To some degree, our backgrounds are very different. But I feel that our similarities show how democratizing access to the liberal arts can be. If I'd not gone to a liberal arts college, I'd not be writing on Substack, and David and I would never have met. I also owe my intellectual curiosity, in part, to my mother. She never went to college, but her private collection of novels and her purchase of the Encyclopedia Great Books collection (which she once imagined might *be* her self-guided education) opened my own path.
Elk is much milder than venison -- and quite lean, like bison. Not sure how else to describe it, but I don't think it has the "gamey" flavor that some wild meat does. Of course, this depends on whether the elk has been grazing on the mountain all year or eating corn sileage in a pen!
Thanks for an interesting conversation. I always wished I had gone to college, but I was a mediocre student, at best. I finally reached a point where I was okay with the fact that I didn’t, but sometimes I wonder…
Wow, guys, what an excellent dialogue. At a time when so many Americans are finding reasons to be divided, deaf...and judgemental...you have demonstrated the value of just talking to one another. One note...when I was growing up, I lived at 222 E. 8th St. in Brooklyn. Apartment 4A. At one point, the tenants in 3A moved out and we heard that a rabbi had moved in. One night, my mother, father and I were walking home from a late dinner and the light was on in 3A. My mother laughed and said, "Maybe he's writing a book." He was. On the downstairs buzzer after 3A was "Potok," and he was writing The Chosen.
One remarkable thing about Potok's writing, which David and I have discussed, is that it's not the kind of thing that would attract an agent today. I'm a little surprised that I was taken by it at a young age, but that probably tells you something about my introverted and cerebral bent.
That is so true. Faulkner couldn't interest an agent. Some years ago, someone submitted Light in August under a different name and at least two dozen agents turned it down. My wife says that trade publishing has devolved into commercial banking with editors being the loan officers. One of our closest friends was Jason Epstein, who, alas, died last year. He was a giant, the sort of editor who, if he came across a manuscript that deserved to be published, he made sure it was and worked to make it a success. He was responsible, among many, many other things, for putting together Norton Juster, an architect he knew with a weird idea, with Jules Feiffer and producing one of the great books for kids...and adults...The Phantom Tollbooth.
It's understandable that conventions and tastes would evolve, but I agree with your wife. Agents aren't on the lookout for talent so much as guaranteed ROI. It was discouraging to discover that much of the transactional language that had pushed me out of higher ed was just as prevalent in publishing. If you're not Prince Harry, good luck publishing a memoir, for instance. Tobias Wolff might not have gotten his start if he were shopping a debut manuscript around now. It's sobering.
Interestingly, Willa Cather resisted exactly this kind of thinking early in her career, when she switched from Houghton Mifflin, where she felt her editors were pushing her in a safer commercial direction. Alfred Knopf was a young publisher then, and his vision was to recruit talent and promote a distinctive line of books. Cather stuck with him for life. Perhaps there will again be publishing disruptors like Knopf that privilege craft over marketing.
Books are now referred to publishing houses as "units." Jason wrote "Book Business" in 2003, which I reviewed for the Miami Herald a decade before I met him. It's worth reading. By the way, in the movie "Wolf," Jack Nicholson followed him around for weeks to figure out how to play an editor. But, yeah, publishers now all have a home run mentality. They spend tons of money on sure things that become flops and then try to recoup by spending tons of money on different sure things that often become flops. (Ann Godoff paid millions of dollars to Charles Frazier for his next book after Cold Mountain off a one page outline. It bombed, she got fired, and was immediately by Penguin Press.) The only way they can recoup is if one of them makes it big...kind of like bad general managers on professional sports teams.
We never really got to know him, but when Nancy and I ran parent/child book groups, we used The Chosen for, I think, 7th grade. It's a great lesson in how you cannot really understand a point of view in conflict with your own unless you probe a little. That's pretty topical too.
Enjoyed reading the early parts and on education. I made comparisons and thought of those who could not afford college or education. How simple it is to differentiate and segregate people from early on. I don’t know much about Montana so could you explain why people from there are believed to be militia?
My Mom grew up in the Bronx till she nine, then her family moved to Louisville (in 1945), where I grew up. Most of her aunts and uncles never left the NYC area. When I was a kid, Mom always told me that New Yorkers were the most provincial people in the country.
This is understandable, to some degree, since NYC is such a cultural hub. But it's also why regrettable terms like "flyover country" exist. It might sound silly, but I brought some of that cultural snobbery to Iowa, where I lived for 16 years. Montanans like to say they live in the "Last Best Place" -- and that makes them incurious about other places, which can't possibly measure up by comparison. For instance, I have little interest in hunting deer in central Pennsylvania, where I now live. And that is probably a mindset I ought to examine!
Such a fascinating conversation. I found myself identifying with different aspects of both of your backgrounds. I’m from the south but had an academic father and always looked to the great cities of the north with a kind of romanticism. It was always assumed that I was going to college, but financial concerns kept me in the state instead of going to Boston, which was where I had my sights set. These sorts of conversations tell us a lot about the trajectories of our lives and bring about self-reflection.
To some degree, our backgrounds are very different. But I feel that our similarities show how democratizing access to the liberal arts can be. If I'd not gone to a liberal arts college, I'd not be writing on Substack, and David and I would never have met. I also owe my intellectual curiosity, in part, to my mother. She never went to college, but her private collection of novels and her purchase of the Encyclopedia Great Books collection (which she once imagined might *be* her self-guided education) opened my own path.
