An Interview with Diana Sheets: The Ending of the Cusp-!

Dr. Diana E Sheets

6.9.10 - Michael F. Shaughnessy - As an experiment I wanted to serialize my novel The Cusp of Dreams, which examines what happens to Americans who are always at risk of losing their jobs. This novel is in the tradition of two Pulitzer-winning plays: "Death of a Salesman", which was about Willy Loman's failure to provide for his family

Michael F. Shaughnessy

Eastern New Mexico University

Portales, New Mexico

1) Chapter 12, the last chapter of The Cusp of Dreams, is now posted on your website at  www.literarygulag.com. How do you feel at this point in your life, now that your book has been posted out there on the web?

As an experiment I wanted to serialize my novel The Cusp of Dreams, which examines what happens to Americans who are always at risk of losing their jobs.  This novel is in the tradition of two Pulitzer-winning plays: "Death of a Salesman", which was about Willy Loman's failure to provide for his family, and "Glengarry Glen Ross", which was about a group of salesman ruthlessly competing for economic opportunity.  But in neither drama are women significant players.  So the question is, what happens in society when women become as brutal as their male counterparts?  What does this tell us about ourselves?  Are we really kind and considerate, loving and empathetic?  What would we do when faced with the loss of our jobs?

The novel has been getting noticed.  It's gotten some good reviews and three national radio broadcasts (Kathryn Raaker's "Let's Just Talk", Michael Ray Dresser's "Dresser After Dark"—both now available on my website—and last weekend I appeared on "The Jordan Rich Show", soon to be posted on my website. 

But as far as serialization goes, The Cusp of Dreams is probably better read as a paperback or as an eBook than read in installments over the course of a year.  After all, this is the age of instant-everything.  Who has the patience to read chapter-by-chapter for a year?  Live and learn.  But having the book on my website has given it exposure, and now it is available as a paperback, http://stores.lulu.com/CuspofDreams, as a Kindle eBook at Amazon.com, and in ePub format at the Apple iBookstore.  By the end of June the paperback, hopefully, should be available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  The reader can preview the story by checking out some of the chapters on my website, www.literarygulag.com.

2) What does this epilogue explore?

The epilogue is entitled "Ashes Out of Phoenix".  The setting is April, 2001.  Several former first-line managers from Amtech have gathered for business meetings in Phoenix.  All lost their jobs at Amtech in a series of economic layoffs in the 1990's.  This gathering serves as a reunion.  Sue Maitland, the principal character in the novel, narrates the story.  Everyone is there, even Chip, whose has been cremated.  We watch these middle-age men and women trying to stay on top of their game.  They're survivors living on "the cusp of dreams", those subconscious longings that fuel our drive for success.  Sue and Hugh have steamy sex first at the Biltmore and, later, in the Sonoran Desert.  Others seek solace in the company of fellow road warriors.  These sales men and women still believe in the American Dream.  They need to believe in that next great opportunity.  While in Phoenix they gamble at the local casinos.   And why not?  Phoenix, a desert oasis, represents, in this chapter, the symbolic center for hypercapitalism.  And then there's the Phoenix, that mythical bird reputed to live for hundreds of years before dying only to rise out of her own ashes to begin a new life.  Consequently, who is to say to these survivors of economic carnage that there aren't second and third lives?  Sue believes it.  She's betting her life on the millions she expects to earn out in Silicon Valley.  And if she has to sacrifice her marriage and everything else for this elusive dream?  That, she reasons, is the agonizing price she has to pay for the very real prospect of success.

3) Where does your book end and what happens to some of the protagonists?

In a sense The Cusp of Dreams has two endings.  Chapter 11, "Circling De Drain", presents the story of the downsizing of Amtech.  We witness what happens when management decides to shut down its operations outside the Midwest.  The reader discovers firsthand the brutalizing experience when managers fire the men and women who work for them.  For the top brass, however, these layoffs are not about the personal pain of individuals losing their jobs.  It's all about the bottom line. Senior management is insulated from the carnage.  One reader described this chapter as a warzone littered with bodies.

Chapter 12, "Ashes Out of Phoenix", presents these first-line mangers a few years later.  We learn how they have fared since the downsizing.  To some degree they're all struggling.  The success stories–Sue, Hugh, and Candy–have all switched from industrial to Internet-related jobs.  Those who remained in industrial consulting–Skip, Tiebold, Jeff, Doug, and Roy–are struggling.  Then there's Chip's ashes, which they decide to bury in the desert.  They talk about their former boss, Tal, who also lost his job, although he was better compensated.  We can only speculate about "the Suits".  Certainly, they never got fired.  In any case, they have huge compensation packages to insulate them from peril. 

