Remembering Novelist/Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison

Earlier this week, Toni Morrison died at age 88. My longtime friend, Armando Alleyne, an artist who lives in Brooklyn, sent me a text message regarding her passing:

"A great great sister scholar professor and Pulitzer Prize winner has moved on [.] Toni Morrison I pray that she's in the angel wings in the great great palace [.]"

(Sent @ 04:54 AM, 08/07/2019)

I responded:

"I heard the sad news of Toni Morrison's passing. I have three of her books [Sula, Song of Solomon, and Beloved]. Maybe we should honor her by reading one of her books."

(Sent @ 03:12 PM, 08/07/2019)


R.I.P. Toni Morrison (1931-2019).

Commemorating James Baldwin's Birthday

Yesterday, August 2nd, as I walked near the world-famous Apollo Theatre, its electronic marquee reminded me that it was James Baldwin's birthday. The fiery novelist/essayist, a son of Harlem, would have been 95 years old this year.

If Baldwin were still alive, no doubt his voice and pen would be highly critical of the Trump administration as well as the white supremacist alt-right movement, who are among Trump's avid supporters. And no doubt Trump would be on Twitter criticizing, perhaps ridiculing, Baldwin's comments. But Trump would be no match for Baldwin's eloquence and penetrating intellect.

J.D. Salinger's Unpublished Work

I heard the following report regarding the unpublished work of the reclusive writer J.D. Salinger, author of the classic novel Catcher in the Rye, on New York's WCBS News Radio Eight-Eighty, that was broadcast on February 3, 2019.

CBS News's Gary Nunn reported that Salinger's son told him that "his father wrote reams of work no one has ever seen. J.D. Salinger, who died nine years ago," continued Nunn, "apparently never stopped writing. Next to every chair the writer had a notebook. According to Matt Salinger, his father teemed with ideas and thoughts, saying that he'd be driving in the car, pull over to jot some ideas ** and at times he would chuckle to himself."

"No indication when the unpublished work will be released, but, "concluded Nunn, "his son says all that his father wrote will be shared."

No doubt that is very good news to Salinger's legion of fans.


**This reminded me of the re-enacted scene in the 13-part public television poetry series, Voices & Visions, that showed William Carlos Williams, a pediatrician, pulling his car over to the side of the road while between house calls, removing a prescription pad from his black bag and, with fountain pen in hand, scribbling a poem.

Barack Obama Quotes Ernest Hemingway At John McCain's Memorial Service

I love the following quote:

"Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today."--Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls.

Former U.S. president Barack Obama quoted the above passage in the eloquent eulogy he delivered at U.S. senator John McCain's memorial service at the Washington National Cathedral, Saturday, September 1, 2018.

Can you imagine Donald Trump, a man who doesn't read, quoting Hemingway or any other writer, American or otherwise?

Farewell To Novelist E. L. Doctorow

RIP E.L. Doctorow, the author of Ragtime, World's Fair, and other historical fiction. He died, according to the New York Times Book Review, on July 21, 2015 at age 84.

A Gay American In Paris

The format of the following script was based on CBS News' American Treasury 60-second between-daytime-program spots that were broadcast in the late 1980s. They highlighted famous American men and women and Americana.

I wrote this script and one other nearly ten years ago with the then-new gay channel LOGO in mind. I don't recall if I actually submitted  them to the cable channel. I do recall talking to someone at LOGO's California offices via phone about writing such scripts.

LOGO like CBS is owned by Viacom.

American Outlooks--Program 2

Writer: Charles M. Smith

June 18, 2005

OPENING LOGO AND THEME:

            (CELEBRITY NAME):

             I'm______with American Outlooks. His book be-                                                                                    came the first of its kind by a black American author.

             Who he was, after this.

COMMERCIAL: 15 SECS:

            (CELEBRITY NAME): CONTD:

           James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room is the story of two 

           gay lovers, one American, the other Italian, in post-war

           Paris. Baldwin was advised not to publish the ground-

           breaking novel for fear that its homosexual theme 

           would ruin his career. Baldwin ignored the advice and                                                                            the book, published in 1956, became a gay American

           classic.

CLOSING LOGO: :02 SECS:                  
            Learn more about James Baldwin in your local 

            library.

Note: I had to change the formatting of the script to make it more readable on the blog.

                                                                            

An Early Biography Of James Baldwin

James Baldwin is one of my all-time favorite writers. I can never read enough by or about him. So I was delighted to find sitting on a public library shelf a copy of The Furious Passage of James Baldwin by Fern Marja Eckman. The book was originally published in 1966. It has been referred to in later biographies of Baldwin but I was never able to obtain a copy until now. The new edition was published in 2014.

The back jacket copy states that Eckman, who at the time was a reporter for the then liberal New York Post, "based this book on hours and hours of taped interviews with Baldwin and with the people who are significant in his story" and is "a profile told largely in his own words."

