The Redwood Coast

Volume 15, Number 2 Review Spring 2013 A Publication of Friends of Coast Community Library in Cooperation with the Independent Coast Observer

books Home Traveling

Hilda Johnston

f all the many striking state- ments made by deSelby, I “Odo not think any of them can rival his assertion that a journey is an hallucination,” says the narrator of Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman refer- ring to deSelby’s theory, arrived at by watching old cinematograph films, that any progress and even human existence is really “a succession of static experiences each infinitely brief.” When deSelby finds it necessary to travel between Bath and Folkestone, he shuts himself in a room with a supply of picture postcards Jack Kerouac around 1957, the year On the Road was published of the area to be traveled and an elaborate arrangement of clocks and barometric in- struments. On exiting the room, he finds he is still in Bath, but he declares himself “to have been to Folkestone and back Pull Over, Jack again.” The narrator of The Third Police- man quotes freely from this fictional phi- losopher deSelby, whose words, he says, Kerouac’s biographers have been taken for a ride “have a heart-lifted effect more usually associated with spirituous liquors.” Jonah Raskin Several years ago when an artist friend went to Cinque Terre for a few weeks in October, I imagined I too was in Italy. hinking about the sixty-eight identified her corpse after she jumped been published. To borrow Michael Mc- This was not too difficult in the Bay Area, books about St. Jack Kerouac from a building in San Francisco and the Clure’s apt phrase, we’re still “scratching with our warm Mediterranean climate, (1922-1969) published over police scraped her off the pavement. No the Beat surface,” Lombardy poplars, and narrow Italian the past four decades I’m one has ever written about Jackson and Sixty-eight Kerouac books add up cypress. The tall poplars were golden; reminded of the one authentic as long as no one does the history of the to overkill; if there were one definitive the maples and plane trees, russet, burnt Tnovelist—besides Kerouac—who­ lived Beats won’t be complete. biography there probably wouldn’t be sienna and umber. On my way to work, near Huntington, Long Island, my home- I’ve written a half dozen biographies sixty-eight. But perhaps there are sixty- I began to read Dante, English on one town. His name was Pietro di Donato. and have guidelines of my own for writ- eight because no one single work can side, Italian on the other. When my friend Christ in Concrete (1939), his bestsell- ing biography which I’ve learned the encompass a writer who kept changing came home, I was surprised to hear that it ing novel, inspired a movie directed by hard way: don’t allow the subject of the the narratives about himself, a fact that had been raining most days on the Ligu- Edward Dmytryk. After his one big novel, biography to dictate its meaning; treat the makes him an appealing and an elusive rian coast, and though neither of us had di Donato moved on to lives of the saints, stories the subject tells as information to subject. Forty years ago, there was clearly learned Italian, only I had enjoyed the rich which had advantages over fictionalized be interpreted; construct a biography as a real need for a book about the author of colors of an Italian autumn. This was my versions of his immigrant parents—Ital- dramatically as a novel; and have access On the Road that would dispel the myths first venture in home traveling. ians rather than French Canadians like to archives. Kerouac’s earliest biographers about him, including the myth that he was The philosopher deSelby praises “the Kerouac’s. With lives of the saints, there were denied the opportunity to read his just typing, not really writing—a charge equilibrium of water, its circumambiency, was a built-in readership, a powerful papers. Then, too, many manuscripts have made by Kerouac’s snotty contemporary equiponderance and equitableness,” and institution—the Catholic Church —be- only recently seen the light of day. Viking Truman Capote. Forty years on, it’s clear he was once accused of hoarding water, hind them, and a ready-made formula of didn’t publish Kerouac’s Wake Up: A Life that many of the books have perpetu- “police testifying that every vessel in temptation and redemption. Ditto Jack of the Buddha until 2008. The Sea Is My ated myths and not punctured them. So, the house, from the bath to a set of three Kerouac, whose work has long been Brother, a novel written in the 1940s, ap- Kerouac has taken his place alongside ornamental egg-cups was brimming with under the thumb of the Sampas estate, the peared in 2012. As far as I know, no one larger-than-life writers such as Ernest the liquid.” Viking Press, and in the hands of literary has published Kerouac’s 1952 story Sur le Hemingway and Jack London—one of his I am also fond of water, but having apostles who have described him as a long Chemin, written in French and discovered earliest role models, a fact often ignored twice traveled on a freighter to Europe, I suffering, Christlike American author who in 2008 by Quebecois journalist Gabriel by biographers. still have nightmares of being surrounded wandered in a wilderness of sex and drugs Anctil. The movie version of On the Road Arthur Calder-Marshall, a Jack London by ocean. When a friend was invited on and was redeemed by the publication of has brought renewed interest in Kerouac’s scholar, noted that the subject of a biogra- a seventeen-day cruise as a companion On the Road (1957). Hollywood connections; his correspon- phy usually receives the kind of attention to an elderly woman, I did not envy her, I’ve been reading Kerouac biographies dence with producer Jerry Wald has never he or she deserves. His observation is as but then since my life is circumscribed by since 1974, though I have only recently true for Kerouac as for London. Indeed, my bicycle route, like a character in The come to appreciate Emily Dickinson’s both authors traduced facts and created Third Policeman, “going to a particular keen sense that biographers are in the Sixty-eight Kerouac mythologies, and both have received destination or other on his bicycle every business of constructing lives and that in biographies that traduce facts and extend hour of the day or coming back from there the process of writing biography some- books add up to over- mythologizes. That’s poetic justice. at every other hour,” I realized It would thing of the life is inevitably lost. “Biogra- be easy to imagine I too was on a cruise, phy first convinces us of the fleeting of the kill; if there were eat publishers such as Paul Slovak my scenery, like the water seen from Biographied,” Dickinson wrote, though no one definitive biog- Bat Penguin are beginning to feel it’s shipboard, changing only with the light Kerouac biographer has seen fit to heed time to call a moratorium on books about and weather. her words. I’ve also come to side with raphy there probably Kerouac, but perhaps a biographer is now Home traveling, like home schooling, Virginia Woolf, who threw up her hands writing the great biography. If so, he or depends on the quality of the books and I in dismay at the biography industry that wouldn’t be sixty-eight. she probably won’t disagree with Beat had Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman fed, she recognized, on the lives of rich, Perhaps there are scholar Matt Theado who says that “to along with some books by the Spanish famous, powerful men, whether generals understand Jack Kerouac, readers must author Enrique Vila-Matas. I did not yet or poets. In A Room of One’s Own, she sixty-eight because no know a few things about his life.” But have his most recent book, Dublinesque, wrote that she would much rather read precisely what things? Not surprisingly, but I guessed that he would be fond of the the “true history” of an unknown girl single work can en- there isn’t universal agreement about Irish writer O’Brien, because like Franz who worked in a tawdry shop than “the compass a writer who them. Theado lists seven and doesn’t Kafka and Robert Walser, O’Brien spends hundred and fiftieth life of Napoleon or include important stuff: Kerouac’s formal a long time getting nowhere, which, I seventieth study of Keats and his use of kept changing the nar- education; voluminous reading in Melville suppose, is a kind of home traveling for Miltonic inversion.” I’d love to read a true and Dostoyevsky; and his wives, includ- writers. In any case, from Vila-Matas I history of the New Jersey–born shop girl ratives about himself. ing Joan Haverty, for whose edification he got the idea to leaven my writing with named Natalie Jackson whom Kerouac claimed he wrote On the Road. quotations. and Ginsberg both wrote about in poetry and fiction. Jackson’s lover, Neal Cassady, See HOME page 8 See KEROUAC page 10 Page 2 The Redwood Coast Review Spring 2013 editor’s note Oscar Night: Worst performance by an industry in crisis Stephen Kessler

