Posts

“Beurre,” a Short Film about Butter—by Ewan Turner

Some fun from my film-making son Ewan Turner, 2:20 in length, viewable here. Apologies to Edith Piaf.

Ewan Turner at the Bitter End, 7PM May 25/Updated w/Photos

As I’d tweeted earlier tonight and shared here, Ewan Turner was going to be playing at the Bitter End tonight and it turned out to be a terrific night. The venerable music room—which has hosted such legendary performers as Joan Baez, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Miles Davis—was quite full, and attentive to Ewan’s songs. He did six of his own songs, and he had time for one cover, Dylan’s “Abandoned Love,” a song that he told the crowd he’d learned Dylan had performed only once live, at the Bitter End, back in 1975. Here are images from the evening, beginning with a shot of an old poster in the club window, indicating many of the people who have played the venue over the years.Bitter End lineup

IMG_2331Set list

#FridayReads, Aug 9–Novelist Jayne Anne Phillips’ “Quiet Dell,” w/Thoughts on the Genre of ‘Documentary Fiction’

IMG_1035#FridayReads, Aug 9–Jayne Anne Phillips’ “Quiet Dell,” a mesmerizing novel drawn from the annals of infamous true crime. It’s set in 1931, when a West Virginia killer lured a Chicago-area widow and her three children in to his fatal embrace. Those murders, and others he’d committed, were discovered and he was arrested by authorities in the hamlet of Quiet Dell, WV, near the city of Clarksburg. In this true-life set-up, Jayne Anne Phillips has found it necessary to mint only a handful of fictional characters alongside the figures from history, all of whose actions she renders with imaginative power; her Acknowledgments page names “four” wholly new characters, including female journalist, Emily Thornhill, who becomes the readers’ eyes and ears on the case which she’s covering for her newspaper. The fictional Emily has had thrust upon her the adoption of the dead family’s orphaned dog–a real-life bull terrier with the Victorian-tinged name of Duty–earlier the target of a vicious kick by the malefactor, now playing a valuable canine role in the investigation with his damning identification of the killer.

The names in the book, evidently the actual names of most of these figures, are memorable and make the delineation of the plot, along with early developments in the story, quickly indelible in the reader’s mind. There’s Anna, aka “Asta,” Eicher, who’s been widowed, and her daughters–simple Grethe, 14, precocious Annabel, 9–and her son, Hart, 12. Lavinia is the mother-in-law, also bereft when her son, Asta’s husband Heinrich, was struck and killed by a streetcar in the Loop. The marauding killer goes by several aliases, two of which I’ve met so far, by page 224 of the 456-page book–Cornelius Pierson and Harry Powers.

The writing and construction of the tale are meticulous, engrossing and spellbinding. It’s one of those reads where you really want to be left alone to just read it and soak it in. I often listen to music while reading but I’ve found I don’t want to at all with this book.

I’ve long been interested in fiction that is informed by documentary materials–contemporary newspaper accounts; court records; photos; letters and diaries–whether used verbatim or only alluded to. Books like this that I’ve read and admired include Canadian writer George Elliott Clarke’s novel, George & Rue, which I published as Editor-in-Chief of Carroll & Graf in 2005. That book, which happens to also have been drawn from the annals of true crime, is based on a 1949 murder committed by two men related to Clarke’s mother, an act which he learned of from her only shortly before her death decades later. In Clarke’s novel the primary materials haunt the narrative, hanging in the background like a dark curtain. Clarke, a prodigiously talented poet, novelist, librettist, and orator–whose work I heartily recommend, was recently interviewed by Shelagh Rogers on her fine CBC Radio One books program The Next Chapter, a literary conversation I enjoyed listening to. George & Rue backGeorge & Rue

Another example of this sort of documentary fiction is a short story, “A Game of Catch Among Friends,” written by my son Ewan Turner, which ran as a guest post on The Great Gray Bridge last summer. Ewan had viewed photos of Bob Dylan by photographer Barry Feinstein, and from these he imagined a tale of Dylan on a free day while on tour in London in the early 1960s, around the same time as D.A. Pennebaker shot his classic documentary, “Dont Look Back.

