Chapel Hill’s William Conescu is talking to you in his debut novel. Literally: you.
Being Written, which Conescu began writing while a student in the MFA program in creative writing at NC State University, offers much of its story in the second person. Here’s a sample from an early scene in which “you” are chatting up a girl in a bar:
“You smile and take a sip of beer to fill the pause, but then you swallow wrong and start to choke. So you hold your breath for a few seconds, but you can feel your face turning red as the foam starts to move back up. And she’s watching you, her brow slightly crinkled, and you will the beer not to shoot out of your nose. Not now. But it’s close, and you’re going to need to breathe again soon, and this moment is not helping move the conversation along…”
Of course, the “you” here isn’t really you; the “you” is a fellow in Boston by the name of Daniel Fischer. And while the approach is interesting, second-person narration isn’t entirely new. Perhaps the most famous use of this technique was in Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City (or else in those old Choose Your Own Adventure books, equally ubiquitous reads). But what Conescu does with this second-person narration and with Daniel’s story makes the novel unique because in this case, the “you” is acutely aware that a novel is being written; after all, you can hear the author’s pencil scratching from page to page. And being the savvy reader that you are, you try to make a good impression, so the author will think you worthy of being included in more scenes. And so the book unfolds, upping the ante at each stage — all of which makes Being Written one of the most impressive and memorable debuts this year.
“I enjoy playful narrative choices and thought a story like this would be fun to read and to write,” said Conescu in a recent interview with Metro. “Daniel not only witnesses events that are being written, but has also made the disheartening discovery that he’s only a minor character in the imagination of the author, the literary equivalent of a movie extra. I was interested in the lengths to which he might go to win a bigger role.”
Some of Daniel’s efforts in that regard offer what seem to be a wry wink at aspiring ambitions and at Conescu’s own work in local writing programs, not just at NC State, but also as an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill. (In complete fairness to the big three local universities, Conescu now works in development communications at Duke.)
“Daniel has found a by-the-numbers book on how to write a bestseller,” explained Conescu, “and he’s treating it like a self-help manual for an aspiring protagonist.” Some of the book’s funniest scenes involve Daniel worrying if cleaning his apartment is interesting enough for the attention the author is giving him, or contemplating what a love triangle would do for the plot, or considering Chekhov’s advice that if a gun appears in the first act, it’s got to be used by the third. In one pivotal scene, Daniel remarks that the novel is “becoming the kind of book people can’t put down, the kind they sell at the airport.”
To give a different perspective on the character of you/Daniel, Conescu alternates these second-person sections with more traditional chapters focused on other characters, including Delia, an aspiring singer and the person Daniel was talking to in the excerpt above — and Delia’s boyfriend Graham, a pianist who’s not just down on his luck, but also not doing much to work his way back up. This couple and two of their friends, Jon and Monty, form a small clique that Daniel wants to be a part of as desperately as he wants to be in the book. To some degree, those quests are the same thing, since these relationships, their artistic aspirations, and their small dreams and disappointments form the drama of the novel.
“When I first came up with the idea for Being Written, I was also interested in writing a story about artistically minded people in their twenties and thirties trying to figure out how best to live their lives,” said Conescu. “So the two ideas collide in this novel. Daniel discovers a story being written about these artsy friends, and he thrusts himself into it — and hijacks it, to some extent — in an effort to have a bigger part and thereby give his life meaning too. It was only after I’d finished and sold the novel that I considered a connection between it and reality television. Ordinary people want a shot at fame. They want to capture and hold the attention of the producers and the audience. And sometimes they don’t exercise the best judgment in their pursuit of this moment in the spotlight. The same could be said of Daniel.”
At once experimentally playful and existentially poignant, and both ultra literary and ultra readable, Being Written succeeds on several levels, and perhaps drawing on Daniel’s own studies into what makes a bestseller, the novel ultimately includes both that love triangle, and a few suspenseful turns and even a surprise twist at the end.
