Ephemera: What you remember
The truth sticks
When an author nails a detail perfectly, you can’t so much Remember it as you Can’t Un-Remember it
Case in point. This morning a stranger called me from Indiana. It seems my phone number is showing up on her bank statements. A mystery.
But as I answered my voice sounded husky and deep from sleep. In that moment a flashback hit: In the ‘90s a pop culture magazine, Interview, did a profile on a rising male model and actor. The lead into the article went, “Every time you telephone (actor/model), any time of the day, his voice is so slow and sonorous you apologize for waking him up…”
The author’s description was so spot-on that thirty years later it still comes to mind.
Such writing isn’t about being clever. It’s about putting your finger on exactly the quality of something—sonorous?—and communicating that effect to the reader.
Best of luck to the person with her bank.
Yesterday, I had the very good fortune of picking up Lucca Gutti from Taft for a 45 minute trip. I couldn't believe my luck because one of the most famous books of all time was set there. I started taking about literature and it was too easy to tell them how I take writing lessons from the author of Fight Club.
Lucca's eyes widened in sheer amazement because there is an underground Fight Club at Taft and he quickly told me the star Lacrosse player is currently sitting out due to a broken collar bone from Fight Club and the injury may or may not fuck his plans to play at Princeton!!!
Lucca lives at Taft during the school year and jets around the world when he's not at school because his father owns a software company. He would be from San Francisco if he was allowed a normal childhood but as this as surprisingly well-adjusted kid said, there are advantages and disadvantages to both worlds.
Lucca, you really out to read the Catcher in the Rye. And hats off to your parents for managing to raise an unspoiled kid even though they can give you everything!
It was truly a pleasure to have met you.....
Chuck, I begged him for this information because I said you would really get a kick out of it so please give him a shout-out and make him the big man at Taft. I was really impressed with Lucca.
Love this. Makes me think of a Dean Wesley Smith line that’s stuck with me— “Her smile could melt a window.”
Simple. But when I read it, I then imagined what a window would look like if it actually melted and now I can’t unforget that line.
From his Seeders Universe first book.