Author Steve Almond: Just a guy

So today I met the Candy Guy and he signed my book.

For a comedian of sorts, sections of Steve Almond's writing can be downright depressing. Black moods of loneliness and self-loathing seep in between zany descriptions and politically-packed zingers.

He managed to be just as depressing in person as he is on paper.

But at least he's honest.

Not all writers are willing to enumerate their countless rejections by magazines and book publishers. Not all human beings are willing to admit that they have been confused or depressed or lonely in long stretches.

I think that's what's attractive about Almond. He holds nothing back, or at least he convinces his audience he's letting it all hang out. He tells all, even what we didn't ask to know, as the title of his latest collection of short stories, (Not That You Asked), acknowledges. He exposes himself for our benefit. His brutal introspection dredges up questions we've avoided facing.

Maybe he's a little egocentric. Maybe he's arrogant. Perhaps it is true that he called his students at Boston College names like "whore" and "goatf*cker"...before he quit teaching in protest of Condoleeza Rice's recent guest appearance at the school.

(As an interesting sidenote, while he was teaching, he offered extra credit to students who gave him mix CDs... Rob, what is it with writing profs bribing students for music?)

We like to think that writers are quirky and eccentric, infinitely more interesting than ourselves. And maybe some of them are. But they're real people too.

Yeah, Steve Almond is a published writer (which, for unpublished writers, is pretty big stuff). But maybe he's just a guy. Some guy who started as a journalist at a paper in Texas, who writes because he likes it. Somebody who spends twelve hours a day staring at a blank screen or writing bad sentences before he writes something good.

You could do that.

[See Steve Almond read tonight at 7:30 in the Wege Ballroom.
Visit his website here.]