You really won’t believe where you end up, and how.
Conescu makes several area appearances in September and October, reading from the new novel on Wednesday evening, Sept. 24 at Raleigh’s Quail Ridge Books; again on Wednesday evening, Oct. 1, at Durham’s Regulator Book; and finally on Thursday evening, Oct. 16, at McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village. For more information on the author, visit online at www.williamconescu.com.
NEW AND NOTEWORTHY
Notable among this month’s new publications is Hark the Sound of Tar Heel Voices: 220 Years of UNC History, edited by Daniel W. Barefoot and published by John F. Blair as part of its Real Voices, Real History Series. Ultimately an eyewitness history of the nation’s first public university, this volume gathers “letters, diary and journal entries, speeches, narratives, interviews and other first person accounts” from every decade of the school’s existence. The volume begins with a 1793 description of the campus site by William Richardson Davie, commander of Gen. Nathanael Greene’s cavalry in the Revolutionary War, and ends with a excerpt from a 2006 speech by former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles, giving a sense of the span against which the university’s history has unfolded. In between come comments by a variety of famous figures, including African-American poet George Moses Horton, bandleader Kay Kyser, actor Andy Griffith, football star Charlie “Choo Choo” Justice, and then-WRAL commentator Jesse Helms (a fierce critic of the University). The book also includes comments about a variety of famous figures (check out the “Account of the Classroom Antics of Zeb Vance,” for instance). But the worth of this collection ultimately stands not on the shoulders of famous names, but on the less-well-known students, teachers, administrators and friends of the university whose words bring the school’s history vividly to life.
Barefoot will speak about Hark the Sound of Tar Heel Voices on Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 16, at the Bull’s Head Bookshop in Chapel Hill; on Wednesday evening, Sept. 17, at Durham’s Regulator Bookshop; and on Friday evening, Sept. 19, at Raleigh’s Quail Ridge Books.
Among this month’s other highlights are:
• Mystery writer Margaret Maron, with her latest Deborah Knott novel, Death’s Half Acre, on Thursday evening, Sept. 4, at Barnes & Noble, Cary.
• J. Myrick Howard, author of Buying Time for Heritage: How To Save An Endangered Historic Property, on Thursday evening, Sept. 4, at McIntyre’s Books in Fearrington Village.
• Clyde Edgerton, author of The Bible Salesman, on Thursday evening, Sept. 4, at Pomegranate Books in Wilmington, and again on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 6, at Quail Ridge Books.
• Bestselling fantasy author Terry Brooks, with The Gypsy Moth, on Friday evening, Sept. 5, at Quail Ridge Books.
• Brock Clarke, author of An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, on Monday evening, Sept. 8, at the Regulator.
• Doug McCullough, a judge on the NC Court of Appeals, will appear Sept. 11 at ArtSource in North Hills Mall and Sept. 30 at Quail Ridge Books at 7:30 p.m. to sign his new book Sea of Greed, the true story of his involvement as a prosecutor in Eastern North Carolina in the biggest drug case in history that led to the arrest of Panama’s president Manuel Noriega. (A chapter of the book was excerpted in Metro in the July 2006 issue — go online to www.metronc.com.)
• Paul Austin, Durham ER physician and author of Something For the Pain: One Doctor’s Account of Life and Death in the ER, on Wednesday evening, Sept. 10, at the Regulator; on Thursday evening, Sept. 18, at Quail Ridge Books; and on Friday afternoon, Sept. 26, at McIntyre’s.
• Science fiction writer Mark Van Name, author of Slanted Jack, with fellow writers James Maxey (Dragonforge), and Lisa Shearin (Armed & Magical) on Tuesday evening, Sept. 9, at Barnes and Noble, Cary, and again on his own on Thursday evening, Sept. 11, at McIntyre’s.
