I’m always fascinated by writers writing about the writing process. Alice McDermott shares her thoughts on the craft she has been practicing for decades. In a bold move, McDermott quotes an entire chapter of Nabokov’s Bend Sinister to make a point!
In books like What About the Baby? authors reveal who influenced them. With McDermott, Fitzgerald, Henry James, and E. M. Forster show up quite a bit. Eudora Welty chimes in occasionally. My favorite chapter is “Story,” where McDermott analyzes what makes a good story…or a dud. McDermott continues her take on story in the chapter “What About the Baby?” asking the key fiction question: “What is this story about?”
McDermott displays again and again in the pages of What About the Baby? that she has studied the writing process and analyzed what works and what doesn’t. Along the way, McDermott quotes some wonderful writers offering their perspectives on the creative process. This is a book that will provide plenty to think about long after you read the last page. Excellent! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Foreword: Alice McDermott Speaks in Italics Tony Earley ix
What I Expect 3
Story 23
Sentencing 41
What About the Baby? 67
Mary McCarthy 83
Only Connect (Eventually) 87
William Rehnquist, Robinson Crusoe, Rabbit Ears, and Something About Passion: Advice from Me to Me 113
An Unreasonable Degree of Sympathy 135
Starting Over 141
Coaching 155
Faith and Literature 169
All Drama Is Family Drama 189
Voice-overs 191
Things 207
Remembrance of Things That Never Happened: The Art of Memoir, the Art of Fiction 213
Read That Night by her. Didn’t much care for it. The only book I can recall reading about writing is Stephen King’s On Writing which I liked a lot.
Steve, I’ve read Stephen King’s ON WRITING a couple of times. Excellent!
This one sounds impressive. Try E. B. White’s writing thus, Guy Davenport’s, Damon Knight’s CREATING SHORT FICTION, Kate Wilhelm’s STORYTELLER, Robert Silverberg’s, Lawrence Block’s new memoir, and such texts involving this kind of thing as Algis Budrys’s BENCHMARKS and its sequel collections, Joanna Russ’s, Vivian Gornick’s. Thanks for the pointer, George.
Todd, I’ve read several of the books you list…and the others are on my shelves waiting to be read. The Block book is near the top of my READ REAL SOON stack!
ON WRITING is the best book by King I’ve read, and even more for the autobiography than any actual advice.
Todd, I had the same reaction to ON WRITING. Stephen King talked about the writing process and its effect on him. Brilliant!
Yeah, King’s book was one of the best. Like you, I’ve read quite a few books of this sort. Never read McDermott. As you know I read a lot of short stories, and I have been thinking lately about why some stories are so good and really stand out, while others by the same author just don’t. I finished the second collection by Tessa Hadley this week, and there was one story I read where I thought, this could – and should – be really good, but…it just sort of sits there, sort of like a Marilyn Stasio book review (reference to Patti’s blog).
I put it on hold.
Jeff, I think you’ll enjoy WHAT ABOUT THE BABY? I’m with you and Patti on Marilyn Stasio. I was never a fan. Sarah Weinman is a big Upgrade!
So what about the baby? Huh?
Rick, Alice McDermott has a long and funny story about a baby in a story. But, when she finished reading the story to her class, the students all wanted to know: “What About the Baby?” That’s when McDermott realized what the story was REALLY about!
Looks like we have a unanimous thumbs up on King’s book and a unanimous thumbs down on Stasio. Weinman is a much better writer/critic. Although, like Stasio, she doesn’t seem to review many of the sorts of mysteries I tend to be interested in. I’ve never read anything by McDermott, but the thing about the baby and the quoting of an entire chapter of Nabokov has aroused my curiosity.
Michael, you’ll find plenty of great quotes by other writers in WHAT ABOUT THE BABY?
To my mind re: Marilyn Stasio. She reviewed books that the fans of certain writers (Connelly, Grisham, Louise Penney, Jacqueline Winspear, Crais) would read without reading a review. There was nothing in particular to say about those series books. That’s not to say they were not worthy books. Just that there wasn’t much to say about them. And in fact, talking about them much veered near spoiler territory.
She rarely read books that were new to her audience. Also her writing was flat and mostly a plot summary and rarely spurred an interest in me.
AS I didn’t get around to saying on your blog this morning, Patti, having go on long enough, Stasio was just one of a serious of bloviators the NYT had hired over the last decade or so to handle The Mere Popular Fiction, as I’m sure someone or another choose to think of it, and she not even the worst. (Their horror and sf specialists were among the most inept I’ve read, among a few others at the TIMES.) That Weinman is doing a better job would almost be impossible to do otherwise, particularly given whom Weinman is.
Todd, I have nothing against Marilyn Stasio, just that her reviews exhibited very little enthusiasm. As Patti pointed out, most of Stasio’s reviews were plot summaries and little more.
Patti, I had the same reaction to Mariyn Stasio’s reviews in the NYTBR: Bland.