HOBART

Take Heart Young Lions!

There are a myriad consolations for the struggling fiction writer. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of profiles, interviews, and essays in which accomplished writers describe the frustrations of their craft, the deepest of which may be the artist's despairing battle against his or her personal demons. This week on the Rumpus, Steve Almond takes up this theme in reference to the New Yorker's "20 Under 40" project, which showcases 20 of America's best young fiction writers. After confessing the jealousy and depression he feels about not being included, Almond sums up with this artistic call to arms:

It is perfectly natural – perhaps inevitable – to dream of being “discovered” and rocketed to the top of the Bestseller list. As Americans, we’ve been trained to dream in this way.

But the real life of a writer resides in showing up at the keyboard every day, with the necessary patience and mercy, and making the best decisions you can on behalf of your people. It’s a slow process. It often feels hopeless, more like an affliction than an art form.

Most of us will have to find our readers one by one, in other words, and against considerable resistance. If anything qualifies us as heroic, it’s that private perpetual struggle.

But for every anecdote about writing, there is an opposite and equally compelling counterexample. Generalizations about writing, it seems, are impossible to draw. Here is the Q and A on the New Yorker website with 20-Under-40 writer C.E. Morgan, whose story "Twins" is featured in the June 14 and 21 issue:

Q:    How long did it take you to write your first book?

A:    The first draft was written in fourteen days.

In fairness, she goes on to say, "the editing was completed in the course of two semesters in graduate school," but still.

-- Sean  

The Best of The Best of (What’s Left of) Heaven -- a guest review

 

The Best of (What’s Left of) Heaven, a new release from Publishing Genius, is a collection of poems compiled from Mairéad Byrne’s blog, Heaven. The collection is ordered into thirteen parts and there’s a sense of slow build-up, of climb, climax, and linger.

The opening sections “Calendar” and “Everyday Lunacy” are whimsical and provocative, flirt with the reader. There’s a shift in tone and emotion once we arrive at the third section “Found.” I sat straighter in my chair, fully engaged. Each line from the second poem, “To Skin a Muskrat,” vibrates and the last line hums: “This is nothing like writing poetry.” Overall, the writing throughout “Found” is visceral, exact, and mesmerizing. 

The sections “Interviews” and “Numbers” return us to a sense of playfulness, yet for the most part remain thought-provoking and moving:

HAPPINESS LEVELS 1994-2004

1994: 8
1995: 7
1996: 9
1997: 10
1998: 8
1999: 7
2000: 8
2001: 7
2002: 2
2003: 3
2004: 7

THE MIDDLE

I’ve got to the middle
Whew!
I’m middle-aged
Whew!
I didn’t get killed
Whew!
I didn’t kill myself
Whew!
I’m middle-income
Whew!
I’m alright
I’m OK
I’m acceptable
Whew!
Yay!

 

The section “War” begins with the haunting prose poem “Baghdad.” To my great surprise, from the very first line, I realized that I had met Mairéad Byrne several years ago at a reading in Dublin. There, I had the honor of hearing Byrne perform “Baghdad” and other poems. Byrne’s vibrant, lyrical voice, the relentless pelt of “Baghdad, Baghdad, Baghdad” has stayed with me all this time, as any writing about war should—any worthwhile writing period. The work in “War” is startling and skillful, and left me rightly unsettled and a little stunned:

CROP

I THOUGHTXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXBECAUSE YOU SAW ME
XXXXXXXXSLICED &XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXTORN OPENXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX&XXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXTHE SHINING CHILDXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXDRAGGED FROM ME
XXXXXXYOU WOULD HAVEXXXXX
XXXSTAYED WITH USXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXFOR LIFEXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXBUT NOT SOXXXXXXX

I also enjoyed the stirring section “Family”:

FRIDAY NIGHT

I’m a miserable person:
What have I in life
but my two daughters,
Wine,
& poetry?

 

OPEN HOUSE

Come into my house.
I do not want it anymore.

 

FIELD TRIP

On the yellow bus with the children—
in their seat belts of shout.

From the section titled “Poetry”:

how long does it take to write a poem?

time stands still

The sections “Providence,” and “Dedications” deliver further keen, compassionate, and shocking observations and moments.

