August 7–14, 1997

open book

Playing With Themselves

When authors toy with their identities, fame is the name of the game.

A self-portrait of Philippe Tapon from the jacket of A Parisian From Kansas.

If you're a follower of Literary Scuttlebutt, you no doubt took note of this past April's David Leavitt controversy. That would be the one in which the prolific 36-year-old author's story "The Term Paper Artist" was yanked fromEsquire magazine due to its purportedly offensive gay sex scene. In fact, the passage in question was written with a silly, bashful charm: "It rested upon a pile of lustrous black pubic hair, rather like a sausage on top of a plate ofblack beans: I apologize for this odd culinary metaphor..." He apologizes, for gosh sakes; right there, mid-scene, he begs the reader's pardon.

In all the pointless hubbub over Leavitt's Latin cuisine, the truly audacious aspect of "The Term Paper Artist" (now available in the Houghton Mifflin collection, Arkansas) was overlooked by many. The author, long praised as acraftsman of richly traditional realist works, goes wackily postmodern in this story, presenting a protagonist who shares his name and much of his biographical background. When the fictional "David Leavitt" begins writing college boys'class papers in exchange for sex, it gives the reader a head full of fizz. Of course it's not true; it's a fantasy and a terrific joke, made all the more funny by the fact that Leavitt is usually rather staid in his storytelling technique. For allits embedded meanings (after publishing his last novel, While England Sleeps, Leavitt was sued by the British writer Sir Steven Spender for fictionally appropriating elements of Spender's life and gussying them up with sex — exactly whatLeavitt does with himself in this story), the greatest joy of "The Term Paper Artist" is the prankishness at its surface.

Philip Roth, who has long used the fictional alter ego Nathan Zuckerman to express his philosophies and anxieties, stepped further out on the self-conscious, self-reflexive edge in 1993's dazzling Operation Shylock (Vintage, paper), whichfeatures not only a novelist-protagonist named Philip Roth, but an espionage plot in which a secret agent runs around impersonating Philip Roth. Early in the novel, narrator Roth receives a letter from spy Roth and thinks: "This is as loony apiece of prose as I've ever received in my life."

As does Leavitt in "The Term Paper Artist," Roth has plenty to say about authorship and identity in Operation Shylock, but there's no denying the simple, loony pleasure of watching a solidly accomplished author cut loose and playwith himself (no Portnoy's Complaint pun intended).

Operation Shylock was Philip Roth's 20th book. David Leavitt had six volumes under his belt before he offered up "The Term Paper Artist." They successfully morphed themselves into fictional doppelgangers only after establishingthemselves in more conventional forms. The reader goes into these works quite clear that there is major talent supporting the gimmick.

What, then, are we to make of A Parisian From Kansas, the recently released debut novel by Philippe Tapon (Dutton) in which the 29-year-old author not only features a main character named Philippe Tapon, but a main plot in which Philippe iswriting the very novel we are reading?

This is as loony a piece of prose as I've ever received in my life. Is it pretentious? Well, yes. But this is fiction: pretense is the name of the game.

Entering A Parisian From Kansas with no previous sense of who Tapon is or what his pet themes are, the reader doesn't become emotionally involved with the author's surrogate character, despite his story's heartwrenching potential. (The bookthat the fictional Tapon is writing begins as a fictionalized biography of his fellow American expat in Paris, Kansas-bred hunk and former escort Darren Swenson, who is dying of AIDS.)

Tapon-the-character is a constant presence in Parisian, but he's standing on the sidelines. By portraying himself as a cool, observant spectator figure, Tapon ironically avoids some of the autobiographical bathos of many literary first novels.Throughout my reading of the book, I played Pet Shop Boys albums, which seemed the perfect arch, self-aware sonic complement to Tapon's efforts. Neil Tennant's matter-of-fact yet somehow sinister song lyric, "I've got the brains, you've got thebrawn, let's make lots of money," jibes almost perfectly with the relationship between Philippe the scribe and Darren, his beefcake subject.

The calculated cleverness doesn't entirely stop A Parisian In Kansas from exhibiting a certain joie de vivre; Tapon pays as much attention to sharp anecdotal storytelling as he does to his ballsy metafictional gambits.

Scenes of cafe life in the city of light sparkle with the witty dialogue of sweet, smart, earnest young characters. I was right there with them, across the lawn from the Louvre, sipping at the vignettes until I was sufficiently mellow to let down mycritical guard and enjoy the sometimes silly mind games Tapon peppers throughout the book. Chapter 5, for instance, begins like this: "I started writing chapter five..."

In addition to his self-referential loop-the-loops, Tapon spikes this punch-drunk volume with references to great works of literature. There are coy, funny homages to The Wasteland (including a sneaky cameo appearance by T.S. Eliot himself)and The Great Gatsby as well as an ambitious structural parallel to Homer's Odyssey (Tapon's narrative, like that of Odysseus, is broken into 24 sections, with chapters nine through 11 recounting a hellish descent). You don't need tocatch any of this stuff to enjoy the book, nor did Tapon really need to include it. It is rather endearing, though: the young author, making his debut, anxiously pays tribute to his idols and hopes to enrich his own work by summoning theirpresence.

Ultimately, Tapon's own presence in his work poses more problems than that of his surprise guests. Oddly, his use of author-as-character serves to distance us from Tapon rather than bring us closer to him. However well-handled, the complex mechanicsof an unknown writing about an unknown writing about himself ultimately overwhelm any intimate sense of emotion or character — the brainy beats out the heartfelt. Reading "The Term Paper Artist" and Operation Shylock, I took delightin familiar friends playing pranks; reading A Parisian From Kansas I was saddened to find an intriguing stranger reducing his entire identity to a prank.

Philippe Tapon is immensely talented and immensely ambitious. According to Parisian 's dustjacket he's working on a second novel. Here's hoping he keeps himself out of it... and puts more of himself into it.

If you're a guy who's playing with his own image, grab a copy of Paisley Goes With Nothing (Doubleday, paperback) by Hal Rubenstein and Jim Mullen.

Rubinstein is the former men's style editor of the New York Times Magazine; he's got lots of good ideas about building a basic wardrobe, how to put a dinner party together, making sure you get a good haircut and similar slightly vain, slightlychichi, absolutely essential topics. Jim Mullen is the best joke writer working today. Every week he pops out 10 up-to-the-minute topical one-liners for his Hot Sheet column in Entertainment Weekly magazine in addition to writing material forNew York radio DJs. Mullen turns a practical book into a genuine entertainment, lending the advice a deft, light readability.

From "50 Things Every Man Must Have": good wine glasses, nose hair tweezers, a full-size umbrella that wasn't bought on the street, two Ennio Morricone soundtracks.

From "What Your Wardrobe Says About You": Long ponytail = I want to make lots of money, but please don't tell anyone; short ponytail = I love making money, I can buy art; all black all the time = Everyone says I'm talented.

And my favorite bit, from a section on buying presents: "The best children's book ever written is Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (HarperCollins). You must buy it in hardcover, however. Paperback books make tacky gifts,even to kids."