Love As Always, Kurt

Excerpt

So it was with considerable apprehension that I trudged across Madison
Street from my half-time job at the University of Iowa's public relations
office, to the Workshop Quonsets for the first meeting with our new writing
coach. What none of us knew was that Kurt Vonnegut was as apprehensive as we
were. He'd been trained in the sciences and had done graduate work in
anthropology. And he'd never taken, never mind taught, a college course in
fiction writing.
I took a seat next to Andre Dubus-a dear friend who'd played second dad to
my son the previous spring when he'd been roughed up by a third-grade bully.
He had news about our new guru: Vonnegut and his teenaged daughter had moved
into the big house on Van Buren Street next door to the Dubus family. So
Andre had already met him and assured me he was "a great guy; lots of
laughs."
Just then Mr. Vonnegut came through the door, ducking his head to enter the
sultry room, dressed in chinos, a somewhat rumpled short-sleeved shirt, and
scruffy, tan sneakers. He sat atop the desk at the front of the room and
faced us. Conversations quieted abruptly.
He was a great bear of a man with an elongated boyish face, cropped hair,
and almost-protruding hazel-blue eyes. He surveyed the room of young
writers, myself the exception in my mid-thirties. I saw lots of smile lines
around his eyes and a nice grin. He ground out a cigarette and pulled
another from the Pall Mall pack in his shirt pocket.
His hands were those of a pianist, with unusually long fingers. Lighting the
cigarette, he told a joke and laughed profusely through the smoke, coughing
just as much. A couple of students glanced at each other with rolled eyes.
He would say later that "following Verlin Cassill in front of this audience
was like following Judy Garland."
His message that day was not profound, but it was clear: He hadn't been
educated in an English department, but he knew the most important thing a
writer had to remember was the reader. He drew some murmurs when he said he
didn't see any reason for working on a story unless you wanted to sell it.
(Some of us still considered financial reward beneath one's dignity.)
But his was another take on the craft: "What do you need to be a writer in
America? An audience! You don't need to supply useless information.
Readers don't need to know how many freckles are on a lady's thigh and what
she had for breakfast!"
And writers must provide enough props so readers are comfortable and don't
get lost. "It's OK to let them know right away where your character's going
to end up. But then make your character clearly want something so your
readers will have to find out how the character gets there."
By the time he was finished, I was quietly impressed. Since I'd been
supporting myself and two kids for several years as a journalist and public
relations writer, I knew the value of keeping the reader reading to the end.
And it didn't hurt that he had a sense of humor.
 
 
 
 
From the book Love as Always, Kurt by Loree Rackstraw.  Excerpted by
arrangement with Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group.
Copyright (c) 2009.