East Of Oprah [Jun 18, 2003]

Well, it's official. The book business can stop pulling itself up by its bootstraps, because Oprah's Book Club restarted yesterday. From here on, Oprah is only going to pick "classics," a word that's very vague, even when placed in quotes like I just did. But I must say that her first choice, East Of Eden, is an excellent one, and definitely "classic."

I've always loved East Of Eden. It's the kind of book that takes timeless themes and makes them timeless and unthematic, seemingly without effort. It's a beach read that you don't have to take to the beach. Oprah says it's the best book she's ever read. I wouldn't say that myself; you'd have to go a long way to top "Chesapeake," by James A. Michener. But East Of Eden is definitely in the top 15.

In case you're too busy or too lazy to read East Of Eden this summer, or in case you don't know how to read, I'm providing a summary of the novel here. You'll be able to see why Oprah picked the book; why, it's almost as if Steinbeck were the grandfather of all contemporary American literature. To wit:

Eden, the novel's heroine, is a low-level editorial assistant at Gloss, a fashion magazine for the "medium-breasted contemporary woman" owned by the Candy Nast media empire. Her boss, Emma Winter, the toast of Manhattan, is a sharp-tongued ballbreaker with a penchant for extinguishing cigarettes in her subordinates' eyes. Eden plots to kill her, or at least to write tender short stories for The New Yorker. While Eden's at work, her boyfriend, Chris Fray, struggles with with the twin demons of ego and heroin addiction and doesn't give a fuck what anyone thinks about him, especially not all the assholes who put less meaning into their whole novels than he does into one sentence.

Half a world away, a young writer named John Steinbeck visits Eastern Europe for the first time in search of a mystical manuscript ostensibly written by his grandfather, who was once the mayor of Odessa. Steinbeck begins his journey with the help of a sex-starved Slavic teen named Balki, who speaks in hilarious pidgin English and dreams of having sex with his mother's cousin. A tragic coincidence comes to haunt them both.

Meanwhile, in rural Michigan, the seemingly accidental drowning of a baby causes an entire town to reconsider the nature of grief and what it means to be human. Sully, an 85-year-old former slave, is visited by the ghost of her former lover, Postman Dead, and he teaches her to speak Gullah. A Japanese fisherman finds love on a raft with a talking tiger, and a millionaire novelist prattles on and on about how he was misunderstood as a Midwest teenager and about how appearing on television is beneath him. The early days of video-game invention provide a delightful backdrop for a study of American immigrant identity. Three suicide attempts and a misunderstanding later, the first chapter ends.

Oprah chose wisely indeed.

Meanwhile, you all just continue to give and give to the tour fund for The Neal Pollack Invasion, but we still have a long way to go before we meet our goals. A handy "Donate" button is to your right. Also, speaking of places where pledge drives tend to fester, I'll be appearing as the guest this weekend on Kurt Andersen's NPR show, Studio 360. A list of stations and air times can be found here.