On Jonathan’s letter, and on self-referentiality.
San Francisco, California
October 23, 2000
Dear Readers,
Today’s letter is from Jonathan Lethem, a New York City writer who is the author of several novels, including, most recently,Motherless Brooklyn, a book which everyone I know loves but which I, like a fool, haven’t read yet. According to this week’s Time Out New York, Jonathan’s novel – out tomorrow in paperback - has been optioned by the movie people, and Ed Norton is rumored to be planning to star. Casting for the movie version of today’s letter is still anyone’s guess.
Jonathan’s open letter is about the Go-Betweens, an Australian band that recently reunited. It’s also about the idea of writing an open letter, and how Jonathan believes that the letters we publish here are part of a new genre he calls “the fake private.” I wondered, when I first read Jonathan’s letter, whether running a letter which, as Jonathan puts it, “acknowledges the existence of Open Letters,” might spoil everything, so I asked my fellow editor Cheryl, in New Orleans, what she thought, and she wrote back, “Sure we can be self-referential. Once.”
So let’s enjoy our moment of semi-post-modernism while it lasts.
Jonathan’s editor here is Stacy Abramson, who has also corralled open letters fromNick Davis and Dennis Costello; her documentary (produced with Dave Isay) about the people who witness and carry out executions in Texas was broadcast on NPR last week; if you missed it, you can listen to it on real audio, right here.
In other Open Letters news: The latest bookstore to join us in our experiment in instant magazine publishing is Big Brain Comics, at 81 South Tenth Street, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We’re happy to have the good people at Big Brain aboard; if you live in the twin cities, please stop by and say hello and buy some copies of the weekly to give to friends. And if you’re interested in taking part in stage two of our bookstore plan, please send an email to susan@openletters.net.
This week marks the conclusion of volume two of Open Letters: to mark the occasion, we have letters about photographic accidents, amusement-park incidents, and Wal-Mart. Plus, at long last, an update from Chana Shvonne Williford. Please stay tuned.
Yours truly,
