Now I’ve read the book, now I’ve had time to think about it. What is my understanding of her personal truth? I can only understand a small slice of it—269 pages is a fraction of reality—but it seems to have something to do with joy and spirituality and devastation and redemption and wisdom and poetry. Also: the hunger for knowledge, the quest for community, and the capacity for love. Great loves and small loves alike. It is good to be able to love. I felt it flowing through the pages of this book. Don’t be mistaken that this book is about booze. It is about much, much more.

Over e-mail, Rosie answered a few questions about her love of poetry, her intriguing family members, and what she would do with her life if she weren’t a writer.

***

The Rumpus: Does having a poetry background impact your prose writing? Is there any sort of crossover inspiration?

Rosie Schaap: Poetry influences me in countless ways: in how I write, how I make decisions, how I reckon with my misgivings and mistakes, how I treat people. I read at least a poem a day; without that to anchor me, I’m pretty sure I’d completely unravel. Although I seldom write poems anymore, poetry does affect my prose writing—whether as a source of inspiration or a point of reference (Frost and Brecht have turned up in my “Drink” columns for The New York Times Magazine; Yeats and Blake, among others, are big presences in Drinking With Men), or as a kind of reminder to be careful with metaphors, to think them through, to make sure that they do what I need them to do.

Rumpus: Now I’ll do that awful thing where I ask if you have a top-five poet list. Or do you have any go-to poets? What poets are you greatest triggers?

Schaap: A top-five list. So hard! I share your devotion to Grace Paley—as a fiction writer, as a poet, and as a human. Blake, Dickinson, and Wordsworth are always with me. See? That’s already four. So I’ll pick one among the living: the great Northern Irish poet Ciaran Carson (who is also a brilliant prose writer); it makes me a little crazy that, although he has many fans, he’s not massively famous, especially on this side of the Atlantic. I often turned to a nonfiction book of Ciaran Carson’s, Last Night’s Fun, when I was really struggling with writing Drinking With Men. To me, it’s everything great nonfiction should be: smart, funny, surprising, insightful—just a joy to read from beginning to end. Its primary subject is traditional Irish music, but so much else comes into it: family, food, sports, history.

Rumpus: You are a woman with no shortage of opinions. I know that you have very specific likes and dislikes in writing. What turns you on in writing? What infuriates you?

Schaap: I think what I always want most of all is the sense that the reader matters to the writer. That a story, true or not, is being told not only for the sake of the telling, but because it might matter to anyone generous enough to take the time to read it. And I don’t mean it has to matter in some big, life-changing way (though sometimes literature has had that effect on me). I guess I’m annoyed by writers who seem only to look inward, and never out at the world around them. There’s a kind of willful obfuscation or opacity I sometimes detect in contemporary poetry that turns me off. All writers need to be introspective. I think that’s obvious. But I think we also need to signal to our readers that they’re part of this, too.

Rumpus: While some may get the impression from the title that this book is about drinking, I think more than anything else this book is about the importance of the sense of community. (I thought so often of the concept of a third place while I was reading this book.) You are a native New Yorker, and New York City gets a tough rap sometimes for being a mean, tough place. But I saw a lot of love.

Schaap: Community is absolutely at the heart of Drinking With Men, much more than drinking (although there’s plenty of that). You’re right about the “third place” idea. Bars have always been crucial to me as places that aren’t home, and aren’t work. Bars are pressure valves. And most of all, bars are people. And the people I’ve met—my community—at bars here in New York have been as warm and open as people I’ve met in bars anywhere else. This image of New York as a mean, tough place drives me a little nuts. But as much as I love my hometown, and cheerlead for it whenever given the chance, I frequently remind myself that, as a native, the perspective I’ll never have on this town is that of someone coming here for the first time, and making a life here. I will never know what that feels like, even thought most of closest friends have had that experience.

But listen, I am from here, and I’m not so tough and mean. I love giving people directions (I get stopped in the street for them all the time) and restaurant and bar recommendations, and other NYC-related advice, whether they ask for it or not. You know me. I talk to everybody. All the time.

Rumpus: You come from a family of many magnificent Schaaps. Your father, Dick, was a famous sportswriter and wrote many books; your brother Jeremy is an ESPN anchor and also a sportswriter and author; and, of course, there is your cousin Phil Schaap, the jazz historian and DJ, who inspires so much obsession from music fans. Was there always a sense of this is what you are going to become, that you would be a writer someday? And although those other Schaaps are, for the most part, very different in terms of what they write about, did they still inspire you? Do you see any commonalities between your work?

Schaap: Ha! You are too kind, Jami. “Magnificent” is a very charitable way of putting it. My parents split up when I was very young, and I was raised by my mother (who was pretty magnificent in her own way). But I vividly remember watching my father write. What he modeled, inadvertently, just out of necessity, was that writing is a job. He was very, very good at his job. But what I saw was someone putting in marathon stretches at an IBM Selectric II. He didn’t seem to give himself much time to plot, reflect, outline, fret, ponder, pace, despair (though I suspect he must have done all of these things when I wasn’t looking). What I saw was: he wrote. Like a man possessed. (He was married three times and had six children, and in a brilliant, and comically cynical moment, he once told me that “alimony is the greatest muse.”) But I know how much he valued good writing, so I don’t want to say he stripped all of the romance or excitement from the work of writing; he just made it clear that without putting in the work, there could be no romance attached to it. In the sports world, my brother has followed in his footsteps, and has done so beautifully, and very much in his own fashion. I could not admire my brother, or his work, more.

And then there’s Phil. Amazing Phil. I hadn’t seen Phil very much in my youth. What really brought us together was a ride we shared back to New York after another cousin’s wedding in Maryland in the mid-1990s. He took up much of the five-and-a-half hours telling us the heartbreaking story of the genius cornetist Bix Beiderbecke. By the time we arrived in front of Puffy’s Tavern, well before last call, I had tears in my eyes. I was deeply moved by Phil’s telling of the sad tale. I was also so happy to be reunited with my wonderful cousin in this way, and we’ve stayed close ever since. He’s a gift to all people who love jazz—and to me.

