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Reading Richard Ford’s “Canada”

May 30, 2012 /8 Comments/in , /by

I enjoyed reading Richard Ford’s first book Piece of my Heart, and then his breakout novel, The Sportswriter, and still own the copies I read in the 1980s. However, I missed several of the books that followed–this was during the long interregnum when as an in-house editor of topical nonfiction for several publishing companies, I rarely had a chance to read novels, or really anything for recreation. I noted Ford’s subsequent books as they came out, but never had a chance to pick up another one. Now that I’m running my own editorial services business and curating and writing this blog, my reading diet is as broad and nourishing as I can make it–as those who follow my weekly #FridayReads posts will have noticed–and I can make time to read books like Ford’s latest.

Ford changed publishers after Lay of the Land in 2006, leaving Knopf after many years there for Ecco Books, where Dan Halpern must have been eager to add him to his list, at least partially on the strength of this newest novel. As a confirmed Canuck-ophile and honorary Canadian, I was certainly intrigued when I saw the title of the new book–Canada. After about 150 pages into it, I  can totally see why Dan wrote this in a personal letter printed in the advance readers’ copy [Letter also pictured below–click on it for a larger view.] :

“The first thing you’re going to notice here is the voice, and the language that carries it from Montana to Saskatchewan. You’re not likely to read prose more arresting than this any time soon. Then there are the breathtaking sentences that present the prairies of  Saskatchewan, stark and moody, brooding and foreboding. . . . I understand that, as Richard’s publisher, my response to Canada may strike you as hyperbolic, as it should and rightly so. Until you read the book for yourself.”

I also admire the work of Saskatchewan native Guy Vanderhaeghe, especially his two novels set on the Canadian prairie, The Englishman’s Boy and The Last Crossing, and so, in addition to reacquainting myself with Ford’s work, I was eager to be snared by the locales of the new book, and that is just what’s happening. Ford renders a sense of place and an interior state of mind with strength and assurance. The narrator with the compelling voice one notices instantly is a teenage boy, Dell Parsons, who in the course of the narrative is swept up in a bizarre and destructive family breakdown. Dell’s modesty and manner of telling have bound me to his uncertain fate. And the sentence-making, as Dan promises, is full of constructions that are giving me joy in the reading of them, sentences to savor as they trip along the paragraphs and pages. As for the plot, it centers around an improbable bank robbery by Dell’s hapless parents, an escapade that evokes Sidney Lumet’s classic 1975 film with Al Pacino and John Cazale, “Dog Day Afternoon,” featuring another bank heist by two ill-prepared robbers.

This past Monday night, reading late in bed as is my wont, with my little bicycle light serving as my book light, I was at the same time listening to CBC Radio over the Internet, with my TuneIn Radio app on my IPod Touch. CBC Radio’s nightly news program “As It Happens” replays at midnight, and so that’s what I was listening to when I heard co-host Jeff Douglas introduce an upcoming segment,

“Richard Ford is one of the few living writers who can say he’s written the great American novel. Arguably he’s written three of them–they’re known collectively as the Sportswriter trilogy. The second of these books, Independence Day, won the Pulitzer Prize. Like his other work, his latest novel is sweeping, ambitious and touches on themes of American identity. But it has a very un-American name: it’s called Canada. Richard Ford joined Carol [Off] earlier today from a studio in Canada–Vancouver, Canada–to discuss his latest novel.”

That announcement was about the only thing that could make me put the book down, and so I listened for the next half-hour as Ms. Off led Ford through a deep conversation about fiction-writing, his own creative enterprise, and this new book. Following this link will allow you to listen to their conversation. It was after 1:00 AM by the time the program ended, but I couldn’t resist reading a couple more chapters, having gained new insight into this deeply satisfying book which I’m so eager to continue reading in upcoming days.
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Joel C. Turner, May 26, 1951-Dec. 8, 2009

May 26, 2012 /11 Comments/in , /by

On this anniversary of what would have been my late brother Joel’s 61st birthday, my sister Pamela and I remember him with all the force of memory and familial affection, as well as our departed parents, Earl and Sylvia. On May 4, 1978, the five us founded Undercover Books, the bookstore that would give all three of us siblings our adult careers. For those who didn’t know Joel–or who did and want to be reminded of his personality and accomplishments, which included a run for Congress in 2000 and earlier being among the very first online booksellers, several years before Amazon.com–you may read an obituary in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the remembrance I wrote that was excerpted in Shelf Awareness and Bookweb. The entire piece is pasted in below, set in the Comic Sans font to which Joel was partial (for readers able to view it that way) along with photos of him.
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December 9, 2009

Dear Friends and Colleagues,



It was with great regret and sadness that we write to inform you of the recent, sudden passing of our dear brother, Joel C. Turner, 58 years old. 


