Zachary German: North Brooklyn's Newest Novelist

Debut novelist Zachary German, aged 21, celebrated the publication of his debut novel, Eat When You Feel Sad from Melville House, with a well-attended launch party at WORD bookstore Tuesday. In an artistic field where 35 year-old writers are still often considered “young,” to be 21 is practically fetal. What makes Zachary German’s achievement even more remarkable is his biography, which is as unconventional to literature as is his aforementioned age.

Zachary German was born in 1988, in Somers Point, New Jersey, a suburb several miles outside of Atlantic City. After finishing the eleventh grade, German dropped out of high school. “I was just really down on stuff,” said the young novelist in an interview at a local coffee shop. “I dunno, it’s hard to really relate to that time. It seems like I cared a lot about stuff. But I can’t remember what that was. I think I was trying to do my own thing. I don’t know. It was a weird time.” He soon moved to Philadelphia, where the majority of Eat When You Feel Sad was written. To support himself, he delivered pizza on his bicycle for six months, then worked in a thrift shop for a year. Working at a thrift store has certain benefits for a young writer: access to a substantial stash of affordable reading material. “We’d get hundreds of books donated everyday and I could get them for, like, fifty cents,” said German. It was from these donated books, German picked up many books by writers he admires, including Bret Easton Ellis, Frederick Barthelme, Joy Williams, Dennis Cooper and Peter Sotos. “I guess also Hemingway’s short stories,” added German. “But just the boring ones. I think my favorite one is ‘Soldier’s Home.’ It’s just like the guy has come back from the war and he’s hanging out at his parents house and he wants to go see his sister play indoor basketball, or something.”

After living in Philly for a year and half, German moved to Williamsburg, which he now calls home. It’s a neighborhood German likes for its bars and venues—and, based on his appearance and demeanor, one where he fits in pretty well with all the other young, artistic and impeccably dressed people who live there. However, German doesn’t necessarily find Williamsburg essential to his work. “It’s neither here nor there, I guess,” he said. “It’s cool that people are writing. It’s cool that there are venues. There’s cool stuff happening. I guess that’s all you can ask for in a community, for people to be writing. But I think I could be anywhere. If I worked in a grocery store in, like, Iowa, I would just write about that. It just seems like you can write about whatever’s happening.” Indeed, German’s novel is about many of those everyday things that are happening around him: hanging out, relationships, parties, eating in Chinese restaurants, talking on Gchat.

German’s success is the latest example of the Internet’s ability to empower younger writers, as well as writers whose work is more outside the mainstream. (It’s interesting to note that two other young North Brooklyn-based writers, Tao Lin, 26, and Justin Taylor, 28, whose debut short story collection Everything is the Best Thing Ever from Harper-Perennial also comes out this week, have large Internet presences. It’s also interesting to note that, of German, Lin and Taylor, only Taylor has an agent—something that would have been unheard of for writers before the Internet.) German posted the first short scenes of Eat When You Feel Sad on his blog, which gained him readers and led to an e-book of the same name that was published by Bear Parade in 2008. It was also how Melville House publisher Dennis Loy Johnson first encountered his writing. “All the way, the Internet has been a big factor in my career,” said German. One of his earliest publications (he was 19 at the time) was in writer Dennis Cooper’s anthology Userlands: New Fiction Writers from the Blogging Underground.

“There are no set rules as in traditional media,” said Johnson, who has also published four of Tao Lin’s books. “And the Internet works differently for each writer. You have to concoct inventive campaigns with multiple elements—blogging, video, social networking—that combine differently. It’s both a terrifying time and a really exciting one as well.”

Inventive promotion comes naturally to German, whose promotion takes a decidedly DIY and tongue-in-cheek approach, ranging from handmade t-shirts sold via PayPal for “$5 or free” to a website where he compiles short videos uploaded by friends eating food and feeling sad. “In Brooklyn it’s easier to have readings and have a few people like you,” said German. “But across the country, and across the world, [the Internet] is kind of the only way to connect.”

Not one to rest on his current accomplishments, German is already at work on a second novel. “I have maybe 20,000 words for the new novel so far. It seems like a good skeleton of a novel so far.” Eat When You Feel Sad is on sale from Melville House now. Upcoming readings for Zachary German include: Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Story Ever at Bar Matchless in Greenpoint on February 11th, at PPOW Gallery in Chelsea on February 18th and with Lore Segal at KGB Bar on March 21st.