I Read Dead People

So as I raised myself out of the Slough of Despond that is Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book One, I did not reach eagerly for Book II though evidently all true devotees of these volumes read them in a fevered frenzy, panting eagerly for the installments not yet available in America. I liked the first book well enough, but kept a cool head throughout.

In fact I did not want more of the same. I went in search of dead mystery writers and stumbled upon my copy of A Catalogue of Crime: Being A Reader’s Guide to the Literature of Mystery, Detection, and Related Genres by Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor. The first edition appeared in 1971, the expanded version (which I own) in 1989. Hertig died in 1988 and Barzun in 2012 at the age of 104.

I can kill hours when I start scanning a book that recommend books. In Howard’s End is On the Landing, Susan Hill goes through her home library and identifies just 40 volumes that she cannot do without. After reading her book, my library was about 10 books larger. So I told myself as I opened the Barzun, that he talks about plenty of books that I own but have not read, and that I needn’t buy anything new. And I stuck to that…after a fashion.

I have barely opened the book and am arguing with its authors. They dismiss Earl der Biggers and the Charlie Chan novels: “Hawaiian detective, lovable perhaps, but not a commanding figure of the genre, whatever he may have on the screen.”

The Charlie Chan novels are wonderful. I read my first out of curiosity and expected it to be clichéd and filled with stereotypical characters. I was wrong. There’s a moment in one of the novels when a character asks Chan to tell the police commissioner that he is very sorry. Charlie refuses because “He’ll expect me to say velly and I won’t do that.”

He also dismisses Janwillem Van De Wettering whom I think splendid. Taylor and Barzun favor a lot of actual detection and Van De Wettering doesn’t offer enough of that.

They are annoyed by what they see as social commentary and tangents. As they say of The Mind Murders: All this Hollandaise sauce does not adequately season the dish.” I think Hollandaise sauce is always a welcome addition.

When I’m not annoyed at the editors for not noticing the books I like, I’m livid that they notice the wrong things. We all agree that Ruth Rendell’s A Judgment in Stone is brilliant, but Barzun and Taylor make no mention of the novel's arresting opening sentence: “Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write.” If ever there was a first sentence that makes you want to read the second, this is it.

But I honestly did not pick up the book with the intention of of arguing with every brief review. I found reviews of two novels (by dead writers) I own: The Black Seraphim by Michael Gilbert and Salt is Leaving by J.B. Priestly.

The Black Seraphim appeals to me because it’s really an Anthony Trollope novel with dead bodies. (Though Anthony Trollope has plenty of crime in his novels). This is a novel that highlights the less saintly aspects of a clerical calling and even includes a priest who is subtly blackmailed because he writes love letters to some of his male pupils. The editors and I both agree that this Gilbert at his best.

J.B. Priestley’s Salt is Leaving concerns a widowed MD who plans to leave his practice but not before he finds out what happened to a young female patient who has disappeared. She has a serious condition and he has impressed upon her the importance of getting her medicine on a regular basis. When he tries to locate her he finds himself in a battle with the town’s most powerful elements. The plotting and the characters are both terrific. As the editors say, “We could stand more Salt.”

But this is the review (of a book by a writer still living) that I found most amusing: “A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton. The first in a projected series (are there to be 25 more?) introducing the latest female private eye. Kinsey Millhone is only semiconvincing after being hired by the convicted and released wife of a former divorce attorney to secure rehabilitation. Kinsey likes small, compact quarters—a Volkswagen, a one-room apartment—and she packs a small gun. Kinsey has sexual relations with a brutish suspect, but no eagerness for volume “B” is generated.

B is for Burglar won Anthony and Shamus Awards in 1986. When Jacques Barzun died in 2012, Sue Grafton was up to V is for Vengeance. I’m glad his poor opinion of her first book didn’t hold her back.

His Own People Tried to Shoot Him

Brigadier General George McClure was the most hated man in Buffalo, New York, in the bitter winter of 1813-1814. He complained to his commanding officer that the locals shot at him as he walked down the street. What could he possibly have done to deserve this? For he did deserve it, and worse.

