All Writing is a Ghost Story

In Which I Read My Former Professor’s Book & Go on a Bender about What Makes Good Writing

Julia Joppien

On Why This is not a Review

This will not be a review for various reasons. Cassuto was my professor and mentor at Fordham, so it would not be objective (if such a thing exists). I also don’t want to do straight reviews here because they’re always subjective and sometimes dull. Instead, I want to use the texts to look at larger ideas or issues, or just draw your attention to something. So, instead of a review, I will proceed to go on a bender about how all writing is a ghost story, how to use extended food metaphors, and what good writing even is…

On the Point of the Book and How it Was Clearly Written by Cassuto

As the title of Leonard Cassuto’s Academic Writing as if Readers Matter implies, the book explores how writers can achieve intellectual rigor while remembering their reader—whereas so much writing acts like there’s nobody on the other end of the tin can phone. Parts of the book could also be summed up as, “don’t be insufferable when you write,” which is a much-needed corrective. Cassuto clarifies that “good writing,” as he’s defining it (since it’s too slippery to fit the confines of any stable definition), “meets the needs of its audience.” This led me to consider what those needs might be (more on that later).

In his book, I can see all the pieces of Cassuto come together: the exacting-but-supportive-with-a-playful-glint-in-his-eye mentor I once had at Fordham; the professor who opened each class with a brief mini lesson and then had us put that theory into practice; the lover of colorful metaphors (he once described a dissertation paragraph I had to work on as a “rickety roller coaster ride”); and the academic writer who arrives to scholarly books with some whimsy to help the theory go down.

On How to Use Extended Food Metaphors Successfully

In class Cassuto taught us that the reader must be able to visualize what we’re describing. Even in the most complex academic paper, he emphasized the importance of telling a good story. Luckily, he follows his own advice. He cites how Cooks Illustrated structures its recipe articles as: “I tried this countless times to find the right way and here’s the story of that.” The cool trick here is how Cassuto uses this example as a reminder to keep working on the writing until you get it right (as the cook in the article does with the recipe); but he’s also referring to how the Cooks Illustrated writers tell a story that advances an argument, then step the reader through evidence to prove that argument (which is what Cassuto has just done with the Cooks Illustrated anecdote), rather than just plopping down a recipe. Bottom line: his writing is fun because he draws on diverse sources and peppers it with pop culture to ensure that you, the reader, are having a good time. 

Mostly, I’m writing about Cassuto’s book because he describes it as a sandwich, and I loved how that worked with the title of this Substack. J.K. But I do actually like that he describes the book as a sandwich. “The hefty helping of tips and techniques is the filling. Surrounding the filling and holding it all together is my larger argument about why the link between academic writer and reader is so important. No one should tell you how to eat a sandwich, and I’m not going to try.”

I also appreciate that Cassuto doesn’t try to tell me how to eat a sandwich. That wouldn’t go well. 

Note how Cassuto’s still working with that Cooks Illustrated metaphor in the sandwich comment—his earlier tendency to parallel the techniques and rules involved in food-making and writing craft, as well as the rigor it takes to do either (how the cook must make the recipe 192 times to nail it). As I tell my MFA students, it’s the ones who stick with it, keep taking the rejections, revising, resubmitting, staying so far from their comfort zone year after year, that “make it.” It’s not even always the ones with the most talent—because they have often been told from birth how amazing they are, and they aren’t ready to fight through a deluge of humiliation, which, yes, is what it takes to be a writer. Truth.

On Why Writing and Reading is a Ghost Story

Beyond the whole sandwich metaphor, Cassuto frames the reading process as a relationship where the reader tries to grasp the argument while the writer tries to guess the needs of the reader. It’s an eerie, atemporal interaction he describes, which is what makes it so fetching to me. The author writes towards an imagined reader, who won’t come into existence until much later, when (or in many cases, let’s be honest, if) the book gets published. As the author writes, this reader remains merely speculative. The writer relates to the reader before this character comes into existence (as the reader of that book, at least). They have walked around for years eating various sandwiches before assuming this new identity as the reader of that particular work.

Then, as the reader reads, the writer has already left the joint, leaving behind only the words. The writer tries to guess the future needs of the reader, and then the reader tries to grasp the past meaning of the writer. This is why all writing is a ghost story, and also why it’s so devastatingly addictive to dweebs (like me) who toil away on Substacks called Writing Sandwich; or dweebs like Cassuto (said lovingly, don’t worry he’ll take it as a high compliment as we eggheads do), who go around honoring my desire not to be told how to eat the book sandwich he’s created by trying out the recipe 192 times. 

