Magical Thinking - Augusten Burroughs [80]
Not all gay men send me penis pictures. But no straight men do. And to date, no woman has sent me a picture of her vaginal canal. “I know it’s a little stretched out, but I’ve had four kids. What do you expect? LOL.”
What is sometimes more shocking than a photograph is an extremely long letter. One man, who wrote from Massachusetts and claimed to be somehow acquainted with the crazy psychiatrist in my memoir, wrote me an e-mail that was thirty-five pages long. I was so stunned by the length, the way I just kept scrolling and scrolling endlessly, that I printed it and counted the pages. And you might think such an insanely long letter is uncommon, a freak event. But no. Many people feel the need to send me long letters saying things like “I know you’re busy but . . .” and going on for ten pages about their dreams of being a famous author and do I know a good literary agent who would be able to sell their work and turn it into the blockbuster international publishing phenomenon that it most certainly is.
My editor had warned me about this when my book first started getting attention. “Just wait,” she said. “Fans get this crazed look in their eyes when they get near you. There’s something about a writer that makes people act really weird.”
I see this look she speaks of when I do readings and signings. While the majority of the people who come to my readings are nice, normal people I would like to know and be friends with, a few are people who should probably be locked inside hospitals.
One man in Brooklyn came to my reading smelling like a gangrenous foot. He had the most disgusting breath, which was made all the more revolting by his lack of teeth. When he spoke, he gummed the words out. “I wuved wur book.”
But then, look at me. My brain is incorrectly formed, and I’m shaped like a tube. Plus, I’m an alcoholic, a “survivor” of childhood sexual abuse, was raised in a cult and have no education. So, really, if you think about it, the only thing that separates me from the guy with the stinky foot and no teeth is a book deal and some cologne.
But even with my minimal amount of fame, there are certain perks. Recently, I was at a movie premier, and at the party after the movie, Meryl Streep was loose, walking around the room like a normal person. Absolutely nothing was preventing me from lunging toward her and shrieking “Dingoes ate my baby! Dingoes ate my baby!”
When you think about it, there are not only different tiers of fame but genres. The “classic” famous person is a movie star, and even here there are different grades, like eggs. There are grade-B actors, like Susan Anton, has-beens such as Ann Archer or the star of Flashdance herself, Jennifer Beals. Then, of course, there are top-tier movie stars like Ms. Streep. But there are other routes to fame. America always loves a good serial killer. And it’s tough to beat John Wayne Gacy, also known as Pogo the Killer Clown. The clown paintings he did while on death row have sold at auction for thousands of dollars. I know, because I spent many a drunk hour online looking to buy one on Ebay.
Then there are those who become famous because they are in the center of a scandal. Of course, one instantly thinks of Monica Lewinsky. Monica is now superfamous worldwide. Italians still call her Portly Pepper Pot.
The fame of a writer is altogether different. For the most part, Americans don’t read. Statistically, virtually nobody reads; everybody watches TV and movies instead. Alice Sebold’s debut novel, The Lovely Bones, was an enormous blockbuster, the likes of which had been unseen for years. In hardcover, it sold nearly two million copies. But if an issue of Time magazine sold two million copies, the editor would be fired. And yet most people wouldn’t recognize Alice Sebold if she passed them on the street.
I didn’t sell two million copies of my first memoir. So I am even less famous. But still, I am famous enough now for old ladies to stop me in front of grocery stores and tell me about their