When the English Fall by David Williams

Dystopian fiction is all the rage and has been for some time now, especially in the YA market. Done well, it can make for great storytelling (see work by Orwell, Atwood, Huxley, Bradbury, Burgess, etc). I keep reading how, with that orange maniac and his cronies hastening the decline of the republic, this outpouring of dystopian fiction is a metaphor, as well as a manifestation, of our current fears. Perhaps so. I was especially intrigued by his new spin on it and was rewarded with a fast, tense novel that practically made me yearn to be Amish. 

Jacob is an old order Amish farmer in rural eastern Pennsylvania and the story is told from his journal entries. At first, they are normal, even mundane, as he discusses work on the farm, the families in his community, and his hopes and fears for his own family. His daughter has an ability to see the future which causes him grave concern but, of late, she has been on an even keel. Still, he worries. 

One evening, the skies dance with strange light, both beautiful and terrifying. However, no light shines from the nearby town and the family sees a plane plummet from the sky. The next day, Jacob learns a solar storm has destroyed all electric and electronic power. The English world (the non-Amish world) is crippled. 

So begins the end of the world scenario--communication is all but impossible and as desperation leads to lawlessness, the Army's grasp on order slips. Jacob clings to his family, his community, and his deep faith as the English begin to encroach on his way of life. 

What most endeared Jacob to me was his sense of honor, fairness, and grace amidst the struggle over which he has no control. Were it not for the dire situation for the English, he could live his life as he always has but he must serve his fellow man and so he does. While his family and community come first, he also helps those outside, even taking in an English family. Williams evokes great humanity in Jacob and his wife, Hannah, and the religious aspects of the book never seems cloying. In fact, they seem quite genuine which makes sense since the author is a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church.

When The English Fall is a rewarding story of kindness and decency set in a time of desperation and ruin. Let's hope it's not too prescient. If so, I want Jacob as my neighbor. 

New from Lewis Nordan!

Exciting news for fans of the late Lewis Nordan: Algonquin Books has released a short piece of his that can be downloaded here: 

http://algonquin.com/book/would-you-shut-up-please/

Now I'm not a read-it-off-the-screen kind of guy but for new Nordan, I took the plunge and downloaded it to my laptop via an app from Kobo. You tablet users, I-Tunes-ers, and those who read on your phones (the horror!) can do the same. 

Apparently, Nordan was putting together a collection of short stories prior to his death in 2012 and the piece, entitled "Would You Shut Up, Please" (ahhhh. Nordan-y!), was part of those writings. I have contacted the publisher to see if they are planning to publish a full collection and should I hear back, I'll be certain to pass it on. 

If you're not a fan of Lewis Nordan, you can read my appreciation of him here: http://goo.gl/3eFEq8 

Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him by David Henry & Joe Henry

My first memory of Richard Pryor was when he guest-starred on a 1971 episode of the Partridge Family where the Partridges show up at a Detroit soul club run by Pryor and Louis Gossett, Jr., who played his brother. The club was expecting the Temptations but, insert kooky sitcom mix-up here, they got the Partridge Family instead. The brothers need this show to be a smash to save the club from loan sharks and now are faced with certain doom. The plucky Partridges plod on, even writing a soul-tinged song for the show and, as can only happen on TV, they play, save the day AND the club, and the viewer gets a glimpse of what racial harmony might look like.  

I thought it was the coolest episode I'd ever seen. 

Gossett was so handsome and Pryor was so cool and at the end of the show, Danny was given honorary membership in the local black militant society, complete with beret! Oh, how I wished that was me! Thing was, I didn't know anybody black and it wasn't until I was 7 and away at a weeklong summer camp that I had any interaction at all. My junior counselor was black but I learned quickly it didn't matter one way or the other. He was cool and kind and he helped me through my rather desperate bouts of homesickness. I hope I never forget him.

