Spotlight on … Zachary German Eat When You Feel Sad (2010)

 

‘Zachary German’s nimble, catwalking, archeological, surface dwelling, emotionally unpaved prose is a thing of total wonder and my favorite drug, language-based or otherwise. Eat When You Feel Sad is so bright and pleasurable and full of excellence, it’s positively serene.’ — Dennis Cooper

‘Zachary German would have been eleven years old the year American Psycho was released in theaters, and though I don’t know whether he saw the film before he read the book, it’s highly likely that a trailer for the film alerted him to the book’s existence in the first place. He would have understood going in, then, that the ultra-violence was a kind of cartoonish excess, and that the whole thing was to be understood (on some level) as a comedy, but he would have probably been still too young to fully grok how (or even that) the pathological cataloging of brand-names was meant as an extension of the central “joke.”

‘I’m sure he understands that now, but first impressions die hardest, and often times not at all. I understood the film version of American Psycho as just that—a version, which is in itself the reason I didn’t go see it in theaters. I didn’t want to see some director’s weird re-conception of this monumental horror novel as a comedy. I wanted to experience the Real And Serious Book Itself. Consequently, I still cannot think about American Psycho without a shiver running down my spine, because what I remember is not the book itself, so much as my throwing it across my dorm room, and only later working up the courage to pick it back up and see it through to the end.

‘There was a segue that I was building towards, connecting my speculation about what the young Zachary German probably took at face value with the adult (albeit barely) Zachary German’s penchant for name-checking everything that catches his protagonist Robert’s attention in German’s debut novel, Eat When You Feel Sad. But wherever that connection has got off to, I can’t find it, and so maybe it never existed in the first place—or maybe it’s so obvious that I should just let you put it together (or not) for yourself. In any case, this um, tendency of German’s is just one of the things that makes Eat When You Feel Sad so very strange.

‘The book is written in a voice of militant composure. Only simple sentences are allowed, and each one consists of a subject, a verb, and then an object, in that order. Pronouns are allowed for humans (though they’re used sparingly), but are almost totally verboten for products and things. Paradoxically, this work of extreme minimalism rejects all forms of shorthand, and most of the colloquial. A can of “sixteen ounce Pabst Blue Ribbon beer” does not, once introduced, ever become “a beer.” It is referred to only by its full title, and so it goes with all the movies, books, songs, bands, albums, foods, drinks, and countless other items which are consumed throughout. Though actually, now that I think about it, I realize that “countless” is the absolute wrong word—and this mistake of mine is just one example of why (and how) this book and its author are both trickier than they first seem. In fact, each and every person and thing in the book is counted and catalogued, in an accurate and comprehensive index at the back of the book. In this gesture, German achieves some unfathomable level of triple-reverse irony normally only possible in laboratory settings for mere seconds at a time. Kudos to him for pulling this off—and to me for having figured it out.

Here are some selections taken at random from the text:

“Robert is in a community center. There is music” (11).

“Robert is lying on Alison’s bed” (21).

“Robert plays the song ‘Chickfactor’ by Belle & Sebastian. He turns off his bedside lamp. He thinks ‘My job is okay.’ He is asleep” (35).

“The DVD is Lost in Translation. Robert turns on the DVD player. He puts Lost in Translation into the DVD player” (57).

“Robert walks into his apartment. He walks into his bedroom. He lies down. He is asleep. Robert is awake. He takes a bath. He reads the story “Community Life” by Lorrie Moore. Robert rides his bike to Whole Foods. He buys arugula, broccoli, pasta sauce, portabello mushrooms and a baguette. Robert rides his bike to his building. He makes dinner. He eats dinner. He makes a video of himself eating dinner. He washes dishes. Robert uploads the video to YouTube” (71-72).

