MAY I TAKE YOUR ORDER?
OnJanuary 11, 2021, I met with one of my Zoom book groups. Lockdown Life was almost a year old, and at one point I was in three of these online groups. We’d chat in tiny squares about books for an hour or so, trying to forget the clown show the world had become. That meeting’s topic of discussion was Mrs. Dalloway, which was the first Virginia Woolf I had ever read. Was I afraid of Virginia Woolf? Of course. I had this idea the book would be too dense to follow, and more like work than pleasure. I was, as anyone who has read it knows, completely wrong.
We had a great discussion about the book, and the way all the thoughts of the past and present and future all drifted through the minds of the characters in a continuous stream—sometimes in confusing ways, sometimes in reassuring ways. I loved the idea of a novel taking place over a single day, but couldn’t help but think of the role money played in Clarissa Dalloway’s life.1 I wondered what it would be like to have a novel that covered twenty-four hours in the life of someone who had to worry about money a lot more than Clarissa did. A fast-food worker, for example. The rest of the group said they’d be curious to read a book like that, and the idea for King Cal was born.2
I was still wrapping up my second book, with a May 1 deadline for handing it over.3 I was in the final stages, though, proofreading obsessively, looking for any bits I could slice away from a long novel, which meant some small and distant corner brain could begin to think about this day-in-the-life book. That second novel took a long time, including a 400-page misfire ten years earlier, so I was excited about moving to something less sprawling, more focused. Keeping everything within a single twenty-four hours would be easier than working with multiple timelines, right?4
By the time I handed the second manuscript in, I had a name for my main character, and some rough idea of the basics of his life. I started writing on July 12th, 2021, and handed it in on August 2,2024.5 In a few weeks it will be out in the world. I’m excited for release day, of course, if also a bit nervous: good news is, the thing is done and now people get to read it! The scary news is, well, the thing is done, so now take-backs or fixes. There are plenty of chances to come and hear me talk about books and music and anything else I can think of; just click on the handy Events link to see if I’m going to be nearby
One of the questions I am usually asked is some variation of, “Why do you do this?” In a world where more than two million books a year are published, and only a third of the population reads even five books a year, why write?6 It’s a question that I suspect may get asked even more often in a world that seems to be moving at hyper-speed to some sort of unhappy end game. I don’t think novels about creative types and their friends can stop that end game from coming, so I don’t think I can change or save the world. And I have lots of talented friends who write, who publish great novels, and none of them earn a living wage, so it’s not for the money.
There are plenty of other reasons, though.
First of all, it’s fun. Fun isn’t the same thing as easy, but even when I feel like I’m trapped in some locked room with no way out of whatever mistakes I have made, finding a solution to those challenges is always fun. OK, 99% of the time it’s fun, but that’s a good percentage. I’m not dismissing the words of writers who find the process hard, or grueling: it’s just never been that for me.
Second, I love to read. I can still see both libraries of my childhood town—the first one I went to, in an old house on a corner, to the newer one, with more books and wide spaces to sit down and investigate random books. Hours in a van on tour, working through whatever used book I was lucky enough to score in our last stop. And did I mention being in multiple Zoom book groups during the lockdown, in an attempt to keep my rain alive? The idea that even one person will stumble across one of my books and feel a momentary sense of connection is reason enough to do this.
Finally, I’ll end with a quote from George Saunders, which is always a great place to end (or begin). When asked about the importance of reading literature, Saunders said, “Nobody in the world who doesn’t benefit from hearing a story, if that story has something to do with what keeps them awake at night, or what they love, or what they fear. Those stories are essential to what we do here on Earth—without them, it’s such a lonely place.”7
1 It wasn’t until I started looking for other books that took place in a single day that I remembered Ian McEwan’s Saturday, which I had read a while ago. There are lots of other notables, from Ulysses, which I’ll never read) to Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine, which I read to make sure it wasn’t too much like mine. (It’s not, though it also spends a lot of time thinking about time.)
2 Thanks to Nancy Gardos, Aric Green, and Circe Link for all the support, and for all the great conversations.
3 Songs By Honeybird, which was released by Wampus Multimedia March 29, 2022. For random thoughts on second novels: https://www.peterjmcdade.com/posts/the-second-time-around
4 Spoiler: it was different, but not really “easier.”
5 It took longer to write the novel set in a single day, turns out.
6 Lots of places to go for depressing book stats! Here’s one: https://ideas.bkconnection.com/10-awful-truths-about-publishing
7 As with any interview with Saunders, the whole thing is worth checking out: https://noveldialogue.org/2021/04/22/1-8-the-novel-is-like-a-stack-of-yurts-george-saunders-talks-with-michael-johnston-av/
