My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossel

This is what the outside looks like at sales conference.
Sometimes it's better not to look since you'll be in a
conference room all day, all week. 

I just spent a week in Florida with my publishing colleagues for our semi-annual sales conference, which is...not exactly my idea of work heaven. On the one hand, many of us are scattered around the country and never see each other in person except at conference, so it has the feel of a family reunion. On the other, it's a week of forced socializing with people you're forced to talk to when you are secretly thinking that gnawing off your own arm might be more pleasant, so it...has the feel of a family reunion. The good: seeing my pals, hearing about upcoming books, and engaging with presenters know how to pump up a crowd of book nerds with sneak peek movie trailers, cheerleading speeches about the state of the business, and author visits. The bad: lousy food, a packed schedule, occasionally assigned seating, and the dreaded cocktail hour before each dinner. Imagine a five day schedule that has about four hours of free time between 8:30 am and 9 pm (that's four hours in the entire week, total), and then remember that this is a group of book nerds and probably 80% suffer at least a little social anxiety. We all flew into Florida, and I'd guess that 50% are anxious about flying. You're expected to talk during meetings, so let's just give the group a nice 95% total for those suffering from performance anxiety. You're in a hotel and you're not going outside anytime soon, so there's the claustrophobia for some. Also: public toilet usage, and one of my (least) favorite things ever, the Potty Talkers. If I'm trying to pee with a line of acquaintances out the door waiting on one of the four stalls in the women's restroom that has the row of doors that doesn't latch properly, I absolutely do not want to talk about the upcoming Ken Burns documentary about the Roosevelts. When people ask me about sales conference, I think first of being anxious.

Recently I read Scott Stossel's book My Age of Anxiety, an exploration of the history of a mental disorder and Stossel's personal relationship to it. Anxiety is now the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder in the US, and anxiety medications are the bestselling drugs ever. I have no doubt that there were quite a few prescriptions for Xanax and Klonopin and other drugs packed in luggage for our sales conference. But what's the deal with anxiety? Did you know that it was barely even recognized as a condition only a few decades ago? How did we get to a point where so many people are so clearly panicky?

Stossel, the editor of The Atlantic Monthly, has suffered from anxiety his entire life, as have many members of his family going back generations. He was the kid who cried every day of elementary school, the one who threw tennis matches just to get off the court faster, and his fear of vomiting is epic. He's tried many, many combinations of pills, and booze, and pills and booze, and has spent pretty much his whole life with therapists in an attempt to control his panic, fear, and dread. Trying to wrap his head around the condition that has dictated his life for so long, Stossel learned everything he could about anxiety and wrote a book.

Here are some fun tidbits:

• Anxiety could be genetic. There are specific genes now attached to people with anxiety disorders that can be plotted, and frequently anxious parents will have anxious children (even when they are trying to protect their children from the conditions they suffer). 
• Generalized Anxiety Disorder, the broad DSM V (the bible of psychiatric disorders that the docs use to diagnose people) category for people with anxiety, was created after it was discovered that certain medications alleviate panic, so in a sense, the drug created the disease. That's not to say that people weren't anxious before, but they didn't have a diagnosed disorder. They were shy or depressed or "a little off." 
• Anxiety has been around forever, and one famous sufferer was Charles Darwin, who hated leaving home, sailing on the ocean, and enclosed spaces. After Darwin completed in famous voyage on the Beagle, he mostly stayed home for the rest of his life. Scientists now look at anxiety as an evolutionary adaptability that helped early people survive when they had more to fear than Zorro attacking in the middle of the night. 
• Millions of people take SSRI's, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the class of drugs that includes Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, etc. The drugs are among the most prescribed ever, but scientists aren't exactly sure how--and even if--they work. The brain is a complicated organ. Nonetheless, millions of people have seen some improvement on the drugs and flipping channels any night of the week will reinforce that we live in the age of psychopharmacology. 

Scott Stossel appeared on The Colbert Report.
He's afraid of cheese, among other things. 

My Age of Anxiety isn't a book with easy solutions to your twitchy issues, but it doesn't try to be that. This book is one man's account of a lifetime of anxiety and everything he learned about the condition, laid out clearly for a non-scientific audience, and with some levity. Stossel's attempt to overcome his fear of vomiting with exposure therapy--basically his therapist getting him to ingest Ipecac--is tragic comedy. Reading the book didn't make the cacophony of cocktail hour chit chat and crowds any easier for me at sales conference, but it did provide perspective. And if anything, people are resilient. Stossel survives in spite of his phobias and has a good job, and as far as I know, I wasn't fired at sales conference. 

