Books To Read In A Troubled Time

It's time to dust off our copies of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (William Shirer), 1984 (George Orwell), Farenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury), Lord of the Flies (William Golding), The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood), and other dystopian books. They will help us cope with the dark, far right- leaning days ahead. And, I hope, they will motivate us to find ways to overcome them.

If you don't own a copy of these books, visit your local independent bookstore or the public library.

Creepy Stories For Halloween

Here are two very creepy stories that I recently re-read. They are, I think, appropriate reading for Halloween:

The first is "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. It was first published in 1948 in The New Yorker magazine. The ending shocked readers and caused many to angrily cancel their subscription. Jim Freund, the host of Hour of the Wolf, a weekly sci-fi/horror/fantasy talk show on WBAI in New York, calls it the greatest horror story. (The story was anthologized in 50 Great Stories, edited by Milton Crane, Bantam Books, 1983, 46th printing.)

The second story is "The Fly" by George Langelaan. It was published in Playboy magazine in its June 1957 issue and was about a scientific experiment gone wrong. It later became the basis for the 1958 movie and the 1986 remake. (The story was anthologized in Stories of the Supernatural, edited by Betty M. Owen, Scholastic Book Service, 1967 and Pan Book of Horror Stories, edited by Herbert Van Thal, Pan Books, 1960.)

Happy Halloween, folks!

Four Biographical Novels On My To-Read List

I enjoy reading biographies. I especially enjoy reading biographical novels. Because much of what's in these books are "products of the author's imagination," they shouldn't be regarded as completely factual. But unlike biographies, they do offer the reader a you-are-there, fly-on-the-wall, get-inside-the-minds-of-the-characters approach which can be a  more dramatic and captivating experience.

The following are four biographical novels I am eager to read:

1. The Queen of Paris: A Novel of Coco Chanel by Pamela Binnings Ewen (Black Stone Publishing, 2020). According to The Last Collection: A Novel of Elsa Schiaparelli and Coco Chanel by Jeanne Mackin (Berkley, 2019), Chanel's archrival in the world of high fashion was Schiaparelli. It will be interesting to see if Schiaparelli makes an appearance in Ewen's novel.

2. Ella: A Novel by Diane Richards (Amistad, 2024), based on the life and career of Ella Fitzgerald, who has been referred to by one jazz radio DJ as "The First Lady of Song."

3. The Blue Period: A Novel by Luke Jerod Kummer (Little A, 2019). The Spanish painter Pablo Picasso is the focus of this book.

4.  The Age of Light: A Novel by Whitney Scharer (Little, Brown and Company, 2019). This debut novel retells and examines the romantic and professional connection between the photographer Lee Miller and the artist Man Ray.

Pearl Buck Wanted Her Books To Be Affordable

A couple of days ago in a box of books that sat curbside on Amsterdam Avenue near 101st Street on Manhattan's Upper West Side, I found a paperback copy of Pearl S. Buck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Good Earth, set in China. (The book was published in 1931.)

I've seen the 1937 movie on TV many years ago but I've never had the chance to read the book on which it was based until now.

Turning to the page following the title page is a brief comment by Buck (1892-1973) about her novel being issued in paperback. (The edition I have was published in September 2004, so her comments were made sometime in the 1950s when paperbacks first appeared.)

Said she, "I am always glad when any of my books can be put into an inexpensive edition, because I like to think that any people who might wish to read them can do so. Surely books ought to be within the reach of everybody."

I've never seen another writer make that statement. It would be wonderful if from time to time authors included such a statement of concern about the affordability of their books. They will no doubt make less money, something their publishers won't like, but it might help attract new readers to their work.

Must-Read Books, 2023, Part 2

Here are a few more books I hope to read from cover to cover this year:

1. Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City by Nelson Johnson (Plexus Publishing, 2002). (The basis for the television series.)

2. Langston's Salvation: American Religion and the Bard of Harlem by Wallace D. Best (New York University Press, 2017).

3. The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume II, 1941-1967: I Dream a World by Arnold Rampersad (Oxford University Press, 1988).

4. Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie Glaude, Jr. (Crown, 2020).

5. The Rage of a Privileged Class: Why Are Middle-Class Blacks Angry? Why Should America Care? by Ellis Cose (HarperCollins, 1993).

6. The Devil in a Blue Dress: An Easy Rawlins Mystery by Walter Mosley (Washington Square Press/Pocket Books, 2002, paperback; originally published by Norton, 1990).

7.The Woman in the Window: A Novel by A. J. Finn (Morrow, 2018).

8. The Cold Millions: A Novel by Jess Walter (HarperCollins, 2020).

Books That Are On My "Must-Read" List, 2023

These are the books I hope to read from cover to cover this year:

1. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly (Morrow, 2016).

2. Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem by Kevin McGruder (Columbia University Press, 2021).

3. Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions by Francesca T. Royster (University of Texas Press, 2022).

4. And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by Jon Meacham (Random House, 2022).

5. Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight (Simon & Schuster, 2018).

6. The Sewing Circle: Hollywood's Greatest Secret: Female Stars Who Loved Other Women by Axel Madsen (Birch Lane Books, 1995).

7. The Coming Race War in America: A Wake-Up Call by Carl T. Rowan (Little, Brown, 1996).

8. Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime That Changed America by Kevin Cook (Norton, 2014).

9. Tinseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood by William J. Mann (HarperCollins, 2014).

10. Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green (Celadon Books, 2021).

11. Harlem Shuffle: A Novel by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday, 2021).

12. The Underground Railroad: A Novel by Colson Whitehead (Anchor Books/Penguin Random House, 2021, paperback; originally published by Doubleday, 2016).

A Writer Admits She's Allergic To The Internet

Gabrielle Zevin's fifth novel, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (Knopf), set in the video game design world, is currently on the New York Times bestseller list. In an interview in the New York Times Book Review (July 31, 2022) about her work habits, she's quoted from her website saying, "I'm allergic to being online, but you will sometimes find me on Instagram, and only for the three months before and after I have a book out." Then she continues, "After that time I completely disappear from the internet and resume writing books again."

Her statement leads me to wonder how other writers like Samuel Delany, Larry Duplechan, and Christopher Bram (who are three of my Facebook friends) find the time to write their books. It seems they are constantly posting on Facebook.

Books On My Summer Reading List, 2022

The following are books I plan to read this summer:

1. Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington by James Kirchick (Holt, 2022).

2. Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship in the Era of Plessy V. Ferguson by Blair Murphy Kelley (University of North Carolina Press, 2010).

3. One-Shot Harry by Gary Phillips (Soho Press, 2022). (Historical crime fiction.)

4. Last Call: True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green (Celadon Books, 2021).

5. Greenland: A Novel by David Santos Donaldson (HarperCollins, 2022).

6. Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird by Gene Andrew Jarrett (Princeton University Press, 2022).

7. Harlem Sunset by Nekesa Afia (Penguin, 2022). (Crime fiction set during the Harlem Renaissance.)

8. Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem by Kevin McGruder (Columbia University Press, 2021). (A biography of the early twentieth-century black real estate mogul.)

Science Versus Fiction, Per Margaret Atwood

 "...[S]cience,...is about knowledge. Fiction, on the other hand, is about feeling. Science as such is not a person, and does not have a system of morality built into it, any more than a toaster does. It is only a tool--a tool for actualizing what we desire and defending against what we fear--and like any other tool, it can be used for good or ill. You can build a house with a hammer, and you can use the same hammer to murder your neighbour."

"Literature is an uttering, or outering, of the human imagination. It lets the shadowy forms of thought and feeling--Heaven, Hell, monsters, angels, and all--out into the light, where we can take a good look at them and perhaps come to a better understanding of who we are and what we want, and what the limits to those wants may be. Understanding the imagination is no longer a pastime or even a duty, but a necessity; because increasingly, if we can imagine it, we'll be able to do it.

"Or we'll be able to try it, at least."

