- - - - Copyright 2003 San Francisco Chronicle
- - - - William T. Vollmann is a man of many words, most of them about his favorite subjects -- prostitutes, drugs, violence Jane Ganahl, Chronicle Staff Writer - - - - Pizza in hand, William T. Vollmann stands quietly and anonymously observing the way a cold, cavernous Mission District warehouse has been transformed into a cauldron of buzz by his appearance. His trademark Beatle-cut hair is chopped short and uneven, as if he did it himself, holding up a mirror in one hand and scissors in the other. He sports an out-of-fashion scraggly mustache and stands rigidly tall -- looking like a soldier of fortune or an ex-Marine -- as he enjoys a preperformance snack and waits to go onstage at CELLspace. The young volunteers from his new book's publishing house, McSweeney's, hover around the pizza boxes in the kitchen area and nudge each other. Is that him? Is that Vollmann? So seldom does the reclusive, prolific author come out of Sacramento for public appearances that his fans have come by the legion for this chance to hear him speak about his new work, a seven-volume, 3,352-page treatise on violence, "Rising Up and Rising Down." With the cult author in the house, the evening's shy host, Dave Eggers, is happily in the background for a change. CELLspace's beat-up couches and rows of folding chairs are every-spot-taken; the concrete floor is soon the only place for attendees to settle, swathed in parkas and mufflers on this coldest night of the young winter, for a slide show. A yellow cat, a warehouse denizen, rubs up against their legs. "This one's the best," says Rob Johnson, 24, picking up a copy of "The Royal Family" from the table where City Lights is selling Vollmann's books. "You know he smoked crack while he was researching it so he could understand the character better." Of that 2000 book, critics were typically polarized. The Los Angeles Times exulted: "William T. Vollmann is a monster: a monster of talent, ambition and accomplishment." Other critics called his Tenderloin epic "bloated" and "overblown." Johnson's girlfriend, 26-year-old Belinda Soliz, has her own favorite. " 'You Bright and Risen Angels' is better," she smiles. "Less depressing." Vollmann's favorite subject matter - prostitutes, drug addicts, the exploited and downtrodden -- is the territory of just a small cadre of writers, including JT LeRoy and Peter Plate, both of whom also come from, and write about, San Francisco's underbelly. But the 45-year-old Vollmann's addiction to danger has also led him to seek it out all over the world. Wherever there's a war, a famine, a political coup, Vollmann wants to be in the middle of it, for both magazine stories and books. He's been compared to Thomas Pynchon and William Burroughs, and he's an author's author, admired by peers; knots of literati mill and chat in the aisles of the cavernous CELLspace. Nonfiction author Ethan Watters is here with fellow writer and tribe member Noah Hawley. Novelist Rabih Alameddine is just back from his native Lebanon but says he "had to come, even though I'm jet-lagged." "He does so few appearances," notes short-story savant Julie Orringer to a group that includes her author-husband, Ryan Harty, and Commonwealth Club fiction winner Thomas Barbash, who adds excitedly, "No one is doing what Vollmann is doing these days." There's an understatement. Vollmann's new work, which has been 23 years in the making, aims to be nothing short of a "critique of terrorist, defensive, military and police activity" around the world, focusing on political violence and asking the question, "When is violence justified?" It's a monumental work, and the seven-volume set goes for $120 -- although for tonight's book release party, it's going for a bargain $100. A McSweeney's volunteer confides, "I don't think we'll be selling a lot to this crowd." Eggers introduces Vollmann to the audience by noting that it took a squadron of fact-checkers a year to prepare the text of "Rising Up" for publication. He credits McSweeney's managing editor, Eli Horowitz, for seeing the project through to completion. "Eli's a fine young man and this book nearly killed him," he deadpans. It would be the only mildly humorous note of the evening. Vollmann's slide show -- photos he has taken himself during his decades of travel to the world's hotspots -- is riddled with scenes of violence and death. Narrating in an unemotional monotone as if it were a college lecture, Vollmann describes catacombs filled with thousands of skulls of victims of the Khmer Rouge, Colombian killing fields, Congolese prison cages, from which we see arms outstretched in frantic pleading. And, most horrific and poignant of all, a photo of Vollmann's friend Will Brenton lying dead -- the victim of a sniper attack on the car he and Vollmann were driving outside Sarajevo. Brenton's arms are folded so that his hands meet on his abdomen, his mouth is open, but he looks oddly peaceful. "He was a medic in Vietnam and had survived that," Vollmann says in a quiet moment after the presentation is over, rubbing his buzz-cut thoughtfully in a backroom of CELLspace. "We were on our way to help some kids in Sarajevo. He had been dead about an hour when I took the photo; I had been hunkered down, hiding in the car and afraid to come out." How did he have the presence of mind to take the photo? He shrugs. "It was my job. I was there as a journalist. As the sole survivor of that attack, I felt it was my duty to record it." He is interrupted in his remembrances by Michael Ray, senior editor of the magazine Zoetrope: All-Story, who sticks his head around the corner. "We'd still really like to get a story from you sometime, Bill," he smiles. Vollmann grins. "Thanks, I appreciate it -- but I don't think you can pay me what my going rate is." He later adds, "I love literary magazines, but they don't pay what the big ones do." In fact, the seeds for "Rising Up and Rising Down" were planted during Vollmann's two decades of globetrotting to the world's strife-torn areas for various publications, including the New Yorker, Esquire, Spin, Gear, Granta and Outside. "I didn't ever think it would become this long," he says. "It started out as a political manifesto, an essay on finding a moral calculus for assessing violence. Is there a simple moral compass for all violence? Sometimes it's justified, although most of the excuses I've heard for violence are not good ones." He has curtailed his expeditions somewhat in the past five years since becoming a father to his daughter, Lisa. "She is my joy," he says, with an infrequent smile. "I've started trying to tell her more about the world, about what happened Sept. 11 and what bad people can do. But I also tell her she should not be afraid." Having seen as much violence as he has, does it make him afraid for her? "Of course I fear for her; I used to get death threats," he says. "But I'm more worried about what our government might do than anything else. They are headed in such a wrong direction that Lisa's entire generation might be in jeopardy." At the same time, he has no intention of curtailing his need to put himself in harm's way. "It would be wrong of me to not do dangerous things. If I have the access, and can help by writing about these things, I should do it." Vollmann returns to the floor to sign books, which he does for nearly an hour, spending as much time as each buyer wants, patiently answering questions. Among the surprising 15 who buy the seven-volume, 20-pound set is Ethan Watters. "How could I not?" he asks. "This is extraordinary." Vollmann signs the spine of the casing with flourish. Eggers is pleased at the sales. "It's selling really well already," he smiles, noting that the first edition of 3,500 will probably sell out, and more will be ordered. This pleases Vollmann, too. "Dave really came to my rescue when I couldn't find a publisher for the entire thing," he says. "And I was worried this book would make them go bankrupt." The youthful brigade from McSweeney's heads off to toast the successful evening, but Vollmann is happy to head back to his hotel and turn in. Some adventures are best postponed until after a good night's sleep. - - - -
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