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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780374525835 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Publication date: | 06/30/1999 |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Sales rank: | 951,646 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.45(d) |
About the Author
Hometown:
New York, New YorkDate of Birth:
December 5, 1935Place of Birth:
Kansas City, MissouriEducation:
B.A., Yale University, 1957Interviews
On Tuesday, June 23, barnesandnoble.com welcomed Calvin Trillin, author of FAMILY MAN.
Moderator: Welcome to the Auditorium, Calvin Trillin! We are so pleased to have you with us tonight. How are you this evening?
Calvin Trillin: I'm fine, thanks, and I'm pleased to be here.
Bernie from Wisconsin: I have always loved your books, especially your food excursions! What prompted this latest topic? Why now?
Calvin Trillin: My daughters are now 29 and 26. As I say in FAMILY MAN, they've made good on their implicit threat to grow up and lead lives of their own. I've told even the younger one that she has "many attributes of a grown-up." So I thought it might be a good time to look back on the years we qualified as a traditional American family according to the Census Bureau (a mother, a father, and at least one child under 18), although I still think we're a traditional American family -- sort of like a hockey team with a couple of players in the penalty box but essentially the same.
Max W. from Westchester, NY: Your book about your father talks much about many of the gifts he gave to you. If your daughters were to write the same book today about what you have given to them, what would they write?
Calvin Trillin: They're not going to write anything. When they were about five and eight, I had them sign a standard nondisclosure agreement. Nothing fancy, just a simple contract of the sort that Buckingham Palace has signed by new servants. They didn't want to sign at first, but I said, "You can trust your daddy."
William M. from Morrisville, NY: I loved MESSAGES FROM MY FATHER, and I am looking forward to FAMILY MAN. For those of us who haven't read it yet, could you tell us about this new book?
Calvin Trillin: It's a book about family and child-rearing, although not an advice book. It says right at the beginning that when I'm asked for child-rearing advice by people who are about to have a baby, the only advice I offer is, "Try to get one that doesn't spit up." It's not a very serious book. My wife says you can judge its seriousness by the fact that it has two chapters on Halloween. I would say one chapter on Halloween and one chapter on family rituals that leans pretty heavily on Halloween. I suppose it amounts to the same thing.
Jonas from Boston, MA: I read on the home page that your book has a song in it called "Uncle Max's Kids are Gross, Creepy, Dumb and Yucky." Could you give us a few stanzas of that song? What prompted you to write it? How do Uncle Max's kids feel about this?)
Calvin Trillin: This is a song from one of the movie musicals we used to make in the summer. It's to the tune of "I'm Always True to You Darling, in My Fashion." I can't give you a few stanzas but I think the chorus is "Uncle Max's Kids are gross, creepy, dumb and yucky. Uncle Max's kids are kids you just love to hate." There isn't any Uncle Max; he's fictional. So are his kids.
Hartley from Detroit, MI: I think it is interesting that the Census Bureau even came up with that statistic, don't you? With so many divorces, single mothers, stepchildren, etc. -- don't you think that the "typical" family is becoming a little atypical?
Calvin Trillin: I agree. It seemed odd that as soon as our younger daughter was 18 we were in the category with a lot of not exactly related people who live in a dirty house and have a lot of kids named Sunshine. On the other hand, as far as I'm concerned, people who live together and treat each other as family are family.
Hannah from Ann Arbor, MI: I have read your work for years, and your family has often appeared in one way or another in them. Is there a difference in writing this book about family -- the way they appear, the way you treat them -- than if they were incidentally appearing in a different type of article? I read a Salon article in which you talked about how Alice appears in your writing versus the way she is in real life. Is she presented differently in this book?
Calvin Trillin: Not exactly, although I suppose she's more herself than she was in the books I did about eating. She describes herself as being cast in those as a nutritionist with sensible shoes. I would say in my defense that there is nothing sensible about Alice's shoes.
Marla Mitchell from Greensboro, NC: How did you start writing the weekly poem for The Nation? How do you select your topics, and are these collected anywhere? I'm glad to see you online tonight! You are my favorite!
Calvin Trillin: I was inspired by John Sununu, a portly figure in the Bush White House. I've speculated that I am the only person ever to have been inspired to poetry by John Sununu. He was, of course, a tempting target, partly because his priority seemed to be to show that he was the smartest person in the room. I think it was Ed Rollins, the Republican political strategist, who said that Sununu was a lesson in the perils of telling your child that he has a high IQ. But what really inspired me was his name -- a euphonious and, I think, beautiful name. Sununu. I found myself repeating it as I went about my daily tasks, and sooner or later I heard myself say, "If You Knew What Sununu." That was obviously a poem, and I was on my way.
