Just Kids

I was driving home a few weeks ago and heard Terry Gross interview Patti Smith about her new memoir Just Kids.  It was one of those interviews where you sit in your car and keep listening well after you get where you’re going.   I picked up the book days later and dove in as soon as I could.  It was the right choice.

Just Kids focuses on the unusual and enduring relationship that Smith had with photographer/artist Robert Mapplethorpe. Smith, at the age of 20, had set off to New York City to try to make her mark as an artist and poet.  On her first day there, she met Mapplethorpe, himself a struggling artist.  The two eventually developed a romantic relationship and move in to a Brooklyn hovel together.   It’s the Summer of Love, but neither is much into the hippie thing.  They are each preparing for the Next Thing.

Their early New York days are the archetypal starving artist experience: constant struggling to pay rent, going hungry when money is tight (and money is always tight), getting lice from seedy lodgings, etc.  And if that sounds romantic to you, consider this:  Patti’s first hint that her soul mate might be gay surfaces when Robert begins street hustling to help pay the rent.  Even as Smith describes her dismay at seeing her boyfriend go out into the night, she can sense your judgement and offers simply:

Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?

Difficult as it was, Patti and Robert make unlikely and important connections within the art world almost from the very beginning of their life in New York. For example, Patti first met Beat poet Allen Ginsberg when he bought her a sandwich in a Manhattan automat. It turns out that Ginsberg thought that she was a very pretty young boy. Ginsberg would later champion Smith’s poetry and he provided introductions to Gregory Corso and William S. Buroughs.  Corso teaches Patti how to avoid giving boring poetry readings, and Burroughs is among the earliest attendees of Patti’s rock shows at the nascent CBGB’s.  She meets Hendrix and provides relationship advice to Janice Joplin.  After the romantic side of her relationship with Robert runs its course, Patti dates Jim Carroll, Sam Shepard, some guy in the Blue Oyster Cult, and Fred “Sonic” Smith (who she would eventually marry).

The young couple eventually found themselves residents of the famed Chelsea Hotel, all but sealing their fates as artists of renown.  Patti became famous first.  Just as their career trajectories were primed to seriously take off, the pair landed their first and only joint art show.   Patti describes the show:

We chose to present a body of work that emphasized our relationship: artist and muse, a role that for both of us was interchangeable.

And that’s the point of this book.  This is the story of a relationship that was greater that the sum of its parts.  Neither would have realized their artistic potential had the other not been in their life.   Each provided what the other needed in support and nurturing companionship to get through the crisis at hand and strive to create another day.

The book also provides a fascinating look at tortured process through which art comes into the world.  Smith did not set out to be a rock star and Mapplethorpe had less than no interest in the field of photography.  Robert Mapplethorpe took the now iconic cover picture for Patti’s first album (listen to the Fresh Air interview to find out why the record company hated the picture). From there he went on to become a controversial giant of the art world.  The books ends after Robert’s death with AIDS, as it must.  Smith promised Mapplethorpe that one day she would write their story. She has made good on that promise, and it is quite a story.  This is a beautifully written book that is sure to top many year-end “best of” lists.  It will be on mine.

Post Script:

As a fortuitous accident, I read Just Kids not long after finishing Helen Weaver’s The Awakener (see my review), a memoir of Weaver’s relationship with Jack Kerouac.  Between the two books, a picture emerges of the avant garde art scene in New York from the 1950s through the 1980s.  A direct line between the Beats and the punk scene that would emerge from CBGB’s can be clearly drawn, which was a revelation for me.  The two memoirs have notable similarities. Both authors write about transformative relationships with men who certainly had their demons.  Each woman survives their subject’s death – deaths that were caused to an extent by “lifestyle” choices.  Both credit/blame their subject’s Catholicism for important aspects of their personalities.  It’s an interesting comparison and progression through the decades.

But wait, there’s more:

Clearly this a book that begs to have some music to accompany the review. Let’s start with my favorite Patti Smith song that’s not Because the Night.

Patti Smith – Dancing Barefoot

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I have no idea why that’s my favorite.  It just is.  Another of my favorite Patti Smith recordings is her backing vocals on the R.E.M. song E-bow the Letter.  Her spooky and ethereal keening is so emotive, it kills me every time.  I saw Patti Smith join R.E.M. for a live performance of the song just last year.  If I had any hair, it would have stood on end.

And some songs by singers that were clearly influenced by Patti Smith (according to me):

PJ Harvey – Good Fortune

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Pretenders – The Adultress

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Cat Power – Speak for Me

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Video of 10,000 Maniacs covering Because the Night, a Smith/Sringsteen collaboration

And lastly, I include Sympathy for the Devil since it was mentioned specifically in the text. Smith remembers that Mapplethorpe was completely taken with the song on first listen and seemed to relate to it as he was beginning to explore what he considered the darker side of himself.

Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil (Neptunes Remix)

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And if you need more, you can tune into the Just Kids station that I set up on Pandora to complete my Patti Smith immersion experience.

Let’s see you top this, Mr. Author-Interview Man

I hope Tim is taking notes. This is how it’s done.

Sugar

One way to get my attention is to begin a book with a vivid murder scene of a little black girl in the 1950’s.  Bernice McFadden, the author of Sugar shocks the reader to attention in the first few pages.  Sugar is a book I wouldn’t normally have found, because I don’t choose my books based on the color of the author – this book can be found way over in the African-American Author section.   In my case, the book literally landed in my lap so I gave it a try, and I was surprised that I didn’t want to put it down.