Here's Scott Stossel's interview on the Colbert Report.

Things I Love, Things I Hate, Things in Between, Volume 4

See? Pi Day is a thing. I stole this picture from my
math nerd friend Mike's Facebook page. His math
nerd wife Elizabeth made this grasshopper pi(e). I hope
this serves as inspiration for Gianna tomorrow.

Thing I Love: Pi Day. Okay, nerds, tomorrow is Pi Day, March 14th (3.14). That means that Gianna needs to bring me pie. I love pie. Lemon icebox pie with the graham cracker crust. A warm peach and blueberry pie. The dutch apple pie with the crumb topping. Pizza pie. Fudge pie. I want pie. I'm sure that Gianna wants to bring you pie, too. You should email her all day tomorrow with your pie orders.

Thing in Between: Sales conference. I attended the Random House fall title sales conference a couple of weeks ago, in Sanibel, Florida. Sales conference is a bit of a challenge for me since it consists of multiple long days around people (even if I get along with those people). I need quiet time every day to keep from feeling overwhelmed. On the other hand, I get giddy when I see lists of books that I'll have the pleasure of reading and selling for the rest of the year. Jhumpa Lahiri. Margaret Atwood. Valerie Martin, who's a personal favorite author that more people should read.

The view at sales conference.
Or this would be the view if we
weren't in a conference room most
of the day.

There's a book on the fall list that I loved called Nostalgia by Dennis McFarland. I can't get it out of my head. It's a novel about a baseball player who chooses to enlist in the army when he realizes that he's having inappropriate thoughts about his sister, but finds out first hand how awful the battles of the Civil War really were. He suffers from what would now be diagnosed as PTSD and is sent to a military hospital to recover. He's worried, though, that he'll be considered a deserter and shot. Nostalgia is an incredible book with terrific characters and a compelling story. Yes, it's a Civil War novel and historical, but it is very much a contemporary story and deals with contemporary issues. The worst thing I can say about it is that you'll have to wait months to read it. Books like this make the fourteen hour days of sales conference absolutely worth every minute.

Thing I Love: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. This book comes out in May, so the wait isn't all that long. Remember how we were right about The Tiger's Wife a couple of years ago? Trust me, this is the next great literary discovery. Author Anthony Mara is my newest literary crush. First, the book is set in war torn Chechnya. Second, the main character is possibly the worst doctor in the whole country, which makes him particularly compelling when he must convince the woman who is one of the best that he needs a job in her hospital in order to rescue his best friend's daughter. Third, this is a novel about unconventional bonds and the difficult choices people must make in extreme circumstances. Ah, yes, and Anthony Mara is a great storyteller. Add it to your list.  You're welcome.

Thing I Hate: That woman driving down the street over the weekend who was swinging her bra around through the sunroof of her car? Yeah, I pretty much hate her. South By Southwest should be held in August, when it's too hot to breathe and many fewer people will show up.

Thing I Hate: The lap child sitting in the plane next to me on the way to sales conference. I don't think I hate children any more than anyone else (in that I pretty much dislike everyone, old and young), and I think I'm fairly patient with kids crying and fussing. Nonetheless, "lap child" means that a supervising adult controls the child by holding it in his/her lap. In this case, the supervising adult allowed her kid to rub down my leg with a butt wipe (unused, thank god). She allowed her kid to spill water and cranberry juice all over the place. The kid pooped but the supervising adult made no effort to de-stink-ify my air space. And while I have no problem with breastfeeding in public or private, I'm a little uncomfortable with staring at anyone's nipple just four inches from my face. Gianna would argue that this is why I'm still single.

Yep, that's my arm, an iPad, and the wall
next to my colleague Pam's room. She loves
Mariah Carey in the morning. Who doesn't? 

Thing in Between: Mariah Carey. Yeah, normally Mariah would fall squarely in the category of a thing I hate, but in this case my colleague Pam hates Mariah more, so I had to rethink things. Pam happened to have the room next to mine at sales conference. I knew this, she did not. So it was a special treat for Pam to wake  up to "All I Want for Christmas Is You" playing through her hotel wall. I am sure it was a magical moment for her too.

Thing I Love: Did I mention that tomorrow is Pi Day? Gianna, I want my pie.

Please Shut Up. ...What? We Said Please!

Giving a book talk to a group of parents. There's a
good chance I was inappropriate.

