THE NEW BLOG SITE: http://rdrbooks.wordpress.com/

Hello to you. Well, we've come a long way. Now we've decided to leave. Blogger just wasn't for us. We're actually taking this blog in a new, insanely pretentious direction. That's right. There will be all new interviews, new writing from a whole new group of contributing editors - most of whom were grown locally. Can you beat that? Can you beat organically grown writers from the homeland? You can't. So without further ado, you should go to this snazzy URL:

http://rdrbooks.wordpress.com/



You'll thank me later.


-Christopher Carver, Contributing Editor RDR Books

Thanks Rhode Island

By Roger Rapoport

This has been a rough fall for Michigan. First John McCain decided he couldn't win here, pulled out his troops and deprived local television and radio stations of millions in campaign advertising. Then both the Detroit Lions and Michigan have shown the nation exactly how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on the football field. And let's not even talk about the political demise of Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.

But there is good news. Michigan no longer leeds the nation in unemployment figures. The state has moved up to a solid 49th in state ranking thanks to the fact that Rhode Island is a solid 50th. As it turns out I was in Rhode Island when the big news broke and I personally want to thank the entire state for helping us out of the cellar. Obviously we have a long way to go but this is an important trend and I believe that even if Chrysler goes under there is a chance, just a chance, that we may be able to recover under a new administration.

First, Michigan is a bargain in terms of housing costs. Second Michigan is actually starting to think about transit alternatives that will make it easier to get to work, if you can find a job. And finally Michigan is well positioned for bailouts whether it's the auto industry or banks.

While foreclosures are certainly a big problem here there is no question that new programs being offered by banks will make it easier for some homeowners to stay put, at least for awhile. And the possibility that Michigan may become an energy exporter by building thousands of wind power stations in the Great Lakes is certainly good news. When you add the fact that the state has a good higher education network, it's possible that enrollment gains will help strengthen this important sector of the economy.

Problems? Of course, replacing auto industry jobs is going to require a lot of new business and financing is certainly not going to be easy. But bootstrapping has its advantages.

Financial Meltdown, Anxiety, and a Canoe

By Steven Faulkner

Driving the two-lane blacktop to work this morning, the news was bad: European countries that a week or two weeks ago were boasting that their financial systems were stable and secure, are now calling for urgent summits to sort out the now international financial crisis. Leaders from the UK, France, Germany, and Italy held emergency meetings. U. S. Congressmen were making comments just Friday that this government’s 700 billion bailout would need to be revisited within months to see what further measures were needed.

Even college students are ridden with anxiety. The head of counseling at the university in Virginia where I teach said that depression used to be the most common malady reported by college students across the country, but in recent years anxiety, often severe, is the problem most reported. Students are on complicated medication regimes to help them sleep, help them calm down, help them overcome panic attacks.

I certainly don’t have a solution for Europe, the nation, or even the university, but a friend, a canoe, and a calm day in October is a fine personal remedy.

As I say in my book Waterwalk: A Passage of Ghosts, there are times when we need to “walk away from the sound of the shutting of doors with the comfortable click of the lock that tells us we have food in the refrigerator, beds to ease our bones, television to unravel our minds, isolation from our neighbors, and insulation from storms,” for even within our own homes airborne anxieties attack us through television news shows, radio reports, and the babble of the internet.

And what better way to walk away from the anxieties of television, radio, computer internet access, banking anxieties, and all the rest, then to take a friend to visit the muskrats swimming the shore beneath tall oaks and maples that are just now slowly turning with the turning season?

Writer John Graves says, “Chances for being quiet nowadays are limited. Those for being unquiet seem to abound. Canoes are unobtrusive; they don’t storm the natural world or ride over it, but drift in upon it as a part of its own silence.”

Letting the silence of that world of forest and water and sky soak into our speed-driven souls is a remedy worth applying in these anxious times.

Michigan's Latest Economic Downturn

By Roger Rapoport



It’s no secret that one of the bright spots in the Michigan economy these past few months has been the presidential campaign. Combined spending between the two candidates comes to a staggering $11.5 million on campaign advertising in Michigan alone. An important contribution to the economy of the state with America’s highest unemployment rate, these ads have flooded the airwaves as the candidates themselves have become a major tourist attraction, bringing in plane loads of reporters and focusing significant media attention in a state famous for its coastline and its automakers.

