Clifford Browder's Blog, page 25
November 26, 2017
329. Taxes: Who Pays Them and Who Doesn't
My books
Black Friday has come and gone, and Giving Tuesday (I think) is looming. Anyway, the season for intense shopping is at hand, and books are a great gift to give. Of course I speak objectively, with no personal interest in mind. Here, quite by chance, is a list of my books in print. (We don't talk about the others, one of which has mysteriously appeared online.)
No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World. A selection of posts from this blog.
Historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York:
1. The Pleasuring of Men. A young man becomes a male prostitute in the hidden gay world of that time.
2. Bill Hope: His Story. A street kid turned pickpocket pours out his story in a torrent of words.
3. Dark Knowledge. A young man fights to discover the truth about his family's involvement in the slave trade.
For details, see below.
Taxes: Who Pays Them and Who Doesn't
Note: This post repeats #157, published on December 14, 2014. Some things have changed since then, and some haven't. But taxes are in the news these days, hence the repetition. A few facts have been updated.
No subject can raise more hackles than taxes, especially income taxes. Long ago in Alaska, before that territory had become a state, a resident urged me to urge my Congressmen to endorse statehood for Alaska. And if that meant more taxes, so be it. “You can’t have civilization without taxes,” he insisted. This is not an opinion shared universally. In our Western states, especially, citizens are wary of government, convinced that the IRS is out to grab their hard-earned cash and give little in return for it. But tax avoidance, so common in many foreign countries, is not sanctioned here. Back in the 1950s, when I was hanging out at the San Remo bar in the West Village, I overheard snatches of conversation from two Frenchmen, one new to the States and the other his mentor, who were watching “les existentialistes américains,” a scruffy bunch of bohemians imbibing at the bar. But the Frenchmen were discussing other matters. Said the veteran to his newly arrived friend, “En Amérique la taxe est sacrée” (In America taxes are sacred).
Logo of the Internal Revenue Service
New York is a notoriously high-tax state, and residents of New York City are hit with a triple whammy: federal income tax, state income tax, and yes, believe it or not, a city income tax. The state income tax alone is grounds for complaint. In the 1970s, when I was doing research in Putnam County, I observed that if two New York City residents got together, they talked about crime, whereas when two Putnam County people got together, they talked about taxes. And dodging the state tax was not unheard of. From a friend who taught there, I learned that some of the professors at Skidmore College in Saratoga listed a summer residence in Vermont as their main address, so as to escape the New York State income tax. Whether the state ever got wise to this, I have no idea.
A wartime warning from the Treasury Department,
1941-1945. Today the deadline is April 15. Another form of protest came from the Iroquois people, who claimed to be a sovereign independent state and therefore not subject to New York State taxes. In 1957 native American medicine man and activist Wallace Mad Bear Anderson led several hundred Mohawks on a march to the courthouse in Massena, New York, burn court summonses issued for unpaid taxes. Again, how this finally worked out I don’t know.
One thing is certain: New York State welcoming signs at the state line cannot match Nevada’s, which proclaims
NO INCOME TAX
NO SALES TAX
NO INHERITANCE TAX
NO CORPORATION TAX
NO GIFT TAX
A DEBT-FREE STATE WELCOMES YOU
And if one enters that tax-free paradise, as I did once at night on a bus, the explanation becomes immediately apparent. As the bus sped through the darkness over the bleak and level landscape, at intervals lights would appear in the distance, and as the bus pulled in to the station, one could see a brightly lit interior with rows of slot machines. With legions of one-armed bandits everywhere, not to mention casinos, there was no need of taxes.
Nevada's solution.
Sunnya343
Since New York State is not so blessed, what do its tax-burdened citizens do? At tax time – the months and weeks preceding the dread deadline of April 15 -- they go to accountants, of course, to save themselves the ordeal of preparing their tax returns themselves, and to pay the least amount of taxes possible. And those accountants, those wonder workers, those toilers in the bureaucratic maze, thrive.
My partner Bob once went to an accountant named Russo (not his real name). One year, since Bob was in charge of acquiring recordings for the Fine Arts Department of the library system he worked for, Russo suggested that he deduct the cost of all his opera tickets as a necessary business expense. After all, how can you acquire recordings of current performances, if you haven’t heard the performances and evaluated them? So Bob, a real opera buff, claimed the deduction. I thought this a bit of a stretch, but maybe worth a try. Alas, the IRS didn’t go for it. They called Bob in for an audit, and when, dismayed, he didn’t contest their finding and cooperated, they let him off and went after Mr. Russo. What came of it I don’t know, but Russo was a pretty shrewd operator; I doubt if he got more than a reprimand.
My own accounting adventures had to do with an accountant named Mateo Morales (again, not his real name), another shrewd operator, hefty and glib of tongue, whom I soon nicknamed Immorales. (Not to his face, of course.) Having no college degree to his name, he admired those who did and was especially happy doing their tax returns; he was recommended to me by a fellow instructor at Columbia, who praised him to the skies. Mr. Immorales too was adept at finding possible deductions, but nothing so dubious as Mr. Russo’s suggestion. Even so, on one occasion I was summoned for an audit. The prospect of an audit can be daunting, all the more so in my case, since a friend of mine, very vulnerable, had gone to one, encountered an aggressive auditor, and been devastated by the experience. So I offered to pay Mr. Immorales whatever he wanted, if he would go in my place, and with some reluctance he agreed. On the day of the audit I got a phone call from him late in the afternoon.
“I had a long session with the auditor,” he said in his quietly competent, slightly oily voice, “and at one point I raised my voice within the hearing of all the auditors in the room, ‘Madam, are you accusing me of proposing something illegal?’ That put her on the defensive. When all was said and done, you owe them nothing more in taxes. And she was rather intrigued by you and asked if you were married. At that point, I confess I exaggerated a little, saying you were a brilliant scholar so involved in your studies that you had no time for social life, much less marriage. I even said your apartment was so jammed with books and papers that you kept books in the oven.”
By now I was laughing heartily, and all this for a fee of only $25! Of course this was long ago, when $25 went a lot further than now.
Mr. Immorales continued diligently and cannily in his profession, while affording us, his university clients, glimpses of his yearnings, his vulnerabilities. He once told me that he could write a story that would glue me to the page, but when I suggested that he show some to an agent, he flashed a sour look and changed the subject, hinting that he had tried this without success. (Scratch an accountant, you may find a writer; scratch a dentist, you may find a sculptor. And that’s not just New York.)
But you mustn’t go to an accountant in his busy season with a mishmash of papers, a friend of mine learned, when I recommended Mr. Immorales to her. She went at the last minute with a shoebox full of documents, expecting him to do her tax preparation. First I got a phone call from him, reporting that she had left his office very hostile, since he had declined to take her on at this late date, with her papers in such disorder. Then I got a phone call from her, very indignant, saying that it was his job to do this stuff. I announced to both that he was still my accountant and she my friend, and took some responsibility for the incident, having recommended him without realizing her papers were so disorganized.
Another friend told me how, when Immorales finished his return, he had asked the accountant if there was any favor he could do him. There was: could he, using his college diploma, create a fake diploma that Immorales could hang on the wall? My friend agreed and somehow was able to copy his own degree, substitute Immorales’s name, and so create the diploma, which promptly went up on the wall of the accountant's office. Rather sad, I and my friend thought; deceptive, to be sure, but mostly just sad.
There was sadder news yet to come. Immorales had a stroke, and when that same friend went to see him at tax time, he found him utterly changed. Instead of the keen mind and glib tongue we were used to, the man was vague, unfocused, slow of speech, lost. By then I was no longer seeing him, but I was saddened by the news. What then happened I have no idea, but he must have lost most of his clients. Yes, sad, very sad.
For years I did my own tax returns, simply following what Mr. Russo had done for me one year; the figures changed, but the basic pattern didn’t. I was a freelance editor now with a home office and self-employed, so I had to fill out Schedule C and itemized my business expenses. A home office and itemized deductions are often red flags to an auditor, but luckily I was never audited. And when I went to Europe in the summer of 1963, I deducted as business expenses the basic costs – travel, meals, hotels – of the time I spent in French-speaking countries. Far-fetched? Not really, since there had been a recent IRS ruling acknowledging that foreign language teachers need to keep up their skills in this way. I was careful in the deductions and – miracle of miracles! – wasn’t audited.
In time, computing my own taxes became an arduous ordeal involving this or that form, this or that regulation, and endless mathematical computations: enough to unsettle the sanest of citizens. All my friends used a tax preparer, and marveled at my doing the stuff myself. Finally, I tried TurboTax, a system that does it for you online if you feed the proper info to them. Their website shows an attractive young woman grinning at you, while her laptop announces, “Nice refund, Pat! $2,744.” I expected no such bonanza, just a lot less computing, but believe it or not, TurboTax found a substantial deduction for my New York State return that I had been unaware of. I checked the NYS tax regulations online, and they confirmed it, so TurboTax, even if it cost me something, also saved me money.
It’s fashionable to complain about our broken tax system, and there is merit to many of the criticisms. Loopholes and special dispensations abound, sometimes through Congress’s negligence and sometimes through its subservience to special interests, who often seem to write the laws. Recently it was reported by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) that 26 of the biggest U.S. corporations quite legally paid no federal income tax from 2008 to 2012, and 93 out of the 288 analyzed companies paid below 10%. Critics often decry the high U.S. corporate tax rate of 35%, but many companies exploit tax breaks, loopholes, and accounting schemes to their advantage. And who are some of the companies that paid no federal tax whatsoever? Here are a few:
· Boeing· General Electric (still paying no income tax, 2008-2015)· Verizon· Consolidated Edison· Corning· Duke Energy· PG&E Corporation
And many other utilities. The report is of course disputed by the companies named, who point out that it ignores other taxes that they pay, such as state and local taxes. True enough, but the report is still pretty damning. One online article on the subject includes a photo of a white-haired lady holding up a sign in bold print:
MAKE DEADBEAT CORPORATIONS PAY.
And people? Here are some who have been prosecuted for tax evasion and related charges, starting with the most recent:
· 2013: Accounting firm Ernst & Young paid $123 million.· 2008: Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Arkansas, convicted on 7 counts of bribery and tax evasion. He ran for re-election but lost. But prior to sentencing his indictment was dismissed because of gross prosecutorial misconduct.· 2008: Representative Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, paid $11,000 in back taxes and – a truly rare event -- was censured by the House (the first such measure in 27 years!).· 2006: Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was fined $24.7 million and is now serving 70 months.· 2006: Representative Duke Cunningham, Republican of California, was fined $1.8 million and sentenced to 8 years, 4 months.· 2002: Six members of the Christian Patriot Association, a white supremacist organization based in Oregon, were convicted of tax fraud and tax evasion and faced up to 5 years each in prison plus a $250,000 fine.
But why go on? The list is endless, includes both major parties, and usually involves those in or close to government. But often there is more to the story. Ernst & Young had advised 200 wealthy clients who then avoided $2 billion in unpaid taxes. Ted Stevens got off when his indictment was dismissed because of prosecutorial misconduct. Duke Cunningham was still entitled to a pension for his years of service in the Navy and Congress. The Christian Patriot Association, which had helped 900 people evade taxes on $186 million over 14 years, believed that white people were the chosen people of God and therefore entitled, apparently, to not pay taxes.
But these are the ones who got caught. What about all those others with money stashed in offshore accounts maintained by Swiss banks, whose legendary secrecy is now under attack by the U.S. and the European Union? Not to mention such tax havens as Luxembourg, Andorra, and Liechtenstein, tiny European countries thriving on their tax-haven status, and such exotic locales as the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Monaco, Panama, Singapore, and numerous others. In the 2012 Presidential campaign Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, had trouble explaining why he had millions stashed away in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Though not illegal, it looked fishy, and demolished any chance he had (and it wasn’t much) of appearing to voters as an ordinary guy just like you and me. Obama could be a bit distant and dispassionate, but at least he didn’t have a fortune offshore.
Everyone agrees that our tax system needs to be drastically reformed, but few agree on how to do it. Some want to tax the rich more, some want to tax them less. And since Congress is a pack of millionaires who, with some exceptions, think the present system is just dandy – or at least have reasons not to meddle with it – meaningful reform is not likely to come very soon. Meaningful reform may require a groundswell of opinion from below, and there’s little sign of that at this time.
Here’s a novel solution proposed by nutritionist and WBAI commentator Gary Null and some others: tax both individuals and corporations a flat 10%, with absolutely no loopholes or exceptions. Doing this, Null insists, would let us abolish the Internal Revenue Service altogether. An enticing prospect, though I’m not sure how various income groups would fare. And in the present circumstances there’s no chance of it being enacted or even seriously discussed.
Everyone – and especially accountants – love to disparage the IRS, and New York State as well. But I have sometimes included a note with my state and federal returns, telling them that I trust their judgment because they have treated me fairly in the past. And I haven’t been audited. Clever on my part? No, the comment is sincere. On several occasions the IRS or the state has found an error in my return and sent me a refund. So a letter from these authorities isn’t always bad news.
Here now is a twist that I have just (in 2017) discovered. There are those who contend that there is no statute requiring most U.S. citizens to file and pay the federal income tax, therefore such filing and paying are voluntary. If challenged, they contend, neither the IRS or the federal government can produce such a statute. Whether or not this is indeed the case, I leave to experts in the field. It is an interesting development with potentially serious implications.
Admittedly, taxes are a dreary subject. My advice to all U.S. citizens and residents: when tax time comes, organize your records, get yourself a good accountant, and pray.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:
New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended." Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Coming soon: Maybe apples, which once got upstaged in this blog by that phallic intruder, the banana.
© 2017 Clifford Browder
Black Friday has come and gone, and Giving Tuesday (I think) is looming. Anyway, the season for intense shopping is at hand, and books are a great gift to give. Of course I speak objectively, with no personal interest in mind. Here, quite by chance, is a list of my books in print. (We don't talk about the others, one of which has mysteriously appeared online.)
No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World. A selection of posts from this blog.
Historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York:
1. The Pleasuring of Men. A young man becomes a male prostitute in the hidden gay world of that time.
2. Bill Hope: His Story. A street kid turned pickpocket pours out his story in a torrent of words.
3. Dark Knowledge. A young man fights to discover the truth about his family's involvement in the slave trade.
For details, see below.
Taxes: Who Pays Them and Who Doesn't
Note: This post repeats #157, published on December 14, 2014. Some things have changed since then, and some haven't. But taxes are in the news these days, hence the repetition. A few facts have been updated.
No subject can raise more hackles than taxes, especially income taxes. Long ago in Alaska, before that territory had become a state, a resident urged me to urge my Congressmen to endorse statehood for Alaska. And if that meant more taxes, so be it. “You can’t have civilization without taxes,” he insisted. This is not an opinion shared universally. In our Western states, especially, citizens are wary of government, convinced that the IRS is out to grab their hard-earned cash and give little in return for it. But tax avoidance, so common in many foreign countries, is not sanctioned here. Back in the 1950s, when I was hanging out at the San Remo bar in the West Village, I overheard snatches of conversation from two Frenchmen, one new to the States and the other his mentor, who were watching “les existentialistes américains,” a scruffy bunch of bohemians imbibing at the bar. But the Frenchmen were discussing other matters. Said the veteran to his newly arrived friend, “En Amérique la taxe est sacrée” (In America taxes are sacred).
Logo of the Internal Revenue ServiceNew York is a notoriously high-tax state, and residents of New York City are hit with a triple whammy: federal income tax, state income tax, and yes, believe it or not, a city income tax. The state income tax alone is grounds for complaint. In the 1970s, when I was doing research in Putnam County, I observed that if two New York City residents got together, they talked about crime, whereas when two Putnam County people got together, they talked about taxes. And dodging the state tax was not unheard of. From a friend who taught there, I learned that some of the professors at Skidmore College in Saratoga listed a summer residence in Vermont as their main address, so as to escape the New York State income tax. Whether the state ever got wise to this, I have no idea.
A wartime warning from the Treasury Department, 1941-1945. Today the deadline is April 15. Another form of protest came from the Iroquois people, who claimed to be a sovereign independent state and therefore not subject to New York State taxes. In 1957 native American medicine man and activist Wallace Mad Bear Anderson led several hundred Mohawks on a march to the courthouse in Massena, New York, burn court summonses issued for unpaid taxes. Again, how this finally worked out I don’t know.
One thing is certain: New York State welcoming signs at the state line cannot match Nevada’s, which proclaims
NO INCOME TAX
NO SALES TAX
NO INHERITANCE TAX
NO CORPORATION TAX
NO GIFT TAX
A DEBT-FREE STATE WELCOMES YOU
And if one enters that tax-free paradise, as I did once at night on a bus, the explanation becomes immediately apparent. As the bus sped through the darkness over the bleak and level landscape, at intervals lights would appear in the distance, and as the bus pulled in to the station, one could see a brightly lit interior with rows of slot machines. With legions of one-armed bandits everywhere, not to mention casinos, there was no need of taxes.
Nevada's solution.Sunnya343
Since New York State is not so blessed, what do its tax-burdened citizens do? At tax time – the months and weeks preceding the dread deadline of April 15 -- they go to accountants, of course, to save themselves the ordeal of preparing their tax returns themselves, and to pay the least amount of taxes possible. And those accountants, those wonder workers, those toilers in the bureaucratic maze, thrive.
My partner Bob once went to an accountant named Russo (not his real name). One year, since Bob was in charge of acquiring recordings for the Fine Arts Department of the library system he worked for, Russo suggested that he deduct the cost of all his opera tickets as a necessary business expense. After all, how can you acquire recordings of current performances, if you haven’t heard the performances and evaluated them? So Bob, a real opera buff, claimed the deduction. I thought this a bit of a stretch, but maybe worth a try. Alas, the IRS didn’t go for it. They called Bob in for an audit, and when, dismayed, he didn’t contest their finding and cooperated, they let him off and went after Mr. Russo. What came of it I don’t know, but Russo was a pretty shrewd operator; I doubt if he got more than a reprimand.
My own accounting adventures had to do with an accountant named Mateo Morales (again, not his real name), another shrewd operator, hefty and glib of tongue, whom I soon nicknamed Immorales. (Not to his face, of course.) Having no college degree to his name, he admired those who did and was especially happy doing their tax returns; he was recommended to me by a fellow instructor at Columbia, who praised him to the skies. Mr. Immorales too was adept at finding possible deductions, but nothing so dubious as Mr. Russo’s suggestion. Even so, on one occasion I was summoned for an audit. The prospect of an audit can be daunting, all the more so in my case, since a friend of mine, very vulnerable, had gone to one, encountered an aggressive auditor, and been devastated by the experience. So I offered to pay Mr. Immorales whatever he wanted, if he would go in my place, and with some reluctance he agreed. On the day of the audit I got a phone call from him late in the afternoon.
“I had a long session with the auditor,” he said in his quietly competent, slightly oily voice, “and at one point I raised my voice within the hearing of all the auditors in the room, ‘Madam, are you accusing me of proposing something illegal?’ That put her on the defensive. When all was said and done, you owe them nothing more in taxes. And she was rather intrigued by you and asked if you were married. At that point, I confess I exaggerated a little, saying you were a brilliant scholar so involved in your studies that you had no time for social life, much less marriage. I even said your apartment was so jammed with books and papers that you kept books in the oven.”
By now I was laughing heartily, and all this for a fee of only $25! Of course this was long ago, when $25 went a lot further than now.
Mr. Immorales continued diligently and cannily in his profession, while affording us, his university clients, glimpses of his yearnings, his vulnerabilities. He once told me that he could write a story that would glue me to the page, but when I suggested that he show some to an agent, he flashed a sour look and changed the subject, hinting that he had tried this without success. (Scratch an accountant, you may find a writer; scratch a dentist, you may find a sculptor. And that’s not just New York.)
But you mustn’t go to an accountant in his busy season with a mishmash of papers, a friend of mine learned, when I recommended Mr. Immorales to her. She went at the last minute with a shoebox full of documents, expecting him to do her tax preparation. First I got a phone call from him, reporting that she had left his office very hostile, since he had declined to take her on at this late date, with her papers in such disorder. Then I got a phone call from her, very indignant, saying that it was his job to do this stuff. I announced to both that he was still my accountant and she my friend, and took some responsibility for the incident, having recommended him without realizing her papers were so disorganized.