I guess we all share an obsessive strain. For my dad, it wasn’t just sports—it was people. He found people endlessly fascinating, and so often brought out the best in them. I hope I share some of this. My brother knows as much about history and culture as he does about sports. I’d just as soon talk about poetry or music or social justice as I would about drinks. The things we’re into, we are really into. And we are all talkers. Epic, unstoppable, kind of superhuman talkers. Just try to shut us up. But I’ve also known that I’m inherently lazier, less focused, and less driven than these other Schaaps. (And since our name is Dutch for “sheep,” it was kind of irresistible to consider myself the black sheep). I always wrote, but in terms of really thinking of writing as a career, I was a late bloomer; it didn’t click until my late thirties. I wasn’t terribly ambitious. And I didn’t have the ideas or the resolve or the will to commit myself fully to writing until adulthood, after I’d given many other, varied professional paths a chance.

Rumpus: We have discussed before our different feelings about writing. I enjoy the act of writing and am very happy in the moment, whereas my impression is that you enjoy more having written. What is important to you about writing (or being a writer) if it is not the act of writing itself? And what do you enjoy more than having written? You have had so many careers in your life—if you could swap writing as a career for anything, what would it be? I like to picture you just officiating weddings for the rest of your life.

Schaap: I wouldn’t say I enjoy the idea of having written any more than I enjoy the act of writing, but I always do enjoy reaching the finish line (whether it’s with a book, a column, an essay, or a poem). I love the act of writing during those rare stretches when I know it’s going well, when my brain and my heart both feel fully, richly engaged. I wish it felt like that all the time, but for me anyway, it doesn’t. There’s so often a slow-burning, burdensome sense of wanting what I write to be so much better. And that’s frustrating, but it’s also productive. I want to keep going mostly for those moments, when I know I’m really communicating something in a way that I think might move or entertain a reader (if I can do both, I’m especially happy). I can’t help wanting more of those moments. At the same time, I’m grateful beyond measure to have arrived at a point when I really can have a life as a writer, to get to do what I get to do. Writing the “Drink” column is a total pleasure; I think the scale of it—just 600 words or so—and the steady deadlines make it hard to indulge in the fretfulness and occasional agony I felt while writing a book.

So I think that regardless of the difficulty I have with writing, it’s exactly the career I want. But I do daydream about running a little pub someday, while still working as a writer. A cozy little bar, where I could read and write in the back office when things are slow. Talk to the regulars who drink during the day. And officiate at weddings in the garden out back. It will have to have a little garden out back.

***

Photograph of Rosie Schaap © 2013 by M. Sharkey.

Related Posts:

• ALBUM #3, Audio Portraits of Artists and Writers at Work: Rosie Schaap
• The Rumpus Interview with Molly Ringwald
• The Rumpus Book Club Interviews Jami Attenberg
• Jami Attenberg Roundup
• “What’s Eating Jami Attenberg?”

Also, I go to see other authors read, to support them, and to watch them interact with their audience. I want to know what they know. I never want to stop learning. Last summer, in New York City, I went to see Molly Ringwald give a reading for her first book of fiction, When It Happens to You, a funny, emotionally true story about the failure of a marriage and its repercussions, a book which I very much enjoyed and promptly bought for my mother. I thought: Well, let’s see what she knows.

Of course Molly was a great reader—she’s been performing since she was a child. (I was fortunate enough to have her narrate the audiobook version of my latest novel.) She was poised. She held the room. But sometimes, because of her past, she gets asked questions that don’t have anything to do with her writing. I only wanted to know about her writing. So I decided to ask her some more questions. We exchanged e-mails. Here we go.

***

The Rumpus: One of the things I appreciated about your book was how structurally sound it was. I think structure is one of the biggest challenges writers face. For fiction writers, it’s sometimes easy to get caught up in a character’s voice and lose track of the bigger picture of the book. Can you talk about how conscious you were of the structure when you were writing it, if you found any challenges in that area, and if you used any other books in any sort of instructional way?

Molly Ringwald: The structure of the book actually came fairly organically. The only idea that I really had in mind when I set out to write the book was the thought of writing on betrayal—the ways in which we betray each other and ourselves. I intended for the stories to be shorter and the connections to be more random.

But as soon as I wrote the first story—which came in longer that I had expected—I realized that I wanted the connections to be less random and more profound. I wrote the stories more or less in the order that they appear, with the exception of the second story that I wrote, which was even longer than the first. I labored over it like crazy and then scrapped it, which was heartbreaking but know now that it really helped me to further focus the book that I ended up writing. It takes place in the span of a year, so there was some shuffling that I had to do a little bit after the fact to make sure that all of the events line up in the right months, but it was actually surprising to me how little of that was actually necessary.

What I did find challenging—and I don’t know if all writers face this, or of it is just me—but I do find myself switching verb tenses while I’m writing. I mean, this is pretty much first draft stuff, but it’s interesting to notice the places where it happens and why.

The Rumpus: I love a good nitpick. The thing that I obsess over in my own work—and I find myself doing it in the work of others as well—is when I repeat certain phrases or words. Even though it feels really cushy and lovely to use them sometimes, because they are your favorite words, it’s just a sign of lazy writing. What other kinds of things do you zone in on in your writing or the writing of others? And on the flipside, what do you delight in? Like, I love a long sentence—I’m talking a page-long, even longer. I love one that takes you on a real journey.

Ringwald: Repetition is absolutely something that I nitpick over in my own work and in the work of others. It is also something that can be really noticeable if you happen to read work out loud. I really tried to be aware of it in my own work, but even with that in mind, I found a repetition in the finished book that drove me out of my mind!

I tend to zone in when writers pamper their main characters—when the self-deprecation seems a little disingenuous. Also, when the writer has the characters speak in the same way with the same character ticks.

Long sentences I love, if you can pull it off, and, of course, Franzen is genius at that. I think it’s incredibly important to know how to use them and how to vary it so that it has an inner structure to it. Another device that I admire, that you use, and Egan as well, is the ability to flash forward into the future and then back again. I find it thrilling—especially when the writer manages to not undercut the suspense in any way. It seems magical to me.

