Goldhagen is No Accident
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If, at the tender age of 17 years old, you decide to waste $80,000 and go to journalism school, you’ll probably learn this maxim: good writers show; mediocre writers tell. It’s simple enough advice, and if you can employ it without further instruction, spend the money on a Porsche instead. The problem is, most writers can’t achieve this even with further instruction – which explains the megabytes of crap that fills our submission box each month.

The tight, powerful prose in Family and Other Accidents, the debut novel from Shari Goldhagen, shows a lot – and without wasting words. Each terse, carefully engineered sentence conveys the many subtle, stratified details of her characters’ personalities or their situations, reminiscent of Earnest Hemingway or Bret Easton Ellis in his finer efforts. Goldhagen is the real deal, even if her subject matter is set in suburban Cleveland, not war-torn Europe or the drug-blurred glitter of L.A. In fact, that mundane setting may highlight her talent.

In the spirit of full disclosure, Goldhagen is loosely tied to the Arriviste family; we published the debut book from her fiancé, Will Leitch (of Deadspin fame).

In the spirit of fuller disclosure, that cheap bastard Leitch didn’t even send us a reviewer’s copy of Family and Other Accidents. We bought it on Amazon like most every other schmuck and met Goldhagen by schlepping out to one of her readings. She received no special favors. The interview below describes how she created what might be the best novel of the spring ’06 releases.

A_P: In Family... you do two difficult things (from a writer's perspective) and you do them extremely well: You tell your story from the perspective of the opposite gender, and, as the novel progresses, you tell the story from the perspective of characters much older than yourself -- fiction at its purest form. How do you accomplish this so effectively? Is it via the training you've received (in some very prestigious forums), or is it via deep personal connections with different types of men?

SG: When I was single in Manhattan I did have my fair share of experiences with men of different ages. Good to know that all that dating finally paid off.

In all seriousness, most of the fiction I wrote during my early twenties was first-person narrated by women around my age. It became sort of difficult to separate myself from the characters. And I found I was making all kinds of assumptions about all kinds of women because certain things happened to be true for me.

By writing across age and gender, I was able to really get into these characters heads. I could let them do more (I guess I could envision them doing more and type it) because they weren’t just thinly veiled versions of me with a different hair color and new name. As a writer, I found it incredibly liberating to let my characters go places where I personally wouldn’t.

That said there is a lot of me in the entire book. Ask my fiancé, just like Jack, I’m not very good at saying “I’m sorry.”

A_P: Your prose -- short, expository sentences -- contributes to the convincing "male-ness" of the storytelling. Is this a reflection of your journalistic roots?

SG: I’m sure my short sentences come from my time at Northwestern’s journalism school. They teach you to keep your paragraphs to a few sentences, and it’s rare that I write more than half a page without hitting the return key.

I don’t want to call it a gender thing, but a lot of the writers I love, do happen be men -- the kind of men who can get in and out a sentence quite quickly.

A_P: What have you learned from the "debut novel" experience? You've done the book tour thing, and Doubleday has invested a bit in marketing the work. Have things gone as you expected?

SG: Things went well, I think. The reviews were great and we had good crowds on the tour stops. But nothing is ever as you expect. There’s a huge lag time in publishing from when you sell a book to when it comes out. So pretty much for the past year and a half I’ve been waiting. I thought that everything would somehow be different once the book was out in the world.

I also got engaged this year, and it’s kind of the same thing. When I was single (and doing all that research on men of all ages), I kept thinking that everything would be so different if I found the right person. Don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful to have a partner to share your life with, but you’re still you. You still have to brush your teeth every morning. You still have to pick up the dry cleaning.

As to what I’ve learned... hmm don’t obsess about your Amazon numbers, they don’t mean anything!

A_P: Speaking of marketing, are we at Arriviste the only ones who have depicted mixed messages in Doubleday's promotion? The book is billed as a family story (from, most obviously, the title of the work to the book jacket blurbs and Web collateral), but it could better be described as parallel character studies -- of Jack and Connor, as well as the various women & children in their lives. Is this a sales gimmick to reach the Oprah set because men no longer buy books? Every guy who has ever had a relationship with a woman would relate to Jack and Connor.

SG: I’m flattered you think every guy who’s ever had a relationship will be able to relate to the book, and I’ve gotten some interesting fan mail  from men who said that the book made them want to propose to their long-time girlfriends as to avoid Jack’s pitfalls.

But I also hope that any person who had a relationship will be able to identify. I can’t tell you how many women have emailed me telling me that Jack was just like their ex-boyfriend or their father. Actually I can tell you, it was 11 women -- I don’t get that much fan mail.

And alas, I don’t think that Oprah will have another Doubleday author again after the James Frey thing, sigh.

A_P: A few of the chapters in this book appeared as standalone stories in literary journals. Do you have a different creative process when preparing pieces for literary review than when you are packaging a commercial novel?

SG: The book started as a short story. It’s still in there -- the chapter where Jack and Mona go on a really bad vacation. I wrote that a zillion years ago when I was in college, and I just kept thinking about those characters, about what it was that screwed up their relationship so much. So I wrote some other standalone pieces about them.

Obviously when something is going out as a short piece, you need additional background info. But in this case it was more a matter of stripping it out from the chapters and making it more cohesive a novel. Like by the fourth chapter readers don’t’ need to hear again that Mona has red hair.

A_P: What is the coolest thing about life as an up-and-coming author in Manhattan right now?

SG: Being a young novelist in the New York City, where there are so many talented young writers, is kind of like being Wonder Woman back on her home planet. On Themyscira she’s just Diana, everyone can fly and dodge bullets with bracelets. It’s wonderful and horrible.

It’s great because it’s easy to find a fabulous writers community, and horrible because you always feel as though you’re a little behind the game.

A_P: Where do you find inspiration outside of the many classic authors you've undoubtedly read during your stints in academia? Music? Certain friends? Certain places?

SG: When I was an undergrad, I was lucky enough to score a spot in a fiction-writing course taught by Richard Ford. He gave some advice that I’ve never forgotten; he said to spend my twenties doing and seeing everything that I could and to worry about the writing over the next decades. I think that was great advice, and I’ve tried to take it to heart (though I guess I started the writing a little early). I lived in a lot of different cities and tried a bunch of different things, and traveled every opportunity I got.

There’s inspiration to be found in so many things, and even if you’re going to write about suburbs in the Midwest (like I did), seeing other places will give you a much better perspective and much more to say.

A_P: What's next for Shari Goldhagen?

SG: Well, the most pressing thing is that I have to book a wedding band in Cincinnati for next May. Apparently this is something that you’re supposed to do years in advance. Many family members have been calling all panicked about this.

Then DVD of the complete “Justice League” second season should be arriving soon.

I am working on another novel with similar episodic structure. It’s truly terrifying to look at a blank screen and know that you have to fill it. But it’s terrifying in a good way.