Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

JE: In recent months, we 3 Guys have discussed a myriad of reasons for the flagging fiction market, from antiquated business models, to unimaginative marketing approaches, to the ever-stiffening competition for the shrinking entertainment dollar, to the work itself-from the cult of the sentence to the glut of self-conscious slacker narratives. But one contributing factor we haven’t addressed, is the practitioners themselves, who, but for a few rare exceptions (Dave Eggers, anyone?) fail to capture the public imagination by virtue of a bigger-than-life persona. Literary purists will insist that this doesn’t matter, that the artist is irrelevant, and ultimately, they’ll be right-artistically speaking. In the nineteenth century. But we’re talking about selling books, here. We’re talking about engaging a larger cross-section of potential American readers, so we can keep fiction alive as a viable source of income. Again, purists will insist that this is irrelevant, that the masses will (and should) go on consuming Jackie Collins. They will point to the NYT bestseller list from 1943 and say: “See, Look! No Hemingway, no Bill Faulkner!” Again, they’ll be right. But we’re talking about paying the rent, here.

Maybe part of why the American literary scene has lost so much cultural cache (and cash!) in recent decades is a dearth of bold personalities to seize the public imagination. Now, when we talk about celebrity writers, we’re talking about Ethan Hawke. Where’s the stuff of literary legend? Where is Doc Thompson lighting his drinks (and his face!) on fire whilst surrounded by A-listers, rock stars, and politicians? Where is Norman Mailer to head-butt his literary rivals? Where is Jack Kerouac to fall asleep on national television?

Admittedly, in the case of Eggers, it doesn’t seem to be a matter of charisma, so much as as backbone and a lot ambition. The guy makes bold decisions-in life, as in narrative. Telling his big five publisher to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut and starting his own publisher, for instance. To say nothing of his prolific social crusading. Eggers shoots from the hip, and I like that, regardless of what I may think of his writing. His ability to capture the imagination of people who might otherwise be reading Jackie Collins, has done more for the image of literature in recent years than anyone else I can think of.

Question: Where have all the cowboys gone? Has literature isolated itself from a bigger cultural context?

JR: To be sure, Jay McInerney, and Bret Easton Ellis, certainly had something to do with what you could call the “literary legend” (forged in a time and place, namely NYC or LA when it was busting with talent, coke and mixed drinks, the wealthy and enthusiastic laziness), but they might have gotten sober, checked into rehab, or avoided drugs and alcohol because like Ed Harris says, “don’t fool yourself, you can’t create anything when your high”. Some people took that to heart, Eggers doesn’t even apply to this Conversation and should have been locked in prison for his “memoir”, (the crime, impersonating a writer) which when read sober or drunk, makes even the stupidest person angry as a shithouse rat, the section about the Real World was so embarrassingly bad and unreadable its stunning not because it was published, but for God sake’s what did S&S turn down before Eggers and that book dribbled into their offices?

Eggers shuts out the world to create his own, yes he’s excluding people by doing this, just like the people who excluded him before he hit the lottery. Now he can literally do what ever he wants. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Being free to write and read, and be happy all day? Robert Bingham, shit, he was a cowboy, and he danced to close to the flame, RIP. But did any of the people I’ve mentioned make “bold decisions” on their path to glory? Does Kate Christensen, Walter Kirn, Arthur Phillips, Philip Meyer all get time on the pedestal because they’ve been working like they live in a diamond mine? Do people get drunk anymore and say what ever they want? Writers don’t, not at the parties I’ve been to. Are they afraid they’ll end up without an agent? Or their publishers shareholders might flinch? Marissa Pessl looked like she’d been hit by lightening when I shook her hand at her party. AM Homes, well, she doesn’t fuck around, I’ve been to two parties for her, and even the most daring wouldn’t approach her with a line of coke, and bottle of Wild Turkey. But she’s a sharp as the sharpest tack, and doesn’t suffer fools. I don’t think she can be called a cowboy, but I’ll bet if I got AM Homes, Zadie Smith and Nick Laird around my dinner table that I could get the volume turned all the way up. But who battles in public anymore? Would I get into it with Eggers if I ran into him outside a bar? Settle some imaginary fight? Shit, who am I? And if I did, would that ruin my chances and smear my name in the book world? Is that what these quiet mice are worried about?

Is the current literary establishment concerned with image and book sales, reading groups, lunches with the holy buyer at B&N? Did Sherman Alexie cut his own throat with his recent comments? And does Denis Johnson count? I hear he’s hard as a coffin nail when it comes to submitting his manuscript. But does that make him a “cowboy” like JE says? What about Gary Shteyngart or Donna Tartt, even Claire Messud? Do they count? Or are they just writers?