Something else that drives me crazy: writing clichéd similes. I think certain writers just have a natural facility to find similes that are utterly original, and other writers don’t use them at all. It is something that I think about all the time when I write. If it ever sounds like something that I have heard or read before, I’ll cut it.

The Rumpus: So I am very lucky because I got to have you read my audiobook, but I have only listened to a little bit of it because I’m afraid I’ll start to read it like you. I have a problem with mimicry, especially with accents, but also with timing. I also end up wanting to write like other people who are highly stylized. I remember the first time I read On The Road, when I was traveling in Europe by myself, and when I look back at the journals I kept at the time they just sound like Kerouac and nothing else. Do you have any issues with mimicry at all?

Ringwald: I am a natural mimic, and it is something that I kept in mind while writing my book. I basically just stopped reading all fiction—the only exception that I made was for writers that I had already been influenced by in my life, like Carver and Didion. But I swore off new fiction entirely and now I feel like I’ve been making up for lost time and reading as much as I can. (Of course now I have that feeling of: “Flash forwards! Why didn’t I try that?”) I found reading biographies of other writers incredibly helpful, and also poetry. I don’t really write poetry, so I didn’t feel like it would sway me.

Rumpus: Carver’s actually one of my go-tos when I have trouble writing. Carver and Paley and Flannery O’Connor. Whenever I feel like I’ve forgotten how to write I can pick up one of their books and open it to any story, and I’ll suddenly feel renewed.

Ringwald: Carver, he’s a good one. I have always responded to the immediacy of his writing. Whenever I get caught up in this idea that I’m not “innovating,” or the pressure of thinking I have to express something that no one has ever expressed in the same way ever, I go back to Carver and am always struck by the way he just…said it. It puts me back in the frame of mind of just tell the story—as honestly and as authentically as I possibly can.

Rumpus: I was thinking about how I know more about you from the Internet than anywhere else. Can you talk at all about what impact the Internet has had on your writing? Has it helped you to develop an audience? Do you feel like it has opened up the conversation about your work? Does it impact your writing at all?

Ringwald: I don’t really think that the Internet has impacted the actual writing at all. I use it while I write as a sort of virtual library. All of these random questions that would have taken days to figure out are now ridiculously easy to answer, and I really do use it for that. I also write very often to Pandora, which I weirdly prefer to my own music collection, because it is music that I don’t know and therefore do not have any former association with it.

As far as the promotional side of the Internet…I have mixed feelings about it. I am ambivalent about self-promotion, but at the same time I can’t deny that it had a positive effect on my book sales. Particularly e-book sales. At the beginning, my e-book sales were literally quadruple my print sales, which I’m sure had a lot to do with my online presence. But at the end of the day, I think I am ill-equipped to stay in the social media atmosphere on a regular basis. It feels a bit like staying at a party for too long, and I need to get home, back to my real life to recharge. Not to mention that when I spend too much time on social media, it keeps me from actually writing.

Rumpus: And finally, you and I were chatting the other day about the best books of the year and I mentioned a few you hadn’t read yet, and I was thinking about how all I do is sit around and read and write all day and maybe I’ll, like, go for a bike ride or something, but that’s pretty much it. And you have three kids and a day job and a husband, and I am just curious how you fit it all together—the life of the mind, and the emotional life, and also, if being a parent has impacted your writing at all beyond subject matter.

Ringwald: Children do force you to prioritize your time in a way that I don’t think I ever did as a young single person kicking around Paris and New York. Time is a beast that my husband Panio and I struggle with every single day. We negotiate every night who gets to write, and who has to pick up the kids, go grocery shopping, etc. He likes to say that it’s just a matter of desperation—whoever is the most desperate and looks like they will sink into a pit of despair if they don’t get some writing time in is usually the one who gets the hours in the next day. 

Related Posts:

• The Rumpus Interview with Rosie Schaap
• The Rumpus Book Club Interviews Jami Attenberg
• Jami Attenberg Roundup
• “What’s Eating Jami Attenberg?”
• Praise for The Middlesteins

This is an edited transcript of the book club discussion. Every month The Rumpus Book Club hosts a discussion online with the book club members and the author and we post an edited version online as an interview. To learn how you can become a member of The Rumpus Book Club click here.

This Rumpus Book Club interview was edited by Rebecca Rubenstein.

***

David B: Anything in particular inspire your cast of characters?

Jami Attenberg: Well, it’s set in the community where I grew up. So everyone sort of felt familiar to me, even though they weren’t inspired by anyone in particular. Robin was the first character I wrote and she was a little bit of an alternate universe version of myself, like if I had moved to New York City and left and never came back, although we are very different people. And I would say Kenneth had a direct forbear of sorts. He was inspired by a New Yorker piece I read, by Calvin Trillin. He wrote this food piece about a Chinese chef who moved all around the Eastern seaboard. And people were obsessed with him, and he was very mysterious.

David B: I wondered if there was a character you were especially close to…

Jami Attenberg: I mean, Robin feels the most like me even though we’re not alike. But I get Edie. And I get Emily, too.

Brian S: Unrelated, but Trillin is how I discovered the turducken, even though it was apparently invented less than a hundred miles from where I grew up.

Kevin T: I loved Kenneth. Have you made that cumin-cinnamon-lamb dish? If so, can you share the recipe with us?

Jami Attenberg: I have not made that cumin-lamb dish! But I have eaten it at Xi’an Famous Foods in New York. Minus the cinnamon. Which someone suggested to me. I have had a turducken Thanksgiving before and it is not the same. I do not recommend the turducken.

Roxane: Turducken sounds a bit frightening.

Brian S: I fancy myself an adventurous eater, but I’ve never tried that, either.

Candy: When writing this, did you ever consider having Richard come back to his wife, or did you always plan to end the book as you did?

Jami Attenberg: I always knew Richard was gone and never coming back. It was a question of whether he was going to find love or not.

Candy: Very realistic but so sad.

Roxane: One of the things that we talked about was Edie’s unlikability. Did you worry about how she would be perceived by readers?

Jami Attenberg: I didn’t worry about it that much. Honestly, I didn’t like any of them that much when I started, and then I wrote my way into liking them.

Megan: I was so sympathetic to Middlestein and sad that granddaughter was the only one who came around.