Many of you will recall that we three siblings together opened Undercover Books, in Shaker Heights, Ohio in 1978, on May 4 of that year, with the hard-working assistance of our parents, Earl (deceased, 1992) and Sylvia (deceased, 2006). From the original location at Van Aken Shopping Center, our family-run independent chain grew to occupy a location in the historic Old Arcade of downtown Cleveland, and a shop that also featured the sale of record albums and the then-new format of CD-ROMs, in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Joel’s role in the bookstores’ success and the good reputation we enjoyed in the book world was vital and indispensable. He was always generating exciting new ideas that drove our growth. Joel was a constant reader, a passionate believer in books and the power of the printed word. He derived tremendous satisfaction from selling books to the devoted readers whose trade we cultivated in our bookstores. 

We were fortunate to open our business at a moment when throughout the country and particularly the midwest, much book retailing was migrating from older downtowns to suburban locales, as the book departments of long-established department stores and old-line independents gave way to new indies like us. Soon, we were being regularly called upon by publishers’ sales reps from all parts of the industry, as Undercover Books became a go-to store for houses eager to break out books on the national scene. Notable authors who launched books at our stores included Mark Helprin (“Winter’s Tale”), Richard North Patterson (“The Lasko Tangent”), and Walter Tevis (“Queen’s Gambit”).  

The stores, indeed the Turner family home, helmed by Sylvia’s extraordinary cooking and hospitality and Earl’s gregarious nature, and Joel’s energetic raconteurship, also became a favorite stop for sales reps and authors.



By the early 1990s, competitive and economic pressures had mounted, and Joel had the vision to reduce the brick & mortar concentration of our enterprise and transform it into an operation that served businesses, corporate libraries, schools, and public institutions. As this shift occurred, the name of the business became Undercover Book Service, which soon also had an online presence, surely one of the first online booksellers. He also developed a sideline in the antiquarian and second-hand side of the trade. Joel was a true bookseller, and also served the book industry through active participation as an officer and board member of the American Booksellers Association.  



In this decade, he and Sylvia moved to a lovely part of North Carolina, where he helped her live very comfortably for the remaining years of her life. After Sylvia’s death, he built for himself a beautiful home on a scenic mountaintop in the town of Bostic,  Rutherford County, North Carolina, where he died in his sleep this past weekend.  In addition to the two of us–his younger brother and older sister–Joel is survived by nephew and niece Benjamin and Emma Taylor; nephew Ewan Gallup Turner; brother-in law Ev Taylor; sister-in-law Kyle Gallup; cousins Stephanie Shiff Cooper and Brian Shiff; and Uncle Myer Shiff and Aunt Linda Shiff. 



Plans for memorializing Joel are being considered as we write this to you. For those wishing to mark Joel’s life with a charitable donation we urge you to make contributions to the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE,  http://www.abffe.com/) or for medical research in search of a cure for diabetes.  

We write in sadness, but with fondness and appreciation for all the years that we three Turner siblings and our parents were recipients of your generous affection, respect, and consideration.  The bookstores gave all of us, and especially Joel, great enjoyment and satisfaction, along with so many wonderful friends. Feel free to send this message on to any of your contacts in the book world. 

Sincerely, 

Philip Turner (philipsturner@gmail.com) and Pamela Turner (pturnertaylor@roadrunner.com)

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Hurt Feelings on Wall St.

May 25, 2012 /0 Comments/in /by

As he often does, Paul Krugman’s analysis in his NY Times column today totally captures the moment. He begins the piece, titled “Egos and Immortality,” like this:

“In the wake of a devastating financial crisis, President Obama has enacted some modest and obviously needed regulation; he has proposed closing a few outrageous tax loopholes; and he has suggested that Mitt Romney’s history of buying and selling companies, often firing workers and gutting their pensions along the way, doesn’t make him the right man to run America’s economy. Wall Street has responded — predictably, I suppose — by whining and throwing temper tantrums. And it has, in a way, been funny to see how childish and thin-skinned the Masters of the Universe turn out to be.”

This critique reminded me of the anecdote in a NY Times Sunday Magazine story from a few weeks ago that one denizen of Wall Street, in a meeting with an Obama emissary, urged that the president should give a major speech, similar to the one he gave on America and relations during the ’08 campaign, explaining why Americans should not revile the financial industry. I was struck then, and again in Krugman’s column, by the bloated self-importance that these folks assign to themselves and their industry. Many people, after causing a major debacle would be somewhat sheepish about insisting that one is entitled to regain a privileged place at the table, but not this crowd. I’d have imagined that crashing the economy would induce humility in those responsible, but clearly not so. And of course, the same is true for Republicans who act as if the 2000-2008 period never occurred.

