Note reader: This was originally written and submitted for The DePaulia.
On November 12, Stephen Markley stopped by Radio DePaul for the DePaul Authors Series[2], a radio series in which writers discuss their work. Markley, 27, is known best to Red Eye readers for his humorous column “Off the Markley” and subsequent blog on the paper’s website. This past spring, his first book Publish This Book: A Premature Memoir (Amazon.com, $10.19 at the time of this writing) was released from Sourcebooks, an independent publisher based in Naperville.
Publish This Book is about Markley trying to get his book published. The book in question is Publish This Book. “My idea was to write a book on how hard it is to publish a book,” said Markley during the live broadcast[3]. “What came out of it was very different from what I thought it would be.”
When I was trying to explain the book to friends, some were intrigued but nearly all of them received headaches[4]. I can’t imagine how Markley must have done this for three years without going crazy, from the time he began working on this book to the publication and release and the following book tour and interviews.
“I’ve been writing (fiction) on and off since I was seventeen,” said Markley. He was soon frustrated by trying to get literary agents and publishers to get his more conventional writing published. “How do I break into this world of being a published author?” said Markley.
“I had no plan (for Publish This Book),” Markley stated when asked on how he wrote his book. “I had to live my life and then reflect on it two months later and figure out a way to write about in a way that was concrete and real.”
He sought the advice of a couple of former professors from his days at Miami University in Ohio. One of them, Steven, would guide him throughout the process, offering praise and advice as well as criticism. Markley uses a bit of artistic license. Instead of simply quoting emails they exchanged, Stephen and Steven meet in various locales, from a restaurant in Spain to singer Jewel’s retreat, to discuss Publish.
“I recommend for young people to find someone who is smart and old,” said Markley, in reference to Professor Steven.
No one has ever written a book exclusively on getting published. Markley doesn’t leave out any details, no matter how depressing or repetitive, during the gruesome process of getting published. At times it made me question my decision to enter into writing. Maybe it’s not too late to fully dedicate myself to this or that, I thought. I could still be a journalist or be a teacher.
Professor Steven mentioned in one of the meetings between him and Markley in their exotic locales that there was way too many stories of sex, drugs, and other things that fit the stereotype of a hard-partying college student. A couple of agents, including the one who he ends up with for the book, ask him about his experiences in a fraternity. He has never been in a fraternity.
For a premature memoir that has mostly humor, there are an awful lot of footnotes. Markley mentioned that the footnotes were a way to poke fun of the way books are created. There are a total of 214 footnotes in the novel, which I thought was a bit too much. Four of those footnotes comprise an entire chapter which is nothing but footnotes[5].
There are going to be people who will compare him to lesser-talented writers, such as Tucker Max, a writer both Markley and I are not fond of. But Markley is more than chronicling the sexual and drunken escapades of himself and his friends. He writes about the absurdities and difficulties our generation is experiencing. “We are college graduates of an uncertain generation,” he writes in chapter nine, “and the world we live in is not the one we expected from our childhoods.” He writes about his doubts of being pigeon-holed in light of this book’s release. “You’re a snarky chronicler of politics and pop culture without any depth beyond.”
Publish This Book is about more than publishing. It goes inside the mind of a writer and how he tries to get his life going after college. But it’s not exclusively on young writers and the impending quarter-life crisis that arrives when they enter the real world. A recurring character, Justin (who is one of Markley’s closest friends), who is fresh out of college and is ready to work on his master’s and enjoy his twenties, has found out that he is going to become a father. At first, he accepted that he had to fast-forward to becoming a responsible adult. But shortly after the baby is born, he isn’t sure on whether he is ready to enter this next stage of life. “I used to think I was a pretty strong person,” Justin says to Markley. “Thought I could take whatever came along…That I could handle more or less anything…I think I f—ed up my life.”
After reading Publish This Book, I still can’t figure who the actual demographic is for this work. My previous book review, EARTH (The Book)[6], states that people who watch The Daily Show and young people with a sense of humor were the demographic target for that book. Borders place copies under their literary criticism section while an independent bookstore nearby has it under the humor section. One publisher cited that doesn’t agree that this book would “automatically reel in the Chuck Klosterman audience[7].”
As the reviewer, I will describe the potential target audience for Publish This Book. This book’s primary audience is writers, college students and others who are breaking into writing for the first time outside a class environment. Another audience would be anyone who enjoys the occasional crude joke, likes humorous memoirs, and hates Fox News. The bottom line is, if you are a frustrated reader who believes that major publishers churn out nothing but Twilight knockoffs, Dan Brown, and trashy celebrity “tell-alls”, then start your rebellion by picking up a copy of this book and/or check out what the independent bookstores and publishers have to offer[8].
Markley is already working on his next book. “It’s way weirder than Publish This Book. It’s pretty out there but I’ve had a lot of fun writing it.” Hopefully his next book is a lot of fun to read. #
[1] This is not originally how I described this book but due to the Laws of Catholic College Newspaper Decency (thank you Nick Lang for referencing them in your Conan review) I will use this word as a proper substitute.
[3] An edited version of the interview is available on radio.depaul.edu under the DePaul Authors Series page.
[4] Half of them asked to borrow my copy, which I refuse to do, especially since it’s signed by Markley.
[5] For a guy who seemed to make fun of this tactic of using footnotes, he seemed to be very defensive on his choice of excessive footnote writing.
[7] I disagree with this guy. I am an avid reader of Chuck Klosterman and believe that at least half his fanbase would enjoy this book.
[8] I recommend Book Cellar in Lincoln Square, Myopic Books in Wicker Park, DePaul’s libraries and your local library.