Though racism was everywhere when I look back on my youth, I didn't grow up in a racist household. At one point, my Father had worked among black men and once told me that if I ever used the word 'nigger', he'd "knock me into next week". That was pretty strong stuff from a very non-violent man. Still, despite the fact that blacks used the word 'black' to describe themselves in the early 70s, he still used 'colored'. He meant no disrespect. It was the phrase of his day.

I think my Mother was afraid. She didn't know any black folks, save the couple who lived in the very best neighborhood in town. He was a dentist and his wife was the principal of an elementary school and I think knowing them made my Mom feel like she was 'down' despite the fact that most African Americans in my town didn't live anywhere close to our part of town. Their son was a sweet guy. He was a few years ahead of me and the only black kid in our school system. Talk about having it tough.

So I didn't know Richard Pryor for what he really did and it would be years before I'd listen to him and start to 'get it'. The two concert movies, released while I was in my teens, were where I got on the bus. All that dirty language appealed to the teenage boy in me but I also remember thinking that I'd never seen any stand-up use their body that way. It was during this time that he also became a punch line after the 1980 freebasing incident in which he set himself on fire after dousing himself with 150-proof rum.

Still, it would be years before I understood what Pryor meant to people, especially to his own and how big his influence was. Sadly, in 1986, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and because he was no longer dangerous, it came time to appreciate him.

In Furious Cool, The Henry brothers, screenwriter David and musician and producer Joe, describe how much Pryor's comedy meant to them growing up white in suburban Akron, Ohio and how their love for his work grew into this book (and perhaps an upcoming documentary or bio-pic). However, this is no puff piece on Pryor. I found it to be an honest and often painful look at a very funny, very troubled man who just couldn't find himself.

If you know about Pryor, you know he was brought up in a Peoria whorehouse run by his grandmother while his father pimped and his mother turned tricks in the living room. He started emceeing shows and doing a bit of stand-up at home, then on the Chitlin Circuit, and eventually moving to the burgeoning Greenwich village club scene in New York. While Pryor was funny and insightful on stage, for some time he was unable to find his own voice, instead mimicking Bill Cosby's style. When he did find his voice, he became the great comedian and truth teller we know.

Fame, really BIG fame, came and proved to be his undoing. Drugs and bad decisions plagued him for most of his adult life. As the Henrys describe it, there was rarely a time over the course of many years when Pryor wasn't coked to the tits. Like an addict does, he lied to everyone about everything, all the time, repeatedly explaining to family, friends, the industry, and the press how he was now off drugs, fully focused and committed to his work. Uh huh. Then explain Jo Jo Dancer or Brewster's Millions to me, Richard.

Richard Pryor was so many things to so many people. To fans of comedy, he was a trailblazing genius. To black Americans, he was simultaneously a source of great pride and considerable shame. To many white Americans, my Mother among them, he was a foul-mouthed and scary 1970’s black man. To Richard Pryor, he was everything and nothing. The Henrys do him justice while pulling no punches.

Doomed With Joy

It's been over a month since Lewis Nordan passed away.  In that time, I've reread Wolf Whistle, his most acclaimed novel, and some of the shorter works, and I've thought a great deal about what his work has meant to me.  

When I was a boy bookseller, Nordan's work hit me like a train, with its outlandish heroes and villains, the decidedly oddball humor, the deep love his characters seemed to have for one another, and his descriptions of the Mississippi swamps, a symbol of both fecundity and decay, near the mythical town of Arrow Catcher, Mississippi.  My introduction to his work was an advance copy of The Sharpshooter Blues.  After devouring it and all the other titles the store had on hand, I was on the Nordan bus (likely, a short bus) for life.

Handselling it to anyone and everyone was a pleasure.  Because of the outright wackiness of the characters, I could tell customers, "If you're only going to read one book this year about a one-armed llama farmer, make it Lightning Song.  You must meet Swami Don" or "Tired of all those other books with hydrocephalic lead characters?  You gotta read Sharpshooter Blues" or even "Ever go chicken fishing?  Sugar Mecklin can teach you how".  It was as though I was introducing them to people they simply had to meet and I knew once they'd met Swami Don or Hydro or Sugar, they'd be hooked. Eventually, doing so caught the eye of Nordan's publisher, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.  

