Dear John Jeremiah Sullivan,
I just recently picked up your collection of essays, Pulphead. Someone, somewhere recommended it to me and I have no idea whosoever it was. I can't thank them, so I will thank you instead.
Thank you for being exactly my age. Thank you for your perspective on this world we who were born under the sign of Nixon's resignation have inherited. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of topics that generally just send knees jerking. Thank you for not being smug and condescending from your literary perch. Thank you for using phrases like "facty-facty" and making me laugh. Thank you for treating topics like Hurricane Katrina to a Christian rock festival to the Real World with equal parts seriousness and levity. Thank you for not taking yourself, nor this world we live in too seriously. Thank you for taking it seriously enough to really examine it. Thank you for writing in a voice that is authentic and entertaining. Thank you for encapsulating the beauty of our twisted human experience in ways that make me cry with recognition.
I aspire to write, to find my collection of essays in a book somewhere, some day. I plug away and ship them off; I sit and cringe and think I have nothing valuable to say. I know on some level that isn't true, but I wonder if there's a place for me in this great big literary world with my silly words and my self-deprecation, my goody-two-shoes roots, my irritability and my unconventional views. I wonder sometimes if it's even worth it. I struggle against the notion that fiction is the crown-jewel of genre, and I wonder if I'm just biased because I suck at it.
Reading your book has reminded me, yet again, of the value of essays, of literary non-fiction. It has reminded me of the beauty of examining closely a tiny facet of a larger whole and trying to figure out how it all fits together. It has reminded me that under seemingly "shallow" pop-culture references and icons lie much larger, deeper ideas. It has reminded me that a well written piece, even if it is about Axl Rose, has the power to move. Mostly, and less selfishly, your collection of essays has reminded me that in a world of sound bites and status updates and Tweets and platitudes and aphorisms, there is still a place for the long-form article, for opinions that are backed up with the heft of research and experience, for observations that sometimes go against the grain of the expected. Thank you most of all for that.
Sincerely,
Tangled Up In Lou
Aspiring essayist and not-at-all-creepy fan-girl
I just recently picked up your collection of essays, Pulphead. Someone, somewhere recommended it to me and I have no idea whosoever it was. I can't thank them, so I will thank you instead.
Thank you for being exactly my age. Thank you for your perspective on this world we who were born under the sign of Nixon's resignation have inherited. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of topics that generally just send knees jerking. Thank you for not being smug and condescending from your literary perch. Thank you for using phrases like "facty-facty" and making me laugh. Thank you for treating topics like Hurricane Katrina to a Christian rock festival to the Real World with equal parts seriousness and levity. Thank you for not taking yourself, nor this world we live in too seriously. Thank you for taking it seriously enough to really examine it. Thank you for writing in a voice that is authentic and entertaining. Thank you for encapsulating the beauty of our twisted human experience in ways that make me cry with recognition.
I aspire to write, to find my collection of essays in a book somewhere, some day. I plug away and ship them off; I sit and cringe and think I have nothing valuable to say. I know on some level that isn't true, but I wonder if there's a place for me in this great big literary world with my silly words and my self-deprecation, my goody-two-shoes roots, my irritability and my unconventional views. I wonder sometimes if it's even worth it. I struggle against the notion that fiction is the crown-jewel of genre, and I wonder if I'm just biased because I suck at it.
Reading your book has reminded me, yet again, of the value of essays, of literary non-fiction. It has reminded me of the beauty of examining closely a tiny facet of a larger whole and trying to figure out how it all fits together. It has reminded me that under seemingly "shallow" pop-culture references and icons lie much larger, deeper ideas. It has reminded me that a well written piece, even if it is about Axl Rose, has the power to move. Mostly, and less selfishly, your collection of essays has reminded me that in a world of sound bites and status updates and Tweets and platitudes and aphorisms, there is still a place for the long-form article, for opinions that are backed up with the heft of research and experience, for observations that sometimes go against the grain of the expected. Thank you most of all for that.
Sincerely,
Tangled Up In Lou
Aspiring essayist and not-at-all-creepy fan-girl
