Spencer Wise photo by Molly Hamill
The New York Times Book Review calls Spencer Wise’s THE EMPEROR OF SHOES “Evocative,” going on to write, “THE EMPEROR OF SHOES underscores the extent to which the promise of economic opportunity still moves people across great distances on our planet…[A novel] of our times.”
Spencer will be giving a joint book talk with author Bethany Ball, Thursday, January 17th at 6:00 p.m. at B’Nai Zion Synagogue, 750 United St. in Key West. This event is free and open to the public. Please join us for what is sure to be an insightful and engaging conversation.
Leading up to this fun double-bill, I had the opportunity to ask both Spencer and Bethany a few questions.
Q. How did you come to be touring together?
A. Bethany and I have the same agent, Duvall Osteen, out of the Aragi literary agency in NYC. We have similar personalities (funny, but totally neurotic) and we also wrote our debut novels about Jewish people in the diaspora (Israel for her, China for me). Also she’s awesome and funny. And we both love tennis and we’re way too competitive despite not being that good in the grand scheme of tennis things. I think it was our agent who introduced us—Bethany was kind and generous enough to blurb my book, which was a big honor. We did a reading in NYC together, then Miami, now Key West, and Montreal is coming up. So we’ve been very lucky in that regard.
This event is interesting because the one-and-only Judy Blume is a huge fan of Bethany’s novel and invited her down to read. So a lot of stars aligned for this event and we’re so excited about it. We’ve been talking about it for months.
Having a touring buddy is the best! There is always someone to kvetch with instead of having to torture your partner/spouse over the phone. I’ve probably done 40 cities at this point on a six-month book tour and every event has been an absolute honor, but it’s a little more fun when I get to share the stage with a great writer like Bethany.
Q. Sell me Bethany’s book, WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE SOLOMONS.
A. Bethany’s book is fantastic. Stylistically it’s innovative. Somehow, she balances all these disparate plot lines and makes them all come together at the end. It’s a real tight-rope act she pulls off. The book is about the decline of the kibbutz system in Israel, a fading patriarch, and a family scattered across the globe in the diaspora. It’s full of sympathetic characters who are real and flawed. And it’s loaded with a dark, wry humor. It’s about what it means to be Jewish in 21st century and how one forms identity. And I’d say both our books are about a similar paradox—a strong desire to be with your family and the horrifying realization that you can’t get away from them.
Q. What was the genesis of your own book?
A. My family are shoemakers going back 5 generations to a shtetl in Russia. I wanted to explore that legacy, but also explore what happened to all these American textile and footwear factories when they closed in the late-60s and were outsourced overseas. My dad has been making shoes for the past 30 years in China. In 2014, I went and lived in a shoe factory in South China to research this novel. I was able to interview migrant workers in the factories and see the complex social and political realities they’re facing. So this is a very personal book. It’s totally fiction (when I go off on a reading my father always says, “Have fun and tell them it’s fiction for God’s sake”). The story itself is about a young man who goes to China to take over his family shoe business from his father, but he falls in love with a Chinese worker who may or may not be using him to start a workers’ revolution.
Q. What are you reading and recommending?
A. Well, I’ve got a mountain of books on my bedside table I’m looking forward to, but I’m also a college professor—I teach creative writing at Augusta University—so right now I’m feverishly reading all the books and stories I’ve assigned for the new semester. Some I’ve read before, others are new. I’ve got The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan and Maus by Art Spiegelman in there, two classics, both profound and warm, and I love teaching all the history behind them.
On my nightstand—a new collection called Hong Kong Noir that I’m enjoying a ton. There’s a great story by Carmen Suen. Very excited for a debut coming out this February called Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad. It’s going to be a biggie. I also have a few secret gems—a terrific upcoming book by Jing-Jing Lee called How We Disappeared and a coming-of-age memoir by John Glynn titled Out East that’s going to be amazing. Folks are in for a treat. Keep your eye out for all three authors in 2019.
Q. What are you working on now, if you don’t mind saying?
The next novel! I don’t talk too much about the project though until it’s done because it might change and suddenly it’s all about a feral cat colony on Mars (which it isn’t…yet) and everyone is disappointed.
~Robin Wood, Associate Manager