Jami Attenberg: Megan, it’s true, he definitely became more sympathetic by the end. He just wanted love. I think we are perhaps entitled to at least try for it. I don’t believe much in entitlement but that seems like a right.

Brian S: The pursuit of it [love], yes, that’s something we’re entitled to.

Candy: Honestly, I would have preferred he did not find love. He didn’t deserve to.

Jami Attenberg: So Candy, you didn’t like him?

Candy: Sorry, but he was definitely my least favorite character.

Jami Attenberg: It’s okay! Ha. You can not like him. No one is particularly easy in this book.

Megan: I think we all know people with addictions and can relate to the helplessness in trying to help them.

Candy: I was more of an Edie fan.

Jami Attenberg: I love Edie. Edie is a queen.

Brian S: How did not liking your characters affect your ability to write them/mess with them over the course of the book? I’m not a fiction writer so I have no concept of what that feels like.

Jami Attenberg: I mean, in a way, I put all my own bullshit into them. So they’re sort of all me in little bits and pieces, I think. You have to be able to identify in order to write.

Roxane: I was able to empathize with everyone in this book, even when they were frustrating. They all felt very human, though Benny’s wife was a bit much.

Jami Attenberg: Rachelle was my least favorite, definitely.

Candy: You did a great job of transitioning between different time frames—was that hard to do?

Jami Attenberg: The time frame stuff was the most fun. I have this secret desire to write speculative fiction, and I think all the time-shifting really filled that need. Also, it’s sort of like playing chess, if that makes any sense.

Candy: I found it made the book move very fast, which I really enjoyed.

Jami Attenberg: Thanks, Candy! My favorite books are ones that move. I love reading books that you can’t put down, and they just take you over for a night or a weekend.

Candy: Totally agree.

Brian S: Why is it a secret desire?

Jami Attenberg: Brian, do you mean why don’t I just do it?

Brian S: Yeah—I’ve never understood the sneering that speculative fiction receives.

Jami Attenberg: Oh, it’s not sneering. I tried to do it once, an early version of The Melting Season. My last book was speculative. I just don’t quite know what I am doing. But I’ll get there. I have a list of things I would love to write. I’m sure Roxane can attest to the same thing. But it’s not always the right time.

Roxane: Indeed, I do have such a list.

Brian S: Oh, okay. I just mean that there’s a bias (at least in many MFA programs) against anything that smells of genre, and I don’t understand why that is.

Jami Attenberg: I didn’t get an MFA, so there is probably a bias against me in some way. By the way, all this can be yours.

David B.: I’m hungry now…

Brian S: I have that sort of list with poetic stuff, things I want to try, etc.

Jami Attenberg: My list is like: post-apocalyptic, mystery, YA, memoir. Maybe not mystery. I read Zone One and was super into it. I thought Colson [Whitehead] did a great job. Brian, it’s good to try stuff. I wrote a book last year that I threw away, and I think I just wrote it so I could try stuff in it and not be scared.

Candy: Never throw away. There is always someone out there who would love to read … me, for example. I do not write at all, but will read anything and everything.

Jami Attenberg: Oh, it exists. But. Not fit for human consumption. Sometimes, things are just exercises.

Roxane: I loved the cover of The Middlesteins. Did you have any involvement in the decision about the cover?

Jami Attenberg: I didn’t really. They were really late on that, I can tell you. Because they were trying to get it just right.

Brian S: There was a lot of discussion in the group about the role addiction played in the book. Seemed like there was some strong disagreement among members because of that, especially since you were writing about a fat person. How did you decide on food as the addiction?

Jami Attenberg: Well…so I have a few responses. One, being from the Midwest and of a certain community of people, it is just something that people struggle with, their weight. So it felt very true, and something I knew about.

Brian S: We have that problem in the Deep South, too.

Jami Attenberg: Two, I have my own food issues. Three, it could maybe have been something else—booze or drugs or whatever—but the fascinating thing about food is that if you have issues with it, you have to face it every single day. Like you can quit smoking, and never have to have a cigarette again to survive. But with food, it is a daily challenge. It is just very rich source material.

Megan: I thought it was sad but realistic that Edie’s life’s chapters were delineated by her weight at the time.

Candy: I think choosing food as the addiction allows most readers to connect more. I know some of us may have dealt with other addictions, but almost everyone knows someone who is on the heavier side and can relate to the story.

Brian S: Weight is complicated to deal with because it’s one of those things that people who don’t have weight issues tend to dismiss as a lack of self-control.

Jami Attenberg: And people judge you because of your weight and your food issues. It’s very visual.

Roxane: Did you worry about how you portrayed fat people?

Jami Attenberg: I did worry about it. I had friends—who were heavier than I am and who struggle more with their weight—read it every step of the way. I thought very deeply about how I was portraying her. I was careful not to turn her into something that was grotesque. I had one friend read it and we had one quibble, which I agonized over for a while. Which is the spoon in the ice cream at the end. Because she [my friend] felt that was the only note where I was expressing her as grotesque, but in my mind, that was what I would do when I came home from a party. I would stand there and have one more bite of ice cream.

Shann Palmer: It is so sad, though. I found it profoundly affected me.

Candy: You can take out the fact about Edie being overweight and the story still would have worked. People don’t pay attention to their health in many ways and families have to deal with the stresses of it.

Shann Palmer: Yes, but the weight and the diabetes makes it very now.

Jami Attenberg: That’s right, it’s health issues. How do we help our loved ones? How do we communicate better?

Brian S: And it’s the kind of thing where total strangers feel well within their rights to express their opinions on the way you look.

Roxane: Yes, indeed. I found it very relatable.

Jami Attenberg: To me, Edie is GREAT. I loved her. She changed people’s lives. Even in small ways. Even if she was sometimes a terror.

Candy: I loved her, too. She was very realistic.

Megan: I enjoyed reading the evolution of Edie’s relationship with food starting in childhood.

Jami Attenberg: Thanks, Megan.

Shann Palmer: I know myself, I’ve gone to the drive-thru at Krispy Kreme because I feel judged if I have a flippin’ doughnut.

Jami Attenberg: Haha, Shann…oh my god, me and the drive-thrus.