Our story begins at Fort George, on the Canadian side of the Niagara River but occupied by the Americans in the autumn of 1813. Brigadier General McClure was in charge. Most of his troops, however, were militiamen, signed on for a short term of service. Their terms being up in early December, none of them could be persuaded to stay, either for patriotism or for promises of money.

Somehow, McClure claimed, the Canadians got wind of the fact that his militiamen had all gone home. Word came to him that the enemy was on the march. Rather than stick around and try to defend the fort with 60 effective regular troops and 40 militiamen, he gave the order to evacuate the fort. Instead of destroying the fort, however, McClure permitted Colonel Willcocks, a turncoat Canadian with a personal grudge against his countrymen, to burn the nearby village of Newark (now called Niagara-on-the-Lake) and cast the residents—women, children, and the aged—out into the pitiless Canadian winter. Many froze to death when the fires went out.

"The houses were generally vacant long before," McClure whined in a lying letter to the Secretary of War. "This step has not been taken without counsel and is in conformity with the views of Your Excellency disclosed to me in a former communication." With the village all in flames, McClure and his men fled across the river.

In the ditch at the abandoned (but hardly destroyed) Fort George, the Canadians were delighted to find "one long 18 pdr., four 12 pdrs., two 9 pdrs., an immense quantity of shot, with camp equipage for 1500 men." McClure had destroyed the village but left the fort intact.

The wanton burning of civilian homes was considered outrageous on both sides of the border. "The destruction and misery which this dastardly conduct has occasioned is scarcely to be described, women and children being the principal inhabitants have nowhere to place their heads," said the New York Evening Post.

So McClure started it. The Canadians were nothing loath to carry it on, this burning of civilian dwellings, even though their generals shed crocodile tears about the sad necessity of making war on American non-combatants.

The people of Buffalo and the other towns of the Niagara Frontier also blamed McClure. Then the British crossed over and took Fort Niagara in the night, torturing the sentry to find out the password and bayoneting most of the Americans when they let them in. Where was McClure when this was going on? Where was the commander of the fort? You may well ask. As the British advanced on Buffalo, torches in hand, only Colonel Cyrenius Chapin and his militia stayed to defend the town. McClure, hearing that the British were advancing in force, once again gathered his men and marched them out of harm's way.

As he left he denounced the people of Buffalo as a pack of damned rascals who deserved to have their houses burned over their heads. "There is not a greater rascal exists than Chapin, and he is supported by a pack of tories and enemies to our Government," he wrote to Governor Tompkins, in the hope that he would be believed. Naturally they shot at him. Who wouldn't?

Kate Gallison

A Spicy End to Summer

On the night table: The Garner Files (James Garner & Jon Winokur)

Ah, August, the last of summer.

Well, unless you live in the part of the country where summer lingers till October. Or the part where it never ends.

As a child, I kept waiting for Tennessee to have summers like the rest of the country. Except that my impression of the “rest of the country” came from the pages of magazines like Seventeen, which were published in New York and generally failed to acknowledge that temperatures and rituals differed south of Manhattan.

Summer started on Memorial Day on those pages. In Clarksville, Tennessee, we’d have already had at least six weeks of 80+ degrees. Summer ended with Labor Day in those magazines, after which the kids went back to school, to campuses bright with autumn-leaf-colored cardigans. In Clarksville, we were back by mid-August. And you didn’t even think about putting wool next to your body till mid-October.

But I see no reason we can’t all agree that August is a turning point. The point at which you turn to a pitcher full of icy refreshment, turn on the AC and turn on a good movie if the front porch is still too hot to walk on barefooted or the mosquitoes have you barricaded indoors.

While searching through back issues of Bon Appétit, David (aka Chef) found a recipe for a curry-spiced Bloody Mary. No horseradish. No Tabasco. And it creates the best one I’ve ever had. 