Ewan TurnerCatch Among Friends Barry Feinstein

Earlier this year in March I had enjoyed a friendly evening that included Jayne Anne Phillips, when at the NBCC annual awards we were introduced by mutual friend Jane Ciabattari and sat only a row apart for the inspirational program of literary honors. I was pleased then when during BEA last June I met Jayne again in a welcome moment of serendipity–I spied her at the Scribner booth with Nan Graham–her much-decorated editor, and a publisher of great taste whose books I’ve written about before–signing copies of the nice looking ARC of Quiet Dell pictured here. Jayne Anne remembered me, even amid the BookExpo throng and a big line-up in front of her. I asked her to inscribe a galley to my wife, Kyle, though it turns out I’ve gotten to read it before her. I am glad I picked it up this week, because though it draws deeply from the well of a dark and tormented history, it bids fair to make of the Eicher family’s suffering something redemptive and just by way of the imagined life of Emily Thornhill and the undying loyalty of Duty. As the back of the galley indicates the novel will be published in October. Phillips grew up in West Virginia and on her excellent website she includes an Author’s Note on Quiet Dell that chronicles her personal connections to the story. I urge you to watch for the book, which has already received a starred review from Kirkus. You may pre-order Quiet Dell from Powell’s Books, and under my affiliation with the Portland, OR bookstore–by which they return a portion of your purchase price to me–you can help provide for upkeep of this website. This is also true of other books I write about on The Great Gray Bridge, such as George & Rue.

Finally, I’d ask you to let me know of any examples of what I’ve dubbed “documentary” fiction that you’ve personally relished reading. It seems to me we live in an age of mash-ups, where artists feel free to borrow or even appropriate (often judiciously, sometimes not) from the history, culture and media swirling around us all. I welcome your faves and thoughts in the comments below or direct to me via the contact button.  
Quiet Dell back

  

This Week at The Great Gray Bridge

In the past week I’ve blogged about an urban skunk I encountered in Riverside Park;  a great new espionage novel called The Double Game by Dan Fesperman; the shameful lack of recognition for women in tech, as revealed by Change the Ratio’s Rachel Sklar; a well-deserved honor for Jim Tully: American Writer, Hollywood Brawler, Irish Rover, my fave biography of 2011; the lack of public transportation for wage-earners which means they often can’t get to jobs they would otherwise be able to fill; a new genetics study that may shed light on how the Americas were peopled in prehistoric times; a personal essay I’m contributing to a new book called Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology; Mitt Romney’s most secret offshore investment, Mitt and Ann’s Jet-Ski vacation, and a NY Times Editorial that hit Mitt. I also put up a guest post by my son Ewan Turner, a blended short story that fuses an actual incident from Bob Dylan’s career with an imagined episode involving the singer.

Over at The Great Gray Bridge tumblr, my site for quick hits and diverting photography, I put up a photo of Donald Trump that the Scots must find hilarious (h/t TPM and Zuma Press/Newscom and a post about the personal effects of lawman Eliot Ness, which have been put for auction.

