Poured Over: Jami Attenberg on I Came All This Way to Meet You

“I think bookstores are really magical places, and not to be too idealistic about it, I really think that they’re so important, they’re cornerstones to communities, and they are treasures and we need to keep them alive.” Jami Attenberg, author of Saint Mazie and The Middlesteins, among other novels, joins us on the show to talk about her first memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing My Way Home, as well as the difference between loneliness and solitude, managing anxiety, her life as a writer, the books her book club has convinced her to read, her #1000wordsofsummer project, and more. (If writing a book is one of your goals for ’22, you don’t want to miss this episode.) Featured books: I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home, Saint Maizie and The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg, Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and Intimacies by Katie Kitamura. Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and engineered by Harry Liang. New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional bonus episodes on Saturdays) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and wherever you get your podcasts.

From this Episode…

B&N: One of the things though, that’s so great about the memoir is how you talk about your family. You come from a long line of salespeople. I love that you’re trying to figure out why your dad is the way he is…But also your your grandmother, your mother’s mother, was apparently a really great letter writer. And you were like, did I get this from her, is this where it comes from, trying to slot in those different pieces.

Jami Attenberg: It’s true, I have a deep fascination about where I came from. But I only need a tiny little bit to fulfill me, I don’t need the long history of three generations back, I had a novelist or anything like that. I like the idea of just being a letter writer. I like the idea of when I go out and speak to the world that I know that I come from this family of salespeople. I don’t like things to be precious or exclusive, or even necessarily refined or anything like that at all. You know, I like that it’s for everyone, right? I like that being a writer can mean so many things too, and being a storyteller can be so many things. I think that when people feel like there’s a wall up or that it’s something so special, or that it’s inaccessible, and then makes them afraid to say that they’re a writer or that they want to write I think writing is such a valuable gift and opportunity for so many people that even if you don’t end up writing books, just the act of sitting down and writing. I just wanted to feel like available, if that makes sense. And not just no snobbery around it at all.

B&N: The Middlesteins was sort of your breakout book if I remember correctly, right? That was your first big bestseller. You had a blurb from Franzen. That book changed your trajectory. Because before that you’ve been marketed sort of solely as women’s fiction.

Jami Attenberg: It’s true. I didn’t feel like I was solely women’s fiction. But that was the case. The covers were not great. And I felt like I was a little bit wilder and scrappier and dirtier than contemporary women’s fiction, as it was described at that time. So this was 15 years ago, 10-15 years ago. You know, it is interesting that it took like a blurb from a man. He is Franzen; I think I was one of the last few blurbs that he ever gave, he doesn’t blurb really at all anymore. But it was an important blurb not just here, but in Europe. It actually helped me to sell the book all over Europe, and I’ve never broken that market before. You know, he’s just wildly revered everywhere all over the world. So I think that that was part of the case was getting this blurb from him. I know him a little bit. And he’s an incredible reader. He’s loves it. So it was really an honor to get that blurb from him.

B&N: You sent me back into the depths of my bookcase at home looking for my copy of Mrs. Bridge, because you’ve just read it this year, and I haven’t read it in years. And I’m like, oh, I should really make time for that line. Read the first page. I was like, Yes, I missed this book. And it was written in 1959 by a dude. It’s like reading Revolutionary Road, that Richard Yates novel. It’s like, Oh, this feels like it was last week. And there are these books. And there are these moments where it’s kind of like, oh, right, right. I’ve missed you.

Jami Attenberg: It’s so cool. And I found out about that book because I’m in a book club. I heard about that book forever and ever, in fact that Meg Wolitzer had recommended that book to me three times. And I had for whatever reason just hadn’t picked it up. I’m in a book club . And so that was one of the one of the books and it was like, it’s my favorite book that we’ve read this year. I think it’s just so perfect. Structurally, I was just talking about this the other day, it kinda reminds me of Lydia Davis, in a way, because every chapter is so short. It’s just like a challenge. You know, it’s not like a numbers kind of thing. It’s just more like, it’s so calculated and precise.

B&N: You’ve been a bookseller here in Brooklyn. What did you learn while you were selling books?

Jami Attenberg: I was bookselling at a really crucial point in my life where I had put out a couple books and they hadn’t done very well. And so it was really restorative for me to go and work in that bookstore. It was in Greenpoint in Brooklyn, and Greenpoint wasn’t quite yet Greenpoint. I mean, it was 10 years ago that I was there. So it was definitely a few years out from being kind of overwhelmed. I haven’t been there in a while, but I feel like it’s a little built up probably now at this point. And it was just like local people walking into a bookstore looking for recommendations loving to be hand-sold. I loved handselling, dusting the shelves and talking to people. And I just remember that people just really liked books and like to read and just wanted companionship with a good book. And that was a period of time when I was writing The Middlesteins, it was very warming kind of feeling. I’m so happy we can go back into bookstores again now and connect with them even if we’re in masks. And it’s not quite the ideal experience that we you know, loved for so long….I think bookstores are really magical places, and not to be too idealistic about it, I really think that they’re so important, they’re cornerstones to communities, and they are treasures and we need to keep them alive.