Marcia Calhoun Forecki's Blog, page 4

Laughter is an instant vacation. ~Milton Berle

Can’t afford a real vacation this year? Here are two books that will make you laugh so much, you’ll swear you are in Cancun.

Handling Sin, by Michael Malone. Our hero is, Raleigh Whittier Hayes, receives word that his father, ex-Rev. Earley Hayes has just escaped from a hospital, withdrawn all his money at the drive-through window of the bank, and is bound for New Orleans with a teenage girl, in a yellow Cadillac. His father contacts Raleigh, and tasks him to collect a few things and meet him in New Orleans. Believing his father to be both gravely ill and insane, Raleigh says goodbye to his comfortably prosperous life in Thermopylae, North Carolina, to find the old man. Perhaps this is what his fortune cookie meant; the one that said “You will go completely to pieces by the end of the month.”

The seven tasks (it has to be seven) Raleigh must undertake these: Find someone named Jubal Rogers and give him $5,000; find his ne’er do well half-brother, Gates; bring both Gates and Jubal to New Orleans; bring Grandma Tiny’s trunk and the family Bible; buy lake property from his father’s enemy, Pierce Jimson; steal the bust of Pee-Wee Jimson (relation of Pierce) from the town library, and bring a gun. To assist in his quest, Raleigh takes along his overweight, slightly effeminate, often bungling but always well-meaning neighbor, Mingo Sheffield. (Are you beginning to see the Quixote allusion?)

Rev. Hayes: “You’re my son, and you’re a good man, but time to time you get your ass screwed on backwards. I want you to enjoy yourself for once, Specs. I want you to think of this as a holy adventure, by God. And if that doesn’t do it, just remember how rich you’re going to be, believe it or not.”

Raleigh, successful, dependable, predictable, and dull, gets rolled, trespasses on a military base, meets mobsters, drug runners, and a Klansman. They take on a pregnant teenager, and Mingo tearfully delivers her baby. Raleigh learns some family secrets from Grandma Tiny. His missionary aunt is one of my favorites. But, what Raleigh comes to understand, what his father intended for him to learn, is that life is messy and chaotic. It is a “knick-knack, gemcrack high time circus.”

Michael Malone was a soap opera writer before he gave us Handling Sin in 1986. I don’t know the significance of that background, but every review I’ve read of the book mentions it, so it must mean something. Handling Sin is available in print, Kindle, Google and Nook formats, so you have no excuse not to get it, read it and love it.


If you prefer your humor slightly drier, may I recommend Masters of Atlantis, by Charles Portis. If you only know Charles Portis for True Grit or Gringos, then you are missing some majorly funny books, including this title, Norwood and Dog of the South. (Even that title is funny, don’t you think?)

Masters of Atlantis is a parody of every secret society from the Knights Templar to Skull and Bones. It begins in Europe just after World War I. Lamar Jimmerson buys a few pages of a sacred book, written in a mysterious non-alphabetic script, which is purported to be part of a text of the secret Gnomon society. Part of the Codex Pappus, the society’s sacred text, the Codex contains the wisdom of Atlantis. Jimmerson is instantly overtaken by the puzzles, riddles and alchemical formulae in the pages of the Codex. So begins his decades of devotion to the society. He rises through all the ranks of Gnomon hierarchy, meeting equally dedicated cranks, crooks and con-men along the way.

There is plenty of fighting within the society, about charters and titles and such. Groups break off from the main body. Insults are passed. This letter was written to the editors of a Chicago newspaper by one disgruntled member about Lamar Jimmerson himself: “Please be advised that the Gnomon Society can no longer recognize degrees awarded by the gang of Indiana ruffians led by the imposter Lamar Jimmerson, who styles himself First Master of the New Cycle. Lamar Jimmerson is the Master of Nothing. He is a grey nullity whose teaching is worthless and whose conversation is tiresome beyond belief and whose book, The Jimmerson Spiral, purporting to contain some later writings of Pletho Pappus, is the most brazen forgery since the Donation of Constantine.” Portis humor is dry, low-key, and ever so delightfully sarcastic.

