10/14/2006: "DAVIDSON THE BOORISH CANADIAN GOES TO FRANCE"

Hi All,

In all the excitement regarding the fight and its aftermath, I really didn’t get a chance to talk about my trip to Paris, to the Festival D’America reading series, as a guest of my awesome French editor Francis Geffard. Francis is one of the chairs of the event, which brought 60 writers to Vincennes, a Parisian suburb, for a weekend of readings, drinking, and frivolity.

Would you like to hear a little about my trip, and the famous writers I harassed or otherwise pissed off?

Of course you would!

FIRST NIGHT IN VINCENNES—THE US CONSULATE:

This was the kickoff to the whole shabang. The city actually cordoned off a whole subway line/train for us privileged writers, but there was a snag: one writer was late. I won’t tell you what his name was, but his initials are J(oseph) B(oyden). Actually, it wasn’t really J’s fault: he’d been off all day with publicity-type stuff. But J is a VIP and Francis, his French editor, was a bit worried about his whereabouts.

FRANCIS: Craig, have you seen J(oseph)?

ME: I’m afraid not, Francis.

FRANCIS: Zut alors! Hold everything, we must find our beloved J(oseph)! Bring in the dogs trained to sniff out best-selling writers!

Whereas, had I been late, the conversation would’ve gone:

FRANCIS: Have you seen Craig?

RANDOM WRITER: Who?

FRANCIS: Weird redheaded guy, face like a shoe? I’d call in the dogs, but they’re not trained to sniff out low-selling hacks.

RANDOM WRITER: Ooooh, THAT guy. Yes, I believe I saw a gang of Parisian derelicts beating him with lead-filled baguettes.

FRANCIS [alarmed]: They didn’t beat Joseph, did they?

Okay, so the subway train takes off. We’re all drinking champagne, making merry. I mostly talked to Adrienne Miller (awesome writer, ex-fiction editor of Esquire) and her fiancee Joe, who, despite being an agent, was also a great guy. Also Amanda Boyden, a fine writer, ex-trapeze artist, and now wife of the above-mentioned J. There were all sorts of media people there with cameras and those big wind-socked microphones. Every time one got stuck in the middle of our conversation I’d say something ridiculous and apropos of nothing:

“The situation in Vietnam is simply atrocious at the moment. I can’t get my hands on one of those charming coolie hats for love nor money.”

“And so I says to Gus, I says to him, I says: A-hoooo! Werewolves in London!” [start laughing uproariously]

So we roll into the embassy a bit tipsy, me thinking (at that exact moment), “I bet Mike Knox isn’t drinking right now—I bet he’s training like a bastard,” and, putting those morbid thoughts aside, I produced my passport for the embassy guards. Looking at my place in line, I realized I was the insignificant filler in a literary heavyweight sandwich: Chuck Palahniuk ahead of me, Margaret Atwood behind me. Chuck and his partner Mike got into some fracas with the embassy guard and I, a bit drunk, called them “seditious dogs” and “treasonous villains—to Gitmo with the both of you!” I was going to accuse them of smuggling in bombmaking materiel but I wasn’t that drunk, I respect the hell out of Chuck, and you really REALLY don’t fuck around with the US government.

So I turn to Margaret Atwood—or Peggy, as I call her, or Maggie, or Pegs, or Maggs, or simply "The Pegg-ster"—I stick my hand out and say, “Very nice to meet you, Mrs. Atwood.” Margaret is a small woman, but really (and I don’t say this lightly, and I don’t say this often) she’s got what can only be called a presence: I knew, innately, that I was in the presence of someone vastly more intelligent than myself. Now in my more maudlin moments I feel that way in the presence of particularly tall trees or vibrantly blooming orchids, but I wasn’t feeling maudlin when I met dear Maggs.

She took my hand and said:

MAGGIE: And who are you?

ME: I’m nobody. I’m nothing.

MAGGIE: I’m sure you are.

ME: No, I’m just one of the punk writers they invited along.

MAGGIE: How nice. This is Jesse [indicating her assistant. I shake her hand]. Come along, now, Jesse.

ATWOOD EXEUNT

Okay, so it wasn’t my finest hour. Okay, so I’ve never really HAD a finest hour. I recall having a particularly fine 45 seconds, but that was a long time ago. Still, it’s tough to describe how weirded-out I got around her—I got weirded out around Chuck, too, since he’s really a bigger influence and a bigger deal to me, but I sat on two panels with him and even went out to dinner, so at the end of the weekend I was a bit more at ease. That, though, was my only exchange with the Mighty Atwood. I did see the Mighty Atwood a few other times that night: she was enrobed in a coterie of handlers—I actually saw her summon one of them wordlessly, simply by extending her hand, opening her palm, and curling the tips of her fingers rapidly: this, “Come here, bring it on” move that action heroes often employ when goading their nemesis into a fight.

