One of the most important elements of a book is its subject matter. One cannot overestimate how significant the content of a book is with respect to its overall quality. This is a generally conceded notion among literary people, though there are several revisionist contrarians in the intellectual strata of Canada who feel that the cover of a book is far more crucial to its value than what’s inside. This matter has been argued many times by greater minds than mine, and certainly more eloquently. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that while the cover is of no small importance, the essential element—the factor that determines whether a book is good or bad, the thing that no book should do without—is the assemblage of words on its pages. It was with this in mind that I set out to write a book.
The important question was what the book would be about. This presented a perplexing dilemma on which I spent many long hours thinking of ideas, some of which excited me, most of which I dismissed. After thoughtful consideration, I decided to write a book about sixth-century Chinese pottery. I typed one word—“The”—and immediately hit a creative brick wall, which found me sitting in front of the computer, alternately motionless and banging my head against the wall in frustration. I felt hard lucky to be cursed so early in the project with that most dreaded affliction of the author: writer’s block. I got up from the keyboard and cleaned the cat box after which I washed the windows after which I vacuumed the house after which I made a five-pound pot roast and watched it cook for three hours. I went back to the computer, and there was still no result. I could not understand why I, a creative person, was making no progress in writing this book, as I got up from my chair for another round of distractions.
It was while cleaning the porcelain bidet in the master bedroom that the answer dawned on me: I don’t know a fucking thing about sixth-century Chinese pottery. Why this had not occurred to me before, I cannot say; maybe I thought I knew something about sixth-century Chinese pottery. I happen to believe that an author should know what he’s writing about, though those same Canadian intellectuals feel that ignorance of the subject of one’s book is a blissful approach to writing. I respectfully disagree. Wasn’t it William Faulkner who said “Write about what you know”? Maybe not, but it still strikes me as highly pragmatic advice, given my multiple failures in trying to write books about: sea turtles, circumnavigating the world, building jet engines at home, the social structure of chickens, and fungi of the skin. All of these subjects interest me, especially the pathology of dermal mitosis–athlete’s foot—which aroused my curiosity after I saw a nifty Learning Channel documentary. Interest is one thing, knowledge is another. My knowledge of all of these subjects could fill, to the brim, a paragraph.
What do I know about? The subject that I have spent the most time learning about and know quite well is: me. I have spent numerous decades hanging around with myself, observing me, experiencing what I experience from the intimate to the mundane. Nobody knows me like I knows me, and I knows me well. What do I writes about me? I writes what I feels; and why am I suddenly talking in slave dialect? In a young lifetime of memories and their concomitant stories, a few rushed to the front of the line, begging to be told. The book is about the adventures of a child who becomes a young man: how he thinks and dreams and lusts and fears and laughs and handles adversity.
Sound interesting? You bet. So if you’re reading this in the bookstore and have come this far, don’t dare put it back on the shelf and fail to buy it. Mrs. Linda Bradstreet of Cummings, Minnesota, did just that and died of a virulent fever two days afterward. Harold Dugan of Sinclair, Maine, perused this book and read this very piece before he placed it back on the shelf and left the store. He was run down by a car, suffering brain damage that destroyed his already impaired sense of taste. Take no chances, buy this book. Or borrow it from the public library, which apparently also mitigates the unpleasantness that results from not buying it. This book is, in places, emotional dynamite, so please don’t sue me if you go out and do something radical under its influence. It is also comedic nitroglycerin, causing many laughs from the reader: large, physical, bellyaching laughs. Though they make the spirit soar, these laughs can cause injury to the cheeks, abdomen, and lips, as well as raise the blood pressure. Despite those side effects—which, as with a pharmaceutical company, it is my ethical obligation to reveal to you—my book is well worth the read. And believe me, I am completely objective.