Angela Evancie reviews Andrew Shaffer’s Literary Rogues, which covers the mundane internships, grunt jobs and general kicking around that preceded the rise of literary giants:
[W]hat is most remarkable about Shaffer’s history is the way in which it colors that liminal space between writers’ obscurity and their eventual fame – not just with tales of weeklong benders, but also with portraits of sacrifice and stubbornness. Literary Rogues is far from a how-to, but it’s strangely reassuring: Success isn’t always instantaneous, and the antics don’t really have anything to do with it. After all, Hemingway wasn’t famous because he drank – he was famous because he wrote.
Related Dish thread on “achievement anxiety” here.
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