Blog Archives

New Yorker Fiction 2015

3/27/2015

A WRITER'S WIT
What is a great life but a youthful intention carried out in maturity?
Alfred de Vigny
Born March 27, 1797

On Alert Forever?

David Black

March 30, 2015, Thomas Pierce, “This Is an Alert”: Some time in an almost dystopian future, a family’s road trip to visit grandma is disrupted by an alert from the skies overhead. ¶ I listened to the young author read his story from a podcast at the magazine’s Web site, as I followed the text onscreen. His rendition of the omniscient voice saying This is an alert is alarming, all right—sounding almost dead, four or five tones lower than his normal voice. Some time in our own future, we, too, may be hearing these four words. Though Pierce seems to be satirizing this warning—one, by the way, which Americans have been listening to since the 1950s—he could be issuing an updated one. If we don’t stop the fighting worldwide—then we may all be on alert for the war above us—drones are not going away—for the rest of our lives. Pierce’s latest book is a collection entitled Hall of Small Mammals.
Photographer, David Black.

NEXT TIME: My Book World

BEHIND THE BOOK: My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story. Buy a copy here!

Date of Original Post:
11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"

MLPR Podcast 2 "The Best Mud"

3/26/2015

A WRITER'S WIT
Any work that has any honesty and a sufficient degree of crafts-manship or power eventually finds an outlet, I do have faith in that.
Tennessee Williams
Born March 26, 1911

Today's podcast, "The Best Mud," features another narrative from my collection, My Long-Playing Records and Other Stories. Instead of attending a reading—dressing up, driving to a venue—you can listen to this short reading I'm bringing to you! And if you'd like to have a signed bookplate, send me a message using the contact box on my home page (see above), and I'll mail you one. ¶ In this narrative a mentally challenged man of fifty-six struggles to cope with the many hardships that seem to come his way. Click on the Play button below to begin.

MUSIC TRACKS:
Uncredited performers. The Way We Were film soundtrack. "Red Sails in the Sunset." Williams, Hugh, music, and Jimmy Kennedy, Lyrics, CD, 1973.

Uncredited performers. Comedy Music. "Dancing Cartoon Cows." Craig Riley, mp3 file, 2007.

US Military Bands and US Air Force Heritage of America. "My Country 'Tis of Thee," CD, 2008.

NEXT TIME: NEW YORKER FICTION 2015

BEHIND THE BOOK: My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story. Buy a copy here!

Date of Original Post:
11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"

New Yorker Fiction 2015

3/20/2015

A WRITER'S WIT
A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.
Henrik Ibsen
Born March 20, 1828

An Irishman Awakes

Jason L. Booher

March 23, 2015, Colm Tóibín, “Sleep”: A gay Irishman living in New York City addresses his lover, a Jewish man twenty years his junior—who leaves him because the Irishman suffers from alarming nightmares that disturb his young lover in more than one way. ¶ The Irishman flies to Dublin, where he has a single session with a psychiatrist, who has spoken with the patient once via a transatlantic call. During the session, the Irishman, an important writer, tells of the time his bother dies of a heart attack. The climax is moving—too moving to recreate here. ¶ You must read the story, to experience this most ephemeral yet effective scene of a person on a shrink’s couch, to experience one of the most moving stories the magazine has ever published. I am grateful to the editorial staff for presenting an important narrative with a gay protagonist, written by an openly gay author of some stature. Please don’t stop. Nora Webster is Tóibín’s most recent novel.
Illustrator, Jason L. Booher

NEXT TIME: MLPR Podcast 2 "The Best Mud" — I read excerpts from this story out of my latest collection. Click on PODCASTS at the bottom of my website pages for archives of earlier podcasts.

BEHIND THE BOOK: My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story. Buy a copy here!

