of detriment to society.
ESSENTIALOGRAPHY
Look at Me
A model deals with the aftermath of a car accident that ruined her face, making her unrecognizable to others.
Five words: Z and Internet start-ups terrify.
The Keep
A story inside a story: a prisoner writing a presumably fictional piece about a man hiring his estranged cousin to work at his hotel.
Five words: Hair box to hear dead.
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Interconnecting stories of punk rockers, rapists, and good guys, with one unifying message: “time
is a goon” pushing around its unwitting victims, taking them forward with no respect to the present state of affairs.
Five words: Visual exploration of autistic mind.
DETAILS
Egan came under fire when, in an interview after finding out she won the Pulitzer for A Visit from the Goon Squad, she encouraged young female writers not to settle for writing chick lit and instead to set themselves higher standards. Jennifer Weiner, the same author who attacked Franzen for his oversaturation in the media, pounced on Egan for being callous. You can cite fear of Jennifer Weiner yelling at you as the reason you’ve thus far avoided Twitter.
Like her protagonist Sasha from A Visit from the Goon Squad, Egan tried to shoplift a bit as a teen, though the author herself was frightened and nervous when doing so. She said she felt jealous of the girls who could do it without care. She also has been robbed several times before. Cheer up a friend who just had her credit card hacked by saying maybe this will inspire her to write a Pulitzer Prize–winning novel.
The PowerPoint chapter in A Visit from the Goon Squad is reminiscent of Jonathan Safran Foer’s visual writing in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. “Visual writing” refers to the technique of playing images off words, side by side, in an effort to render a character’s mind-set more vividly and to tell a story more fully. For example, Egan’s PowerPoint chapter is from the perspective of an autistic girl. Egan is trying to show how the girl processes information in a different format from others and how this leads to gaps that others cannot close for her and connections between things that others do not perceive. Foer used visual writing by making the last pages of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close unreadable with squished-together text or drawn out with dozens of periods between phrases. Foer’s attempt was widely criticized, while Egan’s was widely lauded. As an Egan fan, you can say that this gives you confidence that critics are capable of seeing through pure hype.
How to Fake Like You’ve Read Chuck Palahniuk
BASICS
One of the most vile (in theme) writers in contemporary literature—the gross-out king who hides his lack of character depth behind deeply disturbing themes of sex and violence—didn’t start writing fiction until he was in his thirties (he had worked as a journalist after college).
Influenced by: Amy Hempel. He brings this fact up in practically every interview. He once wrote, “My rule about meeting people is—if I love their work, I don’t want to risk seeing them fart or pick their teeth. Last year in New York, I did a reading at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square where I praised Hempel, telling the crowd that if she wrote enough I’d just stay home and read in bed all day. The next night, she appeared at my reading in the Village. I drank half a beer and we talked without passing gas. Still, I kind of hope I never see her, again.”
ESSENTIALOGRAPHY
Fight Club
At first ignored, this novel turned into a cult favorite after being made into a movie. It follows the life of a bored business guy who starts a nighttime bare-knuckle fight club as a way to make his comfortable, dull life more interesting.
Five words: Support groups of all kinds.
Choke
A twisted tale of a sex addict who pays for his mom’s nursing care by pretending to choke at restaurants and manipulating the unwitting Samaritans who come to his rescue.
Five words: Reach out and touch him.
Survivor
Member of a death cult hijacks a plane.
Five words: Tender lives at the end.
DETAILS
Palahniuk is pronounced PAU-la-nick. Most others with his Russian last name pronounce it PAH-la-NYOOK but his grandparents decided to make it easier on American ears by pronouncing it like a mash-up of their two first names, Paula and Nick.
He’s an active member of the Cacophony Society (Portland chapter), a group that pulls large-scale pranks that aim to challenge social norms. Think of it as a harder-drinking and more violent version of Improv Everywhere. Project Mayhem from Fight Club is based on the group. In his memoir Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon, Palahniuk endearingly recalls his book reading at Powell’s where members forced him to chug tequila and wear a Santa suit.
His fifth novel, Lullaby, was written after his father was murdered in a double homicide by the jealous ex-boyfriend of a woman whom he met in a classified section of a newspaper. Palahniuk wrote the novel in just six weeks, in an effort to come to a decision about whether his father’s murderer should receive the death sentence, a decision that was left to him. If your conversation is drifting toward the supernatural, you can bring up an essay (published in Stranger Than Fiction) in which Palahniuk recounts that his mother dreamed his father was murdered the very night he was actually killed, and that his father also visited his sister’s dreams that night, to tell her it was okay they had grown apart and that “the past doesn’t matter anymore.”
