I’m sitting in a Starbucks outside the WOR AM 710 studios in Manhattan waiting for my interview with Bill Bertenshaw, sipping a coffee I can ill-afford, thinking, I hope today’s interview goes better than yesterday morning’s. 

 

Yesterday morning, the radio interviewer kept getting my name wrong. I wanted him to call me “Andrew Valentine,” because that’s the name on the dust jacket and that’s the name that people may use to look up the book if they can’t find it on the shelves or on the Net. And, it’s just good journalism to get the facts straight, too.

 

But I didn’t want to embarrass the guy, so I thought a funny story I’ve been telling for months might be a subtle, effective way to straighten everything out.

     “My dad is very proud of me that this book was published, but he’s even more proud of me that I didn’t use my last name – just my first and middle names – as the author, Andrew Valentine.”

     Being in the journalist’s field, the interviewer asked me, “Why’s that?”

     “Well, the book has a lot of graphic sex and violence,” I said. I want readers to know what they’re getting themselves into

     “What does your mom think?”

     “Oh, she’s very proud of me, too, but I don’t think this is her kind of book.

     “Shame on you for writing something that would make your mother blush!”

     “I don't want you to get the impression it's just a string of curse-words; there is a lot of thought and quality in it, too. Other people my parents' age have read it and liked it, it’s won awards, and I have legions of fans on Facebook,” I said, feeling suddenly defensive. Since when did my mother’s taste become the standard by which literature will be measured? If I wrote only what my mother likes, I’d be living in my parents’ basement, creating high drama about rainbows and butterflies. Bitter Things was not written with them in mind. "It’s for a different target audience than my parents, Mr. Interviewer."

 

I was calm on the radio, but I started getting hot under my collar. When was the last time my parents bought a novel for themselves, other than Bitter Things, and read it? 1952? I love my parents, but really, where does this interviewer get off telling me that good writing must necessarily produce the benediction of my parents. Is that how Philip Roth writes? Anne Rice, Stephen King?   In fact, it can be agued that just the opposite is true – that only once we leave our comfort-zone can we really feel we’re writing something meaningful and powerful!

 

UPDATE: The interview witl Bill Bertenshaw at WOR AM 710 was excellent.

 

 

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