William T. Vollmann

Tonight I was walking by Diesel Books in Oakland, peered in the window, and recognized the writer William T. Vollmann standing at the back of the store giving a reading to a good-sized crowd. Of course I went inside, handed my bag to the girl behind the counter, and eventually found a seat. Vollmann's epic book "Rising Up and Rising Down" about the history of violence is now out in paperback, so he was there to help promote it. McSweeney's published the hardback version, and I actually worked on that in a small capacity by helping to research images for various chapters as requested by Vollmann himself. He had written lists of desired images for each chapter. I was given several of his chapters along with the lists and sent over to the UC-Berkeley library to find appropriate images, things like, "Death of Julius Caesar" or "Hitler, Portrait."

In Diesel, Vollmann read a story about two warring villages in Serbia/Kosovo. His prose was very unflowery, just straight dialogue with very little description. He read flatly, without emotion, but his voice is strong enough and clear, so it was easy to follow along. He seems very sincere--after all, it's often been his own neck in the line of fire in various war-torn parts of the world. He is a singular creation, someone who puts himself where most of us don't dare go, even the gutsiest of us, I would say. After reading, he said, "I can take some questions now, or just sit down and sign books. Feel free to buy a book, or don't. It doesn't matter either way." That's close to what he said anyway. After a series of questions, while he was signing books, one woman asked him for his email address so she could send him her critique of his book after she's read it (some people are crazy). Vollmann said, without irony or attitude, "You can send it to my P.O. Box. I'm not on the Internet."

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