Masters of Atlantis is available in print, Kindle and Nook formats. Your local library likely has a copy, so get going. You can’t start laughing until you start reading.

Do you have a favorite book of humor? I would love to hear about it.

Handling Sin
The Masters of Atlantis

What I Wrote on My Summer Vacation

It’s summer. Even if the economy makes a world cruise out of the question, you will likely be out and about more, at parks, at community events, at family reunions. These are all great venues for writers. Characters abound, ideas hang in the air like humidity, and family stories are as abundant as the ants at your family picnic.

So, sharpen your observation skills and get out there.

At the family reunion, ask Uncle Albert about his time in the Navy. Rave about Aunt Moonbeam’s potato salad, and then ask her about being arrested at the Chicago convention in ‘68. Tell your grandfather you remember sitting on his lap when he played poker with his buddies and see if the stories about Earl and Woody and Little Red don’t start to flow.

At theme parks, you are stuck in line with strangers. Observe them. Strike up conversations. Where are they from? How did they get here? What funny or frustrating stories do they have about their trip. Watch how they interact with their children and with the park personnel. When you take a break at refreshment areas, listen to the conversations around you. Imagine the back stories of the people around you. Complete the conversations from the bits and pieces you overhear.

At World’s of Fun in Kansas City, I was waiting in a line for a ride with my son, when I spotted a biker father and his pre-school age daughter. Biker Dad was tricked out in tattoo sleeves, wallet chain, boots and a faded bandana tied around what I imagined was a bald head. A pony tail trailed down the back of his leather vest. He was one bad-ass in line for the Snoopy Spinners. Across his knuckles he had written “born to lose.“ A cherubic little blond girl held onto one of his fingers. (I believe it was the one that bore the letter S.) I was wearing cutoff jeans and a Mortenson Elementary School t-shirt. “A Mortenson child has more fun.“ Lame, I know.

The line moved at a glacial pace. I admired Biker Dad’s cool. He watched the Snoopy Spinner spin from behind mirror aviator shades. Then, his little girl bent down and picked up a pacifier lying on the ground. The little girl examined the pacifier and prepared to pop it into her mouth. Biker Dad swept his free hand down in front of her and grabbed the pacifier. He tossed it into a trash can several feet away, a clean shot, nothing but can. Then he leaned down to his pouting little progeny and said, “Don’t put that in your mouth, honey. You don’t know where it’s been.” I could not believe what I was hearing. Biker Dad was quoting my mother, and every parent going back to when cave toddlers picked up a smooth stone and started to suck on it. Biker Dad was more like me than he was different. His parent gene had been turned on just as mine had, and he was about two years away from wearing an elementary school t-shirt under that leather fringe. I could hear him uttering all the admonitions: ” Don’t cross your eyes or they will stay that way,” “No one wants to see your ___,” and “I’ll stop this car,” or in his case “I’ll stop this hog.” I had a revelation that day. Deep down, Biker Dad was as lame when it came to his kids as I was with mine. Or, looked at another way, I was just as cool as any biker dad.

It’s summer. Kick back, relax and while you’re keeping cool, collect some characters and stories for those long winter nights of writing.

What are your summer writing plans?

Even books deserve a second chance.

There is no pleasure, on this planet at least, to compare with reading a book that draws me into it from the first sentence. A book that pulls me through hours of time, so that my hands fall asleep from holding it, while my mind stays wide away. Characters whose voices remain in my memory, mixing with the chatter of remembered friends and siblings. Rooms I spend time enough in to know just where the chairs belong and where to sit to catch a breeze through the open window. Events so urgent, so exciting, so frightening that I am exhausted by the final page. A book that becomes so vital to my life that I can never lend it even to my closest friend. The Alienist by Caleb Carr; Rising Tide by John Barry; The Moor’s Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie; Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck; In Cold Blood by Truman Capote; Handling Sin by John Malone; and Giants in the Earth by O.E. Rolvaag, among dozens of others.

