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Joshua Henkin is the author of Matrimony (reviewed here by fellow Brooklynite Jennifer Egan). He's also a born-and-bred New Yorker, and he's got a bunch of readings coming up in our town -- see the Brooklyn listings at the end of this post. While his opinions on the state of indie bookstores may not reflect the opinions of The Written Nerd, its affiliate or subsidiary blogs, etc., I am most grateful to him for re-starting the Brooklyn Lit Life series for the fall. And you can be grateful for the free book he's gonna give you! Just email me with your suggestion for the next subject for Brooklyn Lit Life (contact information is helpful) -- first person I hear from, Joshua will send you a signed copy of Matrimony. Read on!

(Update: at Josh's wise suggestion, the free signed book will be given to a respondent who emails me with a BLL suggestion between now and next Monday, in a random drawing. So you've still got a shot -- write in now!)

Describe your particular literary project, and your role in it.

Ah, my particular literary project. How grand-sounding! My particular literary project is waking up earlier than I’d like and getting my four-year-old and two-year-old off to school and daycare, respectively, and then tying myself to my chair, turning my computer on, and forbidding myself to check email for the next several hours. Enough of those days pile one on top of the other and, if I’m lucky, I end up with something salvageable. My most recent novel, MATRIMONY, which took me ten years to write, was published by Pantheon last October and in paperback from Vintage on August 26. It is, unsurprisingly, about a marriage. It’s also about friendship, class, poor people who want to be rich and rich people who want to be poor, sickness and health, and so on. My new novel, already overdue at the publisher, is tentatively titled THE WORLD WITHOUT YOU and takes place over a July 4th weekend at a family reunion in the Berkshires, the occasion for which is the anniversary of the brother’s death; he was a journalist killed in Iraq.

Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?

I was living in Ann Arbor, my then-girlfriend/now-wife was a graduate student at Columblia, we’d been doing the long-distance thing for two years, and we decided to move in together. So I packed my bags and came east. Beth was living in Morningside Heights, but I’d grown up in Morningside Heights and my parents still lived there, and though I may have been willing to move home, I wasn’t willing to move HOME. I had my heart set on Brooklyn, knowing little about it other than that it was now different from the place where I’d visited my great aunt. Friends of friends were moving out of an apartment in Park Slope. Beth and I went to check it out. It was 1999, and the apartment was a two-bedroom with lots of space, light, etc., and it was renting for 1500 dollars a month. Just to convince ourselves, we allowed a broker to take us to a couple of places in SoHo and the East Village for the purposes of comparision-shopping. We signed the lease an hour later.

Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?

Brooklyn’s too big to have a single sensibility. If it drifted apart from the other boroughs, it would still be something like the fourth biggest city in the U.S. It would be bigger than Houston, I believe, and I don’t think Houston has a sensibility, or if it does, I don’t know what it is.

What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.

Yes, indeedy. I live in Park Slope, and if I’m forced to read another article in the Sunday Styles section about the war between the strollers folks and the nons-strollers folks, I’m going to puke. Park Slope is a stereotype, and, alas, I’m part of that stereotype. My wife and I bought our place in 2003, but not before she was pregnant. And we already had a golden retriever! So there were no problems with the coop board….


What do you think of the direction Brooklyn, or at least your neighborhood, is going? What does the future look like in terms of economics, demographics, culture, and other changes?

My neighborhood is going in the direction of everybody being priced out. Jackson Heights advertises in a Park Slope [paper]. There’s a bus that goes directly to Montclair and Maplewood.

Is there a Brooklyn literary sensibility? Which writers or works most emblematize Brooklyn for you? Which older writers set the tone? Which contemporary writers are you reading with interest?

I love Brooklyn, mind you. I bought a house here, I pay taxes here, I send my kids to school here. But when it comes to a Brooklyn literary sensibility I agree with Colson Whitehead, who wrote a column in the Times Book Review several months back called “I Write in Brooklyn. Get Over It.” Here’s Whitehead: “I dig it here and all, but it’s just a place. It does not have magical properties…. I get invited to do panels with other Brooklyn writers to discuss what it’s like to be a writer in Brooklyn. I expect it’s like writing in Manhattan, but there aren’t as many tourists walking very slowly in front of you when you step out for coffee. It’s like writing in Paris, but there are fewer people speaking French. What do they expect me to say? ‘Instead of ink, I write in mustard from Nathan’s Famous, a Brooklyn institution since 1916.’”

Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn? Where and how do people read here?

Brooklyn has a dense population of writers because writers by and large are poor, and Brooklyn is cheaper than Manhattan. Now that Brooklyn has gotten expensive, I suspect its dense population of writers will migrate elsewhere.

What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world?

Although I live in and love Brooklyn, I don’t consider myself part of a literary scene. Most of my friends aren’t writers. That said, I would be remiss if I didn’t put in a good word for Brooklyn College’s MFA program, where I teach (I also teach in Sarah Lawrence’s MFA program), and where the students are talented and charming and Brooklynites, most of them, and through the reading series at Perch and their work on the Brooklyn Review, they’re making significant contributions to the Brooklyn literary community at large. It’s one of the best things literary Brooklyn has going for it. I also love the Brooklyn Writers Space on 5th and Garfield, where, thanks to the white noise machine and the fact that I haven’t learned the Internet password, I get more writing done than anywhere else. There are lots of other good Brooklyn literary institutions: Community Bookstore in Park Slope, Bookcourt in Cobble Hill (plug for my paperback book tour: I’ll be reading at both those stores in early September), One Story, A Public Space, the Pacific Standard Reading Series, among others.

What do you think would make Brooklyn better as a literary place? What does the borough still need? What are the opportunities and challenges it faces?

See answer to next question.

Imagine the ideal Brooklyn bookstore or literary venue, a place you'd like to read on your own or participate in literary community. What would it be like? What would it avoid?

I wouldn’t mind if the Strand were in Brooklyn. Manhattan in general beats Brooklyn when it comes to large independent bookstores. Beyond the Strand, there’s McNally-Robinson (now McNally Jackson) and Book Culture (formerly Labyrinth.) Shortly after I moved to Park Slope, Book Link closed, and in my time here a used book store opnened on 7th Avenue, first with two branches, one for adult books and one for children’s books, which then got consolidated into a single store, which then closed down. Community Bookstore seemed on the brink of closing at one point, though now I gather it’s doing better. Bookcourt feels like it’s doing OK, but what do I know. This isn’t a Brooklyn problem; it’s a nationwide problem. Indie bookstores are hemorrhaging everwyhere. And it’s not just bookstores, of course. The book business is like any other business. The Tea Lounge on 10th Street and 7th Avenue, a south slope institution, recently closed due to an increase in rent, to be replaced, no doubt, by a bank.

Josh's readings in Brookly (and one in NYC):
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Community Bookstore
7:30 PM
143 7th Avenue (between Garfield and Carroll)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718-783-3075

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Bookcourt
7:30 PM
163 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
(718) 875-3677

Thursday, September 18, 2008
Congregation Beth Elohim
271 Garfield Place
Brooklyn, NY 11215
(718) 768-3814
Please note: The reading will take place across the street from the main synagogue, in the Temple Rotunda.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008
McNally Jackson Books
52 Prince Street
Brooklyn, NY 10012
(212) 274-1160
Author/Editor Series Event: Joshua Henkin talks with Lexy Bloom

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I'm sick again today, and unable to formulate coherent thoughts on the book industry, my bookstore plans, the stimulus package, or books I'm reading (though all of those things are spinning around in my fevered dreams whenever I nap, which is often). Luckily, I've got someone more eloquent writing today. The inimitable Garth Risk Hallberg (dude, risk is his middle name!) is involved in all kinds of things literarily Brooklyn, and I'm honored to have him kick off the re-emergence of the Brooklyn Lit Life series.

