Day 474, Quasi-Quarantine: A Book For Writers, "Destiny Thief" Is Only Tangentially About Writing

"Most writers had about a thousand pages of shitty prose in them, he went on, and these have to be expelled before they can hope to write seriously. 'In your case,' he added, 'make it two thousand.'"

Having been a fan of "Straight Man" and "Empire Falls," I picked up this Richard Russo collection at an Outer Banks discount book store. While the author remains eminently quotable, I believe the essay format is fairly clearly not his strong suit.

Leaning into an introspective bent, Russo is clearly pondering mortality and legacy in these essays, and the result is a tone that can be more than a little precious and overbearing. 

"A writer's truest self hides in the same dark terrain where self-doubt and anxiety dwell -- those dread whisperers -- and it's that self they constantly assail. They are, I think, the original hackers, determined to hijack the code, to show us who's boss, to confuse us into thinking the danger comes from without, not from within. Like Odysseus, we have little choice but to lash ourselves to the mast and listen to their Siren song, knowing all too well that they want us on the rocks. There is a narrow passage. There must be.

"But there's no dead reckoning. We're on our own."

"The Destiny Thief" features Russo's trademark wit and a handful of pearls of wisdom for writers, but falls short of any revelatory or inspirational advice. Instead, the book leans toward a personal narrative, tilting in the direction of memoir. 

"The best humor has always resided in the chamber next to the one occupied by suffering. There's a door adjoining these rooms that's never completely closed. Sometimes it's open just a crack, because that's all we can stand. Most of the time it's flung wide open on a well-oiled hinge, and this is as it should be. Those in favor of shutting it tight are always, always wrong."

For fans of Russo's work, this can be enough, but the expectation of more for those who trade in words can result in a bit of an unsatisfactory aftertaste.

" ... A welling up of admiration, too, for every singer, poet and artist lucky enough to find, against all odds, a voice and the courage to raise it, and of deep empathy for the many more who try and fail ... in the conviction they were halfway there, which you have to believe or you'll never catch that train, the one carrying saints and sinners and lost souls, the one headed for the land of hope and literary dreams, which is neither here nor there but, rather, in each of us who chase it."