East is East, South is South, etc.

Just finished reading T.C. Boyle's East is East which includes a hilarious send up of a writing colony. Boyle's fictional colony is located near Savannah but otherwise quite like MacDowell, where he has been a resident....although I suspect it's also like Yadoo or any of the big colonies.

I heard about the book while I was at MacDowell but when I went to the Peterborough library to check it out I couldn't find it in the stacks. I approached the desk with some trepidation. MacDowell colonists are free to use the public facilities of the little town of Peterborough, including the library, but it's no secret we're mildly resented. Maybe because the colony pays no taxes, maybe because New Englanders are inherently suspicious of artsy-fartsy creative types. Maybe because the local rescue squad gets tired of running out to the colony for cases of alcohol poisoning, bear baiting, or half-hearted suicide attempts.

Anyway, the library looks over her half glasses at me and stonily informs me that someone from MacDowell took the book and never brought it back. She refrained from saying "What else would you expect?" but it hung in the air.

So now, a full year later, I have ordered the book off Amazon and I laughed out loud as I read parts, mostly about the over-the-top rivalry of two female novelists at the colony. In real life I never encountered that kind of cruelty at MacDowell. Our readings after dinner - while undoubtedly nerve wracking for whomever was presenting - were fun ways to get together and bounce around ideas and rarely sparked criticism or controversy. I may have been so far out of the loop of name artists there that I failed to see rivalry if there was any... but I don't think that's the case.

So why did I find Boyle's book so funny and true? Because I've certainly seen artistic envy in action before and I give him credit for having the balls to skewer it. (I give myself credit for using both "balls" and "skewer"in the same sentence.) Part of what made the book so biting is that these colonists are thrust by accident into the middle of a tragedy with international implications and they are so wound up with themselves and their pecking order at the colony that they completely fail to recognize what's happening. Until one of them decides it's her chance to move into the lucrative world of gossip journalism, that is.

God, you've got to love the colony world. It's so weird and self-absorbed and incestuous and out of touch with reality. I hope I get back into it soon.