Date of Original Post:
11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"

New Yorker Fiction 2015

3/14/2015

A WRITER'S WIT
Speak your mind, but ride a very fast horse!!
John Wain
Born March 14, 1925

Foiled for Life

Cornett / Mousecake

March 16, 2015, Sarah Braunstein, “All You Have to Do”: Sid Baumwell, sixteen in 1972, enters a raffle at a small town grocery store, to win a lifetime supply of aluminum foil. ¶ The slick, handsome man handling the raffle, Bill Baxter, offers Sid a ride home and he accepts. You sort of expect something creepy to happen because in our culture we’re taught not to accept such favors—but nothing creepy happens. Well, Sid does win a lifetime supply of foil—imagine, his ticket out of an entire fishbowl! The prize amounts to eight rolls, which might last a lifetime in my house, but Sid is disappointed and intuits that Bill has selected his ticket on purpose. Again, the creepy feeling. Then Bill’s car reappears and Sid gets in. They talk. Sid senses that Bill is going to kiss him. The reader has no idea if Sid wishes for this to happen, just as Sid is unsure of what he wants his future to be. The final paragraph is stunning, completely neutralizes any creepy feelings the reader might have:

“Sid looked down and saw that his hand was being touched by Bill’s hand. Bill’s long, cool fingers rested lightly on his own. He was filled with calm, alert curiosity. His impulse was to stay perfectly still, to freeze, like when a ladybug lands on your hand. Or not a ladybug—something weirder. A glowy beetle, an insect you’d never for a second believe lived in your ho-hum corner of the universe. But it does. It is showing you. Stay still. Do not move a muscle. That thing could have landed anywhere, on anything. The word for this is luck" (68).

See! Not creepy at all. Braunstein is the author of the novel, The Sweet Relief of Missing Children.
Grant Cornett, Photograph
Hand Lettering, Mousecake

NEXT TIME: MLPR Podcast 2 "The Best Mud"

BEHIND THE BOOK: My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story. Buy a copy at Amazon.com!
Date of Original Post:
11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"

MLPR Podcast 1 "A Certain Kind of Mischief"

3/12/2015

A WRITER'S WIT
He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave.
George Berkeley
Born March 12, 1685

My premier podcast features a reading of "A Certain Kind of Mischief," the opening narrative of my collection, My Long-Playing Records and Other Stories. Instead of attending a reading—dressing up, driving to a venue—you can have the reading brought to you! And if you would like to receive a signed bookplate, send me a request using the contact box on my Home page (see above), and I'll mail you one! ¶ In "A Certain Kind of Mischief," a couple of middle-school boys living in El Centro, Texas, get more than they bargained for when they begin to "order" merchandise by way of the Internet. Click on the "Play" button below to begin.

MUSIC:
Jazz at the Movies Band: Gary Foster, alto sax; Brad Dutz, percussion. White Heat / Film Noir. "A Touch of Evil." Henry Mancini, 1994.

NEXT TIME: NEW YORKER FICTION 2015

BEHIND THE BOOK: My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use for each story. Buy a copy here!

Date of Originial Post:
11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"

An Open Letter

3/9/2015

A WRITER'S WIT
Gay men should not adopt the sophomoric model of heterosexual dating; gay men should always have sex first.
John Rechy, Author of City of Night
Born March 10, 1934*

[*conflicting sources say 1931]

My Book World

Dear Lena Dunham,

You may be wondering why I would read your book, Not That Kind of Girl, in the first place. After all, I’m male, sixty-six years old, and gay. (May that last one provide a clue as to why I love your book.)

First of all, I luv, luv, luv your HBO series, Girls—the one you produce, write (at least some episodes), direct, and star in. I find it enlightening (concerning today’s youth, particularly women). I find it deliciously funny, but in a way that’s different from when I’ve laughed at, say, Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Burnett, or Marlo Thomas—in the distant past. My mirth during an episode of Girls is fed by something that has caught me by surprise, a situation, a comment, a look Hannah (or one of her friends) shoots someone, the utter absurdity of the context. At the same time, I find Girls quite poignant: Hannah does many of the same things that women have done since the seventies, only better, freer, and yet with a more courageous insouciance. And yet, at times, with the same regret, the same guilt—only she seems to get past it sooner.