Shann Palmer: You captured the mindset perfectly.

Jami Attenberg: Whenever I end up at a drive-thru I’m like, Okay, something’s really up, Attenberg.

Brian S: Hell, if I’m at the store by myself and grab a Butterfinger, I throw the wrapper away before I get in the car. It’s not that anyone would give me grief if I threw it away at the house either—I’ve just internalized it over the years.

Shann Palmer: It’s one of the few books where the fat person isn’t vilified.

Candy: We all think we will live forever and so did Edie.

Brian S: I’m counting on cyborg technology to make me immortal.

Jami Attenberg: I don’t even know if Edie quite realized she needed help. Even though she’s a smart lady. I just think out of every character in that book, the one I would most want to hang out with is Edie. And Pierre, the dance instructor.

Candy: I see so many people in my line of work that don’t know when they need help, and are supposedly smart enough to know better.

Jami Attenberg: It’s just hard! I smoked for many years like a total idiot.

Brian S: That’s the issue, though—maybe a person knows they need help or have decided that that aspect of their life isn’t the thing to deal with right now. We all make trade-offs.

Candy: Very true, Brian.

Jami Attenberg: Well, when I quit smoking, I had this moment where I said to myself, Whatever you are punishing yourself for, stop. Like it was just an idea that floated in my head, and then I knew it was over.

Shann Palmer: The dad is particularly poignant, though I don’t like him much.

Jami Attenberg: Candy doesn’t like him either, Shann. I feel like we’re gossiping about Richard…

Megan: I liked Richard. I was so on his side at temple with [the] grandkids.

Shann Palmer: It’s easier to hide online or in activities than face up.

Jami Attenberg: So easy to hide online. Megan, I loved writing that scene. That’s one of my faves. It’s like the story of a life.

Shann Palmer: It’s so true: kids and devices.

Jami Attenberg: Adults and devices, too. My mom has this theory that we’re raising a nation of hunchbacks.

Roxane: My dad feels that way, particularly because my youngest brother has made himself a video game hunchback.

Shann Palmer: Yeah—my son’s ex-girlfriend got her MA at Georgetown and at the ceremony, the whole row of grads had their phones out chatting all through the speaking.

Brian S: My students say they hate it, but they never put their devices down. But then again, neither do I. Well, almost never.

Jami Attenberg: I try to make eye contact.

Candy: Although without all that technology, we would not be able to talk to you, Jami, about your great book.

Jami Attenberg: My laptop broke a week ago, and because of the storm I could not get a new one. And so I’ve been promoting my book via iPhone.

Shann Palmer: It must have been awful!

Brian S: Are you dying?

Jami Attenberg: I want to die. I’ve just been running around borrowing iPads and laptops here and there.

Brian S: Right now, I’m on my laptop attached to a second screen, with my iPad to my left and my phone near my right hand. Edie had a problem?

Shann Palmer: We have six computers for four people!

Brian S: Tell the truth—you’re standing in an Apple Store right now.

Jami Attenberg: No, but I did have to run out and borrow a computer.

Roxane: I am feeling agony just thinking about this, Jami.

Jami Attenberg: Oh Roxane, you have no idea.

Shann Palmer: Maybe a next book! What are you working on?

Jami Attenberg: I sold a book proposal. I have about eighty pages done. It’s based on a real-life person named Mazie Phillips, who ran a movie theater on the Bowery from the 1920s to the 1940s. And she was this boozy, bawdy broad, very flawed.

Shann Palmer: Excellent! Great time period.

Jami Attenberg: And she worked from 9 am to 11 pm every day for decades in the ticket booth on the Bowery, and when she would get off work, she would walk the streets of the Bowery and help all the homeless drunks. So it’s about her life and her relationship with these drunks.

Shann Palmer: I’ll buy it!

Jami Attenberg: Ha, thanks. First I gotta write it.

Candy: Sounds great…anything 1920s has got to be good.

Jami Attenberg: I’m not really an expert on the era. I’m sort of learning. But I’ve been told by people who write historical novels that you just sort of write the emotional truth first, the story at the core, and then you go back and research it at the end. I’m not that much of a researcher. I’m good at channeling characters, and I’m good at structure. Before The Middlesteins, I didn’t think about structure and now it’s a joy. I think someone earlier mentioned how the chapters—

Brian S: Can you expand on that?

Jami Attenberg: —with her weight worked. I just think structure can make a book feel so much bigger. It’s the architecture. You could use flimsy materials if you wanted to, even, but it could still feel big.

Shann Palmer: Your structure was impeccable. The weight was a good foundation and the “meat” of the story.

Jami Attenberg: I wrote about half of the book minus the weight chapters. And then I realized I needed to go back and put those chapters in. And then it became a different book. After my editor bought the book, we went through a period where she thought the book should start with the chapter where Richard and Edie meet. And we would lose the first two Edie chapters. And I went down the path just to see if she was right. But it would have been a different book. It would have hinged on their marriage. But the book was more than that.

Shann Palmer: No, the first chapter grabbed me.

Megan: Edie’s weight chapters made me reflect on my own chapters based on weight and how it affected how I viewed myself because of weight.

Candy: I am glad you did not leave them out. Those two chapters were what set up the idea of her personality.

Jami Attenberg: I know. I got where my editor was going, but it needed to be not so tidy as that. So what happened was, I realized that those chapters weren’t working as hard as they should have, and I went back and rewrote them a little bit. Added some details in.

Shann Palmer: Even in family dynamics, one person often dictates the thrust of a story, I think.

Jami Attenberg: That’s right, Shann. Agreed. Anyway, I made them work harder until they worked well, and I’m so glad we left them in.

Shann Palmer: It was nice to see your book mentioned on the Shelf-Awareness blog. I have recommended it to friends.

Jami Attenberg: Honestly, we’ve gotten such lovely attention for the book, thanks. I am the most surprised by how it has been doing. Because all my other books tanked, ha!

Brian S: Has the storm put a crimp in your ability to promote it? I mean obviously it has, but are you getting past it okay?

