Published: April 25, 2008 08:03 am         

Author shares her time with eatery, keyboard

By DANNY PELLETIER

CHERRY VALLEY — Two aspects of Dana Spiotta’s personality appear in her work, both as an award-winning author and co-manager of The Rose and Kettle, a Cherry Valley restaurant she runs with her husband.

As a restaurateur, Spiotta is like a hummingbird, zipping from one table to another, always busy and on the go.

“It is very engaging in a physical way,” she said. “I really run around on a busy night. It gets my adrenaline going. I also genuinely like service — I like waiting on people. It feels very natural for me.”

Owning a restaurant, she added, is a very social duty that involves creating a relaxing atmosphere and making others feel welcome.

Writing, on the other hand, is a solitary task. For Spiotta especially, whose history in food service has given her an eye for detail, creating a novel takes a lot of time and attention.

“You live with a novel for years,” she said. “It is a marriage of sorts, but it is all in your imagination, so sometimes you can go a little crazy.” Her first book, Lightning Field, and her most recent, Eat the Document, each took four years to complete. “I have to work really hard at it,” she said. “It does not come easy for me. I have to overcome my own resistance. I can be distracted. I can go on wild goose chases. I can spend a day obsessed over one tiny thing.”

But the two occupations complement each other well. Evening work in the restaurant allows her to write in the morning. And though the processes and achievements are vastly different, to perform well in either profession takes a similar amount of dedication.

“They each require endurance,” Spiotta said. “I’m not really fast at anything, but I endure.”

Spiotta grew up on the West Coast and attended college at Washington State, where she studied literature and philosophy. In her spare time, though, she spent her time reading and studying great writing, developing her own written voice. Later, she spent some time in California, where she worked as a managing editor for The Quarterly, a literary magazine. “Just trying to figure out what I liked in a piece of writing and why I liked it was valuable,” she said. “I think my time there gave me some confidence.”

Has living in this area influenced her writing at all?

“I love the West Coast,” she said, “but I prefer the dramatic seasons we have here. The long winters are good for introspection. And they remind you of time passing, mortality.”

Her latest novel, ``Eat the Document’’ (the title comes from a documentary about Bob Dylan, chronicling his transformation from acoustic folk singer to rock ‘n’ roll musician), was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2006. It received glowing reviews from both the Los Angeles and New York Times.

The story traces the life of a political activist who must abandon her identity after a Vietnam War protest goes wrong. It shifts between the political demonstrations of the 1970s and the consequences of these actions in the 1990s.

``She captures the uneasy mixture of idealism and selfdramatization that animated the antiwar movement of the 1970’s and the myriad ways in which the politics, music, technology and language of that era informed the more cynical culture of the 90s,’’ wrote Michiko Kakutani in a book review for the New York Times.

``We sometimes forget that the U.S. was founded by people willing to challenge the status quo,” Spiotta said. ``I am interested in how difficult it can be to act on good intentions, to be a force for good. I want to write in good faith about these matters.’’ Spiotta said she chose a difficult subject matter for her novel because she likes to be challenged by her writing. ``I imagine ordinary people in extreme or dire circumstances,’’ she said. “I also think a writer’s job is to challenge his or her own preconceptions as well as the reader’s. The more uncomfortable I am, the better the work is.’’ Spiotta, who is currently in the process of writing her third novel, will be reading from ``Eat the Document’’ at Hartwick College next Thursday, April 24. The reading will be held in Shineman Chapel at 7 p.m.

Above all, Spiotta relishes her familial role. Her 4-yearold daughter is her greatest inspiration, she said.

``Everything good I accomplish in either the restaurant or the writing,” she said, ``comes out of the love I have for my family.’’