We Begin Our Ascent by Joe Mungo Reed comes out today! It’s a debut novel about a married couple–she’s a geneticist, he’s a professional cyclist–who get dragged into a drug smuggling operation during the Tour de France. Hilarious, right? We asked the author how he’s celebrating.
When you’ve been working on a book for some time, the concept of a publication day begins to take on a nearly abstract quality. It’s a strange experience to be asked what I will be doing on the day my book comes out, because I’ve somewhat forgotten that that this day will be actually be day—that is, twenty-four hours in which I will occupy myself in some way or other.
Instead, June 19th has been a point on the calendar towards which much activity has been directed: edits, and galley passes and companion essays. The activity around putting out a book is amazing, and I have felt myself lost, somewhat pleasantly, within it.
In the past, I used to dislike acknowledgment pages at the back of novels. I felt that they were something close to over-indulgent Oscar speeches: purporting to thank others, but gesturing all the while at the achievements of the person doing the thanking. Having written a novel, however, I’ve changed my mind. I’m really in awe of the lengths that so many people—my agent, my editor, my former teachers, copyeditors and publicists—have gone to bring my book into the world in its best possible form. A novel is a more collaborative project than I ever knew, and, against much doom-saying about the status of the arts in our society, I find much hope in the dedication of those who work to publish fiction.
It is the people who helped me with my novel I will be thinking of, then, as it arrives on shelves. Perhaps not first of all, however, because there is very important resident of my household who will require attention long before people arrive in offices in New York. Cromarty, the four-month-old puppy, will wake at 6:30, and I’ll carry him downstairs to do his dog business on the thin strip of grass opposite our apartment. Like any being new to the world he has quite a lot of demands, but my girlfriend and I have realised that he is best managed through a reliable routine. Cromarty will get me to my desk early, then. He likes to be right next to one or other of us. A bit of chewing and some sleeping should occupy him for most of the morning, his crate at feet.
The thought of this routine is very welcome to me. The other way in which publishing a novel is temporally weird is that one receives praise for passages of writing done years before. From this, I find, arises a certain amount of insecurity. I love a compliment, but these pieces of praise seem directed towards a different man. What if I’ve lost the ability to do what I was doing then? I think.
The best cure for this kind of anxiety, I suspect, is sticking with the work. At noon, Cromarty will get fidgety and he and I will walk to our local park to do a bit of puppy training. At his age, he learns fast and forgets again nearly as quickly. I’ll wave a little bag of chicken in front of him, telling him to concentrate, to wait. His ability to focus gets better each day. I hope only to keep pace with him.
Joe Mungo Reed was born in London and raised in Gloucestershire, England. He has a master’s in philosophy and politics at the University of Edinburgh and an MFA in creative writing at Syracuse University, where he won the Joyce Carol Oates Award in Fiction. He is the author of the novel, We Begin Our Ascent, and his short stories have appeared in VQR and Gigantic and anthologized in Best of Gigantic. He is currently living in Edinburgh, UK.