My Petition for More Space

Thoughts on books that disappoint us and those that grace our lives by surprise

I recently finished a book that I had waited literally months to read.

It’s one the whole literary world is abuzz over. One that’s important and makes a statement. One that is necessary and is widely considered a magnificent triumph.

I was going to read it this winter: had it at the top of my Books To Read When I’m Snowed In list, but truth be told, I couldn’t wait that long and dived in early.

The first paragraph grabbed me.

By the end of the first page, I was hooked.

I stayed up well past my normal lights-out time, much to the cats’ chagrin, and devoured the first act like it was candy. It was sublime.

But then, as the book progressed, I felt it grew flatter and flatter. The prose sparkled less. With each successive chapter, the writer insisted on telling and retelling me things I already knew, that they had already made abundantly clear.

The further I read, the less I felt for the characters. New characters came and went. Time passed rather randomly. And, after the midpoint of the book, the main character took a wholly unexpected bleak, dark turn. The beloved main character who represented goodness and decency literally became a cold-blooded murderer in the final act.

Seriously… It was as jarring as if discovering that Bambi was a card-carrying member of the NRA.

I finished the book. Since it has won or been nominated for a number of Terribly Important Awards, my opinion matters about as much as a bullet in a hurricane. (I find it interesting, however, that most of the glowing reviews I’ve read of it only cite incidents that happen in the first act. And one — looking at you, Atlantic —is so far off base about the ending, I wonder if the reviewer actually read it.) I’m certain I’m probably missing something critically important in the Big Picture, but I did. not. like. it.

The day after I finished that book, I was sorting through some boxes of books I’d gotten from a local resale shop.

[I read somewhere that 350 million books are destined for American landfills every year. According to the Chicago Review of Books newsletter, over 160,000 truck loads of new, unread books are wasted every year. Heartbreaking. So I have a standing order at several local thrift stores to call me when they have too many books and I’ll take them off their hands. Between my booth at the antique mall, local libraries, my hobbies of bookbinding and journal-making, and a friend group with many diverse interests, we save a lot of them!]

In one box primarily filled with titles promising advice on “What To Expect When You’re Expecting,” I discovered a slim caramel-colored hardcover book that piqued my interest.

The book is the ideal size for a journal, so I gave it a closer look. The pages are on higher quality paper than usual, with the old-school layout of the 1970s. In addition to the book’s physical characteristics, the title intrigued me.

My Petition for More Space, by John Hersey.

Welllll now….

One’s MONOGRAM on the COVER! Life goals!

Turns out, I held in my hands a little novel that dived into the fascinating thought experiment “What would living in an overpopulated world inevitably look like?”

The book plunges the reader ino a dystopian world so full of people that open spaces are policed and citizens who wish to change anything—their job, family size, address, protein allotment—are packed four deep into lines that stretch for blocks as they inch forward, hoping to get to the petition window.

The first chapter was published as a standalone story in The Atlantic in June, 1974. (←You can read it here. The internet is amazing, y’all!)

Born in China to American missionaries, Hersey was a pioneer of the so-called “new journalism” (a term he disliked intensely) in the 1960s and 70s, incorporating new narrative and literary techniques into what was previously boring ol’ journalism.

During the Red Scare of the 1950s, he was investigated by the FBI for unAmerican activities. (He had made a donation to the ACLU. Communism!!)

Theodore Geisel / Dr. Seuss was so captivated by an article Hersey wrote detailing how incredibly boring and mind-numbing American elementary education was that he wrote The Cat in the Hat.

Hersey’s well known for his book Hiroshima. And The Wall. And the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Bell for Adano.

To be honest, I’d never heard of this Petition book of his.

I read it in a night.

And I quite liked it. Weird and dark and quirky and thought-provoking, the book keeps cropping up in my thoughts as various situations present themselves. It would also make a hell of a provocative stage play.

Frankly, I enjoyed it a heckuva lot more than the literary juggernaut I mentioned at the start of these musings.

…and that’s ok.

That’s why we read. And it’s why we write.

We write to be heard. To clarify our thoughts. To take a position. To suggest a new way of looking at the same old same old.

We read to hear new voices. To expand our thinking. To quantify and qualify our positions. To consider looking at things we know well in new ways.

We won’t all like the same things.

My novel Dear Alderone will be released into the world in a few weeks. In all likelihood, it will not be a New York Times bestseller. It is highly probable that it won’t be nominated, let alone win, a single award.

But that’s ok. I told the story I wanted needed to tell. Perhaps someday in the future, long after I’m gone, someone will see it and save it from a one-way trip to a dumpster.

Perhaps they’ll take a chance on it.

And perhaps during that moment, my unconscious petition for more space in this universe will be granted. At least for awhile.

Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween!

I had to share with you the fabulous “Halloween Costume” my friend and mentor Jo Knight Dutkewich made me:

THIS YEAR, I’M GOING AS MYSELF!!!

Write well and read more, me pretties!