When I taught elementary I read Marlo Thomas’s Free to Be You and Me to my students, and I showed the sixteen-millimeter film that brought the book to life. It was a subversive act. The girls in my class, I hoped, would feel free to volunteer to do some heavy lifting (within reason) if such was required (and they did); and boys would feel free to keep the class library neat, or some lighter lifting (and sometimes they did). I never forced anything; I just made new thinking possible if I could. I’d like to believe that Free to Be helped women like you and Chelsea Handler, that you’ve felt free to become you and you, because someone (your parents, your teachers, your therapists, the voice inside you saying you could) made new thinking possible for you.

I love how you structure your book: the broad topics like sex, body, friendship, and work. And then the final one, The Big Picture. That may be my favorite section: all the anecdotes about summer camps are fascinating because most kids who don’t live where there are forests and lakes don’t get to go to camps. Ever. The same goes for kids whose parents don’t have the resources. And you save the most poignant words for last, in your Guide to Running Away. Aristotle would love these episodes, using the rhetorical device of direct address to speak to young people (and any of us who will listen). I was spellbound as I read those two sections, one written to nine-year-olds wishing to run away, and the other for girls your own age. Sage wisdom in both.

I also love the appearance of your book: that Tiffany blue hardcover contrasted with black and pink fonts against a slick white cover—that wonderfully sassy author photo occupying two-thirds of the page. And those flypages! Such beautiful yet iconic images, appearing almost like vintage wallpaper, yet capturing the emblems of your childhood and youth. Most of all, I may love the interior illustrations the most. They are reminiscent of how books were once illustrated, and not just the YA books that Maud Hart Lovelace wrote, or Beverly Cleary’s books, but so-called adult books, as well. Your hands seem to be all over this book, in a way that has been denied to writers for decades now. Kudos and congratulations for seizing control (apparently) of your book's publication and producing the book you wanted and for convincing Random House to pay for it!

Your book is one of those that ends all too soon. I continued reading and reading because one page easily followed after another, and then in two evenings, I was done! I’m waiting for the next book, the next episode, the next year of Girls. I admire your honesty, particularly when you speak of sex. It isn’t the salacious details that are most honest; it has more to do with attitude. By sharing what happens or doesn’t happen for you early on, you are, by design, hoping to help girls younger than you. And I think you succeed.

Please continue to share with all of us—male and female, old and young—more of your candor, your wit, your intelligence, and love. Yes, you seem to love a certain public, or you wouldn’t do what you do and do it so well.

My very best,

RJ

NEXT TIME: MLPR Podcast 1 "A Certain Kind of Mischief" Tune in for my podcast series of short readings!

BEHIND THE BOOK: My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories (published 11/04/14). In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story. Buy a copy at Amazon.com!

11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"

New Yorker Fiction 2015

3/6/2015

A WRITER'S WIT
The child's sob in the silence curses
deeper
Than the strong man in his wrath.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Born March 6, 1806

Fool Me Once . . . .

Jon Gray / GRAY318

March 9, 2015, Stephen King, “A Death” Just prior to the Dakotas achieving statehood, Jim Trusdale is accused of murdering a ten-year-old girl for a silver dollar, a “cartwheel.” ¶ As a fan of King’s Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, I find this story a satisfying one for several reasons. King’s language, his prose, is spare, fits the era, and never plays outside the boundaries of the story—on the surface, a simple one. For some reason the reader believes the accused will turn out to be innocent. Is it because the townspeople, the “judge” and prosecutor, have already hanged Trusdale before the gallows is built? Is it because of Trusdale’s protestations, even to the last second before he faces his inevitable death? Only one person, the sheriff, comes to believe that Trusdale may be innocent. In a very O. Henry-like conclusion, the reader discovers why the sheriff is wrong! At first one must believe the title refers to the girl’s demise, but it could just as easily be penned in honor of Trusdale. King’s collection, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, will be out this fall.
Design by Jon Gray / GRAY318

NEXT TIME: My Book World

BEHIND THE BOOK: My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. These posts speak of the creative process I use for each story. Buy a copy here!