On What is “Good” Writing

Cassuto’s work on argument captures what I admire about scholarly writing, which I think a lot of “creative” writing (I only use quotation marks because I don’t love rigid genre definitions and all writing should be creative) could only be made more powerful by adopting: the rigor, the multifaceted argument, the careful attention to research, the coming at the problem from various angles. Cassuto also knows what “creative” writing does not need to import from academic writing: the pretension. In fact, his book seeks to act as a corrective to just such pretension.

In an academic argument, you need to, as Cassuto explores, identify a problem and then respond to the question this problem raises, ideally causing your reader to view the problem in a different way as a result of having read your work. Too much creative (and academic) writing doesn’t do the whole delivering on the promise of the story’s initial problem (I’ve certainly been guilty of this). If you think about gripping writing of any kind, it tends to engage the reader from the start in a compelling mystery and then solve it, having characters and, ideally also the reader, change in the process.

My favorite writing interweaves what happened (down to the last detail that could have only been penned by that particular author) with what big ideas were set into motion. What happened without the consequent big ideas doesn’t work for me in the same way. I think ninety percent of “good” reading and writing is just pattern recognition, connection-making, theme-weaving, Cassuto chasing his culinary metaphors through the book and my chasing after. All devoted readers are at heart detectives and like to look for patterns and clues; they love, above all, to crack the conceptual case. This is why Cassuto and I understand each other. This is why you and I understand each other if you’ve read this far (I pity you; I salute you). Above all, in our writing, as Cassuto reminds us, we are creating a place for the reader, however briefly, to live. 

In Other News

I’m grateful to David Kirschenbaum and Boog City for publishing my essay, “Furiosa,” which is about mourning my father through movies and speculative fiction. It’s an excerpt from my book, Death and Other Speculative Fictions, which is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil Press in December 2024.

I was so happy to see that my essay, “Cooking My Father Back to Life,” was a Finalist for Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club Essay Contest.

I had a lot of fun talking about Radha Blank’s The Forty-Year-Old Version with the very clever Tobias Carroll on his very cleverly titled podcast, Framed & Bound. Take a look at all the things Tobias is up to because it’s amazing.

In case you were interested in attending a Brooklyn Book Festival event, here are some BKBF Bookend readings I’m doing in the next week or so.

September 24th at 7: In-Between States: An Evening with Spuyten Duyvil Publishing (In Person)

Please join Spuyten Duyvil authors Jiwon Choi (A Temporary Dwelling), Vincent Czyz (Sun Eye Moon Eye), Caroline Hagood (Weird Girls), Ian S. Maloney (South Brooklyn Exterminating), John Schertzer (Bellamonia), and Jason Weiss (Listenings) as they explore shifting genres, creating hybrid texts, and challenging literary forms and categories. Short readings and discussion, followed by Q&A period.

Commune NYC, 69 Lexington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11238 – wheelchair-accessible entrance & restroom

September 26th at 6: Let the Body Live in All the Worlds (In Person)

Our bodies are haunted by our family spirits/ghosts, serving as vectors for the dead. In this reading, poets will explore and express how the people who have passed through and long gone persist and perpetuate their presence allowing us to inhabit their past worlds while living in the present. Come join an exciting evening of conjuring and introspection at the Thayer with these stellar poets: Joan Larkin, Caroline Hagood, Jiwon Choi, Jerome Sala, Elaine Equi, Emanuel Xavier, Soraya Shalforoosh, Joy Ladin, Sarah Sarai, Avra Wing, Yesenia Montilla, Anne Marie Macari, and Ama Birch.

Thayer, 99 Avenue B, New York, NY 10009 – wheelchair-accessible entrance & restroom

September 30th at 6: St. Francis College Hot Off the Press (In Person)

The St. Francis College MFA Program invites you to an exciting evening featuring the stylings of writers Jive Poetic, Phylisha Villanueva, Cito Blanko, Mitch Levenberg, Ian S. Maloney, and Caroline Hagood reading from their new books, hot off the press. This exciting lineup will take you deep into storylines of identities lost and found, origin stories both real and speculative, connections forged and broken—daring you to consider the structures of your own histories, whether actual or imagined.

St. Francis College, 179 Livingston Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 – wheelchair-accessible entrance & restroom

Thayer, 99 Avenue B, New York, NY 10009 – wheelchair-accessible entrance & restroom

Thank you for reading!