Everything one needs to know about this family can be read straight off the names of the children.
Thanks ogged. My kids have a host of problems, and I sometimes get discouraged. But after reading the article to which you linked, I feel incredibly lucky to have my kids rather than the ones in that article. They would not long survive in the Idealist household.
Um, since when are you reading about people's sweet kids? No one here ever sugarcoats the little brats.
Not least because then you'd have to fight with them over taking a goddamn bath.
This is the household of Tabitha Suarez and Michael Lewis, yeah? They've got some kid-naming powers, all right.
"Do you two have any idea how lucky you are to have a mom who takes such good care of you?"
I have the feeling that the kids have been schooled in gameplaying since they were 6 months old.
In my household by now they would have heard many times about the older sister they would have had if she hadn't behaved so horribly that her life was suddenly cut short.
Countdown to 6's author's being edited...
5's the kind of thing I'm thinking about. See?
I used to tell PK that play-doh was made out of little kids who pissed off their parents, who sent them to the play-doh factory. The colors depended on what color shirt the kids were wearing at the time.
He kinda sorta believed it, too.
1 - yup
5, 9 - the crawl space underneath our front porch is secured by the Dead Body Door through which go the corpses of them that whined, cried or mouthed off once too often.
PK's book is going to have some interesting chapters, I see.
1 is right on target. Especially since the baby is named Walker. Thanks to Will Farrell, I now expect he has a brother named "Texas Ranger."
Yeah, what gives Michael Lewis? You go to Princeton and name your kid Quinn? The whole justification of meritocracy is supposed to be that the winners will avoid doing stuff like that. Maybe he's just spending too much time around baseball players.
You go to Princeton and name your kid Quinn?
I'm confused, I would expect someone who went to Princeton to name their kid Quinn. Their middle name would be the last name of their maternal great grandfather who was a Secretary of the Treasury in the Eisenhower adminstration.
Yes, it seems like "Dixie" is the out of place one.
See, it's funny--I read that article and I really wanted to, like, call CPS or something, because that guy writes so hatefully and contemptuously about his children.
I picture it like this: okay, you're seven. You've got a new sibling. Your mom is crying all the time, battling really serious post-partum depression, and doesn't have any time or energy for you. Your father--in addition to being the kind of unspeakable prat who names a child Quinn and pimps out his homelife on Slate--is paying most of his attention to the wife and new child. And moreover, your father acts like he doesn't like you very much. (See, I just don't think that you can write that much loathing and not have it show up in your behavior.) Where's the incentive to behave? Frankly, I'd be terrified.
Things may have been authoritarian, moralizing and generally weird at the Frowner family manse, but I never for a moment doubted that my parents loved me, and I never felt that they would let me be harmed if they could avoid it. Which is not the sense I get from Slate-boy, there.
11: I totally shoulda named my blog "how to raise your kid to be a literary genius." Crap.
Oh, agreed, if it's a family name then anything is in play. But you only get one. Quinn, Dixie, and Walker are unquestionably the children of a #3 starter.
I wonder if Quinn is named after Martha Quinn, given her mother's background. "Dixie" seems to me very Brooklyn-hip-ish, a la "Ruby", only more obnoxious.
I cracked up when he got to the part about the Post-It. Go Quinn!
If Michael Lewis has to hate his kids to keep writing, I say "hate on, brother."
And moreover, your father acts like he doesn't like you very much. (See, I just don't think that you can write that much loathing and not have it show up in your behavior.)
On the contrary, I thought he came off as particularly admiring of her talents of creative contrariness. Perhaps this is because I've read Liar's Poker and know how much Michael Lewis can admire impressive feats of assholery.
Are all of you going to side with the psychotic kid? Fucking liberals.
Clearly, those kids need to be slapped into next week. Eating the cake was nothing.
Things may have been authoritarian, moralizing and generally weird at the Frowner family manse, but I never for a moment doubted that my parents loved me, and I never felt that they would let me be harmed if they could avoid it.
I can see one of my kids writing that very sentence about the Idealist household ten years hence. I feel better and better about myself all the time.
But more seriously, Frowner is certainly right in 15, as bad as the kids sound, the father certainly appears to be a first class prick.
Clearly, those kids need to be slapped into next week.
Notwithstanding my 24, baa, as usual, speaks great wisdom.
I think that y'all are a little crazy to think the article is evidence that the guy doesn't love them. He's telling a funny story about their latest flights of bad behavior.
Yeah, I think he does sort of "admire" their malfeasance...that's not the same as liking them. Parents who admire their kids' bad qualities--qualities that seem to become more manifest when the parents are dropping the ball--give me pause. Also, I think it's gross to write smarmy-hipster articles about your children for Slate.
The kids seem to need, you know, some consistant discipline, since they're being pretty spectacularly annoying. (As much as one can tell from a series on the tubes) Really--how many people now here on Unfogged could have left a note for their fathers about how mean the fathers were without pretty severe consequences? In the Frowner household, of course, overtly criticizing an adult was not done, but that's a bit extreme.
26: Well, yes, it is certainly just an article and I know I'm over-interpreting. But it's a smarmy, annoying article even for Slate, where smarmy, annoying articles are legion.
I haven't read the article. I just want to agree with Frowner:
(See, I just don't think that you can write that much loathing and not have it show up in your behavior.)
Absolutely. And I don't care if it's pruned and shaped to be a cute Slate piece. If you don't like your kids, it shows.
Hm. Think of that tag as having been closed much earlier.
One wonders whether the guy ever sits down with the kids to say something along the lines of:
Guys, your mom is really bothered right now by your constant bickering; can you tone it down, for her?
or:
I understand why you think my eating the cake was really mean. Let me explain.
Given that I don't have kids, I may be talking out of my ass, but surely a 7-year old, at least, is old enough to hear that sort of thing, hear the respect that's involved in speaking to her in such a way, and show some improvement.
32: I think that's part of what bugs me about the article (and about this series of articles): the guy writes like he's not a an adult, like he's just living there. Sure, he writes like he's maybe a serious boyfriend for the wife, but he doesn't write like a parent.
He's not in some kind of mean-off competition with the kids. He's not there to assume that he understands their behavior by magic, or by some kind of sitcom-hermeneutics. He's the adult. He has to be. If you have kids, that's what needs to happen, and if you're a hipster who's really into scoring points then you should perhaps think twice about having them.
Like, that cake business--that cake business makes no sense if you don't talk it over with the kids. Little kids don't always process stuff like that real well, and if you don't explain what's going on, it's just you hogging some stupid cake.
Now, I'm hoping that he is actually fictionalizing heavily and that he's totally different as a parent in life. But I'm also puzzled, in that case, about why this article is positioned as a sort of "this is how it really is".
You people are no fun at all, you know that?
Sorry, chief. But I'm going to go and read books now, so perhaps the conversation can take a happier turn. It's weird--these past few days you've had the misfortune to write about things I know about and have strong feelings about...and there goes your fun, through no fault of your own! Maybe you should write about sports and Jessica Biel more.
He makes it clear at the end of the article that later on he tried to bring up the cake issue to explain his actions, but the girls had completely forgotten about it. Come on, people.