Even more extreme than the horrible death of his father is the death of Palahniuk’s grandparents. His grandfather shot and killed his grandmother as his father watched from under the bed at age three. Afterward, his grandfather turned the gun on himself.
Palahniuk is often very careful to make sure facts he presents are true. To this end, the repetitive cleaning tips and tricks in Survivor are all completely accurate. Some of the best for your housekeeping pleasure: Keep bacon from curling by chilling the bacon in a freezer for a few minutes before cooking. A way to keep a sharp crease in your pants is to iron them with a pressing cloth dampened with water and vinegar. Get rid of divots in carpets (from furniture, etc.) by putting ice in them (as the ice melts the divot will pop out). Clean up small shards of broken glass using a piece of bread.
Strategies to Avoid Discussing the Major Plots Points of Any Novel
THERE’S ALWAYS SOME BOOK you’ve been planning to read for months, years. That one novel you bought and never got to during summer vacation—you read all the reviews about it, you even suggested it as a read for book club. Yet it sits permanently in the “to be read” queue. Suddenly, it’s mentioned in conversation with someone whom you want to impress. As the well-read, well-intentioned person you are, who totally means to read that book as soon as possible, you bluff. You fake it. You’ve read the back cover enough to have the gist of the plot down. So why not take the credit? You know I won’t blame you.
But now you’re stuck. You totally bluffed about reading Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, thinking that no one would challenge you on it, but someone now wants to discuss what you think was the purpose of the graffiti in the subway chapter. Let’s see if we can get you out of your predicament with ten simple steps to avoid being called both a fool and a liar:
Mention that you read the novel many, many years ago. This allows for lapses in memory and puts your conversation partner on notice that you have a long history with esteemed novels. Say it warily to give the impression you’ve spent the last decade(s) reading books along the lines of Nikolai Gogol and you’ve been disenchanted by the bulk of them. If it is a book that came out more recently, say that you read it “when it first came out.”
Say, “The plot seemed ostensibly dramatic—notable events occurred—but the characters were acting without real depth in the contexts of the decisions.” In literature, insight into whether character development was sufficient is relative to the reader. It’s a safe bet to fall back on a personal feeling that their thoughts and actions didn’t provide the requisite material to presuppose their actions. Add “Well…” at the beginning of the statement and shake your head slightly if you want to be sure your partner gets the impression that you’re beyond these banalities.
Do you know anything about the book? Anything at all? Or about the author? Best-case scenario, mention the one secondhand anecdote or critical thought you have in your possession and your partner will take the conversation from there in their excitement over your point (e.g.: the night he won the National Book Award, you recall that McCann took the subway to the awards ceremony). Wo
rst case: they won’t relate to your conversation point and they’ll ask you to explain what you’re talking about. In that event, proceed to the next item on this list.
If you’ve read another work by the author, bring that up as something you liked more or less than the work you’re currently discussing. Or bring up a movie related to one of the author’s books. For example, “I recently added to my Netflix queue the amazing documentary Man on Wire about the real-life tightrope walker who inspired the main character in Let the Great World Spin.”
If the author is current, note that they seem to be heavily influenced by Hemingway. Forewarning: you have only a 60 percent chance of nailing this point, but desperate times call for desperate measures, right?
If you’re discussing a book of contemporary short stories, lament that it feels like an easy excuse to condense and monetize all the author’s MFA work. If your partner points out the author doesn’t have an MFA, shrug and say, “I figured all short-story collections were straight out of Iowa.”
Explain away any apparent memory lapses by using one of any of the words commonly used by book critics: “You know, this author isn’t particularly indelible for me. At least, not so much as [insert a similar writer].”
There’s a whole subgenre of books that share one common quality: they make readers want to pour a glass of whiskey or light up one unsavory substance or another. The author’s somehow romantic treatment of a drink—a tidy glass of brown liquor or chilled martini—and its effect on the characters is irresistible. If you’re talking about Hemingway, Bukowski, Thompson, or any of the other booze-soaked greats, mention how you had to have a scotch in hand while reading.
Don’t attempt to discuss how the ending of the book made you feel. You don’t want to accidentally claim that you felt optimistic about Ciaran’s future in Let the Great World Spin.
The best way out of any discussion is to make an exit for the bathroom. If you feel like someone might be waiting for you when you come out, research the book while on the john. That’s what remote access to the Internet is for. Make sure you don’t take too long, and make sure to close the Web page before exiting the bathroom, lest the Wikipedia entry for “Colum McCann” pop on your screen when you decide to show your partner pictures from your last vacation.
