“A Kind of Vast Fiction” is an e-mail correspondence between David Gates and Jonathan Lethem, who was a participant in the 2010 PEN World Voices Festival. The entire exchange appears in PEN America 12: Correspondences.
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From: Jonathan Lethem
To: David Gates
Subject: the old transmission
Hey, David. As I was saying to my 2,472 friends the other day, these certainly are strange times in the history of the boundary between the human persons and the written words. What (if anything) is your strategy—given your life as a teacher (I’m a teacher again; this question’s of more than mild interest), as a working journalist, as a witness to the digital quarantine-crumbling of all those distinctions between writer and reader, text and commentary, original and copy, private and public, book and computer, and so forth—for holding onto whatever it is we’re supposed to still be holding onto, as ‘literary’ writers? On my good days I think the old transaction, the old transmission, between a single writer and a single reader between hard covers (or ‘hard covers’, whatever) is still thrumming along nicely, perhaps worth more than it ever was precisely because of all the signal and noise rebounding around outside. But not every day’s a good day, I’ll admit here, though I try to keep up a brave face. Not to tempt you into any unwilling pontification, but are you able to find any encouraging words for your students (I know mine are baffled)? Or for me? And why aren’t you on Facebook?
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http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/4930/prmID/1502
Susan Taylor Chehak
PublicationsFiction
"It's Not About the Dog"
available online at www.guernicamag.com "Apocalypse Tonight"
in "L.A. Under the Influence," edited by Rob Roberge. 20 L.A. Writers, their influences and their work. THE TRUTH ABOUT ANNIE D. (formerly "The Story of Annie D.")
"Chehak's prose provides a seamless, calm flow to a novel whose elements of love and murder ripple enticingly, fully surfacing only gently, only eventually, in the most satisfying kind of storytelling." -- Booklist HARMONY
"Haunting . . . Clodine Wheeler is the bemused narrator who strings together brilliant beads of descriptive phrases as she sorts through her memories . . . Chehak skillfully depicts small-town meanness and ironic generosity . . . . Her mesmerizing tale has classic resonances." – Publishers Weekly DANCING ON GLASS
"A dark tale of obsession among the posh ranks of a midwestern town... Chehak's poetic style exposes the passionate longings beneath the mannered sterling-and-crystal patina of Cedar Hill life; she renders both violence and love with an unflinching eye and casts a mournful spell." -- Vogue SMITHEREENS
"Chehak is a very accomplished storyteller, always in control of her narrative, which moves ahead with grace and speed. But it's not only the plot that matters to this writer. It's the telling little details, particularly of teenage angst and of domestic life that makes the novel rich... SMITHEREENS is a novel fully worthy of the title thriller. It's hard to put down. It has a kind of dark allure." - The Los Angeles Times RAMPAGE
“In Susan Taylor Chehak’s skilled hands, Iowa becomes the seething, steamy setting for a tale of pure evil… This is a marvelous, creepy story.” -- The Kansas City Star Nonfiction
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