Like Shaking Hands wtih God: A Conversation About Writing - Hardcover

Stringer, Lee; Vonnegut, Kurt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 158322002X ISBN 13: 9781583220023

Publisher: Seven Stories Press,U.S., 1999

Synopsis

Features photographs and transcripts of a seminar hosted by the authors on October 1, 1998 in which they spoke about the process of writing, being a writer, and what it means to be human.

About this title

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Seven Stories Press,U.S.
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 158322002X
• ISBN 13: 9781583220023
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 80