McCain has also done well fund raising here. In my own neighborhood an afternoon fundraiser with 250 donors raised an impressive $1.2 million, which is a pretty good return on his investment, considering the whopping $2.30 he dropped for a pronto pup and a lemonade at a local hot dog stand. But now, a month before the campaign is over, McCain has dumped Michigan, canceling both his TV ads and personal appearances.

One of the reasons I moved back to Michigan from California was the sinking feeling that my vote didn’t count in presidential elections. One of the ways to make a difference in this country is to live in a swing state where you are not throwing your presidential vote away. McCain’s decision to abandon Michigan also means that we will not be seeing any more of Sarah Palin and that really hurts. Palin, who sent her son Trig to Michigan to play with a hockey team where he could attract the eye of major scouts, was heartbroken when she heard that her Michigan itinerary was being canceled:

“Oh c’mon, do we have to?” she emailed McCain campaign leaders.

Whether or not McCain’s poll numbers are looking good he needs to rethink his decision. In a surprising way this presidential campaign is an informal part of the state’s rescue plan. Without McCain sparring with Obama, Michigan’s considerable economic problems -- including an 8.9 percent unemployment rate -- can only get worse. Only when the candidates are on the ground here can they focus their full attention on an economic crisis that has largely escaped the Bush administration.

Even if McCain can’t win the state’s 17 electoral votes, Michigan is an excellent platform for his economic recovery proposals. By abandoning the state to Obama, he is ignoring the potential for a turnaround in his own campaign. If we could just get him to come back, I could give him some investment tips on real estate: the other day a home in Saginaw sold for under $1,000, including back taxes. Try finding a deal like that in Scottsdale or Sedona.

Turning your back on your own campaign workers, the people who have invested in yard signs and block parties, driven hundreds of miles to rallies is (it seems to me) a slap upside the head. If John McCain is willing to hang in there in Iraq, he can certainly muster the courage to forge ahead on Michigan’s battleground. Being thrown over for Ohio and Maine really hurts.