‘Despite what he’d sometimes have you think, Robert likes being alive. (To German’s credit—he does let Robert say so, from time to time, so the characterization of Robert is by no means a total snow job.) Robert takes genuine pleasure in the food he eats and the music he listens to, Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s The Magic of Satie no less than CocoRosie and Lil Wayne. He smokes pot and gets drunk not because of his spiritual emptiness, though I’m sure that it helps, but because smoking pot and getting drunk are really fun things to do, especially when girls are around—which for him they usually are. (He has more friends and love-interests than the reader will be able to keep track of; another good reason for the index.) Even in his moments of deepest weakness—questioning his sexuality; throwing up on himself at a party; having any number of existential crises—Robert still seems somehow almost too good at being himself, which may or may not be the Patrick Bateman connection I was looking for.

‘If you’re waiting for me to render a definitive verdict on Eat When You Feel Sad, you might as well stop. I’m not going to, or else I already have. I can’t tell you whether I think this is a “great book” or whether it will “last” (though I’m going to keep both my galley and my first edition in good condition, just in case). What I can tell you is that it is a real book, wholly original and complete unto itself, and that within the admittedly narrow scope of its ambition, it has been almost faultlessly executed, and is therefore a remarkable success on its own terms. The world will have to make of it whatever it can. For my own part, though, I want to say that I very much enjoyed reading Eat When You Feel Sad, spending time in Robert’s weird calm company, and thinking about it afterward has brought me at least as much pleasure again. Let me put it another way: in the time I spent working on this review (the bulk of two afternoons, and a part of a third), I could have done a lot of things, several of which are due in the very near future, and at least two of which come with checks attached. But I chose to ignore all of those things, because I wanted to do this.’ — Justin Taylor

 

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Shitty Youth

‘Zachary German’s web presence was one I once compulsively checked-on for updates, that I consistently enjoyed, intriguing and funny, and now his web presence is gone, mostly, because he wanted it to go away.

‘Adam Humphreys’s new documentary, Shitty Youth, which shares a name with German’s possibly defunct “radio show”/podcast, portrays German as a willfully difficult or potentially alienating person socially who is very attuned to style and taste, the author of one novel, Eat When You Feel Sad, which got good attention and praise, who has released almost no writing since, in part because much writing, including his own, is not up to his very high standards.

‘The documentary combines footage from German’s trip to Florida with Megan Boyle to visit Alec Niedenthal and read at a reading with footage of him doing the often-awkward, often-hilarious Shitty Youth show, preexisting videos of German deadpanly reading and deadpanly trying on a dress, as well as new interviews with people who know him or of him: Tao Lin, Steve Roggenbuck, David Fishkind, Marshall Mallicoat, and Brandon Scott Gorrell.’ — HTML Giant

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Further

Zachary German @ Wikipedia
‘Eat When You Feel Sad’ @ goodreads
Zachary German’s Eat When You Feel Sad is a novel about a tone
No doubt many readers of Zachary German’s Eat When You Feel Sad …
German’s debut novel follows protagonist Robert, an emaciated vegan …
Zachary German’s debut novel, Eat When You Feel Sad, is blowing up all over …
Zachary German assuredly depicts young, modern life with his unique, minimalist prose …
TWENTY AND BORED AND ALIVE
QUICK QUESTIONS WITH ZACHARY GERMAN
Who Is Zachary German?
answers from Zachary German’s ask.fm
Zachary German, The Void Of New Literary Microcelebrity
ZACHARY GERMAN, CAFFEINATED ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES, AND AN INTERVIEW
A ZACHARY GERMAN/JAMIE STEWART COLLABORATION WOULD BE EITHER BE REALLY EPIC OR REALLY SAD
BLAKE BUTLER INTERVIEWING (ZACHARY GERMAN)
Buy ‘Eat When You Feel Sad’

 

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Extras

Zachary German’s “Eat When You Feel Sad”

“eat when you feel sad” by zachary german

Zachary German’s Eat When You Feel Sad

ZACHARY GERMAN WAVVES ROBERT EAT WHEN YOU FEEL SAD REVIEW INTERROGATION

 

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Interview

 

3:AM: How much – in a percentage – is Eat When You Feel Sad autobiographical?

Zachary German: One hundred percent, or zero percent. It seems like we’re all mother nature’s children, in a way, and so my story is your story is [something]. I’m being serious…

3:AM: How much – in a percentage – are you happy with the finished novel?

