THE LITBLOG CO-OP

Interview with Michael Martone

The following is an interview with Michael Martone, author of Alive and Dead in Indiana, Safety Patrol, Fort Wayne is Seventh on Hitler's List, Pensees:  The Thoughts of Dan Quayle, Seeing Eye, The Blue Guide to Indiana, The Flatness and Other Landscapes, Unconventions, and Michael Martone.  He has also edited at least four anthologies. He teaches writing at the University of Alabama.
   
   
Dan:
   
Thank you, Michael, for taking some time away from everything to answer some questions.
   
Michael:

Thank you.  Sorry to be away.  So away as to not have email! How retro is that!
   
   
   
Dan:
   
Is it true, in your opinion, that one should absolutely NEVER start a story with "Rrrrrrring! The alarm clock went off."?
   
Michael:

Well, I have seen a lot of stories begin that way.  Of course my other rule is:  Don't do anything half-assed so if you start a story with Ring it might be made better if all the following paragraphs also began with Ring.  I think young writers begin with that opening because they think that stories are told in the same order lives are lived.  In order.  But also what is interesting is the line that usually follows.  Something like "Bill sat up and thought about his day..."  What I think is happening is that you have just asked someone to write a story so they sit down and think about it and in the story they create they dramatize sitting down and thinking.  Funny.
   
   
   
Dan:
   
The most recent book on shelves with your name on the spine is Rule of Thumb - a collection of 73 authors giving an anecdote, or idea, about writing, which you co-edited with Susan Neville.  How many authors did you have to ask to get the 73 authors worth of stories?  How did you and Susan go about deciding which to ask to participate?  Do you have a favorite piece or two in the collection?
   
Michael:

We asked about 100.  Many it was a least resistance sort of thing.  Asking writers as we ran into them at readings, the awp convention, etc.  I like Steve Tomasula's piece with it's crossouts.  John Barth's, Lydia Davis's.  But I like a little bit of all of them.  I like the lists of Rick Barthelme and Robin Hemley.
   
   
   
Dan:
   
You've edited a few books now - what is it about editing, versus writing, that you enjoy?
   
Michael:

Most of my edited books are anthologies of new material.  I like coming up with an idea that appeals to writers--lord knows i can't pay them much.  I like the element of collaboration in this working together in a medium that is usually so solo.  I also like lists and listing and taking a look at an over look subject with a group of similarly obsessed
writers.

   
   
Dan:
   
Alive and Dead in Indiana came out in 1984, and was published by Knopf.  Do you think it was easier for a story writer to find a publisher 20 years ago than it seems to be today?
   

LBC Podcast #4: Michael Martone

Nominator: Daniel Green

Nominee: Michael Martone

Subjects Discussed: The entertaining components of experimental fiction, the genesis of contributor’s notes, Edith Hamilton, mythology, the “Michael Martones of the universe,” cultural influence, Hugh Kenner’s The Counterfeiters, how the origin of the word “fact” influences contemporary fiction, Dan Quayle, Donald Barthelmie, collage, John Barth’s Letters, the limits of invention, cultural anxiety and art, how universities affect writer-professors, hypoxic training, and the virtues of bad writing.

Backup Link: (MP3)

(A co-production of the LBC and The Bat Segundo Show.)

The Things That Nobody Reads

Anne Fernald and I thought that since Michael Martone went to all the trouble to write things that nobody ever reads, we should not only read what was written, but talk about it as well. This is not to suggest that our attempts at Contributor's Notes were less fascinating than the ones posted to date, but, you know, we like to maintain some mystery among our peers.

We got together as only two people separated by a good 46 states can and discussed our thoughts on Michael Martone by, coincidentally, Michael Martone.

k2: Though structured as a series of Contributor's Notes (or, as the back cover indicates, an exploration of the parts of books that nobody reads), Michael Martone tells the story of one man's (presumably the author's) life. Since I know nothing else about him outside of this book, I chose to give the details that were repeated more frequently added weight -- for example, the repeated references to his mother's teaching career over the rather unusual foray into an Iowa Home Ec experiment, where the infant Martone was fostered by a series of students.

