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A novel approach to summer

“It was a dark and stormy night…”

That’s how my novel used to begin.

Then I decided to confront the existential question: “Do I have a great novel burning deep within my soul, or is it just middle-aged indigestion?” I sought the answer in four weeks at last year’s New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore.

The program is run by one of my favorite professors, the ever-youthful Bob Boyers. He must have some relationship with my distant cousin, Dorian Gray. After thirty years, Boyers still spins like a Yeatsian gyre. Fueled by a lively demeanor and natural showmanship, he produces an addictive monthlong festival of classes, readings, soirees, and discussions with a diverse lineup of literary lions and cubs.

Fiction classes met Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Each week a new instructor led the class and gave comments on our work in a private session. The collective, diverse literary wisdom of my instructors—Nick Delbanco (The Vagabonds), Mary Gaitskill (“Secretary”), Caryl Phillips (The Nature of Blood), and Howard Norman (I forget)—set the tone and example for how to read and evaluate a manuscript thoughtfully.

I turned in my first stab at a novel—about a round-the-world cruise on the old SS Rotterdam. It was my first novel; I was pretty nervous. My classmates’ comments were as revealing of their own characters as they were of my novel’s characters. Some wanted to improve my grammar. Some wanted my novel to be more like theirs. Most made helpful requests for clarification, such as “Is this supposed to be funny?” (Yes.) And “When you say he •suffered from rigor mortis,’ did you mean he was dead?” (Yes.) Nearly all of my fellow students questioned the early demise of my hero’s nemesis, the Orange Juice King of Florida—my villain was so appealing, everyone wanted him to live longer and perpetrate more evil.

After two weeks many of my classmates were replaced by a second group. Rather than revise my first thirty pages, I furiously wrote another thirty just in time to submit them for comments. The compassionate environment (and a deadline) proved powerful motivators. The criticism continued to be both sympathetic and supportive—after all, everyone was commenting on each other’s work, and daggers can cut both ways.

In the evenings there were readings and lectures. Not just the well-known mesmerizers like William Kennedy, Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Moody, and Russell Banks, but other poets and writers too shared their work. Great old poets read great new poems. Novelists previewed works in progress. I rarely attend readings of unfamiliar authors, but at Skidmore I was drawn to the evening events like a barfly on tin (or lint). Following each event was a cocktail party (offering Vermont cheese cubes and plastic cups of New York State wine), where poetry students mingled with narrative-nonfiction workshoppers, and the evening’s featured writer held court and autographed books. These discussions opened my eyes to the off-line literary lives of our lecturers. My writing batteries felt recharged.

The Writers Institute was a terrific way to spend time in Saratoga, while reacquainting myself with writing and literature and, of course, Skidmore. I’m still not sure if there is a great novel inside me, but I continue to write as though there were.

“The evening sky. Thunderclaps explode and drizzle penetrates the obscurescence.” Well, maybe one summer isn’t quite enough…

Douglas Gray ’73 produces plays and renovates theaters in Seattle and New York City.