Jami Attenberg: Well—I’m in Brooklyn, everyone—I had to cancel a book party. My Manhattan launch. And also a reading at a Barnes & Noble. So that was a bummer. But I had my Brooklyn launch party. Most of my big press happened the week it came out, which was two weeks ago.

Brian S: Will there be any travel out to other parts of the country?

Jami Attenberg: Yes. I go to the Midwest on Tuesday, so three events in the Chicago area. An indie bookstore in the city, a Barnes & Noble in the suburbs, and my hometown library. And also a Milwaukee reading.

Brian S: Anywhere near Des Moines? (Probably not.)

Shann Palmer: Get thee to the hinterlands—that’s where the action is. Richmond, Virginia at Fountain Bookstore would be a nice place!

Jami Attenberg: I’ve read at Fountain before! I think what I will do next summer…

Brian S: Farther west. You must come farther west.

Jami Attenberg: So next summer I will go tour. Like, get in my car and drive all over the country and just hit a bunch of places.

Jana C: Anything in Los Angeles?

David B: Come to Ohio, the Kingmaker state.

Jami Attenberg: I might go to Los Angeles just for fun the first two weeks of January. And I have a friend who owns a tiny bookstore there in Eagle Rock, I think? So I could set up a reading there last-minute if i wanted to. But next summer will be my big journey to go hang out and meet people.

Brian S: Seriously, if you come to Des Moines I will find you a place to read.

Jami Attenberg: I will come to Des Moines. I think for hardcover we were like, Let’s just go where it makes perfect sense.

Brian S: You can do Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Kansas City, just like that. (I sound like an agent.)

Jami Attenberg: I love, love, love touring. And I love doing readings. I was super excited to do this chat. I could really give a crap about reviews. It’s kind of about the readers.

Brian S: We’re down to five minutes. Any lurkers want to get a question in?

Jana C: Maybe I missed this but, what was the seed that started this fictional story for you?

Shann Palmer: I have to split…I loved the book and the chance to meet you here, and look forward to your future visit to Richmond! Thanks, Rumpus, for another great pick!

Jami Attenberg: Thanks, Shann!

Candy: I have to log off for the night but wanted to say…I really enjoyed your way of writing and loved the book, even if I did not like Richard. Keep up the great writing and I look forward to reading your future work.

Jami Attenberg: Thank you so much, Candy! Jana, I did discuss it a bit. Well, I think they asked about food. I sort of heard Robin’s voice first. The second chapter of the book was actually the first. So I was thinking about someone hitting rock bottom, and health issues. And how family members contend with it when they don’t actually feel like dealing at all. I feel like everyone sort of got to say what they needed to say.

Jana C: Ah, I could see that… I was wondering the other day, why we didn’t hear more of Robin’s voice, and that makes sense.

Jami Attenberg: The most important thing for Robin, the best she was going to get, was reconciling with her mother and finding love.

Jana C: Definitely. And it was super bittersweet the way the granddaughter ended up bonding with Richard.

Jami Attenberg: I didn’t even know that was going to happen until I wrote it. But as soon as I did I knew the book was done.

Jana C: Nice. I love to hear of writing like that.

Jami Attenberg: Like, I wrote him walking out the front door and I was like, Bye, Richard, and then there she was waiting for him.

Megan: I was hoping Robin would direct her fire into her work.

Jami Attenberg: Interesting, Megan.

Jana C: Well done. It did read as a very organic process.

Brian S: Thanks so much for joining us tonight Jami, especially with the storm and all. Good luck with the recovery efforts, and with the book going forward.

Jami Attenberg: Oh, thanks Brian.

Jana C: Thanks, Jami! Look forward to seeing more!

Jami Attenberg: Thanks everyone! I really appreciate all your comments and thoughts. Thank you so much for reading.

***

Related Posts:

• Jami Attenberg Roundup
• “What’s Eating Jami Attenberg?”
• Praise for The Middlesteins
• The Rumpus Book Club Discussion with George Saunders
• The Rumpus Interview with Rosie Schaap

Here are some links to psych you up for this good read:

The Rumpus’s own Saturday Editor Michelle Dean sits down with Attenberg for her “Quit Your Job! (But For The Right Reasons)” interview series at The Awl.

Brad Listi (who we interviewed not too long ago) chats with Attenberg on his always-enjoyable Other People podcast.

And over at The Hairpin, Attenberg gives us the beautiful, funny, and self-deprecating (but also self-loving) essay, “My History of Being Fat”—a perfect pairing with The Middlesteins.

Related Posts:

• “What’s Eating Jami Attenberg?”
• Praise for The Middlesteins
• The Rumpus Book Club Interviews Jami Attenberg
• “devastatingly poignant with a dash of humor”
• The Daily Beast Loves The Rumpus Book Club

In “What’s Eating Jami Attenberg?”, the writer talks shop about her latest novel, The Middlesteins, and also puts in a good word for chivalry in art:

“…that’s totally tied into who I am as a writer. But I think of being of service actually quite a bit. As creative people, we should be really conscious of being of service in our work, being as generous as we can.”

What a lady!

Related Posts:

• Jami Attenberg Roundup
• Praise for The Middlesteins
• The Rumpus Book Club Interviews Jami Attenberg
• “devastatingly poignant with a dash of humor”
• The Daily Beast Loves The Rumpus Book Club

“…It’s clear-eyed funny and truthful and deeply moving, especially in the killer-punch of its ending.”

Related Posts:

• Jami Attenberg Roundup
• “What’s Eating Jami Attenberg?”
• The Rumpus Book Club Interviews Jami Attenberg
• “devastatingly poignant with a dash of humor”
• The Daily Beast Loves The Rumpus Book Club

While I’m at it, a little update news. Our current book is Kathleen Alcott’s The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets–Bookslut covered it here and said “It’s never simple, but if complicated is what produces a novel like this one, we should be grateful for the messy, the broken, and the quiet graces they birth, the camaraderie that can find us in even the most isolating of nightmares.”

We’re very excited to announce that our October book is Jami Attenberg’s The Middlesteins. You can join the book club today by going here.

And while the Daily Beast didn’t mention it, we also have a Poetry Book Club. This month’s book is Eva Saulitis’s Many Ways to Say it, and we’re excited to announce that our October book is Paul Lisicky’s Unbuilt Projects

You can join the Rumpus Poetry Book Club by going here too.