1. What does elk taste like? 2. I inherited David's Halloween costume, the astronaut suit, but where the heck was the helmet? 3. Terrific exchange.
Elk is much milder than venison -- and quite lean, like bison. Not sure how else to describe it, but I don't think it has the "gamey" flavor that some wild meat does. Of course, this depends on whether the elk has been grazing on the mountain all year or eating corn sileage in a pen!
Thanks for an interesting conversation. I always wished I had gone to college, but I was a mediocre student, at best. I finally reached a point where I was okay with the fact that I didn’t, but sometimes I wonder…
Wow, guys, what an excellent dialogue. At a time when so many Americans are finding reasons to be divided, deaf...and judgemental...you have demonstrated the value of just talking to one another. One note...when I was growing up, I lived at 222 E. 8th St. in Brooklyn. Apartment 4A. At one point, the tenants in 3A moved out and we heard that a rabbi had moved in. One night, my mother, father and I were walking home from a late dinner and the light was on in 3A. My mother laughed and said, "Maybe he's writing a book." He was. On the downstairs buzzer after 3A was "Potok," and he was writing The Chosen.
Thanks! I'm beginning to think Chaim Potok was a Zelig character!
Josh and I were thinking about doing a follow-on about our journeys in religion featuring The Chosen.
The book is extremely topical now given the conflict between the two father, Orthodox and secular, about the creation of the State of Israel.
One remarkable thing about Potok's writing, which David and I have discussed, is that it's not the kind of thing that would attract an agent today. I'm a little surprised that I was taken by it at a young age, but that probably tells you something about my introverted and cerebral bent.
That is so true. Faulkner couldn't interest an agent. Some years ago, someone submitted Light in August under a different name and at least two dozen agents turned it down. My wife says that trade publishing has devolved into commercial banking with editors being the loan officers. One of our closest friends was Jason Epstein, who, alas, died last year. He was a giant, the sort of editor who, if he came across a manuscript that deserved to be published, he made sure it was and worked to make it a success. He was responsible, among many, many other things, for putting together Norton Juster, an architect he knew with a weird idea, with Jules Feiffer and producing one of the great books for kids...and adults...The Phantom Tollbooth.
It's understandable that conventions and tastes would evolve, but I agree with your wife. Agents aren't on the lookout for talent so much as guaranteed ROI. It was discouraging to discover that much of the transactional language that had pushed me out of higher ed was just as prevalent in publishing. If you're not Prince Harry, good luck publishing a memoir, for instance. Tobias Wolff might not have gotten his start if he were shopping a debut manuscript around now. It's sobering.
Interestingly, Willa Cather resisted exactly this kind of thinking early in her career, when she switched from Houghton Mifflin, where she felt her editors were pushing her in a safer commercial direction. Alfred Knopf was a young publisher then, and his vision was to recruit talent and promote a distinctive line of books. Cather stuck with him for life. Perhaps there will again be publishing disruptors like Knopf that privilege craft over marketing.
Books are now referred to publishing houses as "units." Jason wrote "Book Business" in 2003, which I reviewed for the Miami Herald a decade before I met him. It's worth reading. By the way, in the movie "Wolf," Jack Nicholson followed him around for weeks to figure out how to play an editor. But, yeah, publishers now all have a home run mentality. They spend tons of money on sure things that become flops and then try to recoup by spending tons of money on different sure things that often become flops. (Ann Godoff paid millions of dollars to Charles Frazier for his next book after Cold Mountain off a one page outline. It bombed, she got fired, and was immediately by Penguin Press.) The only way they can recoup is if one of them makes it big...kind of like bad general managers on professional sports teams.
We never really got to know him, but when Nancy and I ran parent/child book groups, we used The Chosen for, I think, 7th grade. It's a great lesson in how you cannot really understand a point of view in conflict with your own unless you probe a little. That's pretty topical too.
Enjoyed reading the early parts and on education. I made comparisons and thought of those who could not afford college or education. How simple it is to differentiate and segregate people from early on. I don’t know much about Montana so could you explain why people from there are believed to be militia?
I really enjoyed this conversation - learning a little more about both of you. I felt as though I was lurking on a Zoom call! Thank you both.
My Mom grew up in the Bronx till she nine, then her family moved to Louisville (in 1945), where I grew up. Most of her aunts and uncles never left the NYC area. When I was a kid, Mom always told me that New Yorkers were the most provincial people in the country.
This is understandable, to some degree, since NYC is such a cultural hub. But it's also why regrettable terms like "flyover country" exist. It might sound silly, but I brought some of that cultural snobbery to Iowa, where I lived for 16 years. Montanans like to say they live in the "Last Best Place" -- and that makes them incurious about other places, which can't possibly measure up by comparison. For instance, I have little interest in hunting deer in central Pennsylvania, where I now live. And that is probably a mindset I ought to examine!
Such a fascinating conversation. I found myself identifying with different aspects of both of your backgrounds. I’m from the south but had an academic father and always looked to the great cities of the north with a kind of romanticism. It was always assumed that I was going to college, but financial concerns kept me in the state instead of going to Boston, which was where I had my sights set. These sorts of conversations tell us a lot about the trajectories of our lives and bring about self-reflection.
Thanks John. Greatly appreciate the comment.
Great conversation to eavesdrop on. I’ve written Chaim Potok on my list of authors to check out. Thanks David and Josh.
Thanks for reading!
Same here. Thanks David & Josh!
Delayed discovery of this post: I enjoyed the conversation around Chaim Potok.