John Walters's Blog, page 7

A Christmas Gift for My Blog Followers

As a Christmas gift to readers, I have enrolled electronic editions of some of my books and stories in the Smashwords End of Year Sale, which runs from December 12th through January 1st. Complete books are half price, marked down from $3.99 to $1.99. Short stories and mini-collections of essays and memoirs are available to download for free. Take advantage of this sale to stock up on some great reading material.

If the discount price does not appear on my profile page, click on the link to the specific book you are interested in and you’ll see the deal.

Smashwords was the digital distributor I used when I first became involved in electronic publishing, and when I later switched to another distributor, I left numerous editions of my early works in the Smashwords catalog. You can find a complete listing at my author’s profile here.

Among the books available at a half-price discount are my memoirs World Without Pain: The Story of a Search, After the Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Memoir of Greece, and America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad; the novels Love Children, The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen, and Sunflower; the collections The Dragon Ticket and Other Stories, Painsharing and Other Stories, Dark Mirrors: Dystopian Tales, and Opting Out and Other Departures; and the essay collection Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing.

The stories available for free include some of my personal favorites such as “Dark Mirrors,” “The Customs Shed,” “Life After Walden,” and “Noah and the Fireflood.”

So head on over to Smashwords and pick up some thrilling and thoughtful novels, short stories, memoirs, and essays at deep discounts and even free. Merry Christmas!

Book Review: Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever by Matt Singer

Before I read this book, I had no idea of the existence, let alone the popularity, of the Siskel & Ebert film criticism TV show and its various iterations such as Opening Soon at a Theater Near You, Sneak Previews, and at last simply Siskel & Ebert. The rise of their renown as the nation’s most famous film critics coincided with my departure for other continents in the 1970s and my return in 2012. Although I watched a lot of English-language TV when I was living in Europe, I never came across Siskel & Ebert’s shows. While raising a family in Greece, though, I did become aware of and learn to appreciate Roger Ebert’s written film criticism by means of his website RogerEbert.com. I didn’t agree with some of it, but I liked the way he expressed his ideas, and I often sought out his opinions after I’d seen a film and formed my own. I also read and enjoyed his memoir, Life Itself.

The title Opposable Thumbs refers to Siskel and Ebert’s “thumbs up, thumbs down” rating system, which became so famous that they trademarked the “two thumbs up” top rating. One of the main points that this book makes is that though these two men worked together for decades, they were often at odds with each other. In fact, their near-constant bickering on camera about the merits or drawbacks of various films is what fueled their popularity and drew millions of viewers to every episode.

In the beginning, Siskel and Ebert both worked as film critics at rival Chicago papers. Shortly after Ebert won a Pulitzer Prize for his film criticism, the local PBS station decided to initiate a show in which critics discussed movies, and these two were the obvious choices to star in it. The show eventually moved from PBS to national syndication, until it ultimately ended up at Disney’s Buena Vista studios. Siskel and Ebert became very wealthy and influential men, and also recognizable celebrities who made frequent appearances on top late-night talk shows.

As I progressed through this book, all of this was new to me. As I said, I never encountered mention of the show in Europe, and to this day I don’t think I’ve ever read one of Gene Siskel’s written reviews. I’ve also never seen an episode of the show. (Interlude: While writing this review, I took a quick side-trip to YouTube, and sure enough, you can find episodes of Siskel & Ebert there. I took three minutes to watch their review of the movie The Shawshank Redemption, which, by the way, they both loved.) The point is, though, that the true story of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert’s unlikely but wildly successful partnership unfolded for me without any preconceptions on my part, just like a film that I’m seeing for the first time.

I love movies too; I always have. However, I am not enamored of most film critics. Nowadays, in this era of social media when anyone can post anything, there are simply too many people all offering their opinions at once, and it is hard to know who to trust. Back in the closing decades of the twentieth century, this was not the case; Siskel and Ebert reigned supreme. This book is a fascinating account of their rise from obscurity to celebrity. The one thing I would like to have seen is a list of their specific opinions about various famous films, perhaps in an appendix or whatever. Otherwise, this is an interesting account of an era that social media, in some ways, has rendered obsolete.