Pearl lives in a small town in Arkansas.  She is a church-going woman who lost her little girl to a brutal murder fifteen years prior to the beginning of the story.   The day Sugar moves in next door to Pearl is remembered by the entire town:

The storm walked into their small town on two legs in spiked red patent leather heels.  She waltzed right through the main square, blond wig bounding to the rhythm of her walk, a leopard print pocketbook slung over one shoulder, matching suitcases in each hand.

Sugar is a prostitute and is shunned by all of the church-going women in town (which is of course, all of the women).  Pearl ignores the rumors she hears and befriends Sugar.  Slowly and gradually, their friendship grows into a deep internal bond that surprises both of them.  Their friendship is such that after having “words” with each other, they miss each other and quickly forgive because being apart or even the thought of being apart is too hard to imagine.

Sugar helps pull Pearl out of her 15 year depression by introducing her to experiences she has never had.  Likewise, Pearl helps Sugar see a calmer, loving part of life that Sugar has never had.  As their friendship develops, Ms. McFadden seamlessly pulls the reader into each of their painful pasts and develops the characters so completely that we want to help them ourselves.

Ms. McFadden brings us this moving, thought-provoking story that contradicts the Beaver Cleaver/Happy Days image a lot of us have of the 1950′s – she makes it “real.”   June Cleaver certainly never used the F word!  And although this story could happen to people of any color, Ms. McFadden subtly makes us aware that it still the 1950’s with Jim Crow laws in full effect.

The blind man had other one-night gigs to do, the chitlin curcuit was sixty-five nights of giving yourself over to segregated toilets and drinking fountains, and scared white people that suspected your lyrics carried something other than sadness or happiness.  Suspected that maybe those words carried seeds of contention.

Throughout the book, Ms. McFadden reminds us through her characters that horrible things can happen to each of us, but we are all still alive!  We need to appreciate and love those around us.  If we are quick to judge others we could miss an opportunity to come alive more fully, to experience people and places that we never thought we could or would.

At the moment when I thought (or was hoping) that the fairy tale princess ending would happen, Ms. McFadden twists the story another way, then when I really thought I knew the ending, she surprised me again!

Sugar was Ms. McFadden’s first novel ten years ago.  She has re-released it in order to reach a broader audience.   Hopefully the book will reach this audience and can be enjoyed by people of all ethnicities.  Ms. McFadden’s second book is titled This Bitter Earth and I’ll be reading it soon.

10 Rules for Writing Fiction

The Guardian collects writing tips from an all-star gallery of authors:

Part 1

Part 2

A few highlights:

• Philip Pullman – “My main rule is to say no to things like this, which tempt me away from my proper work.”
• Colm Toibin – “Stay in your mental pyjamas all day” and “No going to London.”
• Roddy Doyle – “Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.”
• Anne Enright – “The first 12 years are the worst.”
• Jonathan Franzen – “ Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.”
• Neil Gaiman – “Write.”

One Finally Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

I’m not a film fanatic, but I have friends who are.  I don’t dislike film by any means, but I’m not nearly as well-versed as my, well, uhm, well-versed friends.  And any way you slice it, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is rated as one of the best films ever made.  It won the big four Academy Awards — Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress.  Only one film before, and one film after, had won all of those (do your research — it will serve you well on trivia night).

I, however, haven’t seen that film, and took it upon myself to read the book first.  Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, first published in 1962 or 1963 (I can’t tell from this printing that I have) is flat-out astounding.  I’ve read lots of books about power struggles (Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, etc.), but this is the one the one that really struck home for me.  It didn’t resonate with me because of my time on the funny farm (which may or may not have happened); it resonated with me because of the humanity exhibited by our protagonists.

The book is narrated by Chief Bromden, a half-Indian patient in the insane asylum, who everyone thinks is a deaf/dumb/mute.  It turns out that he’s not, but he carries on throughout a good portion of the book maintaining that front.  The main character is Randle Patrick McMurphy, a patient who is sent to this hospital from a prison work camp because of his behavior.  And then the fun begins, as you (and the characters in the story) try to figure out who’s crazy and who’s not, and they wrestle for control of the facility.

There are multiple dynamics at work here, between McMurphy and the other patients (to determine who’s the alpha male of the ward, a/k/a the “bull goose loony”), between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched, between the patients and the orderlies, and between patients themselves to figure out what their roles are in the “therapeutic community” model of the ward.  And there are a cast of characters — Chronics, Acutes, and Vegetables — each with their own story and peculiarities.

As much as I want to recount this story, I really don’t want to say anything more about the “field trip” that a group of the patients take, or about the party they throw at the facility.  I assume that many of you have seen the movie.  But when I’ve spoken to people who’ve seen the movie, they undoubtedly don’t recall some of the most critical elements of the book.

If you’ve seen the movie and liked it, you should read this book. If you’ve seen the movie and didn’t like it, you should read this book.  And if you haven’t seen the movie, you should read this book.  I think that about covers it.

I myself can’t wait to see the movie.  While Jack Nicholson can get on my nerves a little bit, I think the role of McMurphy is absolutely perfect for him, and I’m excited to see this story play out on the screen.

Don’t Call it Filler

The 2010 Atlanta Open Orthographic Meet is this Saturday!  If you are local, you must go. It’s amazingly awesome.

The Obamas stock White House library with socialist tomes. J’accuse!  What?  Oh…oops. Update: Read Carolyn Kellog’s more thoughtful take on this ridiculous story.