--Margaret Atwood, from the essay, "Scientific Romancing," in her collection, Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004 to 2021 (Doubleday/Penguin Random House, 2022.)

Discovering A New Literary Term

While browsing the New Fiction section of the public library on 124th Street in Harlem, I came upon a novel called Tenderness by Alison MacLeod (Bloomsbury, 2021). According to the flap jacket copy, it is the story of D.H. Lawrence and the writing of his 1928 novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover. (I must confess, I've never read the Lawrence novel, but Tenderness may change that.)

On the back of the book were advance praise blurbs, one of which was from novelist David Leavitt who referred to Tenderness as being part of a literary form called "uchronia."

I'd never seen that word before and since I couldn't find it in any of my dictionaries, I consulted the Internet. Wikipedia defined "uchronia" as "a hypothetical or fictional time period of our world, in contrast to altogether-fictional lands or worlds....Some, however, use uchronia to refer to an alternate history."

Two novels said to fit the alternate history description are The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick and The Plot Against America by Philip Roth.

Unpublished Books Set Aside For Unborn Generations

 There is a fascinating art project mentioned in an article about the English novelist David Mitchell that was published in The Wall Street Journal (July 18-19, 2020 weekend issue). Unfortunately, no one now alive will get to experience it. It's called the Future Library and was described in the article as "the World's Most Secretive Library." Located in Oslo, Norway, the Future Library will contain the unpublished manuscripts of contemporary novelists like Mitchell, whose most recent novel is called Utopia Avenue, about a fictional 1960s rock band. The unpublished manuscript he contributed to the library is called From Me Flows What You Call Time.

These manuscripts won't be published until the year 2114 when, according to the article, they will "be printed from paper derived from the Nordmarka forest, outside the Norwegian capital." That's assuming books will continue to be printed on paper.

I'm curious about who came up with this idea, what they had in mind when it was created, how contributors to the project were selected, what is special about the Nordmarka forest, whether or not the Norwegian government was involved, etc. These are questions to which I hope to get answers.

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.

Jury Fraud, A Threat or Not?

Cornelia "Libby" Winslow is a novelist and the protagonist in Laura Van Wormer's 1995 novel, Jury Duty (Crown Publishing). Libby is also juror number three and brings up an issue that has never crossed my mind and, unlike jury tampering, never gets reported on in the news--jury fraud.

After recently serving two days as a potential juror, her thoughts struck a chord with me: "Not once in this entire process had anyone ever asked her for an ID. For all they knew, Cornelia Winslow could have paid someone to show up at jury duty for her. Then she wondered what would happen if someone was found not guilty in a trial, only to find out later that one of the jurors had been an impostor. What happened then?"

At a time when many state and congressional legislators are clamoring about voter fraud and advocating that voters show photo ID before they are allowed to vote, this particular issue doesn't seem to be of any concern to them.

It would be interesting to learn if jury fraud has ever happened in the history of American jurisprudence. And if so, what were the consequences?

A Lengthy Page Turner

On a table near the circulation desk at the 115th Street library in Harlem were several uncorrected advance reader's editions of recent books. The sign on the table said "Take One." Sorting through the pile, I decided on Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith (no relation), a screenwriter and author who lives in Los Angeles. Forty Acres is his first book.

According to the back jacket copy Forty Acres, published by Atria Books, an African American-oriented imprint of Simon & Schuster, is "[a] novel of rage and compassion, good and evil, trust and betrayal--and the most provocative thriller you'll read this year." When I got home, I read the first four pages. From the little that I read, the book sounded very promising. Quickly flipping through the book, which is more than 300 pages long, I noticed that the chapters were very short, no more than two or three pages.

In her back jacket blurb, novelist Terry McMillan, the author of Waiting to Exhale, stated that Forty Acres had her "on the edge of my seat." If that's the case, the book despite its length should be a real page turner and help make Dwayne Alexander Smith a household name.

Making History Come Alive Via Fiction

One reading goal of mine is to read all 21 books in Ellis Peters's Cadfael (pronounced Cad-file) mystery series, set in 11th-century England. So far I've read about three of the books. I own paperback copies of some of the books. (I've been meaning to read the whole series for a long time but, unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to it. Maybe I can start in the new year.)

