Blog Archives

New Yorker 2014

6/26/2014

A WRITER'S WIT
The soul doth view its awful self alone,
Ere sleep comes down to soothe the
weary eyes.
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Born June 27, 1872

Another Great Curtis Story

Jon Gray

June 30, 2014, Rebecca Curtis, “The Pink House”: A young woman, a writer, gathers a number of other failed writers to a place on the Mexican border to share a tale of how she ruined a man’s life. ¶ At first you wonder why Curtis must relate this story as she does—with all these writers to filter it through—but it is a clever manner in which to get a broader take on it. ¶ The story provides a fascinating character study: the young woman is uncontrollably candid about everything, her bleak upbringing by cold and uncaring parents, the black men she’s attracted to, how pinkish white men repulse her, how, in spite of this revulsion, she stays with one (a competent writer), who helps edit her work so that it gets published. ¶ Curtis is successful in relating what is essentially a ghost story that, enhanced by the reader's suspension of disbelief, feels as if it could have happened! Curtis's "The Christmas Miracle" was the magazine's last story of 2013 (a great read), and her latest book is Twenty Grand: And Other Tales of Love and Money.
Jon Gray, Illustrator

NEXT TIME: PHOTOGRAPHS

Ackerley Again

6/25/2014

A WRITER'S WIT
It is no simple matter to pause in the midst of one's maturity, when life is full of function, to examine what are the principles which control that functioning.
Pearl Buck
Born June 26, 1892

My Book World

Ackerley, J. R. My Father and Myself. With an introduction by W. H. Auden. New York: New York Review Books, 1969.

A few months ago, I profiled in my blog Ackerley’s novel, We Think the World of You, should you wish to see my rationale for reading this man in the first place. My Father and Myself is a memoir published posthumously. In its pages Ackerley outlines his suspicions about his father’s life before marrying his mother.

He begins by examining some photographs that document his father’s friendship with a number of other handsome young men back at the turn of the twentieth century. As one who embraces his homosexuality (with hundreds of partners over several decades), Ackerley sets about to see if he can discover if his father wasn’t also gay. What makes him suspect? Well, for one, unlike many British men, his father seems not to possess the usual homophobia but rather indicates to Ackerley that he has the freedom to pursue whatever life he wishes. And Ackerley feels compelled to take his father’s advice:

“I was now on the sexual map and proud of my place on it. I did not care for the word ‘homosexual’ or any label, but I stood among the men, not among the women. Girls I despised; vain, silly creatures, how could their smooth soft, bulbous bodies compare in attraction with the muscular beauty of men? Their place was the harem, from which they should never have been released; true love, equal and understanding love, occurred only between men. I saw myself therefore in the tradition of the Classic Greeks, surrounded and supported by all the famous homosexuals of history—one soon sorted them out—and in time I became something of a publicist for the rights of that love that dare not speak its name” (154-5).

His understanding of his condition seems to belong to its largely misogynist historic period, eh? But he is indeed living his life with a certain guilt-free abandon that was not to be widely duplicated until the 1970s. He also confesses to throwing aside certain individuals in search of his ignis fatuus. Yes, always, he’s in search of his Ideal Friend, a perfect lover, one he never finds.

The climax of the memoir may occur when Ackerley tells of searching out one of his father’s old buddies, one who is now near death. After heckling the elderly man with the question of whether his father may have liked men, he finally shouts at Ackerley, “Oh, lord, you’ll be the death of me! I think he did once say he’d had some sport with him [Count de Gallatin]. But me memory’s like a saucer with the bottom out” (262).

But Ackerley is still unsure. “May have” simply isn’t enough proof for him. The book is complete with an Appendix that dares to speak its name more graphically about Ackerley’s sexual difficulties. In all, the memoir is one of those fascinating books one should read: witty, devilish, and yet sad, too. Though Ackerley acts “freely” for his context, a dangerously homophobic England, he never quite achieves an approximation of happiness. One hopes that gay men never again have to live in such gloom anywhere on this earth. It simply isn’t fair.

NEXT TIME: NEW YORKER FICTION 2014

New Yorker Fiction 2014

6/18/2014

A WRITER'S WIT
What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem.
Blaise Pascal
Born June 19, 1623

Rising Once Again

Adam Stennett

June 23, 2014, Maile Meloy, “Madame Lazarus”: A Parisian man gives his male lover, the nameless narrator, a small dog, which he does not really want. ¶ Yet Cordelia, the dog, keeps the nameless narrator, an old man, company when his young lover is out of town. A fine narrative seems capable of juggling several important events, some in the past bouncing in interesting ways off those closer to the present. Meloy’s story accomplishes this (not so) simple task beautifully. ¶ As a young boy, the narrator falls for another boy, who is tortured by the Germans during World War II. They meet again after the war, and the lover, now with tuberculosis, dies on the narrator’s parents’ dining room floor. This seminal event—witnessing the death of a young love—continues to resonate throughout the narrator's life. ¶ Cordelia ages, as dogs do, and one day dies on a Parisian pavement. The nameless narrator attempts to revive the dog, as he had wished to revive his lover on that dining room floor. Meloy’s ending is satisfying because she takes an old, old conceit and makes it her own. A being can sometimes rise from the dead, but, in the end what does such a miracle really mean? ¶ Meloy’s The Apothecary came out in 2011.
Adam Stennett, Illustrator

NEXT TIME: MY BOOK WORLD

No Longer in the Balcony?