And from the Library of the Absurd: Queen Victoria – Demon Hunter

Cory Doctorow christens this year’s Sci-Fi “it” novel.

Before you plunk down your hard-earned on an e-book, know what you’re buying with the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s e-book checklist.

Ripped from today’s headlines, Sherman Alexie’s Ode to My Sharona:

BGB Interview with Stuart Archer Cohen

Stuart Archer Cohen is the author of three novels, Invisible World, The Stone Angels, and his latest – The Army of the Republic.  Cohen lives in Juneau, Alaska and is the owner of a company that deal sin the trade of wool, silk, alpaca and cashmere in Asia and South America. I posted a review of  The Army of the Republic yesterday.  I noted that the novel stuck with me and raised all sorts of questions.  I am thankful that Mr. Cohen generously agreed to answer my burning questions.

Baby Got Books interview with Stuart Archer Cohen, author of The Army of the Republic

Baby Got Books: Army of the Republic features the activities of several citizen groups that are in opposition to a repressive and powerful Right wing presidential administration. Their responses to the perceived injustices range from protests/direct actions and violent “terror”. Were there particular real world events that inspired you to write this novel?

Stuart Archer Cohen: I was inspired by two things. One was a long-standing interest in guerrilla movements and revolutions in South America. I’ve been doing business there since 1984, and I was intrigued, on a human level, how a bunch of university students and young professionals could develop the will and the skills to take on a corrupt state. I was also acutely tuned in to how the state responds to that.

With the 2nd Bush Administration, I saw our government becoming more and more like Latin America in its corruption, cronyism and absolute impunity. Also, the Right has taken on an increasingly war-flavored rhetoric and stance, where the goal is now to utterly destroy the “Left” and its institutions by any means necessary. I see this as a recipe for political violence, and that made me want to tackle the subject of political violence in a United States setting.

BGB: The recent non-fiction work It Could Happen Here: America on the Brink by Bruce Judson says that a potential political uprising could occur here that would be driven by financial inequality. The events in your book that lead to protests and sometimes violent political action include mass privatization of water supplies, ballot irregularities, domestic use of of a Blackwater/Xe-type contractor for police actions, and the abuse of courts. Are the issues that you raised in your novel the specific powder kegs that you see on our horizon? Or were they more hypothetical?

SAC: I haven’t read that book so I can’t comment on it. The things you mentioned above are all elements that can engender a violent reaction, as they are in the book.

However, I think the real danger is not those symptoms, or even inequality, but rather the constant, dehumanizing propaganda that is being regularly pumped into American society. The non-communist world has never had such a sophisticated, wide-ranging and cohesive propaganda campaign directed against its own people. Psy-ops techniques that we formerly used on enemy countries are now being used against the American people by the Right. The message of Fox News and other hate-speakers is that Liberals are subhuman weaklings, that Left-of-Cheney politicians are liars and traitors, and that we are engaged in a civil war of Right vs.Left, Patriots vs Elected Government. That’s the real powder keg, both because it stokes Right Wing anger, and, more importantly, because it sets up a future Right Wing administration to ruthlessly, violently repress any opposition.

BGB: I read that your research for this novel included conversations with 60’s activists, CIA operatives, and current student protesters. How did you go about locating these people and were they generally open to having frank conversations with you?

SAC: I locate sources in various ways. The CIA people I met through martial arts connections. It’s something that I have in common with these men and it establishes a certain bond beyond politics. The Argentine revolutionaries I tracked down through introductions provided by friends and other sources. Some people I contacted simply as names I saw on the Internet. I hit some dead-ends, too. I’m not so big and famous that everyone is eager to talk to me.

My experience is that people will answer as honestly as they can if you are non-judgmental and they know you won’t embarrass them. Sometimes, it’s what they don’t say that’s most revealing.

BGB: “The Inside Story” on your web site mentions that you were once held under suspicion by the Salvadoran military. How did that experience inform the events that unfold in AOR?

SAC: That experience really enlightened me as to how decent people become caught up in an evil machine. Things came out fine for me in El Salvador because I had an American passport, but Salvadorans picked up there who were equally as innocent as me met some terrible ends.

BGB: The types of reading that you did as research for this novel, books on “how to form a new identity, improvised explosives, surveillance and bodyguarding”, would seem to send up numerous red flags under the “Patriot Act”. Were you concerned at all about ending up a “No Fly” list or experiencing other negative consequences as a result of researching/writing this novel?

SAC: I didn’t really worry about that, although that distributor where I got most of those books was under constant pressure from DHS to surrender his client list. My feeling has always been that I’m just a novelist writing fiction. People like community organizers, lawyers and investigative journalists are a much greater threat to a regime than someone working in a dying field of the entertainment business. When I see those people start to go down, I’ll worry about myself.

BGB: In the book you present a fictional right-wing reactionary television news host called The Hammer who seems all too believable. In the novel, your protagonist Joshua Sands has a discussion about the power of pictures over words, and The Hammer seems to embody the power of the “picture” side of that argument. Why did you elect to tell this story in words (instead of pictures) and what does that say about where you weigh in on the relative merits of each?

SAC: To tell a story in pictures, you need a movie studio, and I don’t happen to have one of those at hand. Also, making a movie is, above all else, a major business venture, and a book like mine, where urban guerrillas are, to some degree, the heroes, isn’t necessarily a good risk for a backer. I did get a film offer on this book but I turned it down because I didn’t like the direction they wanted to go with it to make it more mainstream. It was probably a stupid decision on my part.