I didn't follow the link, but if the backchat is of that sort, the next move is clearly, "Yes, and the next thing I'm going to do to make your Mother feel better is to send you to your room for the rest of the evening. Maybe tomorrow evening, too. Off you go."
An alternative interpretation is that he just loves it that his kids are such little shits.
Haven't read the article, but don't most parents have moments of hating their kids? They're very cute, and loving, and often fucking annoying.
26 is right. It seems a little presumptuous to judge the guy's parenting based on an essay which was almost certainly amped up for interest.
But as I understand it from experience with others' children and from child development stuff, the reason you bring things up as they happen is precisely because kids can lose conscious memories of the situation but retain feelings and misunderstandings. Or they can--and I swear this happened to me--forget about something really upsetting but remember it at intervals over intervening years.
(Okay, I got a letter purporting to be from Santa explaining that I could not have the big box of Crayolas that I had been wanting more than anything because I had long before Christmas (or long to a kid--at least a month--forgotten to put the lids back on my fingerpaints and my baby brother had made a mess with them)...it was so painful and humiliating on Christmas morning that (and this is key) I pretended that it hadn't upset me and just went on with the day. And that chain of events had a huge effect on me. I didn't actually think much about it until years later, but then I taxed my father with it and he said he'd done it and only later seen what a bad idea it had been. I mean, I could have not gotten the crayons without the letter, at least...even a talk with my parents instead would have been memorable but not as humiliating.)
(plus, they had already been forbidden from eating desserts, which they didn't seem to be taking seriously. He was making it clear that there were NO DAMN EXCEPTIONS to that rule YOU LITTLE BASTARDS, and in order to make that clear I will eat cake I don't even want to eat)
That said, when Labs gets done kicking the crap out of various philosophers at various meetings, he should clearly call on Michael Lewis.
but don't most parents have moments of hating their kids?
Hating? I'm not sure of that. Intense, white hot anger--sure.
41: Oh, hey, I completely agree with the not-eating-cake part; I just think that when you're dealing with a seven year old and a four year old, you need to remind-remind-remind. If there's no cake at one point, you don't make a big mystery about no cake to see if your kids can recollect--you say, "Now, you know you can't have any cake until X date for X reason." I'm not agin disciplining the little brats...I'm just agin disciplining them ineffectively and slapdashily and then being mystified when it doesn't work well.
34: I don't think that Ogged was spanked enough as a child. That's why he is the way he is. I blame his mother.
Huh. I figured he was spanked too much.
Can we agree that his mother is to blame, and hash out the details later?
Michael Lewis's kids are little shits because he is about as effective as a wet paper towel.
"Do you two have any idea how lucky you are to have a mom who takes such good care of you?"
Should have been, "I'm flipping a coin for who gets what yogurt. Any complaining will result in getting nothing. Any gloating will result in your sister getting first choice. Now shut up."
And yes Michael, you've screwed up your kids.
They can't be permanently screwed up already. There's still time to wipe clean their memories and start over.
To me part of the problem is the attempt to be reasonable, which encourages the kids to lawyer every issue. I think that parents should be nice, listen to the kids, etc., but you can't let it get to the point that your arbitrary power is gone. For example, suppose you carelessly say "no x because y", and they say "~y", then you have to start over and think of a different reason.
You could say, of course, "Amongst the reasons are such elements as....." but it's better just to say no.
Why do that. Sorensen's still young enough to have more. Abandon the first couple and just have more. As I recall, there's a tremendous demand for white kids at adoption agencies.
40: Frowner, that's a fucked up story. I'm really mad at your father.
The Saudis have a special interest in white kids.
To me part of the problem is the attempt to be reasonable, which encourages the kids to lawyer every issue. I think that parents should be nice, listen to the kids, etc., but you can't let it get to the point that your arbitrary power is gone.
Absolutely true. "Because I said so" is in truth the bottom line. There is no point in pretending that it is not, even while trying to explain why you said so.
It does seem that the father at least is hyper-rational, and a.) explains the reasons for everything, b.) controls by give=ing reasons, c.) never does anything except for a conscious reasons, and d.) isn't always straightforward about his reasons.
For example, "Do you two have any idea how lucky you are to have a mom who takes such good care of you?" is "reasoning", but also manipulative. And the kid's "You're just saying that to make her feel better," shows that he/she knows how his/her father operates.
54: Well, my parents both grew up in really strict homes, and each of them got less attention/material stuff than a sibling. They were just trying to figure stuff out, and they made some bad decisions. They were, as I've mentioned, really into self-denial when it wasn't wise or neccessary, for one thing.
But on the other hand, they read to me a lot. My father read the Lord of the Rings to me and had a really, really good Ent voice. He also read me Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield, and The Old Curiousity Shop, and he didn't object when I took his teaching copy of TS Eliot...when he found out about it, that is. And as I've mentioned, I knew for absolute certain that I would never be thrown out or disowned, no matter what I did. I wouldn't recommend all my parents' practices, but they did do most of the important things very well. And my father has apologized for the letter several times.
There's nothing that bad going on here. My take is: a pair of parents low on energy reserves, and kids mildly acting out the strain on the family unit.
I think Frowner somewhere said, "Who could get away with leaving a post-it like that for their father?"
I totally could have done it and gotten away with it. My dad would have sighed and ignored it. We got in trouble for being buttheads in public, but inside the household things were pretty relaxed.
You know, I just clicked through, and now I just feel sorry for them all. In another mood I might think it was an admirable attempt to be funny in the midst of wearing, tiring circumstances that are sort-of-universal for parents.
But honestly, it just makes me feel sad. It's not like reading Marie Killilea or Jean Kerr writing about how absolutely infuriating their kids can be at times, in a way that simultaneously shows the underlying bedrock of love.
He writes like someone who needs a copy of I Am Not a Short Adult.
The post-it is nothing. It's the backtalk. If your kids feel safe with that kind of disrepect, you're doing something wrong.
Can I ban heebie-geebie? We're having a **LOT** of fun here.
If you want the punishment to be 10x the crime, and me to internalize that I'm a bad, unworthy, commenter, and grow up neurotic and hand out monstrous sentences to my own children, go right ahead.
After all, I'm only seven.
Like Ogged, Heebie-jeebie should be spanked more, for his/her own good and also for the good of future generations.
Man hands on misery to man,
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as quickly as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.
This happens every time I post something Michael Lewis has written. Some people get a very strong asshole vibe from him.
Not that kind of asshole vibe, pervs.
I blame ogged's mom for not spanking me enough when I was an adult.
64: See now, that's why I don't want to have kids--I'd be much, much too slack or much, much too tyrannical. Or most likely, much much too lazy, and my children would go around covered in mud and cobwebs because I was too lazy to clean them.
It's good for kids to be covered with mud.
Some people get a very strong asshole vibe from him.
There's a reason for that. Of late, he's come off as an apologist for the Great Santini.
You know, Gonerill, that poem's often misinterpreted.
I'm proud of my indeterminate gender. I can spank myself for the good of future generations, while self-pollinating and thus creating said generations.
Self-spanking doesn't get the attention that other forms of auto-eroticism and self-abuse do.
he's come off as an apologist for the Great Santini.
The Great Santini was a vastly better parent than this article makes Lewis out to be. There was no question that the Great Santini loved his children and wanted them to be good people, just as he was basically a good person; he was a bit strict, it's true.