6/16/2014

A WRITER’S WIT
We are stimulated to emotional response not by works that confirm our sense of the world, but by the works that challenge it.
Joyce Carol Oates
Born June 16, 1938

My Book World

Robertson, Nan. The Girls in the Balcony: Women, Men, and The New York Times. Lincoln NE: iUniverse, 1992, 2000.

Much of my nonfiction reading is informed by C-SPAN’s weekend Book TV, and most of what catches my eye are recent releases. However, on May 24 I watched an early 1990s interview with the late Nan Robertson, New York Times reporter and author of The Girls in the Balcony. I was so taken with her wit, her analysis of what had happened to her and other female reporters during her long tenure at the newspaper that it spurred me to buy a copy of her book—which is now published as a reprint by the Author’s Guild. It chronicles the turbulent history that women reporters had with the Times, and she begins with the setting for the title.

“The Board Room at the pinnacle of the New York Times Building is calculated to awe. It is a huge room, with a baronial fireplace sheathed in green marble at the far end. Set against carved mahogany paneling that reaches from floor to ceiling” (3).

Robertson goes on for a page and a half, describing the “baronial” room and the fact that until mid-twentieth-century, female employees cannot enter it except by way of the balcony, where, in reality, they are relegated to a near-elevator-sized space with no chairs. Unless situated correctly, the women cannot hear the proceedings, cannot participate in making the decisions about what is to be published and what isn’t. This situation is merely a symbol for their total inequality, which includes their salaries. Their research shows that the average woman is underpaid by at least $3,000 a year. Finally, in 1972, six women put their careers on the line and write a letter to the publisher concerning this issue, and fifty women sign it. Two months later, the publisher meets with the six women. One of them, Betsy Wade, chief copy editor of the foreign desk, speaks on their behalf:

“It’s all there,” Betsy said. “All of us are afraid in our pocketbooks. It hurts you over your lifetime earnings, it hurts you in your pension, it hurts every way. And of course, the individual woman can do little to remedy this. She goes to her boss or to her manager and she says, ‘Look, I’m turning the same turret lathe as the guy sitting here and I’m making less.’ And he says, ‘Well you just don’t turn the turret lathe quite so well’” (13).

The publisher must realize that if he is to rectify these discrepancies across the board it will cost the Times about $2 million dollars a year, and from his inaction, it is clear he doesn’t plan to help out. The women then go to court in 1974. In the long run, the women and the newspaper decide to settle, because to carry forward with a suit would ruin the paper (and the women’s careers). But what money the women receive is only a fraction of what they've earned. What is most notable about Robertson’s book—aside from her fine prose style, her impeccable choice of detail—is that she carefully delineates the battle these brave women fight on behalf of women reporters everywhere, including those who presently work for the Times. So often, the young (of any generation) take for granted their freedoms, as if they’ve always been present . . . and always will be. We must be reminded that women still make seventy-seven cents for every dollar a man makes, and what better way to remind us than Robertson's book.

NEXT TIME: PHOTOGRAPHS

New Yorker Summer Fiction—Russell

6/12/2014

A WRITER'S WIT
To avoid what is common, without adopting what is unnatural, must limit the ambition of the vulgar herd of authors . . . .
Fanny Burney
Born June 13, 1752

Spirit Life in the Mojave

Michael Marcelle

June 9 & 16, 2014, Karen Russell, “The Bad Graft”: Two young people, Angie and Andy, leave Pennsylvania to travel through Joshua Tree National Park in California’s Mojave Desert. ¶ Angie’s body is overtaken by a Joshua tree, and she seems to take on its life.

“During a season of wild ferment, a kind of atmospheric accident can occur: the extraordinary moisture stored in the mind of a passing animal or hiker can compel the spirit of a Joshua to Leap through its own membranes. The change is metaphysical: the tree’s spirit is absorbed into the migrating consciousness, where it lives on, intertwined with its host” (95).

Using an omniscient third-person point of view, the author Russell weaves the reader in and out of the consciousness of one character to another, including the Joshua tree. Wow. Russell seems to be exploring rumors (news?) that the Joshua tree is headed for extinction. A park ranger has different ideas:

“‘Oh, it’s a hardy species,’ the ranger says. His whiskers are clear tubes that hold the red firelight. ‘Those roots go deep. I wouldn’t count a tree like that out’” (101).