In the past several weeks, I’ve started six or seven books, and not finished one of them. Books I was sure I would enjoy. A book by one of my favorite authors. A book recommended to me by a respected reader. A book whose cover promised to reveal historical secrets known only recently discovered. Try as I might, I could not justify the commitment of my time and passion. I won’t list the names of these books. They are in a bag for Goodwill, and may go on to delight someone for whom they are more suited. I hope that is true, for although I could not finish the books, I want them to find a reader who will appreciate them. I owe the authors that much for their labor and perseverance.

With some books, the timing must be right. There are books I start to read and put down in defeat. Later, I try again and the book patiently begins again. Now, I can focus on the history or biography. Now, I can give myself to the fantasy. Now, I can keep up with the unraveling of the mystery, and pick up the clues as soon as they are laid out for me. It took two tries to get into Snow by Orhan Pamuk, which dazzled me when I was ready for it. Although I was the last one on my block to read Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, I went on to read it twice.

Last night, I started reading a book I rescued from the Goodwill bag. I started it once before, when I was too busy and bored (yes, it’s possible to be both) with my real life to give myself over to this novel. The Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul. I’m brewing coffee now, so I can read through the night. Tomorrow is Saturday and no one owns me for the whole day.

Do you have a book that became a favorite after you gave it a second chance?

Interview with my favorite blues musician

This is an interview with Florence Cudrio,* who was kind enough to let me tell her story in “Hurricane Blues.”

Miz Cudrio, how do you feel about having a story written about you?

I never asked for it. Don’t know why anyone would want to read about me. Only two things in my life worth talking about, my boy, Aldo, and my music.

Some readers have been critical about your child rearing techniques.

Let ‘em. I always did the best I could by my boy. Maybe playing piano in bars and juke joints isn’t the way most mothers support their child, but I had to use the gifts I was given. I suppose I could have stayed around town, maybe worked as a cook in the diner, or picked cotton. It might have been steady work, but it would have killed my soul. How can I do right by my boy with a dead soul? You tell me, because I’m damned if I know.

Can you tell my readers just how you protect your son when you’re away from home?

I guess they’ll have to read the story, now won’t the? The truth is, you can’t protect your child from very much in this world. When I think about how hard folks have it, it makes me want to weep. I don’t mean just keeping food on the table and the roof from caving in. I’m talking about teaching your child that he’s smarter and handsomer than the boys who laugh at his home-cut hair and the patent leather slippers that his mother took from a band leader as pay so that he wouldn’t have to start school the next day in bare feet. I’m talking about teaching him that his worth doesn’t come from what’s on his head or his feet, but from being true to the gifts God gave him. If you can hold up your child while all the world wants to push him down, why convincing a little wind storm to move along up the coast don’t seem like anything to brag about.

Did you ever want to make it big as a musician? Maybe travel up to Chicago or make records?

Oh sure. I was no different from anyone else. I wanted the big audiences and the sparkly dresses, and being recognized at the Piggly Wiggly. You know, all that goes with making it big in blues. But, I wasn’t willing to stand at a crossroads for it, nor to lose my boy, neither one. The fact is, I wrote a pretty good song or two. I hear one now and then on the radio. “Words and Music by F. Cudrio” are about the sweetest words I know. Here’s something for your readers to think about: the last time I played piano was in Kentwood, with hometown boy "Little Brother" Montgomery himself. I’ll never forget it. But, hearing my grown boy introduce me that night is the dearest memory I have. “Ladies and Gentlemen, and all you angels crowded around the ceiling to hear my mama play, I give you Florence Cudrio on piano.”

* Miz Cudrio is a fictional character, but still very interesting.

Hurricane Blues

Author Interview

Please take a look at the interview Sally Deskins posted on her website, LES FEMMES FOLLES.

my link text

Thanks Sally.

John Barry a fiction writer's nonfiction writer

I write fiction, but I read as much history, biography and science as I do magical realism. I need facts to sprinkle through my stories. A great non-fiction writer can reveal the physical world with as much excitement, suspense and passion as a great novelist.

John Barry writes history and science that fills the imagination as well as the intellect. The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history, tells the story of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, is the story of the least known, great natural disaster in the U.S. I devoured these books. I have given them as gifts. I sent an e-mail to Mr. Barry, thanking him for his brilliant Rising Tide. He replied, to my delight. I’ll always pay full price for his books.