atching the Academy Godfather. It seemed the Awards this year was even stars onstage at the Oscars more painful than usual— this year were desperately not because of who won or dancing their socks off to did not win Oscars but that keep from crying over their Wthe show looked like amateur night at the own irrelevance. fall of Rome. From the exceptionally ob- Because technology has noxious and unfunny master of ceremonies always played an instru- to the embarrassingly self-parodic (though mental role in cinema, perhaps postmodernly ironic) song-and- evolving with the times to dance production numbers to poor best-ac- add sound, color, scope and tress winner Jennifer Lawrence tripping on special effects of all kinds, her ridiculous dress as she ran up the steps there’s no reason to expect to fetch her trophy, the whole spectacle the magic made possible reeked of Hollywood self-love/hate, vanity, by computers to return bewilderment and panic at the fate of mov- anytime soon to merely ies under the onslaught of private digital human scale in the art of entertainment. narration. And whatever The same technology that enables film- kinds of movies are made makers to stage ultraviolent apocalyptic in the years ahead, they are visual orgies of mayhem without physically likely to be watched on the destroying too much property has also made very devices—smartpads, movies, in the old-fashioned sense of some- dumbphones, wristbands, thing one goes out to see on a big screen brainchips— now driv- with other people in the audience, all but Jennifer Lawrence ing Hollywood nuts. The obsolete. So Hollywood, like a publishing content provided to such industry increasingly driven by ebooks and facelifted, breast-inflated spectacle that devices will be targeted to individuals their instruments (if new multimedia book translates easily into any language (since whose tastes in entertainment are tailored products can still be called books at all), is language is beside the point) for the interna- A glimpse of the to suit their well-tracked consumer prefer- freaking out in the effort to adapt. Presum- tional mass market. Smaller, more intimate, ences. The movie theater as a public space, ably in an appeal to smartphone-mesmerized independent movies do get made, and great Robert De Niro like the bookstore and the record shop, may youth by way of their great-grandparents’ sometimes even distributed but, like small- continue to exist, but for a self-selected mi- type of music-hall entertainment, The Os- press literature, seldom reach big numbers slumped half-asleep nority of retro-hipsters and old fogies who cars (don’t call them the Academy Awards, of people. in his aisle seat hav- don’t get all their kicks from a computer as that sounds, well, academic) rolled out I confess to having roots in both indy screen, however tiny and portable. the singing and dancing movie stars to make culture—having started a number of quix- ing flown out from fools of themselves in front of a billion or otic little publishing ventures (the longest- he fragmentation of the marketplace so voyeurs around the planet. lived of which is this one)—and, reaching New York only to lose Twe’re currently witnessing in the It’s not that it was such a bad year for deeper into my privileged past, the world for best supporting publishing and music industries will no movies. A few of the nominated films actu- of movie stars and media moguls. I used to doubt continue, with self-produced record- ally had more to do with human beings (by feel ashamed at having grown up in Beverly actor was somehow ings and micro-brewed books proliferating way of the writing and acting) than with Hills, but eventually I came to understand for smaller and smaller markets yet also gee-whiz digital effects. Lincoln, The Mas- that it was not my fault that my father made emblematic of a mo- potentially empowered by the Internet to ter, Silver Linings Playbook, Amour, Argo, a fortune in the garment business and moved “go viral” at a moment’s notice. My hope is even Zero Dark Thirty examined humanity the family there in 1950 to take advantage tion picture industry that movies made on smaller budgets and at with some compassion. But the dominant of that city’s excellent schools. It was in up past its bedtime. a human scale, like many of the independent trend in big-budget Hollywood spectacles those schools that I met, and selectively productions currently circulating on DVD (think James Bond Diehard Zombie Killer made friends with, many kids born with a or, if they can find distributors, in whatever Goes Ballistic) remains a steroid-pumped, silver screen in their mouth. art-house cinemas are left, will begin to somehow it was glorious and bigger than testosterone-addled, gun-worshiping, My big brother Bruce was a semi-famous gain audiences tired of being assaulted by life and full of romance and adventure. I explosion-happy, bloodthirsty, animated, racing driver in his twenties, which first the brutality and inanity that now dominate don’t think it’s only my own advancing led him to friendships with the likes of the mass-market box-office blockbuster years that make today’s stars and their James Dean and Steve McQueen, and later offerings that most of the public still seems shrunken illusions seem so pitiful. to directing jobs in Hollywood where he to prefer. So to witness something like the Oscar he edwood oast enjoyed a long and lucrative career in televi- As in other art forms struggling to adjust T R C show—probably no more decadent than sion. My own schoolmates (but not friends) to changing cultural demands—dance, ever but somehow so much cheesier with included such current eminences as Rob theater, opera, painting, poetry—perhaps its Botoxed leading men and surgically Reiner, Albert Brooks, Richard Dreyfuss movies can recapture some of their lost Review altered grand dames and nubile starlets mojo by scaling down their more spec- and Academy president Howard “Hawk” sewn into absurd outfits and stumbling on Stephen Kessler Koch, most of whom went into the family tacular ambitions and attempting to hold their sky-high heels—is a sad reminder Editor business and have done as well as or better people’s attention (or at least the attention of how all-too-human the professionally than their parents. of a significant minority) with sensitive in- famous are, and, once the layers of glam- Daniel Barth So I grew up in a Hollywood-centric telligence and subtle attunement to more in- our armor are removed, how ordinary all Zara RaaB universe and, though drawn as a clueless timate human experiences. Maybe all those but the most transcendently talented seem Jonah Raskin teenager to the “fast cars, fast girls” ethos mobile devices will enable some artists to to be. A glimpse of the great Robert De Rebecca Taksel of my brother and his friends, by the time reach people where they live and remind Niro slumped half-asleep in his aisle seat Contributing Editors I was a freshman at UCLA and discover- them they are not mere extensions of their having flown out from New York only to ing the inexplicable allure of poetry, I gadgets and hapless victims of whatever the lose for best supporting actor was somehow Linda Bennett was already growing increasingly disillu- producers throw at them. emblematic of the whole disaster—as if the Production Director sioned with the emptiness and desperation Or maybe I’m dreaming of a golden age sight of the snarling troglodyte Quentin Tar- I perceived behind the stylish facades of that never was and never will be beyond the The Redwood Coast Review is published antino clutching his little statue for writing, the LA movie illuminati. I fled that scene marginal communities created by out-of- quarterly (January, April, July and October) of all things, were not depressing enough. at nineteen, about the same time I stopped the-way newspapers and low-budget online by Friends of Coast Community Library in Clearly the industry doesn’t know how to watching television, and took a left turn into artifacts like the one you’re reading. If cooperation with the Independent Coast regain its dignity much less supremacy in Observer. The opinions expressed in these literature, from which I’ve never found my you’ve read this far, you could be a member the contemporary cultural landscape. Even pages are those of the individual writers and way back. of this endangered species of new-old media do not necessarily reflect the views of FoCCL, forty years ago Marlon Brando had the self- users who don’t need the self-debasing respect not to show up to accept best-actor the ICO or the advertisers. Contents copyright ut I love the cinema, and go to the mov- antics of overpaid, cosmetically enhanced, honors for his classic performance in The © 2013 The Redwood Coast Review. All rights Bies whenever something worth seeing is manufactured objects of desire and distrac- revert to authors and artists on publication. playing, because at its best it is an amazing tion to tell them how to stay brainlessly We welcome your submissions. Please send essays, reviews, fiction, poetry and letters synthesis of the visual and dramatic and entertained. to the Editor, The Redwood Coast Review, c/o ICO, novelistic arts—storytelling of the highest PO Box 1200, Gualala, CA 95445. Manuscripts order. A great movie can be as esthetically, should be typed, double-spaced, with the intellectually and emotionally engrossing author’s name, address, phone, email and and moving and revelatory as practically word count at the top of the first page. Postal any other experience, in or outside the arts. Stephen Kessler’s two new books are mail only. A self-addressed, stamped envelope Screen gods and goddesses were born of Scratch Pegasus (poems, Swan Scythe is required for our reply. this mythic storytelling power—since then Press) and Poems of Consummation by On the Web: stephenkessler.com/rcr.html abetted by ever-advancing technologies—to Vicente Aleixandre (translation, Black Subscription information: See page 9. Widow Press). He will be reading at Works Friends of Coast Community Library is a captivate the receptive imagination. Our nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. current movie culture, with its stars reduced Gallery, 451 South First Street, San José, Tax-deductible donations may be sent to to mere celebrities (even if they happen also Wednesday April 17 at 7pm and at Felix Coast Community Library, PO Box 808, Point to be first-rate artists) about whom we know Kulpa Gallery, 107 Elm Street, Santa Cruz, Arena, CA 95468. The library is located at more than we ever wished to, and with its Saturday April 20 at 7:30pm. His works are 225 Main Street in Point Arena. Telephone shrinking share of the media landscape and featured in the current issue of the online 707.882.3114. therefore mythscape, is a rather pathetic journal phren-Z. Thank you for your support! shadow of its former glory. That glory may have been built on grand illusions, but Quentin Tarantino Spring 2013 The Redwood Coast Review Page 3 Writers & Writing Mo Betta Red Mo Yan and the latest Nobel controversy Alta Ifland

e have become accustomed by now to to the father of her child, Yu Zhan’ao (also referred to as he Garlic Ballads is less bloody, but very violent none- controversial selections for the Nobel “Commander Yu”), and his comrades-in-arms. From here, Ttheless. To begin with, the novel has an epigraph from Prize in literature, so in this sense it came the story goes backward, following a hard-to-define tempo- none other than Stalin, which is—ironically—an admon- as no surprise that the latest choice has, ral structure that is also present in The Garlic Ballads. It ishment to novelists who try to “distance themselves from once again, left some people shaking their would be too simplistic to say that the story moves back and politics.” My personal guess is that Mo Yan uses the famous Wheads. The difference is that this time the surprise was not forth in time, though it does move between 1939 and 1923 name as a password in order to get his “ballad”—which over the “obscurity” of the writer, but the political implica- (before Douguan, the narrator’s father, was conceived), with criticizes corrupt Chinese officials and policemen—past the tions of the choice. Not only is Mo Yan no dissident, he has occasional flashbacks or “flashforwards” to other years, one censors. often taken positions supporting the Chinese regime. In this of them being 1985, when the narrator returns to his native This novel too has a complicated structure: each chapter sense, the Nobel jury, which in recent years has chosen writ- village. is preceded by a quote from a ballad by Zhang Kou, Paradise ers whose political stances were at least as important as their In 1923 the narrator’s (future) grandmother is sixteen and County’s blind minstrel, in which are summarized the chap- writings (Orhan Pamuk, Herta Müller, Jean-Marie Le Clézio, betrothed to a rich man, owner of a sorghum wine distillery, ter’s events. It is from one of these summaries that we find Harold Pinter), has surprised us. Some commentators—Ian who has only a small problem: he’s a leper. The future bride out that the events take place in 1987 (the book, published Buruma, for instance—have claimed that the surprise is a is transported in a sedan chair pulled by several hired men, in 1988, was, according to some accounts, banned after the good one, considering that much too often the Nobel Prize including Yu Zhan’ao, who eventually kills the bridegroom Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989). Like Red Sorghum, has been awarded for other reasons that strictly literary ones. and moves in with the bride, with whom he fathers a child, The Garlic Ballads is built around an element that infuses Others—those concerned with human rights violations, in Douguan. The novel is written mainly in the third person, the entire novel: here it’s garlic (in all its states, fresh and particular—have been very critical of the prize. from the point of view of the narrator, who has heard the sto- rotten, incorporated in dishes and drinks). But don’t get Although highly appreciated in his home country, Mo ry from his father (Douguan), but there are moments when ready for a fiesta of the senses: by the end of the novel, after Yan has often acted in a way that can not only be categorized the author moves away from this structure to give a voice to dozens of pages of putrefied garlic, and men who belch after as “cowardly,” but can be said to support antidemocratic and other characters. eating too much of it, you don’t want to hear of anything anti-intellectual practices of the Chinese government (for I confess I didn’t understand whether the fighting with garlicky for a while! example, he has participated in the regime’s Maoist propa- the Japanese, described for big chunks of the novel, had oc- The story begins with the arrest of several people accused ganda). Mo Yan has defended himself against his detrac- curred only once, twice, or three or more times. The present of having participated in a mob attack against the County tors by commenting that literature should not be expected is always mixed with the past (something specific to many offices—Gao Jinjiao, Gao Ma, Fourth Aunt Fang, Gao to be “political,” and that for him literature and politics are Chinese writers) and the same butchery occurs in all the Yang—and then, like Red Sorghum, moves back in time, and separate. In principle, I agree with this statement (although fighting scenes, so, in the end, it’s impossible to tell when a then forward again. I lost count of how many times Gao the question of what is “political” may have many different battle has ended and another one has begun. It all seems like Yang is forced to drink his own urine (whether in school or answers), but as it happens, Mo Yan doesn’t agree with him- in his prison cell), and how self. I mean that literature shouldn’t be expected to express many times Jinju (Fourth directly a specific political ideology (even “engaged” writers Aunt Fang’s daughter), in like Sartre knew this, and their best works are only indirectly love with Gao Ma in spite of political). But Mo Yan’s novels are among the most politi- her parents’ wish for her to cal novels I’ve read, and his statement is dishonest. Red marry someone else, is sav- Sorghum (Penguin Books, 1994) is a historical novel, and agely beaten by her parents both Red Sorghum and The Garlic Ballads (Arcade Publish- and brothers. ing, 1995, 2012) are heroic epics concerned with the lives A very original narra- of Chinese peasants at various moments in history. Red tive technique is that in Sorghum takes place in 1923-24 and the late thirties, during the next-to-last chapter the the war against Japan. The Garlic Ballads is set in the late excerpt from the ballad sung eighties, and depicts the interaction between peasants and by Zhang Kou is followed various local Chinese officials. The image of the latter is at by an authorial interven- best unattractive; at worst, these officials are portrayed as tion: “At this point in Zhang highly corrupt and criminal. Kou’s ballad a ferocious Mo Yan is a very political writer, but he is political in a policeman jumped to his way that has the seal of approval of the Chinese government. feet and cursed . . . He There are many events of China’s history (like the wars kicked Zhang Kou in the against Japan) or the corruption of local Chinese officials mouth, cutting off the final that are considered fair criticism. The latter, in particular, note.” Yet, it is only in the is acceptable as long as the system itself is not questioned. last chapter that the minstrel Therefore, when Mo Yan speaks against politics in literature, appears in the story itself, what he really means is that he has no intention to criticize and we are told that he too the Chinese government and communism as an ideology per was briefly incarcerated, se (truth be told, no one has asked him to mix politics and released, and then murdered literature; rather, he was expected to act in a more dignified on a sidewalk, his mouth way in the public sphere situated outside the literary space). crammed full of sticky mud. My guess is that his defense of the Chinese government is Undoubtedly, Mo Yan has rooted in a strong nationalism (visible in his writings) and conceived the slain minstrel a hatred of modernity and materialism (brought to China by as a stand-in for the Artist the “foreign devils”). who tells the truth—thus (in Chen Yumin/AP his vision!) for himself. The aving said this, let’s take a look at the novels them- technique of the ballad as Hselves. Both novels are the kind of long epics that re- a meta-story that parallels quire patience and stamina to finish. In a way, they are very (or mirrors) the thread of Hollywoodian (Red Sorghum, by the way, was made into a Chinese Nobel Laureate Mo Yan the novel, and the charac- very successful film by Jiang Yimou): they are packed with ters’ speech peppered with action, killings, guns, policemen, backstabbing, survival the same, unending battle, to which the writer keeps com- proverbs and “peasant wisdom” remind me of the Albanian after near-death experiences, deeds of heroism and betrayal, ing back. Red Sorghum includes some of the most violent writer Ismail Kadare, whose novels display the same tension and images of gorgeous landscapes. Red Sorghum is set in scenes I’ve ever encountered in a novel: a scene in which the between an old way of life and a society built on communist the village where Mo Yan grew up and which, after he was Japanese order a local butcher to skin a man alive; a scene bureaucracy. awarded the Nobel, the government decided to proudly turn in which, after murdering with a bayonet a little girl in front I admit I forced myself to finish Mo Yan’s novels because into a Chinese theme park. The setting is described with the of her mother, the Japanese soldiers rape and kill the latter; I believe that he is a good stylist and a master of impressive passionate intensity of the former peasant (i.e., Mo Yan) who a scene in which, after a (or several) battle(s) with the Japa- novelistic structures, but I didn’t particularly enjoy them: longs for his roots: “A boundless expanse of sorghum greet- nese, hundreds of dogs from the neighboring villages come it’s not simply that I don’t enjoy reading dozens of pages of ed the reddening sun”; “The space between heaven and earth to devour the corpses—a truly nightmarish landscape that war and prison descriptions; what I find hard to swallow is was filled with the red dust of sorghum and the fragrance of proves the author’s penchant for horrific exaggeration. the author’s belief in a “greater” China, a China of the past sorghum wine”; “She opens her eyes amid the pearly drops when men (and women) acted heroically, in contrast with of sorghum”; “Grandma and Granddad exchanged their love the people of today, only interested in material comfort. surrounded by the vitality of the sorghum field . . . My father Mo Yan is a very political Frankly, if Mo Yan’s example of this greatness is that of a was conceived with the essence of heaven and earth . . .”; time when men ate only “fistcakes” for more than ten years, “[The sorghum stalks] begin to moan, to writhe, to shout, to writer, but he is political in a and spent their lives butchering each other, committing such entwine her.” way that has the seal of ap- acts of bravery as stuffing a goat’s belly with five hundred Mo Yan is famous for his visceral naturalism, in which bullets in order to retrieve them later (once again, Mo Yan he presents the nature of all living creatures in a non- proval of the Chinese govern- might have used the word “hundreds” a little too lightly!), sentimental, raw way (his men fart and belch even in the I’m with the people of today. most romantic moments). Here is an extreme example: “the ment. There are many events Still, Mo Yan is a very complex writer, and his novels are bloated carcasses of dozens of mules had been found floating of China’s history (like the worth reading. Both novels (and, in fact, all of Mo Yan’s in the Black Water River . . . ; their distended bellies, baked novels that have appeared in English) have been masterfully by the sun, split and popped, released their splendid innards, wars against Japan) or the translated by Howard Goldblatt, who deserves at least part like gorgeous blooming flowers.” These descriptions are of the credit for his Nobel Prize. certainly beautiful, but when the author estheticizes scenes corruption of local Chinese with people killed in horrible acts of violence, something officials that are considered seems wrong. Red Sorghum starts in 1939, when the narrator’s grand- fair criticism. Alta Ifland is the author of Voice of Ice, Elegy for a Fabu- mother, a beautiful young woman of unusual intelligence lous World, Death-in-a-Box, and The Snail’s Song. She and courage, is killed by the Japanese while bringing food lives in Northern California. Page 4 The Redwood Coast Review Spring 2013 Style

