Like Shaking Hands with God
MINI REVIEW: A Conversation About Writing with Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer
A moving account of a public conversation about the art of writing, presented at a New York bookstore with two great authors. You can read this book in a couple hours, but you’ll think about it for a long time to come; this one’s a winner — highly recommended!
Like Shaking Hands with God
(Paperback Edition)
On Thursday, October 1, 1998, a crowd listened eagerly in a Manhattan bookstore to American authors Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer discuss the art of writing. Like Shaking Hands with God: A Conversation About Writing is the result of that “magical evening” (as Vonnegut would later call it). Published by Washington Square Press, this delightful 80-page paperback contains a transcript of that evening’s conversation, complete with author readings, notations of audience applause, and photographs of the occasion. You almost feel as if you are there.
More Than “Just” Vonnegut
Although I originally bought this book because I am a huge Vonnegut fan, as I read it I found that it was particularly interesting (for me at least) primarily because of Lee Stringer’s intense honesty in discussing his life as a formerly homeless man who has finally found an activity that is “very good for me.” I had not heard of Stringer (author of Grand Central Winter and Sleepaway School), but I found reading his thoughts on writing and, indeed, on life itself to be quite rewarding and not a little surprising at times, not what you might guess a homeless person would think or believe. Stringer comes across as both humble and startlingly intelligent; his insights make the book a “must read.”
More About Being Than Writing
The Hartford [Connecticut] Advocate called Like Shaking Hands with God, “A rare thing…a book that is more about being than writing.” I agree. This is a fine little book — thoughtful, heart-warming, and gentle — a quick read that leaves you both satisfied and wanting more.
If you’d like a couple of really sweet hours of reading, this book might just be what you’re looking for!
Lee Stringer
Kurt Vonnegut
Product Information
- Publisher: Washington Square Press
- Copyright: © 1999
- ISBN 10: 0743410580
- ISBN 13: 9780743410588
GET The Book
BOOKS
Timequake
Grand Central Winter
Have a comment? Here’s a nice old typewriter for you to WRITE TO ME.
Want to read more by one of America’s greatest authors?
Find it at my KURT VONNEGUT STORE, where you can also support viaDigita by purchasing through this link — MANY THANKS!
Quotes From The Book
- “More and more these days I find that people want to boil things down to something simple, somthing you can grab in a second. I also see that today people are very result-oriented. We don’t do anything just because it’s the right thing to do, or for the sake of art, or for the sake of anything unless we can prove that down the road x, y, or z is going to happen. I guess in that kind of environment it is difficult for what we call literature to exist because a book is not all that practical a thing in the short term. It’s probably infinitely practical in the long term. But you’re not going to pick Timequake off the shelf and learn how to scramble eggs tomorrow. So, in that context, writing is a struggle to preserve our right to be not so practical…”
- Lee Stringer
- “When I teach…I’m looking for people who are passionate, who care terribly about something. There are people with a hell of a lot on their minds, Lee being a case in point, and if you have a hell of a lot on your mind, the language will arrive, the right words will arrive, the paragraphing will be right.
- Kurt Vonnegut
- “It’s a joy of discovery for me. I kind of would not like to know what I’m doing.
- “I had a lot of fun trying to figure out how I was going to fill up these pages, and then, convinced that I’m not going to figure it out, bingo! something happens. It’s like shaking hands with God. It’s really a great payoff for the hours you sit around wondering if you can do what you’re trying to do.”
- Lee Stringer
- “…literature is the only art that requires our audience to be performers. You have to be able to read and you have to be able to read awfully well. You have to read so well that you get irony! I’ll say one thing meaning another, and you’ll get it. Expecting a large number of people to be literate is like expecting everybody to play the French horn. It is extremely difficult.”
- Kurt Vonnegut
