Neal Pollack goes Criminal
This article will not, repeat will not, mention Dave Eggers, Michael Chabon, Zadie Smith, David Foster Wallace or anybody else associated in any way with McSweeney's, that either-you-get-it-or-you-don't literary 'zine that helped Neal Pollack become the cult hero of people who read and listen to indie rock.
Also please note that irony will play only a minor role in this article, and there will be no footnotes.*
Pollack's first novel, The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature: The Collected Writings of Neal Pollack, was the very first book published by McSweeney's. The Neal Pollack who writes about himself in books and on the Internet is a writer who's written about every war and every major newsworthy event in this century for every elitist publication in existence. He's also won every writing award there is and is constantly mobbed by beautiful women who eventually fuck his brains out.
Each day, the greatest writer in the world, Neal Pollack, writes an online column for the greatest website in the world, www.nealpollack.com.
As for the real Neal Pollack, well, we aren't really sure. For his last Atlanta book reading, which took place at a Chapter 11 three years ago, Pollack dressed as Mark Twain.
We can say for sure that he didn't cover the Vietnam War, as he claims. We know this because he's in his 30s.
And he's probably just one of those writers who always wanted to be a rock star. We know this because online photos of other Neal Pollack gigs show him lying on the floor shooting birds at the camera and sticking out his tongue in a great ode to '70s punk rockers.
Expect a little bit of that at The Very First Neal Pollack Burlesque and Beer Bonfire of Atlanta. The event at Criminal Records, which of course prompted this story on the writer Neal Pollack, will be part rock show, part book signing. To make sure people show up, admission and beer are free. Pollack will sell, sign and read from his new book, Beneath the Axis of Evil: One Man's Journey Into the Horrors of War.
Also performing/reading will be local writer Jamie Allen, performance artist J.S. Van Buskirk, Texas writer Ben Brown and Mutiny on the Ballyhoo, an Atlanta rock group that claims to be geriatric clowns from another dimension.
By now you've caught on to Neal Pollack's cute gimmick on being Neal Pollack. He wraps witty, hilarious writing around things that never happened through a persona that doesn't exist.
In short, he's trying to turn parody into an art form -- a funny one at that.
The truly surprising thing is the gimmick hasn't gotten stale, at least not yet. Pollack's writing is fresh because he's smart, cool and kind of an idiot.
We know this because in an e-mail sent through what's known as the World Wide Web, Pollack warned menacingly, "Make me look smart and cool, but also kind of like an idiot, since I kind of am one."
CL: Are you worried that it'll be hard to keep up the gimmick?
Pollack: Well, I'm really not. The "gimmick," as you call it, has proven remarkably versatile. When my novel comes out in the fall, you'll see that I've made a great leap forward in voice. The novel has many characters and about one-and-a-half narrators. And I have other long-form fiction in the works. So no. When the gimmick dies, I will switch to another voice, because it is a fictional voice, after all, and not a persona. I only play the part on the page and, intermittently, on stage. And with my band, I'm doing rock 'n' roll parody, to which I'm supremely committed. Please feel free to challenge me. It's the only way this relationship will work. Do you think I'm fat?
*To see the rest of Michael and Neal's zany e-mail conversation, click here.