Another friend told me how, when Immorales finished his return, he had asked the accountant if there was any favor he could do him. There was: could he, using his college diploma, create a fake diploma that Immorales could hang on the wall? My friend agreed and somehow was able to copy his own degree, substitute Immorales’s name, and so create the diploma, which promptly went up on the wall of the accountant's office. Rather sad, I and my friend thought; deceptive, to be sure, but mostly just sad.
There was sadder news yet to come. Immorales had a stroke, and when that same friend went to see him at tax time, he found him utterly changed. Instead of the keen mind and glib tongue we were used to, the man was vague, unfocused, slow of speech, lost. By then I was no longer seeing him, but I was saddened by the news. What then happened I have no idea, but he must have lost most of his clients. Yes, sad, very sad.
For years I did my own tax returns, simply following what Mr. Russo had done for me one year; the figures changed, but the basic pattern didn’t. I was a freelance editor now with a home office and self-employed, so I had to fill out Schedule C and itemized my business expenses. A home office and itemized deductions are often red flags to an auditor, but luckily I was never audited. And when I went to Europe in the summer of 1963, I deducted as business expenses the basic costs – travel, meals, hotels – of the time I spent in French-speaking countries. Far-fetched? Not really, since there had been a recent IRS ruling acknowledging that foreign language teachers need to keep up their skills in this way. I was careful in the deductions and – miracle of miracles! – wasn’t audited.
In time, computing my own taxes became an arduous ordeal involving this or that form, this or that regulation, and endless mathematical computations: enough to unsettle the sanest of citizens. All my friends used a tax preparer, and marveled at my doing the stuff myself. Finally, I tried TurboTax, a system that does it for you online if you feed the proper info to them. Their website shows an attractive young woman grinning at you, while her laptop announces, “Nice refund, Pat! $2,744.” I expected no such bonanza, just a lot less computing, but believe it or not, TurboTax found a substantial deduction for my New York State return that I had been unaware of. I checked the NYS tax regulations online, and they confirmed it, so TurboTax, even if it cost me something, also saved me money.
It’s fashionable to complain about our broken tax system, and there is merit to many of the criticisms. Loopholes and special dispensations abound, sometimes through Congress’s negligence and sometimes through its subservience to special interests, who often seem to write the laws. Recently it was reported by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) that 26 of the biggest U.S. corporations quite legally paid no federal income tax from 2008 to 2012, and 93 out of the 288 analyzed companies paid below 10%. Critics often decry the high U.S. corporate tax rate of 35%, but many companies exploit tax breaks, loopholes, and accounting schemes to their advantage. And who are some of the companies that paid no federal tax whatsoever? Here are a few:
· Boeing· General Electric (still paying no income tax, 2008-2015)· Verizon· Consolidated Edison· Corning· Duke Energy· PG&E Corporation
And many other utilities. The report is of course disputed by the companies named, who point out that it ignores other taxes that they pay, such as state and local taxes. True enough, but the report is still pretty damning. One online article on the subject includes a photo of a white-haired lady holding up a sign in bold print:
MAKE DEADBEAT CORPORATIONS PAY.
And people? Here are some who have been prosecuted for tax evasion and related charges, starting with the most recent:
· 2013: Accounting firm Ernst & Young paid $123 million.· 2008: Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Arkansas, convicted on 7 counts of bribery and tax evasion. He ran for re-election but lost. But prior to sentencing his indictment was dismissed because of gross prosecutorial misconduct.· 2008: Representative Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, paid $11,000 in back taxes and – a truly rare event -- was censured by the House (the first such measure in 27 years!).· 2006: Lobbyist Jack Abramoff was fined $24.7 million and is now serving 70 months.· 2006: Representative Duke Cunningham, Republican of California, was fined $1.8 million and sentenced to 8 years, 4 months.· 2002: Six members of the Christian Patriot Association, a white supremacist organization based in Oregon, were convicted of tax fraud and tax evasion and faced up to 5 years each in prison plus a $250,000 fine.
But why go on? The list is endless, includes both major parties, and usually involves those in or close to government. But often there is more to the story. Ernst & Young had advised 200 wealthy clients who then avoided $2 billion in unpaid taxes. Ted Stevens got off when his indictment was dismissed because of prosecutorial misconduct. Duke Cunningham was still entitled to a pension for his years of service in the Navy and Congress. The Christian Patriot Association, which had helped 900 people evade taxes on $186 million over 14 years, believed that white people were the chosen people of God and therefore entitled, apparently, to not pay taxes.
But these are the ones who got caught. What about all those others with money stashed in offshore accounts maintained by Swiss banks, whose legendary secrecy is now under attack by the U.S. and the European Union? Not to mention such tax havens as Luxembourg, Andorra, and Liechtenstein, tiny European countries thriving on their tax-haven status, and such exotic locales as the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Monaco, Panama, Singapore, and numerous others. In the 2012 Presidential campaign Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, had trouble explaining why he had millions stashed away in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Though not illegal, it looked fishy, and demolished any chance he had (and it wasn’t much) of appearing to voters as an ordinary guy just like you and me. Obama could be a bit distant and dispassionate, but at least he didn’t have a fortune offshore.
Everyone agrees that our tax system needs to be drastically reformed, but few agree on how to do it. Some want to tax the rich more, some want to tax them less. And since Congress is a pack of millionaires who, with some exceptions, think the present system is just dandy – or at least have reasons not to meddle with it – meaningful reform is not likely to come very soon. Meaningful reform may require a groundswell of opinion from below, and there’s little sign of that at this time.
Here’s a novel solution proposed by nutritionist and WBAI commentator Gary Null and some others: tax both individuals and corporations a flat 10%, with absolutely no loopholes or exceptions. Doing this, Null insists, would let us abolish the Internal Revenue Service altogether. An enticing prospect, though I’m not sure how various income groups would fare. And in the present circumstances there’s no chance of it being enacted or even seriously discussed.
Everyone – and especially accountants – love to disparage the IRS, and New York State as well. But I have sometimes included a note with my state and federal returns, telling them that I trust their judgment because they have treated me fairly in the past. And I haven’t been audited. Clever on my part? No, the comment is sincere. On several occasions the IRS or the state has found an error in my return and sent me a refund. So a letter from these authorities isn’t always bad news.
Here now is a twist that I have just (in 2017) discovered. There are those who contend that there is no statute requiring most U.S. citizens to file and pay the federal income tax, therefore such filing and paying are voluntary. If challenged, they contend, neither the IRS or the federal government can produce such a statute. Whether or not this is indeed the case, I leave to experts in the field. It is an interesting development with potentially serious implications.
Admittedly, taxes are a dreary subject. My advice to all U.S. citizens and residents: when tax time comes, organize your records, get yourself a good accountant, and pray.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended." Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Coming soon: Maybe apples, which once got upstaged in this blog by that phallic intruder, the banana.
© 2017 Clifford Browder
November 19, 2017
328. Brownstones
My books
No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World. A selection of posts from this blog.
Historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York:
1. The Pleasuring of Men. A young man becomes a male prostitute in the hidden gay world of that time.
2. Bill Hope: His Story. A street kid turned pickpocket pours out his story in a torrent of words.
3. Dark Knowledge. A young man fights to discover the truth about his family's involvement in the slave trade.
For details, see below.
Brownstones
First, the material. What is it?
A soft sandstone quarried in northern New Jersey and Connecticut and shipped by barge to New York City to be used in the construction of row houses. It served chiefly to cover the houses’ brick façades; brownstone residences, like the Greek Revival houses before them, were basically built with bricks.
A brownstone on the Upper West Side.WFinch
When were brownstones built?
In Manhattan, in the 1850s and 1860s, when the Italianate style was in vogue. By the 1880s brownstones were being built on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where Queen Anne and Renaissance styles replaced the earlier and simpler Italianate. And throughout the rest of the century brownstones were being built in various neighborhoods of Brooklyn, their façades adorned with bay windows and balconies.
Broooklyn brownstones today.Vaguynny
Why?
The growing affluent middle class wanted residences more impressive in appearance than ordinary brick, and more durable than wood. Also brownstone, being soft, could be shaped and sculpted so as to provide decorative detail on the façades. People fell in love with brownstone, which took on a deep chocolate color with time; they thought it was elegant, distinctive, genteel, and “Romantic” (Romanticism and broody moodiness were “in”). The brownstone residence became a symbol of bourgeois comfort and status. (A side thought: If chocolate is Romantic, would vanilla be Classical?)
Italianate style
The popular Italianate style brownstone, first developed in Great Britain, included these features:
· A steep front stoop, thought to be stately and elegant, though it took energy to negotiate it; ascending, one supposedly left the hurly-burly of street and sidewalk life behind and accessed something nobler and more genteel.· An impressive front doorway with double doors topped by a rounded arch and a projecting hood and flanked by pilasters, informing all who managed to get up the stoop – formal callers, ministers, doctors, lawyers, and such -- that this was a residence of wealth and refinement.· A basement door under the stoop to accommodate the lower orders: deliverymen, tradesmen, servants, and other social inferiors.· A basement (sometimes called a garden floor, since its rear door led out to the garden) and four stories.· Tall first-floor windows.· Handsome cast-iron railings for stoops and area fences.· A flat roof with a boldly protruding cornice (the horizontal projection at the top of the building), providing a sharp limit to the structure’s monumental rise.· By the 1860s, a steeply sloping mansard roof installed above the cornice, a hot new architectural feature imported from Second Empire France, adding a fifth story with dormer windows.· A parlor floor with three parlors, each one with sliding doors opening into the next, the first two often serving as a single deep parlor and the last as a dining room, the food coming up from the kitchen below by that marvelous new invention, the dumbwaiter.· Folding wooden shutters to shield the parlor floor from the view of nosy passers-by who, looking up from the sidewalk, could at best see only a patch of ceiling and maybe a chandelier (I know, because I’ve tried).· Ornate decorations sculpted in the brownstone, foliage and cutesy little animals and strange mythological faces and scrolls and curlicues.
What amenities did they have?
· Heat: A coal-burning furnace in the cellar, generating hot air that was conducted in pipes to the lower floors, and coal-burning fireplaces for the top floors where servants resided. Coal provided a steady heat far superior to what wood-burning fireplaces had once provided.
· Lighting: Gaslight for the lower floors, kerosene lamps for the upper floors with the servants’ rooms. Oil was discovered in Pennsylvania in 1859, making kerosene readily available, since it is obtained by distilling petroleum. The kerosene lamp then replaced the whale-oil lamp.
· Running water: Since 1842, when the city began getting clean water from upstate reservoirs, anyone who paid the water tax could have running water in their homes. The result: indoor plumbing providing plentiful water for cooking and dishwashing, for shower baths and tub baths whenever you liked, and for that miracle of modern miracles, the flush toilet, replacing primitive improvisations that I don’t have the heart to describe. From 1842 on, soap sales presumably went up, while perfume sales declined. All over Manhattan a joyous chorus rose of showering burgers reveling in the miracle of running water. No wonder nineteenth-century Americans believed in Progress. But tenement dwellers still had to rely on the well in the yard and tote their water in.
What was a brownstone parlor like?
Volumes could be written … and have been. The Victorian parlor was the shrine and sanctuary of the affluent middle class, its best stab at propriety, calm, and culture, its chance to put its best foot forward. Plush and velvet abounded, Brussels carpets ran from wall to wall, elegant little spindle chairs dared intruding males to risk their bulk upon them, and antimacassars pinned to the backs of overstuffed sofas and armchairs protected the sacred upholstery from masculine locks reeking of Macassar oil. More ornamental now than essential, white marble fireplaces gave off a lustrous sheen, and over them the mantel featured a large bronze or marble clock backed by a gilt-framed mirror rising five or six feet, or even eight feet all the way to the ceiling.
No pianoforte here, but lots of ancestors.From the walls ancestors in gilt frames stared dourly down, or perhaps, more benignly but grandly, the master and mistress of the house. Displayed prominently was that inevitable symbol of bourgeois refinement, the pianoforte, its gleaming ivory keys awaiting the deft fingerings, at family gatherings, of the young ladies of the household, nervously anxious to reveal their accomplishments. Cluttered on whatnots were assorted bibelots, framed locks of the dear departed, and stuffed birds under glass. A cool gloom prevailed, and by day shades or drapes were drawn, and shutters closed, lest sunlight smite the damask. Here, in an atmosphere scented with cedar and cinnamon and lavender from pomanders and potpourris, the mistress of the house presided; children were to be seen but not heard; and males of all ages were on their best behavior, never quite at ease, their conversation scrubbed and disciplined. Loud talk was discouraged, arguments banished, smoking forbidden; gentility reigned supreme.
And the other rooms?
The dining room, the back parlor on the parlor floor, matched the front parlor in elegance and refinement; here, attended by servants, the family could dine in state. On the second floor the front room was often a sitting room or library where the family could gather casually and relax, without the formality required by the parlor; it was the forerunner of today’s living room. (The parlor, on the other hand, has no equivalent today; it disappeared with the Victorian mores that created it.) The back room on the second floor was the parents’ bedroom, featuring an imposing four-poster and having access to a bathroom that, in some instances, was regal in splendor, with a marble or mahogany washstand with gleaming silver-plated faucets, a commode of polished porcelain, and a polished metal or marble tub; the air was scented with fragrant powders and soaps.
TwdkThe third and fourth floors had bedrooms for the children. At the very top, often including a fifth floor under a mansard roof, there were small rooms for the servants, who usually had to do without running water, gaslight, and central heating, relying instead (as their masters had a generation earlier) on coal in the fireplace, a wash basin with a pitcher, and the indignity of the chamber pot, and for their weekly bath, a tub or sink in the kitchen. (In some brownstones, even so, heat from the coal-burning furnace in the basement reached even the topmost floors.)
With five floors and up to sixteen rooms, a brownstone afforded privacy to parents, children, and servants, but at the cost of endless climbing and descending stairs. Brownstones were not for the weak of limb, though an ailing master or mistress might install themselves, bed and all, on the parlor floor and receive callers there in state.
Are there any old brownstones left on Fifth Avenue?
To my knowledge just one, at 47 Fifth Avenue, between East 11th and 12th Streets in the West Village. Built in 1853 as a residence for Irad Hawley, the first president of the Pennsylvania Coal Company, and his wife, it showed the world that the Hawleys and their coal business were doing quite well. And how could they not be? Coal was in great demand for heating interiors, and for powering both the many palace steamboats gliding smoothly over the Hudson, and their screechy upstart rivals, the railroads. The building’s exterior still has the classic features of the early Italianate brownstone: an imposing stoop rising to an entrance with double doors flanked by pilasters and topped by a rounded arch and a projecting hood; tall parlor-floor windows; and four floors topped by a cornice. The stoop, however, isn’t centered, having two parlor-floor windows on the right, and one on the left, with balconies. Inside, some vestiges of the old brownstone remain, notably the two front parlors joined into one, each with a white marble fireplace with foliage and figures in relief, and a chandelier suspended from a ceiling rosette; between the parlors are four Corinthian columns with elaborately carved capitals. One can well imagine the Hawleys receiving guests in front of such fireplaces aglow with coal, under chandeliers ablaze with gaslight. Since 1917 the building has housed the Salmagundi Club, a nonprofit center for artists and collectors that offers art classes and exhibitions.
The Salmagundi Club today.Elisa.rolle
Who maintained a brownstone?
Not the owners. Yes, they paid bills for the necessary services and labored to keep up appearances, but the real work was done by the servants, sometimes black, more often Irish. In the mid-nineteenth century an affluent New York family had at least 6, probably 7: a cook, a waiter, a parlor maid, an upstairs maid, a laundress, a houseman, and probably a coachman; ordinary middle-class families made do with 3: cook, waiter, and maid. The servants cooked, washed, scrubbed, dusted, polished, stoked the furnace, removed cinders and ash from the fireplaces and resupplied them with coals, trimmed the wicks and cleaned the chimneys of the kerosene lamps, and toted the trash out to the curb for collection. After a hard day’s work they would trudge wearily upstairs to their ill-heated rooms on the top floors, perhaps lighting their way with a candle until they lit a kerosene lamp in their room. If there was a garden in back, that needed tending too, unless a gardener was hired. The coachman would be lodged separately, usually upstairs in the coach house, a small two-story structure on a nearby side street where coach and horses were lodged. (Ironically, though certainly not luxury housing at the time, coach houses today are sought after by tenants willing to pay a high rent.)
What became of brownstones?
In Manhattan, taste changed. What looked fashionably dark and “Romantic” in the 1850s came to look like cold chocolate, dingy and depressing. When the Vanderbilts and Astors and other moneyed clans built their mansions on the Upper Fifth Avenue from 1880 on, they preferred brighter limestone residences in the French-chateau style. But brownstones continued to be built on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, and in many neighborhoods in Brooklyn, where they sprouted balconies and porches and bay windows alien to the formal and rather severe earlier Italianate style. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, people were complaining about soft brownstone crumbling and cracking and flaking, which further doomed brownstone construction. Since then, many brownstone façades have been replaced with brown cement-based masonry, a cheaper alternative. Still, brownstones had a certain aura that persisted, and the second half of the twentieth century saw a brownstone renovation movement take hold in older cities throughout the East, often with impressive results.
What happened to the brownstone quarries?
The last New Jersey quarries ceased operation in the 1930s, owing to lack of demand. When the quarries in Portland, Connecticut, were flooded by a 1936 storm and proved impossible to drain, they shut down. In the mid-1990s a geologist named Mike Meehan reopened the ground on the edge of the Connecticut quarries and sold brownstone for historic and restoration projects and lavish private homes. But in 2012 his quarry, the last of its kind in the region, finally shut its doors, to the great regret of preservationists trying to match the brownstone of old residences; it marked the end of an era. But in his retirement Meehan, a true lover of brownstone, planned to use some of the remaining little slabs to make birdbaths and benches, not to sell but for the fun of it.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended." Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Coming soon: Who knows?
© 2017 Clifford Browder
November 12, 2017
327. Libraries, the Tomb and Womb of Learning
My books
No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World. A selection of posts from this blog.
Historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York:
1. The Pleasuring of Men. A young man becomes a male prostitute in the hidden gay world of that time.
2. Bill Hope: His Story. A street kid turned pickpocket pours out his story in a torrent of words.
3. Dark Knowledge. A young man fights to discover the truth about his family's involvement in the slave trade.
For details, see below.
Libraries
Libraries have always been an important part of my life. It started back in my childhood, when I was a bookworm far more interested in books than football, for which I paid a price. I remember climbing the steps of the local library in Evanston, a Carnegie library in the usual Greek temple style on Orrington Avenue, where I and a knowing classmate asked the librarian in charge for a slang dictionary. “Why do you want it?” she asked, with a stern look. “Because,” my savvy companion explained, “we’ve been arguing in class about whether or not certain words are slang.” This satisfied the guardian of the treasure, and she handed a bulky slang dictionary over, so we could feast our eyes on four-letter words that had soiled our ears but never confronted our tender psyches in print. Later, to be sure, I matured enough to be admitted to the stacks, where I could find more constructive reading, albeit a bit less titillating.
If libraries have come to mind now, it’s because my local branch here in New York, the Jefferson Market Library on Sixth Avenue at West 10th Street, is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. An abandoned courthouse given over to pigeons and rats, its Victorian Gothic splendor (or horror, if you dislike Victorian Gothic) had been in danger of demolition, but preservationists rallied to save it and have it renovated, so it could become the West Village’s branch library. The preservationists won, and in 1967 the library opened and has been functioning ever since. I was a patron right from the start, and on my last visit found a local artist installing a ground-floor exhibition of placards made by patrons of the library celebrating the anniversary. My favorite:
A BOOK IS A DREAM YOU HOLD IN YOUR HAND
This message I intend to use, when exhibiting my books in next year’s New York City book fairs.