Books Make Great Gifts!

After Thanksgiving has come and gone, people commence a search for holiday gifts for family members, relatives, friends, acquaintances, in-laws, outlaws, colleagues, and sometimes total strangers. If you’re looking for fun, sophisticated, lively, intense, flamboyant, and otherwise variegated literary fare, I’ve thus far published over thirty-five volumes in a range of genres through Astaria Books. Here are some examples of choice gifts you can bestow upon your loved ones. If you click on the titles, the links are to Amazon, but for lists of links to other marketplaces, head for my website’s Available Books page.

Science Fiction:

After the Fireflood: A Novel – During the Fourth World War, the entire Earth is engulfed in a torrent of fire, transforming the landscape and obliterating all life.  Using terraforming, time travel, and other expediencies, human survivors from Moonbase and the outer colonies attempt to cope with their devastating loss, reconstruct the Earth’s surface, and reorganize Earth sociologically to ensure lasting peace, while others plot to claim the pristine reconstituted planet for their own purposes.

Bedlam Battle: An Omnibus of the One Thousand Series – In the late 1960s, humans and sympathetic aliens based out of Haight/Ashbury struggle to stop alien-possessed psychopaths intent on a murderous rampage. Four science fiction thrillers in one volume.

Love Children: A Novel – It is the mid-1970s.  The Summer of Love and the Woodstock Music Festival have come and gone.  Into the atmosphere of cynicism and doubt following the wild optimism of the youth revolution the Love Children, raised from birth by benevolent aliens, come home to Earth.  Sexually free, telepathic, and honest to the extreme, they are appalled to find that the planet they left behind is full of darkness and deceit. As they set about using their extraordinary powers to bring light and unity back to their world, they run up against a sinister alien force intending to keep it in darkness.

Dark Mirrors: Dystopian Tales – These tales offer terrifying glimpses of Earth’s future gone wrong. From the author’s afterword:  “When I postulate dark futures it is not to get you to despair.  When I hold up dark mirrors before your eyes it is not so that you will see the worst in yourself and do yourself in.  Far from it.  Some of our greatest illuminations come from deep dark prose.  Dark literature is not meant to overwhelm us.  It is meant to purge us, to provide catharsis.  It is a cleansing and purifying process.  We must be aware of the evil within before we can clean it out.”

Fantasy:

Caliban’s Children – Content is being siphoned from libraries and replaced with half-truths and lies.  Weather, time, and distances are distorting like images in a funhouse mirror.  People are discovering the ability to morph into animals.  At first it all seems idyllic and magical until a dark power begins to manifest itself, assert control, and demand obedience.

Ethan is a university student caught in the midst of a kaleidoscopic confusion he cannot understand.  After journeying into the wilderness seeking answers, he realizes he has to ally himself with the beasts of the Earth and venture into a bizarre, mutating, peril-filled city to rescue his lover and attack the source of the evil.

Fear or Be Feared: Fantasies – In these fourteen weird, surreal, frightening, and fantastic tales, unwary people discover that the world is very different from what they imagined.

Thriller:

The Fantasy Book Murders – After a famous fantasy writer is murdered in his castle-like mansion, two unlikely investigators discover a pattern of similar murders suggesting a serial killer. They begin to research the killings, starting with the most recent and working backwards into the past. Danger mounts as they uncover the backgrounds of the victims and the truth begins to resemble the fantasy writer’s most bizarre and horrific fiction.

Novels of the Counterculture:

The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen – Sarah Tabitha Jones, a twenty-year-old fascinated by the youth culture of the late 1960s, leaves her middle-class home and wanders to a wilderness commune and then to the Haight/Ashbury in search of truth. On the way she encounters many strange characters: bikers, draft dodgers, Vietnam War veterans, peyote worshippers, heroin dealers, Jesus people, feminists, violent anarchists, Black Panthers, and science fiction fans. She experiments with drugs and sex, but at the same time helps out those she can; though often disillusioned, she believes that hippies should unite to create a better world. In the midst of all this she finds herself pregnant. Eight and a half months later, undaunted, belly bulging, she travels to Woodstock for one last attempt at finding the love and unity she seeks. The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen will appeal not only to those who lived through the disconcerting era of the 60s and 70s but to those younger who are curious about what took place back then. It will also resonate with anyone who is idealistic and in search of personal fulfillment, as well as those who simply enjoy a wild tale: sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, sometimes violent, sometimes sexy, always extreme.