ZG: Ninety five maybe. Sometimes I think about things that could have been made more consistent. I never went through it thinking about the climate, and trying to make the weather correlate with seasons in a way that would make sense. So I sometimes fear there may be some inconsistencies there. There are other things I probably could have done, times when I should have expanded on dialogue or something.

3:AM: How long have you been working on it?

ZG: I worked on it from autumn 2007 to autumn 2009, pretty much, I think. So two years. The majority of that time was spent editing – I had written most of the text within the first six months.

3:AM: Since its publication, is there a part/scene that you are unhappy with, and wish you could edit out/change?

ZG: No. I think all the scenes work. For the Bear Parade draft there was one scene in which the narration went into first person, which a few people seemed to like, but in the end it seemed too inconsistent, so I took it out. Nothing like that in the final draft.

3:AM: Stylistically it is consistent throughout, written in a very pared-down, minimalist way – “Robert turns off the light. Robert turns on the light. (etc)” – Did you find these stylistic choices ‘trapping’ or ‘freeing’? How did you come to choose this style to write in?

ZG: I found that style very freeing. I am easily overwhelmed when looking at a blank Word document, and it is a lot easier if I know exactly what I’m going to write. So I can just say “This is what happens” and write that down, in a very specific format. The part I like the most is the editing I do later, where I change the word “Robert” to the word “He,” or vice versa, things like that. Having very small, specific choices seems fun.

3:AM: Is the character of Sam actually Tao Lin? And in Shoplifting From American Apparel, is Robert you?

ZG: Oh… it’s just a novel, Chris.

3:AM: Okay, I know what you mean. But I also feel interested in knowing a little more about that ‘overlapping’ scene in both books – page 117 in Eat When You Feel Sad and page 78 in Shoplifting From American Apparel. Was there some sort of conscious decision made between you and Tao at some point to include this overlap between events/ conversation/ names etc? Or did it just occur naturally, due to the autobiographical natures of both books?

ZG: [question not answered]

3:AM: What question would you most liked to be asked in an interview like this?

ZG: What is your favorite Blink-182 song and why?

3:AM: How often – if ever – do you think of the title of your novel as an acronym?

ZG: Between 1/3 and 2/3rds of the time, probably. Like when I think with sounds it’s ‘Eat When You Feel Sad’ but when I think with pictures it’s ‘ewyfs.’ Not sure if that is true, makes sense, sorry.

3:AM: You said you enjoy the line-editing part most. Do you have a specific memory of a time/place when you felt especially happy with how your novel was going? If so, please describe it.

ZG: No real specific memories of feeling happy with how it was going, more memories of feeling it sucked but could easily be so much better. One morning I got up early and lied down in McCarren Park in Brooklyn and read a printed out draft all the way through, making notes and line edits, and feeling really good, like I was a genius who had just found a really shitty book that I could quickly change into something just terrific. Then I made the changes and probably the next time I read it all the way through I thought pretty much the same thing.

There were a number of drafts like that, where I felt each new set of edits was a revolution or something. As time went by that feeling got less and less, until it started to just seem like a pretty finished novel.

3:AM: Similarly, was there some point during the writing of the novel when you felt something along the lines of, ‘Oh no, this a complete fucking piece of shit, I’m going to give up on it’? If so, please describe.

ZG: Oh, well, I think I only ever really thought about giving up on it in fall of 2007, soon after starting it. I forget why exactly, I know I had a gmail conversation with Tao Lin about it so could probably look it up, but yeah I was just tired of doing it, and that’s when I asked Tao if he thought I should just make it a Bear Parade thing, and he said it could probably be both, and so that’s what happened.

3:AM: How do you think you and your writing would be perceived by the following people: a) a 26-year-old Italian/American female poet/blogger, who occasionally reads online journals like 3:AM, HTMLGIANT, but who also cites people like Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson and T.S. Eliot as influences.

ZG: Probably negatively, a woman named ‘Oriana’ who I believe roughly fits that description has already written an in-depth scathing review on Goodreads.com.