Other libraries that come to mind:
· The Chicago Public Library, a handsome neoclassical edifice on Michigan Boulevard that in my early teens I often went to on Saturdays in winter, fighting against the blasts of cold wind off the lake as I approached it from the L on Randolph Street. In its spacious confines I perused regimental histories of the Civil War or, in a newspaper room where old men half-snoozed over newspapers in foreign languages, newspapers reporting the German conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece in 1941, soon followed by the invasion of the Soviet Union. Doing this, I scribbled notes and absorbed wartime misinformation for an ambitious and quite futile personal history of World War II, ill-typed, that I in time had the wisdom to abandon. (The library building is now the Chicago Cultural Center.)· The public library in Besançon, France, where aging provincial scholars snored softly over dusty tomes open on a table, or muttered softly to themselves while guarding vigilantly their piles of notes on tiny scraps of paper, lest some sudden breeze scatter the gleanings of research destined for some ambitious project already years in the making, but probably destined to remain unfinished. I, on the other hand, was after some gem of French literature that always seemed to be out.· The public library in San Francisco, where I was allowed to roam the stacks and explore their collection of books on the West, and so for the first time learned of the Mountain Meadow Massacre in Utah, and Custer’s murderous cavalry attack on a Northern Cheyenne tribe that considered itself at peace with the U.S. government.· The public library in Anchorage, Alaska, where I worked one summer in a kitchen feeding workers on an army base. Local residents glowed with pride as a second street was being paved, and boasted of their one palatial movie theater, as splendid as any in the then forty-eight states, that graced the other paved street in the city. But my goal, when I went into town, was the library, a measly little quonset hut with a single librarian. There I discovered the names of the wildflowers I was seeing in a wet meadow on the edge of town (forget-me-not, lupine, fireweed), and quickly ran through the scant offerings of English novels.· The Annex of the New York Public Library, a building off by itself on West 43rd Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues and known only to the knowing few. There I examined old New York newspapers of the 1830s rarely consulted by anyone, and squinted for hours at the faint or fading print on microfilm of old newspapers and documents yielding information that I needed as background research for a biography I was writing. (Microfilms of old newspapers are now available at the main building on Fifth Avenue at 42ndStreet.)· The Jersey City Public Library, where my partner, Bob, the reference librarian, got me access to the stacks, where I examined dusty old books (now probably discarded) about the Canadian wilderness of the early 1900s. Taking notes on these accounts helped me recreate the semi-mythical Great North Woods of my father’s stories, told to me and my brother when we were little, stories seasoned with stalking grizzlies, streams full of surging salmon massacred by eagles, and shadowy, ominous plains described by my father as the Wolf Country.· The new Evanston Public Library, built on the site of the old Carnegie building on Orrington Avenue, which I visited when home with my family for Christmas, usually getting a book for my book-starved mother. No Greek temple now, and no stairs mounting to the entrance. In the front hall just inside, was a huge fireplace with a roaring fire and chairs where, sheltered from the raw Midwestern winter, one could enjoy a quiet read in cozy warmth.· The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society library in Midtown, where I once went to search in vain for relevant information about the forgotten Wall Street financier Daniel Drew. I and the elderly librarian were the only ones on the premises, until an ancient, fragile couple arrived to trace their ancestry in a lethal quiet worthy of a tomb. (Today the Society offers vast amounts of information online.)· The main building of the New York Public Library, now called (since donors must be honored) the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, its superb Beaux-Arts façade guarded by two monumental lions facing the avenue. Inside I did hours of research for any number of projects in the magnificent Rose Main Reading Room, where a number flashing at intervals on a screen signaled the arrival of more books requested by me, their bindings often tattered and crumbling, brought up by conveyor from the mysterious hidden stacks far below.
Not to mention the Schwarzman’s Local History and Genealogy Room, and the Rare Books Division, where the librarian who admitted me asked me to clean my shoes on a doormat before entering, even though I had no intention of walking on the books. And the Library of Congress in Washington, and the small libraries of Carmel and Brewster in Putnam County, New York, all of them useful to me when in the throes of some project of years gone by. But I never got to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, or the Vatican Library, or numerous other illustrious repositories of the printed word; there are, after all, limits to what one can do. We take the free public library for granted, but libraries were not always free. In centuries past there were royal and imperial libraries, private libraries, and monastic libraries, but none of these was open to the public and free. Fee-based circulating libraries and subscription libraries were common in Europe and America in the eighteenth century. Prior to that, libraries in England and the American colonies were often parochial, or parish-based, in nature, sponsored by the Anglican church with a missionary purpose, and with their books often chained to the desks. Having private libraries of their own, the ruling classes looked down on libraries that were open, with or without a fee, to the public.
Only in the latter half of the nineteenth century did the modern public library appear, funded by taxes and open and free to the public. In the U.S. the middle class wanted libraries to promote middle-class values and the presumed upward march of civilization. In 1893, when a public library opened in Butte, Montana, a rowdy mining camp of a town, it was meant to counteract the miners’ love of liquor, whoring, and gambling; hopefully, it did. Today the public library is a vehicle for learning and open debate, and as such it is deemed necessary to democracy.
But the traditional main library, huge and imposing as in Chicago and New York, intimidated blue-collar and immigrant populations, for whom such buildings resembled bureaucratic labyrinths and halls of justice, or even prisons; to reach those people, small, easily accessible storefront branch libraries were necessary, as the role of the public library continued to evolve. And over the last few decades the library has changed radically, with the coming of the Internet. To quickly check or learn facts, why go to a library, when one can do it in minutes on the Internet? The library will survive this, too, just as it has survived the political, military, and technological disruptions of the past, but to do so it must endlessly adapt.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:
New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended." Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Coming soon: Who knows?
© 2017 Clifford Browder
No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World. A selection of posts from this blog.
Historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York:
1. The Pleasuring of Men. A young man becomes a male prostitute in the hidden gay world of that time.
2. Bill Hope: His Story. A street kid turned pickpocket pours out his story in a torrent of words.
3. Dark Knowledge. A young man fights to discover the truth about his family's involvement in the slave trade.
For details, see below.
Libraries
Libraries have always been an important part of my life. It started back in my childhood, when I was a bookworm far more interested in books than football, for which I paid a price. I remember climbing the steps of the local library in Evanston, a Carnegie library in the usual Greek temple style on Orrington Avenue, where I and a knowing classmate asked the librarian in charge for a slang dictionary. “Why do you want it?” she asked, with a stern look. “Because,” my savvy companion explained, “we’ve been arguing in class about whether or not certain words are slang.” This satisfied the guardian of the treasure, and she handed a bulky slang dictionary over, so we could feast our eyes on four-letter words that had soiled our ears but never confronted our tender psyches in print. Later, to be sure, I matured enough to be admitted to the stacks, where I could find more constructive reading, albeit a bit less titillating.
If libraries have come to mind now, it’s because my local branch here in New York, the Jefferson Market Library on Sixth Avenue at West 10th Street, is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. An abandoned courthouse given over to pigeons and rats, its Victorian Gothic splendor (or horror, if you dislike Victorian Gothic) had been in danger of demolition, but preservationists rallied to save it and have it renovated, so it could become the West Village’s branch library. The preservationists won, and in 1967 the library opened and has been functioning ever since. I was a patron right from the start, and on my last visit found a local artist installing a ground-floor exhibition of placards made by patrons of the library celebrating the anniversary. My favorite:
A BOOK IS A DREAM YOU HOLD IN YOUR HAND
This message I intend to use, when exhibiting my books in next year’s New York City book fairs.
Other libraries that come to mind:
· The Chicago Public Library, a handsome neoclassical edifice on Michigan Boulevard that in my early teens I often went to on Saturdays in winter, fighting against the blasts of cold wind off the lake as I approached it from the L on Randolph Street. In its spacious confines I perused regimental histories of the Civil War or, in a newspaper room where old men half-snoozed over newspapers in foreign languages, newspapers reporting the German conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece in 1941, soon followed by the invasion of the Soviet Union. Doing this, I scribbled notes and absorbed wartime misinformation for an ambitious and quite futile personal history of World War II, ill-typed, that I in time had the wisdom to abandon. (The library building is now the Chicago Cultural Center.)· The public library in Besançon, France, where aging provincial scholars snored softly over dusty tomes open on a table, or muttered softly to themselves while guarding vigilantly their piles of notes on tiny scraps of paper, lest some sudden breeze scatter the gleanings of research destined for some ambitious project already years in the making, but probably destined to remain unfinished. I, on the other hand, was after some gem of French literature that always seemed to be out.· The public library in San Francisco, where I was allowed to roam the stacks and explore their collection of books on the West, and so for the first time learned of the Mountain Meadow Massacre in Utah, and Custer’s murderous cavalry attack on a Northern Cheyenne tribe that considered itself at peace with the U.S. government.· The public library in Anchorage, Alaska, where I worked one summer in a kitchen feeding workers on an army base. Local residents glowed with pride as a second street was being paved, and boasted of their one palatial movie theater, as splendid as any in the then forty-eight states, that graced the other paved street in the city. But my goal, when I went into town, was the library, a measly little quonset hut with a single librarian. There I discovered the names of the wildflowers I was seeing in a wet meadow on the edge of town (forget-me-not, lupine, fireweed), and quickly ran through the scant offerings of English novels.· The Annex of the New York Public Library, a building off by itself on West 43rd Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues and known only to the knowing few. There I examined old New York newspapers of the 1830s rarely consulted by anyone, and squinted for hours at the faint or fading print on microfilm of old newspapers and documents yielding information that I needed as background research for a biography I was writing. (Microfilms of old newspapers are now available at the main building on Fifth Avenue at 42ndStreet.)· The Jersey City Public Library, where my partner, Bob, the reference librarian, got me access to the stacks, where I examined dusty old books (now probably discarded) about the Canadian wilderness of the early 1900s. Taking notes on these accounts helped me recreate the semi-mythical Great North Woods of my father’s stories, told to me and my brother when we were little, stories seasoned with stalking grizzlies, streams full of surging salmon massacred by eagles, and shadowy, ominous plains described by my father as the Wolf Country.· The new Evanston Public Library, built on the site of the old Carnegie building on Orrington Avenue, which I visited when home with my family for Christmas, usually getting a book for my book-starved mother. No Greek temple now, and no stairs mounting to the entrance. In the front hall just inside, was a huge fireplace with a roaring fire and chairs where, sheltered from the raw Midwestern winter, one could enjoy a quiet read in cozy warmth.· The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society library in Midtown, where I once went to search in vain for relevant information about the forgotten Wall Street financier Daniel Drew. I and the elderly librarian were the only ones on the premises, until an ancient, fragile couple arrived to trace their ancestry in a lethal quiet worthy of a tomb. (Today the Society offers vast amounts of information online.)· The main building of the New York Public Library, now called (since donors must be honored) the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, its superb Beaux-Arts façade guarded by two monumental lions facing the avenue. Inside I did hours of research for any number of projects in the magnificent Rose Main Reading Room, where a number flashing at intervals on a screen signaled the arrival of more books requested by me, their bindings often tattered and crumbling, brought up by conveyor from the mysterious hidden stacks far below.
Not to mention the Schwarzman’s Local History and Genealogy Room, and the Rare Books Division, where the librarian who admitted me asked me to clean my shoes on a doormat before entering, even though I had no intention of walking on the books. And the Library of Congress in Washington, and the small libraries of Carmel and Brewster in Putnam County, New York, all of them useful to me when in the throes of some project of years gone by. But I never got to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, or the Vatican Library, or numerous other illustrious repositories of the printed word; there are, after all, limits to what one can do. We take the free public library for granted, but libraries were not always free. In centuries past there were royal and imperial libraries, private libraries, and monastic libraries, but none of these was open to the public and free. Fee-based circulating libraries and subscription libraries were common in Europe and America in the eighteenth century. Prior to that, libraries in England and the American colonies were often parochial, or parish-based, in nature, sponsored by the Anglican church with a missionary purpose, and with their books often chained to the desks. Having private libraries of their own, the ruling classes looked down on libraries that were open, with or without a fee, to the public.
Only in the latter half of the nineteenth century did the modern public library appear, funded by taxes and open and free to the public. In the U.S. the middle class wanted libraries to promote middle-class values and the presumed upward march of civilization. In 1893, when a public library opened in Butte, Montana, a rowdy mining camp of a town, it was meant to counteract the miners’ love of liquor, whoring, and gambling; hopefully, it did. Today the public library is a vehicle for learning and open debate, and as such it is deemed necessary to democracy.
But the traditional main library, huge and imposing as in Chicago and New York, intimidated blue-collar and immigrant populations, for whom such buildings resembled bureaucratic labyrinths and halls of justice, or even prisons; to reach those people, small, easily accessible storefront branch libraries were necessary, as the role of the public library continued to evolve. And over the last few decades the library has changed radically, with the coming of the Internet. To quickly check or learn facts, why go to a library, when one can do it in minutes on the Internet? The library will survive this, too, just as it has survived the political, military, and technological disruptions of the past, but to do so it must endlessly adapt.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended." Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Coming soon: Who knows?
© 2017 Clifford Browder
November 5, 2017
326. Authors Are Whores
My books
No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World. A selection of posts from this blog.
Historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York:
1. The Pleasuring of Men. A young man becomes a male prostitute in the hidden gay world of that time.
2. Bill Hope: His Story. A street kid turned pickpocket pours out his story in a torrent of words.
3. Dark Knowledge. A young man fights to discover the truth about his family's involvement in the slave trade.
For details, see below.
Authors Are Whores
Yes, authors are whores. A bit strained as an analogy, perhaps, but think about it. Big presses and small demand that their authors participate actively in marketing. Just as streetwalkers offer their bodies to whoever is interested, so authors like myself have to promote themselves online or in person, marketing their books to the public. Yes, there are differences: whores offer their bodies, whereas authors offer books. But those books are part of you, cooked up in your brain and spun out of your gut. To push the analogy even further, you’re offering your babies, your offspring, your dearest, most cherished progeny.
Me at BookCon 2017, hawking my wares. I'm not sticking my tongue out; it just looks that way. Notice the gimmicks: witty signs, candy.
And just as prostitutes primp themselves up and dress elegant or gaudy so as to catch the eye of lusting males, so authors and publishers know to make each book’s cover as eye-catching as possible, so as to hook prospective buyers. And since everybody knows this, and their books are just as eye-catching as your own, the competition gets intense. And just as streetwalkers know that certain times and places are best for their trade, so authors flock to book fairs and events where prospective buyers are most likely to be found.
Larry D. MooreAnd just as whores know that their charms will register with some men but not others, so authors at book events like BookCon 2017 at the Javits Convention Center in New York have to get used to some attendees ignoring them or, worse still, lingering at their booth to leaf through a book or two and then put it down and walk away. Having compared notes with an artist friend who exhibits at the Washington Square Art Show twice a year, I know that artists likewise feel rejected when prospective buyers walk away, until a sale redeems them, enhances their feeling of self-worth, and strengthens them for the tests that lie ahead.
Kirchner's lady in red. Berlin, circa 1914.A personal note: long ago, having just arrived in Paris as a student, I thought it requisite to get a look at the whores of the notorious neighborhood known as Pigalle, which the wartime GIs had christened “Pig Alley.” One evening, having fortified myself with what was labeled “Pernod Fils,” a pale imitation of the long-banned fearsome absinthe drink of that name, and having stashed a packet of Sheiks in my pocket, I embarked on my perilous adventure with flutters in my virginal gut. There was a station on the Métro called Pigalle, so that’s where I got off and wandered down the nearest quiet street. And sure enough, posted at intervals in the shadows, there they were. “Monsieur …!” purred a short, skinny one in a ratty fur; repelled, I hastened on. “Eh bien …?” (“How about it?”) said a hefty blonde with a throaty voice and an engaging smile, but her too I hurried past. Two or three others cast inviting glances and winked or gestured or purred, but not one whetted my appetite. Finally, having made the requisite effort, I gave it up, left Pigalle by Métro, and retreated to my snug little room in the Hotel François Premier on the Left Bank near the Latin Quarter. In retrospect I’ll admit that, by virtue of her disarming candor and smile, the hefty blonde came closest to scoring with me. Closest, but not close enough. And with these tawdry memories in mind, I hold to my assertion that authors too are whores, repeating in our own somewhat more fastidious way the appeals of the shadowy charmers of Pigalle.
Pigalle today. No subtlety, no shadowy charmers. What you see is what you get.Ricardo Martins But just as not all whores walk the streets, since some are nested in brothels under the guidance of a pimp or a madam, so some authors are lucky enough to find a publisher. They still hawk their wares, but perhaps less blatantly, and with the help of an experienced promoter with whom they split their profits … always to the advantage of that promoter, who must be recompensed for the costs of promotion.
Minna Everleigh awaiting customers in Omaha, Nebraska, 1895. Later she and her sister Ada opened the Everleigh Club in Chicago, the most luxurious house of prostitution in the country.
Playing cards while awaiting customers in New Orleans, circa 1911. I know just how they felt. One has so much to offer, with no takers in sight.
And just as some prostitutes rise to the level of call girls, being available – for a significant price – to those aware of their services, so some authors in time attain the heights of success and the envied status of bestselling author. They don't have to go to their clients; the clients come to them: to readings and signings, even lining up and waiting a half hour for a few precious minutes with the object of their devotion, as I saw them do at BookCon 2017, where they were finally rewarded with a signature in a book already purchased. To these authors, the fame and the glory, plus a New York Times obit and, for the most famous, a splendid funeral.
Dumas père. If he looks smug and privileged, he's entitled.His works were translated into over one hundred languages.
Victor Hugo's funeral, Paris, 1885. How many authors would rate such a send-off? He's en route to the Pantheon The most successful of the bestselling authors might even be likened to the grandes horizontales of nineteenth-century France: cultivated and accomplished demi-mondaines who enjoyed the patronage of some illustrious personage, a minister or noble or affluent capitalist. Such was Violetta in Verdi’s opera La Traviata, while at the same time embodying that perennial male fantasy, the whore with a heart of gold. If anyone objects that bestselling authors are by definition known to multitudes of readers, whereas these ladies confined their favors to their benefactor, or at most to a chosen few, I would have to grant the point, while noting that they often presided over a salon frequented by a wider but decidedly male clientele.
[image error] Emilienne d'Alençon (1869-1946). Here at last is elegance.
Finally, I will take my analogy one step further and suggest that the whole publishing scene today smacks of whoredom, for publishers too, both big and small, are lustily hawking their authors and books, and competition is fierce, as if a motley crowd of harlots were trying to work the same street, using every trick possible to hook a customer. Exhibiting at BookCon 2017, I had exactly that feeling for both myself and my fellow exhibitors, each of us using whatever gimmicks we could think of – banners, signs, free bookmarks, flashing lights – to lure attendees to our booth. Whatever limits my analogy my have, you can’t escape that feeling of exhibiting yourself in public and hoping to score. Every sale was a score, and it made you feel desirable, wanted, a success. Yes, authors are whores.
DeanneSalingerAnd how about reviewers? They too are for sale. Consider Kirkus Reviews, which touts itself as “the most trusted voice in book reviews since 1933,” and whose reviews can make you or break you. Kirkus offers to review books by indie authors; if the reviews are unfavorable, they can be buried in oblivion, and if favorable, they can be published online, to be discovered by agents, publishers, and readers. So in this case authors are johns, not whores. And of course it costs. For a traditional review, $425; for a longer review, $575; for two books, $699; for three, $999. And for all categories, these are the minimal prices. So Kirkus too is a whore, albeit a successful and distinguished one, a true grande horizontale.
Note: A shortened version of this post appeared on November 1, 2017, in "The Artist Unleashed," the blog of Vine Leaves Press. And now I shall hawk my wares.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended." Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Coming soon: No idea.
© 2017 Clifford Browder
November 1, 2017
325. Hell House and Christian Terrorism
My books
No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World. A selection of posts from this blog.
Historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York:
1. The Pleasuring of Men. A young man becomes a male prostitute in the hidden gay world of that time.
2. Bill Hope: His Story. A street kid turned pickpocket pours out his story in a torrent of words.
3. Dark Knowledge. A young man fights to discover the truth about his family's involvement in the slave trade.
For details, see below.
Hell House and Christian Terrorism
(Note: This post repeats #141 of August 24, 2014, with a few alterations. Though I haven't otherwise updated it, it still seems relevant, especially around Halloween.)
Christian terrorism? Many will balk at the notion, given the murderous terrorisms rampant in the world today. But here is the dictionary definition of terrorism: “The systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion.” Now consider these scenes:
· A smashed car and two teenagers sprawled dead on the pavement, the result of drunk driving.
· The sacred institution of marriage is disgraced by the Satan-inspired wedding of two men.