That being said, words can convey ideas in a way that pictures simply can’t. That’s why movies are always shallower than the books they are based on. I was an Art History major, so I know well that pictures can be beautiful, and they can convey a lot of emotion and spirituality. But they are in no way worth a thousand words, not if the words are any good. If you want to illuminate deeper, complex truths, there’s no substitute.

My two previous books were optioned, and at one time I thought I might want to write screenplays of my books, both because of the money and because movies are just so damned large. You think you’re large by extension, but you’re really not. You’re still just a guy sitting in an empty room, so you might as well be writing what you want, and not have to take notes from some producer or see your work covered over by some re-write man.

BGB: While reading your novel I had Reagan-era punk songs going through my mind, songs that were relatively straight forward in their left wing militancy. I kept waiting for these kinds of songs and other artistic responses to surface during the Bush 2 presidency, but for the most part they never did. Do you think that Sept. 11 effectively killed what I’ll call the “romanticism” of anti-government action and rhetoric during that period?

SAC: I think Reagan’s 1984-style propaganda was new, so maybe people reacted to it more strongly. I think by the time Bush 2 came around, the Right had massively amplified and perfected its propaganda machine and 9/11 had also enabled them to up the ante. Rove and his gang made it pretty clear that anyone who didn’t support them internationally was an enemy, and domestically, a traitor. I think this was very successful in intimidating a lot of people in and out of government. Look what happened to the Dixie Chicks for making a few comments on stage in London: they were vilified and their records were burned publicly. Artists see that and they don’t want to go down that road. Also, the propaganda machine made the troops sacrosanct, and, by extension, the wars, so it was just uncool for artists to question government policy.

There was protest music, such as Green Day’s American Idiot, but I think people were worn-down by the endless barrage of garbage that was being dumped every day by the propaganda infrastructure. That’s one reason they do it. After a while, I think it’s hard to keep reacting.

I truly don’t understand why no other novelists have taken on the issues that I did in The Army of the Republic. My book was rejected more than forty times by publishers: so maybe all those other writers were right! The only books I’ve seen dealing with the possibility of political violence are racist garbage like The Turner Diaries, or Right-Wing heroic fantasies written by ex-military guys, where heroic gun-owners fight an oppressive Federal Government.

BGB: Does the rise of right wing protests and direct actions (i.e., Tea Parties, attempted bugging of Sen. Landrieu’s office, etc.) surprise you?

SAC: I’m not surprised, because dissatisfaction among that element of the Right was pretty high even in the waning days of the Bush Administration. Those people are doubly angry, both because of the drift of the country and because their illusions about the Republicans have crumbled. Unfortunately, they are so crippled by their own ingrained hatreds, as well as a completely fanciful view of how the world really works, that they’re unable to express their very justified anger in a positive way. Instead, they just want to dig the hole even deeper. They don’t even realize it’s a hole.

I thought it was interesting that the Corporates used these people to harass and intimidate the Democrats during the health care debate, disrupting Town Hall meetings, etc. The Tea Party people would say that it’s not Corporates who are organizing them, but let’s not forget that the main platforms for Tea Party ideologues (Beck, Limbaugh, Palin) are Corporate platforms like Fox News and Clear Channel. So, yes, to a great degree, this already is a Corporate-backed movement.

If the Tea Party people succeed in gaining real or ideological control of the Republican Party, and the Corporates decide to fully back them, we will be on the fast track to authoritarian government and political violence.

I actually would like to see the Left working on organizing them, because they have the potential to help change this country for the better.

BGB: As an author whose work was recently caught up in the Macmillan/Amazon feud with the result of having your book become suddenly unavailable from the world’s largest bookseller, what do you make of the situation?

SAC: I don’t know all the ins- and outs: it has something to do with electronic rights and e-books. My general impression of Amazon is that they’re always looking for a new way to pick the publishers’ pockets, and I guess the authors just got in the way this time. My advice is: try www.Powells.com or your local bookstore.

Need more? Check out Cohen’s blog post about the Revolution from the Right.

The Army of the Republic

The first thing that struck me about Stuart Archer Cohen’s The Army of the Republic was it’s Banksy-like artwork.  The image captures a man in what appears to be a politically motivated act about to launch himself along a violent arc.  As it turns out, it is an image that perfectly captures the essence of the words within its cover.   The conflict between words and images turns out to be a central theme of the novel, so it’s an interesting choice on that level as well.

The Army of the Republic takes place in a dystopian United States that some would say didn’t seem all that unlikely just a few years ago.   A right-wing administration operates under its own interpretation of the laws of the land.  A  judiciary stacked by the ruling party seems unlikely to enforce laws detrimental to the Administration.  Questionable electronic voting returns threaten to eliminate the power of the ballot.   National security interests serve as a smoke screen to all manner of shady dealings.   The use of mercenary forces (think Blackwater/Xe) for hire by both the government and corporations ensures that the non-governmental security forces are effectively answerable to no one.  Right-wing talk shows serve as an echo chamber for the Administration, reinforcing their message through repetition of sound bites and artfully edited images

Lando (not his real name) is a young a young idealist who has decided that enough is enough.  He belongs to a secretive organization known as The Army of the Republic (AOR).  The AOR aims to disrupt the information flow of the Administration and highlight the injustices of their corporate cronies by conducting high profile direct actions, which have recently come to include violence, destruction, and general mayhem.  In other words, the AOR wants their own images on the evening news to counteract the story lines of corporate news services and the Administration’s talking points.  As the AOR’s campaign begins to ramp up, support for their tactics and their cause begins to grow, and a showdown with the administration seems imminent.  However, Lando’s view of the world (and justice) as black and white becomes clouded when his parents become engaged in the looming conflict – on opposite sides.

