Oh, the story behind it all, Q&A with Sean Wilsey

Oh, the story behind it all
Sean Wilsey gives an inside look into his memoir, talks about his Texas ties.

By Edward Nawotka
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Sunday, April 30, 2006

I had the type of childhood — one that included eight years of Catholic military school — that prompts people to say after too much wine at dinner parties, "You should write about that!" I think, recklessly, "Yeah!"

Then I read a book like Sean Wilsey's "Oh the Glory of It All," a voluminous tell-all about growing up the scion of a San Francisco butter magnate who tooled around in helicopters and a narcissistic gossip-columnist mother. And it sobers me.

Wilsey's book is, in a word, Joycean. Generation X Joycean: Portrait of the Artist as a Young, Rich Screw-up. Just like Joyce's coming-of-age masterpiece, Wilsey's book features a long, harrowing stint at an elitist boarding school, St. Mark's in Southborough, Mass., and a God-like figure of dread: his wicked stepmother Dede, whom he finds himself fantasizing about sexually.

It's creepy and compelling and oh so tantalizing.

An editor-at-large for McSweeney's literary magazine, Wilsey is also co-editor of the forthcoming essay collection "The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup" (which includes a contribution about Ecuador from Austin's Jake Silverstein). He comes to town this week as part of the publicity tour for the paperback edition of "Oh the Glory of It All."

Wilsey spoke with us by phone from his home in New York City.

Austin American-Statesman: Your memoir is mostly about San Francisco, but don't you also have some strong Texas connections?

Sean Wilsey: My mom was born in Texas, but grew up over the border in Waurika, Okla. As a teenager she wanted to get out, and her brother-in-law, who had all the concessions for jukeboxes and peanut machines in Waurika, emptied them out and gave her the change. She used the money and ran away to Dallas, where she modeled for Neiman Marcus, until her mother came and got her and then moved the family to California.

Didn't you also live in Marfa for a time?

Yes. My writing career kind of started in Marfa when I wrote about a conference of architects that was being held at the Chinati Foundation. Herzog and de Meuron were there, Frank Gehry and Claes Oldenburg. I wrote it as a Talk of the Town piece for the New Yorker, but they killed it. Then I met Dave Eggers in a bar, and he told me to write it for McSweeney's, which was originally founded to publish stories that were killed by other magazines.

How old were you when you started writing this memoir?

I started in 1998 when I was 28. I'd been working on a novel for six years, but hadn't been able to get anybody to take an interest in it, and was doing some book reviewing. Actually, the first book I reviewed was Duncan McLean's "Lone Star Swing" — I just loved the book, it was so lighthearted, Scottish, funny, well-researched and he really knew his stuff. But my wife had heard me talking endlessly about these weird reform-style schools I had gone to and she suggested writing about them. I started interviewing people who I'd gone to school with and my agent David McCormick . . .

There's another Texas connection...

Yes, he's a former editor at Texas Monthly. He sold the book as a memoir. I did a lot of interviewing for this book, including a couple of people who worked for my dad and ended up in Seguin. If I think about it, this is a perfectly legitimate Texas book.

Was it awkward to interview people you knew in high school?

It's weird because you're not really friends with them anymore. That said, people really do like to talk about their past. Most of the people I write about from that time don't come across very well, but a lot of people have gotten in touch with me and said they really liked the book. People are endlessly surprising.

Your father died, but your mother and stepmother are alive and well-known in San Francisco. How did they react to the book?

The newspapers in San Francisco had a field day. It was as if it were the sauciest thing that anybody has written in years. That provoked everyone to start behaving badly. I weirdly thought that my stepmother Dede would enjoy it and revel in the image I portrayed of her. But she gave an interview to The New York Times that couldn't have been more like the way she was portrayed in the book. If you want to take the high road, that isn't the way to do it at all. My mom, who was in some ways (ticked) off about the things that I wrote, was very stateswomanly about it.

You now have a 2-year-old son. How does your crazy childhood affect your parenting style?

I try to take more cues from him. I was buffeted around a lot as a child. For example, Mom would take me out to a fashion show. While that was a fun day for her, and somewhat for me, it was totally part of her program.

Last year, some critics compared your memoir to James Frey's. This was before his downfall. As it turns out, you actually spent more time in jail than Frey did. He only spent three hours in jail.

Yes, I spent two whole nights in jail, though that first night started at 4 in the morning. Actually, you may not find it surprising, but I think there are a lot of writers out there who've spent more time in jail than James Frey did.