Blackout

By Roger Rapoport

Wall Street takes a bath and can’t figure out how to pull the plug. Will the wealthy be excluded from the next round of tax cuts? Can we get to a carbon-free economy in the next 40 years? Should background checks be waived for people who want to buy assault weapons in our nation’s capital?
You might think these issues will shape our presidential election. Think again. Sad to say, the polling booth remains one of the last places in our land where some people feel comfortable voicing their prejudices. Unfortunately there are still racists in the American woodpile.
In Michigan, the swing state where I live, some voters aren’t mired in policy issues. The first KKK signs of the election season have sprouted like mushrooms. Some voters here and elsewhere don’t have to waste time listening to debate rhetoric, attending campaign rallies, watching 30-second TV spots or opening the doors to canvassers. For them this election remains a matter of black and white.
No one knows exactly how many voters will play the race card on November 4. The idea of using the kind of Willie Horton racist ad that helped sink candidate 1988 Presidential Michael Dukakis is unthinkable in 2008. But once you’ve pulled that voting booth curtain, no one can stop you from voting your prejudices. It really is a free country. There is a good chance that this election will be decided by voters who declare they can’t support a black candidate.
I can think of more than 50,000 reasons why this approach is out of touch. Our ability to vote is inextricably linked to the bravery of more than 50,000 black men and women who have laid down their lives for this country. Most of them perished long before there was a Civil Rights Act.
Blacks have been fighting for homeland security since 1641 when they were handed tomahawks to help battle the city now known as New York. Black Minutemen fought at Concord and Lexington. A black man, Crispus Attucks, was the first American to be martyred in the 1770 Boston Massacre. More than 5,000 blacks, both free and slave, fought heroically in Rhode Island and Connecticut and were part of Washington’s army in every major Revolutionary War battle.
Long before they were freed from slavery, allowed to vote, attend school with whites or play major league baseball, blacks were honorably defending this nation. They have also helped keep the peace in unexpected ways. York, a slave, was critical to Lewis and Clark’s voyage of discovery, a wise decision in the eyes of Native Americans who welcomed the explorers in the belief that this black man was their leader. His presence may have forestalled an attack.
Blacks went on to play a critical role in the War of 1812. After the emancipation proclamation, more than 180,000 blacks fought in the Civil War, where 33,000 died. Twenty-two black soldiers were among the dead when the battleship Maine was blown apart in Havana Harbor. Over 400,000 blacks served in the First World War, including 1,100 officers. Thanks to the Ku Klux Klan, poll taxes, literacy tests and Jim Crow laws, many of these veterans were denied voting rights guaranteed in 1870 by the Fifteenth Amendment.
During World War II, the all-Black Tuskegee Airmen destroyed and damaged hundreds of enemy targets. In Germany, black American POWS were placed in segregated prisoner of war facilities, supposedly for their own protection. In some cases segregated blood banks compromised the ability of doctors to treat wounded black soldiers. Ironically, the plasma critical to saving the lives of many injured soldiers of all races was created by a blood separation process invented by a black physician, Charles Drew.
Among the forgotten black heroes of past military campaigns are some extraordinary soldiers who went above and beyond their duties to defend and protect white comrades and officers. Among the 50,000 reasons not to cast your ballot on the basis of race, creed or color is Dorie Miller, a high school football star in his native Waco, Texas, who helped support his family by enlisting as a navy mess attendant in 1939.
Promoted to the rank of cook, he was gathering up laundry on his ship, the USS West Virginia, at 6 a.m. on December 7, 1941, when Japanese Zeros began their sneak attacks. After courageously carrying off fellow sailors and the mortally wounded captain, he manned a machine gun for the first time. Turned out, he was a pretty good shot. Pacific Fleet Commander Chester Nimitz personally awarded Miller the Navy Cross in a special ceremony, the first black member of the Pacific Fleet to receive such a high honor.
Two years later he perished along with 645 other Navy men when his escort ship was torpedoed and bombed by the Japanese. Miller also received a Purple Heart, the American Defense Service Medal, The Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal. A Knox-Class frigate, the USS Miller, was named in his honor. Visit Pearl Harbor today and you’ll find a bronze plaque honoring this hero at Miller Park.
Of course Dorie Miller is only one of hundreds of thousands of heroic blacks to fight for all Americans. We don’t have exact totals because prior to the Korean War race was often not tracked (Hispanics, African Americans, Asians and Native Americans were all lumped together in a single nonwhite category).
President Truman’s decision to desegregate the Armed Forces in 1948 led to a sharp increase in black enlistments. During the Korean War, studies showed that integrated units outperformed segregated units. After blacks were allowed to serve without any restrictions they were also drafted at a higher rate than whites. For example during the Vietnam War era 16 percent of the drafted soldiers were black at a time when 11 percent of the population was black. And when the military went to an all-volunteer Army, blacks were quick to sign up. During Operation Desert Storm, black enlistees made up 24 percent of the fighting force at a time when 12 percent of the nation was black.
The bravery of our black soldiers has astonished some of our enemies. For example, black POWs captured by the Viet Cong were asked why they would risk their lives for a country where leaders like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were assassinated.
During the final weeks of the political campaign, American soldiers stationed around the world will be casting absentee ballots. Sadly, Army Specialist Andre Darnell Mitchell of Elmont, New York will not be joining them. A few weeks before the 2008 national political conventions, he died when his Humvee flipped in Mosul, Iraq. On August 11 all flags on New York state buildings were flown at half mast in his honor.
On November 4 all Americans should be remember soldiers like Darnell Mitchell and Dorie Miller. Like the more than 17,200 black men and women who have perished on American military duty since the start of the Korean War, they and their families deserve our respect and gratitude. Everyone stepping into a voting booth can honor them by remaining color blind as they cast their ballot.

WHERE'S MICHAEL?