The most frequent question we receive is "What's wrong with you?"  Number two: "Is there a diagnosis for what you have?"  But third is "Why don't you do stand-up?"  (Yeah, we know; we think it's a stretch too.)  We regularly give presentations for work, and let's just say that our default presentation style is irreverent.  Funny presentations keep people engaged, and humor is a resource to draw upon when we're nervous.  When both of us worked for Random House (and before Gianna abandoned me), we gave book talks to the staff at BookPeople, two in one day.  For an hour we'd talk books and Gianna might pelvic thrust when talking about skiing and I'd quote Celine Dion songs, and then two hours later we'd do it all again for a second group of booksellers.  What most people didn't see was the break in between the presentations.

Another question we're asked (or at least I, Liz, am asked) is "How could you stand to travel together?"  We used to drive to Mississippi for work several times each year, basically spending a week on the road in almost constant contact during waking hours.  We would also drive to Amarillo and Oklahoma together.  We once called the Dr. Laura show to ask how anyone could be married to that woman.  We absolutely will  turn around and drive four miles back in order to take pictures at the giant Jesus shrine.

Here's the thing, though: we are introverts.  This is why we aren't stand-up comics.  This is why we find quiet spots to recover in between presentations.  This is why we can ride together for hours in the car--we sometimes don't speak for hours and that's perfectly fine.  Yes, our jobs involve social interactions and presentations, sometimes in front of large groups, which we can perform and even enjoy, but we also work from home and spend many hours alone.  For me, those alone periods--whether at my desk or traveling--are when I am able to think about projects and focus on my goals.  I've known my whole life that I need this time to concentrate without distraction.  I am a huge fan of the long soak in the bathtub.  I do my best thinking there.  Nothing makes me crazier than crowded rooms with multiple voices talking over each other, like at airports or parties.

Quiet author Susan Cain
speaking at a TED conference.

I have never questioned my introversion, as it's just who I am, but this is a world designed for extroverts.  For that reason, I found Susan Cain's book Quiet to be a valuable read, and one that I can't get out of my head.  Gianna read it earlier in the year, and she too is a fan, calling it "an instant classic."  Cain, herself an introvert who gives speeches to companies but still feels the twinges of stage fright, manages to present the world of introverts in an illuminating and practical manner.  Throughout the book I felt like she was talking about me.  If you were to ask any of my college professors, you would learn that I hated to speak in class--so much so that one actually applauded when I spoke up for the first time during the second-to-last week of the semester.  I know that I communicate better in writing.  Eleven people are coming over to my house tomorrow night, most of them my closest friends...and that's still a strain for me since they will be in my safe space and I am uncomfortable in groups of more than about four people.  Sales conference is my definition of torture: going from an airplane to a conference of nonstop large group interaction during all waking hours for days on end.  It's the price I pay to be able to spend the rest of my work life designing my own style to best sell Random House books.

Introvert.

Introvert.  No, really.

What Cain does so brilliantly in her book is that she captures the world of the introvert without placing judgment, and shows how introverts thrive, even in extrovert-designed environments.  For introverts, it's a read that provides permission to find ways to exist in our bubbles but still stretch the boundaries of those bubbles.  For extroverts, it offers insights into how introverts best function, because I guarantee that everyone reading this post knows some introverts, even if closeted ones.  People who only see the public performance version of me might question my declared introversion; I can be loud and assertive and I play up my awkwardness for laughs. Last February, I was asked to sit on a panel at the Random House sales conference and speak in front of several hundred colleagues (including the Random House CEO).  I knew what I needed to say, and even had the encouragement of one of the high ranking bosses to be funny.  I was the second person in line to speak, and according to another of the bosses, I looked "petrified" as the first person was presenting, but then I just "flipped the switch into performance mode."  That's sort of what happened, except that I wasn't so much petrified as uncomfortable being observed while not actually speaking.  I wasn't in performance mode until I was actually speaking, and that boss noticed that I wasn't the smart ass in that space before my turn.  I can fake extrovert when called upon, but given the choice I want to go unnoticed in the back of the room.

Introvert. And hero.