Related Posts:

• A Rumpus Book Club Update
• Why I Chose Gregory Orr’s River Inside the River for the Rumpus Poetry Book Club
• Why I Chose Camille Guthrie’s Articulated Lair for the Rumpus Poetry Book Club
• “Many Ways to Say It” by Eva Saulitis
• “Book of Dog” by Cleopatra Mathis

This was never my intention, this peripatetic life, but looking back now at the age of 40, I can finally see I have been doing it for decades. I wanted so much more for myself at some point, though I cannot even remember what exactly it was that I wanted anymore. Now it is only just to write.

On the one hand, I’ve written three books. On the other hand, I have what is politely called a “challenging track record” in the publishing industry, which means I’ve sold just a few thousand copies of each of my books. Getting three books published means I am technically a success, but if you ask some people, my empty bank account unequivocally means I am a failure.

But it is the thing that makes me happiest, and I believe that if you can find the thing that makes you happy, you should do it. Most of my artist friends struggle financially in varying degrees, and we all seem to be trading off turns loaning money to each other. We are members of the creative class, and none of us ask for any sympathy, because we chose this unstable life, although, in our most pretentious and self-indulgent moments, we will whisper to each other that it chose us.

And now, this risky life that I had chosen, had practically broken me. On December 30, I left New York City, and my apartment (now sublet), and headed down south to New Orleans. I was barely surviving off the advance for a book deal, and an unreliable freelance project. I’d had car troubles, too. I could no longer afford my New York rent. Soon I would have nothing left. So I headed south, toward cheaper rent, and a perspective shift. Whatever I had been doing for the last ten years of my life was no longer working. I did not know I would end up sleeping in 26 locations over a seven-month period, though I suspected the journey would be long. But I was all in on whatever happened next.

First, I stayed for two nights in a small town outside of Chapel Hill, NC, with some friends from New York who had swapped their Lower East Side apartment for a sprawling house. Their two children were with them, and the little girl was just like the mother, and the little boy was just like the father, and I could not stop thinking that the entire time I was there.

Next, I stayed for a night in a small, gated community on Tybee Island with my aunt and uncle, in their tremendous house they built from scratch. They talked casually about buying new patio furniture, each individual piece of which cost more than half my rent, and when I heard the figure it stung me with an unusual sensation; it was not envy, but it was something like it.

Did I mention that before I left town my agent took me out to a nice dinner, and told me I should probably try and find a rich man to marry? I never bothered to ask him if he was kidding or not.

In Gainesville, FL, I stayed with my friend Lauren, her husband, and their two young sons. Her husband made lasagna for dinner, and I drank wine, and after dinner Lauren and I talked about books, and then I fell asleep in their guest room, hard and fast, feeling as if I was at last far enough away from New York.

My first apartment in New Orleans, a two-month sublet, was one half of a shotgun in Mid-City I shared with my landlords, two doctors, and their two children and dogs. It was a bi-level apartment, the bedroom and bathroom upstairs, a living room and dining room and kitchen downstairs, fully furnished, big windows, ceiling fans to keep the room cool. There was a giant dining room table on which to spread out and write, which I did religiously, daily, with a firm discipline. My rent was one-third of my rent in New York.

It was in this house I found out about all the money I owed in taxes. I realized I had to sublet my apartment in New York for a few more months in advance so that I could have money from the deposit to live on. I would figure out where I would live later, but I knew I was going to have to do some serious couch-surfing for a while. It was like ripping a parachute cord.

So first I stayed another month in New Orleans, this time subletting another inexpensive apartment a block away. The bathroom smelled funny, and there was nowhere comfortable to sit, and so I spent most of my time there hunched over my laptop in bed.

One night I stayed with a man who lived about two miles away from me, in a tiny studio behind a larger apartment building, and in the morning he made me iced coffee and played Neil Young songs on his stereo.

In April I headed West, stopping for four nights at a friend’s house in St. Martinville, LA, a small town outside of Lafayette. It was a loft converted from a church and at night during thunderstorms the stained glass windows lit up magnificently. The night before I left, at sunset, a friend of a friend who had spent most of his life in that little town and still lived in his family’s farmhouse, took me on a swamp tour in his rickety old motorboat.

In Austin I stayed at a friend’s house just outside of the downtown. Years ago we’d had a fling. Now he was married. At night they drink beer and teach themselves how to play pop songs, she on keyboards, he on drums. They let me play the tambourine while they learned “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” and I thought maybe I would be jealous of their relationship, but instead I was just jealous of their musical abilities.

Outside of Austin I stayed with a friend who had received a nine-month residency on a 250-acre piece of land, part of which was a Cherokee burial ground. I stayed there for ten days. I wrote, I took long walks; the turkey vultures circled us at sunset every night.

On my way back east I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Little Rock, AR. There was a rose garden out front, and I ate crawfish at a nearby restaurant for dinner.

The next night, I stopped at the home of an old friend of mine from New York who had moved down to Memphis, TN because she had fallen in love with a musician who lived there. A friend of theirs was sick – he would pass away soon after I left – and things were tense. My friend and I went to yoga together before we left and we were both grateful for it.

I was making my way back to my hometown: I stopped for a night in Charleston, IL where I stayed with my internet friend, Roxane, who is a professor at the university there. It was the first time we had met in person. Her home was immaculate, and she bought me dinner, and I admired all her books, and the next morning I bought her lunch at a nearby diner and I suddenly realized how gorgeous her smile was.

In Chicago, I stayed for a few nights with one of my best friends, Wendy, and her husband, Chris, and on the first night I got there she made us all individual pizzas from scratch and then we watched most of the second season of Portlandia and I drank a bunch of wine and was extremely happy. They know how to live their life right, I thought.

I spent an evening with my parents in my childhood home, in my childhood bed, where I will always sleep like a rock, because it is quiet there, and the room is small and compact and womblike, and I feel safe. When I said goodbye to my father he seemed sad, though I didn’t think it had anything to do with me, but I realize now maybe I was wrong.