By Roger Rapoport

Michael Moore likes to boast that he is “a dangerous guy to give a lot of money to.” He tells movie studio CEOs, “You are just giving me money to further my lifelong ambition to bring an end to the system you believe in.”
Despite his considerable personal wealth, he remains in some sense an underdog. And for the first time Moore is blazing a path that may ultimately do for the motion picture industry what Craig’s List has done to newspaper classified advertising.
His old distribution partners Harvey and Bob Weinstein are not distributing the film about his 60-city election campaign tour for John Kerry in 2004, a project they helped finance. Nor are any of his friends at Walt Disney Pictures, Warner Bros., United Artists, NBC, the BBC or Bravo. The Great Slacker Uprising, due out September 23, is being given away as a free internet download.
There are easy ways to explain his decision. The film was panned at last year’s Toronto Film Festival (where Moore had debuted as an unknown in 1988 with Roger & Me and left town on a first-class ticket to Los Angeles courtesy of Disney). Variety called the Slacker film a “self indulgent” yawner. In a year when documentaries are doing miserable at the box office, the only practical way to get the film out for the election was to self-distribute with Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Films (get your free download at http:slackeruprising.com).
While Moore insists that the nonprofit film is his personal voter registration drive, it is also a step down from 2004, when his George Bush satire, Fahrenheit 9/11, grossed a record-breaking $222 million and netted Moore an estimated $21 million. Not bad for a $6 million investment. That year Moore caused a sensation by upstaging John McCain at the Republican National Convention. Flanked by bodyguards capable of strangling evildoers with dental floss, he was traveling by private jet, propelled by the success of Fahrenheit 9/11. Now the story of that tour is a giveaway. This year Moore took a pass on the convention and was lightly mocked from the dais by one speaker, Senator Joseph Lieberman.
Moore’s new strategy is magnanimous, but it is going to be hard on fans who like to watch the big guy on the big screen. In the past Moore has voiced strong feelings on this matter. As recently as this summer’s Traverse City Film Festival, he was regaling audiences with the story of how he triggered Pauline Kael’s devastating New Yorker review of Roger & Me. She wanted to see a video, and he told her nothing doing. “I had made a movie, I told the executives at Warner Bros., not a video, a movie that was to be seen on a movie screen, not a 25” TV. No, I said, she must watch it…. on a movie screen! In a theater!”
Kael was forced to drive 150 miles in a snowstorm to watch the film at a Manhattan theater and, according to Moore, was so angry she panned the documentary and challenged its accuracy. While Kael didn’t live long enough to download The Great Slacker Uprising at home, it’s clear that Moore is no longer guaranteed the stadium-size audiences of 10,000 or more who watched his 2004 campaign tour.
While most events at the recent Traverse City Film Festival near Moore’s supersized log home on Torch Lake were sold out, he wasn’t able to fill a room at the City Opera House. His “I Worked With Michael Moore and Lived to Make This Movie” panel began with empty seats in the front row. A surprising number of audience members left early, lest they miss Sunday brunch dates.
Could Moore’s magic be wearing off? To be fair, this panel lacked the sizzle of the previous night’s glitzy charity fundraiser for AIDS orphans in Malawi, the second poorest nation on the planet. That may have had to do with the fact that the producer, writer and narrator of the African documentary I Am Because We Are, was Moore’s fellow University of Michigan dropout, Madonna, back at the top of the celebrity food chain with a new number-one hit single and about to embark on her eighth world concert tour.
The Sunday morning panel featured Michael Moore colleagues who had made their own documentaries. It had the feel of a VFW reunion. Moore and his vets eagerly compared old shrapnel wounds inflicted by the evil Hollywood empire and TV networks, which the director says he wants to torpedo even if it means lower grosses for his own work. Despite the tens of millions he has made on his own films, Moore remains in some sense the underdog. His love-hate relationship with the studios is perhaps the ultimate irony at the Traverse City Film Festival.
Moore’s fellow panelists included Jason Pollock, a fellow Midwestern college dropout who spent three years as Moore’s personal assistant and was now desperately seeking national distribution for his new documentary, The Youngest Candidate.
Not long after Pollock started with Moore in 2003, the Bowling For Columbine director’s personal security force blossomed from one to nine. There were “no ex-cops,” according to Moore. “If you’re an ex-cop there’s probably something wrong.” The idea of Moore being safeguarded by former Navy Seals, Special Forces troops and Green Berets might surprise some of the director’s diehard peacenik fans. But that’s what it takes to guard the Big Bopper of investigative journalism.