How do I want to spend my Friday nights?  I want to stay home and read, and occasionally I may want to play board games with a small number of friends.  I describe my life as monastic, and that's comfortable for me.  Susan Cain's Quiet is a battle cry for all of the book nerds out there, and the people who like to stay in and watch movies instead of going to a club, and the people who hate the open office layouts and long for walls, and the people who feel overwhelmed in the midst of lots of activity or noise.  It's a book for the sensitive (in the psychological sense, "sensitive" refers to people who are more easily stimulated, so they tend to be moved more by works of art and are more likely overstimulated by chaos) and empathetic.  It's an explanation of how we can go from Gianna sitting in my lap at a staff presentation and fake kissing me to both of us sitting in corners and not speaking right after the booksellers leave.  Most of all, Quiet is a liberation book for all of the quiet kids who are content to play by themselves, and the adults those kids become.  Introversion isn't a pathology, it's just a different personality type, and without introverts this world would be a psychopathic and self-destructive mess.  Bless us, both intro- and extroverts, for making the world a varied place.  Let me find peace in my national parks and I'll let you attend your concerts.

But it's never okay when Gianna sits in my lap.  Never.

Are you an introvert? 

Nora

(Liz) I've been in New York all week attending the Random House sales conference.  Sales conference, as I'm sure we've mentioned before, is an all day affair, an invigorating and grueling combination of long hours and lots and lots of books.  We begin at 8 am and finish the day at...it varies, but let's just say 10 pm.  For days on end.  Yesterday was one of those days--the thrill of sitting in the room with some of publishing's elite editors, the awareness that we were in New York (where great books are born, where the Victoria's Secret building is across the street, where Rod Stewart lives upstairs), the excitement of a new list of books.  Last night, after a day that I probably took too much for granted, I was chatting in the hotel bar with my boss and a couple of colleagues, and I received an email.  I glanced down and saw the alert that Nora Ephron had died.

No doubt you've seen the news; it's difficult to miss today.  Like most people, I appreciated Ephron's wit and works.  She was a woman who believed in standing up for women, and she chose to do so while maintaining her sense of humor.  My college roommate decorated our room with the posters for When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle; I looked at them every day for a year, and that was really the first time I ever picked up on her name.  The movie Julie & Julia was responsible for the incredible Julia Child renaissance of the last few years.

And then there was Nora Ephron the writer.  Being a book buyer, as I was while working at BookPeople, often was a job of educated risk-taking.  I don't think I ever missed so wildly as I did in underestimating the appeal of Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck. Oops.  What made yesterday's surprise announcement particularly shocking to me, though, was the knowledge that people in the room where we were sitting and discussing new titles, these people knew Nora Ephron personally.  They published her and they loved her.  As Gianna posted on Facebook yesterday, "Nora Ephron was rare; she actually mentored other women in Hollywood. She also for some reason, felt it important to remind people that women still matter after the age of 18. I know my old colleagues at RH who are gathered in NYC for conference must be lifting a glass to her right now. Cheers Nora, you will be missed."

This morning, before our morning meeting began, Random House COO Madeline McIntosh began our day by remarking on the news of Ephron's passing.  (Allow me to take a moment to digress and state how proud I am to work for a company and sales department with such strong women leaders such as Madeline.  While women are still paid on average significantly less for the same work and have to work harder for promotions, many of us on the RH sales force note the high-ranking women in our company.  It's cool.)  She said that after hearing the news last night, she searched for an appropriate Nora Ephron quote to share with us, but came up short after some furious Googling.  This morning, though, another colleague passed along one resonated.  Hearing it, I considered why I chose to enter the book business, and most probably why my colleagues--smart, funny, creative, talented people who could do any number of other things--work here too.

Nora Ephron had a talent for stating what she was thinking, and making statements that made you think.  And she had a gift for entertaining.  She was a remarkable talent and a role model.  She was a friend of my colleagues.  I'm sorry that she's gone.

This is the quote that Madeline read:

“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.” --Nora Ephron

Sale Conference, More Awkwardness from the Land of the Socially Inept

Liz again here.  I returned from Florida and the Random House sales conference late on Sunday, and then have tried to recover and soothe the raving, blood-thirty beast (the cat).  Gianna says that I should post some more thoughts about sales conference.  I'm too scared of her not to follow her directions.

What's sales conference like?

Dr. Seuss hats for all!
Dignity for none!

• There's a lot of sitting in uncomfortable chairs, and for a conference at which books are discussed round the clock, there's never any time to actually read.  
• The bar in the hotel is designated as a hospitality suite, and if you wear your name tag you can drink as much as you want.  There are always a few people who think that gettin' sloppy with the colleagues is a great finish to a day...and there are always a few people who think that spending time in the hospitality suite is its own ring of hell.  
• Every company has its inside jokes and jokesters.  Some are actually funny.  More are not.  
• I always feel sorry for the tourists who are staying at the resort and are surrounded by hundreds of Random House employees.  That said, these people have the pool all to themselves all day.  I did have a view of the pool from my hotel room...so of course I took a bunch of pictures of the people with the man boobs testing the theory of water displacement eight floors below me.  
• Sonny Mehta is there.  Sonny is the Editor in Chief of Knopf.  We follow him into the bookish abyss with reckless abandon.
• Oh yeah, and we talk about a bunch of books, some of which are truly exciting.  