3:AM: b) an American, somewhat alcoholic, on-the-brink-of-retiring, divorced male English Lit. professor, who at one time in his life had the desire to write fiction but never did so.

ZG: Feel he would either disregard it completely or like it a lot.

3:AM: c) an English, 38-year-old male, who reads “everything from McEwen and Palanuk (sic) to greats such as Dickens and McNab (ha ha)” – note: he reviews DVD box-sets constantly on Amazon.

ZG: Feel he would get a real kick out of shit-talking it on Amazon/not like it.

3:AM: d) ‘someone’s mom’

ZG: Damn, depends on if it’s ‘my mom’ or not. ‘My mom’ would ‘say she liked it,’ if memory serves. Others’ moms would probably not read it all the way, I feel. If they did they would probably feel disturbed … in a bad way.

3:AM: Your author biography on the back page of the novel reads: ‘ZACHARY GERMAN was born on December 17th, 1988 at Shore Memorial Hospital in Somer’s Point, New Jersey. In 2006 he dropped out of high school. In 2007 he published his first short story. In 2008 he moved to Brooklyn. In 2009 he works as a dog walker on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and maintains two websites: thingswhatibought.com, and eatwhenyoufeelsad.com, which collects videos of people eating while feeling sad’. Do you think you could carry this third-person sentence-per-year biographical description on to provide a speculative description of the years of your life from 2010-20/30/40/whenever-you-get-bored?

ZG: [question not answered]

3:AM: What is your favourite Blink-182 song and why?

ZG: ‘Untitled’ off Dude Ranch. Seems really catchy/memorable with several distinctive sections. Confused as to why I wrote ‘with distinctive sections.’ I have good memories of running around the track in tenth grade gym class with Colin Gilmore singing this song. Seems apt to a number of situations, lyrically. Don’t like how there’s a weird talking thing at the end of the studio version though. That should make it lose points. So maybe ‘Josie,’ also off of Dude Ranch.

 

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Book

Zachary German Eat When You Feel Sad
Melville House

‘Eat When You Feel Sad is a novel about Robert. Eat When You Feel Sad is a novel about a generation. Robert was born in the 1980s. He was born in the United States of America. In Eat When You Feel Sad, Robert feeds his cat, watches television and drinks beer. In Eat When You Feel Sad, Robert gets mustard on his clothes, rides a bicycle and talks on Gmail chat. Eat When You Feel Sad takes place in cars, houses, and apartments. Eat When You Feel Sad takes place in a school, a community center, and several Chinese restaurants. Eat When You Feel Sad is a selection of scenes from a life.

‘Eat When You Feel Sad will be found on a short shelf of short literary novels that includes Bret Easton Ellis’s Less than Zero and Tao Lin’s Eeeee Eee Eeee–where young people seek their own reflection, and face reality with humor and hope.’ — Melville House

