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A Writer's Wit: Mark Twain

11/30/2022

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A man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a figleaf.
​Mark Twain
Author of ​Life on the Mississippi
​Born November 30, 1835
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M. Twain
Coming Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Yusuf Hamied | World AIDS Day
FRI: My Book World | Sarah Moore Wagner's Swan Wife
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A Writer's Wit: Sue Miller

11/29/2022

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I always write my first draft in longhand, in lined notebooks. I move around the house, sitting where I like, and watch the words spool out in front of me, actually taking a lot of pleasure in the way they look in my strange handwriting on the page.
​Sue Miller
Author of ​The Lake Shore Limited
​Born November 29, 1943
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S. Miller
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
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Oh, Strout Wins with 'William'

11/18/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy—which many believe goes hand in hand with it—will be dead as well.
​Margaret Atwood
Author of ​The Handmaid's Tale
​Born November 18, 1939
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M. Atwood

My Book World

Strout, 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 
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A Writer's Wit: Lee Strasberg

11/17/2022

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If we cannot see the possibility of greatness, how can we dream it?
​Lee Strasberg
Author of ​A Dream of Passion
​Born November 17, 1901
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L. Strasberg
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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A Writer's Wit: George S. Kaufman

11/16/2022

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At dramatic rehearsals, the only author that's better than an absent one is a dead one. 
​George S. Kaufman
Playwright: You Can't Take It with You
Born November 16, 1889
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G. S. Kaufman
Coming Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Lee Strasberg
FRI: My Book World | Elizabeth Strout's ​Oh William!
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A Writer's Wit: Georgia O'Keeffe

11/15/2022

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Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest.
Georgia ​O’Keeffe 
Visual Artist: Oriental Poppies
Born November 15, 1887
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G. O'Keeffe
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!
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Pat Conroy: No Exaggeration Needed

11/11/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
The only way to know what is possible is to venture past impossible.
​Mary Gaitskill
Author of ​This Is Pleasure
​Born November 11, 1954
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M. Gaitskill

My Book World

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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!

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A Writer's Wit: John P. Marquand

11/10/2022

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When I'm writing a novel, I'm dealing with a double life. I live in the present at the same time that I live in the past with my characters. It is this that makes a novelist so eccentric and unpleasant.
John P. Marquand
Author of ​Point of No Return
​Born November 10, 1893
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J. P. Marquand
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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A Writer's Wit: Carroll Quigley

11/9/2022

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The history of the last century shows, as we shall see later, that the advice given to governments by bankers, like the advice they gave to industrialists, was consistently good for bankers, but was often disastrous for governments, businessmen, and the people generally.
​Carroll Quigley
Author of ​A Tragedy of Hope
​Born November 9, 1910
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C. Quigley
Coming Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit |John P. Marquand
FRI: My Book World | My Exaggerated Life: Pat Conroy
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A Writer's Wit: Marianne Wiggins

11/8/2022

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Because music is a language unto itself, when I'm writing, I need silence. I need to hear the music and the rhythms of the words inside my thoughts.
​Marianne Wiggins
Author of ​Properties of Thirst
​Born November 8, 1947
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M. Wiggins
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
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Lone Star Short Stories: Two Books

11/4/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
I'm not an artist. I tell inappropriate stories and jokes and I try to make people laugh.
​Kathy Griffin
For Your Consideration (CD)
​Born November 4, 1960
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K. Griffin

My Book World

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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.

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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

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A Writer's Wit: Walker Evans

11/3/2022

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Color tends to corrupt photography and absolute color corrupts it absolutely. Consider the way color film usually renders blue sky, green foliage, lipstick red, and the kiddies' playsuit. These are four simple words which must be whispered: color photography is vulgar.
​Walker Evans
Author of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
​Born November 3, 1903
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W. Evans
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
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A Writer's Wit: Thomas Mallon

11/2/2022

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Of all Americans who have appeared on the nation's postage stamps, Ayn Rand is probably the only one to have thought that the United States government has no business delivering mail. 
​Thomas Mallon
Author of Fellow Travelers 
​Born November 2, 1951
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T. Mallon
Coming Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit |Walker Evans
FRI: My Book World | Lone Star Short Stories: Two Books
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A Writer's Wit: Jessica Valenti

11/1/2022

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I think motherhood has made issues all feel much more urgent than they did before. So it didn't necessarily change how I feel about certain things—it just fired me up to be even more active on behalf of my daughter.
​Jessica Valenti
Author of ​The Purity Myth
​Born November 1, 1978
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J. Valenti
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
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Vietnam: 'Bright Shining Lie'

10/28/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
Anyone who has been to an English public school will always feel comparatively at home in prison. It is the people brought up in the gay intimacy of the slums . . . who find prison so soul destroying.
​Evelyn Waugh
Author of Brideshead Revisited
​Born October 28, 1903
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E. Waugh

My Book World

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​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

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A Writer's Wit: Fran Lebowitz

10/27/2022

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I place a high moral value on the way people behave. I find it repellent to have a lot, and to behave with anything other than courtesy in the old sense of the word—politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit.
​Fran Lebowitz
Author of ​Social Studies 
Born October 27, 1951
Picture
A. Lebowitz
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
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A Writer's Wit: Pat Conroy

10/26/2022

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The one thing you have to avoid when you’re writing is being afraid, because everybody makes you afraid. The critics will make you afraid. Your professors will make you afraid. The writers who teach you will make you afraid. Your friends make you afraid. Your parents make you afraid. Society makes you afraid. Everybody has ways of putting you down as a writer.
​Pat Conroy
Author of The Great Santini
Born October 26, 1945
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P. Conroy
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
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A Writer's Wit: Anne Tyler