A fascinating part of this novel is the glimpse into the operations of how extreme shadow organizations of the left and right are organized and operate.  Cohen also does an excellent job of highlighting the many ways that news and information become distorted on its way to consumers.  (In a brief comic note, the news coverage of the action of a riot is called by what amounts to a play-by-play man and a color guy.) It’s enough to make a reader extremely paranoid.  The novel stuck with me, and I had lots of questions floating around my head.  Luckily the author was  gracious enough to submit himself to an interview by the likes of us. Come back tomorrow to check out my interview with Stuart Archer Cohen.

Audio Bonus: The whole time I was reading this book, the soundtrack in my mind was playing the political punk songs of the late seventies and early eighties – songs by bands like The Clash, Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, etc.  But the song that seemed to get at the ethos of this novel the most was this one:

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Red Rockers – Guns of Revolution

Friday Links

Have teenage vampire romance novels finally run their course?  From the looks of this, at least one YA author hopes so…

In other news, an Emory University professor with an awesome/incredibly unlikely last name has made an incredible Faulkner discovery.

This item at McSweeney’s notes the passing of Timothy McSweeney, explains who he was, and why their literary journal was called Timothy McSweeny’s Quarterly Concern.

Comics Round Up

Somehow, I’ve found myself well into February still writing about books that I’ve read in 2009.  Maybe I should just let it go, but for some reason I’ve become obsessive about writing about ALL OF THE BOOKS that I read over the year.  So to satisfy my OCD, I’ll try to wrap up last year in as few posts as possible.  I was particularly slack in writing about the comics that I read last year for two reasons: (1) my approach to comics is completely haphazard, i.e., I pick things up that look interesting without much forethought and (2) I don’t know how to write about them.  Here, allow me to  highlight item number “2″ for you:

Fables 1 and 2

This series came highly recommended to me from various comics aficionados.  The series kicks off with Fables Vol. 1: Legends in Exile. We learn that the characters of our childhood fables are real and they have been driven from their world into ours.  Unsurprisingly, they live among us in New York City where they are able to keep a mostly low profile. Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, etc. are real people with very human shortcomings.  It seems those fables were an idealized version of these troubled souls.  In Fables Vol. 2: Animal Farm, we learn that the non-human fables (like the three little pigs) are forced to live apart from their human counterparts on a farm up-state.  This doesn’t sit well some of the animals.  And that’s as far as I’ve gotten.  The day that I went to buy the next edition, my comics dealer was sold out of Volume 3′s.  I haven’t felt the need to overcome this surmountable obstacle.  This is one of the problems that I have with comics series: how long do you continue on the potential of a story line before you call it quits?

Cecil and Jordan in New York

Cecil and Jordan in New York was a comic of a completely different stripe.   Think of a collection of wry short stories about life for twenty-somethings in NYC and you’ll have a good idea of what Cecil and Jordan offers.  These are fresh and interesting stories that somehow were meant to be told with the assistance of pictures.  My only complaint is that the slim volume is over too soon. I picked this one up while visiting the bookstore of the comics publisher Drawn and Quarterly.  If you find yourself in Montreal, don’t miss this store for any reason.

A Drifting Life

A Drifting Life is the comics memoir of “the godfather of Japanese alternative comics”, Yoshihiro Tatsumi.  It is also a doorstop weighing in at 800+ pages.  This is a fascinating look at a man and comics movement that I knew absolutely nothing about.  It also provides an intriguing glimpse of daily life in post-war Japan and its relationship with the US. One of my issues with comics in general is that the medium tends to set limits on the length of the stories that can be told.  However, A Drifting Life, decades in the making, provides a near immersion experience.  It took me a week or so to make my way through this excellent book.  It’s staggering to think about how many hours of work must have gone into this.

Exit Wounds

I’d say that of the comics discussed in this round-up, Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan was my favorite.  A terrorist’s bomb in a busy market brings a strange young woman into the life of Koby Franco.   Franco’s long-estranged father may have been among the victims of the blast, and the young Russian woman at this door says that she was his lover.  The officials say that Koby’s father was killed in the blast, but his girlfriend has her doubts.  The unlikely pair set off to learn the truth, and each brings their own expectations and baggage to the search.  Exit Wounds masterfully depicts modern Israeli life while telling an intriguing story.  Thumbs up.  I picked this one up at Drawn and Quarterly, too.

Nemi (Volume 3)

Nemi is the anti-Cathy.  She is a goth.  She’s Norwegian.  She drinks and swears.  And she’s not putting up with any crap from you.  Nemi is presented primarily in the traditional 4-panel style of the funny pages.  I have not read Volumes 1 or 2 of Nemi’s adventures, but Volume 3 is charming and funny in that sassy, goth, Scandinavian kind of way.

See? All over the map.  I have been comic-less so far in 2010. If you’ve got some titles that I should check out, leave your suggestions in the comments.

That must be some hangover

Tim sure has been quiet lately.

In all seriousness, I wonder how any father of a son, much less the father of a newborn son, much less a native New Orleanian who’s rooted for the Saints all his life, could have watched this without melting down completely.

I don’t even like the Saints under normal circumstances, but that video gave me almost as many chills as this one did the first time I saw it. (I have a thing for the receiver.) Now I love those guys!

