I met Michael Cunningham, the PEN/Faulkner and Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Hours, subsequently made into a movie starring Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, and Julianne Moore.
He was at Book Passage, an independent bookstore in Corte Madera, CA, to promote his new book, Day.
As he signed our books, we chatted casually about the importance of independent bookstores and he told me his book tour was largely, if not completely, set to visit independent shops. PSA: please for the love of books, support your local independent bookseller!
He gave an interview before he signed books and I took rapid notes. In the moment, I felt disappointed that he didn’t talk more about his writing or editing process. However, as I review my notes, I see some golden nuggets.
Day is set on three days, each a year apart, during the pandemic (he never starts with structure, but in this case, the structure suggested itself). Yet he never names the pandemic. “It felt important that it be about survival, about a terrible thing that happened and how some of us lived through it, and that it not end on a note of total darkness.”
I took a Zoom writing course with the insightful Marilyn Chandler McEntyre during the pandemic, and we specifically talked about whether or not to name the pandemic. Would that date our work, make it unrelatable in the future? Cunningham said, “If you name a thing, you tame it,” and reminded us that the Ancient Greeks and Romans wouldn’t name the god of the underworld. It reminded me of “He Who Would Not Be Named” (aka, Voldemort).
Also, because the pandemic was Goliath, the story needed to be David-sized, specific, slow, with what he called “empty spaces.” And it had to be light since the situation was dark, so this book is funnier than his other works. “I have long wished that my books were funnier. Look, I’m a barrel of laughs, right?” The audience related, and laughed. Light and dark equals life.
He said that writing a novel requires both hubris and self-abnegation. It’s a little aggressive, show-offy, and you need to be able to sit alone with yourself for as long as it takes. “Novel writing is intentional, intuitive, and random,” he explained. The author directs some of the process, some just comes, and the rest is at random…and stays in the final draft because it means something whether the author intended it or not.
Cunningham studied writing with author Hilma Wolitzer, more recently best known for being novelist Meg Wolitzer’s mother. She encouraged him to go through his work sentence by sentence, giving each a grade of A or B. Once he’d done so, she told him to rewrite all the A sentences “…because they’re egotistical.” He counts this as the best writing advice he ever received and continues the practice to this day.
Aspiring writers hear the advice to “know your audience.” Cunningham asks, “Why would you want to write something that appeals to everyone? You’ll always write to those who want the gift. You’re just drawn to some people and others are charming, lovely, and great, but you don’t hit it off. It’s a personal experience between writer and reader. First, the writer dreams the book, and then the reader dreams the book.” Writers, dream away, but keep your specific readers’ dreams in mind.
Oh, and the most intriguing aspect of the encounter: as he signed our book in early January, he wrote “On this day, December…” Under his breath he muttered, “Oh well, it has been December…”
Later as we wandered the shelves of books, a woman who had been just behind us in line approached. “Did he write a date in your book?” I opened the book and showed her: “December 4, 2024.” Well, it has recently been December, but December 2024 is most of a year away.
She noted that he had written a different date in her book, December 6, 2024. Maybe he was dating them consecutively? Maybe. “The weird thing, though,” she shrugged, “is that December 6 is my birthday.”
I’m going to start reading Day on December 4, 2024. Who knows why the author inscribed our book with that date, but maybe it will become apparent. Maybe.
