East Bay Grease

by Eric Miles Williamson

In Eric Miles Williamson's debut novel, young T-Bird Murphy seeks to gain a foothold in the turbulent and menacing world of 60's and 70's Oakland. While his mother runs with Hell's Angel's bikers, T-Bird falls beneath the men's fists and favors, finds solace and hope in the slightest of rewards, and seeks to survive. Soon, his ex-con father returns to town, and what follows is a raw, powerful, poetic story of one boy's passage into adulthood.

Genres: Fiction

248 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1999

About the author

Internationally acclaimed novelist and critic Eric Miles Williamson was named by France’s Transfuge magazine one of the “douze grands écrivains du monde”—one of the twelve great authors of the world. His first novel, East Bay Grease, was a PEN/Hemingway finalist, and its sequel, Welcome to Oakland, was named the second-best novel of 2009 and one of the top 40 novels of the decade by the Huffington Post. Senior Editor of Boulevard, Fiction Editor of Texas Review, and Associate Editor of American Book Review, Williamson served three terms on the Board of Directors of the National Book Critics Circle. He lives in the Rio Grande Valley.

Reviews

[The East Bay Review · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Miles Williamson is Oakland through and through--not the Oakland of Rockridge hipsters or start-up gentrifiers, but the Oakland of Too $hort, the Oakland of Sonny Barger, the Oakland of Al Davis. The story of T-Bird Murphy, a young man growing up poor and white in 1970's Oakland, East Bay Grease is street-level literature at its finest--Charles Bukowski by way of Jack London and Zola. T-Bird suffers through beatings, abandonment, and heartbreak as a child, eventually finding salvation through his love of playing jazz trumpet and the backbreaking labor of laying concrete as a guniter. Told in sparse, tough prose, Williamson takes us from T-Bird's childhood to his adolescence, to adulthood elegantly and poetically while refusing to shy away from the violence, racism, and desolation of working class life.

Jack London once famously turned the "show don't tell" phrase on its head by demanding "put it in my hand." Williamson not only places T-Bird's ugly situation in our hands, he forces us to hold it until we can find all of the beauty hidden within the sadness.

[Chris Cowan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yet another very good writer trying to write a Great American Novel, this one very much the dark, poor underbelly of 60s and 70s Oakland. T-bird Murphy has catastrophic parents and starts the book with an absentee Dad and his abusive mother is a Hell’s Angel chick (it’s the 60s) living with a biker gang. Doesn’t go well for young T-bird. We then live through the next 10 or so years of T-bird’s rough tough life which is rather wonderfully leavened by his musical talents (trumpet) and his experiences in music. There are also some family light points but they are few and far between

It’s knocking on the door of a 5-star, but ultimately the death and woe becomes a tad numbing and sometimes it doesn’t quite convince – though what do I know from a background that’s as polar opposite as is possible? The writing is very good indeed: economical, the story zips along and gripped me all the way through. It’s quite episodic but that works well given the chaos that is T-bird’s life. Characters are pretty much all perfectly believable as most situations and plot turns. The sum of the parts, however, just shades short of 5 stars as it didn’t quite hit me emotionally as hard as it might. Highly recommended though if you like the dark underbelly stuff.

[Andy Weston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had been looking forward to reading this for a while, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. It charts the coming-of-age of a youngster from a poor and tough neighbourhood of Oakland, a dysfunctional family and a violent background, but endowed with with the family trait of musical talent. Amidst the Hells Angels bikers, drifters and Mexican immigrants of the early 1970s, T-Bird Murphy’s story moves from his childhood to his late teen years, as he develops a vengeful attitude as a protective shield.

The first half of the novel concerned with T-Bird’s childhood is particularly strong, perhaps as the dark subject matter has flashes of humour.
When in Sixth Grade he and his friend are recognised as having some intellectual prowess:

That night after Cederick the janitor finished up, we pushed the window (to the Principals office) and climbed in.
We discovered we’d had IQ tests. We remembered taking those tests. The tests were stupid. They gave us both the same questions. One of the questions was, “If you lost a quarter in a field of tall grass , how would you go about finding it?”
My answer was, “I wouldn’t look for it. I’d take out someone’s garbage or mow a lawn or something and get another quarter.”
The lady who tested me told me I had to tell her how I’d look for the quarter.
I told her, “ I’d pay someone a nickel to find it and keep the change”.
She didn’t like that answer either.
Hiro’s answers were different. He told her he’d get a metal detector. She told him that he had to look for the quarter. He said, “I’d wait until nighttime and sweep a flashlight across the field. The quarter would shine.”
The lady told him it was a dirty quarter and he couldn’t find it that way.

And another passage, just to demonstrate how wonderful the writing is,

Oakland boys don’t dream of Los Angeles - we dream of Oregon and Washington, Of Montana, Of Jack Londons’s Alaska. We dream of heading into the mountains and building cabins with trees we’ve chopped down with axes. We dream of living off a mythological frontier, the frontier our grandparents found when they came over the Donner Pass in search of gold.

[Renzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read East Bay Grease in one sitting. It's a quick read, a coming of age story about a white guy named T-Bird growing up in 1980s Oakland. He comes from a family that includes gifted musicians, none of whom were able to fully realize their artistic pathways, for the usual reasons. He struggles with typical issues: work, money, his youth, and a sense of identity that is challenged on every point by the people in his environment: Mexicans, blacks, bikers, and so on. There is an emphasis on racial and class identity here. The book got me to thinking about constructed narratives being handed down and promulgated through identity, and how this usually leads to bitter divisions between groups of people who identify with those narratives, but lack the objectivity to question them. Never ending circle of humanity.

