My fifth novel, The
Sisters Montclair, has recently launched and I’ve been visiting a lot of
book clubs. I’m always slightly
apprehensive at these face-to-face meetings, because I have the impression that
Cathy Holton in Person, is somehow less impressive than Cathy Holton the
Writer. Looking around at the polite
faces as I drone on about some event that colored my last novel, I often wonder
if I’m on the verge of putting my listeners to sleep.
Flannery O’Connor once complained, when discussing an
upcoming television interview, that she was afraid she’d stare blankly at the
camera and utter such memorable lines as “Huh?” and “Ah dunno,” to the
interviewer’s questions. I know exactly what she meant. On the page, writers can make themselves
sound witty and erudite. We have the
advantage of that most essential tool of good prose; the rewrite. We can sit in a darkened room for days
constructing and reconstructing one line until we get it perfect. To a reader it may seem that our perfection
is innate, a lucky coincidence of fate and natural-born talent, but I can tell
you it’s actually the result of a great deal of hard work and
determination. It takes a lot of effort
to be funny, or philosophical, or blindingly lyrical. Any writer who tells you otherwise is
bluffing. There are few geniuses among
us. Most of us are just competent liars
with a good work ethic.
At a recent book club meeting, an admiring reader read out
several lines she had bookmarked in one of my novels.
“Did I write that?” I deadpanned. Much
laugher. (Occasionally, I can be
entertaining.)
The truth is, I remember that passage very well. I must have worked on it for weeks,
rewriting, deleting, rewriting, circling back with a frenzied determination
that only a true obsessive compulsive could appreciate. But in the end, I wrote something that was
good, something that I can be proud of for years to come. A passage that makes me appear, to the casual
reader at least, like something of a literary genius.
Now if only I could rewrite my personal appearances.