Then again, he often had his mother expiring from horrific diseases. While part of me was thinking "man, I hope his parents have a really great sense of humor," another part was fascinated by the ambiguous relationship he appears to have with his mother. You?

AF: I totally took the repeated information as true, coming to fashion a "real" biography for myself out of the notes. I was, to my shame, genuinely disappointed to have to relegate the whole story of Ob/Gyn Frank Burns & M*A*S*H having been the doctor who delivered him to the category of "likely a fib." It's funny, though, until you mentioned it, I hadn't thought about how silly and lazy of me my assumptions about what "really" happened are.

What's here about his mom made me, like you, hope and expect that she has a great sense of humor. I preferred the stories about his mom, the teacher, helping him with his homework--in at least one version, helping so much as to actually write it--and all his books.

What I liked less is how those reverent pieces juxtaposed with the ones in which his mom dies horrible deaths or suffers from unnamed degenerative diseases (although the one about his hosting a telethon for his mom's mom-woes was pretty hilarious, I must admit). The ambivalence toward her seems extreme here: a genuine reverence and gratitude mixed with a guilty wish to be out of her orbit, I think. At times, this seemed hostile to me. At other times, I could see the comedy. The funny thing about Martone's choosing this type of novel, of course, is its narcissism: it begs us to think about him, doesn't it? But at times I found myself liking him less than I liked the book.

I would guess that some of the material about his mother--and some of what's going on in the book in general--emerges from a nice person's half-wish, guilty-wish to have had a more interesting life out of which to make fiction.

k2: I agree that there's an element of hostility toward Martone's mother (though Michael Martone the author might have a perfectly fine relationship with his mother). I was taken aback at the first note of violence -- it seemed jarring in the context of the lighthearted contributor's notes. I recall thinking, "Wow, she's dead?" Of course, I don't know if this is true or not. In a way, I don't think I want to know. It is nice to be completely surprised by a contributor's note, by the way.

One thing that particularly struck me -- and it might speak to the tendencies of the LBC as a whole -- is that this is a book for writers. In a way, haven't we all imagined our contributor's notes (and, as evidenced by this week's posts, done a little more than imagine), and carefully considered the details we'll include and omit? It seems a natural stretch to find points to embellish...and not much more difficult to chuck the whole reality thing and head straight into the realm of Making Stuff Up.

Do you think this book would work as well for non-writer readers?

AF: No. even though it is really, really funny. This is a book for writers and fans of writers (like, say, people who adore reading Paris Review interviews). One of my very favorite bits was the note on the weird etiquette of hosting a reading on a college campus. His meditation on the merits and demerits of the introducer bringing (and taking away) his own bottle (or cup) of water--how does it affect the post-intro handshake (or kiss)? does leaving the water behind break the writer's concentration? etc--was one of the most brilliant pieces in the book, but I suspect I found it especially so because I could fill in so much from my own thankless stint as chair of a Speakers and Events committee in an English Department. I'll stop there by tossing it back to you: is this an insider-writer's book in your view? And, do you really think it's true, as the publisher's puff says, that the contributor's notes are what no one reads?

k2: Yes, I do think this is an insider-writer's book -- and that's not a bad thing. Lots and lots of people write; we deserve books targeted toward us as much as the next demographic! I think a writer is better positioned to appreciate the evolutionary aspects of the Notes. For me, it's almost as if I'm enjoying an exercise in craft -- you've done those where everyone is given the same three or five elements and told to create a story from them. Every story is different, yet contains those common items. In the same way, Martone takes those common elements of his (apparent) life and steers the story in a unique direction each time.

(Yes, the story where the mother just took over his homework made me laugh -- it reminded me of my sister's fourth grade mission building project...and how she stood back and watched my parents built a to-scale, historically accurate model, complete with little cowhides on the fence railing; if I recall correctly, she went to bed while they argued over realistic sagebrush).

