Rabbit-holes: Mechanics

Comparables. Turning UGH to OMG

When I started the work that is now “At the Edge of Fortune,” I had these existential questions in mind: Who am I without you? If you subtract you from me, is my personal stock devalued? Am I Worth Less? If I commit the unforgivable, can others find a way to forgive me? Can I find a way to forgive myself? This process began in a Tom Jenks workshop in Denver, “The Art of the Story.” The questions guided the book, became my touchstone to help me over hurdles. Could they do the same in helping me find comparables?

This book has nothing to do with some sort of pie-in-the-sky confess your sins and all will be forgiven. Religious forgiveness is easy.  Self-forgiveness is a son-of-a-bitch process that starts, stalls, goes backwards, and inches forward to fall flat on its face and then, and then, get up and try again. Maybe. And maybe not. Forgiveness from a magical deity is worthless unless you can forgive yourself.

So in looking for comps, I searched for novels that delved into those questions. But other “market parameters” kept getting in the way. 

Parameter #1:  Don’t pretend you’re as good as Kingsolver, Russo, Lamb and McCarthy. You’re not.

Parameter #2: The comps must have good market sales. Period. End of topic. Nothing less than a #10 rating in the sub-genre of “Dysfunctional families squabbling on a lily pad.”

Parameter #3:  Similar themes must prevail.

Let me stop there. Because some and all of this is true. But it brought me no closer to what IS a good comparable. At first glance nothing seemed like my book. Themes were my downfall.

Dysfunctional family loses a child and must comes to terms with their grief. 

Okay. Sounds perfect. Until you realize their daughter was kidnapped by the tutor who forces the girl to give birth and then starves the new mother to death in the basement. Wait. What? How would that story-driven piece of psycho-babble possibly compare? It had sales!!! It had a quijillion 5-star reviews!!! It had the elements: Secrets, split family, grieving, guilt, trying to move forward day by day.

It had an entirely different set of sensibilities. Ah. Enter the magic word.

sen·si·bil·i·ty

/ˌsensəˈbilədē/

noun

1.      the ability to appreciate and respond to complex emotional or aesthetic influences; sensitivity.

"the study of literature leads to a growth of intelligence and sensibility"

Eureka. “What author does my writing remind you of?” I asked friends. Annie Proulx, Rick Bass, Kent Haruf, Mark Spragg, Bret Anthony Johnston, Richard Wagamese, and occasionally, yes, mildly, McCarthy. Not that they are comparables, but from there I kicked off the search of “readers who like this… may like this.”

I stepped into a world of books I loved, admired, and bought, because I wanted to be inspired by them, because they spoke to me. Not all were comps, but my sinking ship was pulled upright by them. I wallowed in their beautiful words, their love of the world, the compassion they brought to the page. And yes, in the midst, I found a book I probably would not have read. “Ask Again, Yes” by Mary Beth Keane hooked me in the prologue. A young cop is waiting for his partner and looks up to see a pair of pantyhose hung out to dry from a fire escape. “Francis noted the perfect stillness of those gossamer legs, the delicate curve where the heel was meant to be.” I could see them in the light, how they waited for the sun to warm them, to catch a breeze. How he waited in the heat of the day and me for the story to catch hold to a flame. It was a perfect moment.

The book asks all my questions and so much more. Does it meet all the rules for a good comparable? Yeah, yeah it does.

But it still missed something I was looking for in a comparable. An undefinable (to me) sensibility of the west, of a certain people, in small towns, the elements of setting that added a depth to the novel. Enter Peter Heller. A journalist turned novelist who wakes up in western light and must go to sleep dreaming of the people who inhabit that world. His novels, especially “The Dog Stars,” take hold of the world and shake it. HIs newest novel coming out in August, 2021, “The Guide,” holds similar themes of loss and moving forward, step by step through those treacherous river waters, through the dust, and the blue skies. Those stories go Into the west wherein lies my sensibilities, my heart’s stories.

I read something along these lines recently and I can’t remember where: That the writing must convince the body and the mind and heart will follow along. It’s about the visceral details. Akin, but not exactly, is the Ron Carlson method of writing a short story by working to an image. The best short stories I have written did exactly that. Didion reinforces this in her book of essays, “Let Me Tell You What I Mean.” She will have an image in mind, maybe more, that gives her the questions, but not the answers.