I stayed with my old college roommate and her husband and two children in their beautiful home in Evanston, where we ate pot roast and drank wine and her daughter showed me how twirly her skirt was in the morning. I slept in their basement on an air mattress. I found myself experiencing something like envy when I looked inside her well-stocked refrigerator.

Rilke was notorious for always being someone’s houseguest. I read somewhere once that he had 50 addresses in four years. I suspect he wasn’t sleeping on air mattresses in basements though.

I cannot remember the name of the town where I stayed in Pennsylvania, but it was small and eerie: a town of chain motels and restaurants, planted in the middle of nowhere. I slept in a Holiday Inn Express, and dined at a TGIFriday’s.

I arrived in New York City at the beginning of May, and a migraine kicked in as I was passing Bryant Park on my way to Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where I would stay for two nights with my friend Gabrielle. I immediately blamed New York for my migraine. I was flattened for two days. Gabrielle sketched me while I lay on her couch and we talked about money and art.

I moved to South Brooklyn for a few nights and stayed with my friend Rosie for a few nights in her beautifully decorated but tiny 3-room apartment. I slept on her couch. I got up at 7 AM and sat in a café so she could have her space to do her work, and it was somewhere in those days, those early hours in the café, that I realized I had fully rescinded control of my life.

In Queens I stayed with my brother, his wife, and my seven-year-old niece. I slept in their basement on an air mattress. I babysat my niece for a few hours and when I told her that soon I would be back in New York for good she slid down to the floor and made a small noise of joy. “Did you think I was never coming back?” I said, and she said, shyly, “Yes,” and I didn’t cry, but I didn’t not cry either.

My friends Kate and Brendan, engaged, bought a house in Portland, ME, last year, and had finally installed themselves in it fully this winter, and invited me to live in their guest bedroom for the month of May. The house, an Italianate gem, was constructed in the 1800s, and is all high ceilings and hardwood floors, built-in bookshelves and crown moldings. There was a fresh paint job. They built a window bed in their guestroom and I was the first person to sleep on it. Forever I will feel like that was my room. For three weeks they fed me delicious food and wine, and the Maine air acted like a narcotic.

A freelance project arrived, and I completed it. I was getting some scratch together.

One night I slept at my friend Ron’s house in Waterville, ME. I drove up there for the night. It was his birthday. I slept in his guest room and he told me that he had let so many of his broke friends stay there over the years, and I know he wasn’t talking about me, but I realized that’s who I was, that’s who I am. I am someone’s broke friend.

My subletter moved out early, and I moved back into my own apartment for a week. I collapsed in bliss. I watched the sunset every night from the roof. I almost remembered who I was for a second. Then the next subletters arrived, a couple from Texas with a small dog named Peanut, and I gave way to that floating feeling again, perching myself in a friend’s girlfriend’s studio apartment near Prospect Park, cat-sitting while she went on vacation. I walked every day in the park, in one big circle. It helped.

I was back to Gabrielle’s for three weeks, renting her spare room so that she could afford a plane ticket to Chicago. The heat wave started. There was no air-conditioning.

I questioned everything in my life. A freelance project that was supposed to start never did. Every day I hid in cafes. All I wanted was to return home. But the deal I had made with myself in Texas in the spring was still in effect: my apartment was sublet until close to the end of July.

Three more weeks, this time with my friend Cinde and her husband, David, both unemployed and needing help with their rent themselves. I slept in their back bedroom. Again, there was no air conditioning.  I stretched sheets across a couch, and woke up every morning in a huddle of cotton and sweat, covered in mosquito bites.

I was still broke but now there was just enough in my pocket to pay my rent. Another freelance project arrived. Enough money to get me through until the fall. Enough money to give me a moment to breathe. My subletters moved out, and then, suddenly I was home, and I wanted to wrap my hands around my apartment and never let it go.

Sometimes people with more stable lives than mine, people who are married and own their apartments and have good jobs and families, like to say to me, “Keep living the dream.” And I always want to say to them, “What dream is that?”

I will never own a home, I will never have money in the bank to last me more than a month or two in advance. There is no chance with this economy. I will work until I die, but I will be happy to do it because I love my work. I’d better love it. And I’d almost say it’s all I got, but I know I’ve got just a bit more than that: a whole lot of people who love me and have my back. Forever I will have a place to rest my head.

***

Illustrations by Hadley Hooper.

Related Posts:

• “No, I’m the Narrator”
• Rumpus Books Sunday Supplement
• Fucking and Writing: The Rumpus Conversation with Jami Attenberg
• Exploring the Redwood Forest: Journals and the Private Self
• Poetry Wire: Follow Your Strengths, Manage Your Weaknesses, and Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys

“Creating the blog might have been his grasp at taking control of our story, but it was also his attempt to speak to me in my language, or on my platform anyway.”

Related Posts:

• Monomania: Why Writing All By Your Lonesome Kind of Sucks
• Where I’ve Laid My Head
• Writing for the Ear
• “Mistakes Were Made”
• Make-or-Break

At The Daily Beast, Marina Budhos examines why Franzen took such a “tortuous and offensive back door route” to find sympathy for Wharton, instead of “exploring empathy” for an author who, she argues, faced similar writerly preoccupations as Franzen himself.

Victoria Patterson’s reaction in the Los Angeles Review of Books rips into the emphasis on Wharton’s appearance. “Franzen perpetuates the typically patriarchal standard of ranking a woman’s beauty before discussing her merits, whether she is an intellectual, artist, politician, activist, or musician.”

This week at Tulane, Franzen answered a question about social networking, expressing his opinion that Twitter “stands for everything I oppose” and is “the ultimate irresponsible medium.”

Jami Attenberg, who wrote down Franzen’s thoughts, responds. “He will never understand how hard it is to get ahead as a writer, never again in his life. I’m not suggesting he’s old-fashioned. I’m suggesting he has lost perspective.”

Roxane Gay also reflects and offers some key advice for anyone ambivalent about social networking: “Do what you like. Do what you want. Don’t stress.”

Related Posts:

• Step Aside, Dashiell Hammett
• “so I took a deep breath and I jumped”
• Boston Marathon Roundup
• Stunned Silence
• The Rumpus Interview with Elizabeth Scarboro and Lidia Yuknavitch