Sunflower: A Novel – In early 1970 a new era, the Age of Aquarius, is dawning. Penny, who adopted the name of Sunflower on the way to the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, attends another rock concert touted as Woodstock West, at Altamont Speedway near San Francisco. Seeking to enhance the transcendent experience, she instead comes away covered in the blood of a man brutally stabbed to death in front of the stage. Has the new youth experience descended from idealism to anarchy? Confused and disillusioned, Sunflower embarks upon an odyssey across an America torn by violent anti-Vietnam War protests, racial tension, and gangs of hard drug dealers. From a search for a shared social experience it becomes a personal quest for fulfillment that leads her on a journey across continents.

Memoirs:

World Without Pain: The Story of a Search – In the 1970s, after the Altamont Rock Festival, the Manson Family cult murders, and the fiasco of the Vietnam War many young people, disillusioned by the hippy movement, began to leave their homelands and travel to the far places of the world.  Hoping to find drugs, sex, freedom, and excitement, they more often were confronted with destitution, despair, disease, loneliness, and culture shock. As a young writer wishing to break out of the familiar rut in which he was stagnating, Walters hit the road during this time, first to Europe, then onward to the Indian Subcontinent.  He sampled Buddhism and radical Christianity; he wandered alone in the Himalayas; he listened to strange gurus spouting stranger doctrines; he watched the people around him deteriorating and dying in the lands of the East.  As he traveled onward he became fascinated with the road itself, and determined to discover its secrets. He wondered what it was that gave the road its alluring power, and he forsook everything else to find out. His story will appeal to those who lived through the turmoil of the 60s and 70s, to those who are hungering after spiritual fulfillment, to writers and other artists in search of their voice and their inspiration, and to anyone who loves a true story of adventure and excitement in strange lands.

After the Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Memoir of Greece – Greece has always been regarded as the birthplace of western civilization and a Mediterranean paradise.  In The Iliad and The Odyssey Homer uses the magical epithet rosy-fingered dawn to describe the sunrise over a land of myth, fascination, and mystery.  But when preconceptions and illusions are swept aside, what is Greece really like? John Walters has lived in Greece for over fifteen years.  He has hitchhiked over many of its roads; traveled by camper; journeyed by plane, boat, bus, car, taxi, motorcycle, and on foot.  He has lived and worked and raised a family among Greeks.  He offers insight from an intimate perspective on aspects of Greek society and culture of which tourists are unaware. Many have visited Greece and afterwards acknowledged that the country has profoundly changed them.  This memoir is for those who feel something special when they think of Greece and Greeks, those for whom Greece holds a special thrall, those who have visited and have their own memories of the place, and those who would like to visit someday and know that when they do they will obtain new insight, new clarity, and will never be the same again.

America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad – In 1976 John Walters left the United States in search of adventure and literary inspiration.  He lived for many years in India, Bangladesh, Italy, and Greece.  He married and had five sons.  Finally, faced with the economic catastrophe in Greece and the lack of opportunities for his sons, he returned to the land of his birth.  Without home, without job, without resources, he confronted his own country as if for the first time. This is a memoir of someone who, late in life, was forced to leave everything behind and start fresh in what for him had become a new land.  It will appeal to those who are confronted with major life changes in these troubled economic times; to those who, though they may desire rest and retirement, must continue toiling to make ends meet; for those who desire insight into the vast, multifaceted culture of the United States from a fresh perspective, unencumbered by familiarity.

