{"id":554992,"date":"2023-04-03T10:27:45","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T14:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=554992"},"modified":"2023-04-17T16:07:22","modified_gmt":"2023-04-17T20:07:22","slug":"stephen-schottenfeld-this-room-is-made-of-noise-554992","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/stephen-schottenfeld-this-room-is-made-of-noise-554992\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions of character and motives drive professor\u2019s new novel"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"width: 85%; font-weight: bold; line-height: 135%; margin-bottom: 0.5em;\">In Stephen Schottenfeld\u2019s <em>This Room Is Made of Noise<\/em>, a down-on-his-luck handyman befriends an elderly widow of means. What\u2019s a reader to think?<\/h2>\n<div class=\"side-right\">\n<h3><strong>Schottenfeld to read at Plutzik Reading Series<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><em>Wednesday, April 12 at 5 p.m.<br \/>\nHawkins-Carlson Room, Rush Rhees Library<br \/>\nFree and open to the public<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Stephen Schottenfeld will read from his new novel, <em>This Room Is Made of Noise<\/em> (University of Wisconsin Press), as part of the annual Hyam Plutzik Memorial Reading Series. Award-winning poet and Rochester professor of English <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sas.rochester.edu\/eng\/people\/faculty\/grotz_jennifer\/index.html\">Jennifer Grotz<\/a> will also read from her forthcoming collection, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.graywolfpress.org\/books\/still-falling\"><em>Still Falling<\/em><\/a> (Graywolf Press).<\/p>\n<p>The Plutzik Reading Series, sponsored by the Department of English and now in its 60th year, is one of the oldest literary reading series in the United States. It has featured prominent Rochester faculty members in addition to such guests as John Ashbery, Louise Gl\u00fcck, Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, James Baldwin, and many others. The series is named for the poet <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hyamplutzikpoetry.com\">Hyam Plutzik<\/a>, who taught at Rochester from 1945 until his death from cancer in 1962. Plutzik\u2019s death at age 50 cut short an extraordinary career in which he had published three collections of poetry, and been named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for all three: <em>Aspects of Proteus<\/em> (1949), <em>Apples from Shinar<\/em> (1959), and <em>Horatio<\/em> (1961).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sas.rochester.edu\/eng\/plutzik\/\">Learn more about the series.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>It may seem paradoxical that\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sas.rochester.edu\/eng\/people\/faculty\/schottenfeld_stephen\/index.html\">Stephen Schottenfeld<\/a>\u2019s new novel, <a href=\"https:\/\/uwpress.wisc.edu\/books\/6067.htm\"><em>This Room Is Made of Noise<\/em><\/a> (University of Wisconsin Press), should be described on its back cover as \u201cquietly mesmerizing.\u201d But within that paradox lies a truth at this story\u2019s core.<\/p>\n<p>A simple conversation between two people\u2014an exchange of pleasantries, even\u2014contains multitudes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA single moment just contains so many different possibilities,\u201d says Schottenfeld, an associate professor of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sas.rochester.edu\/eng\/\">English<\/a> at the <a href=\"https:\/\/rochester.edu\">University of Rochester<\/a>. \u201cYou look inside that moment, and you just see more and more implications.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The novel, which is set in Rochester, New York, is narrated by handyman Don Lank, whose mind can be a noisy place as it moves from moment to moment. Divorced and in his 40s, Don has done OK for himself as single proprietor of Don\u2019s Fix-It. But one mishap\u2014a missed insurance payment amidst the turmoil of his marriage\u2019s last days, followed by a leak on roof work he\u2019d just completed (\u201csome error at the ridge,\u201d he explains)\u2014and he finds himself $20,000 in the hole. To dig himself out, he develops a side gig buying and selling used goods.<\/p>\n<p>All that is backstory, which Don shares in time. The book opens with the first encounter between Don and an elderly widow named Millie Prall, who lives alone in a big house on a grand boulevard in the Rochester suburb of Irondequoit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was driving past the big houses on Thomas Avenue when I caught, across the street, these pretty shades glowing in a window,\u201d the story begins. \u201cA twelve-light table lamp. A Tiffany Lily, it looked like, but a copycat, I was sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Don stops the car and approaches the house. When he rings the doorbell, Millie greets him. He asks if she is willing to sell the lamp and offers her $800 for it.<\/p>\n<p>The lamp, which turns out to be a genuine Tiffany, foretells the story to come. It\u2019s a tale that delves into the idea of authenticity\u2014verifiable in the world of Tiffany lamps and their many imitations, but much murkier in the realm of human relationships.<\/p>\n<p>Who is Don, and what does he want? Having unexpectedly pocketed $15,000 for the lamp, Don decides to return most of it to Millie. That one act marks the start of a relationship. Millie hires Don for a couple of small jobs, but Don sees more work to be done. The house is a maze of potential dangers for Millie, well into her nineties and living alone with no close family left and few acquaintances. Don also learns that Millie has some means that extend beyond the equity in her house.<\/p>\n<p>The tension of the story lies in the question of motives. At any moment, we are never sure what Don\u2019s are. Don isn\u2019t sure either, as we learn from his penchant for rumination.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, Millie becomes more and more demanding, and her needs grow as she slips into dementia. If manipulation is part of the tie that binds them, who is manipulating whom? As the stress wears on, what is Don capable of?<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, might this turn out to be a story of a different set of possibilities\u2014of generosity, grace, and connection?<\/p>\n<h3><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-555042\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/inline-book-cover-this-room-is-made-of-noise-stephen-schottenfeld-409x630.jpg\" alt=\"Book cover art for This Room Is Made of Noise by Stephen Schottenfeld.\" width=\"350\" height=\"539\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/inline-book-cover-this-room-is-made-of-noise-stephen-schottenfeld-409x630.jpg 409w, https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/inline-book-cover-this-room-is-made-of-noise-stephen-schottenfeld-768x1183.