Behind the Book- Judging This Author by His Covers

It's not often that a first novelist designs his own book's dust jacket. But then the author of The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters (LJ 9/15/01) is no ordinary beginner. Recognized as one of the most original and innovative graphic designers in publishing today, Chip Kidd, the associate art director of jackets and special projects at Knopf, has created eye-catching, memorable covers for such titles as Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, Donna Tartt's The Secret History, Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses, and David Sedaris's Naked.

Kidd's novel is a witty, satirical take on academia, faculty art shows ("I beheld: melting lop-sided Umbrian hillsides, nudes run over by the Cubist Express, suburban-surrealist flower ladies….and kittens. Yes, kittens."), and, of course, graphic design. Set in 1957 at an unnamed state university (think Penn State, the author's alma mater), The Cheese Monkeys follows narrator Happy and his free-spirited female friend Himillsy (pronounced Him-ill-sy) as they endure a year of art school—from first semester's Art 101: Introduction to Drawing, taught by one dotty Dottie Spang, to second semester's Art 127: Introduction to Commercial Art, or Graphic Design, as renamed by its enigmatic and unconventional instructor, Winter Sorbeck.

After 15 years of designing book covers, why did Kidd decide to write a novel? "It's something I always wanted to do," explained Kidd in a phone interview from Seattle (where he was visiting to attend Wagner's Ring Cycle). "I think anyone who has worked in publishing as long as I have at least flirts with the idea. So I decided to give it a shot. My only regret is that it took so long."

Kidd worked on the book for six years, writing evenings and weekends. But he often would get frustrated with the novel, putting it way for weeks and letting it gestate. Kidd acknowledged that The Cheese Monkeys is somewhat autobiographical, drawn from his graphic design classes at Penn State.

"I'd say the novel reflects about 50 percent of the design education I actually got and 50 percent of the education I wanted to get. Certainly, the characters are composites of people I knew, and some of the assignments my characters receive were actual assignments. Others we just talked about, and some I made up."

The challenge for Kidd was to take his four years of design education and transform it into a novel. Originally planning a massive three-part epic that would begin with his lead character in high school and end with his first job, Kidd spent three years fleshing out the proposal and sent it to his agent.

"She told me that this wasn't one book but three and that the section about college was the only one that would work, " said Kidd. "That was kind of hard to accept when I had spent all this time and effort, but I did accept it because my agent is the best in the business, and she knows what she's talking about." Once Kidd decided to focus on college and, in particular, one academic year, the writing became much easier. "What I learned—which is also a lesson in the novel—is that limits are possibilities. The more you restrict yourself, the more you free yourself up."

Although the designer went to school in the mid-1980s, he chose to set the novel in 1957. "The mid-1950s were ground zero for design education in America on a mass scale," explained Kidd. "Commercial or applied art, as it was called then, really started at Yale in the late 1940s and would have spread to the state school level by the mid-Fifties. Because the novel is concerned with the fundamentals of graphic design, setting it in that period seemed to make sense." Kidd also noted that the iconclastic Winter Sorbeck was loosely based on Paul Rand, an influential designer who created the IBM logo.

Kidd has never formally studied writing but was fortunate that his "significant other" is the poet and editor J.D. McClatchy. "He is one of the best editors I have ever encountered," said Kidd. "He was very supportive but also very straightforward. He didn't pull any punches. He would say 'this is crap' or 'that character wouldn't do that.' "

Kidd wrote the book on a type-design program so he could see how the pages broke. He also had a number of graphic design ideas but quickly abandoned them as too gimmicky. Said Kidd, "My agent first suggested doing a Griffin & Sabin kind of thing in which you could actually see the assignments, but I had to gently resist that. I told her it was going to be hard enough for this book to be taken seriously because of who I am and what I normally do."

Keeping the visual trickery to a minimum, he incorporated some subtle effects, including changing typeface and type size when Winter first speaks. "It's a gentle suggestion that he changes everything for his students. With the finished book, readers will see the real design and how it works."

The writing process did not prove difficult for the designer; rather, it was a miniature vacation from graphic design although he was able to use the same techniques. "Writing, I found, is just designing with words. The goals are the same as in graphic design: to get a desired effect. You can put pictures, sounds, smells, emotions, and situations into people's heads, just by a combination of 26 abstract symbols."

Kidd is now writing two more novels, one a sequel to The Cheese Monkeys, but has no plans to quit his day job at Knopf. He also is associate editorial director of Pantheon's "comics" division, where he edits such cutting-edge graphic novelists as Daniel Clowe and Chris Ware and works on major projects like Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz, a massive retrospective that Pantheon is publishing this month. Commented Kidd, "These are the books I wanted when I was eight years old, and to be able to do them in the way I want is extraordinary."