The Washington Literary Inferiority Complex
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| Image by Zach Stern |
by Joe Flood
Why do the great novels of our age come out of New York and not Washington? This thought occurred to me in my Dupont Circle apartment, as I read Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, a hilarious and touching portrait of America in decline. Even in the dystopian future, Manhattan is a singular obsession:
Every returning New Yorker asks the question: Is this still my city? I have a ready answer, cloaked in obstinate despair: It is. And if it’s not, I will love it all the more. I will love it to the point where it becomes mine again.
Why couldn’t such a novel be written about Washington? I can hear the sneers of trust-fund literati now, all at work on precious little stories about their Brooklyn micro-neighborhoods. “There’s nothing in Washington. Not even a good bagel.” That’s true. But....
Washington is more than just the capitol of this country, the boring seat of government that fills countless hours on C-SPAN. Beyond the monuments is a dynamic city filled with oversized characters.
We had a mayor who got caught smoking crack on tape (“bitch set me up”), went to jail, and was then re-elected. Marion Barry wasn’t called Mayor for Life for nothing. His story could be a vicious satire of race and politics, a doorstop of a book by Tom Wolfe.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the city was the murder capital of the country, filled with crack-fueled mayhem that spilled out even into the leafy districts of Ward Three. We were The Wire before The Wire. Imagine a Dickensian tome recreating the blood and chaos of this dark period.
Today, bad neighborhoods have become gentrified, filling up with expensive condos while poor residents are displaced, just like the Brooklyn of Jonathan Lethem.
And there’s enough paranoia to keep Don DeLillo busy for a lifetime. Giant facilities are being constructed just outside the Beltway, with satellite dishes aimed skyward and vast underground chambers below. What is their purpose? There is good reason to be fearful of big government, like the TSA cupping your genitals with a clammy, rubber-clad hand.
The rest of the country hates us - and for good reason. We make the laws telling you what kind of light bulbs and toilets you can use. Think about that next time you’re on your cramped commode, in the gloom.
The Washington metropolis is one of the richest in the country and one of the few places that fared well during the recession. We’re filled with overeducated strivers. Unlike LA or NYC, however, we don’t want to become rich or famous. We just want to control your life, just a little bit, because we’re so much smarter than you. You should hate us. And there should be a rage-filled jeremiad against this city, a caustic work of satire pillorying the new Babylon. At the very least, I wish for a sly allegory about the role of Washington in society, like the Wizard of Oz taking on the gold standard. But there’s not. There’s not any of these things.
In other countries, the capitol city is el centro, the only place to be. English novelists don’t dream of moving to Newcastle. The underrated London Fields by Martin Amis presents the mad hothouse atmosphere of the city, filled with cheats and thugs. Saturday by Ian McEwan illuminates the fragile nature of our civilization in a post 9/11 world.
Where are these books about Washington? Novels certainly are set in the rump state of the District of Columbia. Christopher Buckley writes very funny satires but there’s no sense of real life in the city. His Washington is nothing but a glossy backdrop.
Born in DC, George Pelecanos is the closest thing we have to a Washington novelist. His quartet of crime novels display a great understanding of working class people, of native Washingtonians. But the “chocolate city” he writes about is transitioning away, as the city becomes more white and brown. Also writing about a DC that has disappeared: Edward P. Jones, Marita Golden.
Where is our Let the Great World Spin? How come we don’t have a great book that chronicles the city, year by year, the Way We Live Now?
Over the past four decades, Washington has gone from a riot-torn municipality administered by Congress to a rich, gleaming city on the hill, funded by your tax dollars. It’s filled with complex characters that illustrate the constant American dilemmas of race and class. We’re a New York that hasn’t been mined to death by MFA-educated writers.
We need a book about this city, written by someone who loves Washington as much as Gary Shteyngart adores New York. We need a book describing our Third World cabs, fast-talking wonks and bars that close too early. A picaresque novel describing the seat of an empire not yet in decline, living on borrowed time (and borrowed money), populated by ambitious fools looking after only themselves. The Great American Novel is the Great Washington Novel. And it has yet to be written.nthLabels: capitol, Don DeLillo, fiction, Gary Shteyngart, Ian McEwan, New York, novel, Super Sad True Love Story, The Wire, Washington DC
posted by nthWORD at
5:29 AM
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Read more of my writing at joeflood.com. Thanks!
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