I did an unscientific poll and have discovered that normal people read these things "at times" (though one man claims his wife always does). For me, my eyes to glaze over when I encounter a long list of publishing credits and academic accomplishments. I realize these are born of a sense of pride, but, man, they tend to read like blah, blah, blah after a while. Of course, if I know the author, I read more closely -- if only to make sure my name is spelled right!

I know you were intrigued by the Indiana aspects of this book -- I found that the tidbits about Indiana University (who knew there was an Indiana University of Pennsylvania) and the little items, such as the truck factory (I'm away from my book right now -- and the name escapes me) were fascinating. These painted a picture of a place I've never seen, much less considered outside an episode of Letterman. What struck you you about the Indiana/Mid-West angle of this book?

AF: Before I moved to Indiana, I just grouped it with the rest of the midwest. But, a Hoosier boyfriend in college and then six years there as an adult taught me different. Indiana is a really special place: one thing that makes it odd is that it is so very, very normal. Indiana as a whole is deeply proud to be a red state, declaring victory for the Republican moments after the polls close every year. Lots of Hoosiers take pride in this--without irony---and then, of course, lots more Hoosiers take pride in ironizing that normality, in pushing against it. So, it makes sense to me that stray facts about state birds figure in Martone's work: I would bet that most kindergarten teachers in Indiana take the state bird very seriously and design lesson plans around it. This means that the wags in the bunch--like my uncle or Martone--figure out ways to just tug a little at the veneer of self-satisfaction. My uncle, for his part, used to confuse and amuse me with dry stories about the giant ten-foot catfish they found swimming around the reservoir in Logansport, Indiana. Having driven through Logansport, the winter home of a now-defunct circus, I am still not sure how to take the story. It just might be true. Being a Hoosier, I'm guessing, is kind of like liking your mom: it's really good for life, but it may not provide enough grit to make a writer.

In the end, I found the book to be really, really funny and very easy to imagine recommending. But does the fact that so many members of the LBC found it so easy to chime in with their own version of a contributor's note count as a strike against the book?

k2: I don't think it's a strike against the book. The format invites self-indulgence -- and this is nothing if not a self-indulgent book (as you noted). I find I am far more forgiving of self-indulgence when it is unabashedly so. And this book was very, very funny. Any final thoughts?

AF: That's a good way to put it: this book is hilarious and doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. I got a big kick out of reading it and have a lot of admiration for it's doing such a good job sustaining the joke. I'm eager to hear what others think of what we've been talking about...

Contributor's Note

Edward Champion was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which he confused for Santa Clara, California.  Champion began his life answering to the name "Michael Martone," only to discover that he was actually named Edward Champion and didn't have Martone's full head of hair.  Champion reacted to this by having a nervous breakdown.  But after participating in a self-affirmation seminar, he responded to his balding by adopting a bad toupee that resembled Martone's.  Champion also wrote several contributor's notes to hash this identity crisis out in public.  This identity crisis interested the American public so much that Champion was featured prominently on several morning talk shows and was the first guest to perform cunnilingus on Katie Couric, who despite being pleasured by Champion's tongue, still asked dumbass questions with the vocal timbre of a space cadet.  This interview was not aired on the Today show and it is not known if Champion was performing cunnilingus correctly.  Champion had been armed with a prodigious supply of K-Y and he had even suggested to Couric that she could call him "Jay,"  the name of her huband, who died of colon cancer on January 25, 1998.  Champion had only hoped to set Couric at ease so that she would be a better interviewer.

Shortly after his Today show appearance, Champion contracted a case of colon cancer himself.  This did not stop him from impersonating Michael Martone or attempting to infiltrate the English Department of the University of Alabama.  Champion insisted that he was the director of the Creative Writing Department.  But the administrators were troubled by the colostomy bag that Champion carried along with him, to say nothing of Champion's bad Martone-like toupee.  When an administrative assistant attempted to throw Champion out of the office, the assistant inadvertently slashed open the colostomy bag, causing the bag's smelly contents to spill all over the office.  Champion was then sent to a mental institution, where he remains to this day.  Champion considers the strait jacket to be "as comfy as silk pajamas" and has expressed a preference for electroshock therapy over thorazine.