You know who she reminded me of? The Emperor, from Star Wars. I mean, she doesn’t want to rule the galaxy (at least, so far as I know this has never been her stated goal), but the air of imperiousness that attends her is like that. Every time I saw her, I heard this music in my head:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_WERPN8KO8

Damn you, Maggs! I’ll never join you!

I met my translator that night, and I must extend a special thanks to her. Anne Wicke, it was so great to meet you, and my thanks for helping me through that weekend. I was sort of a lost puppy following you about much of the time, so my thanks for putting up with it.

SIGNINGS:

These are always death. You sit there in front of a big stack of your books while people breeze by, pick them up, look at you, smile sadly, and put them back again. And I had the misfortune of being at tables beside J(oseph) and Chuck, and having to sit there like a big redheaded troll as dozens of people got their books signed by them; every so often one of the buyers would toss me a saddened look, pick up my book, go, “Is zees yours?” and I would nod hopefully and they would buy one out of pure unadulterated pity. What a life.

PANELS:

I was on three panels. Francis let me indulge my inner fanboy by putting me on two panels with Chuck Palahniuk, which I will always be grateful for. Of course, in the first panel I was a substitute for Jonathan Safran Foer, who couldn’t come for some reason, so I had 500 Parisian eyes looking at me, all of them thinking, “Jeez, Jonathan looks a lot different in person—a lot...worse.” So the first thing I said to the crowd was, “Sorry I’m not Jonathan Safran Foer. If it makes any difference, I wish I was him about as badly as you all wish I was him.” And I said it in French, albeit shitty French, so I think they were willing to let my non-Foer-ness slide.

If you know French, or just want to see still photos of my goony face, go here for a wrap-up:

http://buzz.litteraire.free.fr/dotclear/index.php?2006/10/09/439-craig-davidson

Then I did a panel with fellow new writer Willy Vlautin, writer of MOTEL LIFE, an awesome novel. In France, a lot of the locals referred to us formally by our first names---I became "Mr. Craig," which was fine, and Willy became "Mr. Willy" (which, with a French accent, sounds like Mista WillEEE) and which I, in my puerile and immature way, found utterly hilarious. Mr. Willy’s also a musician, but that didn’t seem to help the turnout: there were about 10 people at our event. I was ferried from my stint as fake-Foer (500 people) straight to my stint as real-Davidson—staggering whiplash! That said, Francis was the moderator and Mr. Willy had some great things to say, so in all a good time.

My final panel was with Chuck, again, and Guillermo Arriga, a writer and the scripter of the movie 21 Grams. Again, I didn’t say much—I spoke quickly, Anne translated, then I shut my trap because nobody was there to listen to me. I felt like some small-time noodler opening for the Moody Blues (I guess, in order for that analogy to work, you’d have to go back to a time when the Moody Blues were popular. Did you do that? Okay, so now the analogy works).

Went out for dinner with Chuck and his partner Mike that night. They picked up the bill, which made me feel like a heel—the guy already blurbed my collection, what else does he owe me? I had a burger with a fried egg on top. Thinking, morbidly, “I bet Mike Knox isn’t eating a hamburger with an egg on top. I bet he’s beating the shit out of a hamburger with an egg on top.”

As a huge and jarring aside: I wish I was gay.

Here's the thing: all my favorite writers are gay. Chuck, Bret Easton Ellis, Clive Barker. I don’t know if their sexual orientation is the key to their creative powers—but I'd be lying if I told you I hadn't wondered about it. Nowadays I’ll finish writing something and say to myself, “I bet this would be 10 times better if I was gay. But this is the best I can do as a damn pathetic hetero.”

Damn you, ladies, for being so lithe and comely!

Damn you, gents, for failing to fire my lusts!

[I realize this probably comes off as insensitive and un-PC, so a preemptive apology to anyone offended. I’m sure I’d be just as much of a gay hack as I am a hetero hack]

What else? Guy Vanderhaege and his wife are the coolest people on earth. Lee Gowan and his family rock pretty seriously. J(oseph) is a charming devil—not charming enough to fire my lusts, but surely charming. Alistair MacLeod was chilly until I told him we shared a US editor, Starling Lawrence, and then he warmed up to me; I was so pleased with this development I didn’t tell him that Starling dropped my novel like a hot turd. I met Miriam Toews and said, “I wish I’d written your book.”

Actually, just about everyone I met I told that. Nobody told me they wished they’d written mine.

So, that’s about it. There’s more, actually, but why bother?

I’m off to buy a copy of Playgirl and see if I can’t turn myself gay. It's my latest career improvement strategy.

All best, Craig.