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Show fa Cyclops By BRYAN GRAY Best seller list: thighs, spies and Ph.D's Several weeks ago I was honored to address the state convention of the Utah League of Writers. Following my speech I fielded many questions-but not the one I expected. I was all prepared for someone to ask, "What type of writing sells with today's readers?" And I was fully ready to answer "Drivel!" The answer, unkind as it is, would have been met with laughter. But a check of our local bookstores and a glance at the Best Seller list adds substance to my belief that if alive today, America's truly great writers-J.D. Salinger, John Steinbeck, Robert Perm Warren, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald--' would most likely be scratching for a pencil stub under a freeway viaduct. What we read makes a statement about what we are. And, from a look at the Best Sellers list, what we are is a population enamored by Ph.D.'s giving advice, Russian spies and long-legged women named nam-ed Victoria. Think about it... -The best-selling non-fiction book by Dr. Barbara DeAngelis is entitled "Secrets About Men Every J Woman Should Know." The title itself is spurious. Every married man in Davis County knows that it's impossible to keep a secret from his wife. And as far as single women are concerned, men are not that puzzling. There's no earthly condition a man may have that cannot be solved by the delivery of a hot pepperoni pizza, a good football foot-ball game or a new sports car. Another hot book is by Dr. Paul Pearsall ("The Power of the Family: Fami-ly: Strength, Comfort and Healing"). Heal-ing"). The book contains nothing that can't be restated in a 10-minute Family Home Evening session. Relying on Ph.D.'s to tell us what we already know says more about the readers than the book. Silliness continues to sell. Two books ("Everything I Knew I Learned in Kindergarten" and "It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It") have made a minister, Robert Fulghum, a very wealthy man. Only in America can a man become a millionaire and be widely admired by writing pithy little platitudes such as "Marriage is like putty" or "The meek shall inherit misery." (Fulghum didn't write these lines. I did-which only proves that I'm as bright as Fulghum. Now admire "jstories of the financial world and common sense forecasts dominate the list. This week's Top Ten contains two books on the inspiring in-spiring world of Wall Street takeovers. The books are purchased, purchas-ed, I assume, by laid-off Wall Street tycoons who before now haven't read anything except a tickertape. The second most popular book is the updated edition of "Megatrends," a book which tells people things any idiot already anticipates. an-ticipates. (Really! As people grow older, there will be an increasing focus on hospitalization and health costs. Really! With more women in the workplace, families will have larger incomes for recreation? I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't plunked down $21.95 for the book!) On the fiction side, one can have a best-seller by writing a convoluted con-voluted spy plot chuck full of assorted bad guys named Igor and Olga. Robert Ludlum is at the top of the charts with his spy-catches-spy page-turner, and in the past several years America's top-selling authors have been Steven King (a guy who writes about cars that attack humans) and Tom Clancy (a man who apparently knows more about secret spy planes than our own U.S. Air Force.) Writers used to undergo intensive training in author's workshops; today to-day the best-sellers are hammered out by guys like Clancy, a retired insurance salesman. -Romance is the genre of the 1980's and 1990's. The key to romance writing is to fill your word processor memory bank with a stock of catchy phrases ("sleek thighs," "enormous, pulsating bosom," "hair the color of a mandarin man-darin waterfall.") The plot can be either G-rated or X-rated, but the important thing is to keep the story simple for the reader (who is probably prob-ably in the middle of preparing Hamburger Helper in the microwave). Has American literature gone into decline? How can we tell when millions of Americans spend their hard-earned money to read Ro- seanne Barr spew out her miserable life in Salt Lake City. Roseanne is now off the charts but only to make room for books by Ronald Reagan's unknown speech writer Peggy Noon an. Soon the custodian at the Davis County Clipper will write his book telling you the way it really is in the hard-bitten world of journalism. Judging from the Best Seller list, you'd better snap it up! |