70: Definitely. Covered with mud is good, as are scabs and band-aids. It means they're living their own life instead of yours.
Doesn't he deck his kid over a basketball game, and isn't the mother constantly crying? My recollection of the book (possibly the movie) is an ultimately sympathetic picture of a guy somewhat trapped by his circumstances who is more than a bit of an asshole.
You know, Gonerill, that poem's often misinterpreted.
I'd forgotten how awesome that post was. The outraged commenters are great.
77: Yes, that's true...I was picturing poor, haunted-looking mini-Frowners with big googly eyes toddling around through the debris of my messy house, getting covered with layers of mud and dustbunnies over the course of months, while I sat around on the sofa reading.
I'm reading the thread on the Larkin poem. I feel bad for laughing as hard as I am.
My recollection of the book (possibly the movie) is an ultimately sympathetic picture of a guy somewhat trapped by his circumstances who is more than a bit of an asshole.
I have not seen the movie, but from the book (oh how rarely can I make this claim) I think that's right. I stand by my 76 notwithstanding.
Hey ben,
Christ, you're right. I never saw it before. Also, "Terry" in that thread is fantastic.
The funny thing about the Larkin poem is that he ended up as a grumpy old conservative, but his parents-fuck-you-up poem (in the incorrect non-w-lfs-n interpretation) is the basic cliche of the anti-Dobson, "Bradshaw on the Family".
I'd never seen that post before. w-lfs-n, you're a genius.
That reminds me of the analysis a friend and I did of "Ice Ice Baby", interpreting it as Vanilla Ice's prophetically encoded message that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. We didn't get all the way through it before deciding to do something else. But still...the hints are everywhere in that text!
I agree with the lewis haters. ain't no way that hostility is not coming across to the kids. also, he has fucked up somewhere along the line if his 7-year-old back-talks like that.
Maybe she was born a devil-child. It does happen, you know.
Then it's his fault for not going into the kingdom of Fäërïë to return the changeling and get the original article back.
Maybe it's not his kid, and for some ev. psych hand-wavy reason, he knows it. He practically has a genetic imperative to fuck with that kid.
I don't think that Lewis is actually bad to the kids, it's just that they're learning his way of dealing with life by arguing, one-ypping, and putting others in the wrong while pretending to be benevolent, and playing it back to him.
That's why they're devil children and a threat to future generations. If someone were to cleanse that whole family, no jury would convict.
Of course, no one else has picked up that the histrionic wife is pullin oll the strings here.
It's hard work rearing future hipsters.
See, my first thought was, Quinn is fucked up, but she's going places.
Yeah, per Chris Rock, she's hitting the pole.
Queen bee as in the ball buster manager who everyone fantasizes about killing.
No no, she's going to be queen bee.
That sounds kind of dirty; try to remember she's only seven years old, ogged.
That sounds kind of dirty
This is all about you, and not about me.
Didn't Mohammed marry Ayesha when she was like 9? Ogged's just keeping his eye out for good prospects.
What a lovely family. That kid is trouble. Her father is worse. The first installment of his story (and I pray that he is exaggerating for the "humor") was about the girls reacting to their new brother. Seems to me that both adults were fostering sibling rivalry.
And isn't R. Kelly, like ogged, a Chicago boy? I don't think we have to squint very hard to see the developing pattern.
11: PK and all the other kids need to be told to write it all down as it happens, it saves much time in therapy afterwards. Also, kids need to be rejected some (not so much so they say "Go to hell" and not so little they believe in that unconditional love crap) so they'll want to take care of you when you're old and feeble. My son has reserved the end run at the kennel for us, right near the water spout.
ogged's doing Trapped in the Closet: Tehran. It's gonna be huge.
If your kids feel safe with that kind of disrepect, you're doing something wrong.
I have yet to read this Lewis article, and I'll do it because Alameida--whose parental instincts I trust--agrees that he comes across as an ass and the kids are out of line.
But. My kid backtalks my ass all the time. And god knows half the posts I write about him I get people jumping my shit for being a bad parent, or obviously hating my kid, or wtfever. Chill out, folks: just because people don't parent the way you do, or think you would, doesn't make them shitty parents.
Given the state of the world, it must be the case that a lot of parents suck.
Okay, article read. What's wrong with you people? Lewis is writing about the ways that kids push buttons, and apparently his wife is depressed, and he feels protective of her--and no wonder; dealing with one kid, let alone three, when you're depressed is a fucking nightmare. So he ate dessert when the kids weren't allowed to do so (for whatever reason). BFD.
Plus, he says that at school the teachers say the girls behave beautifully. Obviously the Lewises are doing a perfectly fine job. Most well-raised, intelligent kids know how to behave in public: it's at home where they relax and act out a little bit. All I see is: the kids are picky about how they like their yogurt, the girls fight with each other, and when they get mad at their parents, they write them notes. It all seems normal and perfectly acceptable to me.
"Because I said so" is in truth the bottom line.
The classic calasibling response to this, beginning around two years, when most children ask "why?": "Why 'cause?"
Sometimes, kids are just that strong-willed. If they're related to me, it's a safe bet, and it's certainly not because my parents were wishy-washy on the whole spanking thing.
If the article is accurate and the whole story, it's pretty horrible, but I suspect it's an exaggerated look into an ill-named family during a time of relative chaos: new brother, post-partum depression mom, kids running amok as dad struggles to adjust.
You don't understand, B. Michael Lewis is evil and his children are scarred forever. And cut your boy's hair!!!
Also, Blind Side kind of sucked.
100 seems to get it wrong. It read to me like they were trying to do all the advice of the parenting books to get the older two used to the new baby, and that their efforts grounded on reality.
My parents tell a story of me looking at the next calasister in the bassinet. I'm nearly three, and I'm staring at her repeating "such a cute little baby", but wearing an expression that suggests first that I'm not convinced, and second, that if I don't keep constantly reminding myself with this refrain, that I'll probably try to return her to the hospital for a refund.
109: I just told PK that I have a friend who is constantly after me to cut his hair, and what does he think about that?
"You can tell him he is totally dumb and he should shut up."
You're lucky my phone seems not to be working. I was trying to put him up to calling you and telling you in person. He asked what you would say, and I said, "he'll probably laugh, he's a nice guy." PK says, "if he's a nice guy, why is he always telling you to cut my hair?"
I just read the article, and I don't think it comes across nearly as bad as people made it sound. If anything, he sounds overindulgent to me. The only questionable decision, I think, was to turn his kids' lives into emo-porn for Slate. And I have no idea what's so troubling about the Post-It.
The classic calasibling response to this, beginning around two years, when most children ask "why?": "Why 'cause?"
My kids do that. The obvious answer of course, "cause we pay for everything. One day you'll pay for your own shit, and then you'll get to call the shots."
Ok, that would have been funny, until I explained sin to him.
My kids do that. The obvious answer of course, "cause we pay for everything. One day you'll pay for your own shit, and then you'll get to call the shots."
Why not just go with, "Questions give daddy cancer"?
gswift teaches his kids to value teh materialistic lifestyle! Seriously, though, what was interesting about the calasibling's variation on "why 'cause" was that it pre-empted the "because that's the way it is."
"Why 'cause we're going in the car? Why 'cause the grass green? Why 'cause it's raining?"
