Like Shaking Hands with God: A Conversation about Writing

The transcript of two conversations between writers Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer. Helpful to those who are considering writing or those who are required to study writing. What is offered? Some wisdom, a few prods, some encouragement--and the imperative: write nothing insincere.

This is a wisp of a book. At less than 80 pages, I read it in one evening in the time it took me to eat a few tapas and down two pints of beer. By the time the check arrived, I was already writing down my thoughts inside the back cover. But what an enjoyable wisp it is! Almost everyone I know is a fan of Kurt Vonnegut, and so the colorful and curmudgeonly wisdom he brings to the table here is no surprise. But who is this Lee Stringer guy? By the end, I began to think of him as a superior version of James Frey (author of the badly written pseudo memoir "A Million Little Pieces") with the main difference that Mr. Stringer (1) writes well and (2) his tales about life on Skid Row are true. Actually, now that I think of it, that's kind of like saying I'm like Shakespeare except that he (1) writes a lot better and (2) he's been dead for almost 400 years. Anyway, back to the book: I admit that Like Shaking Hands With God doesn't offer a great price-per-word ratio (it's slim and relatively expensive) but it does offer a great deal of wisdom on its handful of pages. Based on two conversations between two friends with a lot of respect for each other, these guys are smart, they know how to express themselves, and they've been around the block a few times. The book bills itself as "a conversation about writing" and it is that. But it's more of a conversation about being, but a kind of being that involves writing. For a lot of avid readers, that's a perfect fit.

I liked the conversational tone of it- and it really is a very enjoyable short and easy read. The second part of the book isn't as good as the first. If you like Vonnegut, you'll dig this. Lots of ideas to chew on.

In this slight volume (only 46 actual pages of transcribed talk), Vonnegut, the novelist, and Stringer, who wrote a book of memoir essays, carry on an enthusiastic conversation about why and how they write. This seems one of those brief dips into the psyche of very good authors that can be so motivating to all of us at various stages of our careers, no matter what we write or aspire to write. Vonnegut and Stringer are both passsionate about their work. The latter tells of how he realized he could write by describing his first extended flow experience, when he decided to use his pencil, which he otherwise normally used as a drug implement (to push screens into his pipe) to write. After five hours of nonstop focus, he realized this was something, besides seeking drug highs, that he could really do well. They both talk about the primary importance of answering the big questions for themselves in their writing, and how publishing the results is almost an afterthought. Reminding us that even nonfiction authors write to find out where we're going, Stringer says, "I had a lot of fun trying to figure out how I was going to fill up these pages, and then, convinced that I'm not going to figure it out, bingo! something happens. It's like shaking hands with God." There may not be a lot to read here, but it's on target and REAL.Susan K. Perry, author of the bestselling WRITING IN FLOW