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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
Yes, the New York Times gushed over his hipster lifestyle. But the author of "Important Things That Don't Matter" is entering the literary fast lane with more than style going for him.
May 12, 2003 | "I was so fucking fed up," says 23-year-old David Amsden, a former New Yorker intern and current contributing writer to New York magazine. "Enough with this uber-neurotic fiction where nothing really happens! I can't relate to any of the stuff! I just wanted something that felt really raw and honest."
Amsden's first novel, "Important Things That Don't Matter," is the story of a 20-year-old recounting his tumultuous relationship with his cokehead father in Maryland suburbia. "I was reading stories from the '70s and '80s about couples [that are having problems]," Amsden says. "There are children in the stories, but the child is just a wooden literary device." "Important Things That Don't Matter," he explains, reverses the traditional model and tells the story from the child's point of view.
If his age and journalistic résumé aren't enough to generate interest in his debut novel, Amsden's celebrity friends (photographer Ryan McGinley, "Ken Park" starlet Tiffany Limos, among others) and hipster credentials lend glitter to what was already a marketable literary effort. As a result, fascination with Amsden's casually messy haircut, mellow drawl and affinity for clothing that would best be described as "thrift-store chic," can sometimes eclipse interest in the actual book. A recent New York Times article called ("A Night Out With David Amsden: Oh, to Be a Boldface Name") in particular, filled several column inches with such details.
I read the New York Times article and mentioned the book on Gawker.com -- a pop culture Web site I edit -- as being part of a hipster literary movement that had "kicked into disaffected, ironic overdrive." Skeptical but curious, I picked up the book and to my surprise, devoured it in a couple of hours. It was hypnotically engaging and almost painfully genuine.
Amsden happened to e-mail me a few days later. He had read Gawker and wanted to assure me that the book was "neither ironic nor disaffected." I sat down with Amsden fully expecting him to sound like the 20-year-old protagonist in "Important Things That Don't Matter." The character's verbal tics, attitudes and speech patterns were so consistent throughout the book that I had assumed that Amsden was writing in his own voice. A few minutes into the conversation, I realized that wasn't the case. Amsden is quite simply an extremely talented writer. (So, he's 23. Get over it.)
In the following interview, Amsden discusses the repercussions of literary celebrity, publishing industry politics and the art of self-promotion.
Tell me a little about what prompted you to write the book.
I always really wanted to write a book. Part of what compelled me to do it so fast, at this age maybe, was that I was getting a little tired of writing for magazines and I didn't know what the hell else I was going to do. Go back to grad school? I think a lot of people take deeper breaths than I do, and they're like, "well, I could always go back to grad school, get a law degree." And I'd get fucking kicked out of law school, or I'd get in trouble, or I wouldn't keep my grades up.
Who do you feel your audience is, and who would you like them to be?
One of the coolest parts of publishing a book is that it gets in the hands of someone who you would never expect to like it. One editor who wanted to buy it at a different publisher was my parents' age, and she really dug it from that point of view -- really savvy, smart woman -- it gave her this window into her kids. I think the real key people are sort of 15 to 30 -- which is sort of a difficult thing, because, well, two reasons: One, none of those people buy hardcover books; two, some of them don't even look at books yet, they're so young.
I went to my high school and I did a reading there and a speech. A bunch of kids bought the book and I got an e-mail from this girl -- sophomore, 15-years old, really smart girl -- and she got it. That's really young, but I think when you're young like that, you can read in a more pure state.
