Paul Lisicky on The Heart’s History

I’m quite flattered by the reception The Heart’s History continues to receive. The latest word is from the wonderful Paul Lisicky, author of Lawnboy and last year’s brilliant The Burning House:

Lewis DeSimone's Heart’s History is a novel of trouble and wonder. It moves in unexpected directions and looks into the complicated, real-life struggles that lesser writers tend to simplify or avoid. It is adult in its scope, and generous in its understanding of how loss changes us as both groups and individuals. As soon as I finished, I wanted to start reading all over again.

Writing Is Easy

As probably any artist will tell you, creating the work is easy compared to the arduous process of selling and promoting it. It took dozens of queries to agents and editors before I found a publisher for my first novel, Chemistry. And from that experience, I learned that, even when your book is in print, there’s a lot of work left to do.

The whole process, of course, is somewhat terrifying. Self-promotion has never been my strong suit. But if you’re not willing to expose yourself, then I guess there isn’t much point in being a writer. I suppose I could do like Emily Dickinson did and hide every scrap of paper in the attic and pray for posthumous recognition. But what fun is that?

With some experience under my belt now, I feel a little better prepared for the upcoming publication of my second book, The Heart’s History. Fortunately, my day job has afforded me certain skills in project management, and I’m making use of all of them now, in service to something far less lucrative but far more personally meaningful.

First comes lining up the blurbs (so far, so good; the book has already received lovely endorsements from Michelle Tea and Rigoberto González—see previous blogs). In addition, I’ve written a press release, which will soon be sent to a long list of publications for review and another list of bookstores (endangered species, so that list is less intimidating) to schedule readings. And, of course, I’m calling in every favor I’ve ever offered to people in the media who might help with other means of promotion. (Are you listening, Hollywood?)

Frankly, when I’m not quaking in my boots as I hit the “send” button, it’s all rather exciting. Every day, there’s another task to add to the to-do list, another email to send, another opportunity to repeat my elevator speech.

The real problem, of course, is that novel #3 remains on the back burner until I’m done promoting novel #2. And let me tell you, those new characters are clamoring to be heard. … Never fear, my darlings: your time is coming. Perhaps this time next year, you’ll be getting all my attention and the next generation (yes, I already know the general outline of novel #4) will be whining for attention.

A novelist’s work is never done.

Rigoberto González on The Heart’s History

I’m excited to pass along more praise for The Heart’s History, from another award-winning writer.

Rigoberto González, author of The Mariposa Club and Butterfly Boy, winner of the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, states:

“With admirable sensitivity, Lewis DeSimone reaches deep into a close community of friends to explore the textured lives of gay men, their urgencies haunted by the traumas and anxieties of the past, illuminated by their current (sometimes troubled) affinities and relationships. At the center of this circle is the endearing couple, Robert and Edward, their touching story a catalyst that allows those near them (including the reader) to consider the power of commitment, the grace of forgiveness. The Heart’s History is a stunning portrait of love.”

That last phrase is the new tag line for the novel. Thanks, Rigoberto!

Michelle Tea on The Heart’s History

Michelle Tea and I go way back. Or at least we should. We both grew up in Chelsea, Massachusetts, a sad little town just north of Boston, which Michelle immortalized in her wonderful memoir, The Chelsea Whistle. We didn’t know each other back in Chelsea, but met several years later, once we had both settled in San Francisco.

Michelle, of course, has become a literary star with such works as Rose of No Man’s Land and the Lambda Award-winning Valencia. So, of course, she was one of the first people I thought of when it came to requesting advance reviews of The Heart’s History. Here’s her take:

“Lewis DeSimone is a great writer. His prose is thoughtful, deep, layered and real. His characters are living. It’s about love and sex and AIDS, about human connection and the ultimate unknowability of another person. It’s about the slow assimilation of a larger gay culture that used to be more angry and badass. It’s a really good book written by a very skilled author.”

Coming from one of the most “bad-ass” writers I know, that’s a real compliment.

Read an Excerpt from "The Heart's History"

For those of you who may want a sneak peek of the book in advance of its May publication, I've just posted an excerpt on my Website. Please take a look!

Announcing my new novel, The Heart's History

I'm thrilled to announce that my next novel, The Heart's History, will be published by Lethe Press in May 2012.

From the cover:

This is Edward—architect, friend, lover, mystery. Everyone has their own Edward—a kaleidoscope of images struggling to define a man who has never let anyone get too close. But now, Edward is dying, and all of his loved ones are desperate to understand him, to connect fully with him, before it’s too late.

In this beautiful and haunting novel, Lewis DeSimone, author of the acclaimed Chemistry, explores the hidden depths of love, the struggle to maintain a balance between connection and individuality. Edward’s illness is set against the backdrop of a sea change in gay culture, a time when AIDS is assumed to be simply a manageable condition, and when the drive for assimilation—through marriage, or the military—has begun to trump the distinct characteristics that were once a source of pride. Deftly shifting perspectives to paint a compelling portrait of a man and a community on the cusp of a critical transition, The Heart’s History gives hope that, despite the impossibility of ever achieving true oneness with another person, it is the attempt itself that gives life its greatest joy.