Cadfael, for those not familiar with the series, is a Welsh-born monk/herbalist/amateur sleuth (who was also a soldier).

Peters (1913-1995) was the pseudonym of Edith Pargeter, a medieval scholar. Because of her extensive knowledge of this period and her literary skill, she made the life and customs come alive on the page in an entertaining and riveting way that most scholarly books would not.

Many of the books were adapted for television and broadcast in the United States on PBS.  The wonderful actor Derek Jacobi portrayed Cadfael.

A Mammoth Novel

One book I intend to check out is A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James, a Jamaican novelist. The novel is set in Jamaica in the late 1970s when an assassination attempt was made on reggae star Bob Marley. The book is 700 pages long. I'm hoping the book's quality justifies its length.

Sexual Outlaws In Paris

Neons by Denis Belloc (Translated from the French by William Rodarmor)
(David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc., 103 pp., hardcover)

Far from being a depressing, sordid fictional account of the underside of gay life in 1960s Paris, Neons, by French novelist Denis Belloc, is a profane, often humorous novella, written in the first person present ("I go upstairs to the sixth-floor tenant's place with her, she cleans for him once a week.").

Reading very much like a diary, Neons has as its protagonist a wayward young man named Denis (the book appears to be autobiographical) who spends as much time as possible haunting the tearooms (public toilets) of Paris in search of quick, anonymous sexual encounters.

The johns, male hustlers, and transvestites who populate his world are very much like him: products of dysfunctional backgrounds; seekers of sex as a palliative, as a void-filler.

This fast-moving novel takes the reader on a hectic journey that follows Denis from the loss of his father in a fatal boxing match to the prison where he serves an eight-month sentence for a motorcycle theft to the streets of Paris where he works as a male hustler to a love affair with a Greek insurance salesman who takes him to Greece to meet his family.

Although Denis acts tough and streetwise, his naivete shows through. When Zits, a pimple-faced ex-prisonmate, suggests they team up to rob drunk johns, Denis asks, "What's a john?" and"What's a trick?" Zits's impatient response is, "Shit, are you dense, or what? John, trick, they're the same thing! It's a queer who pays to fuck."

Belloc's writing style is so spare, so cinematic, I could visualize the book as it might look on a movie screen, including English subtitles. In fact, I kept seeing the late Anne Ramsey, who played Danny DeVito's mother in Throw Mama From the Train, as the mother of Roger, a guy Denis meets on the street and moves in with. When she sees Denis the next morning, she screams, "Who's this guy, where'd he come from? You've been getting buggered all night long, right next to your mother."

Toward the end of Neons, Denis, who earlier exhibits artistic talent, shows up on the doorstep of Mademoiselle Chameron to study art under her tutelage in a studio he describes as "a total mess, with easels everywhere and on the wall, plaster busts and Mademoiselle's canvases." Denis later breaks up with the Greek and moves to"[a] little studio in a little street near a train station." The novel leaves the reader uncertain about Denis's future or his immediate plans. Has he decided to give up the tearooms and start life anew as an artist?

Although Neons covers the same terrain (the inhabitants of a gay subculture) as "Just Boys" by James T. Farrell and "Transit House" by Mark Ameen (both stories have been anthologized), it's not brutally violent as the former nor solely preoccupied with tearoom sex as the latter. In the middle ground, Belloc has constructed a memorable addition to the gay sexual outlaw tradition.

This article was originally published in NYQ magazine (February 9, 1992).

A Few Words From Patricia Nell Warren

"I've learned that the idea of a line between fiction and nonfiction is--well, fiction. Trying to separate them is a little like trying to separate two twins who are conjoined at the brain. They're two sides of the same coin. Every novel has its genesis in the writer's real-life experience in some way. Likewise, there is very little nonfiction that hasn't been fictionalized to at least a small degree--if only to shape and organize the material."-- Novelist Patricia Nell Warren, from online Q & A interview, http://www.lambdaliterary.org/.