Stupid talented essayists.

I read an article in my New York magazine a few weeks back about Meghan Daum's new memoir, Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in That House. Daum is most well known for her 2003 novel, The Quality of Life Report, for her essay collection My Misspent Youth, and for moving away from New York City in her late 20s so she could live more cheaply in Lincoln, Nebraska.

She has now moved to Los Angeles, and her search for a home there is what her new memoir is about. Strangely enough, though, when I read the article, I didn't feel like getting the memoir, but I did wonder about the essay collection, so I checked it out.

And I really enjoyed it. It's not a particularly broad or profound collection, but it was definitely worth the time. Her essay topics range from an online flirtation to working in the publishing business, being successful in New York but still having to move away from it to how much she hated dolls.* But the essay that really annoyed me was titled "Carpet Is Mungers."

Well, I should explain that. I loved the essay. But I hated it because it was SO GOOD, and I want to write essays like that. Frustrating, to see where you want to be and not know how to get there.** But I digress. The entire essay is about nothing more complicated than how and why Daum doesn't like carpet. And here's how she explains it:

"Carpet makes me feel the way I felt when I was twelve and 'went out' with Stephen Mungers, a boy from homeroom who I barely knew, for a week. In seventh grade, 'going out' signified nothing more than a mutual agreement that the term would be applied to the parties involved; no physical contact or verbal exchange other than 'You wanna go out?' and 'Okay' was required. And even though the situation was entirely reversible, I remember that week as an unprecedented and traumatic psychological jaunt into a self that was not my own. I had, in the context of seventh grade and the various ideas I'd developed about who I was, become 'other' to my own self. I felt somehow that I had betrayed a basic premise of my existence...

Carpet is Mungers. Carpet is otherness." (p. 64.)

How awesome is that comparison? Who combines a memory of going out with someone in seventh grade with trying to describe how they feel about carpet? And makes it interesting? This woman, that's who. Disgusting. All weekend I walked around muttering "Carpet is Mungers" and shaking my head. Mr. CR simply let the muttering pass without comment. Smart man. I wouldn't have been so annoyed, but I also spent the weekend re-reading one of the essays (multiple times) in Daniel Nester's book How to Be Inappropriate because it was so good. I'm hoping that writing skills can be learned by osmosis, obviously.

I'm going to try her memoir now too, but if you're looking for a good summer read that includes essays this one might be a valid place to start.

*I loved this essay, as Mom informs me that I often would toss whatever dolls I owned in the trash. I didn't hate them, I just wasn't using them.

**For this reason I can only read so much Joan Didion at one time, too. She's scary good.

Comments

[Beth]

response to my tweet about this review from a fellow librarian:

that was scary good, thank you. Stupid, talented people. One 30-something gets blurbed by Philip Lopate, another gets therapy.

(we fall into the therapy category, which is why said fellow librarian and i get along so well)

[Thomas at My Porch]

Your post has intrigued me. I read The Quality of Life Report (found it for free on the street) and liked it, but didn't think it was all that. These essays sound good.

[sherry]

I read The Quality of Life Report and really liked it. Thanks for reminding me of this author. Another memoir to check out, I see.

[Rachael]

CR, I'm a little afraid, now. As SOON as I saw this was about Daum's essay collection, the phrase "Carpet is my Mungers" popped into my head. I read that essay collection before I left NYC (and some of the original essays when they appeared in my New Yorker) and was so completely blown away.

You really captured my response to it perfectly. Instant horror at not how good someone my age could be, but how much better. It's weird, because Dave Eggers is also a contemporary (and grew up just a few miles from my house, and went to a rival HS, etc), and his writing was fascinating but never really sparked that kind of envy.

[Citizen Reader]

Beth,
Thanks again for the tweet! I may not be getting blurbed by Philip Lopate, but I'll take getting tweeted by you any time.

Thomas,
I think I may check out "The Quality of Life Report," too, and it takes a lot for me to look into fiction. I'd be interested to hear what you think on this one. I read someone else who compared her to Didion, and I don't think she's quite at that level yet, but there's something about these essays that is very, very skillfully done.

Oh, Sherry,
There's always more books to check out, isn't there? Now we just need more time. Let me know if you look into this book or her new memoir.

Rachael,
Creepy, isn't it? Let's face it: it's just a damn good phrase. And I don't know if she made up the name "Mungers," but it's perfect. (Although I must admit to having a little envy of Eggers too, particularly where his memoir was concerned). I would guess as I age I'll only have more moments like this, because I'm hitting the age range now where a lot of writers are producing their best stuff. The only thing keeping me going is the thought that Norman Maclean came out with "A River Runs through It" after he was 70.

[Rachael]

She's definitely not Didion. QoLR was a decent novel--it definitely didn't make me throw it aside in disgust, which I often find myself doing when I've loved an authors essays (I exaggerate, but only slightly--it's usually more of a disappointed sigh as I read to the bitter end).

It was good for the first 70%, and even when it devolved at the end I still enjoyed it. It didn't feel too chick-lit, either, which it definitely could have become. No surprise, it also felt very personal--but I always assume first novels to be thinly veiled personal histories.

Some nice turns of phrase, if I remember correctly, too.

[nan]

Sounds intriguing and you're right, the carpet/Mungers passage is brilliant. I'll have to check her out. I think I remember being a little irritated by the moving to Lincoln thing -- did that run in The New Yorker or the NY Times magazine? As if every Bright Young Thing were entitled to a successful life in the field of their choice in the place of their choice even if that place is Manhattan and she was pissed off that it hadn't happened for her. But maybe I'm projecting ...

[Eva]

That excerpt convinced me to try to get ahold of the collection! :) I always feel the same way when I'm reading an incredible essayist...the whiny green child in me starts asking "But why can't Iiii write like that?)