Arts on the Airwaves

ARTS ON THE AIRWAVES

TERRY
If you're just joining us, my guest is Larry Dawson, author of the new book Yes, This Slim, Mediocre Novel Is Actually $22.95. Larry, I’ve read your novel, and I also read the cover blurb, and I couldn’t help noticing a marked similarity between your protagonist, Barry Lawson, and you. I’m wondering, did you set out to write a novel that was actually a thinly veiled autobiography?

LARRY
Hah hah, it’s really funny that you should say that, Terry, because in actuality Barry and I are nothing alike. Just for starters, he’s at least 1 1/2 inches taller than I am. Also, whereas I was born in Toronto and then moved at age seven to Syracuse, he, by contrast, was born in Ottawa and then moved at age eight to Buffalo. So you can see why it really knocked me out when you came up with the goofy idea that he was supposed to resemble me.

TERRY
I—uh—still can’t help drawing several parallels. For example, in the book, Barry—who incidentally is a journalist, just as you are a novelist—

LARRY
Exactly, Terry, there you are again. I write fiction—like my new book. Barry writes nonfiction.

TERRY
Yes, although as the story opens, Barry has taken a six-month sabbatical to work on a novel. I thought you said he wrote nonfiction.

LARRY
[PEEVISHLY] Journalists can take time off to write novels. I’m not aware of any regulation against it. But anyway, when a journalist writes a novel, it’s different from a novelist writing a novel.

TERRY
But not as different, say, as if he weren’t a writer at all, or had never lived in Canada and moved to upstate New York as a child, or for that matter if the narrator didn’t constantly describe him as wearing “the clothes the author is wearing in the dust jacket photo.”

LARRY
Look, if you’re expecting me to be some kind of fantasy writer, you’ve got the wrong guy. I don’t write far-fetched yarns about people not being writers and not being born in Canada—I leave that to the sci-fi crowd. I write from what’s real.

TERRY
[AFTER FIVE SECONDS OF DEAD AIR] Getting back to the scene where Barry won’t accept the fact that his television doesn’t know when he wants it to change channels ... I’m wondering if you ever had that—uh—problem in your own life.

LARRY
[HEATEDLY] Well, why should he accept that? Barry is a writer, not some kind of soulless technician! It’s easy enough for people to go up to someone sensitive like Barry and insist that he change the channel himself—hell, we all have things we’d like to change in our lives, if we could—but if he could do that, he wouldn’t be the person that I am!

TERRY
You know, it’s funny, Larry, but talking to you now reminds me of a scene in your book where Barry is describing his book to his agent. If I could just read from your book for a moment:

"Well, Barry," said the agent, "your protagonist, Harry, seems essentially to be a self-portrait."

"It’s really weird that you should get that impression," Barry responded.

LARRY
So what are you saying?

TERRY
Well, perhaps you could describe to our listeners how you came to write that scene.

LARRY
Certainly, Terry. I was just sitting down at the computer when I realized I’d forgotten to brush my teeth. So I turned off the computer and went into the bathroom, which is two—no, three doors down the hall from my study, on the left. I unscrewed the toothpaste cap and put a little toothpaste on my toothbrush. Then I brushed the front surfaces of my top teeth, and—this is interesting—you know how you’re supposed to use up-and-down strokes?

TERRY
Uh-huh.

LARRY
Well, that’s how I did it. Then I brushed the back surfaces and the chewing surfaces, and then I did the same for the bottom teeth. Then I rinsed my mouth and screwed the toothpaste cap back on. So anyway, some of your listeners may be aware of how some bathrooms have light switches on pull-chains and others have wall switches. Mine has a wall switch. So I went to the wall switch and switched the light off, and then I went back to the computer and wrote that scene you just read.

TERRY
We’re going to take a short break.