Meanwhile, the real Martone has adopted rigorous security procedures to prevent any additional Martone impersonators from invading the English Department's office.  Martone takes comfort in the fact that he will always have a full head of hair, whereas Champion will remain a balding lunatic.

Contributor's Note*

Gwenda Bond is a native of Bond, Kentucky, which is located deep within the Daniel Boone Royal Forest. Whenever the subject of the anemic Hoosier National Forest arises—as it does with satisfying infrequency—she suppresses a chuckle.

She was raised to believe that Indiana provides a crucial role in keeping Kentucky from falling into Tennessee, but otherwise has spent entire years sparing no thought for the "democracies" in the flatlands.

Bond was an early adopter of the new computronic technologies, investing in one of Professor Smee's first steam-driven Blogatrons in the years between the Anglo Wars. The expertise she developed in operating the machine was widely recognized, and quickly saw her named Lovelace Professor of Computronics and Electrick Ideation at the University of Old Kentucky, an appointment handed down by Lord Governor Clooney himself.

*Ghostwritten

Contributors Note

Megan Sullivan was born in the Long Island Jewish Hospital in Queens, New York. From her name, you can tell she is neither Jewish nor long. This misinformation cast a pall over the rest of her life and she slowly shrank from the burden. When she spoke to anyone, she made sure to speak nothing but the truth. This was difficult for someone only one foot tall. Her truths soon stopped resembling the rest of the worlds truths.
She spent most of her teenage years dodging the footsteps of her family, a traveling troupe of Irish dancers. Her well-meaning parents gave her an electric model car to use, but refused to pay for the expensive AA batteries it used. Her only escape from the world came from books. It took her a few minutes to turn each page until she invented a page turning device that cut that time in half. Her patent on this machine has helped her retire at an early age. Now she spends her time reading books for the LBC and writing angry letters to Boston <i>Globe</i> Book Review for their size-ist attitude.

Contributor's Note

Jeff Bryant was born in Selma, Alabama, a small, yet well-known town about two hours south of Tuscaloosa where a certain houndstooth hat wearing football coach who shared his last name was suffering through a 6-5-1 season and whose team would end up losing to cross-state rivals Auburn in the so-called Iron Bowl a few weeks after Jeff's birth.  Some would think that having the last name of the state's most famous person would mean that Jeff had no other choice than to become, like his father, a devoted fan of the Crimson Tide.  But baby Jeff had other plans, choosing instead the orange and blue and the War Eagle! cry of Auburn.  This was the first of many times he would disappoint his father.  In an attempt to win him over, Jeff's father would take him to Tuscaloosa on those rare occasions when the Tide would play a game at Bryant-Denny Stadium instead of in Birmingham, and Jeff would be schooled in the honor and tradition of that great football powerhouse.  Still, he wouldn't budge from his decision and the rift between father and son grew to the point that on the day of the year that the two rivals met, Iron Bowl Saturday, Jeff would have to leave his house so that he wouldn't suffer the wrath of his angry father if Auburn won or the mocking of his overly rambunctious father if Auburn lost.

To this day Jeff Bryant hates Tuscaloosa.  Maybe not as much as Barry Hannah seems to hate Tuscaloosa, but he can't stand the place.  Even spelling it out presents difficulty, makes him think of all of those days on his father's lap when he would be subjected to tasteless jokes about cows and Auburn cheerleaders.  So when Jeff picked up this quarter's Read This! selection and noticed that Michael Martone teaches writing at the University of Alabama, he had to fight the urge to skip this reading.  He's glad he did because it proves to him that his favorite saying, "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut," has real merit.  From now on, instead of focusing on the negative aspects of Tuscaloosa and its university, he'll be able to say to his dad, "There's a pretty good writer teaching there."  He's pretty sure his father will change the subject quickly and bring up the blue-chip recruit from Hoover High who is choosing Alabama over Auburn.  Jeff will wonder if the blue-chip recruit has a need for a contributor's note.  If so, he's going to the right university.

Jeff Bryant no longer lives in Alabama.  He does manage to still hate the Crimson Tide.