• Fantasy author RA Salvatore and his son Geno with The Stowaway: Stone of Tymora, on Thursday evening, Sept. 11, at Barnes & Noble, Cary.
• Novelist Joshua Henkin, author of Matrimony, on Friday afternoon, Sept. 12, at McIntyre’s.
• NC Maritime specialist Kevin Duffus, author of The Last Days of Blackbeard The Pirate, on Saturday morning, Sept. 13, at McIntyre’s.
• Bill Floyd, author of The Killer’s Wife, on Saturday afternoon, Sept. 13, at Barnes & Noble, New Hope Commons, Durham.
• Lawyer and biographer Anna Hayes, author of Without Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp, on Thursday evening, Sept. 18, at the Regulator; on Saturday morning, Sept. 20, at McIntyre’s; and on Thursday evening, Sept. 25, at Quail Ridge Books.
• Chapel Hill historian Doris Flexner, author of The Pessimist’s Guide To History: An Irresistible Compendium of Catastrophes, Barbarities, Massacres, and Mayhem — From 14 Billion Years Ago to 2007, on Friday afternoon, Sept. 19, at McIntyre’s.
• Dr. Jim Price, Wilmington obstetrician and author of One Persian’s Pathway, a tribute to Wilmington surgeon Hormoze Goudarzi, on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 21, at Pomegranate Books.
• Mystery author Tim Downs with Less Than Dead on Monday evening, Sept. 22, at Barnes & Noble, Cary.
• Bob Moser, author of Blue Dixie: Awakening the South’s Democratic Majority, on Monday evening, Sept. 22, at Quail Ridge Books, and on Tuesday evening, Sept. 23, at the Regulator.
• David Leavitt, author of The Indian Clerk, on Tuesday evening, Sept. 23, at Quail Ridge Books, and on Wednesday evening, Sept. 24, at the Regulator.
• Marc Brown, creator of Arthur and illustrator of Judy Sierra’s new book Born to Read, on Wednesday morning, Sept. 24, at Barnes & Noble, Cary, and again that afternoon at Quail Ridge Books.
• Keith Flynn, headlining the first in a series of monthly events featuring writers from the North Carolina Poetry Society, on Thursday evening, Sept. 25, at McIntyre’s.
• Garrison Keillor, author of Liberty: A Lake Wobegon Novel, on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 28, at the McKimmon Center on the NC State campus (hosted by Quail Ridge Books).
• North Carolina poet Jeffery Beam, author of The Beautiful Tendons: Uncollected Queer Poems, 1969-2007, on Monday evening, Sept. 29, at the Regulator.
• And a quick preview: Nicholas Sparks will visit Barnes & Noble in Cary on Friday evening, Oct. 3, to sign his new book, The Lucky One. Call the store for details.
NORTH CAROLINA BOOKWATCH
North Carolina Bookwatch continues its 11th season on UNC-TV. This month’s programming kicks off with an appearance by noted cookbook author Jean Anderson with her latest book, A Love Affair with Southern Cooking. Anderson speaks with host DG Martin on Friday, Sept. 5, at 9:30 p.m. (and again in an encore presentation on Sunday, Sept. 7, at 5 p.m.). The rest of the month’s schedule follows the same pattern (Fridays at 9:30 p.m., Sundays at 5 p.m.) with the following guests:
• Debut novelist Therese Fowler, author of Souvenir, on Friday, Sept. 12, and Sunday, Sept. 14.
• UNC-Chapel Hill historian Joseph Glatthaar, author of General Lee’s Army: From Victory to Collapse, on Friday, Sept. 19, and Sunday, Sept. 21.
• And biographer Anna Hayes, author of Without Precedent: The Life of Susie Marshall Sharp, on Friday, Sept. 26, and Sunday, Sept. 28.
Turn to Metro next month for information on NC Bookwatch’s October programming. To have your literary event considered for inclusion in this column, please e-mail MetroBooksNC@gmail.com.