Krugman ends his hard-hitting column this way:

“Think about where we are right now, in the fifth year of a slump brought on by irresponsible bankers. The bankers themselves have been bailed out, but the rest of the nation continues to suffer terribly, with long-term unemployment still at levels not seen since the Great Depression, with a whole cohort of young Americans graduating into an abysmal job market. And in the midst of this national nightmare, all too many members of the economic elite seem mainly concerned with the way the president apparently hurt their feelings. That isn’t funny. It’s shameful.”

#FridayReads, May 25–“Bill Veeck” and “BEA Buzz Books”

May 25, 2012 /0 Comments/in , /by

#FridayReads, May 25–Bill Veeck: Baseball’s Greatest Maverick, Paul Dickson’s superb life of the progressive-minded baseball team owner, filled with fascinating social history and baseball lore. Also dipping into BEA Buzz Books, the ebook collecting 30 top books to be featured at this year’s Book Expo America, with selections from Neil Young’s Waging Heavy Peace, Mark Helprin’s In Sunlight and In Shadow, and many others.

A Likable Low-Tech Campaign Ad

May 24, 2012 /0 Comments/in /by

This is a nice piece of homegrown political advertising from Jeff Barth, a Democratic hopeful for a South Dakota congressional seat currently held by Republican Kristi Noem. Before he can face her, however, Barth has a Democratic challenger for the nomination, Matt Varilek, a former aide to Senator Tim Johnson. Varilek is much better financed than Barth and probably favored. Still, I like Barth’s approach in this ad–plain-spoken, clever props (note the mannequin, chess board, rifle and rubber chicken) with dashes of humor. And as a Rapid City Journal story reported earlier this week, Barth has come out in support of marriage equality, while Varilek opposes it. This is a five minute video so it’s probably going only to get fully seen on the Web, but it’s so authentic I bet clips will also show in the local TV market. I like Jeff Barth and his ad. I encourage you to spread it around. For my part, I’m also going to his website to make a contribution to his campaign. H/t @JamilSmith and @TimothyMurphy

A Renovated Digital Home for the CBC Archives

May 24, 2012 /0 Comments/in , , , /by

Cool stuff on the Web from the CBC Archives is now accessible to virtually all computer users. The national broadcaster of Canada goes back to 1936 but until now their Internet archive was more frustrating than enlightening. Now, however a post on the CBC’s in-house blog explains that the old site has been updated, with a side benefit that MAC users–formerly shut out–should now have as full access as folks on Windows machines. It does look much better now and you can savor TV and radio clips of musicians Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, Glenn Gould, writers Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Farley Mowat, and Pierre Berton, comedians Bruce McCullough and Scott Thompson from Kids in the Hall and Catherine O’Hara of SCTV and Patrick Watson* (the longtime broadcaster, not the current day musician), to name only a handful. I should add it’s not all about the artistic luminaries–the correspondents and journalists who’ve long made up the CBC, such as Patrick Watson* (the longtime broadcaster, not the current day musician) and the late Barbara Frum, co-host for many years of “As it Happens,” Canada’s “All Things Considered,” represent great broadcast talent. This archive is a veritable youtube for Canuckaphiles and honorary Canadians like me. For a taste of one artist, enjoy this 2 1/2 minute clip on stellar rapper Cadence Weapon, celebrating his selection in 2009 as Poet Laureate of Edmonton, Alberta.

*In 1979, one year after my family bookstore Undercover Books opened for business, Patrick Watson published an excellent suspense novel titled Alter Ego. My brother Joel read it and wrote to Patrick inviting him to visit our store. With the participation of his publisher, Viking, Patrick visited our store for an autographing and a great book party that moved from the store to my family’s nearby home. I recall that Patrick, an accomplished pilot, flew his own small plane from Toronto to Cleveland. I bumped into him in 2003 on the convention floor at Book Expo Canada. We had a pleasant reunion. He’s a grand fellow and has had a fascinating career as broadcaster, actor, author, and engaged citizen. Apart from the thriller Alter Ego, Patrick is also the author of a book in my art book library, Fasanella’s City, on the American painter known for his colorful canvases that depict May Day celebrations and demonstrations of workers’ rights amid clamorous scenes of urban density.