We've shared the recipe, further below.

The Pairings

Okay, we need something with a lighter touch for summer refreshment. No noir, no horror, no heartbreak. Something with peppery relationships and smoothly blended dialog. And my choices share a theme about the heady attraction and ultimate perils of the search for headlines. One does it with humor.

Comedy: His Girl Friday (1940)

Howard Hawks remade the Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur stage play Front Page, turning the male reporter whose boss will do anything to keep him from quitting the newspaper game into a woman.

I've used the cover of my restored-print
DVD. The posters don't do Roz justice.

Wow, did Hollywood get this one right! When you see His Girl Friday, you wonder why the playwrights — and the studio that did the 1931 film version — never thought of it. My hunch is that none of them could imagine the audience accepting an independent woman with a powerful career. How much the country changed in the space of just a decade. You’ll never be able to watch Front Page again. Sorry, but Hildy Johnson just has to be a woman!

Hildy (Rosalind Russell, that spicy tomato, exquisite in the role) has had enough of the rough-and-tumble, rabidly competitive newspaper game where the “scoop” is everything, even if you have to make it up. She wants to get married and this time it’s going to be to a sensible man. But her ex-husband, her editor boss Walter Burns (Cary Grant), is determined to keep her — not only because he’s still head over heels for her, but also because she’s the best reporter he’s got. And so he lures her back for just one last big, great story, and sets about with hilarious results to make sure she never gets on that train to Albany with her hapless beau (Ralph Bellamy).

A Bit More Serious: The Bronx Is Burning (2007)

The story of the Yankees’ summer of 1977 plays out in one of the worst summers for New York City, suffering from stifling 100+ temperatures, on the brink of bankruptcy and scarred by crime and urban decay. There are harrowing moments in the portrayal of the killing spree of the .45 Caliber Killer (later called Son of Sam) and the desperate police search for him.

But mostly this 8-episode mini-series is about the men in the most dysfunctional relationship in the history of sports: George Steinbrenner, principal owner of the Yankees (Oliver Platt); Billy Martin, his manager (John Turturro); and Reggie Jackson, his slugger (Daniel Sunjata), and the collateral damage that was the Yankees’ clubhouse. 

Their insecurities are like fresh wounds, every touch too deeply felt. None of them is capable of reasoned restraint and all are easily baited by the sports media. The rest of the team is roiled in their wake. 

You’ll find yourself yelling at the screen: “Don’t say it; just this once, keep your mouth shut!” But they can’t stop themselves. And the inevitability is irresistible: you feel sorry for them and want to smack them, in the same moment.  

You just can’t stop drinking it in.

Now, let's get the pitcher up!

Curry-spiced Bloody Mary (Bon Appétit, April 2010)

Makes 8 

10 cups tomato juice (preferably organic)

1 2/3  cups vodka (a good one; don't get the cheapest on the shelf)

1/2  cup fresh lemon juice

1/2  cup fresh lime juice

1/2  cup balsamic vinegar

2 TBS + 2 tsp  Madras curry powder

2 tsp (or more)  fine sea salt

1 tsp  freshly ground black pepper

Ice (crushed or cubes cracked into smaller pieces)

Celery sticks (for garnish)

Combine first 6 ingredients in a large pitcher. Whisk in the 2 tsp sea salt and the pepper. Season with more salt, if desired. Cover; chill. (Can be made 8 hours ahead. Keep chilled; whisk before serving.)

Fill tall glasses with ice. Pour in Bloody Mary mixture. Garnish with celery sticks.

The mixture keeps well in a sealed container in the fridge.  Give it a whisk before re-serving.

Sheila York

Copyright 2014

The Chelsea Hotel

From time to time I have posted about New York as a mecca for writers.  Today let’s visit a star-studded spot where human creativity and a lot of other little understood and sometimes dangerous forces have resided.  Spacey people have frequented it for decades.  Just for starters, Arthur C. Clark wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey there.  And from a different point on the spaced-out spectrum, William Burroughs lived in this place while he was writing The Naked Lunch.