***

I'll be posting more about the book as the publication date approaches. In the meantime, it's available for pre-order at amazon.

Eat, Pray, Throw Up

When I learned that Julia Roberts had gotten the lead in Eat, Pray, Love, I was at first appalled. How on earth could an actress whose range extends all the way from the feisty but shallow Pretty Woman to the feisty but shallow Erin Brockovich ever play someone on a spiritual quest?

Then I read the book. And now I believe that Roberts—who, despite attempts at girl-next-door cuteness, is really best at playing selfish bitches—is, once again, perfectly cast.

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again while expecting different results, then I’ve grown one step closer to the loonybin each time I picked up a memoir and hoped to actually like it. The truth is that memoirs don’t get much better than Eat, Pray, Love. And that’s the problem: memoirs don’t get much better than Eat, Pray, Love. In other words, memoirs pretty much suck.

I did start out liking the book—really, I did. I especially enjoyed the Italy section: hey, I’m of Italian origin, I love pizza and gelato and flirtatious men—what’s not to like?

But it didn’t take long for my mood to turn. About a third of the way through, I realized I didn’t like the narrator. Still, I thought, that was hardly a deal-breaker: I’ve read Ayn Rand novels, for god’s sake; I’m used to self-centered heroines.

But as the book went on, the narrator became more and more obnoxious, and I could no longer pass my distaste off as interesting. The genre itself was the problem, I soon realized: in a novel, the author has the luxury of hiding behind a character, and she can make the character as bitchy as she wants without earning the ire of her reader. But in a memoir, that defense is gone: in a memoir, the narrator (however obnoxious) is, as far as the reader knows, indistinguishable from the author. That is the point, after all, isn’t it?

So, in the end, it wasn’t just the narrator of this book I disliked: it was the author herself.

But even that didn’t completely explain my growing revulsion for the book. I’ve hated authors before and still liked their work (once again, Ayn Rand comes conveniently to mind).

No, I decided, ultimately not liking the author wasn’t the problem, either. The problem was that I didn’t trust the author. I didn’t trust her one bit.

And that, I realized, is the key for me with any work. Whether it’s a memoir, a novel, a poem, or a recipe, I don’t have to like the author, but I do have to believe that she’s not selling me a bill of goods.

Unlike Oprah, I was not surprised when James Frey’s alleged true story fell into a million little pieces. After all, he had written it first as a novel and called it a memoir only because memoirs sell better in the confessional age that Oprah herself helped to create.

As I understand that controversy, the problem was simply that Frey was passing off the fictional as the real. I fear the problem with Eat, Pray, Love goes a lot deeper. Or, more to the point, a lot shallower.

I’ve read a lot of memoirs and a lot of novels, and one thing that all those pages have taught me is this: there is a great deal more truth in fiction than in memoir. Not verisimilitude—this happened and then that happened; she was wearing a red dress—but truth of character and purpose, self-awareness.

Memoir, this genre that in recent years has come to take up 50% of bookshelf space (if you can find a bookshelf in the Kindle age), is comprised largely of whiny exercises in self-pity and/or self-aggrandizement—but precious little self-awareness. This is the genre of “Mommy, look at me!” And frankly, I can understand why Mommy turned away in the first place.

My suspicion was aroused early on, when Gilbert refuses to elaborate on the reasons her marriage fell apart, claiming respect for her ex-husband’s privacy: “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to discuss his issues in my book.” But as I got deeper into the story—300 pages of “me, me, me,” and we all know how enlightened and spiritual that is—I started to develop my own theory about why the relationship ended.

One thing Gilbert does reveal at the beginning of the story is that she signed a contract for the book before her year’s journey began—in other words, this year of spiritual discovery started with a paycheck. Along the way, her narrative notes a lot of gastronomic pleasure in Italy, a budding romance in Indonesia, and one briefly described but profound meditation in India (which quickly pales into the background once said love affair begins in the next chapter).

Then, near the end we get the longed-for climax. And it’s a flashback.

When it comes time to reveal her most profound spiritual experience, Gilbert tells us about her first trip to Indonesia—before the year of pilgrimage that constitutes the arc of this book. And the experience is lovely—the kind of enlightened moment many people strive for. But she had it before the story of this book began. She had it before she signed the contract and got her advance.

I spent 300 pages with her, waiting for the epiphany that she could have revealed on page 25 if she’d chosen to tell her story chronologically. But instead she chose to construct a narrative that is at its heart false: this is not a spiritual story any more than the beginning of the book is an open depiction of a marriage in crisis. It’s as if Odysseus had already arrived home at the beginning of the poem and then spent 20 years sailing around the Aegean just for the hell of it.

Eat, Pray, Love is nicely written and humorous. (I haven’t even touched upon how amusing are its Stepin Fetchit depictions of the Balinese—those whom the Great White Woman educates, enlightens, and buys houses for—with other people’s money.) But at its core it is, for this reader at least, a manipulative exercise in disingenuousness.

The ad for the film shows Julia Roberts licking gelato off a spoon. How apt—delicious, sweet, and completely devoid of nutritional content.