A Personal Encounter with Writer Jennifer Homans

Yesterday, my wife and I attended a Scholastic writing awards ceremony with our teenage son Ewan where he was given a medal for a humor sketch he’d written (posted here). The program included a keynote speaker, Jennifer Homans, who was introduced as the author of Apollo’s Angels: A History of Ballet. I knew of her book, which had won awards and been named to many best book lists in 2010, but I knew nothing else about her. She offered good advice to the many young writers assembled in the high school gym, like find a place “inside” yourself to write from and, even while relying on stimulation and information from the outside world, turn off the input, such as Twitter and Facebook, and don’t hesitate to go into yourself. Then she turned to a personal matter. She revealed that her husband, also a writer, had died less than two years earlier, and that she had just written and published an account of his passing, which required her to emerge from her quiet place, not a comfortable place for her, but one that she felt obliged to occupy for a time. She didn’t mention her late husband’s name, and I made a mental note to find out who he was. Before I had a chance to look it up, the essay by Homans on her late husband jumped out at me, in the New York Review of Books. He had been Tony Judt, the prolific author and intellectual historian of modern Europe. Stricken with ALS in 2008, her piece chronicles his last two years, when he maintained many of his intellectual and writerly pursuits, most significantly  ‘talking’ out his last book, Thinking the Twentieth Century, in regular two-hour conversation with collaborator Tony Snyder. He was editing passages of it just before his death in the summer of 2010. The book was published posthumously last month. Homans personal essay is a moving tribute and I’m grateful for having had the chance to hear her speak about her writing life and that of her brave and brilliant husband.

“My Father the Returner”–Guest Post

Ewan Turner headshotMy son Ewan won a medal for a fanciful humor sketch that he’d submitted to Scholastic’s 2012 writing awards. He and I hope you’ll enjoy the piece, which is running here as a guest post on this blog.

My Father the Returner

My father can return anything to any store anywhere, anyplace in the world. He has sent back everything from runny eggs to half gnawed peaches. He has argued and tussled, hustled and bustled. It isn’t that he is confrontational; it’s just that he has no shame. His name is Philip Turner and he is, in his own convoluted way a superhero. Not a man who can fly faster than a speeding bullet or lift a parked car, but a man who can spring fear into the hearts of humans. When managers and unsuspecting cashiers fall under the Returner’s spell no one is safe. He managed on one occasion to return an old sagging mattress and an entire pot of borscht. He was once discounted on year-old underwear because he felt it was “overly scratchy.” He has this face he makes when he is set for refund. It is between a grimace and a sneer, the countenance of a man set on retribution. He is not unlike Napoleon or Julius Caesar marching his way toward victory. I am the exact opposite of my father. I never make a scene and I never make a point.

There was this one day I remember quite distinctly, it is burned and ingrained upon my innermost psyche. We trundled off to a department store to return an item. It was a plain white shirt that looked suspiciously unassuming. I asked him why he desired to take it back. He replied because “it says it’s a medium and it didn’t fit like a medium.” I nodded ruefully. When we arrived at the store he positioned himself, like an unmoving battlement in front of the register. The woman at the counter had hair like Medusa and eyes that really could turn a man to stone.

“I bought this shirt a while ago and it says it’s medium but it doesn’t fit like a medium,” Philip said.

“Do you have a receipt?” she asked, her nasal voice dull and weary.

“Yes!” he said with delight, wrenching from his pleather fanny-pack a receipt.

“This is from four years ago,” she said, gazing at it.

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you’ve just gained weight.” My father stared into her eyes, braving, damming the danger.

“I want satisfaction and I want it now!” he bellowed. The Gorgon Queen flinched, sensing the power of an unstoppable beast of destruction. It was in this deciding moment that she cracked.

“I can offer credit,” she said. This was a big mistake, a sign of weakness.

“Credit? So you can unload socks on us? I want my money back.” She smiled a smile devoid of all hope and said she would get the manager. He emerged from a small windowless room in the back and approached the register.

“What seems to be the conundrum?” he asked. He wore a monocle, pristinely shimmering under the fluorescent lights.

“I want my money back for this shirt. It says it’s medium but it doesn’t fit like a medium,” Philip repeated. The manager’s eyebrow raised, his monocle tumbled out of his eye and onto the floor. He scrambled to recover it and as he did my father delivered the knockout punch.

“If I am not compensated then I vow I will never bring my business or that of my family here again. I will tell everyone what a sham this place is! I am Philip Stanley Turner and I demand satisfaction!” The manager turned a surprising shade of white and put his hands into the air, accepting defeat. He handed fourteen dollars across the counter with a quick palsied motion, bowing his head and trotting off. Philip smiled victoriously, savoring his conquest. I gulped and looked down, hand in pockets, trying to shoulder the embarrassment for the both of us.