There were no big plot twists and nothing subversive about the story, but the book is well written and worth reading for those who are interested in Bay Area culture.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy-to-read trot through life in oakland with some fine passages on what it's like to play the trumpet, as well as informative passages on how, say, to spray concrete. A picture of a life in the 1960-1970s, and fine for that, but it's not much more than a picaresque often is. Is it meant to speak of and to the downtrodden? Likely. Does it? Hard to say.

[Jack Bullion · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite author, George Singleton, has admitted in interviews that he prefers to write short stories, but because he knows that collections don't sell, he just populates them with the same characters and packages a dozen or so of them as a novel. While I love Singleton's writing, his approach strikes me as an incredibly lazy, cynical way to do business, and his last few "novels" have suffered as a result.

Eric Miles Williamson's book, on the other hand, is one of the best novel-in-stories you will ever read, because it's one of the few that actually makes an effort to fashion an actual narrative out of its components. I read many of these stories when they first appeared in literary journals, and in many cases, Williamson has made sweeping, crucial changes to them. He seems to know, more than many authors that attempt this type of work, that stories have a particular set of demands, and so do novels. The very fact that he's made the effort to transform one into the other is remarkable, and worth celebrating.

And as for the content? This book is like its main character, T-Bird. It will kick your ass and then play modal jazz over your crumpled body.

[Josh Broussard · Rating 5 out of 5]

A corrupt coming of age novel, East Bay Grease is one of a kind. The gritty world of the San Francisco Bay area is made alive through Williamson's prose and the characters themselves become part of the landscape as the novel develops. The overarching theme of music and a young person's dreams are present throughout this violent tale of urban fiction. This is one of my favorite novels and I would highly recommend it.

[Elly Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4* Not an easy story to listen to, with so much tough stuff. But it pulled me right along. I'm still shaking my head at some of the scenes, thinking how difficult life is for so many people, and about how I have been so lucky.

[Brantz Woolsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is straight jazz. Loved it.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book. Humane, sad, uplifting, heavy, lyrical,
poetic. A must read!!!

[L.V. Sage · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book several years ago, but it is still sitting in my bookshelf, along with the classics and the forgotten/unknown classics that I like to surround myself with. Williamson's gritty tale of a poor white kid trying to survive the daily torments of his condition and upbringing leaves you breathless as you run along with him, hoping for escape or at least a temporary hiding place. But T-Bird Murphy, our protagonist, has a couple of cards up his sleeve: a talent for the trumpet and, more importantly, a pretty good brain in his head. Life is often hard for so many kids that grow up in the manner in which Murphy does, but to the author's credit, the boy survives on his talent and wit to eventually triumph in some small way, which is sometimes all we can do.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best way I can describe this book is comparing it to the book "The Outsiders." This book is a remarkable debut novel describing a young man’s coming of age amid the biker gangs of Oakland during the late 1960s.The real miracle of his adolescence, however, is not merely that he survives against all odds, but that he flourishes and emerges as an articulate, ambitious man. Refreshingly sincere and unaffected, this book provides a fascinating glimpse, from the inside, of a world that is rarely visible and a marvelous account of one boy’s escape from it.

[Hosho · Rating 5 out of 5]

East Bay Grease, Williamson's first book, is gritty and surprising. At turns brutal and tender and written crisp prose that brings shooting gunite, playing the trumpet, and growing up in Oakland into sharp focus, the book follows T-Bird Murphy growing up rough and largely unsupervised. Be it petty crime, or terrific passages about playing in a band, the book surprises, even as it pulls no punches. Williamson reads a lot like Don Carpenter (a tremendous, relatively unknown talent) and I look forward to reading more from him.

[Mark Farley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a menacing and hard-nosed story of true grit about a young kid growing up in Oakland, San Francisco's unruly cousin, just north of the trust fund hippy town of Berkeley. Hookers, Hells Angels and drunks are the young T-Bird's best friends in an unforgiving environment and tough world in which he strives to get out and start a new life in sunnier and easier climbs. Gritty, authentic language and action not for the closeminded.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

EMW was my english professor at UCM years ago. He was an interesting teacher. Although it's marked fiction, this book chronicles his youth in Oakland during the height of the Hell's Angels' popularity. Most of the stories in it are close to the truth (though I get the feeling some may be embellished). Lots of drugs and some sexual content. An easy read.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for a college class. I enjoyed this book. Although this book covers some pretty graphic and scary situations, I enjoyed the frankness and honesty the author used. I would recommend this book for adults. I'm glad I had to read this book.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this in college, due to the author coming and speaking to my creative writing class (actually my girlfriend's class). The book is interesting for all the right reasons. Good plot, well-executed writing, interesting. I would recommend it.

[Cradymc · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good read. Stark writing that makes no apologies for it's masculine voice. Reminiscent of Harry Crews. There's also a sequel, which I haven't checked out yet.

[Suzanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a fan of hard South. I am now a fan of hard Oakland. This story was told so personally, I am left wondering how much is autobiographical. Eric, if you lived through this, you rock.

[Jean-Pascal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Version française inconnue de Goodreads. Le livre m'a plu même s'il manque d'unité. Une note finale explique que les chapitres ont été édités séparément auparavant.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tough, gritty, coming of age story set in a '60's/'70's poor, working class Oakland, America. A good read, I believe there's a sequel.

[Rebecca Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars, the music element was incredible and added so much to the canon of work we have been studying.

[John Molina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will not mince words about Eric. He is talented. That's all I have to say.

[Emily Frame · Rating 4 out of 5]

reading this book is like eating sand. in such an awesome way.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful and impressive, good coming of age story with strong Oakland details.