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THURS: A Writer's Wit | John Banville FRI: My Book World | Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country
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Coming Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Noam Chomsky THURS: A Writer's Wit | John Banville FRI: My Book World | Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country
My Book WorldWagner, Sara Moore. Swan Wife. San Diego: Cider Press, 2022.
These may be some of the most exciting poems, the most developed poems I’ve read by a contemporary poet in a long time. Wagner’s structure is deliberate, appropriating certain aspects from Joseph Campbell studies to frame her collection. Sure of her technique and subject matter, Wagner ensures her poems pop with energy: they possess a natural, almost childlike quality in their enthusiasm about youthful love, marriage, having that first child. In “Licentious,” my favorite passage may be: She tells me come out, someone might see me, the bounce of my breasts, this ache. I will have to marry the snake slivering into the banks, will have to marry the sun, a thick hand on my shoulders (xi). Wagner’s title may well spring from “Ball and Chain,” the moment the persona emotionally becomes the betrothed, the soon-to-be swan wife: I dipped my toes in and you called me swan, you said you’ll go where you want. It was maybe then I knew you saw me, how I wanted to fly or float, to cover. How even a mute swan will hiss and attack if you get too close. How you called me beautiful then, so beautiful and so loud, the say I’d hoot up to the stars, the way I showed my teeth (7). The poet’s persona maintains her controlled ebullience throughout the entire collection, and I hope to read more of Wagner’s work. Congratulations to her for winning the 2021 Cider Press Review Editors’ Prize Book Award. The collection is quite deserving. Coming Next: TUES 12/06: A Writer's Wit | Ève Curie WEDS 12/07: A Writer's Wit | Noam Chomsky THURS 12/08: A Writer's Wit | John Banville FRI 12/09: My Book World | Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country
Coming Next:
FRI: My Book World | Sarah Moore Wagner's Swan Wife TUES 12/06: A Writer's Wit | Ève Curie WEDS 12/07: A Writer's Wit | Noam Chomsky THURS: 12/08: A Writer's Wit | John Banville
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THURS: A Writer's Wit | Yusuf Hamied | World AIDS Day FRI: My Book World | Sarah Moore Wagner's Swan Wife
Coming Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Mark Twain THURS: A Writer's Wit | Yusuf Hamied, World AIDS Day FRI: My Book World | Susan Moore Wagner's Swan Wife
My Book WorldStrout, Elizabeth. Oh William! New York: Random, 2021.
“Oh William!” becomes, before this novel is over, rather a poetic refrain uttered by the female narrator, Lucy Barton—a longtime figure in Strout’s fiction. Lucy and William marry when they are very young, then divorce after a number of years. They both remarry, and yet both remain in the lives of the children they’ve brought into the world as well. Strout travels back and forth through time so seamlessly that one is never lost in or by the narrative. It turns out that Lucy, like her creator, is also a successful writer, but Lucy carries a lot of baggage with her. So does William. Poor parenting they received in developmental years. Poverty of various kinds. And it is a good thing that they remain friends because after Lucy’s second husband dies and after William is left alone, they turn to each other to help the other through life’s difficulties as they age into their seventies. A very affecting book by one of my favorite authors. Coming Next: TUES 11/29: A Writer's Wit | Sue Miller WEDS 11/30: A Writer's Wit | Mark Twain THURS 12/01: A Writer's Wit | World AIDS Day Observance FRI 12/02: My Book World | Sarah M. Wagner's Swan Wife
Coming Next:
FRI: My Book World | Elizabeth Strout's Oh William! TUES 11/29: A Writer's Wit | Sue Miller WEDS 11/30: A Writer's Wit | Mark Twain THURS: 12/01: A Writer's Wit | World AIDS Day Quote
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THURS: A Writer's Wit | Lee Strasberg FRI: My Book World | Elizabeth Strout's Oh William!
Coming Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | George S. Kaufman THURS: A Writer's Wit | Lee Strasberg FRI: My Book World | Elizabeth Strout, Oh William!
My Book World Clark, Katherine. My Exaggerated Life: Pat Conroy. As Told to Katherine Clark. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 2018.