10/25/2022

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If I waited till I felt like writing, I'd never write at all.
​Anne Tyler
Author of ​The Accidental Tourist
​Born October 25, 1941
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A. Tyler
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
0 Comments

Ackerley's 'Hindoo Holiday'

10/21/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
All reduction of people to objects, all imposition of labels and patterns to which they must conform, all segregation can lead only to destruction.
​Maureen Duffy
Author of ​The Microcosm
​Born October 21, 1933
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M. Duffy

My Book World

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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

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A Writer's Wit: John Dewey

10/20/2022

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We naturally associate democracy . . . with freedom of action, but freedom of action without freed capacity of thought behind it is only chaos. 
John Dewey
Author of 
The Quest for Certainty
Born October 20, 1859
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J. Dewey
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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A Writer's Wit: Dan Flores

10/19/2022

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We stood by and allowed what happened to the Great Plains a century ago, the destruction of one of the ecological wonders of the world. In modern America, we need to see this with clear eyes, and soberly, so that we understand well that the flyover country of our own time derives much of its forgettability from being a slate wiped almost clean of its original figures.
​Dan Flores
Author of 
Horizontal Yellow: Nature and History in the Near Southwest
​Born October 19, 1948
Picture
D. Flores
Coming Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | John Dewey
FRI: My Book World | J. R. Ackerley's ​Hindoo Holiday
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit: Wendy Wasserstein

10/18/2022

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The real reason for comedy is to hide the pain.
​Wendy Wasserstein
Playwright, The Heidi Chronicles
​Born October 18, 1950
Picture
W. Wasserstein
Coming Next:
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Dan Flores

THURS: A Writer's Wit | John Dewey
FRI: My Book World | J. R. Ackerley's Hindoo 
Holiday
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'Demon Inside' Is Old Story

10/14/2022

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A WRITER'S WIT
In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism.
​Hannah Arendt
Author of 
​Born October 14, 1906

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H. Arendt

My Book World

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Wedgwood, Barbara. The Demon Inside. New York: Simon, 1993.

A sad but true story. Made sadder by the fact that I attended graduate school with the two principals: Walker Railey and Margaret “Peggy” Nicolai Railey. My young wife (at the time) and I entertained them in our efficiency apartment on the campus of Southern Methodist University. I was both a seminarian where I met Walker, as well as a student of graduate music, where I studied with the same organ professor as Peggy who was enrolled in the master of music program. The couple were about to be married, effervescent and fun to be with. After I left seminary, withdrawing before I graduated, I never saw them again. I only heard of them when their story hit the national news. I had left the church and divorced my wife, leaving the seminary life far behind. They were figures I no longer seemed to know.
 
I was aware of this book when it came out, but I was not interested in reading it at the time. Somewhat like learning about the Clutter family in the news (I grew up in Kansas), I had grown tired of hearing about whether Walker Railey had strangled his wife of ten years or not. In that she didn’t die as a result of the attempt but remained an invalid for more than twenty-five years, dying at the age of sixty-three, she remained frozen in time for me: a pretty, intelligent and gifted musician. Witty and with a mind of her own.
 
I read Wedgwood’s book with a wary eye when I noted in her foreword that she was a Dallasite who had grown up in the city’s First Methodist Church located downtown. Even though she’d left the area to pursue a more global career and life, I wondered how objective she might be. She also knew or seemed to know of many of the principals in the story: other Methodist ministers and spouses, Methodist bishops, and the like. But for the most part, I was impressed with her fanaticism for detail, almost too much at times (offering much more than a thumbnail sketch of minor characters, for example). All the dialogue, she claims, is lifted from “sworn testimony, quotations from newspapers and magazines or the recollections of two observers of a scene or one of the participants in a dialogue” (xi). She allows for the mistaken or distorted memories of people when recalling even such a traumatic event as this one.
 
But one element is missing. Facts. Walker Railey consistently refused to speak with law enforcement, except briefly, all the while claiming he was innocent. And, of course, Peggy Railey could no longer speak for herself—nothing more than a drooling ghoul the strangler had created the night of the attack. One time, early in her time at the Dallas hospital, she “woke” momentarily from her coma, ostensibly upon hearing the voice of her husband standing at the foot of her bed, and seemed startled. The older child, Ryan, five, had suffered some injury, the attacker apparently pushing him away from the scene, but he was too young ever to positively identify the violent intruder. Those events may be as close as the public ever gets to knowing the truth. A strange and lurid case made markedly so because it takes place within the context of one of the country’s largest churches of one Protestantism’s most established denominations. As the title suggests, the demon remains within, within the realm of its own story, perhaps never to be set free.

​Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Wendy Wasserstein
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Dan Flores

THURS: A Writer's Wit | John Dewey
FRI: My Book World | J. R. Ackerley's Hindoo Holiday

0 Comments

A Writer's Wit: Lenny Bruce

10/13/2022

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People should be taught what is, not what should be. All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I’d be standing in the breadline.
​Lenny Bruce
Comedian, Social Critic
​Born October 13,1925
Picture
L. Bruce
Coming Next:
FRI: My Book World | Barbara Wedgwood's The Demon Inside
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Wendy Wasserstein
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Dan Flores

THURS: A Writer's Wit | John Dewey
0 Comments

A Writer's Wit: Richard Price

10/12/2022

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I think the definition of an artist is not necessarily tied into excellence or talent; an artist is somebody who, if you took away their freedom to make art, would lose their mind.
​Richard Price
Author of ​Clockers
​Born October 12, 1949
Picture
R. Price
Coming Next:
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Lenny Bruce
FRI: My Book World | Barbara Wedgwood's The Demon Inside
0 Comments
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    AUTHOR
    Richard Jespers is a writer living in Lubbock, Texas, USA.

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