Excerpt

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** CAUTIVOS, Hi. It was pretty much like any other day for me. I hope yours was fun. Oh, I didn’t get any gifts, but that’s fine. I like your idea of next year’s purpose obviously. Thank you. ** Marc Vallée, Hi, Marc. Good to see you! Love back from the blog and me to you. ** _Black_Acrylic, I hope your Xmas was a great pleasure. I heard something good about ‘Men’, and I forgot about it. I think it’s on my ‘free/illegal’ site, so I’ll try it. ** Mieze, Thank you so much for paying tribute to Joe. I hope your Xmas did everything you wanted it to. ** Derek McCormack, Very, very Merry Xmas a teensy late to you, great maestro! Love, me. ** l@rst, Hi, L. Yeah, his passing was a great shock. Everyone did a beautiful job of speaking about him and all of his wily ways, I think. Hope your Xmas did the trick majorly. ** David Ehrenstein, Festive! ** Tosh Berman, I hope if you did anything for that particular holiday what you did made the day qualify as a holiday. ** Sypha, I learned a lot too. I only met him twice, but I am certainly grateful to have had even those encounters. Thank you so much for what you wrote. ** Misanthrope, Love to you who masterminded the whole tribute, if I’m not mistaken. I hope your Xmas was both chill and a hug monster. ** jade, Happy day after Xmas. There are those who go the academia route and do great things, obviously, but, yeah, I am or was with you, and no regrets. I hope your family treated your dinner with them respectfully. Cool about the Kenji stuff. I don’t know, it seems it could be quite interesting to meet those people, no? I get social anxiety too, but I just try to smile a lot and not say something dumb. Oh, I mean, anybody can come in here, and please tell your friend that he’s very welcome, and I’m easy and friendly, and he has nothing to worry about. He sounds cool, I’d like to meet him. Really cool stuff on your playlist. I’ll see if I can get it to play. Thanks! Everyone, jade has made you and me and us a sonic Xmas gift. I’ll let jade explain: ‘merry christmas you guys! i made a psychotic little holiday playlist 🤍 i’d do this on spotify or whatever but i don’t have premium and they add random stuff to your songlist when you don’t pay them. anyway, the thing plays backwards from the last post to the first! please scroll to the end of the thread for the start.’ Happy post-Xmas! ** Jamie, Hi, J. Thank you. No, didn’t get to a movie. Zac and I did hit the Xmas fair, but it was so packed and the line was so long for the dark ride that we put it off for another day. And I met and had coffee with a young theater maker who recently adapted ‘I Wished’ into a theater piece, and that was really interesting. Did Xmas satisfy whatever request you had regarding its form? Ha ha, pissing with a hard-on, talented! Mesmerist with his eyes on your prize love, Dennis. ** World❤Princess, Hi. Thank you for the good words about Joe. Oh, no problem, just knowing you upped the ending is exciting enough. It doesn’t sound cringey at all, btw. Darger, huh, that’s interesting. I think I get it. My Xmas was easy-peasy and largely uneventful and totally fine. I hope yours was the epitome of an event. ** Bill, Yes, I read that Kim Ki-duk died. Sad loss, for sure. Hm, well, it has been five years since the Kim Ki-duk post, so maybe it would be okay to revive it. I’ll look into it. Good or at least tolerable Xmas? ** Dominik, Hi!!! My weekend was totally fine. Was yours? Ideally without many gerbeauds? Love making every food item in the world taste like a French fry at 2:38 pm CET today for exactly 15 seconds, G. ** Jack Dickson, Jack! You old scoundrel! It’s quite amazing to see you, pal. I can’t imagine you will answer my question, which is how are you and what are you doing, but I’ll put that out there symbolically if nothing else. Eternal love to you no matter what! ** malcolm, Hi, malcolm. Yeah, it’s a very sad thing. Thank you for your kindness. Did you have a weekend that would qualify as Xmas-y to the person who writes the definition of the word ‘Xmas’ in the encyclopedias? ** rigby, Hey, rigster! No, thank you, thank you! Everyone, Due the great limitations of what WordPress allows me to do in this space, Rigby’s tribute to Joe Mills this past weekend did not look like like it was meant to look. If you would like to see it as it was originally intended — and I recommend this — click here to see it in its full glory. I did my buche a few days ago, but Zac made me my favorite food (cold sesame noodle) as a Xmas gift, so I stuffed my face with that. New Zealand? You’re in New Zealand? Holy shit! It sure looks like it’s pretty down there in the movies. Love, me. ** Steve Erickson, Nice that you were living in conditions that aligned so precisely with the title of what you were reading. How often does that happen? ** Paul Curran, Belated Merry Xmas to you down therewhere I believe the wish for merriness is even more belated. Thanks for the good words. The DLs did a beautiful thing. Here comes the motherfucking future, Paul. Are you ready? ** Right. The book I’m spotlighting today is one of my favorite novels of the last decade or so. In fact, I really wanted to publish it with my old imprint Little House on the Bowery, but Melville House beat me out. I feel like the novel isn’t talked about or read nearly enough at the current moment in time, so I decided to do the blog’s tiny part in trying to change that. See you tomorrow.