Why not just go with, "Questions give daddy cancer"?
That could work. Then I'd flash them my scar.
Why not just go with, "Questions give daddy cancer"?
My kids are wise to that technique. I go with the reality based approach.
The "because we pay for shit" answer reminds me of what my mom used to say: "because anybody who's bigger than anybody else is boss."
Shudder. With any luck, Gswift, your kids are going to turn into liberal feminazis in order to flout your fucked-up value system.
The "because we pay for shit" answer reminds me of what my mom used to say: "because anybody who's bigger than anybody else is boss."
Those are way different. I've beat up people bigger than me.
Why did we ask too many questions?
You should just be honest with your kids about the "why do I have to do what you say?" question: because we're your parents, and whether you like it or not, you little hormones make what we think of you very important to you, and even if we make stupid rules, you'll have terrible psychic conflicts about flouting them. Suck it, my children!
You should just be honest with your kids about the "why do I have to do what you say?" question: because we're your parents, and whether you like it or not, you little hormones make what we think of you very important to you, and even if we make stupid rules, you'll have terrible psychic conflicts about flouting them. Suck it, my children!
The sense that I get from the article is lack of empathy, that he's not tuned in well enough to his kids to know when to let things go and when to draw a line. People try to buy and follow instruction manuals but it doesn't work worth a shit without a pretty strong ability to figure out whether the kid is just acting out because they're tired/hungry/whatever and when it's a more significant issue. But that may have more to do with how he chose to tell the story than how he actually deals with his kids.
One rule that I was strict about with myself: you try pretty hard to avoid ending up in a contest of wills with your kid, but if you screw up and let one develop, you absolutely have to win it.
130 and 131 are correct, though the answers are wrong. But yeah, basically you should just answer the why questions, and then when you get sick of them, you just say, "no more questions right now."
Then of course when the kid keeps asking, you start mocking him, and "why why why why WHY?" turns into a game.
Why did god make us ask questions, Ogged?
You're going to have some fucked-up kids.
Fucked up, maybe; well-groomed, definitely.
Well, hey, as long as your priorities are healthy.
Why the *fuck* isn't my phone working?
It's past your kid's bedtime anyway, B.
He's in bed. But I'm annoyed because I can't figure out why the phone, which I turned off and charged this afternoon, has decided to lock up on me, and why I can't even get it to prompt me to enter an unlock code, or even turn the goddamn thing off.
Why are you waiting for it to prompt you? You've gotta nut up if you want to make any calls.
I'm not calling you, for fuck's sake. I'm just glad my phone works and I was saying thank you, Mr. Shitty Manners.
Another foul-mouthed feminist blogger heard from.
I may be foul-mouthed, but at least I'm gracious.
Reminds me of my last day temping somewhere, when a co-worker asked for my number and I said, "Never try to contact me."
The polite thing to do is to just lie about your number.
149, if true, is so awesome that...gawd, I'm at a loss.
151: No it's not. At least there's the deniability of maybe it was a mistake. Plus, when you find out they lied, at least they're not there watching your expression.
152: Liar.
So grooming, honesty, loyalty: high priorities for ogged. Tact: not so much.
151: No it's not. At least there's the deniability of maybe it was a mistake.
Yeah, you could lie again.
You're already lying twofold when giving out the number: first you're lying about your actual number, and second that you don't mind the person's contacting you. It is, dare I say it, passive-aggressive.
(And condescending: oh, I'll make it easy for soandso.)
Yeah, well, if you'd rather we could try the "screw being polite, I'm just being *honest*" approach.
149 is true; this guy and I had been temping there for a year, and went to lunch together pretty much every day, but this is the guy behind such stories as 1) saying "sissy boy!" when he put more spice on his food than I did (he said it in fun, but only partly in fun 2) trying to demonstrate mui thai moves for me by actually kicking me or trying to knee me in the ribs 3) talking non-stop, usually about how many smart people he knew, or about his girlfriend's dogs. He was also really into knives and juggling. So I didn't want any ambiguity about whether the relationship was going to continue after we quit.
I'm not saying that 149 is the best approach.
Still, "don't ever contact me" seems kinda harsh.
Reminds me of a girl I knew in high school who told a boy that had a terrible crush on her:
"Would you do me a favor?"
"Anything!"
"Lose my number."
Funny, but mean.
You gotta know your audience: he laughed, even though he knew I wasn't kidding.
2) trying to demonstrate mui thai moves for me by actually kicking me or trying to knee me in the ribs
Holy christ, we had guy like that at my last job. Except he was a wrestler.
He was also really into knives and juggling.
Separately, or in combination?
That was like reading "Marley and Me" only about human beings rather than a golden retriever. And therefore to me somewhat different in its implications.
Anyway:
1) My kid IS a sweet kid. Seriously, I don't recognize much of the emotional atmosphere that Lewis is talking about, his situation seems objectively worse than most people I know, there's something rotten in Denmark.
2) Though sure, there are struggles for power in all families, and some of them a parent has to win.
3) One thing you do learn: a kid's personality is somewhat mysterious. It's actually a mistake to assume the kid is somehow a container filled by everything around them, that their character and behavior is perfectly plastic to the parenting and environment. It's not mysterious in the sense of inexplicable: I can tell explanatory narratives about everything my daughter does and says. But it's mysterious in the sense that any person is mysterious: why are they this way and not that way given their genes, their environment, their experiences? There's a kid who's a foul-mouthed brat and kind of stupid to boot that my daughter plays with occasionally, and I can see some of where that's coming from when I talk to her folks. But there's a kid she plays with who's a sweet angel but whose parents are some of the nastier people I've met, at least outside the home. Who knows?
When Keegan hit the "why" stage, I'd give him three whys and then I'd answer, "It's self-evident." Which, amazingly, worked. Except that then I had a two-year-old that, when anybody asked him why about anything, would answer in a very serious voice, "It's selp-ebident."
I just read the article. The kids don't actually sound that badly off to me: decent, reasonable kids will push as hard as you let them. Lewis, on the other hand, is either completely useless, or trying to make himself sound as if he were.
I agree with 171. The real problem is Lewis, not the kids, who mostly will do what they can get away with. Still, LB, imagine what you would do to your kids if they acted like that.
There would be sharp words, including explanations that we are, in fact, poor, and that they would be starting work as rag-pickers on Monday.
Michael Lewis's kids are little shits because he is about as effective as a wet paper towel.
"Do you two have any idea how lucky you are to have a mom who takes such good care of you?"
Should have been, "I'm flipping a coin for who gets what yogurt. Any complaining will result in getting nothing. Any gloating will result in your sister getting first choice. Now shut up."
Here it's more like, "OK, if the yogurts are going to cause an argument, they're going back in the fridge."
The kids sounded pissed off and Lewis sounds like he doesn't know quite what to do with them, but he certainly seems to value their smartarseness (if only because it makes a good article) and so he's going to have to then put up with them *being* smartarses.
I do generally go with "blame the parents" so it's probably his fault. However, I had a 6-7 year old who was quite capable of screaming at me that she hated me and she wished she had a mother who loved her and then crying for 2 hours over such slurs as "What would you like for lunch?", so sometimes the devil-child diagnosis is the only rational one.
