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the
current
Monday
Report
below!
This week's report by Tim W. Brown
Enjoy Your Millions!
A Strange Encounter With Dave Eggers
Let me share with you my experience meeting Dave Eggers last
night (3/8/07). My membership in the National Book Critics
Circle allowed me to introduce myself to the punk-ass poseur at
the reception following the NBCC Awards held at The New
School in New York City.
Thankfully, the NBCC membership voted for someone else,
Kiran Desai, as winner of the fiction category in which Eggers
was nominated, so I don't have to question my membership in the
organization, although I wonder why he was nominated in the
first place. My vote in the category, for Richard Ford, went for
naught. As it happens I met Ford in the men's room during the
ceremony and found him to be the most pleasant, down-to-earth
person you'd ever care to meet, a stark contrast to Eggers.
The reception was a packed affair with decent food and free-
flowing wine. As you'd expect, Eggers spent the entire time
responding to his fans, who, one after the other, introduced
themselves and sucked up. They followed him around the room
like moons revolving around a gas giant.
I'm rather shy in public, so in these situations I'm not
particularly aggressive when attempting to speak with celebrity
authors; I tend to wait patiently and make my move when there is
a lull in conversation. I followed this script with Eggers. I stood
patiently by his side, and, when he finished with someone, I
started to speak.
Yet, despite it being entirely clear that I wished to talk to him, he
turned his back on me and began to walk away. "Excuse me," I
called after him. Having got his attention, I slipped him my
business card to aid in identifying myself, and I asked him if he
would speak on the record tonight, for I had a question or two to
ask him.
He uttered some lame excuse that he was concerned about the
Sudanese people accompanying him, and he wished to check on
them. I thought, okay, no problem, I'll follow up with him again
when he's available. He proceeded to speak with about five
people until I finally went over and said into his ear, "I think
that's them over by the bar." It was pretty obvious who the
Sudanese were considering they were, with two exceptions, the
only black people in the room. After speaking with another two
or three people, he finally caught up with his Sudanese friends,
and they headed toward the exit.
Now, Eggers didn't know me from Adam. The room was filled
with book reviewers from the largest newspapers and magazines
in the U.S. and a number of trade publishing people with whom I
assume he'd wish to be on good terms. For all he knew I could
have been an important person in publishing, though I confess my
NBCC membership is based on reviewing small and independent
press books, making me pretty low-status in that crowd. This fact
doesn't excuse his rudeness, however.
I hovered around the elevator taking note that Eggers was
avoiding me. When it was clear he and his entourage were about
to leave, I pushed forward to ask the first of my questions, which
was, "What are your impressions of the Underground Literary
Alliance?"
He was taken aback, no doubt not expecting such a question from
the legions of adoring critics and fans at the event. Greatly
flustered, he was about to say, I sensed, that he'd never heard of
ULA, but he thought better of it, knowing it would have been a
lie.
Instead, he answered, "This is a party," implying that such a
question was out-of-bounds and inappropriate -- at an event
where dozens of journalists and at least two lit bloggers I
recognized were busy working the room seeking quotes from
other authors in attendance.
Whisked away by his wife, Vendela Vida, who shared his sudden
deer-in-the-headlights look, he hastily departed. "Enjoy your
millions," I said after them; I didn’t feel comfortable challenging
him further and making a bigger scene (damn my shyness). And
there went my chance to get Dave Eggers to say on the record
what his opinions were about ULA.
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Tim W. Brown online: www.timwbrown.com
On April 13th Tim will moderate the Independent
Presses panel discussion at the 3rd Annual
New York Round Table Writers Conference.
Contact Tim: audrelv@optonline.net
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