Contributor's Note

In the fall of 1988, Dan Wickett was taking a mere six credits to finish up his BS degree.  These six credits were obtained through his taking two English Department classes, both pertaining to literary fiction.  During the three months of this semester, Wickett spent an inordinate amount of time at the Graduate Library, wandering through shelves of old literary journals.  Perusing an old Michigan Quarterly Review, Wickett saw that T.C. Boyle, a favorite author of his, suggested people read Michael Martone's Alive and Dead in Indiana.  Sheep that Wickett was (is), he found a copy in the library and either checked it out, or photocopied it (Wickett was also working at the University's Natural Science Library at the time, and had great access to photocopiers).  Wickett enjoyed the collection quite a bit - the stories mainly told from a first person point of view - pretty straightforward though with an ironic humor to them.  The last story even seemed to wander into a bit more of an experimental territory.

Some research led Wickett to find out he could special order Martone's collection, Safety Patrol, from Borders, which at the time was still just an amazing Independent Bookseller located in Ann Arbor, MI, and not the conglomerate that it is today.  Special order it Wickett did and he was delighted to find that Martone's writing had only gotten sharper, if anything, in the four years since he had published Alive and Dead in Indiana.  With 12 stories in the collection, Martone was shortening each individual effort, and in doing so was seemingly being even more careful in his selection of words and sentences.  The collection was also stunning in the manner that Martone infused each one with the idea of safety, and then hammered home the idea that no matter how much you prepare, you cannot always avoid the inevitable problems inherent in the world.

In another year or so, Wickett found a copy of Martone's Fort Wayne is Seventh on Hitler's List, and again, found Martone's writing well worth his time.  The stories were again set in Indiana, and mainly from that similar first person narrative point of view.  Wickett decided that the stories were sliding a bit further into experimental territory, not always having that straightforward narrative, jumping around more, varying points of view, etc.

From about 1993, or so, through early in the year 2000, Dan Wickett might have read a dozen or so books.  While he has used courtship, his wedding and the birth of a trio of children during that 7 year span as an excuse, others have claimed he had fallen too far under the spell of what is known as television.  In early 2000, Wickett was informed that his former teacher, Alyson Hagy, had two books due in April of that year, and former classmate, Elwood Reid, had a story collection due around the same time.  Wickett obtained all three and read them on a camping weekend.  This reminded him what it was about reading that he had enjoyed so much prior to 1993, and he began to do a bit more of it.  He also began trumpeting his opinions on said books via the internet, much to the chagrin of many a person with an email address.

It appears that Wickett had forgotten about his enjoyment of the early writings of Michael Martone, and it wasn't until Dan Green was shrewd enough to nominate Martone's latest work, Michael Martone, that Wickett's memory kicked into gear.  He read this newest title of Martone's and enjoyed it greatly - the book, mainly consisting of Contributor's Notes, felt like an incredibly interesting way of writing a novel to Wickett.  It was funny, written in a manner that caused Wickett to think, and even had a blurb from Michael Martone himself - a first from what Wickett could remember.

Wickett was surprised to find out that Martone had published a few other books in between the years of 1992 and 2006 and began looking for them.  He was able to find a copy of The Blue Guide to Indiana at the wonderful Shaman Drum Bookstore in Ann Arbor, MI.  This book, Martone's inspired fictional version of a travel book for the state of Indiana caused Wickett to laugh nearly as much as John Kennedy Toole's Confederacy of Dunces did years earlier.  Just wondering where Martone came up with the idea for a Trans-Indiana Mayonnaise Pipeline had Wickett worrying about Martone's mental well being.

Somewhere during the time period between early 2000 and 2006, Dan Wickett had made some form of contact with publicists at the University of Georgia Press.  It turned out that they had published two of the titles of Martone's that Wickett had not yet read, or even obtained.  After reading Michael Martone, Wickett contacted said publicist and inquired about obtaining review copies of these two titles:  The Flatness and Other Landscapes, and Unconventions:  Attempting the Art of Craft and the Craft of Art.  Said publicist was happy to oblige.  While Dan Wickett enjoyed Unconventions, a collection of short essays, prefaces, speeches and even a eulogy, that Martone had written or given over the years, it was The Flatness, a collection of essays about the Midwest, that completely blew Wickett away.  Martone's own particular style, combined with his unique way of looking at day to day events that one might encounter in the farms and other landscapes of the Midwest, created a masterpiece in Wickett's mind.