Brooklyn Lit Life Interview
Garth Risk Hallberg

Describe your particular literary project, and your role in it.
I've actually got three projects. The first is that I get up and write fiction every day. (You can find some stories floating around here and there, as well as a kind of offbeat novella that was published this winter). This alone can be all consuming. Should be. I want it to be. But often, possibly as an excuse to procrastinate, I fall into my second project: writing little literary pieces for my friend Max's blog, The Millions, and other places. Finally, I just started this reading series, The Pacific Standard Fiction Series, partly as a way of convening writers and readers here in Brooklyn. My ideal day would involve writing all morning, lunch, writing until about four, riding my bike to get coffee and sit outside and read, writing a little reaction to what I've read, and then, right at the edge of mental exhaustion, going to a bar with some friends. And dinner should be in there somewhere. Amazingly, I get to have my ideal day with some regularity, especially in the summer. That might be possible anywhere, but I still feel a debt of gratitude to Brooklyn for making it possible.

Why Brooklyn? What made you decide to live/work here, in both practical and emotional terms?
When I was in graduate school, I settled on Brooklyn because the rent is cheap and my friends are here. I also like trees, dogs, and bicycles, which we have in abundance. I like having space for my books. I like being reminded, whenever I cross the bridge, that Manhattan is surrounded by water.

Is there a Brooklyn sensibility or character? How would you describe it? How does it differ from the character of New York City as a whole?
I'm of two minds about the possibility of a "Brooklyn sensibility." I would describe Brooklyn as a place where you don't feel pressure to dress up before going out to drink. (Which doesn't mean the conversation is any less intense.) Or as a really comfortable seat at a great drama, the drama being Manhattan. You can be really involved in that drama, but with a certain perspective. When the curtain goes down, you get up and go on with your interesting life.

On the other hand, I think Brooklyn probably has many of the same vices (and virtues) as Manhattan. You just have to look a little harder to find them. I want to say Brooklyn can be just as thrilling, and just as full of itself, but what do I know? Perhaps the essential character of Brooklyn is that people like me, who didn't grow up here, tend to sound kind of silly making pronouncements about its essential character.

What about your particular neighborhood? Does it have its own unique character? This can include the kinds of people you tend to find there, particular characters or places that epitomize the neighborhood, etc.
My neighborhood is functionally nameless. Some people call it Columbia Street and other people call it Red Hook. I'm lobbying, semi-facetiously, for WayBeQa (West of the BQE.) It's really a one-by-six-block extension of Cobble Hill, but once you cross the expressway, things change. We have a lot of Spanish-speaking residents, a lot of Southerners, a lot of characters. Great bars and bakeries. It's kind of like an industrial seafaring town.

What do you think of the direction Brooklyn, or at least your neighborhood, is going? What does the future look like in terms of economics, demographics, culture, and other changes?
My little spot has remained pretty stable for the four years I've occupied it, as far as demography goes; as soon as it gentrifies further, we'll be unable to afford it. But it's a hike from the subway, which helps, and most residents seem very attached to the ratio of bistro-to-bodega. Then again, the forces of Ikea and Brooklyn Bridge Park seem to be conspiring to jack up property values and trigger speculation. I wish my neighbors and I could all just lock in our rents and stay. But then it wouldn't be New York.

There's something funny about the relationship of artists to real-estate speculation in this city. Artists are both anti-speculators and, in a way, the ultimate speculators. I'm thinking of a scene from the Simpsons where Fat Tony has been selling rat milk to the schools. The rat dairy gets raided, the milk spills all over the street, cats come to lap it up, and reporter Kent Brockman says something like, "And so, the circle of life is complete."

Is there a Brooklyn literary sensibility? Which writers or works most emblematize Brooklyn for you? Which older writers set the tone? Which contemporary writers are you reading with interest?
A "Brooklyn literary sensibility?" Hmmm... I want to argue that there really isn't one, except that living in brownstone Brooklyn, Williamsburg, or Greenpoint will enforce a certain consistency of relationship between writers and their means of production (by which I mean time and space, which require more money here than in smaller towns (and less money than in Manhattan). And maybe proximity to the publishing world makes you have to fight a little harder for your intellectual freedom than you might if you lived in, say, D.C. Then again, people don't look at you funny for trying to be a writer in Brooklyn, which is nice. It's like saying you're a lawyer in D.C. It's de rigeur. Or possibly comme il faut.