Shanghai Girls

I’ll admit up front that I listened to this book on CD.  I usually have two books around that I’m reading and one in the car for listening during my horrendous Atlanta commute.  My car books are usually books I would never admit to reading but this time I waited over 150 days to get Shanghai Girls by Lisa See from the library.

I’ve been interested in reading Lisa See for awhile but her books are popular and there is usually a long wait at the library.  However, after learning more about Ms. See herself I was encouraged to wait it out.  Ms. See is part Chinese and has traveled extensively throughout China for her research.  For one book she was only the second Caucasian person to have visited a particular remote village.  Currently, I am very interested in Chinese culture and history since my daughter is enrolled in a Chinese-centric school and learning Mandarin.  So in addition to educating myself with bi-racial topics for my daughter, I’m doing my best to learn all I can about China too.

Again, I was hesitant about this author who is read by the masses, but I truly enjoyed listening to this book and would have enjoyed reading it as well! It is read by Janet Song who has a soft Asian-influenced accent which lends even more credibility to the story.  If China doesn’t interest you at all, this book would not be a good choice.

It is about two sisters May and Pearl in Shanghai, China, 1937.   Narrated by Pearl, everything is wonderful in China during this time.  Pearl and May are “Beautiful Girls” who pose for artists who paint them for advertisements.  The International District is full of Americans, English and Japanese and everyone is happy.  The girls’ father owns a lucrative rickshaw business and they are doing quite well.  The girls, who even have American names, don’t pay much attention to Chinese traditions but it’s all ok, life is great!

Oh but happiness never lasts.  Father loses company. Father loses daughters in bad gambling debt. Father disappears. The Japanese invade China. Girls must get to Los Angeles, California to join arranged-marriage husbands.

It is quite an adventure.  I loved this book because in addition to a tear-wrenching tale about their voyage from Shanghai to Hong Kong and then to Los Angeles, it is also a story about sisters and the love sisters have for each other that can never be torn apart.   During their journey their love for each other and their Chinese traditions are tested many times. Pearl is a dragon sign and May is the sheep. Throughout the story Ms. See frequently shows the reader how each girl demonstrates the characteristics of her birth sign, a very important aspect of Chinese culture.  Ms. See beautifully weaves many more Chinese traditions into this story.  Historical fiction at its best.

The journey from Shanghai to Los Angeles is one that probably none of us will ever experience.  Once they arrive at Angel Island in San Francisco the reader is reminded how much the United States discriminated against the Chinese.  Like many immigrants throughout the years, Pearl, May and their new family receive unbelievable open hatred directed toward them.  But what is their alternative really?  They can’t go back.  After the Japanese, the Communists take over.    Pearl and May sit for months in Angel Island and their sisterly bond is strengthened due to the experience on the island before being released to their husbands.   Like most immigrants learn, America isn’t exactly how it was described.  Instead of a big house with a big garden, the entire extended family lives in a little apartment in Chinatown. The Louie family works hard, sends their children to school and tries to be the best American citizens they can be.  American government officials are continually hanging out in Chinatown to catch Communist sympathizers and illegal immigrants. Life is hard. They work a lot, there are family secrets, and tragedies fall on the family all the while they are trying to raise a little girl to be American.  Or Chinese in America?  Another challenge for the family they did not expect.

I don’t want to give any more of the story away.  It satisfied everything I want in a book: great story with a lot of emotion and for me, a wonderful historical picture of China and Los Angeles from 1937 until the 1950’s.   I think the wait for another one of Ms. See’s books is 200 days and I will wait it out.

Lark & Termite

Lark & Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips was an interesting read for me because it was one of those books that I didn’t embrace until I was almost half-way through it.    The first half of the book is mostly character driven while the second half is much more plot driven.  This novel focuses on six characters living in West Virginia in the 1950′s.   One of the characters, Corporal Robert Leavitt,  is stationed in Korea in 1950 and his story takes place during the No Gun Ri massacre.  The story goes back and forth between each character and at the beginning I had a difficult time seeing how they all tied together.

Lark, a seventeen year old who has spent most of her childhood taking care of her disabled brother, is the most interesting character.  In one sense, she is completely naive and selfless and assumes her care-giving duties as a gift rather than a burden.

I’m so used to being with Termite, he feels like alone to me.  He’s like a hum that always hums so the edge of where I am is blunt and softened.

But by the end of the novel, she becomes the only character who takes charge of her life and makes a significant decision to improve her and Termite’s life.  Along the way we learn that she has been sexually involved with her neighbor from a young age and that she is much more aware of what is going on around her than you initially think.  What is most striking about Lark is the amazing sibling bond that she feels with Termite despite the  imbalanced relationship.

Termite, who is severely disabled,  is the character that I had the most difficulty with.  Phillips did an amazing job in writing Termite’s thoughts and feelings into the story from a first person viewpoint but I found it to be almost too esoteric.

Sudden morning air floats low to the ground amid the small houses like fragrant evaporating mist, a cool bath of dew and shadow and damp honeysuckle scent.  He gasps and hears the sharp grass under them move its fibrous roots.

You get the picture……Since I am much more of a “realistic” reader, I sometimes got lost in the endless metaphors of Termite’s voice.  From the reviews that I have read of this book, Termite’s portrayal was one of the triumphs of the book but I found it was a little too “lyrical” without moving the book forward enough.

