Susan Orlean has spent her writing career highlighting the extraordinary in ordinary people, places and things. The Shaker Heights native has written about an orchid thief in Florida, a 10-year-old boy in New Jersey, and public libraries. Her new memoir, "Joyride" explores her love of writing and how she got those stories. Ideastream Public Media's Amy Eddings spoke to Orlean at a recent book tour stop in Parma.
You say "Joyride" is a story about your stories. You also say very early in the book that you've always dreaded writing a memoir because you've spent your entire career focusing on others and looking outward. Why'd you write this book?
I had thought about writing a book about writing. And then I thought, I don't really want to just write a book about writing, kind of a handbook. It seemed boring to be honest. So I started thinking I would instead take one of my stories and really break it apart and explain how I did it, why I did it. When I began doing that, I thought, but I can't do that without giving context. As I began working on it with that mission, the book kind of grew in a very natural way to be the arc of my, particularly my professional life. That's really the focus.
You grew up in Shaker Heights. Your mom, Edith, wanted to be a librarian. She took you and your brother and sister every week to the library. That's where you got your love of books. Your dad, Arthur, influenced you as a writer in a different nonlinear way. Could you tell me about the trip to Cleveland after the Hough riots in 1966?
So, we were young, very young, and eleven. Yeah, I was eleven, and we didn't know what was going on, but we certainly knew there was something going on that was scary, and my dad, in a complete reversal of common wisdom, said, you know, kids get in the car, we're gonna go drive downtown and drive around these neighborhoods that had been in this civil unrest. And I remember as he was driving us downtown, he said, "I want you to understand you're not members of the idle rich." My father grew up in a family where, you know, my grandfather started as a carpenter, they were not spoiled, they didn't have tons of money. I think it was really important for him to say, yes, you have a comfortable, privileged life, but the world is filled with lots of different people. My father, without explicitly understanding this, was teaching me to be a writer, teaching me to be curious about the way the rest of the world is.
You had an insight into what you wanted to do with your writing pretty early on, that you wanted to write about ordinary people and show how extraordinary they are. You've written about surfer girls, you've written about a woman who owned, what, 27 tigers? You've written about rare orchid collectors and a 10-year-old, New Jersey boy. How do you find those stories?
Some of these stories will be some very oblique path from a normal interaction that I have with a friend. In one case, my cousin was telling me about planning a birthday party for her seven year old. And she said to me very. in a very sad voice that she was very upset because Silly Billy was already booked and she couldn't get him for the party. And I said, “who’s Silly Billy?” And she said, “he's the most in-demand clown in New York.” I just thought, in-demand clown...this is a story. And I ended up traveling around with him for a couple of days, going to many, many children's birthday parties. But it was a complete accident that such a thing occurred. Many people would have that conversation. For me, it clicks, and I think that's a story. That is a story!
Well, and then you pursue it, right? I think a lot of people who want to be writers or anything that people have a passion about – “I want to learn guitar, I'm never gonna be able to do it, I'm too old” - people stop themselves. I think what you're trying to express in this book is the value of having the courage to move forward with your curiosities.
Absolutely. I feel it was really important to me that the book not just be my memoir, not just be necessarily a guide to the sort of process of becoming a writer, but that it was also very much about curiosity and courage. If you're curious about something, find out about it. If you want to learn something, learn it. I think there’s a great value in being a beginner. I feel very lucky that I've never found that a problem. I don't have any ego when I go out to report a story to say to the people I'm writing about, “I don't know anything about your world. I don't know anything about orchids. I don't know anything about libraries. I'm here to learn. That's why I'm here.” And people are incredibly generous. I've really almost never encountered anyone who didn't take some delight in saying, “oh, well, I'll teach you. I know about this. Let me teach you.”
Where do you think narrative journalism is going? We do live in a digital world where more and more people are getting their information online. You can find out on Google metrics how much time people spent on your page reading what you've written and sometimes they only read, like, they're on it for 15 seconds and it's a 10,000 word opus.
[Laughs] My God, I hate being asked this, because I wanna be optimistic. I believe people still have an attention span for the longer narrative. I do. What is the economic model that supports that? That's a whole other challenging question. The economy of the printed publication has changed so much, and we've seen so many newspapers close, all the Sunday magazines have folded. But I think that's about the economy. I don't think that's really about people's attention. And I think if you write a really good 10,000-word piece, I think people will find time for it.
Susan Orlean, it was such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much.
This was my pleasure. Thanks so much, Amy.
