Crystal Hubbard/Collegian
Novelist Tony Earley read from his fiction and spoke on writing.
Soft spoken with a butter-rich Appalachian accent, Tony Earley, novelist and associate professor of English at Vanderbilt University, visited campus last weekend, reading selections of his fiction on Sunday, and addressing a full house Monday with a speech entitled, “The Thing and the Other Thing: Saying the Unsaid in American Short Fiction.”
Earley, author of Jim the Boy, Somehow Form a Family and the short story collection Here We Are in Paradise, has received national and international recognition; he was critically acclaimed in The New Yorker in 1999 as one of America’s best young fiction writers and in 1991 he received the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. His works can be found in magazines from The New Yorker to Esquire, Granta, Harper’s and Oxford American.
“[Writing’s] the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do since I was seven,” Earley said. “I think one of my biggest strengths as a writer is that I refuse to accept unsatisfactory outcomes.”
John Somerville, Barbara Longway professor of English literature and associate professor of English at Hillsdale, invited Earley to campus after reading about him in The New Yorker.
“I read an article by him in The New Yorker called ‘The Quare Gene,’” Somerville said. “It’s about idiosyncratic speech among people in western North Carolina where he grew up.”
Somerville said he felt a connection with Earley; both grew up in the same area in North Carolina, near the Appalachian Mountains.
“North Carolina—that’s just home, the landscape that looks right to my eye,” Earley said. “It’s the part of the world I love the most.”
“I called him last spring to see if he would come for a visit, and he couldn’t,” Somerville said. “So this fall while on his sabbatical, we finally got him to come.”
Somerville’s efforts paid off and Earley was met with enthusiasm both on Sunday and Monday.
“I really loved the short story [Earley read on Sunday], just because I felt like there was such a strong under-current of heartfelt meaning in such a strange, off-the-wall story,” senior Molly Moore said. “I guess I just found it entertaining and thought provoking and if you can make people laugh and think at the same time, that’s pretty much always a good thing.”
Senior Daniel Silliman said he also enjoyed listening to Earley read from his fiction, but said his speech Monday was more thought provoking.
“I liked [his speech],” Silliman said. “It was an interesting look at what American short stories are like. He was a good speaker—very entertaining—and the short story he wrote was fantastic, but his views of criticism were elementary. Even though I disagreed with him, he gave me a lot to think about [for] hours after the speech.”
Moore said she preferred the readings on Sunday, but said she still got a lot out of Monday night’s presentation.
“I thought the concept of ‘The Thing and the other Thing’ made a lot of sense and it definitely makes for a good story, but I think it’s a bit formulaic and it threatens to be really hokey or overly obvious,” Moore said. “But I think anytime you use metaphors you run that risk and, like anything else, it’s extremely difficult to pull that off well. Overall, I thought it was a helpful concept, especially for beginning writers.”
Earley said he was optimistic for the future of young writers and was adamant that where there is talent, there is opportunity.
“One can set out to be a good writer—I always assumed if I became a good writer, the rewards would be available,” Earley said. “The whole industry is based on finding people to publish, and there are more books being published than any other point in history. The way to be found is to learn the craft.”