Writing as a Metaphysical Experience – From the author’s introduction: “For me, writing is metaphysical because it is inseparable from who I am and my conception of the universe and my place in it.  My interpretation of writing goes far beyond the definitions of hobby, job, or career – it is rather in the nature of a calling.  It is something that blossomed from within me and, though invisible to instrumentation, has been as integrally a part of me as my flesh, bones, and internal organs.  How this transpired and how it manifests itself is the subject of this book. This is not a how-to book on writing, although in its course I offer many practical tips and suggestions.  It’s more like a travelogue, a story of the life’s journey on which my writing has led me.” This journey has led Walters on a decades-long quest from the United States to Europe to the Indian Subcontinent and back in the pursuit of voice, inspiration, and literary excellence.  On the way, he has written and published novels, short story collections, essay collections, memoirs, and numerous individual novellas, novelettes, short stories, and essays.

Book Review: The Future by Naomi Alderman

Don’t let the generic title of this novel fool you. It is a stylish, multifaceted, fast-paced, and well-written near-future fable that reveals itself as even more prescient due to recent political events in the United States. It concerns three billionaires, the owners of the three largest tech companies in the world, three of the richest people on the planet. One company controls a social media network, one company dominates worldwide internet sales, and one company creates cutting-edge tech equipment. Sound familiar? These three wealthy and powerful people couldn’t care less about the rest of the human race; they are concerned only with increasing their own fortunes at any cost and with ensuring their own survival even if everyone else faces a catastrophe and perishes. This is uncomfortably close to present-day realities. In fact, as I read The Future I was frequently reminded of wealthy billionaires of whom the characters in the book seem to be doppelgangers, those who buy up vast properties and construct bunkers and fortresses on them, presumably to save themselves from whatever ill fortune comes upon the rest of the human race.

So the selfish billionaires function as the villains, but in great stories villains need foils, and in The Future we have several, including a survivalist influencer who as a child lost her family in the decimation of Hong Kong, a personal advisor to one of the tech overlords who escaped a fanatical religious cult in Oregon as a teen, a former tech CEO who was ousted in a hostile takeover, the empathetic son of one of the tech moguls, and one of the tech mogul’s wives who is also a genius programmer. Together these people plot to relieve the self-centered billionaires of their fortunes and their power and use these for the betterment of humanity… But I don’t want to give away too much of the story. This novel is something that I find too rarely nowadays: a real page-turner. I generally keep quite a strict schedule during the week, and in the middle of the day I allot a period of rest that I usually spend reading. When I need to get back to the computer and my work, I put down whatever book I am absorbed in and get to it. However, while reading The Future, I often yielded to the urge to read just one more chapter before I got up.

One thing I found interesting about The Future is that it is divided into a complex array of sections and chapters but there is no table of contents. This is because the various divisions, titles, and subtitles throughout the text form a pattern integral to the story. Early on I also found it a bit disconcerting that Alderman does not tell the tale sequentially but uses frequent flashbacks and flash-forwards. As the story progresses, though, it becomes apparent that there is a rhythm to all of this and it enhances the novel’s overall impact. As a final deviation from standard publishing procedure, at the story’s penultimate point Alderman inserts an acknowledgments section, and after this appears the book’s last chapter. As I said, the novel is stylish. Sometimes, in some books, stylistic flourishes can be annoying, but in The Future, they are great fun and add to the book’s appeal.

In conclusion, this book was a pleasing discovery for me, and reading it was an enjoyable and gratifying experience. Highly recommended.

Nordic Celebration

Seattle has a multitude of fascinating museums, and since I haven’t been able to accomplish long-distance physical travel lately, I have been taking advantage of a museum pass to mentally travel not only to distant locales but to other times by visiting venues such as the Seattle Art Museum, the Wing Luke Museum in Chinatown, the Klondike Museum in downtown’s Pioneer Square, the Museum of Flight, the Museum of Popular Culture, formerly known as the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, and others. Last weekend I decided to venture into the Ballard district to check out the National Nordic Museum.

In the past, Seattle has welcomed a large number of immigrants from the Nordic lands of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland. In particular, these newcomers brought their skills into burgeoning Pacific Northwest industries such as logging and fishing. In fact, the ancestors on my father’s side are mainly Danish, so I have a personal stake in this heritage.

