1. James Franco has invested heavily into the Jason Lea Bank of Goodwill. He has ties to Freaks and Geeks and the Spider-Man trilogy, both of which count for something ‘round here. But that doesn’t make him a good author.

I had concerns after reading Franco’s short story in Esquire. Palo Alto, a series of short stories based in a fictional facsimile of Franco’s hometown, is similarly unremarkable, according to PW.

The reviewer said it “reads like Patrick Bateman from American Psycho fell into a Catcher in the Rye remix.”

I’m not sure what that line is supposed to mean, but it elicits an “oh, snap!”

Let me be clear. I haven’t read Palo Alto. But bad review paired with the underwhelming first impression of “Just Before the Black” have quelled any anticipation I might have had for Franco’s fiction.

2. Online Masters compiled the top 40 comic stories to integrate into college curriculums. I love that Ohio natives Brian K. Vaughan (who is misspelled as “Vaughn”), Jeff Smith and Harvey Pekar wrote six of the 40 suggestions.

All the usual suspects — Watchmen, Maus, Sandman — show up, but it’s a pretty good primer for those who don’t care about superheroes but are intrigued by the potential of the medium. Not that the list completely ignores capes, All-Star Superman makes a deserved appearance.

3. Some clever soul has started an @emperorfranzen Twitter feed in the wake of Jonathan Franzen’s Times cover.

Samples: “I see too many self-pub novelists “pushing” their books too hard. Me? I never do publicity. It does me.”

“I love me some marshmallow Peeps. I imagine each one is a chick lit author as I devour them.”

“Writing Tips From the Franz: “Write what you know. You know nothing. So write nothing, and read my books instead.”

4. Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng update us on their school in Sudan.

Speaking of Sudan...

Still speaking of Sudan...

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

I’m warning you right now. This post is not about books or authors. It doesn’t discuss the impending death of poetry, the novel or physical books.

There will be no mentions of iPads, Amazon or vampires.

It will not insult Charles Dickens, James Joyce or my city editor John Bertosa.

This post is about the south of Sudan and two friends who made me care about it.
Let’s start with a link. That’s as good a beginning as any.

Dave Eggers and John Prendergast — not the two friends I’m talking about — wrote a column in The New York Times in which they explain the importance of America and Obama’s administration to Sudan.

I won’t restate their entire argument. That’s what links are for. I will do my best to summarize.

The southern portion of Sudan has had a contentious relationship with its capital, Khartoum, since the country became independent in 1956. This contentiousness (an insufficient term) has often become violent. From 1983 to 2005, more than 2 million people died in a war between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

The U.S. under President Bush helped broker peace between Khartoum and south. One of the promises made in the truce was that the south of Sudan could have a secession vote in January. However, there are indications that the government will stall or undermine the secession vote.

Eggers and Prendergast explain:

If January comes and goes without a referendum, or if the results are manipulated, then fighting will break out. Both sides have been arming themselves since the peace agreement, so this iteration of north-south violence will be far worse than ever before. And if war resumes in the south, the conflict in Darfur, in western Sudan, will surely explode again.

To allow this triumph of international diplomacy to collapse and leave the people of southern Sudan vulnerable is unconscionable. But the questions are stark: what can the United States do to help prevent a war that could cost millions of lives? How can the United States once again influence the behavior of a government willing to commit crimes against humanity to maintain power?

But, now, you ask, why is he telling us this? Because we should care about international peace? Yes, but it’s more specific than that.

In about two weeks, I have two friends, Seth and Sarah Trudeau, who are moving to Nimule in the deep south of Sudan. They will not be overseeing any peace or secession talks. (At least, I don’t think are.) They’re going for the children.



Seth has been visiting and volunteering the Cornerstone Children’s Home for years. Sarah, his wife, made her first trip there more recently.

Cornerstone Children’s Home provides a safe haven to 65 children who have been orphaned, abandoned, severely neglected or abused. Some were orphaned during Sudan’s civil war, while others lost their parents in ruthless attacks by a Ugandan rebel group, Lord’s Resistance Army.



Seth and Sarah will live at and work for Cornerstone. They have started Cornerstone Friends, an organization that provides services to empower the children of Cornerstone and the residents of Nimule to live fruitful lives. (I took that explanation from the foundation’s web site. I figure they can explain it better than me.) They want to help create community-run, community-centered, sustainable, educational and economic opportunities that will benefit Cornerstone’s kids and those living in Nimule.



I don’t want to oversell this, but it takes special people to leave a comfortable life and relocate to the south of Sudan. Yes, we all feel bad for African orphans but how many of us are willing to commit our lives to it?