(I'd also just like to point out that in case anyone has ever clicked on the link to my blog, that those are not my kids' real names. The real ones are worse.)
However, I had a 6-7 year old who was quite capable of screaming at me that she hated me
The first time my wife my niece met (apart from once when she was a baby), my niece (who was 5 at the time) took great exception to the fact that X (my wife, X isn't her actual name) chuckled gently at a tantrum she (my niece) was throwing.
So much so that she spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on our stairs chanting 'I hate my aunty X; I hate my aunty X' with quite impressive stamina and single-mindedness.
My predictions for Quinn, Dixie and Walker:
Quinn will be a fairly classic over-achiever who goes to an Ivy or Seven Sisters and gets a fancy media job and becomes the kind of annoying, humorless success story who always gets everything right. But if she has kids, watch out! It's gonna be little James Freys everywhere.
Dixie will be the writer, although her tales of bobo upper-class anomie will probably have a limited shelf life. If she's lucky, she'll wind up with a fairly nice partner who will insulater her from further contact with her hideous family.
Walker will also gravitate towards creative stuff. He'll probably end up in Hollywood in some kind of industry sinecure, comfortably numb to reality and his family's neuroses.
My solution for any kind of parenting dilemma would be to order the kids outside to dig a hole in the backyard. Or play with the sprinkler. Or make little ice dams in the gutter. Or just run around the block a few times. Thankfully, I will never be in a position to see if this approach is superior to those described above.
60: me too. Totally could have gotten away with that.
My grandfather once babysat for my older sisters when they were acting up--said he wouldn't spank them but he would tell our parents.
Response: "My mom doesn't spank us. She reasons with us."
The other thing of course is that you don't make a threat you can't follow through on. My husband's father used to get a lot of results with "you better do X by the count of three. One...two...two and a half..."
When he was about three years old, husband turns around and says: "wait. what happens when you get to three?" His father had no answer.
I don't think the article sounds all that bad. It sounds like this is an unusual stretch of bad behavior, caused by parents being overwhelmed. Maybe the mom's usually the bad cop? Because he's not good at it.
I've read it now, and I agree with the camp that says "Eh! Not so bad." He's trying to make copy, and his issues are real, and these conflicts are common. Nice to see that Waugh story used, I've never known quite what to do with it either.
I don't remember this kind of challenge from my children, their stubbornness is all resistance. But I tend to forget things. Yesterday at dinner my daughter started singing I'm telling you now!, by Freddy and the Dreamers, and I expressed surprise that she knew it. Both kids exclaimed, in unison, "Dad, you used to sing that all the time! We learned it from you!"
Neal Pollack's latest book is apparently a parody of this "humorous memoir of your own difficulties as a parent" genre. Any time someone writes on of these, someone immediately reacts with a "I can't believe what a bad parent you are." As near as I can tell, Pollack is going way out of his way to bait this sort of reaction.
As near as I can tell, this is all that is left to do with the genre.
OT data point request: Is anybody else going to be watching The Daytona 500? With people? Is anybody here aware of anybody they know preparing to watch, particularly in company? Or is this a nearly impervious social divide?
One of my best friends is watching the Daytona 500 and making the chili recipe I sent him.
Well, I defer to the general consensus--and actual parenting data--that suggests this fellow is just doing what parents do. This does, gratifyingly, confirm me in my belief that my upbringing was genuinely weird and authoritarian, so it's not a total loss.
Is anybody else going to be watching The Daytona 500?
No doubt, but not me. And would not be even if I did not have to work all weekend. I will defend to the death my countrymen's right to watch auto racing, but I would watch cricket before I would watch auto racing.
Is anybody here aware of anybody they know preparing to watch, particularly in company?
No. Except, apparently, you. Enjoy!
Thanks, I will. My wonder is about the fact that many millions will, but between them and the community of this blog, there will not only be very little overlap, but that lack of overlap will extend to our irl networks as well. We've a fair amount of lifestyle and regional diversity, if not much of the other kinds. Any of my fellow treadmillistas? I'd think you'd be the right place to start.
(and thanks, Cala)
You know, the other thing about smart-ass kids, is that they're quite capable of defending themselves against authoritarian or predatory adults. That, and they grow up to think for themselves.
186: Oh, yeah. I mean, my problem was with the [perceived] prattiness of the writer, not with the kids. And honestly, it was a surprise to realize how atypical my expectations about parental behavior are. My friends with kids are all seriously hippie, so I'd assumed that their laid-back parenting style was much more outside the norm than it actually seems to be. Which bothers me not at all--I'm hardly advocating authoritarianism for its own sake.
183 - I dunno if he's really just doing what parents do. He doesn't seem happy about his daughters' behaviour, and that doesn't seem good to me. I don't care how people bring their children up, but I don't like it when they then complain about how their kids are - "um, DO something about it???"
Don't use me as a non-hippie datapoint.
But hippiedom had a car culture too, as I recently recalled, and the racing scene had its free spirits in the 60s and 70s like every other part of the culture.
My dad's probably watching the racing, too, come to think of it.
As I've said, the whole family seems like gameplayers. I'd hate to have to coexist with the dad. The kids may turn out fine, in the sense that the dad is "fine", but that wouldn't really be a good thing. And the kids seem really unpleasant.
But hippiedom had a car culture too
Sure. I loved my VW bus with the psychadelic painting on the side and the ying-yang symbol on the front. But I never considered driving it on a racetrack or watching others do so with theirs. Road trips, on the other hand, I still love.
Ya, we should all watch stupid auto races and enjoy them in order to become one with the American people out there in Brooks world and strengthen the democratic party with that demographic. Your first assignment: what the fuck is a "chicane"?
The kind of racing that will make that social connection doesn't have chicanes, John.
I have one friend that'll watch the race, but I can't think of any others.
What surprises me about the reaction to the article is the relatively little acknowledgment that one can tell a story that's true in all its particulars, but still quite misleading as to the larger picture.
107: Plus, he says that at school the teachers say the girls behave beautifully.
b, that means they behave beautifully when the teachers are watching, but play Lord Of The Flies when alone with the other kids. Seriously.
What surprises me about the reaction to the article is the relatively little acknowledgment that one can tell a story that's true in all its particulars, but still quite misleading as to the larger picture.
The larger picture being? That the kids in question are reacting to the household dynamic? I thought that was acknowledged here.
Storytelling is always targeted and particular.
But no, that's not quite right. It's an interesting article in that respect: Lewis is telling us (himself) a tale, trying this narrative on for size.
Whatever total picture there is requires many voices.
The larger picture could be that they're a perfectly happy family, Lewis is a fine dad, with a daugher who is going through a phase of saying outrageous things.
Sure. I thought that was noted here.
I like Quinn, the 7-year old. She'd be me if I'd felt more free.
Still think that since she's so cool, Lewis should talk to her more.
Oh, maybe it was. Who reads all these comments anyway?
I only read the comments on threads I've participated in or am interested in.
Duh.
I thought you were saying something more interesting about the nature of narrative and storytelling.
I'm burdened by dial-up here.
193: Wait, what? Idealist, you're a hippie? I really need that unfogged character FAQ . . . .