11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"

PODCASTS
On March 12, I begin a ten-week series of podcasts that will serve as mini-readings. In each one I will read excerpts from one of the fifteen narratives from my new collection, My Long-Playing Records and Other Stories—complete with some kool music and sssssound effects. Tune in and join the fun!

Beyond Where We Started

3/2/2015

A WRITER'S WIT
Poets lose half the praise they should
have got,
Could it be known what they
discreetly blot.
Edmund Waller
Born March 3, 1606

My Book World

Quinn, Jay. Back Where He Started: A Novel. Los Angeles: Alyson, 2005.

Even though this book has been out for over a decade, it still speaks to gay people of today, particularly those seeking to marry. Perhaps it has even led the way.

Forty-eight-year-old Chris Thayer has spent twenty-two years married to a man who comes to the relationship as a widower with three children. Now that man has decided that he is bisexual and is positioned to dump Chris and really marry a real woman.

The novel then proceeds to show how Chris establishes a new life apart from his husband and children, who affectionately call him “Mom.” In the kind of legal agreement that can probably only take place in fiction, Chris receives a healthy monetary settlement without having to go to court and decides to build a new life, replete with a small home by the ocean in North Carolina. Yet his children, the youngest of whom turns out to be a gay man, as well, are somewhat imprinted, can’t seem to do without Chris’s help; that’s how close he’s gotten to them in the time that he has been Mom. Chris, who has never worked outside the home, also very easily finds a job as a receptionist for a couple of shrinks—good money, flexible hours. Nice work, if you can get it. Chris then meets someone new, a man ten years his junior—such a contrast to the man he lived with so long, who was the older one. They fall in love and decide to build a life together, meshing their somewhat different lives together. Enough said about plot.

In some ways the book is ahead of its time. Only one or two states have adopted gay marriage at the time this book comes out, and so the novel seems prescient in one sense. On the other hand, all of us who write fiction should be wary of dwelling too much on electronic devices. No matter how up-to-date the device is in the novel, within a year, it’s going to be toast. In a decade it’s going to be a real anachronism. The only other weakness I can see in the novel is that some scenes are a bit “talky.” Dialogue is always important; it brings the lives of the characters alive, creates a certain bit of the novel’s fabric. But if it slows the narrative pace, if it sounds stilted, or worse yet, apes the words that the author finds cute or important, it’s going to read that way. Otherwise, Back Where He Started is a fine read, worth the time, even now, early in 2015.

NEXT TIME: NEW YORKER FICTION 2015

BEHIND THE BOOK: My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. The posts speak of the creative process for each story. Buy a copy!
11/13/14 — Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
11/20/14 — "My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
11/27/14 — "A Certain Kind of Mischief"
12/04/14 — "Ghost Riders"
12/11/14 — "The Best Mud"
12/18/14 — "Handy to Some"
12/25/14 — "Blight"
01/01/15 — "A Gambler's Debt"
01/09/15 — "Tales of the Millerettes"
01/15/15 — "Men at Sea"
01/22/15 — "Basketball Is Not a Drug"
01/29/15 — "Engineer"
02/05/15 — "Snarked"
02/12/15 — "Killing Lorenzo"
02/19/15 — "The Age I Am Now"
02/26/15 — "Bathed in Pink"

New Yorker Fiction 2015

On Alert Forever?

MLPR Podcast 2 "The Best Mud"

New Yorker Fiction 2015

An Irishman Awakes

New Yorker Fiction 2015

Foiled for Life

MLPR Podcast 1 "A Certain Kind of Mischief"

An Open Letter

My Book World

New Yorker Fiction 2015

Fool Me Once . . . .

Beyond Where We Started

My Book World

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