Brooklyn residents whose writing I admire include Anya Ulinich, Emily Barton, Amitav Ghosh, Benjamin Kunkel (does he still live here?), Rick Moody, Jonathan Letham, my friends Porochista Khakpour, Yasmine Alwan, Jason Leahey, and Janice Clark (late of Fort Greene). Plus a lot of people who have read at Pacific Standard: Christopher Sorrentino, Francisco Goldman, and the sneakily brilliant Joshua Ferris. I admire Colson Whitehead's "sit down and do the damn work" principles. Also: we have great literary magazines and small presses here. If this adds up to a Brooklyn literary sensibility, it seems like a pretty heterodox one to me.

Why do you think Brooklyn has such a dense population of writers? Is there something particularly literary about Brooklyn? Where and how do people read here?
I can only speak personally and say that I feel safer knowing there are many other writers nearby. I guess I'm not strong enough to maintain a completely oppositional stance to the culture I live in; I find it comforting to know I'm not alone. Brooklyn also makes it easy to live like a flaneur without flying through money, which is helpful for my writing. I mean there are relatively uncrowded parks, cheap bars, and streets of perfect density. But really, I'm still guessing it's mostly the rents.

What events, series, readings, happenings, places, stores, publications, movements, etc. seem to you currently interesting or important in the Brooklyn literary world?
This list of the magazines and presses I like is probably pretty familiar: One-Story, A Public Space, N+1, Canteen, Hotel St. George Press, Akashic Books, Archipelago Books, Soft Skull Press, Melville House, Ugly Duckling Presse. Other literary things I like include the Brooklyn Book Festival, the Ring Shout, Freebird, Pacific Standard, 826NYC, Triple Canopy, Spoonbill & Sugartown, BookCourt. I think, though, that there's a danger in defining "literary" too narrowly. DeLillo talks in his Paris Review interview about how important exposure to music and film and painting were to his discovery of his own voice. And I think bars and cafes matter, too. So I'd say some of the hidden institutions that facilitate my writing are: Issue Project Room, Sunny's, Lucali's, Frankie's, Moe's, the Victory, Hope & Anchor karaoke, BAM Cinematek, free movies and music outdoors in the summer.

What do you think would make Brooklyn better as a literary place? What does the borough still need? What are the opportunities and challenges it faces?
This list of things I think would make Brooklyn better as a literary place will contain a lot of familiar items. Rent controlling my apartment. More sensibly planned development. A tunnel between Jay St.-Borough Hall and Borough Hall. More frequent B71 bus service. Victory for the forces of democratic socialism. Not necessarily in that order.

Imagine the ideal Brooklyn bookstore or literary venue, a place you'd like to read on your own or participate in literary community. What would it be like? What would it avoid?
My ideal place to read would be a packed church basement, like the kind Dischord bands used to play in in D.C. Packed, sweaty, teeny, revolutionary but wholesome and devoid of unearned 'tude. Failing that, it would be a bar serving cold beer at a reasonable price.

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Read through for some random interesting links, or scroll to the end for a special invitation for NYC booksellers...

* The L.A. Times has a cool article on the future of physical/electronic books, from the perspective of some rare books librarians, with some ideas after my own heart:

"Our library is very heavily used," said director Judith Nadler. "The digital and the print-based will continue to coexist. We don't want the electronic instead of the book. We want the electronic and the book."

* The New York Observer has taken on the ambitious task of picking the Brooklyn Literary 100: the most important figures in the Brooklyn literary community, including authors, publishers, editors, etc. (What I like about the map is that it also points out the bookish places in Brooklyn, including bookstores and coffee shops). It's obviously a tad arbitrary, but not enough so for New York Magazine, which has taken the Observer's list and edited it down to the top 50, 25, and ultimately 1.

My take: This list is probably going to both obsess and annoy people, but I feel the best response is to peruse it curiously and take it with a large helping of salt. It's arbitrary (see the comments for lots who got left out), and the very idea of a Brooklyn community of writers seems antithetical to the idea of picking the important ones. Still, I admit I did delight in calculating how many of these folks are in my email archives, or one degree removed -- I could tap into the literary power of Brooklyn with a few keystrokes, mwa ha ha! Anyway, lots of ideas for the Brooklyn Lit Life series...