Jane P. from Roanoke, VA: Hello, Mr. Trillin. I love your work, and I just finished reading FAMILY MAN. For my own interests, in FAMILY MAN, you write, "For me -- and, I suspect, for a number of other moderates -- the line between what is on and off limits in writing about family has appeared naturally." I am interested in writing about my own family, but I was wondering if you could give some advice on some good guidelines to follow.
Calvin Trillin: If I may begin by adding to my answer to Marla Mitchell's question I neglected to say, in answer to your question, that a number of the poems I did for The Nation are included in a book called DEADLINE POET. It's not exactly a collection, more of an account of what it was like to write verse as commentary on the news.In answer to this question, I think what's off-limits in writing about family becomes pretty apparent. In FAMILY MAN, I mention the Dostoyevsky Rule, which is my answer to those conversations in which some writers argue that art is more important than the feelings of your family. My view is that it depends on the quality of the art. If you have reason to believe you're another Dostoyevsky, you can say anything you want to -- even if revealing that your mother once told you that she didn't really love your father makes life a bit awkward for them in the retirement village. The readers of the future deserve that. If you don't have reason to believe you're another Dostoyevsky, you can't.
Greg from NYC: I see you have an article in the debut issue of Content magazine. What do you think of the magazine?
Calvin Trillin: I haven't actually seen it yet. I was out of town when it came out, and the newsstands were sold out when I returned. I'm going by their office tomorrow to pick one up.
B.D.W. from Portsmouth, ME: How do you think your own experience as a father has compared with that of your dad's? How much of what you learned from him went into your decisions about your own children? How were they similar or different?
Calvin Trillin: There some obvious differences that have to do with the changing times. My father, for instance, never thought about changing a diaper. I was checked out on diapers right away, because I figured that 15 or 20 years down the road we might get into some tense conversations, and I wanted to be able to say, "Listen! I changed your diapers!" Also, my father was a grocer during most of my childhood and didn't have the luxury of spending a lot of time with his children. He got up at four every morning to go to the city market -- six days a week. On the other hand, he was a terrific father. He gave me a great gift -- the assumption that I was a special case. When I think of my childhood in Kansas City, I'm grateful. That's why I say in the book that when I think of what I wanted for the childhood of my kids, who were raised in Greenwich Village, the phrase that comes to mind is, "Despite all evidence to the contrary, you're being raised in Kansas City."
Susan Freeman from Athens, Ohio: What is a traditional Halloween in the Trillin household?
Calvin Trillin: In Greenwich Village, where we live, there has been a Halloween parade for the past 20 years or so. It has changed a lot, but I still go in it anyway. My girls used to come home from college for Halloween. These days, I usually have to find another kid to march with. I still spend a lot of time looking through the costume bag, and I still end up every year in my ax-murderer's mask.
Rachel V. from Berkley, CA: Hi, Calvin Trillin! I have just ordered your book, and I cannot wait to read it! It seems like your writing in recent years has taken a much more personal bent. Is this a change in interest, the merits of success that you get to write about yourself, or is it a new perspective that comes with experience?
Calvin Trillin: I think it's partly just happenstance. Seven or eight years ago, a college classmate of mine -- the classmate we used to kid (but half seriously) about becoming president -- committed suicide, and I decided to write a book about him. My father, to my surprise, sort of crept into that book, and the editor at Farrar, Straus suggested that I write more about my father. Now that I've written about my own daughters, I think I'm probably ready to go back to writing about strangers.
Melissa Robertson from Weston, CT: How has your family received FAMILY MAN?
Calvin Trillin: They claim to like it. They all read it in manuscript, with the understanding that I'd take out anything they found embarrassing. Maybe they're just humoring me -- sort of patting old Ozzie on the head and saying, "Sure, Pops, it's fine."
Christopher Myles from Indianapolis, IN: How has your midwestern upbringing influenced your writing? Your path as a writer? Do you think your voice is midwestern (although they say the midwestern dialect is pure American English, whatever that means)?
Calvin Trillin: I'm not certain that I would have concentrated on America so much if I hadn't grown up in the Midwest. It's difficult to know about where any writer's voice comes from. I hope mine is partly midwestern. When it comes to humor, there is certainly a tradition of people from the middle of the country using homey images to talk about what's happening in places like Washington and New York.
Moderator: Thank you so much for joining us this evening, Calvin Trillin. We have enjoyed your company and your responses to our questions, and we hope we can persuade you to join us again with your next book. Before you go, any closing comments?
Calvin Trillin: I've enjoyed being here. This was my first experience with conversation on the Internet. I spend a lot of time on the net -- my daughters sometimes call me Net Boy -- but it's usually just gathering information from a newspaper archive or a research book. I hope I can join you some other time.