“Family,” “Instructions,” and “Everything is Unlikely” tie with “War” as my four favorite sections. Just as we eased into this collection, the tiny section “Everything Else” gently takes us out—a loved one leaving, the sun going down.

I saw so much of myself, of my Irishness, in these poems and white spaces. While there are few surface references to Ireland, she permeates everything. I recognized the Irish obsession with the weather and place, with routine and everydayness. I saw how we use humor as salve, deflector, and to save our sanity. I also witnessed our psychic scars from colonization, brutality, and patriarchy. Our great joy and searing sadness. Strength. Courage. Imagination. Uniqueness.

I heard our gift of the gab and our stubborn silence. Above all, I heard echoes of the great Irish writers that have gone before us and that remain among us. Brendan Behan, Flann O’Brien, and Eavan Boland are just three that will buy Mairéad Byrne a pint in heaven. And if anyone points out that Eavan Boland isn’t in heaven yet, then you haven’t read HEAVEN from this collection. But you should. You should read this collection in its entirety. Then reread it.

I do wonder at the order here. I worry that its initial whimsy and obliqueness might lose readers. More, some of the poems read like lists and scraps, and I found myself glossing over them. Overall, though, it’s an order and a collection that works, and works well.

I remember shaking Mairéad Byrne’s hand that long-ago night in a dim pub in Dublin. I also felt her hand come out through these pages and touch me again. Byrne boasts a down-to-earth voice and style that are devoid of intonation and affectation. There are eight words of Gaeilge in this collection that translate to “an educated heart.” Mairéad Byrne’s generous, educated heart sings from these poems and white open spaces.

-Ethel Rohan

On Small Moments

So, OK, yeah. Short Story Month was a bust. (Round here, anyway; not as a whole.) Personally, I seem to find it hard to ever find time to blog, what with everything else on my plate. Like... you know... for starters, having to hit refresh on my email and facebook so often, and all this bourbon to drink. But also, the semester ended, and with all this free time, I found myself wanting to sink into some novels and so just didn't read many stories. I read about half of Keith Lee Morris's new collection, and it reminded me of this story that he read here in town a year or so ago, which I wanted to track down but was unable. In the meantime, what I did track down was his first novel, The Greyhound God, which I just finished today. 

  

One of the interesting aspects of the novel is it is written primarily from the protag's, Luke's, POV, with two short exceptions -- once in the middle of the middle of the book, and then again for the final chapter -- where it switches to that of Jenny, Luke's wife. What's interesting is not just this shift in POV, but that it happens so little. (About 22 pages in the middle, and then 21 pages at the end, out of a total of 314 pages. So... what's that? About 15%?)

Interesting though that is, and as much as it could be used to talk about POV advantages, what especially struck me about it was what Morris does with voice. Throughout, Luke narrates in his often unsure of himself, circular speech pattern. The second sentence of the book:

Sometimes during all my travels, and working in various places in different town and states pretty much all over America, I've come across people that are I don't know exactly what you'd call them, more sophisticated maybe, and they're usually dressed nice, and usually a couple, like a man and a wife, and I'm just like that -- curious about people and where they're from -- and they'll at some point get around to asking about me, the guy's wife mostly.

One of the places this book shines is really in Luke's voice; Morris seems to know how to pepper in just enough of this kind of forward and then back-pedaling and then forward again speech to really help flesh out Luke, but never so much that it gets annoying, like over-relied on "dialect" can. 

That said, like POV, voice isn't really what I want to talk about either. Not directly anyway. One of the most enjoyable moments, for me, was in the final pages, when it the POV has shifted to Jenny and she quotes's Luke:

"It's kind of quite a bit of money," Luke said. "A what would you call it -- a nest egg."

I don't know what I am getting at exactly except to say, it can be the small moments in novels that are the most enjoyable, no? That simple echoing of Luke's voice, from first person narration to dialogue via someone else's narration, really made me smile. It worked. It reminded me of that quote from Almost Famous, which I'm going to drop the last line or two because then it becomes about "what you leave out" instead of just "small moments" but the truth is still there:

It's not what you put into it. It's what you leave out. Listen to Marvin Gaye, a song like "What's Happening, Brother," there's a single "woo!" at the end of the second verse … that's what you remember. It's the little things, the silly things, it's only one of them and it makes the song.

-Aaron