And thanks to these guards, Moore now knows what to do when someone points a gun in his direction: “You lunge toward them, instead of running. They are so discombobulated that fifty percent of the time it’s enough. The other fifty percent of the time you hope you’ve got a great will and said goodbye to loved ones.”
Pollock reminisced about Moore’s 15 minutes of infamy at the 2004 Republican National Convention, where he was denounced by John McCain, who didn’t realize that the muckraker was sitting nearby in the audience. “People saw you like a giraffe in a pink tutu,” Pollock said to Moore. “You were nearly raped on the way out.”
“That was only because we ran into (Senator) Larry Craig,” deadpanned Moore.
The director’s comedy routine was part of a nostalgia trip. Now he is conflicted about his breakthrough 1989 documentary Roger & Me, which nearly became a silent movie when he couldn’t dig up the $10,000 he needed to complete the soundtrack. A merciful New York sound production company donated their services to rescue the film.
All Traverse City Film Festival screenings began with a trailer honoring three colleagues, major donor Buzz Wilson, festival attorney Stuart Hollander and volunteer Kyle Sonnemann who had
passed away during the previous year. Yet there was no mention of former General Motors Chairman Roger Smith, the centerpiece of Moore’s Roger & Me who had gone to the great showroom in the sky in November 2007.
An earlier panel touched on perhaps the greatest irony of the festival. Michigan now has the most generous filmmaker tax credits in the country—up to 42 percent of production budgets. For Moore, who had made Roger & Me a hit by attacking General Motors for winning huge tax breaks at the expense of the working class, this deal created an ethical dilemma. Although he had encouraged Governor Jennifer Granholm to support the film industry with tax breaks, some legislators believed the deal was far too generous to Hollywood.
Michigan has already approved applications to subsidize films worth over $300 million luring such distinguished directors and performers as Clint Eastwood, Drew Barrymore and Sigourney Weaver. Some of these credits give filmmakers cash refunds for taxes they never paid in the first place. Moore himself, who is now planning to start shooting a film in the Traverse City area, could be eligible for corporate tax credits well beyond Roger Smith’s wildest dreams.
Moore also discussed—but declined to show—the legendary pilot for his proposed Fox late-night talk show, one of the most famous television interviews that has never aired. The would be talk show host stunned a studio audience with a remarkable lead-in. “Our next guest, a Heisman trophy winner and star of many TV shows and movies, please welcome Mr. O.J. Simpson.”
The interview, just two months after Simpson was found not guilty in the 1994 murder of his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman, began with a question Moore was dying to ask—the relative merits of moving the professional football kickoff back 10 yards. After discussing sports for five minutes, Moore said: “You know O.J., back in your day, you caught the ball with your bare hands. These days receivers wear these tight fitting gloves . . .”
Unlike his morning film festival panel, a sneak preview, Mike’s Surprise, later in the day drew long lines. Sadly no Americans beyond those present in Traverse City would be able to see it. As security guards kept a close watch on the audience, Moore discussed his decision to exhibit a film not scheduled for American release. This movie was “something that I have been afraid to show since 9/11, and I am not going to show it anywhere else in this country, other than here tonight. I will release it in Europe and elsewhere, but really, for my own peace of mind and my own safety even this many years after 9/11, I have a stipulation that it cannot be shown in the USA. But I am going to show it to the good folks who bought tickets.”
A film version of Moore’s one-and-a-half-man show (wink wink) Michael Moore Live in the fall of 2002, at London’s Roundhouse Theater included a politics-and-geography game show called “Stump the Yank,” in which average Brits easily won over American Ivy Leaguers. Moore also had great fun demonstrating the use of items banned from planes by the Transportation Security Agency. They included lawn blowers, hand grenades, cattle prods, meat cleavers and portable drills. He then called for audience members to give up their supermarket and gas station loyalty cards, prompting some to toss them on the stage. As he began slicing the cards in half, he appealed to audience members to “be loyal to yourself and your conscience and not BP.” He also asked the audience to question news coverage of the 9/11 tragedy. “Why don’t we read ‘multi-millionaire kills 3,000’? How come we haven’t rounded up all the multimillionaires? It was a multimillionaire who did it.”