Ruth Gruber’s Photojournalism at Soho Photography

May 21, 2012 /2 Comments/in , , , /by

To mark Jewish American Heritage Month, Open Road Media–which has recently brought out five ebooks by my longtime author Ruth Gruber–has published a celebratory post on the Open Road Blog. In addition, Ruth’s photojournalism, for which she’s received the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Award, is on exhibit through June 2 at the gallery Soho Photography on White Street in Tribeca. Among Ruth’s mentors was Edward Steichen, who exhorted her to “Take pictures with your heart.” I recommend you read Ruth’s inspiring books and go see her photographs, including the two accompanying this post. The image above was taken when Ruth was sent to Alaska in 1940 by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, her boss in the FDR administration; the one below was taken aboard the prison ship Runnymede Park, on which the refugees from the Exodus were forcibly sequestered during the summer of 1947, a chronicle that Ruth tells in her book Exodus 1947: The Ship That Launched a Nation, which is illustrated with more than 100 of her photographs. I published it with Ruth in hardcover in 1999, and in trade paperback in 2008. It is still only available in hard copy, and is not yet among the ebooks from Open Road. For the record, the titles available as ebooks are Haven: The Dramatic Story of 1,000 WWII Refugees and How They Came to America; Inside of Time: My Journey from Alaska to Israel; Raquela: A Woman of Israel; Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create as a Woman; and Ahead of Time: My Early Years as a Foreign Correspondent (also the title of an excellent documentary covering mostly the first four decades of Ruth’s life). For readers’ handy reference, I’ve previously blogged about Ruth Gruber, here and here.

Celebrating Woody Guthrie at the Brooklyn Folk Festival

May 19, 2012 /1 Comment/in , /by

I was at the opening of the Brooklyn Folk Festival last night when the upcoming 100th birthday of Woody Guthrie was observed. There were a number of great performances and I’ll be heading out there again later today for Day II. If you’re looking for live music tonight this is going to be a great place to hang out. The venue is in downtown Brooklyn, at 345 Jay Street near Metrotech, very close to an A train subway stop. Highlights of Day I included, but by no means were limited to these memorable moments:

  • Hearing Ernie Vega and Samoa Wilson of Four Flowers sing Woody’s “I Ain’t Got No Home,” whose melody seemed a close cousin to the equally classic, “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum,” also the name of a 30s movie with Al Jolson;
  • listening to John Longhi read from his father’s memoir, Woody, Cisco, and Me, that chronicles the time the three friends shared as merchant seamen during WW II;
  • listening to Greenwich Village 60s era folk stalwart John Cohen read from lists of hundreds of song lists that Woody catalogued alphabetically–all the songs that began with the letter ‘H,’ all that began with the letter, ‘L,’ etc. Woody knew hundreds of songs. It was like one of those extravagant lists that John McPhee is wont to put in his long New Yorker pieces. I met Cohen after his reading and told him that what he read from Woody’s notebook (John brought the original valise and notebook with him) was like a symphony in commas;
  • Finally hearing Peter Stamfels, leader of the psychedelic 60s jug band, The Holy Modal Rounders, who was in the house with his current group Ether Frolic Mob. They’re a boisterous seven-piece outfit full of primal hoots and hollers led by Stamfel on banjo and fiddle and his daughter, Zoë Stampfel, who, seated near her dad, played the djumbe drum and really tore up the tracks. John Cohen also sat in with this assemblage.
  • Dennis Lichtman’s Brain Cloud, who played inspired, hot, western swing, and had an amazing vocalist, Tamara Korn, who threw her voice in all sorts of ways, imitating other instruments in the band–clarinet, fiddle, pedal steel, lead guitar–twinning with them in her sweet, darting voice. It was something special to behold/behear.

As I posted on this blog a couple days ago, Eli Smith directs the festival, now in its fourth year, in coordination with a Brooklyn cultural institution called the Jalopy Theatre. I learned last night that up until a few weeks they believed the festival would be held in the same venue as last year, which included some outdoor space, but it suddenly became unavailable to them; fortunately, they found an alternate venue. It’s a converted hardware store in downtown Brooklyn, which is quite spacious and conveniently located near the Jay St. stop on the A train. Eli and his cohorts did a fabulous job of converting the space and lending to it a theatre-like ambiance with stage lighting, maroon curtains all around the stage, and handsome murals evocative of old Brooklyn and New York harbor. They are to be congratulated for figuring all this out at the veritable last minute. Photographs that I took last night will be found below. It was a great night and I’m headed back later tonight, and possibly Sunday. I urge you to stop by for this fine example of homegrown, acoustic musical entertainment. // more. . . click through to full post for all photos