I don’t usually care for “as told to” books, but this one is too intriguing to pass up. Clark spends a number of years communicating with author Pat Conroy either by direct interviews or by way of written communications. He declares early on that his spoken language is much different from the prose he uses in his fiction. And his fiction (for those who don’t know Conroy)? The Great Santini. The Lords of Discipline. Beach Music, to name only a few. Each book that Conroy writes is his way of transforming the mess that is his autobiographical material. The Great Santini is essentially about his bully of an abusive father who cows Conroy’s mother and all his siblings. The Lords of Discipline is about his four years as a miserable cadet at the Citadel, in South Carolina. But his writing is also about his three marriages. His parents. His children. He writes, by the way, The Water Is Wide, the novel about a young man who teaches on an island with an all-Black classroom of children—made into a successful movie, Conrack, starring Jon Voight. In fact, Conroy makes a great deal of his income from selling the film rights to his works and getting a successful result—a rarity among novelists. I am much more encouraged to read Conroy’s oeuvre, in part, because I can now sense how difficult it is for him to arrive at each finished product. He is one of those persons who must fight for every minute of happiness, every inch of success, and Clark’s book relates his story plainly and with great sensitivity. Coming Next: TUES: A Writer's Wit | Georgia O'Keeffe WEDS: A Writer's Wit | George S. Kaufman THURS: A Writer's Wit | Lee Strasberg FRI: My Book World | Elizabeth Strout's Oh, William!
Coming Next:
FRI: My Book World | My Exaggerated Life: Pat Conroy TUES: A Writer's Wit | Georgia O'Keeffe WEDS: A Writer's Wit | George S. Kaufman THURS: A Writer's Wit | Lee Strasberg
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THURS: A Writer's Wit |John P. Marquand FRI: My Book World | My Exaggerated Life: Pat Conroy
Coming Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Carroll Quigley THURS: A Writer's Wit | John P. Marquand FRI: My Book World | My Exaggerated Life: Pat Conroy
My Book World Byrd, Bobby, and Johnny Byrd, editors. Lone Star Noir. New York: Akashic, 2010. These fourteen stories, though set in the singular locale of Texas, are about the same things that noir is about in the other forty-nine states: avarice, greed, murder. Thus, making the collection rather universal. Divided into three parts—rural Texas, urban Texas, and Gulf-Coast Texas—each story brings to life those three qualities. Noir allows readers to experience this thrilling but illicit word vicariously so that we never ever have to commit such crimes ourselves. Title is part of the Akashic Noir Series.  Peery, William, Editor. 21 Texas Short Stories. Austin: U of Texas P, 1954.
These twenty-one stories written by Texans (either by birth or by successful transplantation) were published between the early 1940s and the mid-1950s. But many of them chronicle earlier times, calling to mind rural-agrarian, nineteenth century Texas, calling to mind Texas’s involvement in the Civil War and slavery. Editor Peery features some famous names: O. Henry, Katherine Anne Porter, J. Frank Dobie, and Fred Gipson. But he also includes many fine writers who do not possess that kind of fame. Margaret Cousins, for example, may write the best, non-sentimental Christmas story I’ve ever read. “Uncle Edgar and the Reluctant Saint” tells the tale of a little girl who almost doesn’t get to celebrate Christmas with her family due to her train getting stuck in a freakish Texas snow storm. Her curmudgeon of an uncle happens to be on the train, a man who detests marriage, Christmas, and almost everything else that is part of civilization. He manages to come through for her and everyone else on the train without changing his character too much. All the stories reveal diction and dialog that are no longer used (probably), sort of Huck Finn meets the Texas State Fair. Worth the time, especially if you are interested in Texas folklore. Coming Next: TUES: A Writer's Wit | Marianne Wiggins WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Carroll Quigley THURS: A Writer's Wit | John P. Marquand FRI: My Book World | Elizabeth Clark's Biography: My Exaggerated Life: Pat Conroy
Coming Next:
FRI: My Book World | Lone Star Short Stories: Two Books TUES: A Writer's Wit | Marianne Wiggins WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Carroll Quigley THURS: A Writer's Wit | John P. Marquand
Coming Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit |Walker Evans FRI: My Book World | Lone Star Short Stories: Two Books
Coming Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Thomas Mallon THURS: A Writer's Wit | Walker Evans FRI: My Book World | Lone Star Short Stories: Two Books
My Book World Sheehan, Neil. A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. New York: Random, 1988.