For no apparent reason, Moore left out one of the funniest scenes from the stage shows—a live call to a McDonald’s in Kuwait in search of Osama Bin Laden. This would have been the perfect lead-in to the most controversial part of the film. He argued that the 9/11 planes might not have hit the World Trade Center or the Pentagon if a different demographic had dominated the passenger list. “If these planes had been filled with 90 black guys, tell me what they would have done?” he asked. “Or 90 firefighters, or 90 people from South Central or the South Bronx. If you are in a comfortable class, don’t raise a ruckus. Someone will come and save you.”
Moore’s decision not to release Michael Moore Live in America was coupled with his wish that his country would one day “come to a sane place,” open to his political satire on 9/11. But it also raised questions about his ability to make a difference in the upcoming election.
In 2000 his decision to do hilarious campaign warm-up acts for Ralph Nader appearances was essential to his former employer’s campaign.
In 2004 he barnstormed like a rock star to defeat Bush.
But in 2008 his announced focus is on state and congressional elections, hoping to help the Democrats and Obama undo Bush’s mistakes or at least create a veto-proof margin in the event of a McCain victory. His new book, Mike’s Election Guide focuses on Congressional campaigns where Democrats can unseat Republicans.
Moore’s passionate call for humanitarianism and social justice brought cheers from audience members who had skipped a beautiful Grand Traverse Bay sunset to sit inside a school auditorium with him. But at least one spectator, Mary Holland, a Lake Orion stay-at-home mom enrolled in law school this fall, played devil’s advocate. She wondered how he “reconciled a life with access to riches with a sense of empathy and charity for those less fortunate.
“You spoke about the disparity between rich and poor, black and white. This theater is filled with white people, and that makes me sad.”
To Moore, this kind of criticism seemed off target. He had donated hundreds of thousands dollars to get the film festival started and reopen its principal venue, the State Theater. This year, he had rejected proposals to price some Madonna tickets at the $500 level. (Even so, tickets for her sold-out show had gone up on eBay for as much as $3000 a pair.)
Mary Holland countered that the $25 ticket price made it impossible for her and her husband to see Madonna’s documentary about orphaned Malawi children. And there was no way she could afford a ticket to meet the third world filmmakers at the special $25 opening and closing night parties. “My thought is that you could bus interested but impoverished people up here to see some films. My only concern is what they might do if they knew how bad they really had it via comparison to all of us up here so very fortunate to enjoy a film festival at our ‘mini-Hollywood.”
Moore deflected the question by reminding his affluent audience of the dangers of an economic system where the wealthiest 10 percent control the country. At the same time, Moore expressed optimism that the film industry’s decision to bring new projects to Michigan would mean good new jobs, including $20 an hour just for carrying coffee to the sets of directors like himself. This, he reminded the crowd, was a long way from his own pioneer days in Flint shooting Roger & Me. During the filming of a poor black family being evicted from their home on Christmas Eve, a camera battery died. One of his colleagues pulled a battery from his car and hooked it up to the camera, enabling Moore and crew to film the sheriff tossing all the family’s belongings on the curb—even their Christmas tree.
The power source, a 1979 Mercury Capri battery, belonged to cameraman Bruce Schermer, who was conspicuously absent from the stage at the Opera House event. Schermer, who was paid a paltry $5,000 for shooting 60 percent of Roger & Me over a two-year period, recalls in a separate interview that Moore then took a more direct approach to obtaining power for the portable lighting system: “We just plugged our cords into the home wall sockets of the woman who was being evicted. Hopefully the landlord ended up paying for it.”
The election of Barack Obama, whom Moore supports, could be bad for the filmmaker’s box office when he returns to theatrical releases. At least that’s the view of another key colleague who was not part of the Opera House panel in Traverse City. John Pierson, the producer’s representative who sold Roger & Me to Warner Brothers for a record breaking $3 million in 1988, points out that Moore’s biggest film failure came during the Clinton years. His comedy feature, Canadian Bacon, co-produced by Madonna, cost $10 million to make and grossed only $132,000 at the box office. “Moore was dying during the Clinton years,” Pierson recalls. “The election of George Bush was the best thing that ever happened to him.”
Still, Moore did ridicule Clinton on issues ranging from the bombing of Kosovo to welfare reform, just as he had criticized previous Democrats from Walter Mondale to Jimmy Carter. Can Obama expect anything less?
Moore says has not yet decided whether to apply for the Michigan film subsidy. But even if he saves millions from these controversial tax breaks in a state that leads the nation in unemployment, he is not assured of an easy path in the years ahead.

