Lester Goran’s Last Song - Back at the Bar
[The following is an excerpt from an extended book review of Lester Goran’s book “Bing Crosby’s Last Song.” The book review is written more like a creative essay / short story than a book review. If you are interested in reading the entire review, you can email me at daniellclausen [at] gmail [dot] com ]
“You know,” Lester says, “you have this way of writing a book review so that no one will ever want to read the book or read another of your reviews ever again.”
I take a sip of my martini and show him a bunch of bar napkins with notes written all over them about his book.
“Here,” I say. “Scatter these around and let’s see if we can make some sense of this before we’re off to our next bar.”
This peaks his interest. He didn’t know about the other bar we were going to.
Napkin One: And then Lester also has one of the best lines ever written about war:
“You see,” he said, “talking about it changes things. Anything at all can be said, virtually anything at all can be done. War puts people into straitjackets. There is so little sense to it that roosters give birth to cows and people who would ordinarily spend their lives fixing carburetors in car dealerships drop flaming bombs on people they’ve never met--and get bullets from strangers they meet in the dark as part of the regular business of walking around at night.” (p. 132-133).
“I should have something to say about this,” I tell Lester. “You really had a scene there. I mean, a scene to top all scenes. Right in the middle of some flaky rich woman’s house you just drop a bombshell like that…” I’m getting incoherent. “I’m going to write a page just on this one little speech.”
“Just leave it on the napkin,” he says. “Someone may get a glance at it while they’re wiping peanuts off their crotch.”
I take a look at the second napkin. I’ll make a book review out of this yet.
Napkin two: Gloria Scone lives in clouds made of metaphysical realities; Daly is a salt of the earth kind of person who occasionally sees visions of dead gangsters like Pretty Boy Floyd in cemeteries and other places. He tells Gloria Scone at one point that metaphysics always makes him thirsty and asks for another drink.
“You had the perfect two villains for your book -- the flaky, New Age woman in Gloria Scone and ummm, forgot what Daly’s sister’s name was. Ruth Marie. That’s it.”
These two people have to be out of Lester’s real life. Perhaps he had a real sister like that, or an ex-wife, or a girlfriend, a mother, something. You can’t write what you don’t know. And he knew these two girls. Gloria Scone, the rich aristocrat with money, too much free time, and a head full of New Age nonsense.
Napkin three: Goran writes about drinking casually as if there is nothing to it. For me, drinking has larger meanings.
It occurs to me now that Lester sometimes ran his writing seminars like talk-marathons, as if to talk was to write. Also, Napkin three is wrong. Probably for Goran, too, drinking had larger meanings.
“You know,” Lester says, “you have this way of writing a book review so that no one will ever want to read the book or read another of your reviews ever again.”
I take a sip of my martini and show him a bunch of bar napkins with notes written all over them about his book.
“Here,” I say. “Scatter these around and let’s see if we can make some sense of this before we’re off to our next bar.”
This peaks his interest. He didn’t know about the other bar we were going to.
Napkin One: And then Lester also has one of the best lines ever written about war:
“You see,” he said, “talking about it changes things. Anything at all can be said, virtually anything at all can be done. War puts people into straitjackets. There is so little sense to it that roosters give birth to cows and people who would ordinarily spend their lives fixing carburetors in car dealerships drop flaming bombs on people they’ve never met--and get bullets from strangers they meet in the dark as part of the regular business of walking around at night.” (p. 132-133).
“I should have something to say about this,” I tell Lester. “You really had a scene there. I mean, a scene to top all scenes. Right in the middle of some flaky rich woman’s house you just drop a bombshell like that…” I’m getting incoherent. “I’m going to write a page just on this one little speech.”
“Just leave it on the napkin,” he says. “Someone may get a glance at it while they’re wiping peanuts off their crotch.”
I take a look at the second napkin. I’ll make a book review out of this yet.
Napkin two: Gloria Scone lives in clouds made of metaphysical realities; Daly is a salt of the earth kind of person who occasionally sees visions of dead gangsters like Pretty Boy Floyd in cemeteries and other places. He tells Gloria Scone at one point that metaphysics always makes him thirsty and asks for another drink.
“You had the perfect two villains for your book -- the flaky, New Age woman in Gloria Scone and ummm, forgot what Daly’s sister’s name was. Ruth Marie. That’s it.”
These two people have to be out of Lester’s real life. Perhaps he had a real sister like that, or an ex-wife, or a girlfriend, a mother, something. You can’t write what you don’t know. And he knew these two girls. Gloria Scone, the rich aristocrat with money, too much free time, and a head full of New Age nonsense.
Napkin three: Goran writes about drinking casually as if there is nothing to it. For me, drinking has larger meanings.
It occurs to me now that Lester sometimes ran his writing seminars like talk-marathons, as if to talk was to write. Also, Napkin three is wrong. Probably for Goran, too, drinking had larger meanings.
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