Working 9 to 5

The Receptionist: An Education at The New Yorker by Janet Groth (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $14.95, 240 pages)

Then there was the shame of the writer who doesn’t write. The me who carried within my breast in equal shares the conviction that I could write and the certainty that I could not.

Longtime fans of The New Yorker magazine are the perfect audience for this memoir. Ms. Groth writes of her 20+ years as a receptionist on the 18th floor of the building where the magazine offices were located. The floor housed 40 writers and six or more cartoonists. The reception desk can be likened to a ringside seat at a much-loved and revered weekly publication.

The opening chapters serve as a low-key introduction to Ms. Groth, a newly-minted graduate of the University of Minnesota with aspirations of becoming a writer. The move to New York City was like going to a foreign land after living in the Mid-West. These slowly-evolving vignettes are strung together to illustrate her rather humble beginnings at the magazine.

The vignettes offer the reader glimpses into a world of art and literature based in Manhattan where the game of six degrees of separation can be traced back to Ms. Groth’s earliest years – beginning in 1957, right up to her “graduation” to the world of college teaching in 1978 after earning a PhD in literature from NYU. Her grammar is impeccable and the evenly-paced narrative becomes remarkably open with many elements of her life that are both risque and expected for life in Manhattan during the sexual revolution. It is as if the reader is delving into all aspects of Ms. Groth’s life after getting to know her.

A young woman whose job is receptionist in a rarefied circumstance sees and hears rather remarkable things. She can become indispensable to the staff and literally become part of their lives outside of work. This is especially true when she is a constant presence in an otherwise changing array of personnel. Clearly, some of the long-time and revered writers and editors form the nucleus of the staff and their interactions with Ms. Groth are fascinating.

Today it would be unusual for an employee to maintain a receptionist position for such a long time in one department or company or area of an organization. To her credit, Ms Groth provides the reader with an even-handed account of her ownership of what transpired over her two decades at The New Yorker. It is a sui generis true story.

Well recommended.

Ruta Arellano

A review copy was received from the publisher.

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Over and Over

“I said over and over and over again, this dance is going to be a drag…”   Over and Over (Bobby Day)

Up All Night: My Life and Times in Rock Radio by Carol Miller (Ecco, $26.99, 272 pages)

There are books that you really, really want to like or love but – like a blind date – sometimes it just doesn’t work out.   This memoir about New York City FM “radio legend Carol Miller” promised to offer some juicy information about “the history of rock and roll.”   Unfortunately, it does not deliver the goods.

The best, most direct and honest, part of this autobiography is when Miller tells us about her battles with breast cancer.   But there’s so little here on topic, and the relevant sections are separated by so many pages, it might well have been condensed into a decent magazine article for The New Yorker.

What’s frustrating and confusing about this supposed “tell all” account is that it’s more like a “tell virtually nothing” account.   Miller writes about the many people who have done her wrong – like a female doctor who misdiagnosed her breast cancer; a radio station chief who constantly groped her; a prospective second husband who bailed on her, etc. – but then fails to tell us who, exactly, are these people.   She tells us that they are entitled to their privacy.   Maybe so, but then the question arises as to how on earth the folks at Ecco Press fact-checked this book?   If we don’t know who Miller is writing about, how do we know what portion or portions of her story are true?

Further confusion is added to the mix when she does describe the specific faults of her ex-husband, MTV V-J Mark Goodman.   (Don’t get your hopes up, it’s pretty dull stuff.)   And she spills the dirt when it comes to her time spent with Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and record producer Jimmy Iovine back in the day (the late 70s).   Since she’s been hiding identities throughout the memoir, why list their names unless it’s because, as she acknowledges, they are well-known to the followers of TV’s American Idol?   Are young viewers of Idol supposed to buy the book just to get the dirt on Tyler and Iovine?

“And so I spent the night in David Cloverdale’s suite.   I’m not going into the details.   You already know what happened.”

Ah, and then Miller tells us about her one-night stand with a known rock star while informing her readers that she won’t go into details as they already know what happened…  Maybe we would not have been interested in the personal details in the first place, so – Why bring it up at all?

As if this wasn’t crazy making enough, Miller also offers some personal opinions that might lead one to question her judgement skills.   She says of the band Led Zeppelin that they “were the definitive act of the rock format.”   Wow, really?   (Ever heard of a band called The Beatles?   The Rolling Stones?   Queen?)   And she tells us that Manhattan rock jock Howard Stern is “brilliant.”   The very same Howard Stern who would “speculate as to the color of my (Miller’s) panties that day…  (while) making obviously false but all-in-fun claims that he had a stack of naked pictures of me.”   This is what passes for fun and brilliant these days?   How sad.

To her credit, Miller offers a few engaging stories such as one about how nice Paul McCartney was to her after hearing her state on the radio that the band known as Wings was actually a very good set of musicians.   She also relates a story about Guns N’ Roses and Slash that might be true, although it made me think of the line attributed to Rod Stewart:  “Most of the great stories in rock and roll’s short history are false.”