The Great Influenza was named by the National Academy of Sciences the 2005 outstanding book on science or medicine. High praise for a book written by a non-scientist. Rising Tide won the Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians for that year’s (1998) best book in American history. High praise for a non-historian. Mr. Barry has advised the Bush and Obama administrations on pandemic preparedness. He has served on the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, responsible for hurricane protection. In the first season of HBO’s series on post-Katrina NOLA, Treme, John Goodman was seen to be reading Rising Tide. Literary produce placement: it’s about time.

Here is what Mr. Barry wrote of himself on his website:

"I was born in… Nah, let’s not start that far back. Let’s just say after dropping out of graduate school in history I became a football coach-- in fact, the first story I ever sold was to a coaching magazine, about a way to change blocking assignments at the line of scrimmage, and I was on the staff of a guy who was named national coach of the year. I quit coaching to write, first as a Washington journalist covering economics and national politics, then I finally began doing what I always intended and wanted to do: write books. Two of those books have in turn led me into active involvement in a couple of policy areas."

Read either of Mr. Barry’s best selling books, and you will be a fan for life. His new book, released in February 2012, is Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty. I’m saving it, like expensive chocolate or a spa gift certificate, for a day when I can indulge myself.

What about you? Have you read John Barry’s work? I’d like to hear what you think.

Giants in the Earth-More than a little house

Giants in the Earth, A Saga of the Prairie, by O.E. Rölvaag.

I love this book for so many reasons. Here are three.

Reason 1: The author’s first language was Norwegian, and he wrote the book originally in that idiom. Rölvaag himself translated the book into English. How delicious to read a book in translation and know with certainty that the author’s vocabulary and syntax are absolutely what he intended.

Rölvaag’s biography is fascinating. His parents thought school a waste of time for their son, because he was so slow. He attended only nine weeks of school a year, and quit completely at age fourteen. He very nearly stayed on the island of his birth as a fisherman. His boss was so taken with him that he offered to buy young Rölvaag his own boat. But, the young fisherman sailed from Norway to start a new life with an uncle in the landlocked state of South Dakota.

Rölvaag educated himself to a professorship at St. Olaf’s College, where he wrote Giants in the Earth in 1923. The book was published in Norwegian, in two volumes, in 1924 and 1925. It appeared in the United States in 1927.

Reason 2: Rölvaag serves a feast of details. The stories of the every day lives of people in history have always interested me more than the repetitious and predictable rise and fall of the powerful. Rölvaag tells us what settlers of the Northern Plains ate, drank, wore, bought, sold, said and thought. I came away thinking I could build a sod house, if I ever found myself stranded in a primordial savannah. I could smell the musty walls when it rained in spring, and taste the dust that swirled on the floor in summer.

The dreams and fears of the characters are as clearly revealed as their physical environment. A small group of people voyage into the tall grass sea without maps or how-to books to guide them. The main character, Per Hansa, possesses all the bravery, optimism, and tenacity we expect from our homesteading ancestors - and believe we possess without being tempered by the hardships they accepted and endured. Beret Hansa, his wife, struggles with fear and homesickness. While he worships Beret, and drives himself mercilessly to build a home for her, Per Hansa knows he can never give her the life he believes he owes her in exchange for accepting him as her husband. As the homestead prospers and suffers, by turns, Beret relentlessly descends into madness. The reader follows her, feeling the same helplessness to save her from which Per Hansa suffers silently and deeply. We know the minds of these characters because of Rölvaag’s ability to dissect them so expertly for us.

Reason 3: There is an element more fascinating, to my mind at least, than Beret’s madness or Per Hansa’s trials. Early in the story, while clearing a new piece of his land, Per Hansa discovers a marker left by an earlier settler. The marker is sacred to the homesteader. Moving a marker is thievery of the lowest sort. Per Hansa removes the marker, after convincing himself that the Irishman who set the marker has not earned it by staying and developing the land. The reader may join Per Hansa in believing that this wrong is justified, but Beret does not. Furthermore, she believes that she has been tainted by the sin of her husband. Her guilt is perhaps the strongest of her demons.