As usual, I planned my Saturday morning bus trip so that I would arrive when the museum opened. That way, I supposed, as in other museums, I would have the place almost to myself. I was astonished, therefore, as the bus passed by the museum to pull up to its stop, to see a blocks-long line of hundreds of people waiting to get in. I guess I hadn’t studied its website closely enough, for it turns out that every year on the weekend before Thanksgiving, the museum hosts its Christmas celebration known as Julefest. I almost gave up and decided to leave and return on another day, but an attendant at the gate assured me that once the admissions desk opened, the line would clear rapidly. So I walked and walked and walked and walked to the end of the line of cheery people, most of them looking quite Nordic, and waited my turn.

It was as the man had said: the line moved quickly. Most people had purchased their tickets online and after a swift scan walked right in. However, when I reached the pay-on-the-spot table, the cashier informed me that my museum pass wasn’t valid for the festival. I explained that I hadn’t come for the celebration but only to peruse the museum’s exhibits, and that I would come back another time. She then, with a wave of her hand, said, “Oh, just go in! Go in!”

So there I was in the vast interior of the National Nordic Museum. The Julefest celebration’s offerings of food, drink, entertainment, and high-priced handicrafts were all on the ground floor. When I ascended the stairs to the permanent exhibits, I found that they were sparsely populated; most people had remained downstairs to enjoy the festivities. One corner of the upstairs was set up as Santa’s toyshop for the kids, and I gave that a pass. As for the rest, I was able to contemplate the historic Pacific Northwest Nordic experience at my leisure. The items on display depicted regional Nordic history from thousands of years ago up to the present. As usual on my museum visits, I became fatigued before I was able to absorb everything.

Back downstairs, I discovered that an abundance of merchants had set up stalls in the alley behind the building and were selling their wares to an eager crowd. Available munchies included seafood, hot dogs, meatballs, popcorn, candy, and chocolates. Other stalls sold artwork, glasswork, clothing, candles, wine, hard liquor, and many other items. I hadn’t come there to shop, of course, but it was fascinating to watch the festival attendees crowding into the various makeshift shops.

All in all, during my visit to the National Nordic Museum I got much more than I had expected. You never know what you might come across when you venture forth into the unknown.

Book Review: Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood by Ed Zwick

I have read several books on filmmaking from top directors and screenwriters, including Chasing the Light by Oliver Stone, Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino, and Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell? by William Goldman, but even among these fascinating books by such accomplished authors, Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions stands out. For one thing, Zwick is an excellent writer. He is also adept at focusing on lessons to be learned in the midst of the innumerable outrageous situations in which people working in Hollywood find themselves. And his examples come from accounts of the filming of some truly outstanding films he has been the producer, director, and/or writer of, including The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, Defiance, Glory, Shakespeare in Love, Legends of the Fall, and others. In addition, he shares the triumphs and tragedies of working with actors such as Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Morgan Freeman, Daniel Craig, and Anthony Hopkins. In between the chapters, each of which highlights one or more TV series or movies, Zwick compiles summaries of tips and lessons to be derived from the examples; some of these are written tongue-in-cheek, while others provide profound yet practical wisdom for anyone aspiring to success in film land.

I want to emphasize, though, that this book is much more than a Hollywood expose. As I said, Zwick is a very talented writer, and this is above all a personal memoir. He credits the COVID lockdown, when film production shut down, with providing the impetus to put his past into words. As he says: “For the first time in my life, having been stripped of the work addiction that’s defined me since second grade, I decided to sit down and take a hard look at what I’d made over the years.” And his motivation comes in the form of an image: “It is of a young filmmaker, bent over a copy of my book, scribbling something I’ve written into a notebook of her own.”

However, all is not brilliance and dazzle in the world of movies. Besides telling the success stories of award-winning films, he recounts many tales of when things went wrong: the movies that were developed but never made, studio executives stalking sets of films whose production costs have exploded, grapples with stars who don’t see eye-to-eye with him, locations that proved intensely difficult to work in, accidents on set, and the difficulties of making his latest films while being treated for the cancer he was diagnosed with. It’s fun to read the success stories of film shoots that culminate in critical acclaim and the winning of Emmys and Oscars, but it is also illuminating to read about the setbacks and failures – of which there are inevitably many. It is obvious from this book that you have to have a thick skin and an unending supply of persistence and sheer courage if you want to make movies. It is also obvious, though, that the journey can be fulfilling and rewarding. Whether your chosen means of expression is film or some other artistic medium, I recommend this book not only for its absorbing stories of what it’s like in film land, also for its insightful portrayal of the artistic experience.

