Whats it like being a popular humorous essayist? Its this amazing Get Out of Jail Free card for life, Sloane Crosley recently told LEO during a short phone interview. [In] even the darkest and strangest or most miserable of experiences, theres usually some comedy that I can extract from it and share with people.
Crosleys essays have been compiled into three bestsellers. The latest, Look Alive Out There, is just out in paperback, and thats what brings her on tour, including a local appearance at Tim Faulkner Gallery. Tickets are a bargain $5 that can be deducted from a book purchase. (Carmichaels Bookstore will sell Crosley titles at the gallery.)
The new volume doesnt have a specific theme and that serves to let the author enjoy her natural playfulness while easily flexing with the sort of confessional maturity that yields a stylistic showcase like the biological clock work The Doctor Is a Women. One of her typical essays at this career stage might look at her day-to-day and find that her New York literary status carries just enough buzz to merit a guest cameo as herself on the soapy TV series Gossip Girl. But another will show off the strengths of her fish-out-of-water writing. These were the highlights of her previous collection How Did You Get This Number, and now we get everything from Crosley house-sitting among semi-off-the-grid trustafarians in Northern California, to letting herself be talked into following a mountain climber up a volcano in Ecuador.
Several outstanding pieces here generously fit in an extra dimension with which Crosley addresses a 30-somethings sense that agency is fleeting and troubling transitions are dawning. Outside Voices is an often-hilarious swipe at the spoiled children who arrive with urban gentrification but Crosleys self-effacing asides (and frontal assaults) betray growing tendrils of a firmly rooted jealousy that might eventually flower into crusty calls to stay off the lawn. Cinema of the Confined takes an attack of vertigo that goes beyond doctors expectations and spins off into recounting how the concerned Crosley wrestles with insurance, home self-care and online medical chats (What I found was not a dialogue but wallowing masquerading as guidance).
Some of the essays dont seem meticulously planned yet the intuitive observations, wry, mid-sentence punch lines and sheer linguistic discipline are always in such exquisite balance to put contemporary non-fiction presentations to shame. Yet, there just arent many openings for in-print essayist, while podcasts, TED Talks, etc. are booming. When asked if shes confused by this state-of-the-market, Crosley said, It would be a bit bullish or pigheaded, or whatever animal analogy youd like to pretend that it has nothing to do with me. But at the same time I dont have a huge desire to have a podcast. When it comes to nonfiction, this is my most natural medium.
I know this because Ive tried to produce different things Ive done in different mediums. So I wrote a screenplay that Universal bought based on my novel [The Clasp]. I wrote a pilot for HBO based on my first [essay] book. And its not an unpleasant experience, but it is a very bizarre experience. To be graphic about it, its like youre shoving something back in the womb and hoping it comes out poetry.
So, were stuck with Crosley keeping mostly to what she does best humorous essays that are very rewarding for astute readers. We could do a lot worse.
Sloane Crosley
Tuesday, April 16
Tim Faulkner Gallery
991 Logan St.
$5 | 7 p.m.