When I was barely 7 my mother was very, very ill--she spent a long time in the hospital and a long time bed ridden. Once my sister and I were fighting, my father simply marched in and told us we were being selfish and inconsiderate and disturbing our mother's sleep. (Well, something like that. . .he said it in our mother-tongue.) He said it once, he glared, then went back to her. I still remember being deeply chastened and ashamed that I had forgotten about her sleeping and let my voice rise. It worked, we were quiet. I can't tell you how they got me to that point at that age, but they did.
Once, driving through the Central Valley with our dad, my sister and I were fighting over who got the ice at the bottom of a soft drink cup - why we were fighting over that, I don't know - and my Dad, to end the argument, grabbed the cup and swung it towards the window to throw the ice out, not realizing that the window was very clean and still closed.
Wait, what? Idealist, you're a hippie?
35-40 years ago, yes (as much as someone born in 1955 could be a hippe--sadly too young for most of the drugs and sex, but did enjoy the rock and roll).
I have a totally unrelated question for Unfoggers about books (which is why I'm appending it here where I hope people will see it but where it probably won't derail anything too badly). Can I ask it here? Should I appeal to the Mighty Managerial Force of Unfogged about how to ask?
Anyway, this is my question: I am on the ordering committee at a political bookstore. We're basically restocking after Christmas (yes, it's well after Christmas--we don't have any money so everything is late.) We stock about 10% general sorta liberal books (Omnivore's Dilemma; Guns Germs & Steel; 1492 which is fantastic). We stock about 15% fairly academic books on the Foucault-Deleuze-Negri spectrum. And the rest is all freedom! No, actually the rest is an uneasy mix of fiction, economics, current events, history, crafts and DIY, GLBT, health and so on. We sell a lot of Mike Davis and Edward Said, plus the usual suspects--Zinn, Parenti, Klein.
O readers of Unfogged, please lend me your expertise:
What should we stock? I'd really love some fiction recommendations, in particular. But popular progressive and left-wing treatments of most topics are helpful as well.
Science fiction and graphic novels don't sell unless they're really famous--we sell the Red Mars books and Persepolis and Maus and that's about it. (To my constant, constant disappointment.)
What should we stock? I'd really love some fiction recommendations, in particular.
You know, I know someone who makes her living buying books for small independent bookstores. I'm sure that, for a reasonable fee, she'd be glad to make some recommendations.
For a reasonable fee? Surely you jest...we have no money. Er, on second thought, how reasonable is reasonable? I mean, I'd pay out of pocket in the name of the store for some good advice, provided I could afford it. (I'd say I could only pay for $50-$100 worth of advice at the maximum--and I know the store couldn't add anything to that right now.)
I have no idea. Actually the person in question works far too hard, IMO.
I'm not surprised. There's nothing like the book trade for making you work--it's amazing how much work goes into our store when you consider how much still needs to be done. Seriously, I could spend about 20 hours starting right now on bookstore stuff and not be caught up.
Jennifer Egan and Zadie Smith are two of the finest novelists currently writing. You might order some of their books.
Frowner, I need you to admit that you're far too earnest. Go spank yourself or something. Ben's just fucking with you about the fee.
Fiction: "Sorrows of War" (Vietnamese book about the Vietnam War and its aftermath, intense but wonderfully written.)
Most things by Gombrowicz, Hamsun, Flann O'Brien, Bulgakov, and Jaroslav Hasek.
Sahlins, "Islands of History", about Captain Cook and the Hawaiian Islands (where he was killed).
"Fortress Besieged", Qian Zhong-shu, perhaps best XXc Chinese novel, a man accidentally gets married.
Confessions of Zeno, Italo Svevo, another book about a man who accidentally gets married.
"Rebellion in the Backlands", Euclides de Cunha, about a mad rebellion by a Brazilian religious cult in the Brazilian interior.
"The Tailor King", about the mad rebellion of the Muenster Commune.
Frowner, I'm a bookseller. We don't specialize in what your store does. It's not an easy, straightforward question, depends on your location (I've forgotten) and clientele, obviously. You sell new books, I take it. (Meaning, in-print reprints of the classics in this area.)
I'm surprised there aren't staff there who are on top of this. I'll email you, and certainly have some friends who run bookstores like yours. I have to make some food now, will write you later.
Ben's just fucking with you about the fee.
True. I'm not this person's agent or whatever. But seriously: works way too hard. (And doesn't know anything about your store's clientele anyway.)
I'm afraid that if I spanked myself I wouldn't enjoy it--then what would be the point?
I know, I'm totally humor-impaired. I thought the "Fuck You, Clown" poems were awfully funny, though.
Also, no contemporary fiction or fiction by XXc American authors. Sure, it sells, but it's all crap, and small poltiical bookstores all go out of business sooner or later anyway.
it's all crap is false wrt fiction by XXc American authors -- this category might include as much worthwhile stuff as any fiction by ----th century authors of ---- country.
215: Oh, hey, thank you, parsimon. We don't have staff on top of this because--we don't have staff! We have volunteers! Any real-bookseller advice would be great.
We stock books based on our past sales and on the ordering committee's research/biases, and we're just transitioning to a fairly financially-stable system while also trying to build up an ordering rubric to keep stock more consistant. (In the past, we've had people order heavily and deeply in their favorite topics while neglecting others--this works well enough when it's fiction, but poorly when it's surrealism or even capital-T Theory)
We would definitely have gone out of business if we were really sales-dependant, yes indeed. Charity, luck, special events and about $3000 a month in sales have kept us open since 1993.
We sell a lot of fiction--perhaps because our clients lack judgement, I dunno. We seldom sell the things I like best, which makes me sad.
Political bookstore, eh? Why not "alternate history" novels? On the other hand, "The Iron Dream" is possibly the only good alternate history novel.
I would love to stock alternate history novels..."The Iron Dream" is awfully good, and I've read others that have been fun. But science fiction (or anything even sort of like science fiction) doesn't sell--partly because there are two science fiction bookstores within a two mile radius of the store, and partly because activists think science fiction is (get this!) too nerdy. Which is a shame, because there are a lot of science fiction novels that any left-wing person would like. The Female Man, for example; those Jewel Gomez vampire stories for another.
Potocki, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa could appeal to identity-politicized leftists, but people shouldn't hold that against what's a pretty good novel fictional work.
On the other hand, "The Iron Dream" is possibly the only good alternate history novel.
But … The Man in the High Castle!
You're just wrong, Clownae.
OK, Flannery O'Connor is sort of OK.
I was going to mention the Saragossa Manuscript. I only read about a fifth of it, but enough to tell that the film followed the book pretty closely. The film music was by Penderecki, a big plus in my opinion. Potocki seems to have been an amazing guy.
What's wrong with all 20th US century fiction across the board? I mean, I don't have any developed critical perspective on contemporary fiction, so I have no dog in this fight.
Thanks for the suggestions so far--we should stock Zadie Smith, and I'm not sure why we haven't; those others (with which I'm not familiar) look uniformly interesting and I've emailed them to the person who handles our big distributor.
Maxine Hong Kingston includes an extended passage about the Saragossa Manuscript (movie) in Tripmaster Monkey, a book which I am ashamed to admit how much I like, since I can tell it's rather cheesy.