******

Roger Rapoport is the author of Citizen Moore: The Making of an American Iconoclast, winner of the biography gold award in ForeWord Magazine’s Book of The Year competition. The book is published in America by RDR Books, in the United Kingdom by Methuen and France by Al Terre Editions.

Nobody Is Spared: An Interview with John Crace

By Christopher Carver

Discussed: Books in competition with other forms of media, creative writing classes, and what makes a strong novel.

The New York Times has called The Digested Read "The Best book-related feature in any of this planet's English Language Newspapers."

The Digested Read is John Crace's gift to the modern reader enabling, in five hundred words or less, a "digested" synopsis of contemporary books in several different genres. In his own words: "The basic premise for The Digested Read is that it should be the book that has created the most media noise that week. Unfortunately publishing is an industry like any other and books are published on their perceived ability to make money. It goes without saying that authors with big reputations tend to sell more, even though their books often fail to match their reputation."

I can tell you, as an American reader, I thumbed right to the section of his book titled Americana, and was summarily unhappy with the result. Many of the writers I admired had been torn to shreds. So let's just say I started forming an unfavorable opinion of the guy. I will also tell you, however, that after talking with him I began to understand the approach he had to both his column and reading books, disarming any negative feelings I'd had of his abilities as a reviewer. He chatted with me from his office at The Guardian in London.

RDR BOOKS: What led you to the approach/form that you have for your column (aside from the obvious length of a newspaper column)? Does it have anything to do with the dwindling attention span/competition with other forms of media on the modern reader? Or did this just happen to be what worked best for you?

JOHN CRACE: I think books can sustain themselves. Within the self-limiting genre of a newspaper column, if you’re going to digest something as a reader than you’ve got to kind of keep it short really. I don’t think there’s any point of trying to digest it in 5,000 words. [The reader] would sort of lose the point and immediacy. It is part review but it’s also part entertainment as well. They are meant to be accurate, but they’re meant to be kind of funny, too. I mean, I guess, it’s always quite difficult because with the classics it’s slightly different because a lot of people will know them. People may not have read or have a good idea about [a contemporary book I'm reviewing], but the point is to keep them interested, get enough information across, and give them something to nourish them and entertain them at the same time.

RDR BOOKS: You’ve reviewed the works of some of my favorite writers and artists – Dave Eggers, Bill Bryson, Nick Hornby, & Bob Dylan to name a few – all of whom weren’t spared your acerbic wit, but it does seem like you’re less harsher to some than others. To you, what makes a great novel or book? What are some contemporary examples on either side of the Atlantic that have strong potential?

JOHN CRACE: For me, it’s really important that a book has a strong narrative arc and good characters. Books have to have a good idea, and have to be saying something at the same time. I don’t have the time for high-concept, postmodernist type books. Great fiction focuses on major themes of broad general interest and always requires an author who is passionate about his subject.

RDR BOOKS: To what extent do you think literature can compete with television and other forms of media? Why do you think, with a dwindling readership, that short stories aren’t more popular? What do you make of this?

JOHN CRACE: I don't know. I think it’s really hard to write consistently good short stories. In recent years Will Self (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Self) has written some really good short stories, but four out of ten will be duff. I’ve never attempted to write a short story. Publishers don’t want them because they can’t sell them. People don’t write them because publishers don’t want to publish them anyway.

RDR BOOKS: What do you think of the countless M.F.A. programs cropping up across the United States or of creative writing classes in general? Do you think they have the danger of producing, essentially, the same kind of writer?

JOHN CRACE: I don't think you can teach creativity. You can teach people technique and how to be more skillful writers, but I think that the creative bit is misleading, or a kind of misnomer. I can tell a mile off by someone that has done a creative writing course – utterly sterile and utterly formulaic – very competent, overwritten, and over-analyzed.

RDR BOOKS: You’ve written books yourself (“Baby Alarm” & “The Second Half”), which The Guardian describes as “semi-fictional memoirs” – where do they come from? What inspires your own writing?

JOHN CRACE: Other people, talking with other people, you think about things, or I'll have general ideas that I’m kind of kicking around. I’m not one of these people that can start writing and see where it’s going to go. I generally like to have a fairly clear idea of where I’m going. That’s not to say I have everything nailed down before I begin, but I’d like to have a certain amount worked out in my head – plot, characters, ideas that will sustain me -- rather than just start with a very loose character and see what happens.

The Digested Read is published by RDR Books in America. You can find it here.