Alexander Maksik isn't comfortable talking about himself. He just spent three years writing a book that cleared his head of a significant number of thoughts on how tension between desire and action affect a charismatic young teacher and his high school charges. Now, he's spending a lot of time talking about that. Himself, not so much. But that's OK because everyone else is.
"'You Deserve Nothing' is a bracing, challenging, enthralling debut," touts John Burnham Schwartz, author of the novel "Reservation Road" and literary director of the Sun Valley Writers' Conference. "It is a novel that rings true from first page to last, refusing the false notion of easy choices, inhabiting, rather, the moral maze of lived life. Here is a gifted writer who understands why the artful telling of a difficult story is a brave and important thing to do. Read this book."
Susanna Moore, author of "In the Cut" and "The Big Girls" calls the book, "A provocative, constantly surprising, and original novel written with precision and grace. Maksik is unflinching in his exploration of the sexual awakening of the young, and the moral complexity of adulthood. This is a thrilling debut."
Maksik has credited bestselling novelist Alice Sebold with drawing those elements out of him and onto the page as she scrupulously edited his work.
Sebold, author of "The Lovely Bones," calls the result "a reader's novel in the best sense. The prose is direct and undeniable, one might say deceptively simple. The story is age-old. And yet it obliges us to ask unsettling questions, the answers to which say as much about ourselves as they do about the characters."
After editing the novel, Sebold chose it with four other titles to launch Tonga Books, a new Europa Editions imprint featuring works chosen and edited by authors.
Maksik is coming back to his old stomping grounds to debut his novel. The unveiling will begin tonight, Aug. 17, with the exclusive book release celebration and a Q&A and signing from 5-6:30 p.m. at Ketchum's Iconoclast Books.
"I have had such a thrill watching Xander's writing and career flourish throughout the years," said Iconoclast Books owner Sarah Hedrick. "To see his name on the cover of a provocative, engaging, beautiful novel makes it even more of a pleasure. Be prepared to lose yourself for a day or two, though the story will stay with you much longer."
And by the weekend, Maksik will head up his own session at the very venue that seduced his writing sensibilities during his teen years, the Sun Valley Writers' Conference.
"I've been coming to the Writers' Conference since its inception, and it has been a crucial part of my life for nearly as long," he said. "I wanted to be a writer before I ever really wrote anything, and the conference has served as a sort of annual reminder to me of the importance of writing and passion."
Wedged among Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist-historian Rick Atkinson, similarly honored poet and environmentalist W. S. Merwin, Brookings Institute Iran expert Suzanne Maloney and many more, Maksik will share "What My First Novel Taught Me" as part of the conference that opens Friday, Aug. 19 and runs through Monday, Aug. 22.
"Xander's father was one of the founders of the Sun Valley Writers' Conference a decade and a half ago," conference board Chair Reva Tooley said. "It is especially gratifying to have Xander on the program this year."
"I was 20 when it began and I've learned from it and been inspired by it, and I am always grateful for it," Maksik said. "I've been a bit of an itinerant and done a variety of jobs, and there are very few elements in my life that are stable. The conference is one of them, and I really wonder if I'd have become a novelist without it."
Born in Los Angeles, Maksik, 38, moved to Sun Valley at 14 as the headmaster's son when his father, Jon Maksik, took over the reins at the Community School. His mother, Leslie, was a teacher and would later, with Tooley and Gordon Russell, found the conference.
Maksik went on to Whitman College and then bounced around from Australia, back to L.A. and then moved to Paris where he spent seven years, three of them hunkered down for a few hours a day in the oldest public library in France, making it his office and using the librarians as unspoken taskmasters.
"I imagined the librarians were making sure I was writing," he said.
His book is set in an international high school in the French capital, where an intellectual and enthusiastic teacher, Will, and his senior student, Marie, have an affair. Sheltered student Gilad's perspective provokes Maksik to explore the question, "What is courage?"
"This has always seemed to me to be the single most important problem in a person's life," Kaksik said. "I think we usually know what to do next. The question is whether we have the courage to do it, to disregard the other options that surround and interfere with the central decision."
When he wasn't at the "office," his time was spent tutoring, teaching, writing and trying out his characters with a number of women to ensure that the proper intrigue and voice were conveyed. And, he dreamed.
"You can't imagine how many hours I spent in bookstores wanting with such absolute intensity to be a part of it, to have my book in there," he has said.
He left Paris for the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and now serves as the provost's post-graduate writing fellow at the University of Iowa, teaching advanced fiction writing.
Before he heads back to Iowa, Maksik will stop by The Community Library in Ketchum for a final reading and Q&A on Thursday, Aug. 25, at 6 p.m.
With his book in bookstores, his second novel, "The Barbarians" is underway, and he's feeling a little overwhelmed but reflective on what got him here.
"Until I went to Iowa, I'd never been anywhere else (than here) where people were so collectively passionate about literature, so the conference has been sustaining. It's a privilege to return to a place where literature is central, where it is understood that writing is relevant to the greater world, and that it is potent and deeply important."
For information on conference ticket availability, visit www.svwc.com.
Jennifer Liebrum jliebrum@mtexpress.com
Community School graduate Alexander Maksik comes home from Paris with a novel to explore and stories to share with attendees and peers at this weekend’s Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, which his parents helped launch in 1993.
Photo by Pascale Brevet