I can't comment too intelligently on why I think this right now, but I found In the Skin of A Lion to be politically moving. Plus it's just one of my favorite contemporary novels.
enough to tell that the film followed the book pretty closely
By the end, the film has left a lot out. I don't see how they could have fit it all in. A lot - I mean, a lot, including a bit in New Spain - happens in that book.
I assume you already stock the works of Margaret Atwood.
Trust me, it's all just bad.
If a lot of grumpy old men lusting after their granddaughters' friends come into your store, probably you should supply them with Roth.
Thomas Geohegan's Which Side Are You On should be on the list somewhere, but that's one book, so not much help.
And we've had some threads asking for book recommendations for personal reading -- I'll see if I can find the links.
218 writes:
Also, no contemporary fiction or fiction by XXc American authors. Sure, it sells, but it's all crap, and small poltiical bookstores all go out of business sooner or later anyway.
I hear the sound of an amused bookseller.
And here's a comment thread of non-fiction recommendations.
I think there are more such threads, but the hoohole is serving me ill. Anyone else want to track them down?
Thank you, various Unfoggers. I will look at the links. Fiction recommendations still much appreciated.
We stock Margaret Atwood, but we don't sell nearly as much as you'd expect. She's kind of at the wrong point--people who only like exciting exceedingly contemporary fanzine-like novels don't want to read her, and people who read a lot of fiction have read at least some of her books.
The Tariq Ali quartet sells a LOT.
Another good, interesting contemporary novelist is Gary Shteyngart.
No, no, Clownae! There are none!
I hate to recommend fiction, because I always feel hackneyed and obvious. But I'm very fond of Vikram Seth, and AS Byatt, not that they have anything to do with each other.
There's a new one? I guess the old one was getting pretty wrinkled and doddering...
Frowner--
For, SF, Kim Stanley Robinson's new trilogy about global warming would be good, and anything by Ken Mcleod (he's a Trot or something). Oh, and Cory Doctorow's near-future utopia-through-universal-net-access stuff. Vernor Vinge's latest. Iain M. Banks. Greg Egan. I haven't read her, but I've heard good things about Sherri S. Tepper.
I'll keep thinking.
I believe she wants every possible type of fiction except SF.
Macleod is good, though.
His books often seem to feature lefty/anarchist/libertarian Scots who grew up in the 70s or 80s taking over the world/solar system. This idea, funnily enough, has some appeal.
just fill the fucking shelves with a million copies of "Freakonomics" - nobody buys any other fucking books these days apparently (bitter? moi?)
I have a mate who knew Michael Lewis whenhe was at Salomon Brothers and he reckons that a) the man in the writings is not the man in real life and b) although he writes like a cunt, he is in fact a reasonably OK bloke.
My five year old communicates with me through post-it notes at the moment; he has got it into his head that Daddy obeys signs from seeing me drive. He therefore reasons that if I see a sign saying "dAddy we havn ise cream", then it will have a moral force on me that him simply asking for ice cream lacks.
Sorry, can't wade through all 250 comments, but I'm a bit surprised by the humorless reaction of the first 50. It's a persona, as Daniel underlines in 251.
As someone set to face the third addition to our family, I've laughed my ass off at Lewis's self-mocking tales of family woe. Of course it's exaggerated. But the idea that kids are never shitty to their parents, or that he must be a bad person for the kind of resentment and annoyance he talks about in the article... Well, I wish I sailed through life with the incredible grace and good will you all evidently maintain.
247: Well, we don't sell a lot of SF except Kim Stanley Robinson--that sells very well to extremely straight Marxist boys who don't really read science fiction or fiction generally, for some reason, and sometimes sells to other people. (There's actually an otherwise unidentified local "radical book discussion group" which is reading Antarctica...I'm thinking of attending although I am not an extremely straight Marxist of any description, just to see who put the group together and what angle they'll take on the book.)
The new Cory Doctrow would work, though--it's respectable to read serious "literary" authors who use SF tropes, even though SF is for nerds, according to our extremely nerdy clientele.
Left-wing Scots who take over the solar system sound amusing for my own reading.
I wish we could sell more science fiction--although there are two SF bookstores sorta nearby, there's a lot that they don't stock, or stock only thinly and intermittently. I wish, for example, that we could sell the Aqueduct Press stuff, which is extremely uneven yet very, very interesting. Love's Body, Dancing in Time really, truly changed how I read fiction. Or at least it changed how I read fiction when I remember to read differently.
it's respectable to read serious "literary" authors who use SF tropes
I suggest you look elsewhere than to Doctorow.
254: I was speaking in the voice of a certain type of bookstore client, which is always fun...I confess have never read any Cory Doctrow, although I read and enjoyed the Other Doctrow's novel Billy Bathgatewhen I was fifteen or so.
Well then I suggest that that person look elsewhere. Cory can't write for shit.
People keep recommending Octavia Butler to me. I'm rather fond of Dennis Lehane, in a modern-day-Chandler kind of way. I adore Elinor Lipman, who I always describe as Jane Austen for the 21st century, with Yiddish.
Most folks who are inclined to have already read Barbara Kingsolver, but I'd probably stock her anyway. The politics aren't subtle but the science is refreshing (as in, a scentifically literate novelist is a change). I loved, loved, loved Bel Canto, but haven't been running to check out Ann Patchett's other books.
I like Dana Stabenow for a nice quick mystery set in an unusual location (Alaska). I had a soft spot for Polly Whitney's husband-and-wife mysteries, which were sort of Nick and Nora-ish, but I think she stopped writing some time ago.
You know what else I liked? Robert Parker's Double Play. I have no idea why. All the race and gender stuff that could have been problematic...eh. It was a good read.
The Bone People is stunning: heartbreaking, tremendously violent, and a good antidote to endless Books By White Guys. Also, Italo Calvino's short stories. And E.B. White's essays. Speaking of white guys.
I bought two of Cory's books. I wanted to like them. He had a few neat ideas. But they were lousy. Someone who has interesting ideas and does a good job with them (can tell a story) is Charles Stross. Charlie is on the European left, and though it comes through in some of his stories he doesn't write tracts. He has a fun blog too.
If you're looking for SF that will appeal to Marxists, you should consider China M
ieville.
I don't know what happened in 259.
Cory's writing is so lousy. It is lousy like a louse-infested giant louse in a lousy louse house.
Barbara Kingsolver
I have only read The Poisonwood Tree, which I found dreadfully bad. Should I revisit Kingsolver -- is TPT anomalous?
260: You put a less than sign just after the M, so it thought there was an unclosed html tag.
The idea that anyone, even an addlepated Marxist, could consider him serious and literary, is running my mind amok.
For non-fiction: Corey Robin, Fear, if it's not part of the general politics stock you already have looks interesting. I read an essay of his in Raritan on the same subject that was very good.
I just remembered this because of the name Cory.
even though SF is for nerds, according to our extremely nerdy clientele.
Really, your left-wing clientele thinks SF is nerdy? Who are these people?
I mean, it's true that a lot of SF geeks are scarily nerdy, but dudes. Look, tell them it's Speculative Fiction, for one thing. I challenge thee to label your SF section "Speculative Fiction." Stock some Harlan Ellison, the Dangerous Visions series, Neil Gaiman, Ursula LeGuin (not necessarily Earthsea).
263: Depends. If you found it dreadfully bad because you didn't like the passionate opinions and the verbosity of text and the political-is-personal vibe...well, skip the rest.
