Richard Riegel and I recently exchanged some thoughts via e-mail on Mark Shipper’s classic novel, Paperback Writer.
From: Scott Woods
Date: Wednesday, September 19, 2007
To: Richard Riegel
Subject: Paperback Writer (I)
Hi Richard:
Thanks for agreeing to chat with me about Paperback Writer. I’m interested to hear what you have to say about the book because you mentioned in your rockcritics interview what a big fan you were of its author, Mark Shipper. I’ll quote what you said in its entirety because it actually fills in a few details of this mysterious fellow you referred to [in an earlier e-mail] as the “J.D. Salinger of rockwriting”–in fact, I bet it’s the most detailed thing anyone’s ever written about the guy.
“A rockwriter who was as influential upon me as Lester Bangs early on, but who’s barely known now, since he left the field, was Mark Shipper–his Flash fanzine of 1972, which celebrated bargain bins and his (and Teresa’s) beloved Paul Revere & The Raiders, and brilliantly ridiculed all sorts of rockstar/rockcrit pretensions, was a major major inspiration to me that year. His later Paperback Writer and How To Be Ecstatically Happy 24 Hours A Day For The Rest Of Your Life books were just the kind of satires I would like to have done myself, if I’d had more time. Unfortunately Shipper vanished from the rockwriting scene in the early ’80s, but I still revere (so to speak) the sarcritic impulse he gave me back in the day.”
