Recently I've fallen in love with the work of novelist Lionel Shriver. So has much of the rest of the world. I wish I'd known about her novels long ago.
With her seventh and eighth novels, she has finally gotten big-time attention: bestsellerdom, a huge feature in The New York Times, book tour of New Zealand, etc.
NB: big success came with her 7th and 8th published novels. And she said her former agent refused to handle the seventh one and so she sent it out herself.
A+ for ENORMOUS PERSISTENCE. (Also, for quality in writing, insights, and plots.)
The two books that have finally brought her much-deserved attention are We Need to Talk About Kevin and The Post-Birthday World.
Both these books feel so honest that they seem skinless, exposing bare nerve endings.
I went to hear her read a week or so ago at Raleigh's Quail Ridge Books (turns out she spent much of her youth in my town and I interviewed her father a time or two for The Raleigh Times.) I asked her if she'd always been so bold as a writer or had she developed that courage over time.
She seemed genuinely baffled: "That's what writing is for," she said, "to SAY THE UNSAID." She wondered aloud: What are other writers doing? (boldface and caps are all mine)
And another thing: as the Times pointed out, she isn't exactly groveling over success. The head on the story: "After Lean Times, Prizes and Not One Apology." The Times referred to The Guardian (she lives in England) as saying that she had "violated the British law of self-deprecation by boldly declaring that she had WANTED HER BOOK TO WIN" the Orange Prize, which it did indeed win.
Do we ever really believe that someone doesn't want his or her book to win?
From henceforth I hold her work (including the PR wing) before me as a shining example, and will post here in the next couple of days a picture I took at her Quail Ridge reading.
Monday, April 23, 2007
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