One afternoon, I found a message asking me to call the head of marketing, Ina Stern.  "Uh oh." I thought.  "Have I done something wrong?"  When I got through to her, I was surprised to find she just wanted to thank me for handselling so many copies in the store and then we proceeded to talk about Lewis Nordan, whom she called Buddy, as did everyone who actually knew him, for almost an hour.  I thought, "This is so great!  The publisher wanted to THANK me.  And I'm on the clock!"  That conversation began a long friendship with Ina, Craig Popelars (who wrote a lovely memorial for the author here: http://goo.gl/pOBYo) and others at Algonquin, a house that has managed to publish more hits over the last 15 years than any other house its size and whose list rivals any of the Big Six.  When I read of Nordan's death, the first thing I did was fire off condolences to Ina and Craig.  

Nordan's novels, short stories and his memoir aren't for everyone.  Some find it just a bit too much and if that's what you come away with, fine, but for me there is something more.  Amidst all the strange and wonderful characters, there is a decided humanity and great depth of feeling.  For all their considerable peccadilloes, the citizens of Arrow Catcher really are just plain folks.  They live and love and feel and fret.  They make bad decisions and have regrets but they seem to want what we all want: to be part of a community, to have friendships, to love and to be loved.  It doesn't matter if you're a hydrocephalic man-child, a member of the all-girl football team, or the Prince of Darkness (he's the local mortician), there is love to be had and therefore, there is reason to live.  Somehow, his characters always manage to find a way to tell the people they love just how much they love them; we should all be so lucky.  As the narrator says in one story, "...I was my father's child and the child of this strange southern geography.  I was beautiful, and also wise and sad and somehow doomed with joy".   To me, this single sentence might encapsulate and epitomize Nordan's entire body of work. 

I never got to meet Mr. Nordan.  He never toured near my store.  He never made the trip to BookExpo.  He lived and taught in my beloved Pittsburgh.  He published only one more book, his memoir, Boy With Loaded Gun.  He got sick and stayed sick for an awfully long time, before he passed in April.  I never got to call him Buddy but I feel as though I have lost someone sort of close to me and, with him, all those folks in Arrow Catcher.  Still, I'll take the liberty.  Thanks for everything, Buddy.

West of Here by Jonathan Evison

In days of yore, and before the new austerity in which publishing finds itself, it was not uncommon for publishers to create clever ways to promote their books, among them by providing swag.  The good folks at Algonquin were always particularly adept at this, even sending salamis to accompany the publication of one of their titles (anyone remember Laurie Gwen Shapiro's charming first novel?).

Last week, I had the good luck to be chosen among five winners for a "boxed" version of the new novel from Algonquin, West of Here.  Expecting a slipcased edition of the book, you can imagine my absolute delight when the package arrived in yesterday's mail, containing:

• A sturdy wooden box with a sliding lid revealing a hardcover copy of the book with a signed bookplate.  Is the dust jacket Tyvek?  What a wise move.
• A note on High Tide Seafood Company letterhead from executive editor Chuck Adams extolling his love of the book. (It was addressed to Dear Reader but I'll forgive him for getting my name wrong.  It's 'Reed', Chuck)
• Five old-timey postcards depicting people and places from the era in which the book is set
• A map of the Washington Territory from 1879
• A reproduction of a newspaper piece decrying how land barons and railroad magnates were carving up the Territory for their own needs instead of use by "settlers and homebuilders" per the original land grant
• A one-sheet with bookseller blurbs and news that West of Here is a #1 Indie Next Pick

The book, published February 15, was well-hyped and has been well-reviewed and it's obvious the publisher is behind it, going to some considerable expense to create this fine package.  More importantly, the goodwill this generates and the obvious love and care, thought and planning, makes me think the financial outlay will be well-justified soon enough.  Bravo, Algonquin. 

Once my travels in Swamplandia! conclude, I will travel West of Here happily.