Lovely meeting Ben Obler

Janis picked up some IRN-BRU from the Scottish store for us all to try. It tastes like bubble gum!

A toast - to books!

Ben signed autographs for us all.

It was lovely chatting with Ben Obler, the author of Javascotia, during our February 2012 meeting. He talked about his experiences in Scotland. He studied there both as an undergraduate and graduate student, living there for a total of two years. He earned his masters in letters from the University of Glasgow. As someone who picks up dialect easily, he also incorporated it in Javascotia to be part of a long Scottish writing tradition. Many of the characters in his book are based off people he has known. Margaret is part his first wife, part his high school girlfriend. Klang is based off someone he knew while in Scotland, as are Nicole and her roommate Sophie.

Does he love coffee?
Yes. And, much like Melvin when he first visited Scotland, he didn't find any chain coffee shops or strong, American-style coffee. That changed by the end of his second stint there when Starbucks have arrived.

Who is his audience?
Ben wrote to both an American and a Scottish audience.

Who inspires him?
Reading John Updike as an impressionable teenager greatly influenced his writing style and what he tries to accomplish. He doesn't find anything in common with Ernest Hemmingway. Rather, when writing Javascotia, he worked for some time to find a character that inspired him, and finally found one when he stopped trying to write a Hero Male into his novel and instead centered the story around a Nerd. In fact, he choose Melvin's name because of Happy Days. Whenever Fonzie didn't like what someone had done, he said, "Way to go, Melvin."

What would he do differently?
Ben said he would make the book shorter, and also take out the word definitions throughout the text, at least those farther within the book. He's currently writing his second novel and aiming for 80,000 words. His next book will take a look at pornography addiction.

Did he know what was going to happen to Margaret when he started writing Javascotia?
No, that evolved as he wrote the story. His process with Javascotia was merely to sit down and write, without working off an outline. This time around, he's doing a little of both.

BEN'S BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
The Name of the World, by Dennis Johnson
Goodnight Mr. and Mrs. America and All the Ships at Sea, by Richard Borsch

BEN'S FAVORITE COFFEE SHOP
J & S Bean Factory, St. Paul

About Benjamin Obler

BIOGRAPHY
from http://www.benobler.com/

I grew up just outside the Twin Cities, and got a B.A. in English Literature/Creative Writing from the University of St. Thomas, and then a Master of Letters in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. I’ve managed somehow to work with words and books my entire career. Book store grunt, publishing intern, editorial intern, closed capitioning editor, very infrequent freelancer, and now Senior Editor with an educational publisher, and novelist. I also teach fiction at The Loft Literary Center. I live in St. Paul, play tennis, play air guitar, and keep a Ficus Benjamina house plant as a horticultural avatar of myself. When it dies, I die. Must go water it.

NOVEL IN PROGRESS

Celadon is the novel Obler is currently writing. It’s about three-quarters done. Here is the short hook.

In a Minneapolis suburb in the 1980’s, young Howie Toffler spots Joanne D. in a department store, believing she is his favorite centerfold, Marlene, from an old Playboy stolen from his grandfather’s stash.  Reality and fantasy are blurred as he pursues and eventually befriends her. But the compelling relationship gets complicated as she becomes needy, manipulative, and unstable. As a teen, Howie’s close contact with Joanne is a liability and a danger.  His stifled emotional life and failing friendships and romances call into question the purported harmless of female objectification, sexual deification.

The synopsis has changed a few times over the last year. Obler posts samples on his web site, which "keep it interesting," according to him. See samples at http://www.benobler.com/?page_id=1115.

February 2012 book pick

FEBRUARY BOOK

Janis has selected Javascotia for us to read. It is written by Minnesota author Benjamin Obler, a friend of hers who will attend our February meeting. How cool is that?

Review by ROGER COX

Obler must surely be a caffeine fiend like his hero, because his descriptions of the various incarnations of this beverage available in the UK before the advent of Starbucks are by far the best thing about this book. It seems hard to believe now, but in the mid-1990s nobody in this country had even heard of a skinny macchiato, so for the most part, British coffee is a big disappointment to Mel, either tasting like a combination of "spraypaint and tree bark" or coming in the form of liquid with a "coppery tinge" that "swishes limpidly like seawater" around his cup. From time to time, Mel stumbles across a coffee that could conceivably pose a threat to his client's all-conquering product - one, say, with a "stout aroma, thick consistency and full flavour, with hints of berry and a subtle tannic aftertaste like red wine". But these occasions are few and far between. The only way Mel can be certain of getting a decent cuppa is by making it himself, and while he is waiting for his own super-strong concoctions to brew, he talks in reverential tones about the "accumulation of the holy black syrup".

Mel's tranquil routine of trawling coffee shops and filing reports detailing their myriad failings is suddenly blown to smithereens when he becomes embroiled in the (real life, and failed) campaign to save Pollock Park from the M77, falling in love with Nicole and locking horns with her firebrand, eco-warrior boyfriend Ruaridh in the process. After snapping a picture of Tory MP "John Douglas" brandishing a pickaxe at protesters - a thinly veiled reference to real events concerning Eastwood MP Allan Stewart, who was forced to resign his ministerial post after just such an incident in 1995 - Mel and Nicole escape to the Highlands, where Mel finally feels able to tell her the improbable truth about his past life with Margaret.

Here, in this story within a story, Javascotia takes a turn for the serious, but it's all the better for it - by turns tragic, darkly comic, wise and true. And better yet, because Obler is writing about America, the twee "don't the Scotch say the funniest things?" moments dry up completely. It's a blessed relief.