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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
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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!
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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!
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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
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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
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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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THURS: A Writer's Wit |Walker Evans FRI: My Book World | Lone Star Short Stories: Two Books
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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
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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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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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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
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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
My Book World 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
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
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THURS: A Writer's Wit | Lenny Bruce FRI: My Book World | Barbara Wedgwood's The Demon Inside |
AUTHOR
Richard Jespers is a writer living in Lubbock, Texas, USA. See my profile at Author Central:
http://amazon.com/author/rjespers Archives
January 2023
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