The Paul Collins Fan Club
August 15th, 2004During a non-fiction marathon last week, I read both of Paul Collins’ first two books, Banvard’s Folly and Sixpence House. They’re highly recommended, especially the first.
I read the title essay of Banvard’s Folly in McSweeney’s years ago, and it remained in my mind a well-rounded biography of the once famous but now obscure artist John Banvard. God only knows why it took so long for me to read the rest of the “Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck.” Each section is a complete, articulate miniature biography of a character who achieved distinction and fame (or infamy) during their day, but who has been squeezed out of the collective memory for a variety of reasons, or for no reason at all.
Favorites include the essays on George Psalmanazar, a fake who invented an entire culture, and John Symmes, whose crackpot theories on the “hollow earth” served as a prototype for a type of fantastical adventure literature that became Science Fiction through a direct line from Edgar Allen Poe to Jules Verne.
Sixpence House is part travelog, part catalog of digressions. It documents the move of Collins and his young family to Hay-on-Wye, a tiny, idyllic town in Wales that is home to an extraordinary number of bookstores. Collins’ idealism, generalizations, naivete, and cringeworthy pride about being a published writer are tampered by his humor and eruditeness.
The book meanders, and the narrative is broken up with many digressions that seemed forced and scattershot, even though they are largely interesting. Still, Collins’ enthusiasm is infectious, he writes well, and when he leaks some insight into what is going on with the publishing of Banvard’s Folly, you can’t help but feel like you are one of his friends and eager to forgive him his small faults for the pleasure of his company.
Collins now edits an imprint of McSweeney’s called The Collins Library, which specializes in reprinting obscure old books. It’s a great idea, and I happily own all three books he’s published so far. Although the first book, which is the only one I’ve read, properly belongs in the humor section of the bookstore, I hear good things from trusted sources about the other two, especially David Garnett’s Lady Into Fox.
Collins has also recently published Not Even Wrong, an account of the diagnosis and treatment of his son’s autism, which I will definitely read as well. And so should you–but start with Banvard’s Folly. You won’t regret it.