Arthur Nersesian
by Daniel Robert Epstein for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

Talking to Arthur Nersesian is just like reading his novels, a mixture of raunchy humor and intelligence. We met at a Starbucks in the Lower East Side. He told me that the last time he met someone to do an interview for the web he ended up paying for the drinks they had. I told him not to worry about it, for someone that has written some of my favorite books I could pop for a Tazo iced tea and a latte.

I first discovered Nersesian’s books after walking by the Fuck-up in a store and thinking “Oh someone wrote a book about my life.” I laughed and cried at my little joke. I bought it and it’s about a loser in New York City who ends up working at a porno theater. I consider it one of the best books of the 90’s and anyone who doesn’t agree hasn’t read it yet. Since then Nersesian has written more books such as Dogrun and Suicide Casanova. They all explore Manhattan and its various underbellies. Each time he releases a book the work becomes more exciting, more stylish and always a pleasure.

The latest novel is Chinese Takeout and it’s the first book Nersesian has released through a major publisher. Nothing has changed, it takes place on the Lower East Side about, Orloff Trenchant who is a painter who sells books on West 4th Street in Manhattan and is obsessed with mastering his craft. Desperate for cash he agrees to take a commission no one else will touch: he has three weeks to carve a headstone for a recently deceased restaurateur -- a Chinese takeout box.

Check out the website for Chinese Takeout.


Daniel Robert Epstein: What’s it like releasing this book through Harper’s rather than through the smaller publishers you’ve used before?

Arthur Nersesian: It’s great and amazing because on the outside you look at these places and it seems like a corporate conglomerate. You can trace most of the publishers in America down to just a few houses. But it’s amazing how really Byzantine it all is and how it ultimately comes down to you working with an editor. They’re just as human as small press. I had three of my books released through small press and I know my small press people.

The point is that you really don’t come up against the whole corporate image that you imagine you would or at least I haven’t. I deal with very distinct human beings who have made an effort to work with me.

DRE: Obviously they liked your previous works enough to publish this book.

AN: It’s not like the old days where you were part of a stable. Publishing is more mercenary than that now. It really is like book by book unless you’re lucky enough to have a contract waiting for you. It’s like being a temp and every night you have to look for a new job.

DRE: I couldn’t imagine your editor saying something like “Now we have to make you this way.” How did they work with you?

AN: Just like any of the others. My editor is wonderful and it was a very human experience. It was just intelligence all the way. There wasn’t any concession to corporate America [laughs].

DRE: How was the book tour with a bigger company?

AN: We did about five cities. It’s the first time I’m touring. With small press I did more readings even though I’m shy.

DRE: I remember the first time I saw the Fuck-Up. I passed by it on a bookstore shelf and said to myself “What’s the Uck-up?”

AN: [laughs] Yeah exactly.

DRE: The Fuck-up felt very autobiographical to me. Chinese Takeout felt less so. I’m not sure why. Maybe you have gotten to the point where you can create a whole character from scratch. What do you think?

AN: Its interesting, American literature seems to have been galvanized with so much of fiction seeming like memoirs. It may have started with the Beats. So readers may feel like everything is autobiographical unless otherwise stated. I just started painting and its been something that’s always been in my blood and when I was younger I would always go to galleries. I guess the word I use and I made it into a verb is I kind of Frankenstein all these experiences into fiction. Sew these dead parts together. There are probably as many parts in the book that are my life as much as there are not. Maybe there is a little bit more in the Fuck-up.

DRE: When an author lives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan then writes a story about an artist who lives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan it may be impossible to avoid.

AN: Yeah but also a fuck-up who works in a theatre I guess it’s hard to say that I didn’t do that.

DRE: For lack of better word your books have always felt more European to me than an author like Stephen King. Like the New York that you write is Paris almost transplanted to New York.

AN: I hope some French publishers read this because I haven’t sold any books in France. I don’t have a big European readership. My books haven’t even been translated into those languages.

I was a fairly eclectic reader. I don’t read as much as before because I’m writing all the time and I’m too exhausted at the end of the day to have to pick up a novel. I miss that though. I have read my share of European authors. To compare me to Stephen King is fine. I envy his large readership.

DRE: I brought him up because his stories are very rural America to me. Your books just don’t feel strictly American.

AN: That may be because of growing up in New York City. There was expression in the 30’s and 40’s that the biggest thing in Europe is New York and the biggest thing in New York is Europe. Something like that shows that New York is not very American. I love the idea of America but there are times where I have not felt particularly American. So that might say something about the flavor of New York.

DRE: Does the Lower East Side contribute to that to? If you come down here at 2 am you could very well be on another planet.

AN: That’s interesting. I think of New York as quintessentially American. Something happens when Americans move out of New York. They go through this strange distilling process which makes them into the average American as we know it. Considering so much of America is estranged from New York City and that the city is the spillgate for the immigration population. I believe New York City was the capital before Washington DC but my point is that I think of it as a very intense kind of color that gets lightened up, strained out and turned into other colors.

DRE: Did you start painting before writing Chinese Takeout?

AN: I was but not that much. But I am not a painter I want to point that out right now [laughs].

DRE: You don’t want fans demanding to see your paintings.

AN: Right. I started painting more seriously after Chinese Takeout. In the book you really get to empathize with what the painter is going through. The fiction was kind of a catalyst for me.

DRE: The name of the main character in Chinese Takeout is Orloff. That name Orloff reminds me of Ed Wood. I think he used the name Dr. Orloff. It brings back that theme of Europe because it sounds somewhat Slavic. .