The Chelsea Hotel at 222 West 23^rd Street is a New York City Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.  Even without all the glitterati associated with it, it would be famous just for its architecture, an amalgam of Queen Ann Revival and Victorian Gothic.  It was built in 1883 as New York’s first coop apartment building, and in its life so far has demonstrated a definite preference for Gothic with a capital G.  When built, standing at twelve stories, it was the tallest building in New York.  It contained 250 units and a grand staircase that went up all twelve flights.  At that point, it was in the middle of New York’s theater district.  It provided servants to its occupants!

But then the vagaries of Manhattan real estate spoiled everything.  By 1905, developers were offering much more spacious accommodations on the Upper West Side and boom, crash, the Chelsea went bankrupt.  That’s when they turned it into a hotel.

In 1912, some of the survivors of the Titanic stayed there after they arrived at Pier 54, nearby on 14^th Street.

It would take well into next week to type out the names of the famous and infamous who have lived at the Chelsea.  Here is a small sampling: Mark Twain, O. Henry, Bob Dylan, Dylan Thomas, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, Janis Joplin, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, Iggy Popp, Virgil Thomson, Thomas Wolf, Madonna, Sid Vicious, Arthur Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Brendan Behan, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Stanley Kubrick, Milos Forman, Ethan Hawke, Dennis Hopper, Uma Thurman, Elliott Gould, Elaine Stritch, Michael Imperioli, Jane Fonda, The Grateful Dead, Chick Corea, Edith Piaf, Joni Mitchell, Alice Cooper, Alejandro Escovedo, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendricks, Canned Heat, Abdullah Ibrahim, Christo, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.  I could go on, but my fingers are starting to bleed and my imagination is reeling.

Some of the above died there, and famously Sid Vicious’s girlfriend did so violently.  There are those who say the place is haunted.  I would not be surprised.  If any building in the USA is haunted, it should be this one.

The Chelsea had its financial ups and downs over the decades.  Then, in 2011, a real estate developer bought it for $80 Million.  There have been some troubles over the subsequent treatment of the rent-controlled tenants during renovation.  Difficulties continue, but as of now, the Hotel Chelsea is set to reopen next year.   I imagine they will be charging more for a one-night stay than Dylan Thomas paid for a whole year’s rent.

Annamaria Alfieri

Happily Every After, or What Happens Once a Book Comes Out

Welcome once more to Jenny Milchman!

Since I put bread on the table much of my adult life teaching and counseling gifted college-bound students, I take more than usual interest in the career of a younger gifted American author like Jenny Milchman.

In her post today Jenny shows a strong sense of direction for her life as a fiction writer, combined with humility, grit and undiluted courage!

It is my hope that her personal revelations will give strength and courage to other writers -of whatever age - pushing steadfastly through the intricate mazes on the arduous path to acceptance, publication and the rewards of being recognized as a real pro!

Thelma Jacqueline Straw

---

Thelma asked me to write a blog post about “how all this success and fame is affecting me” and I read her instructions and thought, Who is she talking about?

I should back up and tell you a little bit about myself (although really, I’m so famous that surely seeing my name should be enough). Ha. Not.

It took me thirteen years to get my debut novel published. Thirteen years of shuns, as in rejection, humiliation, and degradation. Of pulling myself up afterwards, slapping myself around a little, and saying, “Get out there and do it again.”

Unfortunately the ‘again’ part kept happening. Over a period of eleven years, I wrote eight novels, worked with three agents who submitted five of them, and together we amassed fifteen almost-offers from editors who were interested, but couldn’t get a deal okayed. I lived on the cusp of almost for more than a decade.

Finally the literary sea parted, and I was offered a contract for novel #8. Exactly how is a story that’s been told in other posts and articles. What I’d like to talk about now—the part Thelma was asking about—is what happened next.

