The Costco Connection - December 2014

32 ;e Costco Connection DECEMBER 2014

By Lisa Alcalay Klug

IN THE LATEST novel by author Andrew Sean Greer, Greta Wells undergoes electroshock therapy, then finds herself transported from 1985 to 1918 and subsequently 1941. With each treatment, in

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells, she cycles through these three versions of her existence, each one a contrasting manifestation of happiness and sadness. Ultimately, Wells must choose one to make her own.

The project dates back 10 years, while Greer was crafting his first large-scale success, The Confessions of Max Tivoli (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004; not available at Costco). The historical novel, which spanned a number of decades, landed on the New York Times best-seller list and earned a California Book Award and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award for an author under 35. After much research, Greer found himself wondering what era he might like to inhabit.

That got him thinking about the concept of
transposing a life into another epoch. Each attempt
felt “wooden,” so he dropped the idea. Then one day,
while walking on a country road during the writing
of The Story of a Marriage (Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2008; not available at Costco), he realized,
“She could wake up in a different world!”
Initially, the protagonist was a man, but Greer
discovered a woman’s life changed more drastically
in the 20th century. Many other elements remained
unclear. “At first, I didn’t even know what time peri-
ods, or how my character traveled, or anything,”
Greer says. “It was a long walk in the dark for me,”
he says of the novel’s creation.

The same could be said for Greer’s life and career. After graduating from Brown University, he moved to New York City, then Montana, then Seattle, then San Francisco. A series of failures ensued.

“I sometimes think the only reason I’m a successful writer [is that] I was never good at anything else,” says Greer, who describes himself as a lazy copy editor, slapdash cleaner, nervous waiter, skittish driver, forgetful paralegal and sleepy retail worker. As a chauffeur, secretary and bookstore employee, he was fired repeatedly. Minimizing his material needs became an easy choice. “A writing life was more important to me than a glamorous one,” he explains.

Indeed. His first four novels, which he wrote in
high school, college, grad school and post-school,
respectively, remain unpublished. The latter two
finally landed him an agent for his first published
work, a collection of short stories, with “very little
money and no real reviews.” His debut novel was
published mere days after 9/11. “No one, including
me, was interested,” he says. “But writing, it turns
out, is not about ‘debuts.’ ”
A lover of books since childhood, Greer let go
of what might sell or earn critical acclaim. Instead,
he wrote Max Tivoli as a florid, semi-magical
Victorian novel that, he says, “had the great luck to
fall into John Updike’s hands.” It became an interna-
tional best-seller.

“That made it easier to call myself a writer, but no easier to write,” Greer tells The Connection.

Although Greer plans each novel before the last is published, the process nevertheless involves an income-free year of “baking bread and taking up some sport and cleaning the house before I really, really begin the next book,” he says.

His current routine consists of rising at 6: 30 a.m., picking up a fellow writer, swimming in the frigid San Francisco Bay and returning home to write 1, 100 words a day no matter what.

“Having already done one impossible thing
before breakfast,” he says, “helps to do the second
impossible thing: write a novel.”
Like Greta, whose twin brother looms large in
the novel, Greer has a twin, which has allowed him
to never feel “truly alone.” They share opinions,
Truly. The identical twins live next
door to one another, in adjoining houses.

Greer shares his with his husband, his oldest friend and her spouse. It’s not a bad life to choose after all. C

Lisa Alcalay Klug ( lisaklug.com) is an author and freelance journalist.

Life choices

Signed book gıveaway

COSTCO HAS 50 copies of Andrew Sean Greer’s The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells with signed book plates to give away. To enter, go to: costcoconnectionbookgiveaway.com.

NO PURCHASE, PAYMENT OR OPT-IN OF AN Y KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN THIS SWEEPSTAKES.

Purchase will not improve odds of winning. Sweepstakes is sponsored by HarperCollins, 10 East 53rd St., New York, NY 10022. Open to legal residents of the U.S. (except Puerto Rico) who are age 18 or older at the time of entry. One entry per household. Entries must be received before the January issue is available online, which will happen around December 25. Winners will be randomly selected and noti;ed by mail on or before February 1, 2015. The value of the prize is $15.95. Void where prohibited. Winners are responsible for all applicable federal, state and local taxes. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. Employees of Costco or HarperCollins and their families are not eligible.

FR A NC E FR EEM A N

tastes and emotional states of mind. “We thor-

ro n finally know what it is like to be alone. Until

Pennie Clark Ianniciello,

Costco book buyer WHILE I TRY not to spend too much time imagining how different my life might be had I made different choices,

I do think it’s fun to imagine what my life would be like had I been born into a different generation.

If you, too, like to imagine such things, I can’t rave enough about this month’s book buyer’s pick, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells, by Andrew Sean Greer.

When Greta Wells’ twin brother dies and her lover leaves, she’s prescribed electroshock therapy to help her deal with the grief. The treatment sends her to 1918 and 1941, where she ;nds her brother, her lover and an alternate version of herself.

It’s a beautiful story about the many faces of love and what a woman learns about herself from being able to visit those different times. (Item #953731; available 12/1)