If, on the other hand, you love the American Southwest, do by all means pick up Pigs in Heaven or The Bean Trees (not Prodigal Summer). And leaf through High Tide in Tucson. It's essays, and they're uneven, but some of the good ones have remarkable turns of phrase.
Oooh. ooh. I know. Richard Corey.
(And thus does free association makes a fool of me.)
269: These people are all ex-nerds with social anxiety--it's the narcissism of small differences. They all used to be nerds but now they're punks, and they want to distance themselves from anything they think is irretrievably nerdy. I would like to point out that I used to be a nerd and then I was a nerdy punk and now I am a nerdy secretary and in all that time my collection of science fiction has only continued to grow.
Some China Mieville I like a lot, notably The Scar, which is fantastic.
We stock Ursula Le Guin...the Disposessed sometimes sells, but not much else.
You see, I'd say only about 20% of our clients really like books for their own sakes. The rest view books as either an ancillary amusement or part of a left-wing organizing project. This is not actually any more cringe-inducing than the clientele at a regular bookstore.
I've got to say, though, that I don't care much about what's "literary" and what's not. I used to, a great deal, and it was a depressing, unproductive time. Now I try to read like I did when I was a kid, following my interests, reading junk and non-junk alike as long as it gets me somewhere.
271 -- you mean the guy who owns one half of this whole town?
Hey Frowner, do you stock Guy Debord? The Society of the Spectacle ought to sell at least a couple of copies a year.
Okay, fiction for insecure lefty punks. How about...
Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks
Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed
The Crying of Lot 49, though probably you already have that on the shelves
White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty
Pussy, King of the Pirates by Kathy Acker
We do stock Guy Debord, and we do sell Society of the Spectacle fairly steadily.
276: That's an excellent list for a lot of the people who shop at Arise....eerily excellent. We've stocked about half of those off and on, but we should have them all the time, and the other half I can see are great selections.
Not fiction, but do you stock Hakim Bey's T. A. Z.? Freely available online, but surely some people would prefer it in print, and it seems to go along with the other stuff.
Someone posted a list of 10 "don'ts" for guy nerds who want to get a date one time in their life. It could be adapted into a "Ten Steps to the Relationship-Free Life" piece. I scored 6/10 without having read the article.
That makes the list seem pretty ineffectual considering you were married at one time in your life.
The Intutitionist? Peter Carey's The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith? Gould's Book of Fish? Various Murakami novels?
It's out of print, or I'd recommend Lewis Shiner's Slam to stack w/rfts's suggestions. (Shiner is a s.f. writer, but Slam is basically science fiction if the science in question were the Loompanics catalog and some half-digested Bob Black. It's great.)
Nonfictionally, do you think Our Band Could Be Your Life would sell?
Yeah, that guy. He owns half the interwebs with his bong site (can't fool me be adding an i). A bullet is too terminal though.
Our Band Could Be Your Life does sell...we need to order another couple, in fact. Murakami is actually the middle ground where the eyes of the masses and the eyes of the highbrows meet and wink, so to speak...all, all like Murakami.
I am now all agog to read Gould's Book of Fish.
The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith is perfect for that population, but they probably don't realize it. More things that feel to me like they might fall into that same bucket of readers, some kinda obvious:
Cruddy by Lynda Barry
Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five, again surely you already have these on your shelves
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski (kind of terrible, and yet it seems like the kind of thing that would appeal)
Libra and White Noise by Don DeLillo
Actually, now I'm thinking of things too: we could stock Isabel Allende's early books (we've had some of her later stuff; I like the Eva Luna ones better, though.)
We sell a lot of Vonnegut.
I bet Donald Barthelme would hit the right note.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Three Californias books.
On a more fancy-pants note, we could try those Rizal books about revolution in the Phillipines.
I am home with flu-like symptoms today and a tiny mouse has been running back and forth from the kitchen into the amorphous-ly purposed room where I am typing. I loathe having mice, and yet I like mice. They have such amusing feet.
Donald Antrim? Behind the Scenes at the Museum? Chester Himes? I presume you stock a great deal of Orwell already.
In related news, I hold Cory Doctorow responsible for things like this, the worst thing ever written on the Internet, worse than (Stephen Ratliff × the Euston Manifesto) ^ Kozmo.com business plan.
Ah, now I see I was a bit barking up the wrong tree. Well, if Matt Weiner were here he might say Alice Munro. And it's true she's not only literary but also good.
At the other end of the spectrum, more ex-punks than I would expect seem to like Christopher Moore (Lamb, etc.).
And now that someone mentions Orwell, I am reminded that there is a nice, cheap, attractive Penguin edition of Politics and the English Language which ought (as far as I am concerned) to be getting handed out on street corners.
287: I tried very hard to get into Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and just couldn't. Have you read any of her other stuff?
Chester Himes we stock but sell only slowly; Orwell we stock and sell in quantities.
Parenthetically, when I taught in China and my students asked for good English-language writing I discovered that they had all read Orwell, including "Politics and the English Language", and considered his work rather vieux jeux. After I realized that my students' post-Marxism had led to an inevitable and largely unquestioned ultra-capitalism, I became so awed by their sophistication and so depressed that I had to return to my own land of barbaric yawping.
re: Kingsolver--at one point (late high school, maybe?) I loved Pigs in Heaven, Animal Dreams, and The Bean Trees. I didn't like The Poisonwood Bible and there's a newer one I liked even less called Prodigal Summer. I don't know if her books changed or my tastes did. Probably both.
289 - I liked BtSatM a great deal, thought Human Croquet was so-so, and picked up Case Histories and abandoned it 25 pages in (not terrible, but it just wasn't holding my interest). I believe rfts read it, though, so may be willing to venture an opinion.
281: I was married during the Hippie Archaic period when all bets were off. And following the rules helps, but it doesn't protect you if the will to be unrelated isn't there. The client must take responsibility for his own recovery.
I also found Case Histories too uncompelling to complete. I like Behind the Scenes at the Museum plenty.
I'm a bit appalled at the mention of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. It's been a long time, but I thought that the extremely deep nesting of stories was completely ruined by the fact that the storytellers, at every level, spoke or wrote in the same voice.
But I'm probably the wrong person to listen to, as most of my reading is online these days (going to college killed my fiction-reading habit, since I had No Free Time), and after my last move I'm trying to patronize the public libraries instead of bookstores.
It depends on what you're reading for; the lack of individual voices - except, at times, the awesomely odd math guy - is a drawback, as is the way the stories are ultimately tied together. But that's not everything that's going on. My reading is probably skewed by being very interested in its historicalness.
Doctorow isn't to be read for literary value, Doctorow is to be read for some of the ideas he spins off--I'm thinking in particular of the the reputation-based economy in Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, but also some of the ubiquitous-wireless evangelism that crops throughout his work, something I thought might be appealing for Frowner's customers.
Charlie Stross is a personal fave--Accelerando and Glasshouse would both be excellent choices, and the Merchants series looks to be building to some really interesting musings on how changes in technology impact economies and culture.
Jo Walton's Farthing is alternate history in the form of a very readable English country house mystery. (The link is to sample chapters.) The cover, etc. won't scream "keep away" to people who don't like science fiction.