What happened first-next is that I learned that rejection doesn’t stop just because you land a publishing deal. My debut hadn’t even come out when my agent told me that novels #7 and #9, both of which we’d submitted to my publisher as a follow-up, weren’t quite right. The novel that would come out after my debut turned out to be my tenth.

But Thelma is right that some magical things did begin, and in many ways, landing that publishing deal changed my life and allowed me to do things I’d dreamed of for decades.

Find readers. See someone, then many someones pick my book up off a bookstore shelf. Walk into the crowded event space of a bookstore or a library and get to speak.

Hmmm, funny what a writer’s dreams consist of, isn’t it? It isn’t buying the yacht—or even being met by a handler at the airport on book tour (neither of which has happened to me yet). But getting to share your story, closing the circle Stephen King describes between author and reader? I’ll take that over ten private jets.

But I keep circling back to Thelma’s initial prompt, and I don’t want to be disingenuous about it. It’s true that my debut novel met with some success. It won an award I will always keep in the annals of memory as my “Oscar moment” and has been nominated for two others. When I was given the Mary Higgins Clark award—by Mary Higgins Clark herself—my editor and my husband had to push me up to the stage. My name had been read, but I hadn’t quite registered it.

And thanks to rigorous research by my publisher as to how best to put digital pricing to use, the same book landed, briefly and low down, on the USA Today bestseller list. I got to see my name praised by the New York Times, and better than that—my story. People and places that wouldn’t have existed if I hadn’t made them up.

Remember, this was a novel that had been rejected by everyone. By 2010, when my agent and I were out of options, we had received two final rejections. The first said—

• “Love the array of characters, but the plot moves too slowly.”

While the other went—

• “The plot goes like quicksilver, but we’d have to cut some of these characters.”

What’s a writer to do, with no plot and no characters? We decided to do neither, and then came our eleventh hour reprieve, leading me to believe that if a writer wants to succeed, knock on every door, and then start knocking on things that aren’t doors.

And afterwards, along with the success? A lot of ongoing doubt. Some people liked my first book, but trust me, plenty of people didn’t (just read my reader reviews). I would be lucky enough to see a second novel come out a year later, but that brought with it a whole other set of fears. What if those who liked my first book hated this new one, and those who hated the first hated this one even worse?

Does it ever stop, this writer’s quandary, a primordial soup of second-guessing and undermining yourself? I’d like to ask Stephen King that. Or Kathryn Stockett. You know…the truly famous and successful ones.

I wonder how they see themselves?

There are other doubts besides writerly ones. Every night I wrestle with what kind of lesson my career is offering my kids. Part of the reason I stuck it out as long as I did was because I didn’t want this story to end for my kids on a note of rejection. What kind of Cinderella tale is that? But now the kids are a part of my journey in ways most children aren’t privy to a parent’s career. Is this a good thing—a study in hard work and how there’s always something to reach for? Or should I be leaving my children to school and Scouts and soccer, and shielding them from the realities of a career in media and the arts?

Here’s the thing. As any real writer knows—from Stephen King to the newest newbie on the block—it’s the next book that counts. The one we’re dreaming up in our heads. The one we’ll turn our attention to the moment it’s ready. And nobody, not Stephen or Gillian or JK, knows what their readers will think of that one.

The doubts don’t end, but luckily something else stays constant, too. The readers. The ones whose distant promise kept me in the game for thirteen years. If we keep writing for them, then any success and fame may seem ephemeral and fleeting, but that’s okay.

Coming back to a new story will keep our doubts at bay, too.

© 2014 Jenny Milchman

---

Jenny Milchman’s debut novel, Cover of Snow, was chosen as an Indie Next and Target Pick, won the Mary Higgins Clark award for best suspense novel of 2013, and has been nominated for a Barry and Macavity. Jenny’s second novel, Ruin Falls, also an Indie Next Pick, has just come out to starred reviews, and her third, As Night Falls, will be released in 2015. Jenny is now dreaming up the next one.

Find Jenny online at http://jennymilchman.com/jenny/