In my opinion, the second half of Giants in the Earth is about redemption - Per Hansa attempts to redeem himself for moving the marker by the physical sacrifice of hard work and the psychological torture of watching his wife’s growing madness. His efforts fail, as they must. It is this theme that makes the book such a profound portrayal of the pioneers, and forces readers to re-examine our pride as their worthy successors.

Rushdie still under threat

Anyone who doubts the power of the written word to move, enlighten, inspire, and incite violence, need only read this week's news. Salman Rushdie was scheduled to appear at the Jaipur Literary Festival in his native India. Because of an alleged assassination threat, he was scheduled to appear by video. Even that event was cancelled due to threats of violence. The book which is at the center of this decades-old controversy is Satanic Verses, published in 1988. The Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Rushdie, because of his allegedly derogatory portrayal of Islam in the book. He lived in hiding for many years.

Satanic Versesis banned in India. A small group of writers at the Jaipur festival read from Satanic Verses until they were asked to stop by the festival organizers. When they continued reading, the local police were called and the reading halted.

In 1981, Rushdie published Midnight's Children, one of the greatest books in the English language. That is not only my opinion. Midnight's Children won a Booker award in the year of it's publication. It also won the Booker of Booker award in the 25th anniversary of the prize in 1993, and again in 2008, for the 40th anniversary of the prize. Penguin Books lists Rushdie's classic among its Great Books of the 20th Century.

I have not read Satanic Verses. I started it once, and the metaphors were so unfamiliar that I became lost. I have since heard from several sources that the first thirty pages are tough going for non-Muslims, but the reward is an wonderful read. I pledge to read the book this year. I know of no better way to honor Mr. Rushdie, whom I respect and admire for his courage, his indomitable wit, and his inspirational perseverance.

“Fascinating, but it’s not a story.”

Memories, conversations overheard, dreams, a line from a great book, and musings while stuck in traffic: these are all great sources for story writers. But, a writer can not simply retell what happened, or what she heard or read or thought. Because memories, conversations overheard, etc. are not stories. Here’s an example, using something my mother told me.

When she was a child on the farm, in the 1930’s, her mother rose early in the morning. Sometimes, she would kill a chicken, “dress” it (don’t ask me what that means, please), and fry it for the children to take to school for their lunch. (Can you imagine having fresh fried chicken for lunch?) My mother rode a school bus across country roads to the school in town. At lunch time, she would take out her lunch bucket and trade her chicken to a town kid for a peanut butter sandwich. You see, my mother’s family did not buy peanut butter, and the town kid’s mother kept no chickens.

What a story, right? It’s interesting and tells us something about families in the 1930’s. But, it is not a literary story. Two important elements of a story are missing: conflict and resolution. This memory could be part of a story, but by itself it is not a story. Maybe the conflict is between the children’s parents, and their lunch trade is the beginning of peace between them. That’s just off the top of my head, which brings me to another point. By thinking about this memory, asking yourself questions (Who is the city kid? What is the relationship of the children before and after the lunch swap? what if this was the family’s last chicken?) you can create a literary story from this memory.

You may find, in doing this thinking, that you create a story that has nothing to do with the lunch swap, or the 1930’s, or even chickens. Don’t worry. Follow your creative voice.
Whatever you do, please don’t give up the story because it doesn’t include your original idea. There is no expiration date on ideas.

So, dream on, pump your parents for their memories, read constantly, and eavesdrop when it is safe to do so. But, don’t stop there. Do the work required to create a story. Then, share it with the world.

First of its kind: Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood"

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


True crime fiction is now everywhere, in books and films. We accept writers creating plausible dialog for characters who depict real persons. Truman Capote did it first. In Cold Blood was a completely new genre, and a lot of people objected to it when the book came out. Capote had to speak for characters he never met and never interviewed - the members of the Clutter family. "How dare he," people thought. But, this book grips the reader's attention as no third-person, documentary reporting could. The reader invests emotion in the characters because they become real - loving family members and terrified victims. We quickly realize, this is a family we could have known; what happened to them could happen to any one of us. When you read In Cold Blood, remember that no one had written a book like this before, and you will see the genius in the work.



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