Like Shaking Hands With God: A Conversation About Writing
by:
Vonnegut, Kurt
Stringer, Lee
(moderator), Ross Klaven
Shay, Art (Photographer)
Publisher:
Seven Stories Press
Published:November 1, 1999
ISBN:158322002X
Format:Hardcover
Pages:64
Description:
Amazon.com
Kurt Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions): writer of wild, satiric, outrageous fiction. Lee Stringer (Grand Central Winter): one-time homeless crack addict who discovered that pencils are not just drug implements. Kurt Vonnegut and Lee
Stringer: a mutual admiration society. Like Shaking Hands with God: a transcription of two moderated conversations between Vonnegut and Stringer--one before a bookstore audience, one over lunch.
Shaking Hands has a slender profile and a pretty
cover. But the only thing slight about these conversations is that they leave the reader wanting more. The book is billed as "a conversation about writing," but it is as much about life as about writing. Neither Vonnegut nor Stringer is interested in
holing up in a garret to write. Vonnegut makes any excuse to go out and rub elbows with the folks who buy lottery tickets. Stringer wonders, "Can you write anything on Park Avenue, really?" Vonnegut laments his happy childhood as "no way for a writer to
begin." Stringer panics--while he wrote his first book as if on a high, the next one may emerge from an awareness of Oprah and marketability.
Vonnegut and Stringer are passionate about one another's work, passionate about life, and passionate
about writing, but not so much so that they ever, for a moment, lose their sense of irony or humor. In the age of the sound bite, literature can be deemed, on some level, useless. Stringer praises writing, in that context, as "a struggle to preserve our
right to be not so practical." And Vonnegut? "We are here on Earth to fart around," he proclaims in Timequake (excerpted here). "Don't let anybody tell you any different!" --Jane Steinberg
Product Description:
On October 1, 1998, Kurt Vonnegut
and Lee Stringer spoke in front of several hundred enthralled fans at a New York City bookstore. During the course of that magical evening, the conversation touched on the process of writing, being a writer, as well as what it means to be human. This
little book proves that these two writers are as articulate and moving on the printed page as they are in person.
Track your book collections, book libraries with our software:
- tiny libraries, personal book collections: try our simple book organizer
- for small libraries we offer small and powerful library software for Windows
#commissionsearned
PrimaSoft, as an Amazon Associate, receives a commission from qualifying purchases made on the affiliate links we share.