Disappointed

Didn’t get any farther on my new story this morning because I received revised versions of my biography and the Missing Persons synopsis to go over. First things first! I was interesting to see that my agent recommended a synopsis that stopped short of giving away the ending. Everything I’ve ever heard about synopses says that you have to tell the entire story. My agent’s earlier comparison to a movie trailer is really what he came up with. He told me that he doesn’t believe in the tell-all synopsis in general. For Missing Persons he believes the hook is strong enough to get people reading and the telling of the rest of the story is more than any outline could do justice. We have the full outline as a backup if someone request more, but he wants to tease and entice at this point. Interesting.

I received my semi-annual earnings statement for Road to the Dark Tower from Penguin a couple of days ago. These multi-page documents can be bewildering, but I discovered that the heart of the matter is summarized in a neat little table at the bottom of the last page. The book continues to sell in decent quantities. I still haven’t earned out my advance, but if the reserve for returns were to be released, I’d be pretty close. One of these days, I might even see royalties.

We watched Transamerica last night, starring Felicity Huffman, and really enjoyed it. It’s a road movie with a twist, and more about coming to terms with being a parent than coming to terms with gender, which is the movie’s vehicle. I’d actually expected something more poorly produced, but it was very well done indeed, and I highly recommend it.

Wish I could say as much for my next subject. I was really looking forward to Mark Z. Danielewski’s upcoming novel, Only Revolutions.Reading House of Leaves was a fun experience. A trippy literary experiment with plots and subplots woven into the text via innovative use of footnotes, text blocks and book design. The plot and subplots were fun, lucid and intriguing. Imagine my disappointment when I received a galley of Only Revolutions yesterday and discovered that it was self-indulgent, experimental verging on unreadable. It’s a turnover book with two covers. One half is Hailey’s story and the other half is Sam’s. Apparently they are two characters who are always sixteen. Every page contains 180 words. The book is to be read as follows: 8 pages of Hailey. Mark your place. Flip it over and turn to the back. 8 pages of Sam. Repeat ad nauseam.

Every page contains the following: on the inner/upper margin, a list of events that took place in the world on a given date. On the inner/lower margin: ditto, except it’s upside down and belongs to the other character’s tale. On what’s left of the upper part of the page: the “narrative,” which is a stream of conscience flow of mumbo jumbo with disconnected thoughts and more than its fare share of made-up words. On the lower part of the page: ditto, except upside down, to be read later. The production version of the book will be printed in four colors, presumably with each segment getting a different color to help straighten things out. In spite of these four different components, if there’s a story in this book, I haven’t found it yet.

I’ll take another look at the book in the coming days, but I’m not at all impressed at first glance.