I was telling my editor about the worst lit party I ever went to (to be fair, I am not much for that kind of thing). It was for this ex-banker guy who was being CELEBRATED TO THE SKY for writing a book that no one seemed to have read. The party stands out in my mind for many reasons...
1. The guy spent most of the night explaining that he got this huge advance so he was a real writer now and what real writers do it drink every day in the pool of the house they rented with the money. Even though this guy was clearly dripping with money and probably always had dripped it.
2. He kept talking about Greek literature and his book and this stupid pool and drinking so much that I deserve an ACTUAL MEDAL FOR VALOR for not setting him on fire. 3. Kept telling me I looked like Selma Blair until I told him to shut up.
4. The worst part that the party was FILLED TO THE RAFTERS with media types and bankers and everyone was more or less saying BEHOLD WE FOUND A MAN WHO WROTE A BOOK CAN YOU BELIEVE OUR LUCK A MAN A MAN IS HERE LOOK and he flashed his pink socks and kept talking about how real writers pool drunk.
For some reason, I saw your all caps section in the middle as the lyrics of a Broadway number about how vapid that high society party is.
5. Also everyone left that party knowing about his breathtakingly large advance. Everyone. It was The Number to Know.
I hated that party so much that I have avoided them since. lol that book sold about 3 copies and no one ever brought it up again, something I could have told you that night as I sat there listening to the guy compare himself to all of Greek literature. Anyway, I just found an article about it.
It was just a fun scavenger hunt I went on for that old article. I will not post it because I have SOME taste and lol it's fun to look. Good times. Good times.
web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/po...
fuckin LOVE Clive James
I WANT TO KNOW WHO
Nobody. That's your answer; a great big nobody then and even more of a nobody now.
I want him to remain completely unknown and forgotten, unless he gets absolutely destroyed by @ifbookspod.bsky.social
Literally the only reason I have ever GONE to a terrible lit party is to be the holder of this kind of information
What’s the difference between a phone number and the amount of your book advance? Being a white man.
I remember being at a meet the authors event in London with some bloggers & authors, one author worked in finance in the City & was ripped to the gills on something, he kept trying to get a blogger to go clubbing with him - the publicists took the author aside and said "He is still a teen stop it!"
Was this a fiction book or a non-fiction book & if it was a fiction book, was it a thriller?
I went to a fancy lit party at, I believe, the Morgan Library or somewhere similarly super fancy, and the main thing I remember is every single person at the party was just openly staring at everyone's name tags to see if they were important enough to care about
90% of the time if it's a bookseller looking at your name tag, it's because we think we are supposed to recognize you and do not actually remember if we've met
I don't think booksellers were at this party
my cluelessness is a benefit here I think because I have been to multiple events where I was happily chatting with someone like a normal person and afterward a friend would come up and go "omg how did you have the guts to talk to X" and I would be like "that was X?????"
those people probably appreciated being talked to like a person instead of Person Everyone Has Heard Of
I have to go to a couple of events a year like this. I work hard all the time but I do maybe one “notable” thing every couple of years in my job, so I tend to bounce a lot between these peoples’ mental categories. I could set my calendar by who says hello and who pretends to use their phone.
that's depressing. One thing I love is going to those parties & treating everyone as equally important & worthy of care because they are, it makes the most tedious event so much more enjoyable & I've met some interesting folks even if I often had no idea who they to start.
I'm faceblind to begin with & have been around for decades so it's all a wash for me even if I have worked with them. If we must do the dog & pony show why not make it enjoyable instead just base transaction.
Not that much different from an academic conference, then.
Oh god I have been at SO MANY events like this. It's just so sad and gross.
I think I told you once about at the only San Diego comiccon I went to, sometime grabbed my arm on the street, yanked me to him, looked closely at my face, then said in a disappointed voice "oh you're not Wil Wheaton" and walked away without another word
Is this every single industry (any kind) in the U.S.? Folks asking who is going to be there, then asking if you can get them an invite?
I stare at name tags because I am face blind and have a terrible memory.
You and me both!
I can remember faces, but not names. Connecting a name to a face is really a struggle. It's not even a memory thing. I can recount the plots of movies but don't ask me what the main characters were called. Or the names of the actors. I'll remember other movies/tv shows with the actors, though.
Oh gods, same.
Yes yes this me too!
Ditto. 😅
I had a similar experience, but with school mums. Some would talk to me while scanning for someone they thought was more beneficial to them to talk to.
In fairness, I'm so face blind I'm probably checking if we've met and talked before, which is entirely possible. (I once didn't recognise my brother in law out of context.)
That would be me as well 😅 But not only faces, I'm also horrible with names, so nameplates are helpful, but even then I might not remember. I hate my brain!
Yeah I was at Worldcon a few weeks ago and checking nametags out of "shit this person is familiar but have I met them at a previous event or are they just famous/parasocial, how weird is it gonna be if I say hi as if we know each other"
That rings massive bells!
I'm both face blind and my memory is terrible at remembering names, so I'm looking at the tags so I can address you properly
You might think this was in DC
Had to read this twice to pick up that "lit" in this context means "literature" or "literary" and not you being one of the cool kids to tell us how lit the party was. 😂
I thought she meant it was poorly lighted.
Same
I didn't even consider that meaning too! 😂
the guy thought he was a luminary but he's actually a dim bulb 🤣
Glad I’m not the only one.
Me too!
TY. I couldn’t figure out why if the party was”lit” that nobody was having any fun.
The literary industry is amazing because it proves you can accomplish any level of success if you’re just a white thin guy with hair and the kind of confidence that naturally imbues.
Hair isn’t even essential. Look at Boyne.
I've seen this go by three times and I JUST figured out that "worst lit" didn't mean "the lighting was very bad." I was picturing a bunch of pompous jerks squinting through the dark at each other's nametags