Black Magic The mysterious powers of the black dress Jane Merryman

he first item of adult clothing I and white shirts. The only woman, Angela hung in my closet was the little Merkel, Chancellor of Germany and con- black dress. It fit me perfectly sidered to be the most powerful woman in and proved to be the right gar- the world, is decked out in red. I have rarely ment for almost any occasion. seen Hillary Clinton in black. News anchor TBack in those days it was important to wear Brian Williams, sitting behind a desk in a the correct attire, to dress appropriately for the dinner, the party, the tea. Yes, we went to teas in those days. If I fretted over how Black sets off the formal or informal the event might be, Mom advised: face, while the varied “You can count on your little black dress to be just right.” and brilliant colors With a brooch, necklace, or scarf it could that dyers were learn- be transformed, so I never grew tired of it. And it had fashion cachet. Parisian designer ing to boil into the Coco Chanel allegedly invented it. By the 1950s it was de rigueur in any woman’s fabrics of the rich closet. and powerful detract It wasn’t until I read Seeing Through Clothes by Anne Hollander (University of from the face, and a California Press, 1978) that I learned the pedigree of the little black dress was far pretty face wants all older than Paris in the twenties. The custom eyes in the room to be of wearing black has a long history in the culture of Europe and, by extension, North focused on it. America. I’m talking about the princely courts—they were what mattered. Ordinary people wore off-white, undyed linen or wool television studio, wears black, while Andrea or else coarse brown or other dull, dark Mitchell reports from the White House lawn clothing that wouldn’t show dirt and grime. in red. What are these people saying to each According to Hollander, the color black other and to the people of the world? Could has since antiquity been associated with it be “We’re just slaves to the fashion maga- darkness, and hence with death, with evil, zines”? Or is it “We’re really serious here”? with fear. Black would be worn if you were It seems women can be serious in color. in mourning or if you were a monk or nun Today, judges in a court of law wear no and had renounced the world. How then did other color but black. The priests and prel- it get to be a color you could wear even if ates of the Catholic Church use the black you were not sad and serious or participat- cassock as their basic uniform. Most gradu- ing in a witches coven at midnight? Where ating classes parade to collect their diplo- did the stylish little black dress come from? mas in black caps and gowns. I believe the Black as a fashion statement can be purpose of this is to project authority—the traced back to the fourteenth century and authority of law, both secular and religious, the courts of France and Burgundy. During and the authority of accomplishment. Teach- this transition period between the Medieval ers have been advised to wear black on the and Renaissance eras, clothes of the latest day they hand out grades—their clothing style were brightly colored, for women and will say, “Don’t question my authority.” for men. Hollander points out that some dis- cerning people noticed black enhances the o what is the authority of the little black complexion. It sets off the face, while the Sdress hanging in my closet? As a cash- varied and brilliant colors that dyers were poor college student and an almost-as-poor learning to boil into the fabrics of the rich Portrait of Madame X by John Singer Sargent young working woman, I hoped the simple and powerful actually detract from the face, lines and understatement projected a finely and a pretty face wants all eyes in the room tuned fashion sense and the ability to carry to be focused on it. Can vanity have been statement. At the same time, Catherine de’ Soon it became all the rage to relieve the it off while on a budget. Since then I have the impetus behind the little black dress? Medici was a standout all in black, but she pall of black with a strip of white around always had a black dress at the ready mainly was in mourning and also wanted to project the neck. Fifteenth-century ensembles that because it has the “authority” of being more hilip the Good, the duke of Burgundy, is an aura of piety. In the wake of these role we see in the paintings of the era frequently than one dress. It makes one statement with Psupposedly the first to have entered his models, the Spaniards and the Dutch, who at show this dramatic combination. Many of a handwoven shawl, another with a glittery peacock court dressed in the latest fash- that time were ruled by Spain, took to wear- the religious orders adopted black-and-white beaded necklace, another with a red silk ionably cut garments all in black. Was he ing black as a matter of course. Instead of habits, and this puzzles me. Monks and nuns rose fastened at the waist. mocking his courtiers, criticizing their van- being an anti-fashion rebellion, black came were supposed to be renouncing the world In today’s world, small as it has become, ity? We don’t know for sure, but he was cer- to represent the epitome of conformity. and its vanities, yet they made a point of clothing customs are discovered, shared, ad- tainly making a statement, an anti-fashion wearing garments of the latest style. opted with increasing rapidity. Take the case By the seventeenth century black cloth- of jeans and t-shirts, now ubiquitous around ing or black with a touch of white filtered the world. The influence of black has also down to the bourgeoisie and became almost traveled. About ten years ago when I started a uniform for the clergy and for wealthy visiting Bali, I saw that the women wore businessmen. Here’s where we become their signature long-sleeved lacy blouses, Refrain aware of the paradoxical nature of black. kebayas, in colors of white, cream, and It’s worn on all occasions as the latest fash- beige. When I returned two years ago, I wit- If that woodpecker turned his busy head, he would see ion while remaining the color of the powers nessed a religious procession where almost a middle-aged woman on her back on a towel on a plastic lounger of darkness—we have records that show in all the women wore black kebayas. I asked on a south-facing deck at eleven in the morning, wearing nothing the theatrical presentations of the time Satan what had brought on this sudden change in and Death were costumed in black. a country where longstanding tradition rules but a gold band on her right second toe. Her arms are over her head In literature, from the Romanticism of their lives. in a submissive gesture that reminds her of how she’s been bound. the early nineteenth century through the “We looked at the European and Ameri- Her face is angled left to catch a whiff of musk, novels of Dickens and into the twentieth can magazines and saw women wearing century, black was the customary wear of black. We want to be chic like them,” they recalling the lover who said don’t wash just yet. perverted priests, depraved youths, sneaky told me. Evidently, their fear associated with If the breeze, if the long-haired cat clawing in his sleep, politicians and mysterious women. Black the dark forest where evil spirits lurk does if the tweezers of doubt were not amplified now by the calling of crows, was considered erotic as well as satanic. not carry over into the realm of apparel. Worn other than for mourning in polite soci- Nowadays I dress mostly in color— she would be at peace, and draw a hush around her ety it was considered rebellious. Hollander bright blue and purple, soft pink and yel- like the redwoods draw—these ancient trees whose branches holds up Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X as low—merely to celebrate the delicious fact reach out and down, instead of up, in such supplication. a prime example of the power of the black of color, the elusive rainbow, the shimmer- dress to isolate and at the same time distin- ing prism. But I keep my little black dress guish the wearer. to serve as a backdrop for a vibrant scarf or —Jennie Orvino With the French Revolution and the a hand-fashioned pin. It’s also my tribute to spread of democratic or at least antimonar- Philip the Good and to Coco. Thanks, you chical institutions, men stopped wearing two, for the revolution. From Poetry, Politics & Passion brightly colored satins, silks and velvets. www.jennieorvino.com Today, look at a photo of a G8 summit and you see a collection of the most powerful Jane Merryman of Petaluma is a frequent men in the world all dressed in black suits RCR contributor.

Spring 2013 The Redwood Coast Review Page 5

Flesh and Iron A dialectic of dress Rebecca Taksel

lothing designer Isaac Mizrahi compliments a When I was in college my mother bought me a finely tai- contestant on Project Runway: “I always feel lored suit of camel-colored wool. The jacket was hip-length, the flesh in your clothes, and that’s important.” fitted; and the pants had a very slightly flared cuffed bottom. Clothing as skin, clothing from the inside out. There was something of the 1930s about that suit, something I run into my friend Mark. He looks great, of Marlene Dietrich. I wanted to wear it every day. Ameri- Cvery trim. “I lost 65 pounds,” he tells me. “I didn’t think can women didn’t do that, but French and Italian women you had 65 pounds to lose!” I exclaim. “I wore good suits.” did, precisely because they had suits like that one. The suit Clothing as armor, clothing from the outside in. was armor, yes, almost military with its row of black buttons The Greeks furnish the prototype of clothing as skin, at on the jacket and its form-fitting, rather severe silhouette. least in urban settings. Greek clothes were simple squares or But when I put it on it became me, the skin in which I could rectangles of cloth draped on the body. Over the draped gar- navigate the world. ment, young men and horsemen wore a short cloak. Some- Enter the boyfriend. I can’t even think of his name, as times they omitted the long garment and rode or walked the song says. He did not like that suit; he did not like me about in just the cloak. This was perfectly acceptable. in that suit. Why didn’t I dress more comfortably? Why The Romans continued the tradition of drapery as the was I so uptight, that magical word for intimidating young dress of civilized people. Encountering sewn trousers and women? The next time I saw him I was in slouchy jeans shirts on the barbarians to the north of the Empire, they and a slouchy, silky blouse. He didn’t compliment me, but judged such garments as suitable only for inferior peo- he was visibly relieved. That beautiful suit had intimidated ples. him. Now I looked soft, vulnerable, and available, a tame Daphne Guinness Our images of the ancient world still carry connota- chick in the barnyard competition among his male peers. tions—descending from highbrow to lowbrow—of freedom, I made the wrong choice the day I stopped wearing the it’s a second skin, sometimes a very structured one, that license, licentiousness. It was inevitable that California girl suit, and it was many years before I reclaimed the spirit brings us into balance with ourselves and others. Isadora Duncan looked to the Greek model for costuming of my body. I mean that very specifically: not a spirit held Women have more opportunity than men to experiment her liberationist dances, and just as inevitable that early- within my body but the spirit of the body itself. It is the with their own style, using color, line, and texture to invent twentieth-century American puritans found her billowing spirit we call style. and reinvent their presentation of themselves. A few are draperies indecent. designers themselves. Some, like Madge and like fashion The heritage of the West gives us a whole set of related editor Anna Piaggi, whose exuberant, absolutely individual contrasts stemming from the Greco-Roman versus the bar- We sometimes call it being style was memorialized in a layout by Bill Cunningham in barian: Tailoring is vigor, masculinity and the north; drapery comfortable in our own skin. The New York Times just after her death in 2012, find their is indolence, effeminacy, the south. With the ascendancy of livelihood in the fashion world. There are women in enter- the barbarians in Europe came the primacy of tailoring over But it’s a second skin, some- tainment whose style sense is at least as important to their draping. Power dressing at the very top continued to involve success as their talent, from Josephine Baker to Lady Gaga. royal robes, but with the rise of the bourgeoisie we finally times a very structured one, (In this field, at least, the occasional man, usually androgy- get the well-tailored suit, the softened armor that served my that brings us into balance with nous, is included. David Bowie comes delightfully to mind.) friend Mark so well. Then there are the women who become famous just for “I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” ourselves and others. wearing clothes so very well. This group consists almost Ever since the 1960s I’ve encountered this nugget from entirely of rich, idle women, most recently and most spec- Thoreau’s Walden at least once a year. I’ve come to loathe tacularly, Daphne Guinness, of the brewery Guinnesses. A it. It is always uttered by a man, usually one whose cloth- 2011 profile of her in The New Yorker describes her like ing pushes comfortable up to and often over the edge into this: “With her fondness for lace ruffles and velvet chok- sloppy, the new American style formerly favored by the ers and frock coats of the sort worn by Regency dandies, powerless but now widely adopted by the techno elite. and the disciplined line of her silhouette, Guinness To be fair to Thoreau, I will quote the second part of the often resembles both a Gainsborough portrait of a lady and a sentence: “ . . . and not rather a new wearer of clothes.” Gainsborough portrait of the lady’s husband.” At the time of New clothes, fashionable clothes, hide something. They al- the article, Daphne’s New York apartment contained a ward- low us to be phony, second-rate and vain. The sincere inner robe of 2500 outfits, 250 handbags, and 400 pairs of shoes. person cannot shine through that armor of falseness which is The occasion for the magazine article was a show at the fashion. For very different reasons than Isaac Mizrahi, this Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. FIT has ex- sincere man wants clothing as skin, a membrane that lets the hibition spaces where imaginative shows are mounted from inner man out as easily as possible. the Institute’s collection of garments. In a departure from There’s a tinge of self-conscious democratizing along their usual practice, FIT invited Daphne Guinness to help with the puritanism in this view When the hippies, fans of curate a show from the things in her own closets. Thoreau to a man, insisted on jeans, they were advocating The Daphne of mythology is a nymph pursued by Apollo, democracy, pushing deliberately against class-bound dress. who calls to her father, a river god, to save her. He does so Suddenly you couldn’t tell a trust-fund baby from a con- by turning her into a laurel tree, and Apollo declares that the struction worker. Denim had been for so long the clothing laurel will henceforth be sacred to him. If you walk around Bernini’s marble statue of Daphne in Rome, you see the of the hardest-working people and, not coincidentally, some Anna Piaggi of the poorest: small farmers and sharecroppers, railroad transformation, as her upraised arm becomes a branch, her men, sailors. torso is encased in bark, and finally the woman disappears, While men have continued on a trajectory straight hat I needed that day was Madge Garland, who flesh armored, hardened, transformed. Daphne Guinness upward (or downward, depending upon your point of view) Wlearned style the hardest possible way and taught it to regularly performs this transformation. towards ever-increasing comfort in clothing and footwear, many others. Madge Garland’s story is crisply and beauti- According to the museum staff, Daphne made a quick and women’s fashion has been more complicated. We’ve not fully told in Lisa Cohen’s 2012 book, All We Know: Three efficient job of setting up the exhibition. An anteroom fea- gone back quite to the extreme of the very sheer Empire Lives. Born in England, Madge had an unhappy childhood tured little windows filled with the horrifying shoes Daphne dress of 1800, which sometimes bared the breasts entirely; marked by parental coldness and by an illness that forced favors, many designed for her by her friend the late Alexan- nor have we been so fully encased in metal hoops, bone her to immobilize her wracked body for long periods. But der McQueen. As I walked through the darkened spaces of corsets, and bolts of heavy cloth as we were in the 1860s. Madge knew fabric—her father was in the business—and the main exhibition rooms, I reminded myself that Daphne We are, though, still moving back and forth along a fairly she decided she would be independent and have a career in cannot be anything but ridiculous if she walks more than a wide spectrum, experimenting with clothing as skin, cloth- the clothing trade. few steps on those massively high and bulky platforms. But ing as armor, sometimes, in some moments and in some Garland’s life in fashion from the 1920s through the Daphne immobile, in showcase after showcase of manne- individual women, achieving a breathtakingly beautiful 1960s reveals in myriad ways the paradox of the “fluidity quins dressed in her gowns, suits, blouses and shirts, jewelry balance. and painfulness of borders,” in Cohen’s words, that clothing and ribbons, is entrancing. interposes between our consciousness of ourselves and our The clothes varied from the outrageous—a dress that need and desire to be with others. This thin, delicate, half- is literally armor, made of outward-pointing nails—to the educated woman, who lived in the not-quite-acknowledged supremely lovely—those frock coats. A surprising number, lesbian relationships tolerated by her sophisticated social set, like suits by Georgio Armani, did not cross the line from became not only a writer, editor and consultant to the British clothing to costume. government on wartime clothing manufacture, but the sort of It was all incredibly—liberating. Here was a presence, iconic figure of style who elevated the tone of any gathering that of a real woman of enormous imagination. The effect of she attended just by showing up. Many of the artists and that presence was encouragement. There was nothing about intellectuals who moved in Madge’s circle sought her advice Daphne, despite the nails, despite the weaponry of the shoes, about clothes; they were aware of her as someone who had that seemed intimidating. In the film that played in a loop in made consciousness visible, who quite literally embodied the anteroom of the exhibit, she appeared quiet, quite beauti- our being-in-the-world. ful and fair, a little vacant, but eager to share the beauty and Madge understood the instability of our sense of self strangeness of her style. as we move among others, being “shaped, included and I’m older than Daphne, and much less rich; but I left that transformed,” as Cohen puts it, when we are successful in exhibit with the realization that I could, and probably would, our presentation of ourselves, or being awkward, excluded, experiment with any styles that struck me, that I could play unfinished and unsuitable, when we are not. For Madge, in that space between me and not-me, private and public, being well dressed “meant feeling the division between how could be “shaped, included, transformed” in ways of my she saw herself and how others saw her, and feeling that own devising, infinitely, through my whole life. difference disappear.” I remember the moment when I wore the camel-colored suit and felt that difference disappear. We n C ecil B eato sometimes call it being comfortable in our own skin. But RCR contributing editor Rebecca Taksel lives in Pittsburgh. Madge Garland Page 6 The Redwood Coast Review Spring 2013 readers’ letters

us, not just twisted, drug-addled goof-offs. maybe we haven’t heard the last from him. I’ve never lived in California, but I The RCR Underground Sorry to see him gone. I hope so. visited Arthur and Kit in Petaluma and in All-Stars Re Philip Roth: have you read The Great I found the origin of The Redwood Coast Sacramento (Citrus Heights) and love the American Novel, his hilarious account of a Review to be most interesting. And you area. I have just received, and read, your Winter scandal-ridden major baseball league erased certainly have turned it into something way Keep up the good work! issue of The Redwood Coast Review. It is from the history books as a result of the beyond the newsletter of a local library. a gem. Red Scare of the McCarthy era? It’s rarely Bravo! Michael Wurster Undoubtedly you must have an under- mentioned in reviews and articles centered Pittsburgh ground of remarkably colorful and talented on Roth but is well worth reading, even if it Pamela Malone colleagues, most of them living in the Bay does sort of peter out three-quarters of the Leonia, New Jersey Area: Zara Raab, Erin Schey, Stephen way through the book. Bakalyar, Terry Ross, to name a few. Each And Stephen, I love your poem about A hand for the emanates in some way from a hidden (to driving past the make-out session at Devil’s nonfamous me) intelligentsia and it is a pleasure to hear Slide. Wonderful. from them. Thank you for the Winter RCR. A great Lee Quarnstrom Your piece entitled “What Hath Roth collection of articles. I particularly liked La Habra Wrought?” not only displays your skepti- your tribute to Knight and “Invisible Men” cism toward Roth but mine as well. Do not by Terry Ross. I applaud all you have done include me among his slavish followers; I to make more visible the work of wonderful gave up on him and Saul Bellow decades writers who have not happened to hit the ago. Roth should try jackpot of fame. I think with the Internet changing access and building connections in Henry Kessler nonfiction the future, not so many great writers will go Goleta unappreciated, but it is our generation and I totally agree about Philip Roth. I read the ones before that need the extra hand you the same Times interview. Too bad that have been giving them. he hasn’t hitherto stretched his wings into Thank you for putting in the correction Beats were more than nonfiction, an advantage that Updike had. giving me credit for the illustration [Fall It would be great to read Roth’s takes on 2012]. twisted goof-offs books and the other arts, or his musings about anything. I believe one should be Another stellar issue. Thought provok- Kay Bradner open to evolving and changing as a writer ing. And here are a couple: I think Arthur Arthur Winfield Knight San Francisco when one avenue has come to its final end. Knight [“A Knight Errant of the New Old But he leaves a terrific legacy. West,” Winter 2013] served an unusual Of Roth’s more recent works, I found In- function vis à vis the Beat Generation. dignation to be one of his best novels, writ- While pop magazines continued for years ten with such force and driving prose. A You got Knight right after Kerouac and Cassady’s cross-country note I wrote to myself at the time about the WRITE TO US rambles to poke fun at stereotypical goateed book: “A piercing anger that cuts through Kit Knight sent me a copy of the Winter “beatniks” in berets while academics were The RCR welcomes your letters. so much drek.” On the other hand, The 2013 issue of The Redwood Coast Review. starting to drag Beat writers and their works Humbling was awful. As if Roth, like his Thank you for your piece on Arthur. You Write to the Editor, RCR c/o up into their ivory towers, Arthur and Kit character, had lost his gift. After reading got it exactly right! Knight produced a series of thoughtful and ICO, PO Box 1200, Gualala, that one, even I was ready for Philip to give I enjoyed many of the other articles, provocative collections and studies that it a little rest. Since he made hard work out especially the one by Jane Merryman on CA 95445 or by email to considered Kerouac, Ginsberg, et al.—and of writing, and would obsess a whole day black-and-white movies. A subscription [email protected]. their successors and acolytes—as serious over one sentence, he certainly has a right request and check are enclosed. individuals with spiritually rich outlooks to take it easy and retire. But as you say, that were worthy of consideration by all of Spring 2013 The Redwood Coast Review Page 7 B i b l i o t e c a News, Views, Notes, Reviews, Reports and Exhortations from Friends of Coast Community Library president’s Desk “I don’t know when I first discovered library lines that Detective Bobby Sabbatini of the Saint Paul Police Department had a photographic memory for poetry. He always tucked a Mindy’s couple of slim volumes of verse into the A Place flapped pockets of his silk jacket, or curled them into the pouches of his bomber. Vision “I heard that the stuff came spewing and Time out of him all day. He’d recite Ginsberg or Gary Snyder to some kid making espressos Greg Jirak & Lori Hubbart at Dunn Bros. A bit of a blue-collar poem, by Philip Levine, to an ancient gal scanning for Teens t seems like only yesterday that our groceries at Kowalski’s. Everybody loved it, financially challenged county govern- because Sabbatini did it with a light touch. Elizabeth Kalen ment was threatening to shut down one “A tall, slender man, with silvered tem- I ples, Sabbatini dressed better than any cop or more library branches. Friends of Coast Community Library rallied local residents, I’ve known. Dude was his own man. Played s spring arrives, new things are be- who wrote letters and attended a board of viola in the university orchestra at Michigan ginning at the library, especially for supervisors meeting en masse. The Friends State, just as I played cello at Berkeley. He Ayoung adults. We’ve just launched groups from the other county branches did was a long distance runner during college. Comix, a graphic novel discussion group likewise. Hearts and minds were united as Claimed he kept himself going by humming for teens ages thirteen to eighteen. We meet many people stood up and testified about Bart Schneider bars from Bartok’s third and fourth string every Tuesday from 4pm to 5pm to discuss why they valued public libraries. Students quartets.” various graphic novels. Our focus is look- from a Point Arena class spoke out with all That’s the hook. And it was plenty for ing at what makes a graphic novel a good the sincerity of youth, and were regarded as me. I read the novel through with great rel- read and what aspiring graphic artists can one of the day’s highlights. ish. It has a satisfying storyline that makes learn from different styles of graphic novels. That high level of public enthusiasm Of Poetry excellent use of the poetic and musical ele- This particular program will run for nine carried over to the Measure A campaign to ments set up in the first paragraphs. Boyer is weeks, and if we get enough interest, we secure sales tax money to support the coun- hired by a beautiful and mysterious violinist might form a permanent monthly program ty’s libraries. It was a fast-paced, frenetic & Murder and becomes involved with neo-Nazis, sto- on the topic. period that also seems just like yesterday. len instruments, guns, drugs, anti-abortion Both longtime graphic novel fans and We’ve crossed over into a new world now, activists and the Republican National Con- those new to graphic novels are welcome in with sales tax dollars coming in, and a new, Daniel Barth vention. It’s an excellent mix, plot moves the group. We are also welcoming aspir- proactive County Librarian, Mindy Kittay. right along and all that, but mostly I was in ing graphic artists. There will be time and it for the poetry. resources to help young graphic artists get As she points out, the sales tax funds are The Man in the Blizzard just enough to bring our libraries back to a Sabbatini’s (read Schneider’s) taste started on creating their own characters by Bart Schneider in poetry is not narrow. He has a wide and stories. The graphic novels for this pre-financial-crisis level. Three Rivers Press (2008), 293 pages Ms. Kittay has high standards for public awareness of poets and poems, classical program were provided by the California to contemporary, widely known to locally Center for the Book as part of their Book libraries, and so should we all. It turns out Nameless Dame: Murder on the that many states actually have formal stan- renowned. By my count there are fifty poets Club in a Box program. Russian River mentioned in The Man in the Blizzard, and Our young adult collection has been dards for their libraries. Colorado, where by Bart Schneider Mindy worked in public libraries, is one of fifteen poems cited in part or in full. As it updated and expanded. It’s a continuing Soft Skull Press (2012), 296 pages them. The standards cover such areas as happens, memorizing poems and encour- project, but we’ve already added quite collections, community engagement, mar- aging others to do the same is one of my a few fresh, new titles including recent recent enthusiasms, so Bobby Sabbatini award winners and hot new authors like keting and advocacy, services and programs, all it mystery, detective fiction, came along at just the right time for me. He Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, the winner facilities and technology. crime fiction, whodunit or what not only loves to read and recite verse, but of the 2012 Morris Award for first-time au- We may think of our state as a progres- you will. From Edgar Allan Poe he’s a sort of poetry therapist, taking time thors. The book on CD collection has also sive place, but incredibly, California has and Arthur Conan Doyle through to match his friends with poets who are just been expanded to include both fiction and no such standards for its public libraries. Dashiell Hammett and Agatha right for them, and strongly suggesting that nonfiction adding new fresh titles like the If we’re ever to get them, it may well be CChristie to Janet Evanovich and Elmore they commit certain poems to memory. nonfiction award finalist We’ve Got a Job by Mendocino County that leads the way. Leonard the genre has sustained great popu- I’m tempted to make a list here, but Cynthia Levinson and the historical novel Meanwhile, informed by her experience larity. Authors continue to find new ways to it would rapidly grow long and leave me Wrapped by Jennifer Bradbury. in Colorado, and inspired by Mendocino’s engage readers and sell books. Some do it wondering which poets to leave off. Suffice We now have available young adult overwhelming support of Measure A, Mindy with setting, others with intricate plotting, it to say that if you like poetry at all you and children’s ebooks and downloadable is working to fortify and expand our library many with a sympathetic and quirky narra- will love the poems and poetic references in audiobooks through the Downloadable system. tor/protagonist. Bart Schneider does it with this novel, and the many musical and artistic Library link on the county website. These Outreach to the public is fundamental poetry. references as well. For now one poem will ebooks will work on computers, Kindles, to a dynamic library system, and Mindy is Poetry? Yes, Schneider’s novels The Man have to do, introduced and recited by Sab- Kobos, Nooks and many other devices. The inviting library patrons to provide feedback in the Blizzard and Nameless Dame feature batini: downloadable audiobooks work on comput- about their libraries. Look for comment a poetry-loving detective who is on a mis- “Here’s Wislawa Szymborska’s poem ers, iPod, and other mp3 players. There is cards in all the library branches. Soon you sion to turn the whole world on to the joys ‘ABC.’ Every detective on the street should a wide range of titles available including will be able to send your comments via the of verse. These books also feature nicely be required to memorize it. new and popular teen titles like Divergent library’s Web site, as well as signing up drawn settings, sardonic humor, political by Veronica Roth available both as an ebook for an online county library newsletter. A satire and a quirky but likeable narrator. “I’ll never find out now and a downloadable auidobook. You can blog about happenings at all the branches Schneider is no newcomer to the literary what A. thought of me. even put holds on titles that don’t have cop- is in the works, as well as the inevitable scene. He was a founding editor of Hungry If B. ever forgave me in the end. ies available at the moment. Facebook page. Mind Review and is the author of three Why C. pretended everything was fine. Another one of the ongoing projects is You can also help by telling the branch “literary” novels: Blue Bossa, Secret Love What part D. played in E.’s silence. updating and expanding our graphic novel manager at your local library what you like and Beautiful Inez. Those novels do have What F. had been expecting, if anything. collection. We’ve already added a number about the library and what new services elements of crime and intrigue, but with The Why G. forgot when she knew perfectly of new manga (Japanese graphic novels) you would like to see. When you travel, Man in the Blizzard he definitely stepped well. titles to the collection such as Library Wars: visit public libraries—especially the smaller into the mystery camp. What H. had to hide. Love & War and W Juliet. We are also add- ones. Look around and ask questions. Are The book is set in Saint Paul, Minnesota, What I. wanted to add. ing new Western graphic novels to the col- there things you like that could be adopted where Schneider lived for 25 years. The nar- If my being nearby lection. Other new graphic novels now on at your library? rator is Augie Boyer, a divorced, pot-smok- meant anything the shelves include the anthology Hopeless Libraries are no longer just collections ing private eye who is eking out a living to J. and K. and the rest of the alphabet.” Savages. We would love feedback about pa- of books. Beyond Internet access, new in the Twin Cities. The poetry proselytizer trons’ favorite graphic novels and what they technologies await us, and there are some is his friend Bobby Sabbatini. Here’s the n Nameless Dame the action moves west, might like to see in that section. We are wonderful techno-offerings out there that opening: we will outline in a future column. Ito Sonoma County, California. Sabbatini also looking at adding a number of anime Mindy Kittay has a vision: “We want the has married Boyer’s sometime assistant, (Japanese animation) titles to the collection Mendocino County Public Libraries to be Bobby Sabbatini Blossom, quit the Saint Paul police force, as well in the future. the public education centers of our county came along at just the and moved to the bucolic environs of Ca- More new programs for older kids and and the place people turn to for the dis- zadero, near the Pacific Ocean north of San young adults are in the works, and before covery of ideas, the joy of reading and the right time for me. He Francisco. He has become even more poetry you know it, it will be time for the Sum- power of information. Community needs crazed, and plans to open a poetry karaoke mer Reading Program. This year the theme drive our services and we take a personal not only loves to read bar, named Ginsberg’s Galley, in the town is “Reading Is So Delicious,” and for the interest in ensuring that they are delivered and recite verse, but of Guerneville on the Russian River. Boyer first time there will be a teen component to in a welcoming, convenient and responsive is invited out from Saint Paul to attend the the program. Keep your eyes out for more manner.” he’s a sort of poetry grand opening. information about that as we get closer to A good future doesn’t just happen. We Schneider also moved to Sonoma County summer. must expend energy to usher in the future therapist, taking time in the interval between these two novels, a we want, working together. The public to match his friends return for him actually. He grew up in San library embodies core American ideals like Francisco and took degrees from St. Mary’s self-reliance and opportunity for all. Please with poets who are just College and San Francisco State before Elizabeth Kalen is Coast Community Li- join us in this visionary adventure. Call moving to Minnesota. brary’s children’s and young adult librarian. 707.882.3114 to volunteer. right for them. She is the author of Mostly Manga, which is available at the library. See MURDER page 9 Page 8 The Redwood Coast Review Spring 2013 home from page 1

On land we have calendars to keep seventeen days. It was not, she says, a calm writer. Living flood,” the publisher is taking “notes on our days from blending together, but we retreat but a round of activities: Ping-Pong, in the attic of what seems not too important, what isn’t also have landmarks as illustrated by this yoga, music, dancing, lectures, films, and a house owned spectacular.” In Dublin, he celebrates sentence from Flann O’Brien: “The whole heavy American-style meals served by a by Margue- Bloomsday, an odyssey of an ordinary day overhead was occupied by the sky, serene, third-world crew, as I guessed, to mostly rite Duras, in Joyce’s Ulysses, bearing the weight now impenetrable, ineffable and incomparable, seniors who were already weighed down by the would-be “of the end of the Gutenberg age,” and, with a fine island of clouds anchored in the their years. Even thinking about that cruise, author carries as his friend Ricardo says at their funeral calm two yards to the right of Mr. Jarvis’ I feel a sadness, to quote O’Brien again, around in his ceremony, “rhyming with Doomsday.” outhouse.” At sea—the very expression “more remote and desolate than a great back pocket In a second visit to Dublin, the publisher suggests confusion—it must be even more strand of evening with the sea far away at a her mystifying lives out a prophetic dream that he will start instructions important to keep a log, to record sightings, distant town.” Enrique Vila-Matas drinking again and fall to the ground in his and keep one’s days from disappearing in for writing wife’s arms; the next day she leaves him water and sky. Outside of the occasional was the first to get Vila-Matas’s Dublin- (#5 textual effect, #13 linguistic register), “with a Buddhist slam of the door,” and he dolphin or albatross, I suppose one would I esque from the library, as there was no frequents the same café as Roland Barthes, walks around “ghostlike, as if he were one encounter a stranger with a story to tell, waiting list. When I asked for this Spanish meets Orwell’s wife sweeping the hallway of those fellows that turned up so often in most likely a senior. On my home cruise I author at the bookstore, the clerk said, “I in Marguerite’s house, and sees Samuel the celebrated novels he published.” also encounter seniors and, although they don’t know who that is,” and then he apolo- Beckett in the Jardin du Luxembourg, “a The pleasure of a Vila-Matas novel is not are not strangers, they are always strangely gized to the next customer, who couldn’t black bird reading a newspaper.” The in the plot but in the asides, the literary quo- themselves. find Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, ex- young Vila-Matas is writing a book called tations and anecdotes, for instance a Samuel One old plaining that they had sold out because the The Lettered Assassin, about his “tragic Beckett letter describing his reaction to friend, who book, written by a comedian, had received move to criminal prose after writing po- Joyce (“I realized that my own way was has been ill, so many hits on the Internet. These days etry.” When spring comes to Paris, it is impoverishment . . . subtracting rather than surprised me an author should at least have a Web site “a grave setback to his habitual state of adding”) or a remembered line from King the other day and accumulated friends on Facebook. But youthful despair.” At one point he delivers Lear after the publisher has fallen to drink. at my door. it must be hard to have all those “friends” a manuscript to the Peruvian writer Julio (“The wretch that thou hast blown onto the A hand- looking over your shoulder. I would prefer Ribeyro. Too shy to speak, he runs down worst owes nothing to thy blasts.”) some lad to write for that big, patient dog I saw in a the stairs and Ribeyro calls after him, “Calm To explain who might enjoy Vila-Matas, when I first local library, listening to beginning readers. down.” He remembers this encounter “with I return to Flann O’Brien and his “molly- met him at The melancholy narrator of Dublin- a warmth that arrives from far away and cule theory,” as elaborated by his police- twenty-five, lingers so long afterward,” a warmth that man: “Everything is composed of small Flann O’Brien esque is a publisher who has given up his he was now company and plans a trip to Ireland to hold makes the autobiographical Never An End particles of itself and they are flying around a handsome and boyish-looking old man a mock funeral for the death of literature To Paris the most touching of Via-Matas’s in concentric circles and arcs and seg- who steadied himself with a cane. For a on Bloomsday. Vila-Matas’s narrators ironic novels. ments and innumerable other geometrical number of years he had walked and taken are shifting versions of the author. They The narrator of Dublinesque has become figures too numerous to mention . . . the public transportation so as not to contribute are close to his age—in his sixties as he a hikkomori, the Japanese word for a gross and net result of that is people who to global warming, but now he had to drive. writes this book. The narrator of Montano’s computer nerd who finds it difficult to leave spend most of their natural lives riding On painkiller, he was more cheerful than Malady, an earlier book, is an alcoholic his room. Separated from alcohol, he has a iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of he had ever been, laughing as he reported a writer, while this publisher narrator has nostalgia for bygone dinners with writers, this parish get their personalities mixed up 180-kilometer-long traffic jam in Sao Paulo given up drinking after becoming very ill. “who are such great drinkers.” with the personalities of their bicycles as a and a nine-day, 100-mile standstill on a road The writer’s wife in Montano’s Malady is a By making a leap to Dublin, a foreign result of interchanging of the atoms.” So to Beijing. “It’s too late now,” he said, “but publisher while the narrator’s wife in Dub- city, he hopes to revive himself. But it is Vila-Matas’s narrators, whether writers or I hope to live long enough to see the Earth linesque works at a museum and is becom- raining in Dublin as it was raining at his publishers, are such constant readers, that ravaged.” Always a Jeremiah, he did warn ing a Buddhist. home in Barcelona. It also rains in London they have become book people interesting me before he left that according to the latest In Never an End to Paris, published only where he takes his elderly parents to see perhaps only to others who suffer from the studies eating one egg yolk was equivalent two years before Dublinesque, Vila-Matas an apocalyptic rainy installation at the Tate same malady. to smoking a cigarette. recalls, with humor, his life in Paris as a Gallery, which they view with “astonish- When my cruising friend returned, she ment as the end of the world.” In this atmo- young man who has read Hemingway’s Hilda Johnston lives in Berkeley. told me that it had rained all but three of the A Moveable Feast and wants to become a sphere of “great catastrophe and universal

Some Recent Arrivals @ Coast Community Library

FICTION Cooper, Thomas. Tankhouse: California’s Warshaw, Matt. The history of surfing Tanigawa, Nagaru. The melancholy of Coplin, Amanda. The orchardist redwood water towers from a bygone era Weil, Andrew. True food: seasonal, sustain- Haruhi Suzumiya. 1 Erdrich, Louise. The round house Dadd-Redalia, Debra. Toxic free: how to able, simple, pure Yumi, Kiiro. Library wars: love & war. Groff, Lauren. Arcadia protect your health and home from the Vols. 4-8 Hilderbrand, Elin. Summerland chemicals that are making you sick BIOGRAPHY Kingsolver, Barbara. Flight behavior Dubin, Margaret Denise. Seaweed, salmon, Braverman, Kate. Frantic transmissions YOUNG ADULT BOOKS ON CD Mantel, Hilary. Bring up the bodies and Manzanita cider: a California to and from Los Angeles: an accidental Bradbury, Jennifer. Wrapped Silva, Daniel. The fallen angel Indian feast memoir Dixon, Heather. Entwined Stedman, M. L. The light between Farris, Glenn J. So far from home: Russians Gabrielsson, Eva. “There are things I want Levinson, Cynthia. We’ve got a job oceans in early California you to know” about Stieg Larsson and Marillier, Juliet. Wildwood dancing Xinran. Sky burial: an epic love story Geiger, Daniel L. Abalone: world-wide me Marrin, Albert. Flesh and blood so cheap of Tibet Haliotidae Remnick, David. The bridge: the life and Wein, Elizabeth. Code name Verity Hachisu, Nancy Singleton. Japanese farm rise of Barack Obama NONFICTION food EASY BOOKS Apton, William H. Mendonomans: the Hensher, Philip. The missing ink: the lost DVDs Clark, Leslie Ann. Peepsqueak people, the land art of handwriting Beasts of the southern wild Fleming, Candace. Oh, no! Bailey, Christine. The raw food diet: the Joakimides, Lisa. Lisa’s luscious cookbook: Between the folds: a film about finding Kann, Victoria. Emeraldalicious healthy way to get the shape you want suggested uses & recipes for preserves & inspiration in unexpected places Klassen, J. This is not my hat Bauer, Nancy. The California wildlife chutneys Climbing redwood giants Litwin, Eric. Pete the cat and his four habitat garden: how to attract bees, Kahrl, Fredrich. Climate change in Califor- District 9 groovy buttons butterflies, birds, and other animals nia: risk and response Downton Abbey: Seasons 1-3 Bouvard, Marguerite. The invisible Kalen, Elizabeth. Mostly manga: a genre Eyes on the prize: America’s civil rights JUVENILE NONFICTION wounds of war: coming home from guide to popular manga, manhwa, man- years Baines, Rebecca. Everything dogs Iraq and Afghanistan hua, and anime Hoarders: The complete season one Connolly, Sean. The book of potentially Clark, Cora. Pomo Indian myths and Kohl, Herbert R. The Herb Kohl reader: Incident at Oglala catastrophic science some of their sacred meanings awakening the heart of teaching Lark Rise to Candleford: Seasons 1-3 Miché, Mary. Nature’s patchwork quilt: Kreidler, Mark. The voodoo wave: inside Locavore: local diet, healthy planet understanding habitats a season of triumph and tumult at Mav- Moonrise kingdom erick’s The office (BBC): Seasons 1-2 JUVENILE FICTION Loeb, Edwin M. Pomo folkways Waste land Kinney, Jeff. The third wheel Library Hours Macgregor, Neil. A history of the world in Wordplay Loftin, Nikki. The sinister sweetness of 100 objects Splendid Academy Monday 12 noon - 6 pm Oswalt, Robert Louis. Kashaya texts YOUNG ADULT FICTION Peirce, Lincoln. Big Nate fun blaster Tuesday 10am - 6 pm Patrick, K. C. The Pomo of Lake County Bigelow, Lisa J. Starting from here Pilkey, Dav. Captain Underpants and the Wednesday 10am - 8 pm Powell, James Lawrence. Dead pool: Lake Fine, Sarah. Sanctum revolting revenge of the radioactive Thursday 12 noon - 8 pm Powell, global warming, and the future Meredith, Christina. Kiss crush collide robo-boxers: the tenth epic novel of water in the west Friday 12 noon - 6 pm Scheier, Leah. Secret letters Turner, Amber McRee. Sway Quarta, Cynthia. Seated taiji and qigong: Saturday 12 noon - 3 pm Schulman, L. B. League of Strays Ungar, Richard. Time snatchers guided therapeutic exercises Waggener, Anna. Grim Reichard, Sarah H. The conscientious gar- Walsh, Sara. The dark light JUVENILE BOOK ON CD Coast Community Library dener: cultivating a garden ethic Wylie, Sarah. All these lives L’Engle, Madeleine. A wrinkle in time is located at Smith, William. Exercises for healthy Meloy, Colin. Under wildwood 225 Main Street joints: the complete guide to increasing YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVELS Point Arena strength and flexibility Sengupta, Anita. Magic knight Rayearth. 1 (707) 882-3114 Spring 2013 The Redwood Coast Review Page 9 books haired girl in an Occupy encampment in Oakland. This time, rather than back off, There’s never or limit his action to words, when the riot enough money; squad arrives to break up the camp, Ed joins Gogol in hands with the Occupiers facing the phalanx husbands and boy- of helmets and clubs. I see this story as a completion of intent—not a solution, as we Guerneville friends mostly dis- know what happened to those tents and the appoint the women young people in them—but a portrait of a man stepping off the sidelines and into the Barbara Baer in their lives; there action. are drinking prob- hat I also appreciate about Occupy & Occupy & Other Love Stories lems; despite their WOther Love Stories is the pleasure of by Daniel Coshnear holding in my hands the beautifully made, Art by Squeak Carnwarth love, fathers can’t small book, illustrated with color paintings Kelly’s Cove Press (2012), 135 pages by Squeak Carnwath, and printed on rich, clarify the world for sumptuous paper—so different from the friend recently wrote, “When their children. cheap-looking small-press and POD books you’re looking to be transfixed, put out through Amazon and other subsidy publishers. Bart Schneider, publisher of Kel- short stories are too quick a Dan Coshnear ride.” Besides the start-and-stop ly’s Cove Press, assured me the book didn’t cost too much to produce even with color, nature of the form, collec- part-time writer, can’t abandon nor complete is worn down protecting his children and and told me it was made lovingly. “I’ve Ations of stories have other strikes against battering his head against the unyielding the portrait of his character McCreedy, liked Dan Coshnear’s writing for years. I them, not least their poor salesworthiness. who’s partly a stand-in for himself and a powers-that-be in our country. Full disclo- was active at every stage with this book,” Unfortunately, reviews suffer from similar greater risk-taker. McCreedy provokes a sure: I know Dan Coshnear slightly, know Schneider said. problems as the collections—who can keep fight in a park in a town that looks a lot that he works nights in a group home for Some years back, Dan Coshnear won in mind a half dozen stories and characters, like Guerneville, where Coshnear himself people with mental illnesses, runs writing prizes for his debut stories in Jobs and summarized in a page? Too much infor- lives. The narrator, moved by his character’s workshops there and in several colleges, Other Preoccupations, but even a writer mation for too little satisfaction. And yet, foolhardy bravery, breaks in to address the learning, I suppose, enough sorrows to fill with such a successful book isn’t assured Chekhov, Joyce, Borges, William Trevor, reader: “. . . dare I say it, I know what I a book. It’s fair enough to say that Occupy anything in today’s publishing climate, so Grace Paley, Alice Munro, all give us want. My wants are vast. I want justice, for & Other Love Stories is a personal book finding a dedicated publisher like Schneider epiphanies, fleeting wonders of life as in no example. I want 24/7 apologies from our written by a man whose characters, like who believes good writing needs a book, is other form but poetry. lying self-righteous leadership. I want the himself, live somewhere in the lower rungs truly fortunate. Schneider moved to Sonoma Dan Coshnear’s Occupy & Other Love courage to say what I want, and more, the of the 99 percent; that author and characters in 2006 from Saint Paul, Minnesota where Stories isn’t a so-called novel-in-stories— courage to live like a man who has the cour- share outrage against war, torture, economic he edited Hungry Mind Review for fifteen a collection linked by main characters, a age to say what he wants.” injustice. years before starting another magazine, trans-genre hybrid that seems an invention Some might not accept the author step- “I don’t like being lied to. I’m tired of Speakeasy, in Minneapolis. After a few of marketing departments who know stories ping so close to the reader, but I like it. it. I don’t like this no-accountability thing years in Northern California, he started don’t sell while novelish books, especially The second key story, “You Can Put Your going around,.” says the father in “Early Kelly’s Cove in the fall of 2011, publishing by name writers, can—Olive Kitteridge Name on It, If You Want To,” is my favorite. Onset” when the cops set upon a man in the three volumes of poetry and two reprints (of (Elizabeth Strout) and This is How you Lose The title refers to the narrator’s practice of park in Guerneville where he’s come with Ambrose Bierce and Kenneth Patchen). Her (Junot Diaz) are two recent transgenre giving his clients in a group home the option his children. Though his character’s moral For many small-press publishers, includ- successes. I’ve even heard of authors whose of responding or not to a Raymond Carver compass never wavers, he’s helpless against ing myself, joy comes in working with the agents or editors held out publication of story they’ve read. “Sometimes,” the coun- the cops’ authority. Other forms of passive- writer and creating the book, followed by stories on condition the author use the same selor says of his work with the depressed ness plague the male characters in Coshnear the burden of selling it. There’s much op- characters in every story. and addicted and mentally disturbed people, stories. There’s never enough money; portunity to publicize oneself on the World However, there are deeper unifying fac- “I can lift up an idea like a crystal and turn husbands and boyfriends mostly disappoint Wide Web but the excess of the borderless tors in a collection of stories, or poems for it over for everyone to examine. Sometimes the women in their lives; there are drinking virtual world can also be a big headache. that matter, beyond characters with the same I think of myself as a shuffler and a dealer, problems; despite their love and commit- Schneider, like myself, confesses to not name, that you discover by reading closely. and at my best I’m passing out answers to ment, fathers can’t clarify the world for enough online presence. Amid the commo- I think Dan Coshnear’s book has that unity, questions and questions to answers, to each their children. Coshnear’s male protagonists tion and noise of hundreds of thousands that every story in Occupy & Other Love something useful.” Again, our conduit is make me think of the “superfluous man” of Amazon titles, how fragile is the life Stories is held together by a diffused, long a man who’s been dumped by his wife and of nineteenth-century Russian literature, and breath of a small, good book appear- sigh of regret for dreams lost or deferred, whose career prospects are limited, but ineffectual men who own a world of thought ing on the margins! A fine writer like Dan much like last year’s Occupy movement the this time he’s fallen in love so intensely, so but no power. Coshnear waits for readers to find him. title story and collection is named for. Midway in the collection are two key hopelessly and forever, that emotion gives In the first piece, “Early Onset,” a father, stories. “The Hero of My Unwritten Novel” the story a punch. not quite middle-aged but no longer young, is a complex metafiction: the protagonist, a Coshnear closes the book with “Oc- cupy” of the title, a contemporary, hip and poignant story. Ed, wifeless and with a Barbara Baer lives in Forestville and is the young son his ex is about to take to another editor and publisher of Floreant Press. murder from page 7 city, winds up getting it on with a magenta-

Again the poetry is center stage. Sab- less Dame is a lot of fun, the plotline, hung batini encourages Boyer to advertise himself heavy with local color, sags at times. But as “Private Investigator for the poetry- the poetry more than makes up for any friendly. Helping you solve the deeper weaknesses. Sabbatini is very definitely and questions.” Boyer takes it under advisement, purposefully depicted as a poetry priest, but barely has time for a couple of double- and he takes his text from William Carlos doubles from In-And-Out Burger, a taste Williams: S U B S C R I B E of “Forestville Fuck Face” and a tour of Ginsberg’s Galley before he is called on to Of asphodel, that greeny flower, If you live beyond the Redwood Coast and don’t get the Independent Coast help investigate a murder. A local woman I come my sweet, Observer, now you can subscribe to The Redwood Coast Review and not miss of questionable reputation has been found to sing to you! an issue of our award-winning mix of essays, reviews, poetry, fiction and dead at The Last Judgment Campground on My heart rouses the Bohemian Highway. Reference is made thinking to bring you news graphic art. For $24 a year you will be guaranteed quarterly first-class de- to a previous unsolved double murder—this of something livery of the RCR and at the same time support Coast Community Library actually happened—on a beach near Jenner. that concerns you in its ongoing operating expenses. Please use this coupon to subscribe This murder may be a copycat, or something and concerns many men. Look at involving weed wars, religious extrem- what passes for the new. or renew now. You won’t be disappointed. ists from the First Christ River of Blood You will not find it there but in Church, or Russians who are intent on open- despised poems. ing a casino near the river named for their It is difficult Yes, I want to subscribe to The Redwood Coast Review. I am forebears. to get the news from poems enclosing a check for $24 to Coast Community Library. Yep, lots of elements in play, an un- yet men die miserably every day expected new love interest for Boyer, a for lack baby named Milosz, Sabbatini’s newfound of what is found there. I am making an additional donation to the library in the enthusiasm for French phrases, plenty of amount of $______. wine and weed, some nice culinary touches, The climactic scene at the opening of the a local group called the Sisters of Perpetual poetry karaoke bar is wonderful, well worth Indulgence, protestors at the Bohemian the price of admission. This fictional So- Total enclosed $______Grove, and a Native American deputy noma County is one that many of us would sheriff reciting poetry in the rain at a murder be happy to inhabit, a place where poetry Name ______scene. Who could ask for anything more? has more adherents than Christianity, where “Offbeat murder mystery” hardly does the word really is holy, where poetry very this one justice. Maybe it owes a little definitely does matter and can make things Address ______something to the classic California noir happen. Magic words in the magic land at novelists—Hammett, Chandler, Cain and the end of the road. MacDonald—and a little something to con- City, State, ZiP ______temporary black humor crime novelists like Carl Hiaasen and Randy Wayne White—but mostly Schneider does his own thing and Daniel Barth, a contributing editor, lives, Copy or clip this coupon and send, with check or money order, to Coast does it very well. writes, teaches and organizes the Writers Community Library, PO Box 808, Point Arena, CA 95468. Thank You! In truth The Man in the Blizzard is the Read series in and around Ukiah. better of these two novels. Though Name- Page 10 The Redwood Coast Review Spring 2013 Kerouac from page 1

No one has mined Kerouac’s marriages, or the lowly jobs he proudly held—gas station attendant, cotton picker, sheet- Kerouac insisted metal apprentice and more—that made him as proletarian as Petro di Donato himself, who ought to have written a that his works were biography of Kerouac and saved latter-day biographers the “true-story novels,” trouble. Di Donato surely would have treated Kerouac as a twentieth-century American saint with his mother as Mary, though the truth his father as Joseph, and his brother as a child-like Christ. Gerard, whom Kerouac called his “sainted brother,” died about Cassady as at the age of nine, a fact that’s repeated in nearly every bisexual and as a biography, along with the predictable narratives about Jack’s glorious and inglorious football days and his ignoble role in wife beater didn’t fit the 1944 murder of David Kammerer, which is the burden of the forthcoming movie Kill Your Darlings. Di Donato might the glorious mythol- have called the incidents in his life of Kerouac Stations of ogy about the the Cross. Kerouac’s apostle-like biographers treat him as a holy beatific Beats that man, even when they present him as an alcoholic who couldn’t sustain a mature relationship with a woman. “His the author wanted love for his mother was the strongest emotion he ever felt for another person,” Ann Charters wrote in Kerouac: A Biog- to create. raphy, the first in the field and still eye opening as when she insists, as though it’s the gospel truth, “he preferred whores humans. “Always considered writing or masturbation to marriage.” Really? Did she keep score? my duty on earth,” he wrote. “Also the As the first biography, it’s the most frequently condemned preachment of universal kindness.” of all the biographies. Paul Maher Jr., a Johnny-come-lately With Kerouac we often know who, in the field of Kerouac studies, can’t resist calling her book where and when, but not how and “flawed” because she didn’t make use of Kerouac’s “de- why.

tailed notebooks, letters and journals.” Joyce Johnson takes I have to hand it to Kerouac’s witt Charters to task for writing the sentence “There never was a intrepid biographers. They’ve had novelist who trusted his imagination so little.” The backbit- immense hurdles to overcome,

ing among Kerouac biographers couldn’t be uglier. including the biographical notes and E lliott Er Steve Turner portrays Kerouac was an “angelheaded essays Kerouac wrote. He insisted, for Jack Kerouac, unknown writer, New York, 1953 hipster”—the phrase comes, of course, from Ginsberg’s example, that he lived a “mishmash” Howl. Isaac Gerwitz calls Jack a “beatific soul.” For Dennis life—which might be true. Still, it’s one every Kerouac biography comes with blurbs, prefaces, and McNally, he’s the “desolate angel,” though McNally, who thing for the subject of a biography to deny a pattern to his forewords by notable Beats. In his adulatory foreword to subtitled his work Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and existence, another for a biographer to say the same thing. Charters’s biography, Ginsberg calls Kerouac the “American America, brings Kerouac down to earth and depicts him in In Jack Kerouac: A Chicken Essay, probably the shortest of Lonely Prose Trumpeter of Drunken Buddha Sacred Heart.” the context of a materialist society torn apart by the anticom- the sixty-eight Kerouac books, Victor-Levy Beaulieu found Charters dedicates her biography to Allen Ginsberg. A blurb munist crusades of the 1950s. Barry Miles offers a variation a pattern and explained tersely that Kerouac’s “Beat Credo” by a scholar outside the inner circle would be refreshing. on the hagiography and labels Kerouac King of the Beats, demanded that he “Kill the warrior within . . . so that the Moreover, once a Beat sounds a note, such as “lonely,” oth- repeating a phrase that the king himself used near the peak priest may be born.” A Québécois writer, Beaulieu added, ers echo it. Joyce Johnson, the author of the 2012 tome The of his initial popularity in the late 1950s, a decade in which “the umbilical cord that tied him to his mother had never Voice Is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac, empha- he soared from obscurity to glory and apparently couldn’t been cut and it prevented Jack from finding happiness.” sizes loneliness and trades on her personal relationship with handle the glory. Crucified by hostile critics who blamed Happiness? That’s a tough nut to crack. Kerouac’s biogra- Jack, whom she depictes in her memoir Minor Characters him for juvenile delinquents wearing black leather jackets, phers often bring the Oedipus complex into the psychologi- (1983). Like almost all of the other biographers, Johnson he retreated to alcohol, his mother and his manuscripts. cal fray as though sticking Freudian labels on their man were moves away from Kerouac as a writer and follows him into all they needed to do. apartments where he tangles with his mother, girlfriends, n the 1950s Kerouac endorsed Republican Party can- They’ve also had to wrestle with the characters in the wives, and all the bad boys. The stories are too juicy and Ididates for president, though a decade earlier he had novels. According to Ellis Amburn—the author of Subter- titillating to leave out even though they’ve been told ad attended Communist Party meetings. Sadly, Kerouac’s ranean Kerouac—they’re based on real people. According to nauseam. political trajectory has never been traced. “Kerouac was Joyce Johnson, they’re the product of the author’s imagina- For decades, biographers have been driven by the desire apolitical,” Charters writes, though she adds in an aside, “in tion. At this point, readers will probably never know for sure to rescue a writer exiled from the academy and treated as the the beginning” he “drifted” to an “anarchist, revolutionary what’s true and what’s not, especially with three new movies author of pulp fiction. Now, with college courses devoted to viewpoint.” We know gobs about the drugs he consumed, about Kerouac muddying the already muddied waters of him and forty books by him in print, biographers can’t legiti- who he had sex with, where and when, and how he felt about biography. In the movie version of On the Road, Kerouac mately claim they’re rescuing a downtrodden writer, though God, or at least what he said about God on TV and else- sits at a typewriter and writes, “Fuck Fuck Fuck.” Is that fact Kerouac’s place in the pantheon of American literature is where, but for the most part we don’t know how and why he or is it fiction? still unclear. “Was Kerouac a great American writer, not just moved from Reds to Republicans. There’s also no compre- I saw the movie, directed by the Brazilian Walter Salles, a great American personality?” critic Walter Kirn asked in hensive sociological account of his influence on a generation in New York before it opened nationally, and, while I en- The New York Times. “Strangely enough, given all the atten- he apparently persuaded to wear Levi’s, drink cappuccinos joyed the jazz score and the haunting American landscapes, I tion paid to him, this is still an open question, partly because and act real cool. William Burroughs gave Kerouac credit found the acting embarrassingly bad. Sam Riley is disap- of the pop idolatry and partly because his publishers have for all that, and, while he surely exaggerated, there’s much pointing as Sal Paradise, Garret Hedlund irritating as Dean kept him in the literary equivalent of a permanent vegetative to be said for Kerouac as cultural avatar. Moriarty, and Tom Sturridge a goofy cliché of the Beat poet state by persistently digging up his bottom-drawer jottings At San Francisco’s City Lights, when I complained to Carlo Marx. Kerouac might be shaking his fist from the and repackaging them as books.” Indeed, book publishers— a group of latter-day Beat poets and aficionados of Bob company of angels. and moviemakers—can get in the way. Kaufman and Lenore Kandel that Kerouac’s biographers Until the dust settles, I recommend Jack’s Book: An Oral treat him as a saint, I ought not to have been surprised when all Kerouac what he was: a literary con man. In On the Biography (1978) by Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee, who they told me, “Well, you know he was a saint.” I didn’t CRoad, he describes Dean Moriarty as a “holy con-man” interviewed all the major, and many of the minor, players. argue. I thought of his drug abuse, his “lasciviousness,” as and Carlo Marx as a “poetic con-man.” He knew a con Their sources remember clearly and not so clearly. Gary he called it, and realized that the purest saints start as sin- because he was a con and he conned much of the literary Snyder seemed to remember a hike with Jack. “It’s very ners. “I want to be a quiet saint living in a shack in solitary world into thinking his fictional characters were real people. beautifully described in The Dharma Bums, actually,” Sny- confinement,” Kerouac wrote in Some of the Dharma, which Neal Cassady—as Gerald Nicosia shows in his mammoth der says. “We made it up to the top of the Matterhorn and he wrote in the 1950s but that wasn’t published until 1997. biography—was a habitual wife beater, but we don’t see came back down again. Actually, Jack didn’t. I guess I was To his credit, he added, “I am not a man of saintship. Just that Neal in the novel or the movie version of On the Road. the only one that went up there.” another drunken artist.” Why won’t a biographer entitle a Kerouac insisted that his works were “true-story novels,” book Jack Kerouac: Drunken Artist? though the truth about Cassady as bisexual and as a wife nyder, 83, was conspicuously absent at the “Beat Pow- Time and again he cast himself in the light of the sacred, beater didn’t make it into the novel. It didn’t fit the glorious SWow” that took place at the Sweetwater Music Hall in though sometimes that light was Buddhist and sometimes mythology about the beatific Beats that the author wanted Mill Valley on January 8, 2013, and that was meant to drum Catholic. In the Author’s Introduction that he affixed to the to create. Kerouac told selective truths, and in the process up support for Walter Salles’s lackluster movie. Nicosia be- start of Lonesome Traveler, a collection of his essays, Ker- of transforming actuality into art, real people vanished and gan the evening by reading mournful poems for dead Beats ouac paints an indelible portrait of himself as a good Catho- fictional characters took their place. such as Gregory Corso. He insisted that he’d gathered all the lic boy, never once mentioning the Buddha, the dharma, or Kerouac also managed to con biographers into believing surviving members of the Beat Generation, forgetting that the dharma bums he earlier revered. “Am actually not ‘beat’ that he created spontaneously, even though those same bi- the Ur-Beats McClure and Snyder, who didn’t appear, are but strange solitary crazy Catholic mystic,” he wrote as ographers—Charters for one—knew that he kept notebooks very much not dead. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a pre-Beat and though renouncing a whole phase of his life. He also touted and wrote drafts of novels. Biographers have colluded with post-Beat, is still going strong at 93. his education from Jesuit brothers and his mission among Kerouac and have largely ignored him when he told the truth At the Sweetwater, Rambling Jack Elliott rambled. Wavy about his own creativity. In fact, he began the writing pro- Gravy ambled onto the stage and performed poetry with real cess, he said, by first thinking about his experiences, second gusto. The evening belonged to Al Hinkle, 87, a longtime by telling stories to friends, third by mulling them over in railroad worker and natural-born storyteller. “Neal and I his mind, and fourth by connecting the dots at leisure. Only were with Jack when the first copies of On the Road arrived then, he said, did he “force” himself to sit at the typewriter at the house he shared with his mother,” Hinkle told the and “get it over with . . . fast.” That notion doesn’t sound spellbound crowd. “He tried to hide them from us because as sexy as “write ‘without consciousness’ in semi-trance,” he was afraid of our reactions. ‘You guys are gonna hate which he urged in “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose,” or me,’ he said.” All the air went out of the room after Hinkle’s compose “wild, undisciplined, pure . . . crazier the better,” buoyant Beat narrative. “I feel I’ve been Kero-wacked,” a which he lists as an essential element for writers in “Belief poet who sat through the evening told me. At 11:11, I es- & Technique for Modern Prose.” caped from the Kerouac bubble and went on the road, leav- Nicosia conducted more than 100 interviews for his ing the Sweetwater, the Beats and the Beatlets behind me. 1983 biography, Memory Babe, which runs to nearly 800 pages. “To call this book the definitive Kerouac biography is an understatement,” one reviewer wrote. It’s now out Jonah Raskin, a contributing editor of the RCR, is the author of print. “Definitive” might be the kiss of death. Maher of American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” and the Mak- and his publisher called his book Kerouac: The Definitive ing of the Beat Generation, among other books. The famous author, late 1960s Biography from the get-go, though it’s hardly that. Nearly