Page 32 of Bad Words

Clearly Tony smelled blood in the water, because he stilled behind the podium. “So, Christian,” he said, “you think the general readership has changed in the past few decades?”

“Of course it has.” Christian massaged the spot where his jaw met his ear, drawing the loose skin against his mandible. “Different appetites. And different levels of comprehension, obviously. A good writer wants to write for the good readers. The smart ones. But sometime in the past twenty years, the smart readers got clever, and that’s a different beast. You can’t write for a clever reader. They’re always above what they’re reading. For instance…”

“When you say comprehension,” Tony broke in, but Christian rolled on.

“—for instance, one of the readers here on this stage.”

Something in the air sharpened. The rustles and sniffles of the audience went silent. Hundreds of eyes turned to Selina Chan.

After a moment, Chan lifted her microphone. “Let’s be nice, Christian,” she said, smooth and quiet. “There’s no reason to insult Parker’s reading comprehension.”

The tension snapped. The audience dissolved into laughter, and warmth rose into my cheeks, but I glanced out at the crowd and grinned. I’d take a mild dig if it meant all five of us edging past the elephant in the room.

“To your question, Tony,” Selina went on, “the biggest change over the course of my lifetime is the rise of the autofiction movement, although I think the trend may be behind us, for which I’m grateful.” Her voice sounded different than it had in the Cipriani library. She was barely murmuring into the microphone, her eyes fixed on the back curtains.

“Not a fan?” Tony asked.

“Well, some of my favorite books could be described as autofiction. But if a novel can pull off a Houdini-style escape act, where you watch the author disappear through some trapdoor and leave behind nothing about themselves … I’d love more of those books.” Selina stroked a loose strand of her hair back behind her ear. “It’s also important to me that when the average person walks into a bookstore, they are not confronted with endless shelves of books about novelists.”

Laughter rippled through the crowd. “A fair ask,” said Tony Gutierrez with a chortle. “Parker? I’m curious about your thoughts.”

I lifted the mic. “Yeah. Yes! I—I’m liking all these ideas.”

A quiet, scathing sound came from the chair next to me.

I looked over at Chan. A foot away, her eyes bored into mine, disdainful, expectant. A novel in search of an idea, I heard her say.

My eyes dropped to the corner of her mouth, which had drawn outward by a matter of millimeters. Anger made my gut contract.

I looked back out at the crowd, feeling suddenly clearheaded. “I don’t know if I’ll ever write any autofiction. In my experience, a lot of authors come at writing from this feeling like—like you’re out of step with the world, like disjunction. Or maybe just loneliness. Anyway—I think, maybe, when autofiction is the prevailing form, it feels like a place you used to visit to explore and connect and wander and hypothesize, not just about yourself, but about all the types of mysteries around you, right, this place becomes a hall of mirrors. Which isn’t to say that there’s no interest or creativity in the skew,” I added. “Just that personally, I’d maybe want to walk out the door, into somewhere I’m not, like, always obliquely looking at myself.”

I couldn’t help it. I glanced at Selina. She was looking into my eyes, point-blank, a furrow between her brows.

Then she faced back to the podium, chin high.

“Well, look,” said Christian, “I agree with all that. It was Faulkner, wasn’t it, who said a writer needs observation, experience, and imagination, and if one’s missing, the other two can rise up to cover the shortfall. But are we surprised that writers these days are banking more on experience than imagination?”

His voice had begun to harden. I could feel my pulse in my hands again. “I mean,” he went on, “you say you want writers to take a leap, Selina. But if they’re scared to risk writing something out of the box, why do you think that is?”

Impatience flashed across Selina’s expression. “I don’t know, Christian, but it sounds like you’re itching to enlighten me.”

“Okay, let’s—” said Tony, but Christian was already full steam ahead.

“Yeah, I’ll enlighten you. I’ve been saying it for years. When some glorified blogger with a cult of personality can make or break a book, something’s rotten. And it creates a fear culture. And that’s creative poison.” He nodded in my direction. “Good thing Parker opened the floodgates. When every last warm body in publishing is overjoyed to see a hack finally get treated like a hack, you’d think that person might do some soul-searching.”

The crowd’s scandalized silence rang out. I sat rigid, gripping my microphone, with no idea what to say.

I started to lift the mic. Selina beat me there.

“Tell me, Christian,” she said. “What about my reviews of your books, exactly, made you think I’d be interested in your thoughts or opinions?”

Shocked titters stuttered across the crowd.

“You—” Christian started, but Tony had found his voice.

“All right,” Tony said firmly. “Let’s move forward here. We’ve talked a little about the past, a little about the present. Let’s look into the future, now…”

Time passed uneasily. I didn’t think I was imagining that every time Christian spoke, Selina stiffened in her seat.