But as I told Smoki Bacon, who interviewed me for the television show in "The Literati Scene" (to be broadcast in greater Boston and throughout much of New England late this month and to be subsequently posted on my website sometime in July), this story is about getting knocked down and getting up.  Life is about getting up.  It's how you win.  You learn from your mistakes and move forward.  That's the point.

4) What happens to your fictional company Amtech? 

The company survives, but shifts its focus increasingly away from industrial manufacturing to the high technology industries.

5) Now, what has been the feedback from people in the business world about your book? Any scathing attacks?

For workers in the business world, The Cusp of Dreams is reality.  It resonates with them.  In the corporate world today you are always at risk of losing your job.  It's a permanent state.  The stress is overwhelming.  It's hard not to become animalistic when your economic future is always at risk.  I haven't had any reviews from business publications yet, though several publications have been targeted.  Perhaps they'll be more critical. Then again, maybe not.

The comments from reviewers thus far on Amazon's Kindle page have been very positive.

As C. Schmidt-Jones noted, The Cusp of Dreams is "a timely read for a recession-battered world, this novel examines the human effects of a company's struggle to survive . . . . Avoiding sentimentality and easy answers, this book is alternatively funny, sexy, sympathetic, and elegiac in its unflinching look at the modern rat race."

Dr. Donna Gulotta suggested that her experience in the business world corroborated the stories in The Cusp of Dreams.  It "captures the ruthlessness and the decadence of the money-makers of the world.  I left the ivory tower for two years, and worked in and lived the corporate life, and it was a shock for me. Sheets captures that feeling of "OMG!" and then some. Loved this book!!"

As a reviewer from the Midwest Book Review commented, "The ruthless ambition of the corporate world knows no gender."  The reviewer noted that "women are just as driven as men to succeed in the soulless corporate world . . . ."  The reviewer concluded that "The Cusp of Dreams is a fascinating read that is sure to entertain and make readers think."

Or as John McClure suggested in his review,  The Cusp of Dreams "takes a deep look at the lives of those deeply embedded in the modern American business culture—something that anyone who has been there will recognize . . . ." Sheets "wonderfully captures the base spirit of the denizens of this culture with true-to-life dialogue and creative circumstances. Certainly anthropologists hundreds of years from now will have a field day with this novel." The Cusp of Dreams "is truly a modern gem depicting life in the American business world and I highly recommend it".

I've had one vitriolic review from Ron Kaplan, writing for ForeWord CLARION Reviews.  His feminized worldview did not allow for a woman writing in a manly style about the degradation of the workplace.  However, no criticism is without benefits.  Kaplan characterized the sexual relationship between Sue and Hugh in "Ashes Out of Phoenix" to be "erotic or pornographic depending on the readers point of view", which, from my perspective, stimulates sales.

6) Why would you say that  life, love, work, and death just aren't the same in the new millennium. What is different in this time period?

Life is getting much tougher.  Jobs are in a permanent state of flux.  Where once you might have had a lifetime job with one company, that has become nearly impossible.  You're always at risk of losing your job.  Naturally, this causes some people to behave badly.  If jobs and housing are difficult to obtain and life always a struggle to avoid falling into the abyss, then people become unmoored and, in some cases, capable of heinous crimes.

The real question, however, is not whether this is happening but whether fiction will have the courage to present the truth.  Or whether it will retreat into the realm of interior thought and false virtue in order to provide false comfort to the feminized reader. 

There are important lessons to be gained by reading fiction engaged with the world.  You can learn from these stories; they can give you important life lessons in how to respond to difficult circumstances.  Unless, of course, you inhabit Mr. Kaplan's domesticated realm of fantasy, a.k.a. feminized fiction.

7) Now, on to newer endeavors- what is on the drawing board?

My second novel, American Suite, will be published soon—hopefully before the end of 2010—by Jorge Pinto Books in New York City.  Jorge Pinto Books, www.pintobooks.com, is a discriminating publisher of quality fiction and nonfiction.  I couldn't be more delighted.  I think your readers will enjoy American Suite, a comedy about America, about women's fiction ("Chick Lit"), about our memoir-saturated culture, and our obsession with celebrity.  Think of it as Sex and the City on steroids.  What could be more wicked?

8) What have I neglected to ask?

Nothing!