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/inline-book-cover-this-room-is-made-of-noise-stephen-schottenfeld-997x1536.jpg 997w, https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/inline-book-cover-this-room-is-made-of-noise-stephen-schottenfeld.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>How do you create a character? Research, reflection\u2014and always, rewrites<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>\u201cI usually start with a character, and the story flows from that,\u201d Schottenfeld says of his approach to fiction writing. Most often his characters take shape around the rhythm and routine of work lives. In an endorsement of the novel, the National Book Award\u2013winning fiction writer Alice McDermott writes, \u201cSchottenfeld writes about work\u2014the dailiness of it, the paycheck of it, the way it slowly and inevitably shapes a life\u2014with an authority few contemporary novelists can match.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Notably, those work lives are frequently very different from his own. The protagonist in his first novel, <em>Bluff City Pawn<\/em> (Bloomsbury, 2014), owned a pawn shop. And as for Don, \u201cI don&#8217;t know if someone is less handy than I am,\u201d Schottenfeld says. \u201cIf you saw me holding a power tool, you\u2019d probably say, like, \u2018put it down.\u2019 You would not want me working on your house.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Schottenfeld writes not about what he knows, but what he comes to know through deep research. In the case of Don, part of that research meant spending time with handymen, asking them, sometimes over meals, about their various jobs, processes, interactions with clients, and what they did, say, in just the past week. He occasionally shadowed them, too, to pick up on the smallest details. \u201cThere was a guy that I went to Lowe\u2019s with,\u201d he says. \u201cI told him, \u2018I just want to see how you get supplies in the morning.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then there\u2019s harder work: fleshing out the backstory, the longings, the preoccupations, and the idiosyncrasies that make an imaginary human being, going about the day, seem real. Schottenfeld says drawing out the character of Don was the hardest part of his writing. Don didn\u2019t truly take shape until the second draft.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a difference between something being suggested and something being absent,\u201d says Schottenfeld, explaining that in an initial draft, Don \u201cwasn\u2019t sufficiently on the page yet.\u201d He spent an additional year working on the novel, \u201cjust leaning into the emotional weight and significance of some of the moments that I had written past.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Local readers of the novel will recognize another character: Rochester itself. <em>This Room Is Made of Noise<\/em> includes some familiar place names, such as Rochester General Hospital, the town of Henrietta, and Thomas Avenue, in Irondequoit. We also learn that Millie\u2019s late husband enjoyed a decades-long career at Kodak. That detail alone evokes a particular time and place in Rochester\u2019s past that have come to define prosperity and financial security, built from generous salaries, bonuses, and pensions.<\/p>\n<p>Schottenfeld sees Rochester as having played something like the role of a supporting character\u2014at least in comparison to the role of Memphis in his debut novel. \u201cIn writing about a pawnshop\u2014and there were so many in Memphis\u2014I think I was inevitably saying something, in Bluff City Pawn, about the city. My attention in Room is more focused on what transpires between Don and Millie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What transpires cuts across the intersecting themes of \u201cwork, memory, money, family, isolation, aging, caregiving,\u201d he adds. \u201cAnd yet, I suppose I\u2019m still exploring similar territory in both novels\u2014jobs and relationships and the emotional and financial transactions made in a room.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Read more<\/strong><\/h3>\n<div class=\"large-up-3\">\n<div class=\"column\" style=\"padding-left: 0px;\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/professors-first-novel-explores-betrayal-and-brotherhood-in-the-south\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Schottendeld.jpg\" alt=\"Stephen Schottenfeld with his arms folded in front of pawn signs.\" \/><strong>Debut novel explores betrayal, brotherhood in the South<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: .9em;\">Tough economic times can bring out the worst in people, especially when you mix in family, desperation, and the drive to get ahead in business. This is one of the messages in <em>Bluff City Pawn<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"column\" style=\"padding-left: 0px;\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/novelist-joanna-scott-returns-to-short-stories-in-excuse-me-while-i-disappear-505622\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fea-joanna-scott-excuse-me-while-i-dissappear.jpg\" alt=\"Horizontal image incorporating book cover artwork from Excuse Me While I Disappear.\" \/><strong>Novelist Joanna Scott returns to short stories in <em>Excuse Me While I Disappear<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: .9em;\">The acclaimed writer and University of Rochester English professor explores the theme of \u2018lost stories.\u2019 <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"column\" style=\"padding-left: 0px;\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/rochester-poetry-translations-on-pen-award-poetry-longlist-506232\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom: 10px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fea-Everything-I-Dont-Know-Front-Cover-crop.jpg\" alt=\"Crop of book cover for Everything I Don't Know.\" \/><strong>English professor\u2019s cotranslation of poetry wins PEN American Literary Award<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: .9em;\">Everything I Don\u2019t Know, translated from the Polish by Jennifer Grotz and Piotr Sommer, took top honors for poetry in translation in 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Stephen Schottenfeld\u2019s <em>This Room Is Made of Noise<\/em>, a down-on-his-luck handyman befriends an elderly widow of means. What\u2019s a reader to think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":742,"featured_media":555022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13092],"tags":[20542,29502,2276,16072],"class_list":["post-554992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-arts","tag-department-of-english","tag-featured-post-side","tag-literature","tag-school-of-arts-and-sciences"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Questions of character and motives drive professor\u2019s new novel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Stephen Schottenfeld\u2019s This Room Is Made of Noise explores the themes of work, memory, money, family, isolation, aging, and caregiving.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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