Well, I’m not asking anyone to commit their life to it. (That would be hypocritical of me.) I’m not even asking you to donate to Cornerstone Children’s Home or Cornerstone Friends. (Not that I would mind if you did.) I’m just asking you to read up a little about the cause. Here are the links for Cornerstone Friends’ web site, blog and Facebook page. For good measure, here is the link to Cornerstone Children’s Home’s blog.

The more you learn about these children and the people trying to help them, the more difficult it will be for you to be indifferent. If you want to give, that’s cool. If you’re the praying kind, I’m sure Seth and Sarah would appreciate that type of support, also.

But it means something if you just talk about it with someone else. People often talk about “raising awareness.” That phrase means nothing. You’re already aware that there are orphans in Africa, that an oil spill happened in the Gulf Coast, and that fatty food is bad for you.

What people are actually saying when they are “raising awareness” is that they want to make you care. I want to make you care about the children at Cornerstone. Moreover, I want you to care about something that matters as much as Seth and Sarah do.

There are millions of important causes. No, really, millions. I have one friend who is trying to establish a nonprofit in the culturally Tibetan region of China, another who works with reformed child soldiers in Uganda. I have friends who volunteer at Project Hope and the Salvation Army in Painesville.

You don’t have to move to Nimule to make a positive difference. You don’t have to quit your job and live an ascetic lifestyle. But you do have to care.

Thank you for hearing me out. I’ll put my soapbox away, now, and we’ll be back to talking about books tomorrow.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

I realize I’m about three years late, but I finally read Dave Eggers’s What is the What.

I enjoyed The What, not as much as the critics who dubbed it “(an) improbably beautiful book,” “an eloquent testimony to the power of storytelling” and “an absolute classic.” (Those comments came from Time, New York Times Book Review and People, respectively, in case you care.)

I hesitate to call anything a classic. I feel like time is the only thing that can make that distinction. (Time, not Time.) But Eggers made me care about his subject — Valentino Achack Deng, one of the so-called Lost Boys of Sudan — which is probably what matters most to Eggers.

I don’t intend to recount Eggers’s story, which is really Deng’s story. Eggers does it well enough. If you are in the least bit curious about the civil wars of Sudan, its Lost Boys or the genocide in Darfur, you should read the book. In fact, if you aren’t curious, you should still read the first few chapters to see if you become interested. Yes, Deng’s story is that important.

What intrigued me enough to write about The What is less important that the story itself. It is a matter of designation.

On the title page of The What, Eggers describes the book as both The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng and a novel. But this isn’t the fictional autobiography of a character. Deng is a real person. He walked across Sudan to Ethiopia, then to Kenya. He saw fellow travelers killed by war, lions, crocodiles and disease.

So why is Eggers writing a novel instead of a biography?

This is a question that critics seemingly glossed over. “Novel, autobiography, whatever...” New York Times said in its review. But it is not a whatever. The truth matters when we are talking about real people, all the more because the book raises money for a foundation.

Why does Eggers fictionalize Deng’s story? Why does Deng let him?

Deng explains in the preface, “I told my story to the author. He then concocted this novel, approximating my own voice and using the basic events of my life as the foundation.”

Deng elaborates in an interview:

It is very close to the truth, but many things in the book are somewhat different than what happened in life. Some characters have been combined. Some time is compressed. They are minor things, but they were necessary.

Eggers adds in the same interview:

All of the events in the book have historical basis. But it really is a novel. I made up many scenes that were necessary to describe the whole sweep of those twenty or so years that the book covers. Sometimes I’d read a human rights report about a certain incident during the civil war, and would ask Val if he knew someone who had experienced that incident, or something like it. Sometimes he did know someone, and we could go from there, but other times I had to imagine it on my own. Some of these scenes were necessary to include, even if Val didn’t have personal experience with them.

Perhaps, it is because I am a journalist by trade, but this explanation does not assuage me. After reading this interview, I immediately wanted to know what parts of The What are from Deng, what parts came from other sources, and what parts did Eggers imagine.

I’m not suggesting that Eggers or Deng are trying to be dishonest. Their hearts are in the right place. They had a story they wanted to tell — a worthwhile story, a moving story. But they decided the most effective way to tell Deng’s story was to change it until The What could no longer be classified as nonfiction.

While it is effective, The What is no longer wholly true; and you wander toward Jayson Blair territory when you sacrifice truth for the sake of story. (The primary difference is, of course, Eggers acknowledges that he deviates from Deng’s story.)

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com