In this installment of Page 69,
we put Connor Coyne's Shattering Glass to the test.
Ok Connor. Set up page 69. What are we about to read?
First year
college students Ezzie and Dunya are auditioning to act in plays. When
they arrive on site, however, they are told that each director is hosting their
auditions from a different hidden location in the sprawling forest behind
the University. Ezzie and Dunya start finding directors and auditioning,
but Ezzie, who has spent her life doing theater, is discouraged by her mediocre
performances. Dunya, on the other hand, has never been onstage in her
life, but shines in front of the directors. The duo make their way among
the trees, auditioning for play after play, plied with expensive booze, and
treated to extravagant and bizarre performances by everyone around them.
What is the Shattering Glass about?
Lots of answers
to this question. Firstly, it is about going away to college, leaving
your family behind, having to correct your own mistakes and discover who you
are and who you want to be as an adult. For the rest of your life.
It is also about battling ancient and evil alliances hellbent on their vision
of global domination. It is about the poignant rituals of higher
education: dorm life, cafeteria food, books, classes, midterms, awkward
encounters with love and sex, the realities of financial struggle. It is
also about resisting the magnetic pull of sentient turbines that suck up your
memories and convert them into electricity used to power the university.
The book is about a lot of things... today I am thinking of it as a cross
between the writing of J.K. Rowling and Thomas Pynchon.
Does
page 69 represent the book’s overall theme? Do you think it give the reader a good
sense of the book?
The
coming-of-age themes, yes, I think it represents them very well. Ezzie is
supposed to be in her element here, and yet she falters, again and again.
She knows it's not reasonable to be jealous of the inexperienced Dunya, who is
also Ezzie's roommate and best friend, but this is Ezzie's turf,
dammit. What the hell are we supposed to feel when we start sucking at something
we know we're really good at, huh?!
Style, also,
yes. Shattering Glass is meant to be an enchanting and
dizzying pastiche of allusion, call-outs, homage, and evocative detail.
Page 69 references expensive rye and gin, the plays of Caryl Churchill, Charles
Stewart Mott, the seven deadly sins, a popular class taught at the University
of Chicago for one quarter in 1998, and the New York Daily News' notorious
front page headline of October 30, 1975.
Plot, perhaps
not so much. While the actual events on this page do influence
what follows, much of this is probably a subplot. This page gives no
sense of the identity of the antagonists or the central conflict that drives
the action of the story out. Which is also, perhaps, fitting, because Shattering
Glass is a novel that deploys and enjoys many tangents.
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PAGE 69
SHATTERING GLASS
Could’ve fooled me, Ezzie thinks. It tastes awful. Like peppery, piney, celeryish rubbing alcohol smell.
“Try again!” says the director. They read the scene again. Ezzie notices no improvement. The lizard screams. “Thanks!” says McDirector. “We’ll post results on Friday.”
“We’re auditioning for all the plays,” says Dunya. “Maybe you can tell us where to go next?” Pointing, pointing. “Okay.”
Over the barrow and through the woods, to Mad Forest’s house manager they go. “Welcome!” he swoons, with two audition forms in his hand. They stand in a large but shaggy clearing, and there is a much larger crowd here, and time-charged animatronics of Charles Olan and President Gerald Ford.
“Take stock in the situation!” booms Olanbot.
“Go to hell, New York!” roars Fordbot. “Go to hell!”
Clouds puff up over the stars like cotton candy. Torches lick the leaves. Deep in there, Ezzie recognizes a couple kids from the Cradle. Jason James is a boy from Wrath House, tall and friendly, 70s hair, like a cheerful teddy bear, and he reads with a cutting Romanian accent. Then there is Velma Brass.
“Hi, Velma!” cheers Ezzie, too ready, enthusiastically. But Velma is busy rehearsing her part and does not notice. Meanwhile, Dunya has finished her form and is looking at a script.
“I think,” Dunya says, “I should read for the Vampire. Since I’m taking that class on the Classic Vampire. Do you mind that?”
“Okay,” Ezzie says.
“See, I knew you were going to say ‘Okay,’ because some vampires know what you’re going to say before you do. I know that from my Classic Vampire class.”
Why am I so passive? This is theater! This is my thing. This is what I was born for! And so they read, and Ezzie is so-so, so-so, discouraged and downcast.
“You look stressed,” says the house manager. “Have a sip, and relax a little.” He hands her a mug of coffee. Except it isn’t coffee. It’s
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Connor Coyne is a novelist living and working in Flint,
Michigan. His first novel, Hungry Rats, has been hailed by
celebrated author Jeffery Renard Allen as "an emotional and aesthetic tour
de force." His second novel, Shattering Glass, has been praised
by author Gordon Young, as "a hypnotic tale that is at once universal and
otherworldly."
Connor represented Flint's 7th Ward as its
artist-in-residence for the National Endowment for the Arts' Our Town grant,
through which artists engaged ward residents to produce creative work in
service of the 2013 City of Flint Master Plan. He is founder of the
Gothic Funk Press. Connor's work has been published in Belt Magazine's
Flint anthology, as well as Santa Clara Review, Moria Poetry
Zine, East Village Magazine, Flint Broadside, and Moomers
Journal of Moomers Studies. Connor lives in Flint's East Village, less
than a mile from the house where he grew up. Learn more at http://connorcoyne.com.
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