The other characters include Lola, Lark and Termite’s mother, who abandoned them for reasons we learn at the end of the book; Nonie, the no-no-nonsense aunt who raises them and has borne the brunt of the mistakes her sister and lover made; Corporal Leavitt who is the father of Termite and in my opinion was included solely to show the atrocities of war and finally Charlie, who is Nonie’s lover and becomes a more important character as the book progresses.

As language driven as this book is, it is very suspenseful and there were many twists and turns along the way.  When I finished the book, I almost wanted to go back and re-read it because I felt that there were so many symbols and underlying themes (such as ghosts) that I probably glossed over.

It is only upon reflection of this novel that I realized how expertly Phillips conveyed the classic American themes of family, small-town life and war.  Lark and Termite was a National Book Award finalist and if you are interested in the use of language and style and how it can define a character, you won’t be disappointed.

Friday Short List

Please allow me to draw your attention to this:  Book news and social netowking site Book Army has named BGB one of the Top 50 Book Blogs (we come in at #9).

Novelist Scott Westerfeld explains the Amazon vs. Macmillan Kindle dust-up.

There’s a lot to love about this St Vincent video. The scene takes place inside a local feminist bookstore and the staff includes SNL’s Fred Armison and Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein. St Vincent held the release party for her first album at the now shuttered Wordsmiths Books in Decatur. (Moment of silence please.) I can say that Wordsmiths’ events guy Russ M ran a little tighter ship than this bookstore.

St. Vincent – “Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood”

st. vincent | MySpace Music Videos

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky

In the midst of  my continuing quest to ensure that my bi-racial daughter is ready for any racial challenge, I was fortunate enough to receive The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by first time author Heidi Durrow (Thanks Tim).    I was led to believe that this story is solely about a young bi-racial girl’s identity crisis.  This would have been a-ok for me.  Surprisingly, it turned out to be much more than that.  It is also about a young girl’s quest to make sense of a horrible family tragedy and her longing for a parental love that all girls need as they grow up.

After a horrible accident, Rachel whose dad is black and mom is Danish, finds herself in Portland, Oregon with her paternal grandma.  The story begins with questions about her race from strangers that she never experienced before.  When asked “What are you?” She answers with “I’m a good speller, I’m smart” and she realizes this is not what they want to know. “Papa never told us we were black.”  It’s troubling for her since she never before thought about what it meant to be “black”.  The family lived in Germany before moving to the United States which can explain her confusion.  Even her mom is confused by this and writes in her own diary:  ”Roger never was black.  He was charming and fun and handsome…..I wasn’t ever thinking he was black.”  The black girls at school make fun of Rachel and tell her that she is not black enough, her eyes are blue, her skin is too light, her hair isn’t right, she’s too smart.

This topic of not being truly black could be explored more from the bi-racial point of view.  It is interesting to me that a lot of black people tell other black people that they must act, look and believe certain things in order to be legitimately “black” or “African American.”  I’ve never had anyone tell me that I’m supposed to think a certain way or have certain friends because I’m white.  In this case, Rachel has never been aware of color differences in people and it is a rude awakening.

While Rachel works on her racial identity, she is raised by an “old-school” grandma.  Grandma isn’t very communicative or affectionate with Rachel.  Rachel, who doesn’t have either parent, needs this affection and love and ends up finding it in other ways.  In addition,  Rachel remembers in bits and pieces what happened on that fateful evening with her family.

Rachel has a lot going on.  She copes with all of these emotions by putting everything into a blue jar inside of her. She describes the jar to a family friend one evening:

“…I imagine that inside of a person there’s a blue bottle, you know?…The  bottle is where everything sad or mean or confusing can go.  But in the bottle there is a seed that you let grow. Even in the bottle it can grow big and green. It’s full of all those feelings that are in there, but beautiful and growing too.”

Rachel frequently refers to the bottle and I think it’s such a beautiful description.

The story is unique in the way it is told. Rachel and her mother are told in the first person, and her mother’s journals are represented in a different font and in broken English (certainly with a Danish accent).  The stories of Laronne (boss of Rachel’s mother) and Brick, a neighbor boy who is a cool character in his own right, are told in the third person.  These literally devices are not at all off putting and actually help tell the story in a creative way.

As a mom, this book made me want to hold Rachel and tell her that everything would work out.  As a female who grew up without a strong father it made me want to tell Rachel that it will be ok but to be careful.   It made me cry, laugh and get angry.  The book left me wanting to know more…I want to know more about the characters’ history, I want to know where they end up later in life and I want an entire book on Brick!  In a short amount of time Ms. Durrow made me really care about all the characters.

Three cheers to Ms. Durrow who made me yearn for both a sequel and a prequel!

The Help

Living in the South I do get tired of the endemic racial issues here.  However, I understand is the long, deep-seated history that cannot and must not be forgotten.  So, while current race relations exhaust me, the history behind it all fascinates me.  I have so many questions:  “What was it really  like?”  ”Did both blacks and whites truly accept the status quo willingly?”  “Was anyone fighting behind the scenes?”  ”Who?”  What would it have been like to be on the freedom rides?” and finally “What would I have done? Really? Would I have accepted it? or tried to make a change?”  I will admit that I may be more interested because my husband is Black (no, not African American) and I am not.  I want our daughter to have a clear understanding of her family’s past and her heritage.

Although The Help by Kathryn Stockett is fiction, I don’t doubt that the stories told by the main characters definitely happened at least once if not a hundred times.  The book takes place in Mississippi in the early 1960’s when ordinary blacks and whites did not mix except when one was working for the other – when the women were so busy with Junior League obligations, the monumental task of raising their children often fell to their black maids.