* On a much more serious note, the PEN American Center, which advocates for international literature in various ways, is using the approaching Olympics to launch the We Are Ready campaign, calling on China to release writers imprisoned for their writings. (There seems to be some hope that this sort of thing is working.) It's easy to sign the petition, which I did (Tom Stoppard's complex take on "moral exhibitionism" in Rock 'N' Roll, which I've just read, notwithstanding.)

And next week, PEN launches its amazing annual World Voices Festival, with six days of incredible readings, films, discussions, etc. by writers from all over the world. McNally Robinson will be selling books at some of these events, so if you're local, peruse the schedule and make plans to attend one or two.

* And finally, another item just for locals. Below is the email we sent to over 50 indie booksellers in the city; if you didn't get yours, consider this your official invitation. All of the city's indie booksellers in a room -- what an exciting possibility!

April 22, 2008

Dear Bookseller,

As independent booksellers in the five boroughs of New York City, we face unique challenges, as well as unique opportunities. Though you may sometimes feel isolated in your struggle to compete with online book sales, chain stores, and New York rents, there are over 75 other independent bookstores in our city facing the same problems, and finding new solutions.

We think we have something to offer each other as independent bookstores in New York: community, idea sharing, the possibility of making our collective voice heard. How these things might be accomplished, and what other goals we might set and achieve, is up to all of us together.

We'd like to invite you to a meeting of New York independent booksellers, to discuss and explore the possibility of forming a trade alliance/coalition/association of independent bookstores in the five boroughs of NYC. Here are the details:

When & Where:
Wednesday, May 21st, 10:30 am
Ralph Ellison Room
14th Floor of the Random House Building
1745 Broadway

We hope you will join us! We have some specific ideas that we will share, and we look forward to hearing yours too. Please consider sending a representative (or two) from your bookstore to this historic meeting, to help all of us help each other, and ourselves.

Please RSVP by May 10th with your bookstore name and the names of booksellers attending to Kelly Amabile at [email protected] or (212) 865-1588. (Please note that for building security reasons, we must have your name on a list in advance of the meeting date if you plan on attending.)

We did our best to gather emails for as many independent bookshops in the five boroughs as we could. But we know this initial email announcement may not reach everyone, so please help us spread the word, and forward to other booksellers we may have missed, or whom you think may be interested.

Let's take the great tradition of bookselling in New York City into the future! We look forward to seeing you on May 21.

Sincerely,

Chris Doeblin, Annie Shapiro and Kelly Amabile, Book Culture
Sarah McNally and Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, McNally Robinson Booksellers

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Listen to Book Bites for Kids, LIVE today on blogtalkradio.com, when my guest will be Lois V. Harris, author of a beautiful new children’s picture book, Mary Cassatt- Impressionist Painter.

Call in during the LIVE show and ask a question or make a comment - 1-646-716-9239.

author interviews, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, Lois V. Harris, Mary Cassatt

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Listen to Book Bites for Kids every weekday afternoon at 2:00 CST on blogtalkradio.com.

We have an exciting lineup of guest authors this week.

Today, Monday, October 15th, Kari-Lynn Winters, author of a darling new picture book from Orca Publishing called Jeffrey and Sloth will be out guest.

On Tuesday, October 16th, Lorijo Metz will be our guest to talk about her new picture book, Floridus Bloom and the Planet of Gloom.

On Wednesday, October 17th, YA novelist Sheryl McFarlane will join us to discuss her new novel, The Smell of Paint.

Sheri Sinykin will guest on Thursday, October 18th, to talk about her new book, Giving Up the Ghost.

On Friday, tune in to listen to the creator of The Eye Patch Kids DVD and puppets.

Listen to the show online at blogtalkradio.com or call in and ask a question or make a comment at 1-646-716-9239.

author interviews, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, Floridus Bloom and the Planet of Gloom, Giving Up the Ghost, Jeffrey and Sloth, The Eye Patch Kids, The Smell of Paint

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