Because this biography was the first one written on Baldwin, his later years, covered in subsequent books, are missing. But nevertheless it gives readers an insight into Baldwin's early life, writing career, and personality. (The first few pages of the biography seem to be psychoanalyzing Baldwin and his rocky relationship with his stepfather.) At this writing, I am still reading the book which is riveting, although it reads more like a memoir than a standard biography.

A Writer's Dream

This unpublished interview fragment was found in a manila folder. It was written on August 12, 1980. It was intended for inclusion in a Q & A interview that I did with Professor Addison Gayle, Jr.:

Professor [Addison] Gayle's most recent book is the literary biography, Richard Wright: Ordeal of a Native Son (Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1980).

It seems as though the professor was destined to be a Wright biographer. In Wayward Child [his autobiography], he writes that of the many black writers his father encouraged him to read as a child growing up in the South "...Richard Wright was [his] favorite." He goes on to say, "...instead of imaging myself as one of Richard Wright's characters, I imagined myself as Richard Wright. I imagined people looking up to me as a famous writer, asking for my autograph, seeking me out."

Professor Gayle's early identification with Wright was probably due to similar experiences in their young Southern lives.

James Baldwin's 90th Birthday

This year will mark what would have been James Baldwin's 90th birthday. I wish he was still with us.

Sidney Poitier: Actor, Director, Novelist

While browsing the "New Fiction" shelves at the Morningside Heights branch of the New York Public Library, I came upon a novel by legendary actor Sidney Poitier called Montaro Caine (Spiegel & Grau, 2013). I immediately took it off the shelf and turned to the inside front flap to read its plot description.

According to the front flap copy, the novel tells the story of Montaro Caine, a corporate CEO, in whose office is brought "a coin of unknown provenance, composed of a metal unknown to Earth." The flap copy goes on to tell the prospective reader that "the value of the coin lies not in its monetary worth but in its hold on the people who come into contact with it."

I was disappointed after reading about the plot of the novel. I was hoping that Poitier, one of my favorite actors, had written a novel from the perspective of a young black male actor attempting to build a successful film career. If Poitier had done that, he would have given his readers-- and fans--another insider's unique look at Hollywood, warts and all.

James Baldwin, Author And Intellectual

In 1975, I took a 15-week magazine writing course at Hunter College's Midtown Branch, located on Lexington Avenue in the East 50s, in Manhattan. The instructor was an elderly woman named Camille Davied (pronounced Dah-vee-ay), whose late husband had been an editor at Reader's Digest. (I was the only person of color in the class.) My memory is a bit hazy about how James Baldwin's name got mentioned. Perhaps I wrote a class assignment that referenced him. Anyway, I do remember saying to her that Baldwin was an intellectual. She immediately and emphatically denied that he was. It was probably hard for her, a white person, to acknowledge that a black man could be that cerebral. Maybe the things that he wrote and said about American race relations touched a nerve, making her uncomfortable and self-conscious.

Had I known as much about Baldwin then as I do now, I would have pointed out to her that if Baldwin had not been an intellectual, his essays would never have appeared in Partisan Review, Commentary, and other intellectual journals in the 1950s.

Seeking Guidance From The Blue Lady

The Blue Lady's Hands by John Champagne (Meadowland Books/Lyle Stuart, Inc., 156 pp.)

The nameless protagonist in John Champagne's first novel, The Blue Lady's Hands is described in the dust jacket copy as being "vulnerable, funny but above all resilient." Vulnerable? Most definitely. Resilient? Well, perhaps. Funny? No way. If this guy represents the New Gay Man of the late '80s and '90s, we're in deep trouble. He is an absolute wimp, with a capital W. Throughout this novel, which reads more like a confessional, he is whining and handwringing, all because of his need to find a "man who could love me."

This search for love brings him to Andrea, a psychotherapist, who tries to help him overcome childhood experiences that have made him feel that his "love is bad." One of these experiences is seeing his mother sent away to a hospital for electro-shock treatments when she suffers a nervous breakdown. He believes he is to blame because he loved her too much. Andrea explains to him that "when something happens that doesn't make sense, that can't be made 'right' with a kiss or a hug, then we tell ourselves a story. We make up a reason, find some reason for why things happen the way they do. That way, the world will still make sense. ...So you decided that it had to be your fault. In that way, you could still have some control over the situation."

The other person who is helping the protagonist to know "what it means to love someone" is the Blue Lady, a character he admits does not exist, except in his imagination. He describes her as wearing "robes as blue as a clear sea on a sunny day" and as having a "face...so bright, so radiant, it hurts my eyes to look at her." From time to time her hands start "poking around inside of me" causing "terrible pains in my chest." This is her way of reminding him whenever he begins to "love someone who can't possibly love me back the way I'd like to be loved" that "love is so very hard to bear" at times.

Later, near the end of the book, after he's found a new (possibly permanent) lover named Daniel, he asks himself: "Could I possibly have made up the whole story of the Blue Lady? I don't know. ...But I believe in the Blue Lady,"

The guy is all mixed-up. Let's face it, after endlessly wading through his self-pity and insecurities ("Am I attractive? I wonder if I really want to be with anyone."), you begin not to care if he ever gets himself together.