Book Review: Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie

I’m about halfway through this book but I have some thoughts that can’t wait. Knife is a memoir of Rushdie’s recovery after a near-fatal attack by a knife-wielding assailant. It is deeply ironic that this happened at the opening of a conference devoted to safe spaces for writers at the Chautauqua Institute in New York. A twenty-four-year-old man rushed the stage and stabbed Rushdie fifteen times, leaving him near death. This occurred in response to a decades-old fatwa issued by Iranian leaders after the publication of Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses. Rushdie, who had long lived under the protection of security forces, had finally begun to feel safer and so was unprepared for this attack. (It is also ironic that after the attack, sales of The Satanic Verses skyrocketed.)

Rushdie was put aboard a helicopter and taken to Hamot Medical Center in Pennsylvania. He spent the following months in the hospital and in rehab. Eventually he recovered, but lost his right eye and bears deep scars.

Knife opens with the assassination attempt and goes on to describe the traumatic medical procedures Rushdie went through. He credits his loved ones, particularly his wife Eliza, his sons, and numerous friends and supporters, with keeping his spirits up and helping him to pull through.

The book raises deep moral questions about freedom, honesty, and the role of a writer in society. Rushdie is more well-know than most authors, of course; even President Biden condemned the attack and sent wishes for his recovery. But regardless of status or popularity, writers should not fear physical assaults due to the words they share.

But besides the lessons on freedom of expression, there is another message in Knife – one that touched me personally with great intensity. It has to do with recovery from traumatic experiences. Rushdie almost died and went through numerous prolonged painful procedures to stay alive. It took a great deal of grit, perseverance, fortitude, and foresight to reclaim his life. I reacted to the account of the stabbing attack in another way; somehow I related it to an emotionally traumatizing experience I went through several years ago and still have not got over. Sometimes it seems as if I am past it, but something reminds me of it and I realize that the wounds have not healed. Sometimes I wonder if they will ever heal. As I read some of the more traumatic parts of this book, I could easily picture my psychic injuries as metaphorical knife wounds that seem to be closing, but then something jogs my consciousness and they open up again. As I considered Rushdie’s fight for life, though, I thought that if he could recover, then maybe so can I – eventually, at least. The difference is that he is relatively wealthy and has an extensive network of people around him, while I often feel as if I am fighting my battles all alone, especially since my sons have all grown and gone off to other parts of the country. Still, the point is that regardless of individual circumstances, when we are wounded it is important that we fight for life.

*     *     *

After many weeks, Rushdie was finally able to return to his own home. He credits being in familiar surroundings with hastening his recovery. And eventually, after a lengthy hiatus, he was able to start writing again. But before he felt able to resume writing fiction, he felt that he had to confront the book that became Knife.

One of the strangest and most discordant sections of the book is a series of conversations he imagines with his assailant. He really did want to meet his attacker, but that would have been impossible. Instead, he imagines several question-and-answer sessions and fantasizes about what his would-be murderer might have said. This is jarring, after the calm, thoughtful memoir tone of the rest of the book, but I think I understand where it is coming from. It is likely that during the traumatic circumstances of his recovery he might have played scenarios such as this over and over in his mind. But at the end of this section he comes to some pertinent conclusions about art: “The most important of these things is that art challenges orthodoxy. To reject or vilify art because it does that is to fail to understand its nature. Art sets the artist’s passionate personal vision against the received ideas of its time.” He goes on to say that art “accepts argument, criticism, even rejection. It does not accept violence.”

At the time of the attack, Rushdie was seventy-five years old. Near the end of the book, as he is recovering, he chronicles the deaths of numerous of his friends. Although he is an atheist, he admits that his recovery against such great odds was nothing short of miraculous. The conclusion he comes to is that he has been given a second chance at life, and he determines to make the most of it by continuing his writing work and seeking joy in each moment. I found this to be a wise conclusion. After all, life is a gift, and regardless of our circumstances, we can choose to wallow in our sorrows or try to make the best of it. In the end, for closure, Rushdie and his wife return to the scene of the attack. It is hard for them to be there, but it is a reminder that they have been able to overcome the experience and can get on with the rest of their lives.

Although this memoir is about a traumatic experience, it is also inspirational. After all, adversities are a part of life. They don’t always take the form of a physical assailant like they did in this case, but they are always there. This makes it imperative that we face them, deal with them, and overcome them, no matter what form they take. I am reminded of a memoir I read not long ago called Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad, in which, at the age of twenty-two, the author finds out she has leukemia and only a small chance of survival. Her life is upended, of course, and much of the story takes place in hospitals; but she perseveres and fights for her life. At the end she is finally released once again into the outside world, where she celebrates by taking a road trip in a camper van. A wonderful story. Rushdie’s is similar. The experience has changed him, but it has also given him a new, intense perspective of life.

“Sink or Swim” Is Now Available!

My novelette “Sink or Swim: A Near-Future Tale” is available as an e-book from various online bookstores or in print as part of my short story collection Road Signs: Tales of the Surreal and Fantastic. It is especially prescient in the light of contemporary political realities.

In the aftermath of the official cancellation of Medicare, Social Security, and other government welfare programs, a destitute senior is relegated to an internment camp for old folks. There he discovers that all is not as it seems, and the recalcitrant elders have some tricks up their sleeves that they can use to deal with the pitiless system that has banished them from its midst.

Available at these and other bookstores:

Trade Paperback

Amazon Kindle

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

Apple

Book Review: The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates

In the introduction, Ta-Nehisi Coates clarifies that he is addressing his latest book The Message specifically to his students and more generally to “young writers everywhere whose task is nothing less than doing their part to save the world.” I’m far from being a young writer, but Coates’s words resonate with me. He writes thoughtfully, precisely, and honestly, with courage and a commitment to truth, and he inspires me to want to do the same.

Ostensibly, the book is an account of his travels to three different locations: Senegal, South Carolina, and Palestine. However, it is far from being a travelogue. Instead, Coates uses the fresh perspective he obtains from journeying to these places to offer incisive commentary on the horrors of slavery, the lingering perils of white supremacy, colonialism, inequalities in modern American society, the importance of teaching, the power of language, the value of writing, and other topics.

His trip to Senegal is his first journey to Africa, and he writes of the inversion of awareness caused by being on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean. His description of the visit is moody and contemplative, and he draws conclusions that are difficult to summarize and must be read directly. He presents his thoughts with such precision that a summary cannot do them justice. Throughout his narrative he takes pains to clarify to his readers, the writers he is addressing, that it is their responsibility to do the same, that is, to write with honesty and integrity.

Part two opens with a long treatise on teaching and on the importance of “safe spaces” where students can feel secure as they conduct their investigations into the nature of truth. This security is jeopardized when politicians pass laws to ban books that would threaten the status quo and cause white students to feel guilty or remorseful about their ancestors’ cruel treatment of their fellow humans. This introduction leads into the reason that Coates went to South Carolina. A teacher named Mary Wood had been using his book Between the World and Me in her advanced placement lessons, and the school board was trying to get the book banned because it might make some students “feel uncomfortable” and “ashamed of being Caucasian.” This was a result of the executive branch of the government at that time coming out against “critical race theory.” The school board argued that Coates’s appraisal of “systemic racism” in the book was illegal. Coates got in touch with Woods and offered to join her at the school board meeting on this subject. When word got out about the meeting, a multitude of people turned up to support Woods. In fact, everyone who spoke there was against banning the book. Coates clarifies that “this is not about me or any writer of the moment. It is about writers to come – the boundaries of their imagination, the angle of their thinking, the depth of their questions.” Inquiring minds need the freedom to explore fresh and unique ideas in books. He offers a personal example: “I was saved by the books in my house, by the implicit message that learning does not belong exclusively in schools.” The rewriting of history and the banning of books, according to Coates, can kill the future.