· A teenager tormented by the stress of life, Satan-inspired, commits suicide.
· A young woman bleeding to death between her legs, the result of a self-induced abortion.
· A human infant sacrificed during a clandestine Satanic ritual where masked ghouls and demons utter horrific shrieks and screams in a flickering light. In the audience petrified children cling to their parents, sobbing.
· A depressed teen is pressured by witches to murder his fellow students.
· A demon dancing around the coffin of an AIDS victim, rejoicing that the dead man is now tormented in hell. “I tricked him into believing he was born gay!” the demon exults. “Have you ever heard something so silly?”
· A girl at a rave takes a pill that a young man offers her, telling her it will relax her; she passes out and is gang-raped.
· A corridor in hell where the damned reach out from peepholes begging for help.
· The Angel of the Lord in shining white and a dark-robed demon battle over a teen-age lesbian about to commit suicide. A child in the audience gasps, “I can’t breathe!” and is helped out of the room.
· A girl shrieks and gesticulates as she dies from an overdose of methamphetamine.
· Cold, uncaring medics advise a young woman to have an abortion. “Why not?” taunts a red-faced demon. “Everyone is doing it these days!”
· Scared teenagers in the audience are told by a ghoulish voice to get inside a row of upright coffins; when they do, demons pound on the sides of the coffins while shrieking loudly.
· A girl is strapped to a table for an abortion. Nurses operate, pull out gnarly-looking gobs of bloody flesh; nurses and girl are splattered with blood. Teenage girls in the audience weep. The girl having the abortion dies, goes straight to hell.
These are some of the scenes presented around Halloween each year by various fundamentalist Christian churches, in an attempt to frighten impressionable young people with the consequences of sin and then offer them a way out through commitment to Jesus. While the target is primarily teenagers, some of the accounts show that parents are taking very young children to these events, which are well designed to terrify. Ministers presiding over these presentations admit quite candidly that they are meant to frighten, not to entertain. So in this respect Hell Houses differ from the spook houses associated with Halloween and many fairs and amusement parks; the goal of the Hell Houses is to frighten you away from Satan and into the redeeming arms of Jesus. And by most accounts they do succeed in frightening, if not everyone, many impressionable young people who go to them out of curiosity, or for a thrill, or because they are already half converted. And those presenting the scenes are often teenagers themselves, members of the church sponsoring the event.
While Hell Houses can be found almost anywhere in the U.S. except the West Coast and the Northeast – in other words, wherever there are Christian fundamentalists -- they seem to abound in Texas. The first one is believed to have been the creation of the Trinity Assembly of God in Dallas, but they were popularized in the late 1970s by Jerry Falwell, the evangelical Southern Baptist televangelist and founder of the Moral Majority.
Today Keenan Roberts, pastor of the New Destiny Christian Center in Denver, offers kits for $299 that will let you build your own Hell House with a series of theatrical scenes; included are a DVD of Roberts’s own production, a 300-page instruction manual, and an appropriately spooky soundtrack. Roberts himself dons a long black robe, a gray face mask, and large black horns to play a demon who guides visitors from room to room of his own Hell House, which in a 2012 interview he claimed had been visited by 75,000 people over the last 16 years. He refuses to provide the media with sample kits, but excerpts have appeared online. For an abortion scene, he recommends buying “a meat product that closely resembles pieces of a baby” to put in a glass bowl; the actors playing the medical staff involved should be “cold, uncaring, abrupt and completely insensitive.” And business is good: the kits have now allegedly been sold in all 50 states and 26 foreign countries. Has his initiative been criticized? Yes, even in some Christian circles. Does it bother him? Certainly not. “God’s going to have the last word.”
The wedding of Adam and Steve
Les Freres Corbusier Secular, easygoing New York may not seem a likely venue for a Hell House production, but in October 2006 Les Freres Corbusier, a theater company with a Jewish producer and a Catholic director, presented what they termed an “authentic rendition” of Roberts’s outreach kit in Brooklyn, straight-faced and devoid of irony, in hopes that the audience would draw their own conclusions. The sequence of horror scenes was climaxed by a steam bath of a hell with a glaring Satan; then an angel leading visitors upstairs to meet a Jesus played by an actor with intimidating sincerity; and finally, to round things out, a fruit punch and music by a live Christian rock group, and an invitation to play “Pin-the-Sin-on-the-Jesus,” where visitors pin on a cardboard cutout of Jesus a piece of paper on which they have written a secret sin obstructing their salvation, which some of them actually did (“Anal sex,” “I think Jesus is hot,” “I am a man and I wear Capri pants”). And all this without a hint of irony, a suggestion of satire; the mockery, when there was mockery, was provided by younger elements in the audience.
A Methodist circuit rider.
So much for Hell House in the Big Apple. But Christian terrorism for the sake of converting the backslidden and the heathen has a long history in this country, which has seen a series of Great Awakenings aflame with hellfire. As late as deep into the nineteenth century most of the mainstream Protestant sects treated their faithful, and the not so faithful, to fire-and-brimstone sermons designed to scare them into repentance and salvation. No one was better at this than the Methodists, whose circuit riders ranged far and wide, both to settled churches and the constant flux of the frontier, preaching fierily in churches or, to accommodate multitudes who couldn’t fit into the churches of the neighborhood, in open fields. There were sermons and calls to repentance, swoonings and screams, tremblings and and speaking in tongues. Few of those attending such a gathering, even if not among the sobbing penitents, could fail to be moved. Talk of it would echo through the county for days, and the memory of such a meeting could last a lifetime. As for the penitents, they were in God’s pocket.
A camp meeting, 1829. Women were especially susceptible.
So the Hell House of today carries on a long American tradition of scaring people into salvation, though with a difference. In those days the terrors of hell awaited sinners in the next life; in this life those sinners might be plump and prosperous. But the Hell Houses of today, while promising the same fire-and-brimstone hereafter, bring hell into people’s lives right now; the torment of the sinful begins in this life with painful abortions and rape and AIDS, before being heightened in the next.
But the tradition of Christian terrorism goes back even further, to the morality plays of the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe, where a central character like Everyman was assaulted by the Seven Deadly Sins (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride), but aided by such allegorical figures as Good Deeds, Knowledge, Discretion, and Strength. The whole drama consisted of Everyman’s struggle to lead a godly life, failing which the gates of hell gaped wide to receive him.
Everyman’s struggle points back to the western façade of the great Gothic cathedrals of France, the façade facing the sunset and its suggestion of finality, the façade that often showed the Christ of the Second Coming, the Christ of the Last Judgment. Thus the sculpture over the central portal of Notre Dame in Paris shows Christ flanked on his right by the kneeling Virgin Mary and on his left, also kneeling, St. John the Evangelist; under them a winged Saint Michael and a grinning demon weigh souls, and another demon leads the damned off to perdition. The cathedral, like all the Gothic cathedrals of Northern France, was dedicated to the Virgin, whose compassion would hopefully mitigate the stern judgment of her Son. Even so, this was the main entrance, so its subject gave a cheery greeting to the faithful as they came to attend Mass or pray.
The central portal of Notre Dame de Paris.
Jebulon
Saint Michael and a demon weighing souls.
Julie Kertesz
This scene of the Second Coming was portrayed as well by painters, most notably by Michelangelo in his vast fresco on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, where a muscular and angry Christ gestures dramatically to condemn the nude figures of the damned descending to hell and its demons on his left (our right, as we view it), while the saved, also nude, ascend to heaven on his right. The sculpted sinners of the cathedral portals tend to be stiff and stylized, without much differentiation, whereas Michelangelo’s sinners are painted with Renaissance dynamism and drama, no two of them alike. Especially gripping is one chubby male who, gripped by a demon, buries his face in one hand as he hunches over, stricken with dread and despair as he realizes he is damned for all eternity; nothing a Hell House offers can match it.
Michelangelo's Last Judgment.
So where is the Virgin, that figure of warmth and compassion? She is there, just to the left of her Son and fully garbed, but she is dwarfed by comparison and turns away from him, almost cowering; this is his scene, not hers. Not much lovingkindness here; Christ is much more Judge than Redeemer. (Unlike so many Italian painters, Michelangelo was not one to portray a gentle, merciful Virgin; his females, far from being soft and motherly, tend toward the stern and majestic, like the Sybils of the Sistine ceiling.)
From Michelangelo to the Gospels is only one quick leap. In Matthew 23:33 Jesus says, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” And in Luke 12:5: “But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.” And in Matthew 13:49-50: “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” And in Matthew 25:41: “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” So in the Gospels hell is a very real place of torment, and God is to be feared. Jesus promises forgiveness elsewhere and promises heaven to the righteous, but here he stresses judgment and fear.
All of which is awkward for those many Christians who today shy away from notions of Satan and hell and torment, uncomfy as they are. Since the nineteenth century vast numbers of Americans have opted for religion without God, salvation without sin, a kind of feel-good faith emphasizing good works for those less fortunate than ourselves, and the Golden Rule for all. I should know, since I grew up in a liberal Methodism that said nothing of hell and torment, and a great deal about compassion and tolerance and sharing. I will always be grateful to those gentle Methodists for not ramming ideology down my tender throat, for not imposing a set of strict rules on me, for offering me examples of warmth and love in action and, in the case of a few, a genuine, deep-rooted spirituality.
Admittedly, there are risks in de-Satanizing Christianity, in dousing hellfire so as to emphasize exclusively Christian love and compassion. The result is often a namby-pamby religion where everyone gets to heaven, a religion without spine and rigor. You can see it in the sentimentality of much nineteenth- and twentieth-century religious art, as for example the slides shown me in Sunday School classes every Easter. The slides served their purpose by immersing our callow minds in the drama of Holy Week, but in retrospect I realize how insipid they were artistically.
The sentimentalizing of religion is also seen in Hollywood movies about priests and nuns, as for instance Loretta Young in the 1949 film Come to the Stable, where she plays a beatific nun, her smile benign, her goals noble, and her utterance pure sugar. I’d like to think that, Hollywood notwithstanding, such insipidity is confined to a certain brand of Protestantism, but one glance at websites offering Catholic religious objects for sale disabuses me. There are figurines of Mary and the saints (“Saint Joseph will help you sell you home”) that are equally insipid, sometimes offered in a “blow-out sale.”
The figures I remember being sold in stores for small indoor Christmas Nativities were among the worst, with feminine angels with flowing blond hair and dainty features, but the larger ones advertised online today are no better. All these winged cuties are a far cry from the fearsome male angels of an earlier age, epitomized memorably in Saint Michael, the fearsome warrior archangel who will weigh the souls at the Last Judgment, and who led God’s forces in driving Satan and his rebellious cohorts out of heaven and hurling them down to hell.
Saint Michael, weigher of souls at the Last Judgment. Rogier van der Weyden 1443-1446. This guy you wouldn't mess around with; he means business.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Song of the Angels, 1881. You think
this is the ultimate in 19th-century religious sentimentality? See below.
Franz Kadik, Three Angels, 1822. It can't get worse than this.
Almost makes you yearn for a Hell House. So insipidly saccharine are some nineteenth-century renditions of angels that I find them just as objectionable as the horrors of the Hell Houses. It can easily be argued that eliminating Satan and hell rips the very guts out of Christianity, leaves it limp and flaccid, robs it of its essential drama. Maybe what the secular world of today needs is a reimagining of Satan and hell, a fresh incarnation of evil that resonates. Anyone aware of recent history knows that evil exists, and we humans long for a cosmic order that punishes it. I leave it to the thinkers and writers and artists of our time to find this new representation of evil that will grab hold of our psyche, shake it up, excite it, obsess it, and thus make evil once again something we can’t ignore. Unless, of course, this new representation exists already and I, poor fool, am simply unaware of it.
Hell Houses do indeed remind us of what has been left out of a kinder, gentler Christianity, but I don’t miss those features, rooted in the Gospels though they be. Hell Houses terrify small children, whereas Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come [to me], for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). If the liberal Christianity of today is selective in what it takes from the Gospels, so is the fundamentalism that sponsors Hell Houses; it leaves out, or at least minimizes, kindness and compassion and love.
When I started this post with accounts of Hell House, I had no idea I would gravitate via morality plays and Last Judgments to the Gospels and end up where I have. So it goes. But if you have access to a Hell House next Halloween, go visit it for curiosity’s sake and some thrills. Just don’t get converted – not there, on their grim terms. And for God’s sake (and theirs and your own) don’t take any young children with you; this is not for them.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
"This is an easy read about a hard life. Interesting characters, a bustling city, poverty, privilege, crime, injustice combine to create a captivating tale." Five-star Goodreads review by John Wheeler.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:
New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended. Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Coming soon: As announced, Authors Are Whores.
© 2017 Clifford Browder
No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World. A selection of posts from this blog.
Historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York:
1. The Pleasuring of Men. A young man becomes a male prostitute in the hidden gay world of that time.
2. Bill Hope: His Story. A street kid turned pickpocket pours out his story in a torrent of words.
3. Dark Knowledge. A young man fights to discover the truth about his family's involvement in the slave trade.
For details, see below.
Hell House and Christian Terrorism
(Note: This post repeats #141 of August 24, 2014, with a few alterations. Though I haven't otherwise updated it, it still seems relevant, especially around Halloween.)
Christian terrorism? Many will balk at the notion, given the murderous terrorisms rampant in the world today. But here is the dictionary definition of terrorism: “The systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion.” Now consider these scenes:
· A smashed car and two teenagers sprawled dead on the pavement, the result of drunk driving.
· The sacred institution of marriage is disgraced by the Satan-inspired wedding of two men.
· A teenager tormented by the stress of life, Satan-inspired, commits suicide.
· A young woman bleeding to death between her legs, the result of a self-induced abortion.
· A human infant sacrificed during a clandestine Satanic ritual where masked ghouls and demons utter horrific shrieks and screams in a flickering light. In the audience petrified children cling to their parents, sobbing.
· A depressed teen is pressured by witches to murder his fellow students.
· A demon dancing around the coffin of an AIDS victim, rejoicing that the dead man is now tormented in hell. “I tricked him into believing he was born gay!” the demon exults. “Have you ever heard something so silly?”
· A girl at a rave takes a pill that a young man offers her, telling her it will relax her; she passes out and is gang-raped.
· A corridor in hell where the damned reach out from peepholes begging for help.
· The Angel of the Lord in shining white and a dark-robed demon battle over a teen-age lesbian about to commit suicide. A child in the audience gasps, “I can’t breathe!” and is helped out of the room.
· A girl shrieks and gesticulates as she dies from an overdose of methamphetamine.
· Cold, uncaring medics advise a young woman to have an abortion. “Why not?” taunts a red-faced demon. “Everyone is doing it these days!”
· Scared teenagers in the audience are told by a ghoulish voice to get inside a row of upright coffins; when they do, demons pound on the sides of the coffins while shrieking loudly.
· A girl is strapped to a table for an abortion. Nurses operate, pull out gnarly-looking gobs of bloody flesh; nurses and girl are splattered with blood. Teenage girls in the audience weep. The girl having the abortion dies, goes straight to hell.
These are some of the scenes presented around Halloween each year by various fundamentalist Christian churches, in an attempt to frighten impressionable young people with the consequences of sin and then offer them a way out through commitment to Jesus. While the target is primarily teenagers, some of the accounts show that parents are taking very young children to these events, which are well designed to terrify. Ministers presiding over these presentations admit quite candidly that they are meant to frighten, not to entertain. So in this respect Hell Houses differ from the spook houses associated with Halloween and many fairs and amusement parks; the goal of the Hell Houses is to frighten you away from Satan and into the redeeming arms of Jesus. And by most accounts they do succeed in frightening, if not everyone, many impressionable young people who go to them out of curiosity, or for a thrill, or because they are already half converted. And those presenting the scenes are often teenagers themselves, members of the church sponsoring the event.
While Hell Houses can be found almost anywhere in the U.S. except the West Coast and the Northeast – in other words, wherever there are Christian fundamentalists -- they seem to abound in Texas. The first one is believed to have been the creation of the Trinity Assembly of God in Dallas, but they were popularized in the late 1970s by Jerry Falwell, the evangelical Southern Baptist televangelist and founder of the Moral Majority.
Today Keenan Roberts, pastor of the New Destiny Christian Center in Denver, offers kits for $299 that will let you build your own Hell House with a series of theatrical scenes; included are a DVD of Roberts’s own production, a 300-page instruction manual, and an appropriately spooky soundtrack. Roberts himself dons a long black robe, a gray face mask, and large black horns to play a demon who guides visitors from room to room of his own Hell House, which in a 2012 interview he claimed had been visited by 75,000 people over the last 16 years. He refuses to provide the media with sample kits, but excerpts have appeared online. For an abortion scene, he recommends buying “a meat product that closely resembles pieces of a baby” to put in a glass bowl; the actors playing the medical staff involved should be “cold, uncaring, abrupt and completely insensitive.” And business is good: the kits have now allegedly been sold in all 50 states and 26 foreign countries. Has his initiative been criticized? Yes, even in some Christian circles. Does it bother him? Certainly not. “God’s going to have the last word.”
The wedding of Adam and SteveLes Freres Corbusier Secular, easygoing New York may not seem a likely venue for a Hell House production, but in October 2006 Les Freres Corbusier, a theater company with a Jewish producer and a Catholic director, presented what they termed an “authentic rendition” of Roberts’s outreach kit in Brooklyn, straight-faced and devoid of irony, in hopes that the audience would draw their own conclusions. The sequence of horror scenes was climaxed by a steam bath of a hell with a glaring Satan; then an angel leading visitors upstairs to meet a Jesus played by an actor with intimidating sincerity; and finally, to round things out, a fruit punch and music by a live Christian rock group, and an invitation to play “Pin-the-Sin-on-the-Jesus,” where visitors pin on a cardboard cutout of Jesus a piece of paper on which they have written a secret sin obstructing their salvation, which some of them actually did (“Anal sex,” “I think Jesus is hot,” “I am a man and I wear Capri pants”). And all this without a hint of irony, a suggestion of satire; the mockery, when there was mockery, was provided by younger elements in the audience.
A Methodist circuit rider.So much for Hell House in the Big Apple. But Christian terrorism for the sake of converting the backslidden and the heathen has a long history in this country, which has seen a series of Great Awakenings aflame with hellfire. As late as deep into the nineteenth century most of the mainstream Protestant sects treated their faithful, and the not so faithful, to fire-and-brimstone sermons designed to scare them into repentance and salvation. No one was better at this than the Methodists, whose circuit riders ranged far and wide, both to settled churches and the constant flux of the frontier, preaching fierily in churches or, to accommodate multitudes who couldn’t fit into the churches of the neighborhood, in open fields. There were sermons and calls to repentance, swoonings and screams, tremblings and and speaking in tongues. Few of those attending such a gathering, even if not among the sobbing penitents, could fail to be moved. Talk of it would echo through the county for days, and the memory of such a meeting could last a lifetime. As for the penitents, they were in God’s pocket.
A camp meeting, 1829. Women were especially susceptible.So the Hell House of today carries on a long American tradition of scaring people into salvation, though with a difference. In those days the terrors of hell awaited sinners in the next life; in this life those sinners might be plump and prosperous. But the Hell Houses of today, while promising the same fire-and-brimstone hereafter, bring hell into people’s lives right now; the torment of the sinful begins in this life with painful abortions and rape and AIDS, before being heightened in the next.
But the tradition of Christian terrorism goes back even further, to the morality plays of the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe, where a central character like Everyman was assaulted by the Seven Deadly Sins (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride), but aided by such allegorical figures as Good Deeds, Knowledge, Discretion, and Strength. The whole drama consisted of Everyman’s struggle to lead a godly life, failing which the gates of hell gaped wide to receive him.
Everyman’s struggle points back to the western façade of the great Gothic cathedrals of France, the façade facing the sunset and its suggestion of finality, the façade that often showed the Christ of the Second Coming, the Christ of the Last Judgment. Thus the sculpture over the central portal of Notre Dame in Paris shows Christ flanked on his right by the kneeling Virgin Mary and on his left, also kneeling, St. John the Evangelist; under them a winged Saint Michael and a grinning demon weigh souls, and another demon leads the damned off to perdition. The cathedral, like all the Gothic cathedrals of Northern France, was dedicated to the Virgin, whose compassion would hopefully mitigate the stern judgment of her Son. Even so, this was the main entrance, so its subject gave a cheery greeting to the faithful as they came to attend Mass or pray.
