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September 01, 2004

REPORT: EGGERS AT BOOK SOUP

Special thanks to Katherine Darnell for providing us with this report on last night's Eggers festivities at Book Soup ...

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Last night I attended the frenzied reading at Booksoup in Hollywood for “Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans” (a collection of humor writing from McSweeney’s) and Jim Shepard’s novel “Project X” and story collection “Love and Hydrogen”.

I stupidly arrived only 20 minutes before the event, only to be confronted with a long line and a lit “bouncer” holding people back at the door. Peeks through the windows revealed a packed crowd jostling for elbowroom. At 7:00 p.m. I was escorted inside the Booksoup Annex and shown to my seat on the floor. There were roughly 30 chairs and easily twice that many people perched on bookshelves, standing on the edges of the room, and crunched on the floor. While the staff informed us that Dave Eggers was running late and Jim Shepard needed to be “found”, someone passed out 826 Valencia flyers and promotional materials.

The event started at 7:20. Eggers began with a funny preamble of sorts, warming up the crowd with his much-anticipated presence. Eggers is an amusing master of ceremonies, always funny and warm, and his energy and charisma is palpable. And yet, I never once forgot that he was there to sell product – books, political events, CD’s.

Jim Shepard was the first to read, from his novel “Project X” about alienated eighth graders. Shepard is a sharp reader, and seemed to have many fans in the audience. Next up, Eggers introduced “Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans,” while the Booksoup staff worked to pack more people onto the crowded floor. Peter Ferland read a hysterical piece titled, “Circumstances Under Which I Would Have Sex With My Fellow Jurors”. Tom O’Connor followed that with a clever piece of fictional quotes from a Hollywood boss. Alysia Gray Painter read “Candle Party” in the persona of a cloying, overly peppy candle-selling hostess. Paul Tollis [I’m not sure of the spelling of his name] made a few digs at his ex-employers KCRW and Ruth Seymour before reading a very short piece.

Dave Eggers followed these readings with a few short pieces from other “Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans” contributors before pitching the “Future Dictionary of America”, a political anthology organized with the help of Jonathan Safran Foer and his “Downtown for Democracy” organization. The pitch for “Future Dictionary of America” was rather long, involving lots of selling points on the free CD that comes with the book and the CD’s availability from moveon.org. Eggers followed that hard sell with another long pitch, this one for 826 Valencia, which is starting a program in LA and is looking for volunteers. Eggers’ enthusiasm and energy is catching, and his goals are beyond admirable, but I found myself wishing that the hard sell and politics could have been kept to a minimum. I would have preferred to hear more readings from a collection that seems like an enchanting romp through contemporary post-ironic humor, and less preaching. The reading ended an hour after it began, and the line for signatures was long. While I was leaving, I passed by at least twenty people outside, who couldn’t get into the reading, but who stuck around nonetheless, books in hand, ready to line up for their signatures.

Katherine Darnell is a writer living in Los Angeles. She received a Notable Mention in The Best American Non-Required Reading of 2003, and her work has been previously published in Small Spiral Notebook, Drunken Boat, and The Adirondack Review, among others. She is a graduate of Columbia University's MFA program and is currently working on her first novel.

Posted at 02:56 PM |

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Comments

David Kowalsky

I was at the Seattle reading the other night. It was pretty similar to what Katherine reported for LA.
I also had those same kind of feelings about the "hard sell" component of this book reading event.

Posted by: David Kowalsky | September 03, 2004 at 01:30 PM

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