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Monday, March 30, 2009
Last week my wife and I traveled a few blocks to see Junot Diaz, author of the Pulitizer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award-winning The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, give a reading as part of Agnes Scott College's annual Writers Festival. I was curious to see how Mr. Diaz would be in person, not only because I loved his book (yes, it deserves the hype) but also because of the rather, um, extraordinary author bio on the hardcover flap of Oscar Wao. Author bios are tricky things. They are often written by the author himself, sometimes by his editor or publicist. When you craft your own bio, you have to ask yourself, how much information do I need to share, how much should I praise myself, and how many accomplishments should I mention in order to make myself stand out from the pack and grab the fleeting attention of book browsers and bookstore owners? And how do I do this while not sounding like an arrogant and big-headed jerk whose pompousness scares readers away? Diaz' bio caught my eye when I bought his book in hardcover a couple years back -- I'd read a few of his stories in The New Yorker and liked them, and was anxious to read his long-awaited, years-in-the-making novel -- but I didn't know much about him. Here's how the bio on Oscar Wao reads:
"Junot Diaz' fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories. His debut book, Drown, was met with unprecedented acclaim; it became a national bestseller, earned him a PEN/Malamud Award, and has since grown into a landmark of contemporary literature. Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey, Diaz lives in New Jersey and is a professor of writing at MIT."
Wow! Drown received "unprecedented" acclaim? Really? Winning the PEN/Malamud and being a bestseller is pretty awesome for any debut collection, absolutely, but is that combination truly "unprecedented"? What exactly would constitute "unprecedented" acclaim? Winning the PEN/Malamud and the Cy Young Award would be unprecedented. Winning the Nobel Prize and an MTV Video Music Award would be unprecedented (and Bono doubtless is trying). But what about the acclaim Drown received was unprecedented? And "landmark" of contemporary literature? For a book that, seriously, I often tried to buy over the years but could never find in a bookstore? I don't think I've ever seen the word "landmark" used in an author bio , not even when describing, say, The Grapes of Wrath or Invisible Man. I figured that Mr. Diaz must be a rather conceited chap, or very self-conscious and paranoid and therefore he felt compelled to over-compensate by tooting his own horn with unprecedented volume, or, hopefully, the bio had been written by some over-caffeinated publicist and had slipped past Mr. Diaz unnoticed until publication time. I had to hope that last explanation was the true one. So when I heard that Diaz would be giving a reading in my newly adopted town down here in Georgia, I had to check him out and see for myself.
I'm very happy to report that Diaz seems neither conceited nor paranoid. He was a gracious speaker, went out of his way to praise the college for having him, complimented our little town and thanked us profusely for making time to hear literature rather than watching game shows at home, joked with the students, etc. And he was goddamned hilarious. He read excerpts from a story called The Sun, The Moon, The Stars, published back in 1998 by The New Yorker, and I was pretty much laughing constantly. I absolutely love his ability to write narrators who are both intelligent and profane, who feel honest but also seem to cheat the reader of certain information, which is a lot harder than it sounds. But his reading style was particularly entertaining, making even lines that might have snuck past the reader with little fanfare seem laugh-out-loud funny in person. (Every young writer should hear this guy give a reading.) Basically, I loved him, and the whole crowd ate him up. I report this with more than a little relief, because I hate it when a writer or musician I admire turns out to be a jerk. I will henceforth blame some mysterious publicist at Knopf for writing that insanely inflating author bio, and will assume that Diaz was up to his ears grading papers that semester and didn't get a chance to veto the bio until it was too late and the book jackets were already printing. The lesson, therefore, which I should have known as a writer myself, is that we shouldn't judge a writer by his author bio. Even if it's the most over-the-top author bio you've ever read.
link to this | File:
"Junot Diaz' fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories. His debut book, Drown, was met with unprecedented acclaim; it became a national bestseller, earned him a PEN/Malamud Award, and has since grown into a landmark of contemporary literature. Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey, Diaz lives in New Jersey and is a professor of writing at MIT."
Wow! Drown received "unprecedented" acclaim? Really? Winning the PEN/Malamud and being a bestseller is pretty awesome for any debut collection, absolutely, but is that combination truly "unprecedented"? What exactly would constitute "unprecedented" acclaim? Winning the PEN/Malamud and the Cy Young Award would be unprecedented. Winning the Nobel Prize and an MTV Video Music Award would be unprecedented (and Bono doubtless is trying). But what about the acclaim Drown received was unprecedented? And "landmark" of contemporary literature? For a book that, seriously, I often tried to buy over the years but could never find in a bookstore? I don't think I've ever seen the word "landmark" used in an author bio , not even when describing, say, The Grapes of Wrath or Invisible Man. I figured that Mr. Diaz must be a rather conceited chap, or very self-conscious and paranoid and therefore he felt compelled to over-compensate by tooting his own horn with unprecedented volume, or, hopefully, the bio had been written by some over-caffeinated publicist and had slipped past Mr. Diaz unnoticed until publication time. I had to hope that last explanation was the true one. So when I heard that Diaz would be giving a reading in my newly adopted town down here in Georgia, I had to check him out and see for myself.
I'm very happy to report that Diaz seems neither conceited nor paranoid. He was a gracious speaker, went out of his way to praise the college for having him, complimented our little town and thanked us profusely for making time to hear literature rather than watching game shows at home, joked with the students, etc. And he was goddamned hilarious. He read excerpts from a story called The Sun, The Moon, The Stars, published back in 1998 by The New Yorker, and I was pretty much laughing constantly. I absolutely love his ability to write narrators who are both intelligent and profane, who feel honest but also seem to cheat the reader of certain information, which is a lot harder than it sounds. But his reading style was particularly entertaining, making even lines that might have snuck past the reader with little fanfare seem laugh-out-loud funny in person. (Every young writer should hear this guy give a reading.) Basically, I loved him, and the whole crowd ate him up. I report this with more than a little relief, because I hate it when a writer or musician I admire turns out to be a jerk. I will henceforth blame some mysterious publicist at Knopf for writing that insanely inflating author bio, and will assume that Diaz was up to his ears grading papers that semester and didn't get a chance to veto the bio until it was too late and the book jackets were already printing. The lesson, therefore, which I should have known as a writer myself, is that we shouldn't judge a writer by his author bio. Even if it's the most over-the-top author bio you've ever read.
link to this | File: