ARAB TIMES, TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2021 NEWS/FEATURES 13

People & Places

Books

Humor, pathos in genocide ‘Skinship’ tells tales of newcomer Americans By Ashley Duong kinship’ by Yoon Choi (Alfred A. Knopf) ‘S With fi ne attention to detail, Yoon Choi’s fi ctional debut “Skinship” welcomes readers into the lives of immigrant and fi rst-generation Korean Ameri- cans. The collection of short stories examines characters of various circumstances. From a school-aged student making her fi rst friend in America to an autistic piano teacher, each chapter is a different take on how life, culture and language interact as characters navigate unfamiliar places. Choi opens with a piece on disillusionment and longing. Readers follow a young Soo as she reunites with her husband, Jae, in New Jersey after several years apart. Soo remained in Korea as Jae attempted to forge a better life for the couple in the new coun- try. Soo’s excitement fades on a long car ride from the airport to a run-down convenience store — “Our store,” Jae tells her. An older Soo later won- ders about the life she would have had if she had chosen to stay in Korea and marry some- Choi one other than Jae. Each chapter takes on a distinct voice and per- spective, highlighting the intimacies perhaps known only by those who straddle the fence of two worlds. Through Sae-Ri, a mother who leaves her son in Ko- rea for an arranged marriage to an American, Choi In this March 7, 2010, fi le photo, actor Ed Asner arrives during the 82nd Academy Awards in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles. Asner, the blustery but lovable brings into focus the clashes between the ways of Sae- Lou Grant in two successful television series, has died. He was 91. (AP) Ri’s home country and the new one she fi nds herself living in. These differences become more distinct after she reveals the truth of her son to her American fam- ily. The chapter, told mostly through Sae-Ri’s imper- Obituary fect English, includes her observations of how love and marriage seem to mean different things and are performed in different ways in each place. Choi’s writing closely details the emotions and in- ner lives of her characters; they feel real in a way that A prolifi c actor who became a star in middle age rings true, even when the truth is a little ugly. Her collection is a fresh take on the experience of newcomers to America — stories of love, disappoint- ment and sacrifi ce. Asner, TV’s blustery Lou Grant, dies ❑ ❑ ❑ LOS ANGELES, Aug 30, (AP): Ed “I’d say most people are probably in end in the seventh season with a hilari- “Gone for Good” by Joanna Schaffhausen (Mi- Asner, the burly and prolifi c charac- that same boat, old people, and it’s a ous fi nale in which all of the principals notaur) ter actor who became a star in middle shame,” he said. were fi red except for the bumbling When Grace Harper is found hogtied and strangled age as the gruff but lovable newsman As Screen Actors Guild president, Baxter. to death on her kitchen fl oor, it appears that Chicago’s Lou Grant, fi rst in the hit comedy “The the liberal Asner was caught up in a Asner went immediately into “Lou “Lovelorn Killer” has returned after being dormant for Mary Tyler Moore Show” and later in political controversy in 1982 when Grant,” his character moving from nearly twenty years. the drama “Lou Grant,” died Sunday. he spoke out against US involvement Minneapolis to Los Angeles to become Chicago PD Detective Annalisa Vega had been ob- He was 91. with repressive governments in Latin city editor of the Tribune, a crusading sessed with the Asner’s representative confi rmed America. “Lou Grant” was canceled newspaper under the fi rm hand of Pub- the case ever since her high school boyfriend’s the actor’s death in an email to The during the furor that followed and he lisher Margaret Pynchon, memorably mother was murdered in a similar fashion. Now, in Associated Press. Asner’s offi cial did not run for a third SAG term in played by Nancy Marchand. “Gone for Good,” it’s on Vega to end the reign of ter- This cover image released by Knopf Twitter account included a note from 1985. Although the show had its light mo- ror — unless the killer hunts her down fi rst. his children: “We are sorry to say that Asner discussed his politicization in ments, its scripts touched on a variety The novel is the fi rst in a planned series about Vega shows ‘Skinship,’ stories by Yoon Choi. (AP) our beloved patriarch passed away this a 2002 interview, noting he had begun of darker social issues that most series by Joanna Schaffhausen, author of four previous morning peacefully. Words cannot ex- his career during the McCarthy era and wouldn’t touch at the time, including thrillers featuring Boston PD detective Ellery Hatha- press the sadness we feel. With a kiss for years had been afraid to speak out alcoholism and homelessness. Asner way. At fi rst blush, Hathaway’s personal experience on your head- Goodnight dad. We love for fear of being blacklisted. remained politically active for the with serial killers was even worse than Vega’s. As a you.” rest of his life and in 2017 published teenager, Hathaway and been held prisoner and tor- Then he saw a nun’s fi lm depicting tured by one. Built like the football lineman he the cruelties infl icted by El Salvador’s the book “The Grouchy Historian: An A serial killer suddenly reappearing after being dor- once was, the balding Asner was a jour- government on that country’s citizens. Old-Time Lefty Defends Our Consti- neyman actor in fi lms and TV when he tution Against Right-Wing Hypocrites mant for decades is an overused trope of both crime Character novels and TV cop shows. So is having the detec- was hired in 1970 to play Lou Grant and Nutjobs.” tive on the case targeted by the killer. In other words, on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” “I stepped out to complain about our Asner, born in Kansas City, Mis- Schaffhausen’s new book starts off with two strikes For seven seasons he was the rumpled country’s constant arming and fortify- souri, in 1929, almost became a news- against it. When the book’s climactic confrontation boss to Moore’s ebullient Mary Rich- ing of the military in El Salvador, who man in real life. He studied journal- takes place in an abandoned mental hospital — some- ards (He called her “Mary,” she called were oppressing their people,” he said. ism at the University of Chicago until thing else we’ve seen too many times before — that him “Mr. Grant”) at the fi ctional Min- Former SAG President Charlton a professor told him there was little neapolis TV newsroom where both Heston and others accused him of money to be made in the profession. seems like strike three. King Jr Oates And yet, there is a lot to like about this novel. worked. Later, he would play the role making un-American statements and He quickly switched to drama, de- Harper, the latest victim, was a member of The for fi ve years on “Lou Grant.” of misusing his position as head of buting as the martyred Thomas Becket Gravediggers, a group of amateur sleuths obsessed The part brought Asner three best their actors union. in a campus production of T.S. Eliot’s with cold cases. Her notes on her investigation of “The Variety supporting actor Emmys on “Mary Ty- “We even had bomb threats at the “Murder in the Cathedral.” Lovelorn Killer,” interspersed with the main narrative, ler Moore” and two best actor awards time. I had armed guards,” Asner re- He eventually dropped out of are an artful touch. on “Lou Grant.” He also won Emmys called. school, going to work as a taxi driver Schaffhausen builds the suspense chapter by chap- GAINESVILLE, Fla: A diner at a north for his roles in the miniseries “Rich The actor blamed the controversy and other jobs before being drafted in ter, and the tale’s clever twists will keep readers Florida restaurant gathered the staff of 10 Man, Poor Man” (1975-1976) and for ending the fi ve-year run of “Lou 1951. He served with the Army Signal guessing, often wrongly, till the end. together to thank them for their hard work “Roots” (1976-1977). Grant,” although CBS insisted declin- Corps in France. before leaving them a $10,000 tip to share. He had more than 300 acting cred- ing ratings were the reason the show Returning to Chicago after military Her prose style, which has always been precise and It happened last Tuesday night as the clear, has taken a leap in this book, turning both grit- its and remained active throughout his was canceled. service, he appeared at the Playwrights man, his wife and son fi nished their dinner Asner’s character had caught on tier and, occasionally more lyrical. And, as usual, she at the Wahoo Seafood Grill, the Gainesville 70s and 80s in a variety of fi lm and TV Theatre Club and Second City, the excels at character development — even with minor Sun reported. roles. In 2003, he played Santa Claus from the fi rst episode of “Mary Tyler famed satire troupe that launched the characters. Shawn Shepherd, who owns Wahoo, in Will Ferrell’s hit fi lm “Elf.” He was Moore,” when he told Mary in their careers of dozens of top comedians. In the Ellery Hathaway books, the author subtly told the newspaper he got a call from his John Goodman’s father in the short- initial meeting, “You’ve got spunk. Later, in New York, he joined the portrayed the main character’s complex relationship employees that night, alerting him to the big lived 2004 CBS comedy “Center of ... I hate spunk!” The inspired cast in- long-running “The Threepenny Op- with an FBI agent who had rescued her when she was tip. His fi rst thought was to be suspicious. the Universe” and the voice of the el- cluded Ted Knight as Ted Baxter, the era” and appeared opposite Jack Lem- a girl. The painful push and pull of their on-again, “Check his ID and the name on the back derly hero in the hit 2009 Pixar release, dimwitted news anchor; Gavin Ma- mon in “Face of a Hero.” off-again romance was every bit as compelling as the of his credit card,” Shepherd advised the “Up.” More recently, he was in such cLeod as Murray Slaughter, the sar- Arriving in Hollywood in 1961 for cases they investigated. employee who called. TV series as “Forgive Me” and “Dead castic news writer; and Betty White as an episode of television’s “Naked ❑ ❑ ❑ But the restaurant’s point-of-sale system to Me.” the manipulative, sex-obsessed home City,” Asner decided to stay and ap- approved the transaction. Shepherd said he Nonetheless, Asner told The As- show hostess Sue Ann Nivens. Valerie peared in numerous movies and TV “Afterparties,” by Anthony Veasna So (Ecco) checked back the next day to make sure the sociated Press in 2009 that interesting Harper and Cloris Leachman, playing shows, including the fi lm “El Dorado,” In 1975, the Khmer Rouge seized power in Cam- money was still there. roles were hard to come by. Mary’s neighbors, both saw their char- opposite John Wayne; and the Elvis bodia, establishing a regime whose fanatical policies “Watching these guys get their check was almost as good as Christmas morning,” “I never get enough work,” he said. acters spun off into their own shows. Presley vehicles “Kid Galahad” and led to the death of more than a quarter of the coun- “It’s the history of my career. There “Mary Tyler Moore” was still a hit “Change of Habit.” He was a regular in try’s population. That genocide is a recurring theme Shepherd told the Sun. He said he’s very thankful to the diner just isn’t anything to turn down, let me when the star decided to pursue other the 1960s political drama series “Slat- in Anthony Veasna So’s dazzling new story collection put it that way.” interests, and so it was brought to an tery’s People.” “Afterparties.” because his employees have been loyal to So, who died of a drug overdose last December at the restaurant through the pandemic. Among those benefi tting from the big age 28, was the son of Cambodian refugees. He grew tip was Ashley Green, who was called into from 1968 until 1997, said in a statement. He was also a key consultant on fi lm- knew the bottom-up story as well as the up in California’s Central Valley, majored in art and work that day. She had recently endured a Oates received the Robert F. Kennedy maker Ken Burns’ 1990 documentary top-down one, but more importantly, he literature at Stanford, and earned an MFA in fi ction rough time because her daughter was ill. Center for Justice and Human Rights book series “The Civil War.” knew and appreciated the huge stakes for from the prestigious writing program at Syracuse. “She’s had a hard month, she’s been not award in 1983. In 1993, the Civil War “Stephen was an extremely valuable the United States and indeed the world in a When he died, he was on the verge of literary star- able to work. Kid has been in and out of the Round Table of Chicago awarded him advisor to our Civil War series and an in- Union victory.” dom, having secured a six-fi gure, two-book deal from hospital. It’s been absolutely a really stress- the Nevins Freeman Award for Civil War formed and passionate participant,” Burns He earned the RFK Center award for Ecco. The fi rst one, “Afterparties,” is an astonishing ful time for her,” Shepherd said. scholarship and biography. said in a statement released by UMass. “He “Let The Trumpet Sound: The Life of debut, crackling with energy, narrated in slangy ver- When the coronavirus pandemic began, Martin Luther King, Jr.” nacular, and written with attitude and style. The sec- Shepherd said he temporarily closed the “Stephen had a talent for bringing history ond book, a combination of fi ction and nonfi ction, is Wahoo and lost some $30,000 in food. to life. The characters and events he chroni- due out in 2023. “I knew nothing about curbside, I knew cled come off the pages to live in our imagi- nothing about delivery and takeout. We nations and fuel our understanding of our “As a kid, I heard traumatic stories of my family’s history,” said Kerry Kennedy, president of experience surviving... Pol Pot’s regime that some- weren’t prepared for that. We didn’t even have the containers to do it,” Shepherd the RFK Center according to UMass. how always landed on a joke,” he wrote in 2018, the He called his biographies of King, year his rollicking short story “Superking Son Scores He noted that the Florida Restaurant Lodging Association and the Alachua Lincoln, Nat Turner and John Brown his Again” appeared in the literary magazine n+1. Nar- “Civil War quartet.” rated in the fi rst-person plural by “the young men of County Chamber of Commerce were a big help, fi nding them emergency funding “They humanize the moral paradox of this Cambo hood,” it is about a grocery store owner to pay the employees. He reopened the slavery and racial oppression in a land who moonlights as a high school coach — “a regular Wahoo in May. based on the ideals of the Declaration of Magic Johnson of badminton” — but can’t focus on He said he’s indebted to his employees Independence,” he wrote in a 1986 essay. the team because he is in trouble with loan sharks. because they’ve helped keep the restaurant “All four were driven, visionary men, all In “The Shop,” a busybody in the refugee commu- afl oat during hard times. (AP) were caught up in the issues of slavery and nity brings in a squad of Buddhist monks to restore ❑ ❑ ❑ race, and all devised their own solutions the karma of a failing auto shop, offering unsolicited to those infl ammable problems,” he wrote. advice to the owner’s gay son: “Marry a girl because AMHERST, Mass: Stephen B. Oates, an “And all perished, too, in the confl icts and that is what you should do. I am not saying you cannot award-winning Civil War historian who hostilities that surrounded the quest for be gay. How hard is it to be normal and gay?” wrote biographies of Abraham Lincoln, equality in their country.” In each of the nine stories, So lays out for inspection Martin Luther King Jr, Clara Barton, Oates was a semifi nalist and silver medal all the problems of his beloved community — from William Faulkner and others, has died. winner in the national Professor of the Year He was 85. competition, sponsored by the Council for gambling and gossip to alcoholism and suicide — then Oates died Friday at his Amherst home the Advancement and Support of Educa- embraces it all with love and compassion. It is a virtu- surrounded by family after a battle with tion, earned awards for teaching at UMass, osic performance. (AP) cancer, offi cials at the University of Massa- Dave Matthews of the Dave Matthews Band performs at the Railbird Music Fes- and was one of the school’s most sought- chusetts Amherst, where he was a professor tival on Sunday, Aug. 29, in Lexington, Ky. (AP) after professors. (AP)