by Dana Schwartz
I’m happy you’re here. Or at least, I would be happy if I didn’t maintain an air of disaffected ironic detachment at all times. You’ve probably seen me sitting on the quad, rolling my own cigarette, loose tobacco spilling into my worn copy of As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem. Yeah, it’s pretty beaten up; I’ve read it a couple of times. It just inspires me, you know? Like, right now I think I need to take out my journal and jot down a quick poem. It’s called “Orin Incandenza” and I usually don’t like people to read my unfinished work, but maybe I’d let you take a look if you wanted to come back to my dorm room later tonight?
Why only white men in this book? Simple: they’re the most important ones. They are the most widely read, the most celebrated, the most influential, and, if I’m going to be blunt, the most talented. I mean, sure, there are some ladies who have had a pretty good go at the whole “writing thing” but how could a woman ever capture my experience? And by my experience, I mean my experience as a white man.