If Up All Night were a song, I’d say that it doesn’t have much of a beat and you can’t dance to it.   Mr. Clark, on a scale of 1 to 100, I give it a 64.   Yes, “over and over and over again, this dance is going to be a drag.”

Joseph Arellano

A review copy was provided by the publisher.   Kids, don’t try to read this book at home.

Note: For those wondering who rock star David Cloverdale is, he sang lead with Deep Purple before founding Whitesnake.

Connection

What the Dog Saw and other adventures by Malcolm Gladwell (Back Bay Books; $16.99; 410 pages)

Learning is so much fun when Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers) is the instructor.   Gladwell’s calm but engaging style is the common thread in this anthology composed of nineteen essays previously published in the New Yorker magazine.   There is just enough cohesion among the essays to  make for smooth transitions.   Yes, Gladwell cites some facts and studies used by other authors; however, his use of the material takes on a new look when seen through his question and answer format.

This reviewer was fascinated by the piece titled, “The Ketchup Conundrum.”   The reader is presented with the statements, “Mustard now comes in dozens of varieties.   Why has ketchup stayed the same?”   This is a condiment that dominates most others, whether it’s in a booth at a burger joint or on a family’s kitchen table.   One brand in particular rises above the rest in taste tests, and that’s Heinz.   Gladwell provides a charming history of ketchup along with the various challenges that have been made to the Heinz dominance of the field.   After reading the essay, I felt compelled to buy a bottle of Heinz for my own taste test.   Mind you, our household is rarely the scene of actual cooking so I had to be creative in using my purchase.   Happily, the flavor of Heinz blends perfectly with cottage cheese resulting in a pseudo-macaroni and cheese flavor without the carbs.

The preceding example is indicative of the connections that can be made to the everyday life of the reader.   This anthology is by no means a heavy-duty literary work; rather, it prompts conversations with family and friends.   Isn’t that what knowledge does?

Highly recommended.

This review was written by Ruta Arellano.   A copy of the book was purchased for her.

Inside The Vaults

On Writing

As I write this, my first novel, The Vaults, has not even hit the shelves yet (it will have by the time you read this).   Once people learn that I have a novel being published, they are invariably curious.   I think this is because the publishing process and world is so opaque to people outside of it.   One of the questions that I get asked all of the time is where I get my ideas.   The quick answer is that I read a lot of newspaper and magazine articles and try to remember the interesting stuff.   I have a file of newspaper and magazine clippings that I kept in the nineties and early OOs, which seems pretty quaint these days when you can access just about anything via the web.   I say that I get my ideas this way, but this shouldn’t be confused with the actual research that I do once I have the idea or, as is generally the case, ideas.

Let me give you an example of how this worked with The Vaults.   Back in the mid-90s, about seven or eight years before I wrote The Vaults, I read an article in The New Yorker by Gerald Posner about the Berlin Document Center.   The essence of the story was that the Berlin Document Center contained a large percentage of the captured Nazi files (an incredible number of documents) and, though housed in Germany, had been controlled by the U.S., which had allowed easy access for scholars and journalists.   The article was written just before control of the archives was turned over to the newly reunited German government.

This caused a great deal of concern because the German laws regarding access to the archives were far more restrictive than the U.S. policies.   As a hedge against the anticipated restrictions, the U.S. copied every document onto microfilm to be kept in the U.S. and made available under previous policies.   What really caught my attention were the protests raised by scholars who claimed that the black and white microfilm images wouldn’t be adequate replacements for the actual files.   For instance, many documents were out-of-order and only by lining up staple holes could they be accurately reconstructed.   Black and white film also lost crucial bits of information, such as the color of pen in which remarks were written.   (Ink from a green pen figures in The Vaults and I was surprised to find in rereading the Posner article a couple of months ago that he specifically mentions green ink – the color used by Himmler for his comments.)

The twin ideas of a huge trove of information and the “meta-data” that could be discovered in physical files inspired the creation of the Vaults of the title, an enormous repository of criminal records overseen by an archivist who is obsessed with the minutiae of the documents.   This is the foundation on which The Vaults was constructed.   From here, I conducted focused research on the 1920s and the 30s, the legendary gangsters of the time, and other period topics that add richness and detail to the story.

I’ve tweaked this technique as I’ve written new books.   My second book, which will be published in the fall of 2011, is influenced by reading I did for a course in cults I took while pursuing my masters.   I augmented this with reading books by and about anti-communists in the 1950s.   I knew that my third book, which I am currently writing, needed to take place in the 1960s and this was the starting point for my reading.   This effort continues to involve reading the works of radical theorists and about the exploits of people like Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary.   It is one of the nice things about writing novels, feeling obligated to read about things you find interesting.

This article was written by Toby Ball whose novel The Vaults will be released by St. Martin’s Press on Tuesday, September 14, 2010.