One of the things that Dan Wickett has tried to do in his role with the Litblog Co-op is to interview the authors that have titles nominated each quarter.  When Wickett was arranging his interview with Martone, the author was kind enough to offer a copy of his collection, Seeing Eye, to Wickett.  This collection is the lastof Martone's that Wickett has read.  It's broken into three sections, and contains 32 stories - Wickett once again noticed that Martone's stories were continuing to shrink in size, but not in their power.  The middle section is probably the one most discussed, as Martone collected twelve, 1 to 3 page, vignettes that were written as Thoughts of Dan Quayle.  Each was written from the point of view of Quayle and to Wickett, were just as absurd as he expected them to be.

Wickett has now been left in the position of looking forward to more of Martone's writing being published.

Contributor's Note

Matthew Cheney disliked being born, an event that occurred some distance from Indiana and affected his entire perspective on life.  He seldom fit in with any group that would have him as a member, though after his unfortunate experience as a Cub Scout who aspired to be a Brownie, few groups would let him within a hundred feet anyway.  On his graduation from kindergarten he was voted "Most Likely to Stubbornly Hold On to Stupid Opinions He Knows are Wrong but Continues to Espouse Because He Has Nothing Better to Do".  On his graduation from eighth grade, he was voted "Most Likely to be Pretentious".  On his graduation from high school he was voted "Most Pretentious" and on his graduation from college he had no friends and so nobody voted for him for anything, and he was relieved.  It was in college that someone innocently asked him his opinion of a book and he replied, "It was perfectly well written and kind of clever, but I don't understand why people get so excited about clever books that are basically just one conceit repeated over and over and over again, because at a certain point it just feels like talking to a really drunk person who keeps repeating the same story, but forgetting the details, and while that's fun for a little while, it does get a bit tedious, and don't you just want to smack them and say, 'Hey, fella, I get it already!' even though, of course, we're all too polite to do that, and some drunks really are kind of amusing, especially if you follow how their stories change and metamorphose and all that, but so often they don't really tell stories, either, they just kind of spout out drunken details and lame jokes and--"

And by this time, he was alone.

Contributor's Note

C. Max Magee was born in Charlottesville, Virginia.  He received a degree in economics in Charlottesville, Virginia, got married in Charlottesville, Virginia, and may soon move back to Charlottesville, Virginia.  In the intervening periods he has made in Vermont, New Jersey, Maryland, Los Angeles, and Chicago his home.  He has never lived in Indiana but has driven on its eponymous Toll Road many times, and gladly since its speed limit is higher than in adjacent Ohio.

The "C" in his name stands for Christopher.  Since Max's father's name is Christopher and his mother's name Christine, it was deemed too confusing to call him by his given name, so he went by Max, which is short for Maximilian, from day one.

Max is aware that people find his use of the first initial "C" to be pretentious, but to him, it's simply a matter of accuracy.  If people think a middle name is a first name, it wreaks havoc on one's public records and other such things.  As a child, Max found the name frustrating because it was slightly odd, but he grew to love it for that very same reason.  In fact, Max now loves his name so much that he would gladly use it for the title of a novel, had Michael Martone not already published an eponymously titled novel, Michael Martone.  Max thinks that more than one such titled novel would be silly.

However, as a blogger, and thus prone to self-aggrandizement, he can see the allure of "getting his name out there" in this way.  At the same time, blogging and joining "co-ops" like this one seem to suffice in that regard, as does leaving comments at other blogs and co-ops.  In the spirit of this, Max would encourage visitors to contribute their own Contributor's Notes in the style of Michael Martone in the comments of this post or below the Contributors' Notes that have been contributed (and will be contributed) by other Co-op members.  Don't be shy.