The Blue Lady's Hands is so fragmented (there are no chapters; events are presented as vignettes separated by white space) that the story is a bit confusing at times. Even the significance of the Blue Lady's presence is equally unclear. And to make matters worse, the poetry that the protagonist writes as "conversations with myself," add nothing to the story and are, in fact, intrusive.

I don't have anything against nonlinear novels, as long as they are coherently written. This one, sad to say, is not. The dust jacket copywriter must have been talking about another novel when he or she wrote that The Blue Lady's Hands is a "triumph of storytelling."

Note: This article was originally written for the Lambda Rising Book Report (later renamed the Lambda Book Report) in 1988. The manuscript was later returned to me because they received it past the deadline. The real reason, I think, was that my review of The Blue Lady's Hands was considered too harsh.

A Dearth Of Black Gay Books

Voice of the People
New York Daily News
450 West 33rd Street
New York, NY 10001

December 13, 2000

Dear Editor:

In Paul D. Colford's recent article on the burgeoning African-American book market, one editor at Doubleday was quoted as saying "there's probably room for still more imprints." I would agree, particularly as it pertains to those in the black community who are either gay or lesbian. As the editor of an anthology of essays by black gay men, which was published last year, I can attest to the dearth of books in this category.

The publishing industry may finally be coming to the realization that black folks buy and read books but there is still an ignorance of the need for books, fiction and nonfiction, that reflect the diversity of black gay men, many of whom are well-educated and have disposable incomes.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

The above letter-to-the-editor was not published.

Noah Webster's Love Of Words

"I must write; it is a happiness I cannot sacrifice."--Noah Webster, American lexicographer (1758-1843).

Finding Literary Treasure On Upper Broadway

It's amazing how things happen unexpectedly. I recently put in my pink and lavender Gay & Lesbian loose leaf binder this quote from gay author Gavin Lambert: "In movies then [the 1950s], you had to be discreet [regarding one's homosexuality]. You still have to be." I copied that quote from the book Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause by Lawrence Frascella and Al Weisel (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 2005).

The next day I found a yellowed paperback edition of Gavin Lambert's Inside Daisy Clover (Bantam, 1964, 75 cents) among a pile of discarded books at the corner of 113th Street and Broadway, near Columbia University. (The book was made into a movie, released in 1965, starring Natalie Wood, who co-starred in Rebel with James Dean and Sal Mineo.)

If I had been looking specifically for Lambert's book, I probably would have had a tough time finding it since it was published more than 40 years ago.

For The Ticket--Watcher On The "Marilena"

He dozed over his work; it was a role he played, a whole lifestyle built on directing people from third to second class, telling third classes who entered, wittingly or otherwise, second class, to go back "go back and be where you must be, where you were destined to be when you boarded this ferry boat. I have your ticket. I can read it. This ferry boat is mine. This is where you belong. I have your tickets."--from Sonnets of Love by V. J. Robinson Reeb; edited and published by Michalis, (c) 2003, Velma Jean Reeb (published in Nicosia, Cyprus).

On The Road To Patra

The bus breaks down on the road to Patra and the signpost is not easy to decipher. We wonder why the bus should stop at this particular, nothing-like place, with only one directionless signpost and not even a Coca-Cola stand to let us know we are in the West. The driver, as one girl tourist tunes up her guitar, disembarks to fetch some extra petrol he's carried for just such emergencies. We are locked in space and time, feeling only the hum of mid-summer all around, caring little if the journey continues or if we remain there, together, with each other and the summertime.
--from Sonnets of Love by V.J. Robinson Reeb; edited and published by Michalis, (c) 2003, Velma Jean Reeb (published in Nicosia, Cyprus).

A Rose Called Nigger Boy

There is a collection of correspondence between author Eudora Welty and New Yorker editor William Maxwell called What There Is to Say We Have Said (Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt, 2011). In it I read a letter he wrote to her in 1953 in which he mentioned several rose varieties. (They were avid rose growers.) One of them was called Nigger Boy. I was amazed that his use of the name did not bring any expression of embarrassment. If Welty had been a black woman would that have been the case? I think not.

Banned Books Week At The New York Public Library

The 115th Street branch of the New York Public Library is observing Banned Books Week (Sept. 24-Oct. 1). To Kill a Mockingbird, The Color Purple, Native Son, and The Grapes of Wrath are among the books on display.

New York: The Novel

I just started reading New York: The Novel, an 862-page historical novel by Edward Rutherfurd (Doubleday, 2009) that spans several centuries (1600s to the present). Rutherfurd beautifully interweaves fictional and historical characters, places, and events. For a history lover like me, it's a truly hard-to-put-down tome. The book brings history to life unlike a textbook.

I can't wait to get to the section that features the cross dressing English governor Lord Cornbury.