DH: Sounds to me as if JE is asking if he should set fire to his hat. But the argument that a larger-than-life persona would be a cash cow is bogus. JE mentions a New York Times list of 1943. I wonder if that’s because he found the one that I did online. Here it is, my friends:

The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas />The Valley of Decison by Marcia Davenport
The Song of Bernadette by Franz Werfel
The Prodigal Women by Nancy Hale
Rivers of Glory by F. Van Wyck Mason
Look to the Mountain by Legrand Cannon
The Univited by Dorothy Macradie
The Cup and the Sword by Alice Teadale Tucker
Thorofare by Christopher Morely
Driven’ Woman by Elizabeth Chevalier
The Lieutenant’s Lady by Bess Streeter aldrich
The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers

I recognize three novels on this list because they were adapted into movies. One of them a good one. I presume that all the books on this list are unreadable. You would have to be in the time-warp of 1943 to enjoy them. But in 2075…same time frame…you can say the same about our stuff.

Will Dave Eggers be the Lloyd C. Douglas of 2075? Gosh, we can’t tell. But the cash cows of 1943 didn’t reap it in by anti-social behavior. It’s gratifying to know that the New York Times and the majority of the reading public have no idea what a great book is. That leaves us the space to make up our own minds. You want to rake it in JE? Then work on those script adaptations. But I’d better behave if I want to go to the opening of All About Lulu.

JR’s argument is different. Jason’s talking more about the corporate group-think and the difference between that and the fame and freedom to live and create that comes with real literary recognition. JR is giving me the hunch that the approbation of the big company publishers and booksellers and true, independent recognition for your writing are probably at odds with each other. And he’s undermining JE’s argument about “engaging the culture” by pissing in the fireplace when you’re invited over.

But Pollock (Ed Harris as Jackson Pollock) isn’t at MoMA because he shocked his guests by overturning a dinner table. And that’s not the reason the Pollock gallery looks like they are waiting for the A train in there. Somehow Pollock managed to interest the untrained eye in his work as well as appeal to the culture snobs. Maybe that’s what Eggers has also managed to do.

That great dinner that JR is talking about with Smith, Laird and Homes…if it took place I think what JR would get out of it is great conversation not behavioral antics. That’s the real rarity folks…talk that doesn’t put you to sleep. Send those cowboys out to the corral.

Who do you want over for dinner or a party? I’m thinking: Zoe Heller, Kate Christensen, Claire Messud, Zadie Smith and Marissa Pessl. Truman Capote gave parties. He didn’t wait for his publisher to hold one for him. Today, don’t hold your breath. Book launch parties are few and far between unless someone other than the publisher is paying for them. Last A. M. Homes book party? Her publisher wasn’t the host. Hard times? The more likely cause is limited cultural confidence.

I hear this from publishers as “party buzz”: “Hey Dennis, we’re not hosting the party so it’s going to be great!” Marissa Pessl? I spent some time with her at a party and all I could sense was her high intelligence and total dedication. She was intense. Her eyes never wavered. She’s the writer I’d most like to run into at the library. That’s a reader’s compliment.

JC: The reason we remember all these larger-than-life cowboy writers is first that they were damn good writers. I’ll guarantee that for every one we recall, there are a hundred that were ballsy, outrageous and loud-mouthed, but were better at a party than at the writing desk. They are relegated, if they are lucky, to the footnotes of literary history, where they will be thought of as all mouth and no trousers.

As well, it’s damnably harder to be outrageous now. How many wives would Norman Mailer have to stab to get any publicity now? Between the extremes of pop stars and movie stars and athletes, and the massive television and internet coverage, it’s harder to gain some press for a witty aside a la Gore Vidal, Capote, or Oscar Wilde. I’m still waiting for the first author war on TMZ. How about Richard Powers taking the piss out of Crichton’s science? I’d laugh, but would more than a few people even notice?

For that matter, who’s to say that the all the cowboys haven’t just gone to another industry, where they can shoot from the hip and live large. Maybe they are hedge fund managers (a reckless bunch, them) or video game designers or small film makers or something else. Is publishing or writing such an old world, staid endeavor that the real personalities have chosen to do something else, at least until it’s time to write the memoir? Could the idea of a traditionalist medium drive away that kind of talent? A lot of writers write because “I have to”, and they need that sort of creative outlet, but it could certainly be that people who once would have been writers are now finding a different outlet. They just “have to” do something else.

Or is it publishing that has changed? Does the writer have to work that much harder, and is the competition so much greater that the cowboy is more focused on the the writing than the society? Has the book world rejected those writers except along the margins? Or have we exchanged public bravado, for it’s literary counterpart? Maybe the cowboys have just found a better party. I’d go to it if I could find it.