Neil Serven

Rule No. 3: Write what you know. Bellow once said, “Fiction is the higher autobiography.” In other words, fiction is payback for those who have wronged you. When people read my books “My Gym Teacher Was an Abusive Bully” and “She Called Them Brussels Sprouts: A Survivor’s Tale,” they’re often surprised when I tell them they contain an autobiographical element. Therein lies the art, I say. How do you make that which is your everyday into the stuff of literature? Listen to your heart. Ask your heart, Is it true? And if it is, let it be. Once the lawyers sign off, you’re good to go.

From “How to Write,” by Colson Whitehead, in The New York Times Book Review this week. Whitehead is one of my favorite novelists (though I haven’t found the courage to try Zone One yet), and while just about all of this article is tongue-in-cheek, this part aligns most closely with my own tongue-in-cheek one-word answer that I supplied on my Fictionaut profile page for why I write: Revenge. Meaning, it is a chance to re-write the real-life encounters that never went your way.

photo: Ourit Ben-Haim

Somehow I fear I am the last person in the world to know about the Underground New York Public Library.

I have been waiting for the Internet to get this right. It took a few tries. People Reading cracked open the idea of showing folks enjoying books in public, and included interesting follow-up inquiries to willing participants, while CoverSpy emphasized the Book Cover Bingo aspect, with unseen readers reduced to mysterious police descriptions (“F, 20s, rolled-up jean shorts, peach tank top, big blue backpack, Union Square”) with the occasional revealing act of character (“M, 50s, yellow Nike shirt, balancing Diet Coke on book, Grand Central”).

But the UNYPL catches people wholly unawares, immersed in the peaceful act of reading, while trains speed and rumble through tunnels and people bump through aisles and talk on phones and announcements blare overhead.

What makes the site a must-visit is that the photographs are simply beautiful. Ourit Ben-Haim launched UNYPL as a photography project, explaining that she is “fascinated by how we apply ourselves to stories and discourse. In so doing, we shape who we understand ourselves to be.”

Working on crowded Metro trains and platforms with a Canon (not an iPhone, so no locker-room subterfuge going on here), Ben-Haim demonstrates an impeccable ability to frame the shot (a number are taken through windows, some of the train on the next track over) and, I imagine, split-second timing. She doesn’t zoom in on her subjects, so often we see them in a grander context, their bored fellow passengers (chatting on their phones; staring into space) being the chaos from which they seek asylum.

Also impressive is the fieldwork that Ourit does to identify the title that the person is reading, even linking to the correct edition on Amazon (when possible). For titles she cannot identify, she enlists the help of the Tumblr community in a Friday post.

Ourit admits on her Common Questions page that, while perfectly legal, there is an “ethical gray area” to photographing people in public without their permission or awareness. “I’m not running amok taking photographs without any regard for my subjects,” she says. “Street Photography is a complex art form with its own subtle language of communication. I listen to cues when I see them and I present my subjects respectfully.” The splendor of the subject’s faces seems to affirm that objective.

In the age of eReaders, the game of Cover Spying threatens to become stripped of its serendipity and mischief (Ourit includes a Friday eReader photo as a wry acknowledgment of this), and that is probably why the UNYPL has acquired a loyal following. It completes the act of people watching to which we all subscribe when we find ourselves idle, wishing we in a story somewhere.

The mosquitoes showed up before dusk fell, drawn to our sugar drinks and our sweat, and the next-door neighbor’s underground pool. The party lights were turned on: cylinders of red, white, orange, yellow and green set up to dangle from the clothesline. We ate cookies and ice cream and I sipped from another heavy soda. Butchie said the bonfire was definitely going to happen, a friend of his came by and said so. Sometimes you heard rumors about stuff that like happening but the cops would break it up before it ever got off the ground. But this time it was real.

At Fictionaut, my story “A Spark and a Flash,” posted a year ago. A sort of fiction/memoir hybrid that I wrote to try to capture the mythic and dangerous elements of childhood. In real life I don’t have a sister, but I do remember begging my mother to go see the bonfire, and panicking when I saw the flames reflected in the windows of a house nearby.