The central portal of Notre Dame de Paris.Jebulon
Saint Michael and a demon weighing souls.Julie Kertesz
This scene of the Second Coming was portrayed as well by painters, most notably by Michelangelo in his vast fresco on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, where a muscular and angry Christ gestures dramatically to condemn the nude figures of the damned descending to hell and its demons on his left (our right, as we view it), while the saved, also nude, ascend to heaven on his right. The sculpted sinners of the cathedral portals tend to be stiff and stylized, without much differentiation, whereas Michelangelo’s sinners are painted with Renaissance dynamism and drama, no two of them alike. Especially gripping is one chubby male who, gripped by a demon, buries his face in one hand as he hunches over, stricken with dread and despair as he realizes he is damned for all eternity; nothing a Hell House offers can match it.
Michelangelo's Last Judgment.
So where is the Virgin, that figure of warmth and compassion? She is there, just to the left of her Son and fully garbed, but she is dwarfed by comparison and turns away from him, almost cowering; this is his scene, not hers. Not much lovingkindness here; Christ is much more Judge than Redeemer. (Unlike so many Italian painters, Michelangelo was not one to portray a gentle, merciful Virgin; his females, far from being soft and motherly, tend toward the stern and majestic, like the Sybils of the Sistine ceiling.)
From Michelangelo to the Gospels is only one quick leap. In Matthew 23:33 Jesus says, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” And in Luke 12:5: “But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.” And in Matthew 13:49-50: “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” And in Matthew 25:41: “Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” So in the Gospels hell is a very real place of torment, and God is to be feared. Jesus promises forgiveness elsewhere and promises heaven to the righteous, but here he stresses judgment and fear.
All of which is awkward for those many Christians who today shy away from notions of Satan and hell and torment, uncomfy as they are. Since the nineteenth century vast numbers of Americans have opted for religion without God, salvation without sin, a kind of feel-good faith emphasizing good works for those less fortunate than ourselves, and the Golden Rule for all. I should know, since I grew up in a liberal Methodism that said nothing of hell and torment, and a great deal about compassion and tolerance and sharing. I will always be grateful to those gentle Methodists for not ramming ideology down my tender throat, for not imposing a set of strict rules on me, for offering me examples of warmth and love in action and, in the case of a few, a genuine, deep-rooted spirituality.
Admittedly, there are risks in de-Satanizing Christianity, in dousing hellfire so as to emphasize exclusively Christian love and compassion. The result is often a namby-pamby religion where everyone gets to heaven, a religion without spine and rigor. You can see it in the sentimentality of much nineteenth- and twentieth-century religious art, as for example the slides shown me in Sunday School classes every Easter. The slides served their purpose by immersing our callow minds in the drama of Holy Week, but in retrospect I realize how insipid they were artistically.
The sentimentalizing of religion is also seen in Hollywood movies about priests and nuns, as for instance Loretta Young in the 1949 film Come to the Stable, where she plays a beatific nun, her smile benign, her goals noble, and her utterance pure sugar. I’d like to think that, Hollywood notwithstanding, such insipidity is confined to a certain brand of Protestantism, but one glance at websites offering Catholic religious objects for sale disabuses me. There are figurines of Mary and the saints (“Saint Joseph will help you sell you home”) that are equally insipid, sometimes offered in a “blow-out sale.”
The figures I remember being sold in stores for small indoor Christmas Nativities were among the worst, with feminine angels with flowing blond hair and dainty features, but the larger ones advertised online today are no better. All these winged cuties are a far cry from the fearsome male angels of an earlier age, epitomized memorably in Saint Michael, the fearsome warrior archangel who will weigh the souls at the Last Judgment, and who led God’s forces in driving Satan and his rebellious cohorts out of heaven and hurling them down to hell.
Saint Michael, weigher of souls at the Last Judgment. Rogier van der Weyden 1443-1446. This guy you wouldn't mess around with; he means business._-_Song_of_the_Angels_(1881).jpg)
William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Song of the Angels, 1881. You thinkthis is the ultimate in 19th-century religious sentimentality? See below.
Franz Kadik, Three Angels, 1822. It can't get worse than this.Almost makes you yearn for a Hell House. So insipidly saccharine are some nineteenth-century renditions of angels that I find them just as objectionable as the horrors of the Hell Houses. It can easily be argued that eliminating Satan and hell rips the very guts out of Christianity, leaves it limp and flaccid, robs it of its essential drama. Maybe what the secular world of today needs is a reimagining of Satan and hell, a fresh incarnation of evil that resonates. Anyone aware of recent history knows that evil exists, and we humans long for a cosmic order that punishes it. I leave it to the thinkers and writers and artists of our time to find this new representation of evil that will grab hold of our psyche, shake it up, excite it, obsess it, and thus make evil once again something we can’t ignore. Unless, of course, this new representation exists already and I, poor fool, am simply unaware of it.
Hell Houses do indeed remind us of what has been left out of a kinder, gentler Christianity, but I don’t miss those features, rooted in the Gospels though they be. Hell Houses terrify small children, whereas Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come [to me], for of such is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14). If the liberal Christianity of today is selective in what it takes from the Gospels, so is the fundamentalism that sponsors Hell Houses; it leaves out, or at least minimizes, kindness and compassion and love.
When I started this post with accounts of Hell House, I had no idea I would gravitate via morality plays and Last Judgments to the Gospels and end up where I have. So it goes. But if you have access to a Hell House next Halloween, go visit it for curiosity’s sake and some thrills. Just don’t get converted – not there, on their grim terms. And for God’s sake (and theirs and your own) don’t take any young children with you; this is not for them.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
"This is an easy read about a hard life. Interesting characters, a bustling city, poverty, privilege, crime, injustice combine to create a captivating tale." Five-star Goodreads review by John Wheeler.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended. Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Coming soon: As announced, Authors Are Whores.
© 2017 Clifford Browder
October 29, 2017
324. Instruments of Death
My books
No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World. A selection of posts from this blog.
Historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York:
1. The Pleasuring of Men. A young man becomes a male prostitute in the hidden gay world of that time.
2. Bill Hope: His Story. A street kid turned pickpocket pours out his story in a torrent of words.
3. Dark Knowledge. A young man fights to discover the truth about his family's involvement in the slave trade.
For details, see below.
Instruments of Death
While doing the recent post on famous last words and gestures, I was drawn inevitably to the related topic of how we humans put our outcasts and offenders to death -- a grisly subject, irresistible. One thinks at once of Socrates, convicted in ancient Athens of impiety and corrupting the youth with his endless barrage of questions about our values and how we should live – questions that had indeed brought the youth of Athens flocking to him, as he wandered the streets and questioned the good citizens whom he encountered. As his disciple Plato, who knew eyewitnesses, tells it, Socrates was given a cup of poison hemlock to drink and then, having cheerfully drunk it, felt a numbness rising through his legs; when the numbness reached his heart, he died. All this occurred quite peacefully and painlessly, while his disciples wept.
According to Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, this was a merciful way of disposing of a troublemaker; no blood was shed, and the condemned became his own executioner. The agent of death, poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), is a plant that I know well, having seen it growing about three feet high in a shady spot – I won’t say exactly where – in Van Cortland Park. It is a common plant of the parsley family, the Umbelliferae, that prefers waste ground; its grooved stem has purple spots, its leaves are fernlike, and its tiny white flowers top the stem in umbrella-shaped clusters. Not a plant flaunting gaudy flowers or begging for attention; most people, if they notice it at all, would dismiss it as a weed. But yes, its juices are very poisonous.
The plant that did in Socrates. Lacelike, but lethal.
vastateparkstaff
If anyone, envying Socrates’ dignified passing, is tempted to follow his example by drinking hemlock juice, be advised: the symptom of hemlock poisoning is indeed a mounting paralysis, but there can also be vomiting, trembling, urination, nausea, and convulsions, all of which make the whole business sound rather messy. If one must do away with oneself, why not a simple bullet to the brain? More efficient, provided a gun is handy and one’s aim is good.
The other famous execution in the history of the West was, of course, the crucifixion of Jesus. Though Jesus was convicted by the Jews, it was the Romans who put him to death, and for them crucifixion was the most dishonorable death imaginable, appropriate for slaves and foreigners, including, in time, Christians, but only rarely Roman citizens of the lower classes; Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, abolished it in the fourth century CE. Unknown in pre-Hellenic Greece, crucifixion had originated in Persia and then been perfected – if such a word is appropriate – by the Romans. It was indeed a horrible death, for the weight of the body tugging down on the arms made breathing difficult, leading to suffocation. Also, as blood drained from the wounds, the heart and lungs stopped functioning, and the seven-inch nails driven through the hands caused intense pain. It was a very public and painful way of dying; few victims lasted more than twenty-four hours, often less.
A modern representation, showing the effect of the
body's weight, and the bleeding.
Ruben Betanzo S. So how did the Romans execute Roman citizens guilty of murder? If you killed a Roman citizen of equal rank, you weren’t executed at all; you simply paid a fine or suffered what was considered a truly harsh fate: exile. If a citizen was put to death, which was rare, it was by beheading, which was considered a more honorable death. And if a citizen killed a slave or someone of lesser status, there was no punishment at all. As for slaves and prisoners of war, they could be tossed to wild bears, lions, or bulls, which made for a fine show at the Colosseum. Such was the fate of the early Christians, unless they could claim Roman citizenship. But for an even better spectacle, the offenders could be tied to the tails of stampeding horses and dragged to their death.
The Jews had several ways of executing. Stoning was used for certain offenses, but complicating the matter was the belief that the body should not be mutilated. When the scribes and pharisees confronted Jesus with a woman taken in adultery and asked if, in accordance with Mosaic law, she should be stoned to death, Jesus replied that he who had never sinned should throw the first stone and then dismissed her, telling her to go and sin no more (John 7:53-8:11). Burning was also used by the Jews, as well as decapitation by the sword and strangulation, this last being thought more humane and the least mutilating.
In ancient Britain the Celts executed by throwing the victim into a quagmire. In medieval Britain the barons had a gallows for hanging, and a drowning pit as well. The upper classes were merely beheaded, but women of the lower classes were burned for treason, and men were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Those who wouldn’t confess their crimes were subjected to pressing: the executioner placed heavy weights on the victim’s chest until he either confessed or died. And the offenses meriting the death penalty included theft, cutting down a tree, counterfeiting, and marrying a Jew. Then in 1531, as the Renaissance brought enlightenment, boiling was approved, and some victims boiled for up to two hours before dying.
The execution of Sir Walter Raleigh. His rank gave him the privilege of a beheading.
Britain of course exported its modes of execution to the thirteen American colonies, though each colony went its own merry way. Hanging was the commonest means of execution, and many were the crimes that merited it. In 1612 Virginia’s governor decreed the death penalty even for stealing grapes, killing chickens without permission, or trading with Indians, but seven years later these laws were softened, because the government in its belated wisdom realized that otherwise no one would want to settle there. In the 1630s Massachusetts imposed the death penalty for murder, sodomy, witchcraft, adultery, idolatry, blasphemy, assault, rape, statutory rape, manstealing, perjury, rebellion, manslaughter, poisoning, and bestiality. The victims of the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692, mostly women, were hanged, though one man who refused to confess was pressed to death.
Execution of Ann Hibbins for witchcraft on Boston
Common in 1656, years before the witch hunt in Salem.
The American colonies would in time revolt against the rule of George III, but in Europe monarchy had long prevailed, and the crime of regicide was viewed with horror and punished accordingly. François Ravaillac, the Catholic zealot who stabbed Henry IV of France to death in 1610, was condemned to death and taken to the Place de Grève, where he was scalded with burning sulfur and molten lead, following which his flesh was torn with pincers and he was drawn and quartered. This last involved tying the victim’s limbs to four horses that were then sent galloping in four directions, tearing the victim apart.
The execution of Ravaillac. An engraving of 1610.
This same fate, following hanging, was announced for Guy Fawkes, the Catholic conspirator who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in England in 1606. While climbing up to the scaffold, however, he jumped from the ladder, broke his neck, and died instantly, thus depriving those present of a memorable spectacle.
For public spectacle, nothing outdid the auto-da-fé (“act of faith” in Portuguese) of the Spanish Inquisition, an elaborate ceremony prepared a month in advance, when the local authorities believed they had enough prisoners to justify the event. Suspects were subjected to secret examinations by inquisitors that involved torture to encourage confessions. Then, following an all-night vigil with prayers by the populace, and a Mass at daybreak with breakfast for those attending, the accused were brought out and the procession began. Wearing pointed caps and symbols identifying the offenses they were accused of, the prisoners, still unidentified and unaware of their fate, were paraded through the streets to the quemadero (“burning place”) outside the city, where the sentences were read. Those acquitted fell on their knees in thanksgiving; those convicted of heresy or other crimes were then “relaxed” to the secular authorities to be whipped, tortured, and burned at the stake. This “relaxation” occurred because the Church professed to abhor blood and therefore let the secular authorities do the dirty work. Among the victims were Jews, Moors, Protestants, and crypto-Muslims, as well as those guilty of lesser offenses like bigamy. Auto-da-fés were also held in Portugal, Brazil, and Mexico; thousands died. The last one in Spain occurred in 1826.
An auto-da-fe of 1716. Judgment of the accused, a lesson for the populace, and a time for penitence.
The whole town is involved.
Heretics burned at the stake in the marketplace.
Inevitably, such practices came under scrutiny in modern times. Enlightenment thinkers and Quaker reformers urged revision of laws to limit or eliminate the death penalty. Especially influential was the Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria’s work On Crimes and Punishment, first published in English in 1767, which argued for the death penalty’s abolition.
In America various states passed laws against public hangings, which had become the scenes of rowdiness and drunken brawls, and in 1846 Michigan became the first state to abolish the death penalty, except for treason against the state. But opposition to reform was vehement, and the issue became controversial and remains so to this day. If hanging became a part of the tradition of the Old West where, for want of a gallows, a sturdy tree outside town with an appropriate horizontal branch was christened “the hanging tree,” the more progressive states of the East, viewing hanging as barbaric, looked for alternatives. Always in the forefront of progress, New York State in 1888 dismantled its gallows and built the nation’s first electric chair, which went into action – clumsily, it might be noted – in 1890.
The famous electric chair of Sing Sing prison, New York.
Even the West came to embrace change: in 1924 the state of Nevada performed the first execution by cyanide gas in a hastily constructed gas chamber. When Arizona first executed a woman in 1930, the hangman misjudged the drop and the victim’s head was ripped from her body, a contretemps that encouraged other states to switch to the electric chair or the gas chamber. And in 1977 the state of Oklahoma officially adopted lethal injection for executions, and in 1981 Texas became the first state to actually use it. In killing its condemned, America was doing its best to be civilized. And far from making the death throes a spectacle, we have made executions private, with only a few witnesses allowed to watch.
The gas chamber of New Mexico Penitentiary, Santa Fe, in 2008.
Shelka04 at en.wikipedia
Meanwhile the French, so often in the vanguard of progress, had solved the problem of quick, painless, scientific killing in their own distinctive way. On October 10, 1789, the States General, summoned to consider needed reforms, was addressed by one of its members, Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who in a debate on capital punishment proposed that criminals be beheaded painlessly by means of a simple mechanism that would be far more efficient than beheading by ax or sword, the punishment reserved for the nobility, or hanging, the punishment meted out to commoners. He was in fact opposed to the death penalty, and hoped that his “simple machine,” decapitating nobility and commoners alike, would be more democratic, and serve as a first step toward abolishing capital punishment. In a follow-up speech on December 1, 1789, he said, “Now, with my machine, I cut off your head in the twinkling of an eye (“clin d’oeil”), and you never feel it!” His statement immediately became a popular joke, and a comic song soon circulated, linking his name to the machine, which – to his keen regret – became known as the “guillotine.”
The execution of Marie Antoinette, 1794. A contemporary engraving.
Note the wicker basket in place to receive the head. In 1791 the National Assembly, which had evolved from the States General, made decapitation the only form of capital punishment in France. The head executioner, Charles-Henri Sanson, then pointed out that beheading by sword required dozens of executioners and scores of swords, and explained that swords broke easily, and that he had only two. As a result the Assembly in the spirit of progress embraced Dr. Guillotin’s invention, the guillotine. Sanson tested it first on animals, then on corpses of women and children obtained from a hospital; when male corpses proved a bit more resistant, the machine was redesigned to sever all heads efficiently, and was soon beheading nobles and commoners alike, and even the former king and queen, and finally and climactically, that evil genius of the Reign of Terror, Maximilien Robespierre himself. Not only was the guillotine embraced with enthusiasm, but it even inspired a children’s toy with a movable blade, and the kids were soon decapitating dolls and rodents. Marvelously effective, Guillotin’s invention was used for executions in France until capital punishment was abolished in 1981. Detrimental to its reputation, no doubt, was its use by Nazi Germany to execute some 16,500 people between 1933 and 1945.
The lethal injection room at San Quentin State Prison in California, 2010.
About as neat as they come.
So why was the guillotine never adopted in the U.S.A.? It might seem to be the logical solution for a country that came to view hanging as barbaric, especially when the victim was seen twitching and choking in midair, or even defecating. But first, the various states tried a high-tech solution, either the electric chair, the gas chamber, or lethal injection, none of which proved effective, swift, and humane. Those electrocuted sometimes survived the first jolt of electricity, and sparks, smoke, and flames were emitted amid the odor of burnt flesh. Those executed in the gas chamber were seen to be choking and suffering; their eyes popped and they drooled. Lethal injection often took up to an hour because the victim was a drug addict and had few veins that could be injected; meanwhile the victim might be moaning, and in one case the syringe fell out of the vein and almost sprayed the witnesses with lethal chemicals. In desperation, some Western states turned to the firing squad. In 2016 Utah allowed condemned inmates to choose the firing squad as an alternative to lethal injection, and Oklahoma made it the official plan B, should lethal injection ever be ruled illegal. But firing squads shed blood, and our modern sensitivity finds that just as objectionable as gasping, twitching bodies, drooling or defecation, and the odor of burnt flesh.
A firing squad in Mexico im 1913.
So why not the guillotine? Because it involves a severed head and blood. Because we remember the French Revolution, with the executioner exhibiting the severed head to the mob, while Madame Defarge and her cohorts supposedly knitted. We want our executions to be clean and bloodless, and the corpse to remain intact. The guillotine is swift and painless, but it still offends us and leaves us looking for an alternative that probably does not exist. Killing is by nature messy and violent; it cannot be neat and hygienic. So as long as it is legal, as it still is in thirty-one states, the dilemma persists. But at least we have made it private.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews
"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
"This is an easy read about a hard life. Interesting characters, a bustling city, poverty, privilege, crime, injustice combine to create a captivating tale." Five-star Goodreads review by John Wheeler.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:
New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended. Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Coming soon: Authors Are Whores.
© 2017 Clifford Browder
No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World. A selection of posts from this blog.
Historical fiction set in nineteenth-century New York:
1. The Pleasuring of Men. A young man becomes a male prostitute in the hidden gay world of that time.
2. Bill Hope: His Story. A street kid turned pickpocket pours out his story in a torrent of words.
3. Dark Knowledge. A young man fights to discover the truth about his family's involvement in the slave trade.
For details, see below.
Instruments of Death
While doing the recent post on famous last words and gestures, I was drawn inevitably to the related topic of how we humans put our outcasts and offenders to death -- a grisly subject, irresistible. One thinks at once of Socrates, convicted in ancient Athens of impiety and corrupting the youth with his endless barrage of questions about our values and how we should live – questions that had indeed brought the youth of Athens flocking to him, as he wandered the streets and questioned the good citizens whom he encountered. As his disciple Plato, who knew eyewitnesses, tells it, Socrates was given a cup of poison hemlock to drink and then, having cheerfully drunk it, felt a numbness rising through his legs; when the numbness reached his heart, he died. All this occurred quite peacefully and painlessly, while his disciples wept.
According to Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, this was a merciful way of disposing of a troublemaker; no blood was shed, and the condemned became his own executioner. The agent of death, poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), is a plant that I know well, having seen it growing about three feet high in a shady spot – I won’t say exactly where – in Van Cortland Park. It is a common plant of the parsley family, the Umbelliferae, that prefers waste ground; its grooved stem has purple spots, its leaves are fernlike, and its tiny white flowers top the stem in umbrella-shaped clusters. Not a plant flaunting gaudy flowers or begging for attention; most people, if they notice it at all, would dismiss it as a weed. But yes, its juices are very poisonous.
The plant that did in Socrates. Lacelike, but lethal.vastateparkstaff
If anyone, envying Socrates’ dignified passing, is tempted to follow his example by drinking hemlock juice, be advised: the symptom of hemlock poisoning is indeed a mounting paralysis, but there can also be vomiting, trembling, urination, nausea, and convulsions, all of which make the whole business sound rather messy. If one must do away with oneself, why not a simple bullet to the brain? More efficient, provided a gun is handy and one’s aim is good.
The other famous execution in the history of the West was, of course, the crucifixion of Jesus. Though Jesus was convicted by the Jews, it was the Romans who put him to death, and for them crucifixion was the most dishonorable death imaginable, appropriate for slaves and foreigners, including, in time, Christians, but only rarely Roman citizens of the lower classes; Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, abolished it in the fourth century CE. Unknown in pre-Hellenic Greece, crucifixion had originated in Persia and then been perfected – if such a word is appropriate – by the Romans. It was indeed a horrible death, for the weight of the body tugging down on the arms made breathing difficult, leading to suffocation. Also, as blood drained from the wounds, the heart and lungs stopped functioning, and the seven-inch nails driven through the hands caused intense pain. It was a very public and painful way of dying; few victims lasted more than twenty-four hours, often less.
A modern representation, showing the effect of thebody's weight, and the bleeding.
Ruben Betanzo S. So how did the Romans execute Roman citizens guilty of murder? If you killed a Roman citizen of equal rank, you weren’t executed at all; you simply paid a fine or suffered what was considered a truly harsh fate: exile. If a citizen was put to death, which was rare, it was by beheading, which was considered a more honorable death. And if a citizen killed a slave or someone of lesser status, there was no punishment at all. As for slaves and prisoners of war, they could be tossed to wild bears, lions, or bulls, which made for a fine show at the Colosseum. Such was the fate of the early Christians, unless they could claim Roman citizenship. But for an even better spectacle, the offenders could be tied to the tails of stampeding horses and dragged to their death.
The Jews had several ways of executing. Stoning was used for certain offenses, but complicating the matter was the belief that the body should not be mutilated. When the scribes and pharisees confronted Jesus with a woman taken in adultery and asked if, in accordance with Mosaic law, she should be stoned to death, Jesus replied that he who had never sinned should throw the first stone and then dismissed her, telling her to go and sin no more (John 7:53-8:11). Burning was also used by the Jews, as well as decapitation by the sword and strangulation, this last being thought more humane and the least mutilating.
In ancient Britain the Celts executed by throwing the victim into a quagmire. In medieval Britain the barons had a gallows for hanging, and a drowning pit as well. The upper classes were merely beheaded, but women of the lower classes were burned for treason, and men were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Those who wouldn’t confess their crimes were subjected to pressing: the executioner placed heavy weights on the victim’s chest until he either confessed or died. And the offenses meriting the death penalty included theft, cutting down a tree, counterfeiting, and marrying a Jew. Then in 1531, as the Renaissance brought enlightenment, boiling was approved, and some victims boiled for up to two hours before dying.
The execution of Sir Walter Raleigh. His rank gave him the privilege of a beheading.Britain of course exported its modes of execution to the thirteen American colonies, though each colony went its own merry way. Hanging was the commonest means of execution, and many were the crimes that merited it. In 1612 Virginia’s governor decreed the death penalty even for stealing grapes, killing chickens without permission, or trading with Indians, but seven years later these laws were softened, because the government in its belated wisdom realized that otherwise no one would want to settle there. In the 1630s Massachusetts imposed the death penalty for murder, sodomy, witchcraft, adultery, idolatry, blasphemy, assault, rape, statutory rape, manstealing, perjury, rebellion, manslaughter, poisoning, and bestiality. The victims of the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692, mostly women, were hanged, though one man who refused to confess was pressed to death.
Execution of Ann Hibbins for witchcraft on BostonCommon in 1656, years before the witch hunt in Salem.
The American colonies would in time revolt against the rule of George III, but in Europe monarchy had long prevailed, and the crime of regicide was viewed with horror and punished accordingly. François Ravaillac, the Catholic zealot who stabbed Henry IV of France to death in 1610, was condemned to death and taken to the Place de Grève, where he was scalded with burning sulfur and molten lead, following which his flesh was torn with pincers and he was drawn and quartered. This last involved tying the victim’s limbs to four horses that were then sent galloping in four directions, tearing the victim apart.
The execution of Ravaillac. An engraving of 1610.This same fate, following hanging, was announced for Guy Fawkes, the Catholic conspirator who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in England in 1606. While climbing up to the scaffold, however, he jumped from the ladder, broke his neck, and died instantly, thus depriving those present of a memorable spectacle.
For public spectacle, nothing outdid the auto-da-fé (“act of faith” in Portuguese) of the Spanish Inquisition, an elaborate ceremony prepared a month in advance, when the local authorities believed they had enough prisoners to justify the event. Suspects were subjected to secret examinations by inquisitors that involved torture to encourage confessions. Then, following an all-night vigil with prayers by the populace, and a Mass at daybreak with breakfast for those attending, the accused were brought out and the procession began. Wearing pointed caps and symbols identifying the offenses they were accused of, the prisoners, still unidentified and unaware of their fate, were paraded through the streets to the quemadero (“burning place”) outside the city, where the sentences were read. Those acquitted fell on their knees in thanksgiving; those convicted of heresy or other crimes were then “relaxed” to the secular authorities to be whipped, tortured, and burned at the stake. This “relaxation” occurred because the Church professed to abhor blood and therefore let the secular authorities do the dirty work. Among the victims were Jews, Moors, Protestants, and crypto-Muslims, as well as those guilty of lesser offenses like bigamy. Auto-da-fés were also held in Portugal, Brazil, and Mexico; thousands died. The last one in Spain occurred in 1826.
An auto-da-fe of 1716. Judgment of the accused, a lesson for the populace, and a time for penitence.The whole town is involved.
Heretics burned at the stake in the marketplace.
Inevitably, such practices came under scrutiny in modern times. Enlightenment thinkers and Quaker reformers urged revision of laws to limit or eliminate the death penalty. Especially influential was the Italian jurist Cesare Beccaria’s work On Crimes and Punishment, first published in English in 1767, which argued for the death penalty’s abolition.
In America various states passed laws against public hangings, which had become the scenes of rowdiness and drunken brawls, and in 1846 Michigan became the first state to abolish the death penalty, except for treason against the state. But opposition to reform was vehement, and the issue became controversial and remains so to this day. If hanging became a part of the tradition of the Old West where, for want of a gallows, a sturdy tree outside town with an appropriate horizontal branch was christened “the hanging tree,” the more progressive states of the East, viewing hanging as barbaric, looked for alternatives. Always in the forefront of progress, New York State in 1888 dismantled its gallows and built the nation’s first electric chair, which went into action – clumsily, it might be noted – in 1890.
The famous electric chair of Sing Sing prison, New York.Even the West came to embrace change: in 1924 the state of Nevada performed the first execution by cyanide gas in a hastily constructed gas chamber. When Arizona first executed a woman in 1930, the hangman misjudged the drop and the victim’s head was ripped from her body, a contretemps that encouraged other states to switch to the electric chair or the gas chamber. And in 1977 the state of Oklahoma officially adopted lethal injection for executions, and in 1981 Texas became the first state to actually use it. In killing its condemned, America was doing its best to be civilized. And far from making the death throes a spectacle, we have made executions private, with only a few witnesses allowed to watch.
The gas chamber of New Mexico Penitentiary, Santa Fe, in 2008.Shelka04 at en.wikipedia
Meanwhile the French, so often in the vanguard of progress, had solved the problem of quick, painless, scientific killing in their own distinctive way. On October 10, 1789, the States General, summoned to consider needed reforms, was addressed by one of its members, Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who in a debate on capital punishment proposed that criminals be beheaded painlessly by means of a simple mechanism that would be far more efficient than beheading by ax or sword, the punishment reserved for the nobility, or hanging, the punishment meted out to commoners. He was in fact opposed to the death penalty, and hoped that his “simple machine,” decapitating nobility and commoners alike, would be more democratic, and serve as a first step toward abolishing capital punishment. In a follow-up speech on December 1, 1789, he said, “Now, with my machine, I cut off your head in the twinkling of an eye (“clin d’oeil”), and you never feel it!” His statement immediately became a popular joke, and a comic song soon circulated, linking his name to the machine, which – to his keen regret – became known as the “guillotine.”
The execution of Marie Antoinette, 1794. A contemporary engraving.Note the wicker basket in place to receive the head. In 1791 the National Assembly, which had evolved from the States General, made decapitation the only form of capital punishment in France. The head executioner, Charles-Henri Sanson, then pointed out that beheading by sword required dozens of executioners and scores of swords, and explained that swords broke easily, and that he had only two. As a result the Assembly in the spirit of progress embraced Dr. Guillotin’s invention, the guillotine. Sanson tested it first on animals, then on corpses of women and children obtained from a hospital; when male corpses proved a bit more resistant, the machine was redesigned to sever all heads efficiently, and was soon beheading nobles and commoners alike, and even the former king and queen, and finally and climactically, that evil genius of the Reign of Terror, Maximilien Robespierre himself. Not only was the guillotine embraced with enthusiasm, but it even inspired a children’s toy with a movable blade, and the kids were soon decapitating dolls and rodents. Marvelously effective, Guillotin’s invention was used for executions in France until capital punishment was abolished in 1981. Detrimental to its reputation, no doubt, was its use by Nazi Germany to execute some 16,500 people between 1933 and 1945.
The lethal injection room at San Quentin State Prison in California, 2010. About as neat as they come.
So why was the guillotine never adopted in the U.S.A.? It might seem to be the logical solution for a country that came to view hanging as barbaric, especially when the victim was seen twitching and choking in midair, or even defecating. But first, the various states tried a high-tech solution, either the electric chair, the gas chamber, or lethal injection, none of which proved effective, swift, and humane. Those electrocuted sometimes survived the first jolt of electricity, and sparks, smoke, and flames were emitted amid the odor of burnt flesh. Those executed in the gas chamber were seen to be choking and suffering; their eyes popped and they drooled. Lethal injection often took up to an hour because the victim was a drug addict and had few veins that could be injected; meanwhile the victim might be moaning, and in one case the syringe fell out of the vein and almost sprayed the witnesses with lethal chemicals. In desperation, some Western states turned to the firing squad. In 2016 Utah allowed condemned inmates to choose the firing squad as an alternative to lethal injection, and Oklahoma made it the official plan B, should lethal injection ever be ruled illegal. But firing squads shed blood, and our modern sensitivity finds that just as objectionable as gasping, twitching bodies, drooling or defecation, and the odor of burnt flesh.
A firing squad in Mexico im 1913.So why not the guillotine? Because it involves a severed head and blood. Because we remember the French Revolution, with the executioner exhibiting the severed head to the mob, while Madame Defarge and her cohorts supposedly knitted. We want our executions to be clean and bloodless, and the corpse to remain intact. The guillotine is swift and painless, but it still offends us and leaves us looking for an alternative that probably does not exist. Killing is by nature messy and violent; it cannot be neat and hygienic. So as long as it is legal, as it still is in thirty-one states, the dilemma persists. But at least we have made it private.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
"This is an easy read about a hard life. Interesting characters, a bustling city, poverty, privilege, crime, injustice combine to create a captivating tale." Five-star Goodreads review by John Wheeler.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended. Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Coming soon: Authors Are Whores.
© 2017 Clifford Browder
October 22, 2017
323. Famous Last Words and Gestures
Anaphora Literary Press invites submissions of full-length manuscripts of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; there is no submission fee and it reads year round. For more information and guidelines for submissions, go here.
* * * * * *
Recently I read that, for a final gesture, Mata Hari, the exotic dancer whom the French executed in 1917 as a German spy, blew kisses at the firing squad just before they fired. Legendary femme fatale as she supposedly was, Mata Hari was perhaps not even a spy; needing money, she took cash from the Germans for useless information that was already known. But what struck me about the anecdote was how charming and courageous her last gesture was, which in turn set me to thinking about last words and final gestures of other people, and what they said about those people and their society. Hence this post. Granted, many of these citations may be more legendary than factual; only those reported by trustworthy eyewitnesses are beyond doubt.
In 1906, in all her glory.
Statue of Nathan Hale at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. I grew up on stories of heroic Americans whose last words were memorable. Nathan Hale, the American schoolteacher hanged by the British as a spy in 1776, declared, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” But did he really say it? Possibly, but the British officer who described Hale’s courage and composure did not mention it.
“Don’t give up the ship!” were the dying words of Capt. James Lawrence, whose frigate Chesapeake was disabled by fire from the British frigate Shannon in an engagement outside of Boston on June 1, 1813. Yes, he really said it, but alas, a British boarding party overwhelmed his crew and captured his disabled ship. A flag with the words “Don’t give up the ship” stitched in it was flown from the USS Lawrence, the flagship of Capt. Lawrence’s friend Oliver H. Perry, in Perry’s victorious fight with a British squadron on Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, and the original flag is now displayed at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum at Annapolis, Maryland.
On his deathbed John Adams, second president of the U.S., murmured “Jefferson” or “Jefferson survives.” Longtime political opponents, he and Thomas Jefferson, third president of the U.S., had later reconciled and carried on a lengthy correspondence. Both had signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and both, the last surviving signers, managed to die on July 4, 1826. In Massachuetts, however, Adams was unaware of Jefferson’s death in distant Virginia five hours prior to his own, and so thought Jefferson the survivor.
While we’re dealing with politicians, how about Winston Churchill, who saw Britain through the darkest days of World War II? What were his last words? Rather different from those just mentioned: “What a bore it is!” He was departing this earth slowly, and found prolonged incapacity alien to his temperament. This is one of two Churchill quotes that I love. The other came near the beginning of his career in Parliament: “But that’s detail work. I don’t do detail work!” How wonderful it must be, to hand detail work over to some obliging flunky. He presumably did it all his life, while busying himself with grandiose policy issues and matters of state.
The Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, on being shot by the young Serb assassin Gavrilo Princip at Sarajevo in 1914, remained sitting upright in the limousine while being driven to the governor’s residence for medical attention. Mortally wounded, the archduke begged his wife to live for the sake of their children, and then, when asked about his injury, replied several times, “Es ist gar nichts” (It is nothing). Which didn’t keep him from dying, or World War I from breaking out, triggered by his assassination.
The Archduke and his wife leaving the Sarajevo guildhall, where he had made a speech. They then left in the open car and, minutes later, were shot.
Karl Tröstl?
Now how about the two famous Marxes, because, oh yes, there were two. The last words of Karl Marx, author of the Communist Manifesto and so much more: “Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.” And the other Marx, Groucho: “This is no way to live.” As for his brother Harpo, the consistently mute harpist who spoke not a word in films, if he spoke any last words, I haven’t found them; hopefully, he kept in character and didn’t.
One of the Marxes.
The other Marx.Groucho wasn’t the only one to inject a note of humor. Oscar Wilde, dying of meningitis, reputedly said, “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has got to go.” The wallpaper, it seems, won out. But the quote has been questioned, since it was reported later by friends; no one witnessed it at the time of his death. (A familiar problem with reported last words.)
Last words became something of a tradition in England back in Tudor times, when public beheadings were popular entertainment, and the scaffold provided a wonderful farewell stage. Condemned for adultery, Catherine Howard, Henry VIII’s fifth wife, humiliated Henry by announcing, “I die a Queen, but I would rather die the wife of Culpepper.” Culpepper, too, lost his heart and then his head.
The French Revolution prompted many a memorable utterance either on the scaffold facing the guillotine, or in the tumbril en route to it. The noblest of them all was probably that of Madame Roland, a Girondin moderate among the revolutionaries, who was eliminated by Robespierre and his Jacobin crew:
“O liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!”
Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!
When betrayed and condemned by Robespierre, Danton, no innocent, conducted himself with dignity on the scaffold. His last words were to Sanson, the executioner: “Show my head to the people; it is well worth showing.” And Sanson no doubt did just that, it being customary.
Maximilien de Robespierre, a portrait circa 1790.The Incorruptible, elegant, his jaw still intact.
Robespierre too, the so-called Incorruptible, was fed to Madame la Guillotine, for the Revolution ended by devouring its own. In 1794 the day of his downfall came and he attempted suicide, but only managed to shoot himself in the jaw. When he was delivered, bound securely, to the executioner, Sanson pulled his coat off and then, in a needless act of cruelty, snatched away the dirty linen binding his lower jaw, which then fell open, at which point Robespierre uttered a piercing shriek, hideous to hear: “Sanson, you cannot be too quick!” With the fall of his head into the waiting basket, and its display to a cheering crowd, the Reign of Terror came at last to a bloody end.
Robespierre's execution, July 28, 1794. The executed man is not Robespierre, who, dressed in brown and wearing a hat, is seated in the cart nearest the scaffold..
And the royal victims of the Incorruptible? When the dethroned king, Louis XVI, mounted the scaffold and let his hands be tied, he addressed the crowd: “Frenchmen, I die innocent. It is from the scaffold and soon appearing before God that I tell you so. I pardon my enemies; I desire that France—” At this point a general on horseback commanded, “Tambours!” and Louis’s voice was drowned out by a roll of drums. Sanson’s blade fell, and the ex-king’s head was shown to the crowd, inciting shouts of “Vive la République!”
Louis XVI's execution. A German engraving of 1793. After this, for the Revolution there was no turning back. Marie Antoinette’s last words were of a humbler sort. “Excuse me, sir, I didn’t mean to,” she said to Sanson, having inadvertently stepped on his toe. Her head too was shown to the populace, likewise inspiring cries of “Vive la République!”
What became of the executioner Sanson? Did he too fall victim to the guillotine? First of all, it must be stated that there were two executioners with the name Sanson. The father, Charles-Henri Sanson, executed Louis XVI, Danton, and Robespierre, but his younger son and apprentice, Henri, executed Marie-Antoinette and later succeeded his father as the official executioner of Paris. Father and son came from a long line of executioners that stretched back into the ancien régime. The father, whose diary reveals a humane man usually anxious to spare his victims unnecessary suffering, survived the Revolution and died in 1806. In 1792 his older son and presumed heir, Gabriel, died after falling off the scaffold while displaying a severed head to the crowd. The father was obviously more sure-footed, as was his son Henri, who served as executioner of Paris for 47 years.
And Napoleon and Josephine, who were spared the horrors of the scaffold and the niceties of the Sanson clan? Josephine, divorced by him so he could marry the Austrian princess Marie-Louise and have a son and heir by her, is said to have murmured, “Napoleon … Elba … Marie-Louise …” And Napoleon, dying in exile on Saint Helena? “France … armée … tête d’armée [head of the army]… Joséphine …” A true love affair, it would seem.
Max von Schwartzkoppen in 1895. Another military man much involved in French history was Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen, the German military attaché in Paris in 1894, when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of selling military secrets to the Germans and sentenced to life imprisonment. Doubts about his guilt arose, and the nation was divided by the resulting controversy. Years later, on his deathbed, von Schwartzkoppen exclaimed, “Frenchmen, Dreyfus is innocent!” Knowing the real culprit was a Captain Esterhazy, he had longed to proclaimed Dreyfus’s innocence at the time of his trial, but was silenced by his superiors, who saw a France rent apart by controversy as in Germany’s best interests. Only on his deathbed in 1917, with World War I raging, could von Schwartzkoppen at last proclaim the truth.
“I die a true American!” There rings a noble sentiment, one that all loyal and patriotic Americans could cheer. Was it uttered by a patriot like Nathan Hale or Captain Lawrence, or by a Founding Father of our great republic? Not at all. These were the last words of William Poole, known also as Bill the Butcher, founder of the Bowery Boys street gang and a leader of the vehemently anti-immigrant Know Nothing Party in New York in the 1850s. A boxer and brawler, he was quite capable of assaulting a bartender and beating his face to jelly for having declined to serve him a third round of drinks. On February 25, 1855, two friends of a rival boxer with whom he was feuding shot Poole in the back in a bar on Broadway near Prince Street. Taken to his home on Christopher Street, he lingered, then died on March 8, telling his friends, “Good-bye, boys. I die a true American.” He was buried in an unmarked grave in Green-Wood cemetery, Brooklyn. One of his murderers was apprehended and tried three times for murder, but each trial ended in a hung jury.
Let’s move on to some less unsavory characters and their last words.
· The composer Gustav Mahler, conducting an imaginary orchestra: “Mozart.”
· Goethe: “Mehr Licht.” (More light.) A plea for more enlightenment? No, he just wanted more lamplight.
· The emperor Augustus: “I found Rome made of clay, and leave her to you made of marble.”
Finally, we come to those dwelling in the higher realms of philosophy and religion. Socrates, condemned to die by drinking hemlock, tells his friends how decent the jailor has been, and then, as recounted in Plato’s dialogue Phaedo, having drunk the hemlock, says to one of them, “Crito, we ought to offer a cock to Asclepius. See to it and don’t forget.” But what does this mean? Since Asclepius, the mortal son of Apollo, was a healer capable even of raising the dead, it is usually taken to mean that Socrates saw death as a cure that released the soul from the body.
I have heard that Mahatma Gandhi, mortally wounded, blessed his murderer, but I haven’t been able to confirm this. The Buddha’s last words to the monks attending him: “I exhort you: all compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness.” He then entered the dimension of nothingness and finally was totally unbound, to fully grasp which would require a deep knowledge of the Blessed One’s teachings.Joan of Arc, being burned at the stake by the English: “Hold the cross high, that I may see it through the flames!” Then, as the flames engulfed her: “Jesus … Jesus …”
Tintoretto's Crucifixion (detail), the most dramatic interpretation of the Crucifixion I have ever seen. In the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice. For the full impact,
you have to see the original.
For Christians, of course, the supreme last words are those of Christ on the cross, as reported in the Gospel of John (19:30): “It is finished,” meaning that he had completed his sacrifice for humankind, following which he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. In the Latin Vulgate this is translated from Greek as “Consummatum est,” which appears in many inscriptions and in sacred art.
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
"This is an easy read about a hard life. Interesting characters, a bustling city, poverty, privilege, crime, injustice combine to create a captivating tale." Five-star Goodreads review by John Wheeler.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended." Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Coming soon: Who knows? Maybe kinds of execution: how we do away with one another. Or big cities versus small, and who is thriving and who isn't. ???
© 2017 Clifford Browder
October 15, 2017
322. Fear of Falling
Anaphora Literary Press invites submissions of full-length manuscripts of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; there is no submission fee and it reads year round. This is not a vanity press; it actively promotes its authors. Its director, Anna Factorovich, does excellent cover illustrations, as I know from experience, having published two books with Anaphora. There is one requirement: authors accepted for publication must take fifty copies of their book at a 25% discount from the retail price and dispose of them through sales, giveaways, or requests for reviews. Small presses have to find a way to survive; this is Anaphora's solution. But there is no time limit; one can take one year or ten or twenty to dispose of those copies. And Ms. Factorovich is very clear and open about this requirement; if you don't think you can dispose of fifty copies, you'd better not sign up with Anaphora. But Anaphora is fast: if your manuscript is accepted, you can have a book in hand within one month, if you choose not to have it edited (which I do not recommend), or within two months, if you do have it edited. Here is a rare opportunity for writers willing to help market their works vigorously. Once you're published, Anaphora may request contributions toward a catalog and other means of marketing, but these are optional. Here are my two books:
Bill Hope: His Story. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope. In the last Goodreads giveaway, 492 people signed up, though only two books were offered.
Dark Knowledge. (Release date January 5, 2018; copies now available from the author.) New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled, and sets out to learn the truth, no matter what the cost. Since many fear exposure, he meets denials, evasions, threats, and then a murder. What price must Chris pay to learn the truth and proclaim it? In the first Goodreads giveaway, 587 people signed up, though only one book was offered.
For more information and guidelines for submissions to Anaphora, go here.
And now, on to fear of falling.
Ever tempted to walk on stilts? If so,you have no fear of heights.
We humans take for granted our erect position, perched high up on our legs like stilts, even though the rest of God’s creatures swim in the sea, fly in the air, or slither or creep on land. We think it normal to have our feet grounded and our head aloft. This posture gives us pretensions, a feeling of dominance and control, of being above earthy things, of being close to heaven. But gravity dictates that things high up will come crashing down. Maybe not right now, this minute, but sooner or later, hence our fear of falling.
I have no special fear of heights, no acrophobia. When visiting the medieval cathedrals of Europe, I thought nothing of huffing and puffing up circular stone stairs in a tower to an edifice’s superstructure, where I could see gargoyles barely visible from below, and enjoy a wide view of the city. And when my friend Bill and I visited pre-Columbian sites in Mexico and clambered up the steep steps of pyramids to the very top, I found the whole experience thrilling. And when I clambered back down again and looked back and saw Bill still way up near the top, frozen in fear, I realized he had a fear of heights that to me was alien. He did get down again, but slowly, one step at a time.
The George Washington Bridge, with a view from one of the towers --a view I've never had and never will, thank God. Am I ever afraid of heights and of falling? Of course. When I walk across the George Washington Bridge to New Jersey, and pause midway and look down at the river far below, my knees go limp and I feel a momentary dizziness; the thought of plummeting all that way to the water, as many suicides have done, tenses me with fear. Back in my opera-going days, when I went down to a seat in the front row of the Family Circle of the old Met (the Metropolitan Opera), I was only too aware of the steep descent before me, with only a low rail at the balcony’s edge separating me from the gaping emptiness of the theater’s vast interior, and the main floor far below. And when today I visit the new MOMA – the Museum of Modern Art on 53rd Street – with its wide glass walls and plunging perspectives, I get nervous and move quickly to enter rooms with solid floors, relieved to be boxed in with thick walls adorned with works of art and not with views of empty space.
An inside view at MOMA. No thanks.
Colin Chia
Once, long ago, I had surgery in my right knee and after weeks of bed rest had to learn to walk again and regain, slowly, slowly, the use of my right leg, which at first bent only a little at the knee. In the hospital I went from wheel chair to walker, and by the time I left there I was walking with a cane. The cane gave me support for many weeks and lessened my fear of falling, which was acute at the top of stairs, or when stepping off a high curb, of which there were many in those days, before the city lowered the curbs at intersections. My fear of falling when stepping off a curb was so persistent that I carried the cane for weeks after I no longer really needed it; it reassured me, gave me confidence. Then, once my leg muscles had toughened and my knee could bend to a right angle or more, letting me walk normally, I relinquished the cane and no longer nursed a fear of falling.
Until recently, that is. Now, on the cusp of my dynamic maturity, that fear has returned. Not a fierce, nagging fear, just a sly, subtle one that from time to time flares up. When? When clambering down stairs and stepping off a curb. Fortunately, most stairs – even those with only two or three steps – have a firm railing at hand, so negotiating them is no problem. Stepping off a high curb is another matter, but as I step down I put blind faith in the muscles of my leg, which so far have seen me through. But when I pass an open sidewalk entrance to the basement stairs of a store or an apartment building -- entrances usually marked with orange cones signaling danger – I get just a wee bit nervous, for the thought of plunging down into that darkness is unsettling. I used to be fascinated by those stairs leading down into darkness, as if into some underworld of mystery, some Hades of the damned, but now I shrink from them in fear, or at least with a good dose of caution.
Even in an old castle -- or especially there -- scary.Dark Avenger-commonswiki
Inside a lighthouse is no better. And barefoot?hashi photo During the winters of 2014 and 2015, when the city was beset for days at a time with ice and snow and slush, I prudently clung to my hearth, and was assured by nurses and therapists, when they came to see my partner Bob, that I was wise to do so, since the hospitals were full of weather-related fractures and sprains. Once, when I did venture out a very short distance to get a newspaper, I slipped on a thin sheet of ice and fell with a thump. So it had finally happened, the thing I perennially feared. Was I hurt? No, not a scratch or a bruise. So I just slid over the ice a few feet to a spot that seemed safer, laboriously got up, and tiptoed on.
Nothing is more threatening to us fragile humans, whether elderly or not, than the public transportation of the city of New York. Our buses and subway trains lurch and screech and jolt. If I don’t get a seat, I hold on to the nearest pole with one or both hands, preferably both, and when getting off, I wait until the bus or train stops with its inevitable jolt, and then, and only then, do I rise from my seat or let go of a pole to exit. But caution is never enough. Once, when a bus lurched away from a stop, it caught a bunch of us with only a tenuous grip on a pole. We all toppled, three or four or five, but the others managed to grab hold of something and right themselves, whereas I inelegantly went all the way to the floor. Gasps of “Oh!” erupted, and five hands stretched out to help me up. Get up I did, clumsily, laboriously, but when others asked if I was hurt, I could announce grandly, “Not a scratch!” “You fell just right,” said one witness, and it was true enough; in spite of my fear of falling, I seem to fall just right and bounce back up without a bruise or a scratch.
Poles aplenty here, but I have never, never ridden in a subway car this empty. Still, that fear persists, even to the point of making me hesitate to return to one of my favorite local restaurants where, as you exit, you have to descend two steps without a railing or any other form of support. To fall there would be catastrophic, since there are outside tables near those steps, and anyone falling would crash down on a table and disrupt someone’s genteel lunching – for me, the worst outcome of all, worse than a fracture or sprain. What could one then say? “Excuse me, dear people, I didn’t mean to smash up your tacos and enchiladas.” Embarrassment, shame, guilt. Could I ever show my face in that restaurant again? Probably not.My fear of falling is justified. Statistics tell us that one third of those over 60 fall each year, and over half of those over 80. And those who do fall are two to three times more likely to fall again. And to make this cheery prospect even cheerier, we are told that these figures are an understatement, since many falls go unreported. By way of confirmation of all this, my partner Bob’s nurses and therapists have told us horror stories of seniors living alone in the city who refuse to have a home care aide, and one day are found lying on the floor in a pool of blood. So welcome to the Golden Years, that sweet retirement we have all been working toward and dreaming of, as we toil laboriously on through our lives.
And to top the matter off, the December 2015 AARP Bulletin, which targets seniors, reports a growing but barely noticed epidemic of falls because people are living longer, and the aging Baby Boomers are joining the ranks of the vulnerable. Older adults fall when inside, younger ones when outside. Examples:
· A 58-year-old man tripped over a dog leash while camping outdoors with his wife, bruised his spinal cord, spent three months in hospitals and rehab, and has now regained bowel and bladder function, but can’t walk or shower without help.· A woman of 67 lost her balance while carrying a small table down the stairs to her basement, was found by family unconscious on the concrete floor, suffered brain injury, and has now improved, but still has time talking in complete sentences.· Ex-President George H.W. Bush, 91, fell at his home in Maine, breaking a bone in his neck.
My advice: Don’t go camping with a dog, and don’t carry small tables up or down stairs. AARP warns also of invisible ice on driveways, slippery bathroom floors, loose rugs, and high heels. Personally, I’m not too worried about the first or the last, but the middle two are a concern, as well as clutter in the apartment.
A 1764 edition printed and sold byBenjamin Franklin.
Achieving heights and plummeting down from them are ingrained in the myths and traditions of the West. “In Adam’s fall / We sinned all” is how The New England Primer, the most successful textbook published in the American colonies in the eighteenth century, introduced tender young minds to the letter A, presumably pronouncing “sinned” as two syllables to make the second verse have the requisite eight. Adam’s fall, of course, was metaphorical, since it involved eating a forbidden apple at the prompting of mischievous Eve and the nefarious serpent (thanks to whom snakes have a bad press to this day), the serpent being none other than the wicked Tempter in disguise. Far from plummeting, Adam and his guilty bedmate were driven from the paradisial Garden of Eden out into the hard, cruel world where we have all been laboring ever since, with death our inevitable end on this toilsome earth.
The expulsion from Eden, with and without fig leaves. Masaccio,1426-28; a 1980 restoration removed the fig leaves, a 1680 addition.
But the real Fall affecting and afflicting our universe was the Fall of Satan, up till then known as Lucifer, and his rebellious cohorts, following their revolt against God, who smote them mightily and sent them plummeting down from heaven to the smoky regions of hell. This grandiose myth is retold vividly in Milton’s Paradise Lost, though Milton, himself a rebel against the majesty of Charles I of England, couldn’t help but make Satan and his allies more interesting than God and his Son, and hell a far more fascinating bit of real estate than the vague and airy regions of heaven. But the Fall of that arch rebel foreshadowed that of Adam and precipitated it since, in Milton’s telling, it was Satan’s desire for revenge that led him to investigate this new creation, Earth, and wheedle Eve into wheedling Adam into the guilty act of eating an apple. (Fortunately, apples, unlike serpents, haven’t had a bad press ever since, New York State being rich in them -- apples, that is -- and apples a favorite fruit of us all; I gobble one daily.) Satan’s Fall has haunted us down through the ages, and inspired Gustave Doré’s magnificent illustrations of Milton’s work, showing Satan and the fallen angels dramatically en route to hell.
Satan and his legions smitten down to hell by the Archangel Michael. Gustave Doré, 1866.For all our fear of falling, we humans – some of us – are obsessed with climbing, with achieving perilous heights. On my many hikes in an upstate wilderness, sometimes I would come across a rustic bridge or a shelter with a plaque commemorating a son who had fallen to his death while climbing rocks, perhaps near the very spot where I was standing; in his memory, the grieving parents donated funds for the bridge or the shelter.
We’ve all heard reports of mountain climbers scaling icy peaks in Nepal, and of avalanches sweeping them to their death. These adventurers are obsessed with heights and the need to conquer them, no matter what the risk: an obsession that few of us share, an obsession that we admire from a safe remove, and that we admit baffles us. Every summer there are reports of teen-age boys who, clad in light summer clothing, scale precipitous peaks, reach a ledge, look down at the ground far below, and panic; going down seems more perilous than climbing up. Trapped up there, they often spend the night, shudder through the cold, are found by rescuers the following morning. In one case one of the two boys was dead, and the other, close to death, whispered plaintively, “Please help me, I don’t want to die”; within minutes he too was dead.
Andy Beecroft The supreme fear of falling may come in a waking dream or a nightmare, often toward 4 a.m., when the night is longest and dawn seems far away, and the body’s numbed metabolism counterfeits death. In this dream we plummet through eons of time and infinitudes of space, down, down, down into the ultimate doom of extinction. No wonder we have a dread of falling. And yet, there is a sport known as skydiving, whose enthusiasts relish plummeting for a few delirious moments through the air before opening a parachute that brings them gently to earth. 
The ultimate thrill … for some.Arteaga Douglas
Coming soon: No idea.
© 2017 Clifford Browder
October 8, 2017
321. Brooklyn Book Festival vs BookCon: Where Should Indie Authors Exhibit?
JOYS AND HORRORS OF THE WEST VILLAGE AND OTHER NEW YORK STORIES
Reading at Jefferson Market Library, 425 Avenue of the Americas (near West 10th Street), on Sunday, October 8, 2-4 p.m. I will read excerpts from my novels and New York stories, sign books, and take questions. Books will be available for purchase. I'll be glad to see a friendly face or two there.
______________________________________________________________________
I’d never been to the Brooklyn Book Festival, but having exhibited at BookCon at the Javits Center last June (see posts #302 and One immediate concern: BookCon is an indoor event, so the weather doesn’t interfere, whereas the Brooklyn Book Festival is outdoors in the Borough Hall area and therefore exposed to all the rigors of the weather, though it takes place rain or shine. In addition, I had two specific queries: (1) Who are the attendees? A mix of all sexes and ages or, like at BookCon, mostly younger people, especially young women? (2) Where do they put the literary small fry like me? In some remote location, where few attendees venture? None of the big commercial presses would be there (though some of their imprints snuck in), but there are big small presses (Columbia and other university presses, Graywolf, George Braziller, New Directions, etc.) and small small presses (often called micro presses), and my concern was the latter. I knew from online info that small small presses and indie authors were distributed throughout. But I also learned that two of the areas – the 100s and 600s, meaning exhibitor stands so numbered (102, 103, 104…) – were somewhat on the fringe of the festival, which, since I might be put there, was worrisome. Armed with these concerns, I vowed to go there rain or shine, and go I did, on Sunday, September 17, which proved to be a pleasant, rain-free day. Surviving a chaotic subway system, after much confusion and delay I finally arrived at Borough Hall.
Borough Hall, minus the book fair. Impressive.Borough Hall, an imposing Greek Revival building dating from the 1840s and once the City Hall of the independent city of Brooklyn, is rich in history and by itself worthy of attention. But I was there for the book festival, so off I went with my young friend Silas, who met me there, to see the 600 area close by, at the south end of the festival, where vendors’ stands topped by white canopies looked from a distance like rows and rows of tents.
My immediate impression: though seemingly on the fringe of the festival, the 600s were jammed with attendees, the narrow aisles so packed that you had trouble seeing the books in the stands. “Are they just looking, or are they buying?” I asked two vendors, and in each case got an emphatically positive response; they were buying, and buying in quantity. And who were these attendees? All ages, sexes, races – truly, a good mix of the city’s population, and eager buyers at that. For me, a good sign, though I wouldn’t be sure until I checked out the seemingly even more remote 100 area at the north end of the festival.
The Brooklyn festival at its most crowded.Silas Berkowitz
My BookCon aisle at a quiet moment, with me on the left in front.At BookCon there were too many quiet moments.
Silas Berkowitz
On we went into the heart of the festival, where the 200, 300, 400, and 500 areas were clustered in close proximity, with the splendid pillared façade of Borough Hall looming in the background, and the likewise impressive county courthouse looming to the east. Colorful displays of books on all sides, more than you could ever check out in their entirety. Banners, posters, signs, and free bookmarks and business cards everywhere, and of course T-shirts, though rarely any candy. Indeed, what didn’t I encounter there by way of stands? For instance:
· Coral Press: Stories that Rock (“musical fiction”)· I LOVE MY LIBRARY! (the Brooklyn Public Library)· Lumina: What is Resistance? Prose and Poetry, Multimedia, and Visual Art! Submit (a magazine)· Selina Alko, Sean Qualls (with a picture of an embracing mixed-race couple), offering children’s books· 92 Y: Unterberg Poetry Center 2017/18: The Voice of Literature· Fruityland Health, inspiring children to eat healthy through books and games· Sociosights Press, transforming society one story at a time· Love Centered Parenting, cultivating family wellness through heart-centered parenting· Bellevue Literary Press, books at the intersection of the arts and sciences· ECW Press: curiously compelling books· Bordighera Press, nonprofit publisher of Italian and Italian-American literature· CaribbeanReads, featuring Caribbean writers· Jane Austen Society of North America, promoting the works of you-know-who· House of Speakeasy: Where authors and audiences come together in innovative and sustaining ways· So What? Press, distributing comics· Green-Wood – yes, no kidding, the cemetery -- offering “history, art and nature”
And many, many more. I was grabbing bookmarks, business cards, and other portable mementoes right and left. And the 100 area, when we finally got there? Just like the 600 area, it was teeming with attendees.
Vendors I regret having missed: BOMB, BookThug, and Grumpy Bert. Who knows what they were offering?
I bought three books. At stand 227 I found Poets Wear Prada, a small poetry press based in Hoboken, N.J., whose name I love, and met a bearded older poet named Robert Kramer and bought two slender volumes of his poetry, Wordglass and Veer, both with attractive covers, for all of ten dollars; he was delighted to sign both. And at booth 302 I encountered an indie author named Debbie Boswell, who was selling her self-published novel House of Mirrors. When I asked her how she was doing, she confessed that her sales this year were scant, but added that that’s how it is in this game, one year good and the next one not. She was charming and upbeat, and when I came away with Silas, having obtained her e-mail address, I suddenly decided to give her a lift by buying her book and went back at once to do so; she too was delighted to sign it.