The author, herself from Mississippi, tells the story of three different people from their own point of view.  The “White Woman”, “Skeeter”, just finished college, returned home and isn’t comfortable with what she sees happening. Her own nanny was sent away for unknown reasons.  All her friends are married and having children. Skeeter wants to work and all she can get is an entry level job at the newspaper. (- A separate but related issue that can be explored in When Everything Changed by Gail Collins.)

The hot topic of the day is consistently pushed by her best friend, “Hilly” president of the Junior League. She believes all maids should have their own “separate, individual” bathrooms apart from the family so the family doesn’t catch any diseases that Black people are “known to carry”.  As all of the women are building separate bathrooms for their maids, they are collecting money for the starving children of Africa.  The irony of this endeavor completely escapes these women.

Skeeter decides to anonymously write a book about what it’s like for black women to work for whites.  She secretly enlists the help of two maids, Minny and Abilene who coincidentally work for her friends.   The book is ultimately published and any dreams of keeping it anonymous die.  Although very serious, the book has some very humorous parts that left me cheering for the maids.  In the end, “the times they are a changin’” and it affects everyone.

Abilene is a very faithful and dedicated maid who loves all the children she has cared for.  In her own sly way, she tries to teach the kids a sense of equality and justice. She knows the child is listening when something interesting happens with the child’s teacher.

Minny is a very outspoken woman who finds herself unable to get a job because of false accusations spread around town in the gossip circle.  Minny eventually finds a job with my favorite character Mill Celia, a country white woman who doesn’t understand why the Jr. Leaguers won’t return her calls.   She faces her own struggles in the book and it’s the relationship between her and Minny that pulled at my heart strings. They care very much for each other and although Miss Celia would probably admit because she “doesn’t know any better”, Minny fights it. Miss Celia even eats her meals with Minny at the same table! That is scandalous.

When a book evokes strong emotions in the reader, I consider it a great book.  Ms. Stockett does such a wonderful job developing the characters and story that I am scared when they have their secret meetings.  I don’t want Minny to get fired! I’m angry at the way things were,  I want to rally behind Miss Celia and feel triumphant when good things happen.  This old, very much written-about story of blacks and whites is made fresh by the narrative.  The author really makes us care about these characters!

Some people intentionally keep away from the Best Seller Lists but this book is currently at the top and there is a reason for it.

Adventures in e-Books

I follow the latest news and gossip on e-books and the “future of books” obsessively.  If books are really doomed, then maybe I need to start blogging about model trains are something.  Over the last month or so, the word from e-book land has demonstrated that no one really knows what the heck is going on.   Certainly the book industry has no idea which way is up.  They should start an e-book reality show.  I’d watch.

Some highlights:

According to Amazon, Amazon sold more e-books than “real” books this past Christmas.  Jessamyn West says:

1. they’re creating a distinction that isn’t necessary, between ebooks and paper books
2. at the same time they’re obscuring the very very real distinction that exists and is terribly important: you do not own an ebook, you license or lease it

Carolyn Kellogg notes: and by sold they mean allowed to be downloaded for free

Readers: “We’re not dead yet!”  Study shows an increase in reading since 1980.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) destroys books, says Cory Doctorow:

“anyone who claims that readers can’t and won’t and shouldn’t own their books are bent on the destruction of the book, the destruction of publishing, and the destruction of authorship itself.’ Doctorow says that for centuries, copyright has acknowledged that sacred connection between readers and their books and that when you own a book ‘it’s yours to give away, yours to keep, yours to license or to borrow, to inherit or to be included in your safe for your children’ and that ‘the most important part of the experience of a book is knowing that it can be owned.’” (read the speech for some awesomeness)

The e-book could save the day for publishers’ backlist, but “It seems at times that the publishing industry is just muddling along, hoping for the best. One can’t help but wonder if the industry, dazzled by the technological potential of e-readers, has lost sight of the most important thing: how readers actually interact with books.”

Tech author sells books without DRM, sells more books.

According to a company that wants to sell book companies digital protections and services, pirated copies of books “added up to a potential loss overall to the book publishing industry of $2.75 to $3 billion” last year.  Does that sound even remotely believable?

Kindle users are up in arms about the delayed release of some titles as e-books.

The Guardian asks: Is it really doomsday for books?

Amazon sells books without restrictive DRM, but are they any freer (i.e., less restrictive)?

Counter to every argument you’ve ever heard against it, technical book publisher O’Reilly drops restrictive DRM, sales go up 104%.  Hmmm, this seems to be a trend…..

In the NYT: How to create a Kindle bestseller?  Charge $0.

Speaking or pirating books, you know who the worst pirates are?  Librarians!

Calling themselves “Librarians”, they talk about promoting literacy, education, culture and economic development, which are, of course, code words for the use and dispersal of intellectual property. They readily admit to their activities, and rationalize them because they’re perfectly legal in the US, at least for now.

Cory Doctorow wakes up to find that his books are no longer available on Amazon (as an e-book or old school “pages” version) due to the first volleys in a pricing skirmish between Amazon and publishing giant  Macmillan.

Macmillan’s CEO issues a statement.

Understatement?:  Steve Jobs says publishers are not happy with Amazon.

Why the iPad will save publishing.

Why it won’t.

And this just in: Amazon feels that they will eventually give in to Macmillan “because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles.”  Do you even hear yourself Amazon?

Update: Pee-Wee gets an iPad and puts it to use…