Lighten Up

Sitting pretty: First-time novelist Elise Juska outside U Arts, home to one of her two non-writing jobs.

Elise Juska on writing yourself out of a funk.

by Kevin Plunkett

Right now, Elise Juska’s Getting Over Jack Wagner -- a slice of jangled bittersweet comedy set in and around Philadelphia -- is sitting comfortably on local new release paperback tables and, according to Juska, being pitched to Hollywood for a feature film.

A self-described classic "solitary writer," Juska acknowledges with some astonishment, "There is a lot of interest."

Wagner (Downtown Press) follows 26-year-old Manayunk travel agency copywriter Eliza Simon through a skittery string of misbegotten dates and relationships. Her Achilles' heel is a weakness for feckless young "rock stars,": skinny, stubbled, Yuengling drinkers with commitment and hygiene issues who play bass for aspiring bar bands with unfortunate names like The Electric Hoagies.

The novel is vogueishly conversational, lathered with pop culture and unabashedly marketable. It's also a clear departure from the pensive, literate short stories Juska's published in journals like The Harvard Review and The Seattle Review. This includes the excellent "Northeast Philly Girls," published by The Hudson Review (available at www.hudsonreview.com/juska.html), inspired by Juska's memories of childhood visits from suburban Montgomery County to relatives in Philadelphia's working-class Lawndale section. "Northeast Philly Girls" reads like a melancholy counterpoint to Green Grass Grace -- that rollicking ode to Irish Catholic rowhome existence by the Tolstoy of Tacony, Shawn McBride.

Juska, who teaches writing at the University of the Arts and works as a grant writer for The Wilma Theater, is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire's creative writing program, and a devotee of the witty but emotionally charged fiction of Lorrie Moore and Anne Tyler. "I like to find women authors who are funny but not just light; funny with substance," she says.

Still, she explains, the crossover to Wagner's light(er) romance was organic, developed out of a short story she wrote at UNH, later published in Salmagundi. "When I wrote the book, marketing was the furthest thing from my mind," she says. "I'd published a few stories for little or no money, and it was hard to imagine anyone publishing the book -- much less having anyone buy it who wasn't related to me." A year later, when she picked up the story again, "there were some hard things going on in my life. Basically, I knew I had to write. I knew writing was hard. I knew I wanted to laugh. And while I found writing funny fiction no easier than writing unfunny fiction, at least I was able to crack myself up along the way."

Juska admits her debut "does kind of easily fall into the expectations for the light, single girl in her 20s, chick-lit, wanting a man [genre]," but hopes that "it won't get pigeonholed." "I was trying to do something different," she continues. "I do think the character is complex, and it's not really about finding a boyfriend at the end of the day but other, more subtle issues."

Juska, 30, spends two hours writing each morning in her Narberth apartment. She began writing at the age of 5, on an old manual Smith-Corona. "I distinctly remember because my fingers would get stuck typing really fast and plunge between the keys," she recalls. Nowadays, it's not such an effort, even though she juggles writing with two other jobs. " It's all feeding the writing. People will say, ŒOh, you're so disciplined! You can get up early on Saturday to write!' But I can't even apply the word discipline. I sort of leap out of bed eager to do it."

Juska says she's "wrestling" with a second, weightier novel and putting together a collection of her short stories, likely to be titled Northeast Philly Girls. "I can't stop writing about [Philadelphia]. It's so colorful. I think it is really a unique place; there is a real lack of pretense. People are what they are. You either hate them or love them but you are not left guessing if they are real."

So what's it like to suddenly acquire a publicist, start a cross-country book tour and contemplate seeing your first novel turned into a film? "Pretty surreal," Juska declares. "The first time I was in a bookstore and saw a stranger reading the back of the book, my knees almost gave out."

Elise Juska reads Tue., May 27, 6 p.m, Borders Books, Broad and Chestnut sts., 215-568-7400.