The Angry Czeck

Several years ago, I learned that the novelist Stephen Hunter would be lecturing at the new Memphis Public Library. I knew I had to attend because Mr. Hunter had penned the worst novel I had ever read from start to finish, Dirty White Boys.

That it was a novel my father recommended simply cemented my plans. Quickly, I logged onto eBay and purchased a first edition of Dirty White Boys. It arrived in the mail two days before its author arrived to The Bluff City. I intended to have my copy signed so that I might give this freshly autographed edition to my Dad on Father’s Day. In my imagination, I saw myself delivering it with a cavalier smirk.

The first paragraph of Dirty White Boys is a description of the antagonist’s enormous penis. It’s the most masterfully written portion of the novel. After that, the plot descends into a greasy trash heap of dopey shoot-outs, smarmy infidelities, noble last words, whiskey drinking, and an aggravating obsession with tattoos. Everybody in the novel was six-foot-four-inches tall. The motivation was simply “Doing what you gotta do.”

But the real crime of Dirty White Boys was its infuriating readability. Each chapter ended in an excruciating cliffhanger. You never knew who was going to get shot six times. You could never predict where the next punch in the face was coming from. Three times I hurled Mr. Hunter’s horrendous narrative against my bedroom wall in disgust, only to come crawling back to it minutes later, begging for more hairy-chested drama.

Mr. Hunter drew quite a crowd that afternoon at the Memphis Public Library. All ages. All genders. I sat amongst them smug in the knowledge of my superiority. Unlike them, you see, I knew Stephen Hunter was a hamfisted hack. While everyone else in the audience was hanging on a best-selling novelist’s every hackneyed word, I was simply distancing myself from his fraudulent brand of mediocrity. That, and I needed a gift for my Dad.

For three quarters of an hour, Mr. Hunter enthralled us with a reading from his new novel, Hot Springs, which was, of course, about hard-boiled gangsters. I shifted restlessly in my chair, the first edition of Dirty White Boys burning a shameful cattle brand on my lap. I finally perked a bit when the discussion was opened to questions.

There were the usual glowing queries: Where do you get your inspiration? Why did you become a storyteller? Who are your favorite authors? Bah! Why not ask a monkey for its favorite opera? Mr. Hunter, in a calm and quiet voice, gamely answered each question, as though they were posed to him for the very first time. I found myself begrudgingly awarding him a point.

Finally, the moderator announced that the next question would be Mr. Hunter’s last to answer, and I began gathering myself for the signing line. I’m lucky to have heard the question.

“Mr. Hunter, I love your books,” the woman said, “What makes you such a successful writer?”

Mr. Hunter paused momentarily, as if he were waiting to finish typing the answer inside his head.

“I know that my stories aren’t classic literature,” he said (and I nodded), “but the one thing that makes me different than 95% of all writers is that, at some point, I type ‘THE END’ on my manuscripts. Then I put it in an envelope and send it to my agent. Most writers can’t do it. They tinker and edit and after awhile the story gets stuck into a closet and that’s it. But a story can never be perfect. You just need the courage to finish it.”

You just need the courage to finish it.

***

Since then, I’ve finished two novels. The first was terrible. The second, only slightly better.

There are complications to writing a novel. You discover that you have responsibility for everything. You must be intimately familiar with your protagonist’s parents, for instance. And his grandparents. His aunts and his uncles and the nephew he hates. You must know precisely the condition of your character’s underwear, her breakfast cereal preference, and the circumstances in which she lost her virginity. You must sympathize with your characters’ politics and, whenever possible, you must share their humiliations.

It doesn’t stop there. In a novel, you are responsible for the weather. You shape the geography. The physics are yours to obey or break. Gravity is optional. It may rain bowling balls. Hookers are permitted to have upwards of forty breasts. Wherever the line is drawn in the sand, the one holding the stick is you. That can be an awesome burden.

They say write what you know, and yet twice I’ve written from the perspective of a woman. I can barely unclasp a bra. Women do things men do not, like start book clubs, insert tampons and exchange feelings. I know nothing of women, yet I decided that I can step in for God in a female’s complex universe.

The strings of thought easily unravel inside a novel. One by one, and then in big clumps, you drop the characteristics of your characters. Didn’t he wear glasses in Chapter Two? Why does she suddenly hate her mother in Chapter 10? This character was clearly gay in Chapter Three, but is now banging the farmer’s daughter in Chapter 16? When did he become straight?

They say the universe is constantly expanding, and will one day expand so far that there is nothing left of substance. In writing a novel, that dissipation happens much more rapidly, if you allow it. If you don’t concentrate, the character you started with in Chapter One simply stretches into something unrecognizable by Chapter 10. If you’re like me – a man with a real job, a wife, kids, a mortgage, two cars, and a yard full of weeds – you find that focusing on the details of a universe you created becomes an apocalyptic task.

Twice I have typed THE END. (Correction: I type the words FINIS because, well, I don’t know.) And both times, I have watched helplessly as the planet I created spun off its axis and tumbled from its orbit. I’ve heard its inhabitants scream for redemption and mercy. I’ve seen the bodies writhe in flame as my creation hurdles into the sun. I can only close my Word application and go to bed.

***

I dropped the copy of Dirty White Boys on the table before Stephen Hunter. “It’s a first edition,” I told him.

Mr. Hunter smiled politely. He didn’t give a rat’s ass. “How would you like me to sign it?” he asked.

“‘To the Dirtiest White Boy,’” I answered immediately. Without pause or change of expression, Mr. Hunter began to scribble, and for a second I was filled with doubt.

“I bet you’ve never heard that one before,” I said, manufacturing a brotherly lightness to my voice.

“Every day,” replied Mr. Hunter without a hint of humor. “Every day.”

He handed the volume back to me,  and I put it in my plastic bag. The writer of the world’s worst novel had just exposed me as a hack.