In the third and longest section of The Message, Coates writes of his journey to Palestine. It begins with an account of his visit to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, which he actually made on the last day of his trip. From this he launches into a description of the impressions he formed during his visit, when he was alternately led from place to place by Jewish and Palestinian guides. He explains that in his essay “The Case for Reparations” he had used Germany’s reparations to Israel as a model, but the more he explored the land and got to know its people and its history, he realized that comparison might have been a mistake. He writes: “I was there for ten days, ten days in this Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns. And every day I was there, I had a moment of profound despair.” But his mandate as a writer – to seek the truth – caused him to keep going.

As with Coates’s account of his trip to Senegal, his observations are complex, layer upon layer of arguments, and it is difficult to summarize them. Read the book. He concludes the book by emphasizing the importance of writing, which “is transformed into a ‘spiritual advantage,’ putting in the hands of the oppressed ‘the conditions of a classical art,’ which is to say the power to haunt people, to move people, and expand the brackets of humanity.” He points out the lack of work published by Palestinian writers, and adds that “if Palestinians are to be truly seen, it will be through stories woven by their own hands.” This applies, of course, to any person or group who needs to have their voices heard.

All in all, as with other books by Coates I have read such as Between the World and Me and We Were Eight Years in Power, The Message is thoughtful, well-written, and important. Highly recommended.

Getting to Know SAM

Poverty has its advantages, among them the ability to snag a free ticket to the Seattle Art Museum through the national Museums for All program. So it was that I ventured forth into the chill morning fog to take a bus and then a light rail downtown.

I arrived without any preconceptions. After all, I have never formally studied art – at least not the art composed with paints, inks, clay, rocks, ceramics, wood, and so on. I have devoted my life to creating art with words. In a way writing is a more malleable, diverse, and elegant art form than these others, because if you are not pleased with your first result, you can try again by erasing, recreating, and rearranging your words, while if you create a painting or sculpture and you blow it, you generally have to start from scratch. Be that as it may, I was not there to criticize but to learn what I could from what I saw. In many cases, observing what could be done with other materials inspired me with what might be able to be done with words.

Regardless of the mediums they use, artists are attempting to transmit a message. How precisely they are able to render their messages, whether specific or abstract, is the measure of the success of the piece. Observing the beauty and heart-stirring quality of some abstract works, in fact, caused me to wonder why more such work is not being done in the literary world. There is some, of course; for example, when I first read Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer I was in awe of the frequent surrealistic passages, some of which would go on for several pages. But there is not much abstraction in literature, at least not much that’s done well. The most obvious excuse is that many readers would not put up with extended passages that they might initially perceive as nonsense. Still, when it is done right, abstract writing is very effective.

Several rooms at SAM are devoted to indigenous artwork or artwork from particular nations. This caused me to muse on an artist’s background and roots as sources of inspiration. In this, artists from cultures with deep ancestral mythologies have an advantage over others, such as many Americans, who might be confused about their genealogical pasts. Of course, that confusion can itself be a source of inspiration. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter where an artist comes from; what matters is how effectively that artist is able to use whatever tools he chooses to depict his inner visions.

The majority of the art at SAM is amazing, but there were also some pieces that gave me real what the hell moments. For instance, a so-called artist took a photo of a shopping receipt from a local market; that photo, enclosed in a wide plain border, is framed and placed in a gallery with other real works of art. What the hell? There are other paintings that are simple one color – nothing else – in a frame. What the hell? And these people somehow manage to get paid a lot of money and even receive adulation for this stuff. Sigh.

In contrast, there is a room full of Rembrandt etchings. Most of them are very small; I had to take off my glasses and lean in so I was inches away to be able to discern the fine details. But oh my God what details! I was astonished that anyone could compose with such complex loveliness in so small a space. Nearby were other traditional oil paintings that astounded me with their beauty.

All in all, the few hours I spent wandering around SAM were well rewarded with sublime inspiration. And I fully concede, as my old mentor Harlan Ellison put it, that “one man’s nightmare is another man’s wet dream.” I can’t really envision anyone getting inspired by an old shopping receipt, but I suppose there are people who might find a single vast field of color elegant. Who knows? In the meantime, there was plenty to please me and even encourage a return visit sometime in the future.