Like Shaking Hands with God: a Conversation about Writing - Softcover

Vonnegut, Kurt; Stringer, Lee

3.73

1,142 ratings by Goodreads

9780743410588: Like Shaking Hands with God: a Conversation about Writing

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743410580 ISBN 13: 9780743410588

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd, 2000

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In this elegantly produced, extended conversation celebrating the writing craft, Kurt Vonnegut and acclaimed "Grand Central Winter" author Lee Stringer explore what it means to be a writer -- and what it means to be human. It is an increasingly rare occasion these days to find two writers willing to speak candidly, thoughtfully, and concretely about the intersection of life and art. And that these two writers happen to be Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer makes "Like Shaking Hands With God" a truly historic and joyous occasion. The setting is a bookstore in New York City in October 1998. Before a crowd of several hundred, Vonnegut and Stringer jump into the aesthetic fray, taking up humanity, writing, salvation, art, and the challenge of living, day to day. As Vonnegut would say, "It was a magical evening." A passionate and inspiring discourse between two extraordinary writers, "Like Shaking Hands With God" is a book for anyone interested in why the simple act of writing things down can be so much more important than the amount of memory in our computers.

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Review:

Like Shaking Hands with God is a transcription of two moderated conversations between Kurt Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions), writer of wild, satiric, outrageous fiction, and Lee Stringer (Grand Central Winter), one-time homeless crack addict who discovered that pencils are not just drug implements.

Shaking Hands has a slender profile and a pretty cover but the only thing slight about the conversations within is that they leave the reader wanting more. The book is billed as "a conversation about writing" but it is as much about life as about writing. Neither Vonnegut nor Stringer is interested in holing up in a garret to write. Vonnegut makes any excuse to go out and rub elbows with the folks who buy lottery tickets, while Stringer wonders, "Can you write anything on Park Avenue, really?" Vonnegut laments his happy childhood as "no way for a writer to begin". Stringer panics that, while he wrote his first book as if on a high, the next one will emerge from an awareness of Oprah and marketability.

Vonnegut and Stringer are passionate about one another's work, passionate about life and passionate about writing. But not so much so that they ever, for a moment, lose their sense of irony or humour. Stringer praises writing, in that context, as "a struggle to preserve our right to be not so practical." And in Timequake, Vonnegut proclaims, "We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" --Jane Steinberg

Review:

"The Writer"Here is the transcript of their conversation about where the lives they live meet the art they practice, with candid thoughts on writing, humanity, salvation, art, and the struggle and joy of living.

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