Dangerous Diane
Photo by Guler Ugur
THE NEXT BIG THING PROJECT
What is the working title of the book?
“The Drunk Monologues.”
Not “The Drunken Monologues.” Some people think they are being helpful when they tell me the grammar is incorrect. But they don’t get it. (In some way it’s sort of a play on “show don’t tell,” isn’t it?)
Where did the idea come from for the book?
I was drinking a beer in a brown paper bag on the corner of 78th Street and Second Avenue when I saw a group of men looking under the hood of a car. I leaned against a deli wall and watched their ritualistic moves and thought it was hilarious. I went home and wrote “Men and Cars.” That was in the 80’s and I’ve been writing monologues about drinking ever since.
What genre does your book fall under?
I don’t know. Poetry, prose, a solo play, fiction, creative non-fiction. Excerpts have been published in fiction anthologies, arts magazines and monologue books. It’s part memoir. It could even be horror or thriller although those genres usually reject me like ex-husbands.
So I guess it’s a novel. Hopefully literature.
What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in the movie rendition?
Lily Tomlin or Tom Waits.
Tomlin is also from Detroit, where a lot of the stories take place, especially the music. And since there is music, my original drummer, Leonard Paul Johnson would play drums. Waits once said that he’s a musician because it was either that or air conditioning repair. That’s how I feel about being an artist.
I was the first actor. I read the monologues in all the usual poetry venues in NYC and then performed the solo show in a Horse Trade production, which they produced and directed (by their theatre director at the time, Russ Dobular). I went on to do it again at the NY and New Zealand fringe festivals. If Tomlin or Waits turn it down, I could be persuaded to do it myself but I don’t like pretending I’m drunk anymore. I want the real thing now. It might be because I’m in Florida.
What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
A tragic-comedy about one woman’s drinking addiction with absolutely no reference to recovery.
OR
Sobriety is over-rated.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I never stopped. The first monologue was around 1988. There are more monologues than what ended up in the show so I'm excited to get all the monologues together again. Since 1988 I moved three more times in Manhattan, six times in New Zealand, once to Woodstock, three house sitting gigs in NYC, one sublet in Brooklyn (same hood as the Bensonhurt Butcher), and one roommate share in Hoboken, NJ. Now I’m in Florida. In 2004 I left New York for New Zealand to try a second hand romance. The marriage was in front of a portrait of the Queen of England!. It ended not well because that husband was drinking and I was jealous. My moving for the past ten years has a lot to do with writing and drinking, I’m just not sure exactly what it is.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Steven Canon invited me to be a feature reader at the now defunct Avenue B Social Club where the audience included people drinking and people in recovery. Because they all laughed at my stories I was encourage to go further. When I saw John Leguizamo's “Freak” I knew I had a Broadway show. I never got that far but off-off broadway has been good and getting some of the monologues published is inspiring.
Now Bonny Finberg has invited me to do this. I couldn't say no. I'm inspired to go forward and finish. Thanks Bonny.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest.
Chapter One: Train Birth
I was born in motion. The train rocking and surging, metal against metal I popped out on a double seat in a little town called Puce - which is French for flea or so they tell me - fifteen miles east of Windsor, Ontario. Canada. Water blood afterbirth and my mother's tears mixed with clapping and cheering and a champagne toast. Some fell on me, and at birth I was already moving and drinking.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Self published.
Because:
1. I can’t go through mass rejection again. Twenty years ago I had a top New York agent who sent my first novel, “Girl Culture” to all the big publishing houses. I received over twenty-two rejection letters all in a span of a few weeks. At the same time I had been dating a poet/cab driver who asked me to marry him over a few bottles of vodka. We flew to San Francisco. In the middle of the ceremony the judge admonished me for laughing because it was a “solemn occasion”. I stopped laughing, we got married and my friends Bobby and Marcie took us to a revolving restaurant in the sky where we ordered champagne. However, my new husband wanted a bloody mary instead and I knew I married the wrong man.
2. I want to publish visuals and music with the chapters. There are old songs and cartoons that are appropriate and I want to create new stuff with sound and ink. A blog is the only way to control that. As soon as I figure out how to create those menu blocks on the top of the blog and how to create links so the reader can “read more” I will go forward.
3. When finished I will toast the project with a glass of red wine. Lately I’ve been riding my bike to the grocery store where I browse the wine aisle. Once I picked up a bottle to see how it feels. This is an incredible incentive. When I’m finished I get to toast my success. After sixteen years sober, I think I deserve a drink. Recovery is so over-rated. I’m not having any fun since I hit bottom.
What is it that you want of a book?
I want my book to do what books do for me: EVERYTHING.
Truth!
Gore Vidal says that a writer must tell the truth and the best way to do that is in a novel. I like deadlines. Now if my neighbors invite me for a game of golf I can say, “Sorry I’m on a deadline.”
BIO
Diane Spodarek is a Canadian-American artist, a recipient of an NEA artist’s fellowship in video-art and two New York Foundation for the Arts artist’s fellowship in creative nonfiction. Excerpts from, “The Drunk Monologues,” are published in “Young Women’s Monologues from Contemporary Plays,” “The Unbearables’ Big Book of Sex,”"Even More Monologues for Women by Women," and Gathering of the Tribes 12.” She was the "First Runner Up" at the Nuyorican Poets Café "First Grand Poetry Slam" in NYC and her short story “The Farmer in the Dell” will appear in the horror anthology, “Apocryphile” in 2013.www.dangerousdiane.blogspot.
