Ranting in the Electric Church

A couple things to keep in mind if you’re lucky enough to get published. Ready?

1. Author photos: in your author photo, don’t touch your face. This is stupid and affected. Also, no pictures with your pets. I don’t care about them. So don’t tell me you live with three llamas and a Peruvian Parrot – I won’t read your book, you freak.

2. Acknowledgments: yes, please, if you get published, thank those that helped along the way – just remember that acknowledgments go in the back, not the front. And tone down the self-congratulatory bs. If your book is a work of genius, let other people tell me that. If you tell me, I won’t read your book, you freak.

Speaking of freaks – Jeff Somers has a new book coming out in the fall, a little rehashed cyberpunk tome called The Electric Church. The acknowledgments (which begin the book – steeeeriiike one!) start like this:

“When I handed my gorgeous wife, Danette, this manuscript….”

Ok. If this is how you begin your acknowledgments, if this is how you begin your book – if the first words that I ever see are the words “When I handed my gorgeous wife, Danette, this manuscript” I’m thinking to myself, why do you have the qualifier "gorgeous" before the word "wife"? Is your marriage in so much trouble that you have to suck up to her, using the first words in your book to do so? Because it's not cute, or sweet, it's off-putting.

(If your wife is gorgeous, let other people tell me that, ok? Please see Rule #2, above.)

And – if you think it’s not fair that I’m trashing the gorgeous wife, please wait. I’ll come back around to it. Trust me.

Anyway, that all amounts to steeriiike two!

Now, if you read past that first bit of Mr. Somers acknowledgments (most people won’t), then you’ll read that the gorgeous wife pronounces, “This is the one that’ll make you famous!” And while we can be agreed that it’s ok for spouses to enthuse, overly so, about the things we do and write, it’s unseemly if you have the hubris to agree with the spouse. Which, of course, is exactly what Mr. Somers does, for he concludes, “as always, my beloved and cherished wife was right.”

Have you heard of Mr. Somers or The Electric Church? Neither have I. So I’m just scratching my head, thinking, what was she right about? She said The Church was going to make Mr. Somers famous, but if that’s the case, where’s the prepublicity buzz? The snap, crackle and pop? I’m cupping my hand behind my ear and I’m hearing…crickets.

It’s at this point that the acknowledgements take an even more obnoxious turn. Mr. Somers thanks his agent. That’s all well and good. But then Mr. Somers informs us that his agent had the tools “to raise the book from a mere work of genius to a work of immense genius.” The italics are the author’s own, not mine. Makes you want to read the book, doesn’t it?

Oh wait, I forgot – you’re supposed to let other people tell me you’re a genius.

You freak.

And then, towards the end, Mr. Somers writes, “When, from time to time, I have suffered the cold sweat of self-doubt and thought, momentarily, that perhaps everything I write is not instantly a classic of literature that will be celebrated by future generations.…”

That’s a terrific line, no? I especially love the “momentarily.” Without it, you might not appreciate the fact that Mr. Somers is indeed asserting that, fleeting self-doubt notwithstanding, his words will be celebrated by my children’s children.

Steeeriike three!

Of course, I could just not be getting the joke. Perhaps Mr. Somers is trying to be wry. If that’s the case, Mr. Somers fails. Fails in his attempt, and thus fails in his writing, for I didn’t get the joke, nor did my immediate circle of friends.

But then perhaps we are all stupid. Perhaps this is an example of droll, New Jersey wit that we are unaccustomed to reading.

If you believe that, then consider this: the first words on the page were “When I handed my gorgeous wife, Danette, this manuscript....” Even though I’m not supposed to assume anything, ever, I will assume that Mr. Somers was not being wry here. But if the voice was attempting to be funny, if he was kidding later – just joshing you, folks! C’mon, lighten up! – then I would have to read the voice as funny at the beginning, also, because there’s never a change in tone, no neat writerly device tipping me to the fact that the frivolity has started. And that can’t be right, Mr. Somers must want/need us to believe that his wife is gorgeous – unless, again, he was joking, but then Mr. Somers would have to be involved in divorce proceedings, which I doubt.

And here's the important bit. If it didn't look like shouting, I'd put this all in caps. But that'd be shouting. So, understated, and not in all caps: if the first words I read are joking and droll, if they make me imagine a hipster sipping dirty martinis with a fedora rakishly tilted, swaying side-to-side as Frank croons in the background, if that's what I see, right out of the gates - then that's going to color what I expect out of the book. What I envision the words inside the Electric Church to be. But the Church ain't funny and sarcastic, not overall - its tone is dark, often electric, yes! But not cutesy. Sharp yes, cutesy no. Yet the acknowledgments read almost like a first chapter, and it reads cutesy. So don't - please - give me one tone and then rack off a bunch of words in another. Tone.

And so, again, please, stick the acknowledgments in the back. By that time, I'll have decided how electric the real words are. Before I ever see those other words.

To sum up – don’t touch your face in author photographs. If you're trying to be funny in your acknowledgments, then be funny. Finally, if you believe your own press, you have more trouble than I can hope to correct here.

Happy reading.