AN: Of all the reviews I’ve had only Publishers Weekly seemed to pick up on this. I was initially trying to do the Orpheus and Eurydice myth in Chinese Takeout. The characters of Orloff and Rita are Orpheus and Eurydice. Rita kind of leads Orloff into hell and in a sense he comes out of hell and remains there as well. Then he is enhanced in the process. That was where the name Orloff came from. I wanted a symbolic name Orpheus to Orloff.

DRE: The Village Voice picked up on this great quote "the passion, the reversals, and all the little intrigues and gambles, with no guaranteed outcome, that was the whole point to life." Is that how someone who could be considered a cult author feels?

AN: There’s something very smug about that. The character says that but I don’t know if I share it. When you think of all the writers, artists and eccentric people in general that are homeless and living on the street they are living without any security. They just live for the moment. So that’s a really audacious thing for the character to say and that might be his own tragic flaw. I don’t pass judgment on the June character for wanting security. I don’t have health insurance or a pension so I can’t advocate this lifestyle I have. It’s a dangerous one and a tough place in society.

DRE: When did you start writing The Fuck-up?

AN: I started in 1986, by 88 I got an agent and we made the rounds. It got rejected by everyone. I published it myself in 1991. I brought it through three printings over five years. I think in 1997 Akashic Books asked if they could publish it. I must confess that is why the book is called The Fuck-up. I knew it would get rejected, not get any mainstream press so I needed something to grab people’s attention.

When we got initial interest from MTV Books I didn’t think they would let it still be called The Fuck-up. It was a little bit of dilemma for me should I keep the name or kind of sellout. But they ended up publishing it under the name and I was very grateful that a corporate press kept the title.

DRE: There was a conversation on our message boards after I interviewed Serj Tankian because his poetry book was published through them. I think it ended up that rather than MTV Books bringing down your credibility that you brought more integrity to them.

AN: I’m glad you say that [laughs]. I got as little money as one could from the advance on that book and not a hell of a lot since. People come up to me and have these illusions that I made it. The book is in its twelfth printing and it seems to be doing well. I only get a fraction of the royalties. Publishing is a gamble and everyone needs a place to start. I salute what they are doing but their books seem a little poppy and I wish they would take more chances. But I know most new books haven’t sold and it’s commendable that they still put money into it.

DRE: With MTV, since they are such good businesspeople, you know that somewhere down the line they are making money.

AN: The bulk of their books, and I’m taking a guess, but some of those books haven’t made their money back. In that regard it’s commendable that they are still doing it.

DRE: Unlike a lot of fiction now your books have a strong philosophy to them. Do you have a personal philosophy?

AN: You can piece a philosophy together from my books. The Village Voice put together a bohemian lifestyle for me. I thought it was a fine review but I never really hammered out a philosophy as far as trying to pursue the philosophy of the fiction. There are certain things I feel, like and don’t like and that bleeds through into the work. In life we have a block of time to do something with and at the same time we have to live and survive. Ideally it’s to survive well. But how much time do we have each day to create something unique and artistically valuable that might endure versus how much time do you put into buying a nice car you’ll enjoy. Some of these things might go into a chemical level like how much will person will you enjoy the car or good cellphone. How much thrill can those things give you? Those things never gave me that much. I like those things, I’m not anti-capitalistic but they don’t hold a candle to doing a wonderful painting or novel. Those things are much more fulfilling.

DRE: There's a great quote by Julius Epstein, co-author of the screenplay for Casablanca. He had the perfect formula for all stories. "Act I, get your guy up a tree," he explained. "Act II, throw rocks at him. Act III; get your guy out of the tree. It doesn't work any other way".

AN: I like that [laughs]. That’s my philosophy. My next book will be called Up in the Tree.

DRE: I think it takes a native New Yorker to name his books after quintessential New York things, Chinese Takeout, Dogrun, and Manhattan Loverboy. Are we all underdogs though?

AN: That’s a good point. Everyone thinks that and therefore can relate to my characters. I have to admit that with a couple of million dollars in the bank it may be harder to see yourself as an underdog.

DRE: Except for Bill Gates there is always someone with more money than you.

I didn’t realize that The Fuck-up had commercials on MTV. What kind of commercials?

AN: The commercial campaign cost more money than I got for the book. A lot bigger. I would have acted in the commercial if they asked. It would have been a substantial increase to my purse. But they got this guy who looked a little and spoke like me. They had him as a homeless guy ranting about being a fuckup. A friend of mine in Oregon called me and asked me if I was homeless now. That’s how I found out the commercials even existed. I can’t afford cable so I don’t have it.

DRE: I just read that you were part of a literary magazine called The Portable Lower East Side. Was that what you just got let go from?

AN: No I was a teacher at Hostos Community College in the South Bronx for ten years. It was 99 percent Dominican and I taught ESL there. I got let go from there.

DRE: I read that when you were at The Portable Lower East Side it got attacked.

AN: Yes by Jesse Helms. We would do theme issues and one was about Sex in New York City. We investigated different aspects of sex and we did a Gay and Lesbian issue. Ten years ago D’Amato and Helms attacked when we had a poem by Sapphire about one of the kids that was wilding in the park. She did this poem called Wild Thing and we got our NEA [National Endowment for the Arts] pulled. They thought it was unwholesome. John Frohnmeyer, who was head of the NEA back then after being appointed by Bush 1, to his credit, defended it. I wrote him a letter he published in his memoirs that I admired what he did by standing up for this. I am a Democrat and a liberal I feel they should be rewarded when they do something good.

DRE: Where do you think we are going now in the arts?

AN: I don’t feel like I know where art is going. I don’t have my finger on the pulse of anything. The arts are so broad. It’s funny because I was going to the beach with a friend and he asked me I noticed that there are less topless women out there than there were during the Clinton administration. That’s the indications of culture shifts that I notice.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/words/Arthur+Nersesian/