Debbie Boswell signing a copy of her novel for me. A quiet (too quiet) location.Silas Berkowitz
Some stands announced their theme clearly. With Revolution Books (604) you knew at once what they were up to. At Verso Books (315, 316), one glance at their titles told you that they too were putting out radical literature, over one hundred books a year. I wasn’t looking for radical literature, but was glad that these two stands proclaimed their theme clearly, so I didn’t linger. One that tempted me was Freebird Books, a Brooklyn press at stand 511, whose staff emphasized that they were solely concerned with books about New York. Since New York is the subject of my fiction, nonfiction, and blog, I of course lingered there, examining their display of used books relating to the city’s history and culture, including some battered specimens that could serve as primary sources. Having too many books at home, I managed not to buy any, but I spent a good bit of time at their stand.
Talking with Counterpoint Press, an independent California-based press, but here I didn't buy. A busy area, as seen in the background.
Silas Berkowitz
Having exhibited at BookCon, I was keenly aware of disappointing vendors by lingering briefly, perhaps taking a bookmark or other memento, and then passing on; given the number of stands, I had to do this repeatedly. But I did interact with two other stands. At the Harlem Writers Guild stand (640) I heard an African-American woman explain how, a generation ago, their organization had been founded to give a voice to black writers ignored by the mainstream presses – an initiative that I applauded. And at the stand of Austin Macauley Publishers (121), a London-based press newly established as well in New York, I was invited to fill out a book submission form with my contact info, so they could follow up with me later. Rarely does even a small publisher invite submissions this readily, so later I checked them out online. What their website doesn’t make clear is that they offer standard contracts to authors whom they deem the most promising, and an alternative plan to others that involves the author’s helping subsidize publication. Some critics call this a disguised form of vanity publishing, which they emphatically deny. I shan’t pronounce upon the matter, but the mere fact of the accusation online dims the appeal of their offer. They did indeed follow up with a gracious e-mail a few days later, but I shall probably keep shy of them.
Something was going on in front of Borough Hall, but we didn't investigate.Silas Berkowitz
Silas and I covered the whole festival in an hour and a half; I doubt if we missed a single aisle, though we ignored various programs on stages here and there, as well as author events and signings. At the cost of two very tired feet, I felt I had come to know the Brooklyn Book Festival better than BookCon, where I exhibited last June. Here are the lessons learned:
1. Announce your theme. With Revolution Books and Freebird Books I knew at once the kind of books they offer, and lingered at the one but not the other. Many stands displayed a host of books without helping me decide whether I should browse or not; often I passed them by.2. Add color. Colorfulbook covers and signs get attention. I would even take it one step further: from the waist up, exhibitors should wear colorful clothing, whether shirt, T-shirt, or sweater. At all costs don’t be drab. There were a number of stands that were exactly that: drab.3. Stand, don’t sit, when it’s crowded. Standing, it’s must easier to interact with people. But when it’s not crowded, rest yourself by sitting.4. Smile. At several stands people sat passively, glum-faced, as if the world had passed them by. So I passed them by as well, without even glancing at their books.5. Not too many books. Some stands displayed so many books that I was at a loss to find ones that interested me. Better to display fewer books and focus attention on them. To this rule there were two exceptions. First, stands that announced their theme, since this gave the guidance needed. Second, well-known small presses, since people would flock to them knowing what to expect.
With visitors thronging every nook and cranny of the festival, how could a stand observing these principles fail to attract buyers? Yet indie author Debbie Boswell, graced with personality and the warmest of smiles, wasn’t doing well; why not? Probably because her stand, and the two on either side of it, weren’t on an aisle with more stands just across the way. Their stands -- 301, 302, 303 -- faced a large open area that didn’t channel visitors in their direction. So a few vendors may have the bad luck of being assigned such a location, and there’s little you can do about it. That and the possibility of bad weather – maybe a hurricane hitting on the very day of the festival – are two negatives in an otherwise positive set-up.
Should I exhibit again at BookCon, I planned to do away with the fun, “with-it” signs that I used last June, and to use more serious signs to attract older visitors. But now, having got the “feel” of the Brooklyn Book Festival, I think that I would use the fun signs there. For example:
BE WICKED, READ BOOKSBOOKS ARE SEXYYOU READ? I LOVE YOU
And to establish the unifying theme of my books:
NEW YORK STORIESTHEN AND NOW
Or maybe just
NEW YORK STORIES
And the books I bought? I have finished House of Mirrors and done a glowing Goodreads review of it. Also, I have not only finished the poems -- very sensitive poems -- in Wordglass and Veer, but have learned that poet Robert Kramer has had an interesting life: a vet, a Fulbright scholar, a teacher and much-published author and translator – which makes him well worth knowing.
Here is my comparison of BookCon and the Brooklyn Book Festival, having exhibited at one and visited the other.
BookCon is indoors, so weather shouldn't affect it, whereas Brooklyn is outdoors and exposed to the elements.BookCon is oriented toward female millennials, whereas Brooklyn attracts readers of all ages, including the older women (and some men) who buy my books.BookCon lasts two days, Brooklyn only one, so that Brooklyn vendors are putting all their eggs in one basket.BookCon in 2017 charged attendees $35 on Saturday and $30 on Sunday, whereas Brooklyn is gloriously free.BookCon charges exhibitors much more for a small booth for two days than Brooklyn charges for a small stand with a canopy for one day.BookCon gives exhibitors a lead retrieval device that lets them capture attendees' contact information, including their age range and the genres they're interested in, by scanning the attendees' badges; Brooklyn does not.BookCon representatives were available, helpful, and very patient both before the exhibit, during, and after it; as for Brooklyn, I can't say, not having exhibited there.BookCon has spacious johns readily available, whereas Brooklyn had none within sight (not that I was looking for any), and only one permanent one indicated on the plan of the festival. (Even if you're focused on books, in the long run the bladder imperative cannot be ignored.)BookCon 2017 grouped small presses and indie authors not attending BookExpo in a special section on the fringe of the exhibition floor that got uneven traffic at best -- sometimes lots, sometimes almost none -- rather than a steady flow, whereas Brooklyn mixes big and small small presses and indie authors throughout, so that in all areas (with a few exceptions) they get a steady stream of visitors.
My conclusion: Look out, BookCon, for the Brooklyn Book Festival is a savvy competitor that attracts a wider range of attendees, admits them free, and charges vendors much less to exhibit. Will I exhibit at BookCon next year? That depends on several things, including above all the location (remote or more central) of the section. I don't criticize BookCon for its tilt toward female millennials; I simply question whether it's the place for me. Significantly, in her report on BookExpo and BookCon, Angela Bole, CEO of IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association), suggested that BookCon was appropriate for those interested in reaching an audience of young adults or readers in their twenties, but otherwise she advised giving it a pass. Interesting, but I will decide for myself.
And Brooklyn? I'll exhibit there for sure, though with a prayer for location on a crowded aisle, no hurricane, and a john within a short walk. But are these two huge book events competitors, or do they supplement each other? Will I exhibit at one or both? I have yet to decide. Meanwhile I hope that this post will also help others decide. As for how it feels to be marketing your books in public, see my next post, "Authors Are Whores."
BROWDERBOOKS
All books are available online as indicated, or from the author.
1. No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World (Mill City Press, 2015). Winner of the Tenth Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Regional Non-Fiction; first place in the Travel category of the 2015-2016 Reader Views Literary Awards; and Honorable Mention in the Culture category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards for 2016. All about anything and everything New York: alcoholics, abortionists, greenmarkets, Occupy Wall Street, the Gay Pride Parade, my mugging in Central Park, peyote visions, and an artist who made art of a blackened human toe. In her Reader Views review, Sheri Hoyte called it "a delightful treasure chest full of short stories about New York City."
If you love the city (or hate it), this may be the book for you. An award winner, it sold well at BookCon 2017.
Review
"If you want wonderful inside tales about New York, this is the book for you. Cliff Browder has a way with his writing that makes the city I lived in for 40 plus years come alive in a new and delightful way. A refreshing view on NYC that will not disappoint." Five-star Amazon customer review by Bill L.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
2. Bill Hope: His Story (Anaphora Literary Press, 2017), the second novel in the Metropolis series. New York City, 1870s: From his cell in the gloomy prison known as the Tombs, young Bill Hope spills out in a torrent of words the story of his career as a pickpocket and shoplifter; his brutal treatment at Sing Sing and escape from another prison in a coffin; his forays into brownstones and polite society; and his sojourn among the “loonies” in a madhouse, from which he emerges to face betrayal and death threats, and possible involvement in a murder. Driving him throughout is a fierce desire for better, a persistent and undying hope.
For readers who like historical fiction and a fast-moving story.
Reviews"A real yarn of a story about a lovable pickpocket who gets into trouble and has a great adventure. A must read." Five-star Amazon customer review by nicole w brown.
"This was a fun book. The main character seemed like a cross between Huck Finn and a Charles Dickens character. I would recommend this." Four-star LibraryThing review by stephvin.
"This is an easy read about a hard life. Interesting characters, a bustling city, poverty, privilege, crime, injustice combine to create a captivating tale." Five-star Goodreads review by John Wheeler.
Available from Amazon.
3. Dark Knowledge (Anaphora Literary Press, 2018), the third novel in the Metropolis series. Release date January 5, 2018, but copies now available from the author. Adult and young adult. A fast-moving historical novel about New York City and the slave trade, with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront. More excerpts to come.
The back cover summary:New York City, late 1860s. When young Chris Harmony learns that members of his family may have been involved in the illegal pre-Civil War slave trade, taking slaves from Africa to Cuba, he is appalled. Determined to learn the truth, he begins an investigation that takes him into a dingy waterfront saloon, musty old maritime records that yield startling secrets, and elegant brownstone parlors that may have been furnished by the trade. Since those once involved dread exposure, he meets denials and evasions, then threats, and a key witness is murdered. Chris has vivid fantasies of the suffering slaves on the ships and their savage revolts. How could seemingly respectable people be involved in so abhorrent a trade, and how did they avoid exposure? And what price must Chris pay to learn the painful truth and proclaim it?
Early reviews
"A lively and entertaining tale. The writing styles, plot, pace and character development were excellent." Four-star LibraryThing early review by BridgitDavis.
"At first the plot ... seemed a bit contrived, but I was soon swept up in the tale." Four-star LibraryThing early review by snash.
"I am glad that I have read this book as it goes into great detail and the presentation is amazing. The Author obviously knows his stuff." Four-star LibraryThing early review by Moiser20.
4. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011), the first novel in the Metropolis series, tells the story of a respectably raised young man who chooses to become a male prostitute in late 1860s New York and falls in love with his most difficult client.
What was the gay scene like in nineteenth-century New York? Gay romance, if you like, but no porn (I don't do porn). Women have read it and reviewed it. (The cover illustration doesn't hurt.)
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended." Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Coming soon: Authors Are Whores. What it's like to peddle your wares in public.
© 2017 Clifford Browder
October 1, 2017
320. Interview: A Male Prostitute and His Clients
JOYS AND HORRORS OF THE WEST VILLAGE AND OTHER NEW YORK STORIES
Reading at Jefferson Market Library, 425 Avenue of the Americas (near West 10th Street), on Sunday, October 8, 2-4 p.m. I will read excerpts from my novels and New York stories, sign books, and take questions. Books will be available for purchase. I'll be glad to see a friendly face or two there.
* * * * *
A Male Prostitute and His Clients: the Lawyer, the Count, the Minister, the Alderman, the Man Who Wanted Nothing, and the Lover of Boys, plus His Aunt
This is the first in a series of posts where the author interviews his characters. The Pleasuring of Men (Gival Press, 2011) is the first novel in my Metropolis series of historical novels set in nineteenth-century New York. Tom Vaughan, a respectably raised young man, tells how he decided to become a male prostitute and fell in love with Walter Whiting, his most difficult client. The only gay-themed work in the Metropolis series. Some gay sex (inevitable, given the subject), but nothing too graphic and no porn. Reviews follow below. Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
THE MALE PROSTITUTE
Me: And so, Tom Vaughan, you admit you are a male prostitute.Tom: Oh yes, but not just any kind. I service a rather select crowd.Me: You’re not ashamed of your occupation?Tom: Not at all. My clients need me. For some of them, I'm all they've got.Me: But they have to pay. Quite a bit, I’m told.Tom: Of course. I’m in demand.Me: You were respectably raised. How did you get into this business?Tom: Through a friend who was in it. He told me I was a b.b., a beautiful boy, and I could make money and have fine clothes. Older men had been looking at me at church and in the street. I liked that and decided to take advantage of it.Me: But aren’t some of your clients, well, repulsive? Fat, jowly, balding…Tom: Yes, and some of them even wear corsets. But there’s always something about them – the eyes, a deep, manly voice, elegant manners – that is attractive. I focus on that.Me: Don’t you at times feel cheapened, giving your body to all these men?Tom: Deep inside me there’s a place my clients have never penetrated, a secret place known only to myself. That part of me has never been touched, never corrupted.Me: Hmm… And your clients, this so-called "select crowd," who are they?Tom: Mostly married men. Lawyers, judges, merchants, aldermen, ministers…Me: Ministers?Tom: Oh yes. Even my mother’s minister, whom I see every Sunday at church. I saw him just once, but it was memorable.Me: How can a man of the cloth justify seeing a male prostitute?Tom: Ask him.Me: All right, I will. But remember, you can’t be a beautiful boy forever; time is against you.Tom: You have to know when to get out. I hope to team up with Walter Whiting. He’s a great scholar and lecturer, knows all about Greek sculpture and the Renaissance. Me: One of your clients, I gather.Tom: My most difficult client. He’s teaching me Greek. That way I can keep on seeing him. No more sex for now. But I’ll give this life up for him, if he’ll have me. I’ve even met his wife.Me: His wife? This is getting complicated.Tom: Interview him. He’ll explain.Me: I will. Tom: And my other clients. Talk to them as well.Me: All right, I will, and now.
HIS CLIENTS
The lawyer
Tom Vaughan? A clever little rascal, he caught on fast. Stuck his tongue out at me, teased me, ran around the office knocking stuff over, until I caught him, spanked him. He loved it. Afterward, my office was a mess, files all over the floor, clothes everywhere, even on the bust of Cicero. Together, we cleaned it up.
The count
Yes, yes, I remember: auburn hair, pert nose, sensual lips. I call him Peaches. At thought of him, I excite. I rent him for whole week. He show me docks and naked boys swimming, I pop my monocle. At gala I give before leaving, he jump out of cake naked, astonish guests, but then big trouble, almost riot, I rescue him. I leave for Europe, he cry, I cry. I never see again. Delicious Peaches.
The minister
Reverend Timothy Blythe, D.D., rector of the Church of Christ and All Angels, that exquisite white-marble edifice on Fifth Avenue where I preach to 250 millions – dollars, not people -- a year. At your service, sir. Ah yes, Tom Vaughan. I trust this will remain just between us. When he came to my rectory – I had made sure we could be there alone -- we were both astonished, but we carried it off rather well. Not a word about his mother, whom he accompanies to church every Sunday. I poured him a glass of a fine red wine, ruby, color of the Holy Blood, and had him taste it, savor it: like velvet on the tongue. He was quiet, respectful, obliging. Justify my seeing him? So few understand. Desire is holy. What happened then between us was glory.
The alderman
Don’t remind me of that sneaky little punk of a whore, oh Holy Mother of God and all the saints in heaven, forgive, forgive, it was a moment of folly with that randy rum slut of a lad so ripe for reamin’, not a Catholic, niver would I do it with a Catholic, oh niver, niver, niver, just a pagan or Methodist or somethin’, a cunning sodomite set in me way by the Divil, oh he’s a sly one, the Divil, I did penance with Father Pat, seven acts of perfect contrition, I won't niver see that Divil's brat again, but ’twas the drink that did it, good Irish whiskey, more's the pity, oh that dirty little pouf of a bugger takin’ advantage of a poor simple man like me, forgive, forgive, it ain’t daycent, it ain’t daycent at all!
The man who wanted nothing
I saw him once. I only see them once. I asked simply to view, for a few minutes, the beauty of his body; no touching, nothing more. In my youth I had many lovers. There were times of ecstasy and times of rage, angry partings and rapturous reunions. I’m past that now, and glad. I want quiet and calm. Every month or two I pay a young man to let me feast my eyes on his body. Tom Vaughan understood. I paid him and left, content, and never saw him again.
The lover of boys
Yes, I am Walter Whiting, and a lover of boys. I love their graceful movements, and their smooth skin like white marble kissed by the sun. Also, their immaturity. A boy is a promise, a beginning. He needs encouragement and guidance, and that’s what I provide. Tom Vaughan interests me, but experience has taught me caution, I don’t rush into things. Right now I’m teaching him Greek. No sex, just the subjunctive, and soon he’ll be entangled in the optative. Does my wife know? Of course. I explained this all to her – ever so gently – long ago. She understands, up to a point, and insists on meeting Tom. That will be a momentous event. Tom can be charming, but Lydia is a strong-willed woman. What will then happen I don’t presume to say. As for Tom’s leading a double life that his mother and brother know nothing about, it's risky. Someday they will learn of it, and given his brother’s antipathy to Tom, it will not be pleasant. It could, in fact, be ugly.
Jessica Ames
Who all these other people are I don't presume to know. As Tom Vaughan's Aunt Jessie and a born meddler, I take an interest in his family. The brother is a mindless bully not worth my time, and the widowed mother a piece of scented fluff who has read Little Women twice. Tom is the interesting one, has possibilities. I'll take him in hand, shape him, teach him taste. But he's up to something, I can tell. He has a dark secret and whatever it is, I intend to find out. When Jessica Ames puts her mind to something, she rarely fails.
A NOTE ON SOURCES
Some reviewers have asked about my sources for this novel. For New York City gay life, there are none. From the 1890s on there are some, but before that, almost nothing. I simply worked back from what was later known so as to imagine the less developed gay underworld of the 1860s and 1870s. In a metropolis the size of New York, such an underworld must have existed, but it can only be imagined today. Journalists of the time wrote about prostitution and abortion – subjects not to be mentioned in the presence of ladies – but said nothing of the horrible and detestable crime not to be named among Christians.
For nineteenth-century gay life more generally, I did find some sources. The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds: The Secret Homosexual Life of a Leading Nineteenth-Century Man of Letters (New York: Random House, 1984) is the memoir, written in 1892 but published long after the author’s death, of a gay Englishman who in some ways inspired the character of Walter Whiting, the older man whom Tom Vaughan is attracted to. This work was invaluable, since I know of no memoir by a nineteenth-century gay American. Also helpful was Graham Robb, Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century (London: Norton, 2003); in his climactic confrontation with his brother, much of Tom’s tirade comes from there. Likewise the use of “musical” for “homosexual,” though the categories “b.b.s” (for beautiful boys), “poufs,” and “sturdies” are my own invention.
To understand the life and stratagems of a male prostitute, I consulted Rick Whitaker, Assuming the Position: A Memoir of Hustling (New York: Four Walls, Eight Windows, 1999), the memoir of an American gay male prostitute of the late twentieth century. But for all that, there’s a lot of me split between four characters in the book: Tom, Walter Whiting, the rather campy Mr. Neddy, and Tom’s formidable Aunt Jessie, a fact that reminds me of Flaubert’s famous confession: “Madame Bovary, c’est moi.”
I myself never experienced man/boy love, neither from the boy’s point of view nor the man’s. What first drew me to the subject is recounted in post #239 of my blog, “Man/Boy Love: The Great Taboo" (June 28, 2016), which for several years was the post with the most page views, though it troubled one or two of my friends. When I self-published No Place for Normal: New York / Stories from the Most Exciting City in the World with Mill City Press of Minneapolis, they eliminated that post for fear of litigation.
One reviewer calls The Pleasuring of Men “more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same.” Yes, but most fiction, and historical fiction in particular, is just that: fantasy. It’s a game that the author and readers agree to play.
Reviews
"At times amusing, gritty, heartfelt and a little sexy -- this would make a great summer read." Four-star Amazon customer review by BobW.
"Really more of a fantasy of a 19th century gay life than any kind of historical representation of the same." Three-star Goodreads review by Rachel.
"The detail Browder brings to this glimpse into history is only equaled by his writing of credible and interesting characters. Highly recommended." Five-star Goodreads review by Nan Hawthorne.
Available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Coming soon: The Brooklyn Book Festival vs BookCon: My Appraisal. Two huge book fairs, but which one is right for me and other indie authors? The pros and cons of each.
© 2017 Clifford Browder
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