Here's an early tease for a book coming out this fall:

Andrew Porter teaches at Trinity University in San Antonio, and though Trinity is the hated rival of my alma mater, Southwestern University, I set aside petty rivalries of liberal arts institutions with Division III NCAA status (no scholarship athletes) for local authors.  Andrew wrote a brilliant short story collection, The Theory of Light and Matter, a couple of years ago, which ended up winning the Flannery O'Connor Award.  Now he's delivered his first novel, In Between Days.

Andrew Porter

In Between Days echoes John Cheever or Richard Yates, and I mean that as the highest compliment.  Much fiction these days either is post-apocalyptic or else off-putting-ly clever (clever for the sake of cleverness), and while I admire some narrative manipulation, it can also become tiresome.  Andrew Porter simply writes beautiful sentences about normal people in normal times...if one can claim that these are normal times.  His novel is set in Houston and is centered on a family coming apart.  The father, Elson Harding, an architect, has divorced his wife of 30 years, Cadence.  Their son Richard is adrift, still living at home after graduating from college and dabbling at writing poetry.  He's full of angst, naturally.  Their daughter Chloe suddenly has to come home from her East Coast college, though, and the circumstances around her arrival pitch the family into turmoil.  There's a tension here, as well as an attention to detail without getting lost in the details, that makes In Between Days one of my favorite upcoming novels.  I know it's very early, but jot down this title for the fall.  You'll thank me.

That's it from Florida, but here's one last picture for you:

Moobs.

Sales Conference, Or a Tale of Awkwardness

The view from my
hotel room

I, Liz, flew to Florida very, very early this morning for the annual in-person sales conference for fall books.  For those of you dozens of readers who aren't in the book business, basically this is the company pep talk meeting, awards presentation dinner(s), and discussion of new books.  Parts of conference are exciting...and parts involve socially awkward people attempting to interact with other socially awkward people, to varying levels of self-awareness.  It's a hoot.

Here are some observations before I have to turn in my computer so that the IT people can remove an entire cat's worth of Zorro fur from my keyboard.

A beautiful site.

• The Sanibel Resort is a Marriott property.  Marriott signed a deal with the devil (Pepsi).  My colleague Toni drove in from Tampa and brought me a case of Diet Coke, but she's staying in another building, so I had to claim my Diet Coke at the front desk.  I'm rationing.
• Here's the thing: I work from home, not an office.  I therefore don't see the same people every single day, so technically I could wear the same clothes every day if I wanted.  To come up with clothes for five days can be a challenge.  
• Also, we are book people.  We don't speak normal English...which is fine since the big boss, Markus, is German.  There is the whiff of desperation out there, the "Talk to MEEEEEEE!!!" of people who spend lots of time talking to the cat.
• My boss asked me to be on a panel. She claims that my participation isn't just to provide an excuse to fire me.



Sales people flock to receive
a signed book from Grisham.

• John Grisham.  I sat at his table for dinner.  He requested the vegetarian plate.  Considering the frightening slab-o-cow that was deposited in front of me, I ate the whipped potatoes and the salad.
• Speaking of Grisham, he has a new novel coming in April.  He's been a huge baseball fan all of his life (in spite of the fact that he's a Cardinals fan), and this is his first baseball-related story.  Calico Joe tells the story of a rising star playing for the Cubs, Joe Castle, and a struggling pitcher for the Mets, Warren Tracey, set during the summer of 1973.  Joe explodes onto the scene, breaking a record with his first few at bats.  He's a superstar in the making for the long-suffering Cubs fans (ask Gianna about her pain).  Warren Tracey's son Paul tells the story of these two baseball players, the baseball code, and a fateful August day when their paths collided.  It's a good read--reminiscent of The Natural.
• I "celebrated" my fifth year with Random House.  And then I pointed out to a colleague celebrating her 35th year that I have only been alive 35 years.  I'm classy like that.

Unless Gianna figures out how to post on the blog, there might be a couple of days hiatus.  Just remember, Liz is always the answer.

Coming April 2012