One might wonder how the story of a single man might also tell the complete story of a war that that man participates in. Yet that is precisely what the late journalist and author Neil Sheehan does in his award-winning book, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. John Paul Vann might be a larger-than-life character if indeed he were a larger-than-life person. He is not. And Sheehan takes great pains to explain to readers Vann’s poverty-stricken childhood, one in which Vann (his adopted name) is born out of wedlock and would rather take the name of his stepfather than the name of the father who brings shame upon him (although he does become acquainted with the man later). Vann begins his wannabee life by earning a good education. He is always about self-improvement as far as his career is concerned and seeks more degrees even while working full time. At a personal level, Van remains a mess for the remainder of his life. His early poverty, the rejection of him by his mother, always plays a role in his judgment. John Paul Vann commits a crime he ultimately gets away with (he does no jail time) because his wife testifies on his behalf and because he teaches himself to beat the military’s polygraph machine—another blemish on his larger-than-life image. Yet the existence of this trial dogs him as he attempts to climb the military ladder of success via the back door (certainly not West point). Vann places career before his wife and children. He allows his voracious sexual appetite (as many as three acts of coitus a day in his forties) commands him to do whatever necessary to satisfy it: lie, cheat, manipulate. He all but divorces his wife (and children) to accommodate his promiscuity, keeping secret from each other the lives of his Vietnamese lover and (illegal) wife. Yet all the while Vann possesses an honest and accurate perception of the Vietnam War beginning early on in the 1950s. He perceives that the U.S. military complex, since its recent victories with World War II, develops an arrogance that keeps its leadership from assessing the Vietnam War honestly. Army leaders refuse to learn anything about Vietnam: its centuries-long battles to fight off (successfully) foreign invaders. It refuses to realize that South Vietnam government is weak and corrupt and as such never fights the North with full force. It refuses to realize that the Vietnam people are one and that often the enemy looks like the ally and vice-versa. The Battle of Ap Bac, in 1962, is one in which everything that can go wrong does go wrong—the American Army losing hundreds of lives in spite of its military “superiority.” The Viet Cong (North Vietnam Communists) capture abandoned U.S. equipment, expensive weaponry, and use them against the South supported by the U.S. military. Miliary leaders fail to realize Vietnam is one country, that it cannot be divided as North Korea was. The people pass back and forth over the imagined line of the 38th Parallel undetected. Vann ultimately believes that how Vietnam determines its future ought to be up to its people, a struggle that, even if it turns to Communism, is not the business of the United States. There is no such thing as the so-called Domino Theory. The lives and money being spent for nearly two decades are a wasted expense, to say the least. And yet, Vann, up until the very last of his career, continues to believe that with his superior leadership, the war can be won—even after the Tet Offensive and other failures. In June 1972, unable to obtain the service of his usual helicopter pilot, Vann makes an ill-advised night flight in fog with an inexperienced twenty-six-year-old pilot and all occupants crash to their deaths, Vann believing until the end that he has won the war. It will not end, of course, for several more years, in 1975, when the U.S. finally admits defeat and vacates the decimated country. Coming Next: TUES: A Writer's Wit | Jessica Valenti WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Thomas Mallon THURS: A Writer's Wit | Walker Evans FRI: My Book World | Lone Star Short Stories: Two Books
Coming Next:
FRI: My Book World |Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie TUES: A Writer's Wit | Jessica Valenti WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Thomas Mallon THURS: A Writer's Wit | Walker Evans
Coming Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Fran Lebowitz FRI: My Book World | Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
Coming Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Pat Conroy THURS: A Writer's Wit | Fran Lebowitz FRI: My Book World | Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
My Book World Ackerley, Joe Randolph. Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal. With an introduction by Eliot Weinberger. New York: NYRB, 2000 (1932).
As a young man in his thirties, Ackerley visits India for a protracted amount of time. This book is essentially his diary of what takes place. As out as he can be for his time, Ackerley has no problem stating his admiration for a handsome man. He is not, however, a typical British tourist. He lives the life, hiring a young man to tutor him in the language. The man turns out to be more of a pest, always conniving to extract money or favors from Ackerley, like a pesky dog begging for scraps. But Ackerley learns enough to get by. He also learns the intricacies of the Hindu religion, finding, as with Christians, that some believers practice it with a certain flexibility or laxity. A still entertaining book these many decades later. Coming Next: TUES: A Writer's Wit | Anne Tyler WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Gelek Rimpoche THURS: A Writer's Wit | Fran Lebowitz FRI: My Book World | Neil Sheehan's A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Van and America in Vietnam
Coming Next:
FRI: My Book World |J. R. Ackerley's Hindoo Holiday TUES: A Writer's Wit | Anne Tyler WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Gelek Rimpoche THURS: A Writer's Wit | Fran Lebowitz
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AUTHOR
Richard Jespers is a writer living in Lubbock, Texas, USA. See my profile at Author Central:
http://amazon.com/author/rjespers Archives
June 2022
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