Don't Let The Baby Cry | Ann Bauer

I attended a reading last night at Prairie Lights. The author was Amber Dermont and she?s gorgeous. I mean Amber personally, but more to the point her writing.

She read sections of her novel The Starboard Sea that described things I know little about?sailing, Robert Mitchum movies, what it is to be a boy having sex with his male roommate for the first time?and each passage contained the same magic, causing me to see with sudden clarity. The fickle wind that drives a sailboat ? the cleft in an actor?s chin ? the way a boy will stroke his partner?s penis in exactly the same way he might his own.

I was mesmerized, sitting in the back of the room with my eyes mostly closed. But during the Q&A after the reading, a question was asked and answered and I sat stock upright with concern.

The question was about writing and how you get it done. Amber had told the story about selling her novel as a partial (never happens) but only on the condition that she complete the book in nine months.? The many young students in the audience?eager writers all who would kill to be like her?awaited her wisdom. And this is what she said: She can write because she remains unencumbered. No partner, no children. ?There is no baby crying in the background,? she said, swinging her long, beautiful hair. ?And that?s a good thing. Because if there were, I?d let it cry.?

She went on to talk about art and how it goes out into the world, which is no pretension on her part. The Starboard Sea is, indisputably, art. The prose is dark and direct, smart with activity and surprises. The story aches its way along, exposing small cultural errors and monumental personal ones. Janet Maslin called Dermont?s book ?a rich, quietly artful novel.?

No, I have no quarrel with this book or the praise that?s been heaped upon it. But the idea that writers must remain alone and untethered in order to create art? That disturbs me. In particular, because it?s something I only ever hear women say.

If you want to be a great writer, you must be selfish. You cannot be tethered to other people. You can have idle sexual relationships or even a steady one?so long as you both agree it comes after your writing. You cannot, for Christ?s sake, have a baby. You may not even want to risk getting a dog. This is part of the great mythos of the Iowa Writer?s Workshop. And wonderful as the workshop is, it?s a message I don?t particularly like.

On the other hand, let?s look at the facts. Amber Dermont has produced a stellar first novel that was reviewed NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE by the New York Times. She has several degrees, including a Ph.D. in creative writing. She is an associate professor with an award-winning book of short stories due out in spring. Half the notable writers in Iowa City (and they are legion) showed up last night to hear her speak.

Ann Bauer is a midlist women?s novelist who?despite excellent pre-pub reviews?had to fight to get a listing in the Iowa City Press Citizen for her own Prairie Lights reading two nights hence. She is, let?s face it, best known for her essays in Salon and ELLE about childrearing, autism, marriage and heartbreak. She works in advertising to support her writing career and send her kids to college. She allows her husband to consume mammoth amounts of her mind space and time.

It is possible that I would be more successful, smarter, better reviewed, the creator of great art, were I single and childless. But I doubt it. I was an awkward, funny-looking girl from Minneapolis who went to public school; to this day, my staid, Midwestern parents think of novel writing as a whimsical and rather childish career. Amber Dermont, the daughter of two rare book dealers, grew up in New England, attended an elite prep school and decided (she told us last night) to attend the Iowa workshop when she was nine.

What?s more: she may just have more God-given talent. But I doubt her decision to remain unattached is what has propelled her career.

There were hordes of young women in the audience last night and they were hanging on the sophisticated, wise writer?s every word. ?Writers are terrible people,? she told them. ?Writing a novel means living inside your book for months, shutting out everything and everyone else.?

And I wanted to stand, to talk about the writers I know who raise children and take care of aging parents. The ones who have been married for 30, 40, 50 years to the same loving laboring men. We are not, most of us, as successful [by literary standards] as Amber Dermont. I suspect, however, that our cards were dealt early; these outcomes are simply what the deck held.

But say I?m wrong. If I could change things, would I? Give up the husband(s) and children?all the misery and joy and mad family jumble?to get one extraordinary cutline from Janet Maslin? No. I would not.

If I were the one standing in front of those girls, for better or worse, I?d tell them to live as they like and write when they can. Love well, marry if it suits them, anchor themselves with people. And don?t let the baby cry.

Source: http://www.theforevermarriage.com/?p=1242

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