I believe this may be one of the top New Yorker stories of the year, if for nothing else, the sheer joy of its imaginative nature. The next leap for us, as a species, might be to aid in preserving all the Joshua trees of the world. Russell’s novel, Swamplandia! was released in 2011.
Michael Marcelle, Photographer

NEXT TIME: MY BOOK WORLD

New Yorker Summer Fiction—Murakami

6/11/2014

A WRITER'S WIT
How true Daddy's words were when he said: all children must look after their own upbringing. Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands.
Anne Frank
Born June 12, 1929

Yesterday is Tomorrow

Michael Marcelle

June 9 & 16, 2014, Haruki Murakami, “Yesterday”: Tanimura narrates the story about his friend Kitaru, when they are both twenty. ¶ Tanimura is perplexed by Kitaru, who takes the Beatles song “Yesterday” and sets it to what he refers to as a crude Japanese dialect: Kansai. An odd character, Kitaru asks Tanimura to go out with his girl, Erika, someone he has known since childhood. They do and have a great time but never go out again. Shortly after, Kitaru leaves the coffee shop where both friends have been working. So does Tanimura. ¶ Sixteen years later Tanimura runs into Erika. She says that Kitaru has moved to Denver to be a chef. They chat. ¶ Odd story—without the usual arc. A little dull. The kind of story that ordinary people in real life tell each other while chatting during a chance meeting. Oh. Murakami’s three-volume novel 1Q84 came out in 2009-10.
Michael Marcelle, Photograph

NEXT TIME: MORE SUMMER FICTION

New Yorker Summer Fiction—Ausubel

6/10/2014

A WRITER'S WIT
He, the true writer, is the department store dummy at the very center of the whole establishment, the one left alone on display all night, a price tag stapled to every piece of clothing they’ve yanked onto him, binoculars and frog flippers included. He is the neutral, generic human form, the gray center who must always assume disguises — in order to be seen and, therefore, to feel himself.
Allan Gurganus
Born June 11, 1947

Can You Find a Story?

Michael Marcelle

June 9 & 16, 2014, Ramona Ausubel, “You Can Find Love Now”: Cyclops develops an online persona in order to attract (lure) young women into his underground lair. ¶ Cyberspace meets Cyclops of Greek mythology. Ha ha. Funny. Clever. Sad. Poignant. End of story. ¶ My problem, I fear. I have an aversion to stories paralleled a little too closely to mythology. Slight references or allusions, yes, but adapting an entire story around a musty, old character! Blechh. Ausubel’s story collection, A Guide to Being Born, is out now.
Michael Marcelle, Photographer

NEXT TIME: MORE SUMMER FICTION

New Yorker Summer Fiction—Gilbert

6/9/2014

A WRITER'S WIT
Pity makes the world soft to the weak and noble for the strong.
Edwin Arnold
Born June 10, 1832

Each summer, the New Yorker publishes a two-week issue of fiction, typically with six or eight short stories. One can imagine toting this issue to the beach or to the mountains and soaking in each story over a long weekend or even during one's vacation. In the past, the issue has often been the launch pad for new or young authors. This year the issue is entitled "Summer Fiction: Love Stories."

. . . of a Man Named Brady

Michael Marcelle

June 9 & 16, 2014, David Gilbert, “Here’s the Story”: In 1967, Ted Martin and Emma Brady, of Los Angeles, married to other people, each with three children, are en route to the east coast via TWA. ¶ The couple have become acquainted earlier, when Ted has wandered from a boring baseball game to a city park, where Emma and her youngest son are on an outing among the “hippies.” The couple have actually met earlier by way of their children attending the same school. ¶ On the plane, Ted exchanges seats with a woman, so that he may sit with Emma. On what must be upward to four hours, they become much better acquainted, so much so that they hold hands on the plane’s final approach to Cincinnati. What happens next is totally unexpected . . . and yet Gilbert informs the reader in the first sentence what is about to transpire: “It ends with his right hand gripping her left, the curve of her knuckles the pulling yoke” (46). If the reader recognizes the names of their six children--Greg, Peter, and Bobby, and Marcia, Jan, and Cindy--there’s a good reason for it. Gilbert’s novel, & Sons, was released in 2012.
Michael Marcelle, Photographer

NEXT TIME: MORE SUMMER FICTION

New Yorker 2014

Another Great Curtis Story

Ackerley Again

My Book World

New Yorker Fiction 2014

Rising Once Again

No Longer in the Balcony?

My Book World

New Yorker Summer Fiction—Russell

Spirit Life in the Mojave

New Yorker Summer Fiction—Murakami

Yesterday is Tomorrow

New Yorker Summer Fiction—Ausubel

Can You Find a Story?

New Yorker Summer Fiction—Gilbert

. . . of a Man Named Brady

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