V-Day (and a PEN/Faulkner moment)

Planning out its issue for Valentine’s Day week, the Washington Post Magazine promised some money to a few of its favorite fiction writers and gave them a task: “Stare at one of these pictures and then write a story about love. Or feral pigs.” (They have a similar deal for the rest of us, a contest based on the picture at left. You can find details here. The deadline is May 13.)

The command performances are published in the February 11 issue. Among them are pieces by ZZ Packer, Melissa Bank, and my old prof, Ron Carlson, who has an oddly enduring relationship with the Post Magazine (odd not because he’s a bad fit, but because he’s scribbling away in Scottsdale, and the Post is way out there on the banks of the Potomac).

Which brings us to an aside you can file under “the usual embarrassing encounters.” When I finished the MFA, my parents thoughtfully sent a couple of tickets to the PEN/Faulkner awards. I was thrilled, of course. After the late George Plimpton had been remembered fondly and the award had been given to John Updike, we went from the balcony of the Folger downstairs for dinner and schmoozing, and I promptly panicked.

There stood Updike, all eyebrows and hunched shoulders, talking with Jim Lehrer, probably discussing Fallujah or the price of sardines at the A&P. There went Tobias Wolff and ZZ Packer, Updike’s fellow nominees, trailed by fans with shiny hardbacks in hand. There were my various MFA profs, most of them on the PEN/Faulkner board, milling around. I froze where I stood, sure I’d be seen by someone I knew, who would alert some kind of literary bouncer to throw me out onto the steps of the Supreme Court across the street.

Anne gave me the best pep talk this side of Lady Macbeth that she could, and we went into the next room to get something to eat. Approaching the overflowing table, which could have been set for King Henry VIII, we happened upon Carlson, who had been one of the judges for the award, talking to a balding writer with a soft Southern accent.

After a little jab in the ribs, I interrupted and said hello. We hadn’t seen each other for something like five years, the only intervening contact being my request for a rec letter when I was applying to George Mason’s program, and so Carlson’s first words were the expected, “What are you doing here?” But he acted pleased to see me, and said to the guy he’d been talking to, “This is one of my former students from Arizona, a really good young man.” Carlson’s friend nodded hello and moved along the buffet line, leaving us to talk.

I caught Carlson up to date in about 17 seconds, and then my wife and I excused ourselves back to the chow line. We basically had a good time after that. We talked with a journalist from Russia, listened to music, watched Carlson and his wife dance. I was glad, I thought, driving home, that he hadn’t overdone the flattery and had just said “good young man.” He’d always been pretty faithful about limiting the unearned praise when you knew that’s what it would be; it seemed to be sort of a gesture of respect. “Good young writer” might have been a little much. After all, as I told my wife, he’d already broken off his conversation with Richard Ford.