"Old Girls and Palm Trees" by Meg Pokrass is a dream

I am reviewing a new book today but first wanted to outline the pleasures and dangers of late-night reading on the Fourth of July weekend.

I've read about the gender gap among White American Male Literary Fiction Writers, notably novelists. Upstarts such as Salinger, Hemingway, and Updike seem to be a vanishing breed. Guys whom you can't wait to read. Guys that hog the bestseller charts. 

I made the mistake of choosing Marc Tracy's July 3 New York Times article for late-night reading. My wife Chris was asleep, or trying to get to sleep as fireworks exploded around us in Ormond Beach suburbia. A few hours earlier we'd joined friends for dinner at a Flagler Beach bistro with a view of the rickety old pier under reconstruction. Made me wonder about hurricane season. The sky burned red as we drove west toward home. Should have taken that as an omen.

"The Death and Life of the Straight White Man's Novel" was compelling reading. I am an old straight white man fiction writer who has published one story collection and written two as-yet-unpublished novels. I've published a number of short stories and a smattering of flash fiction and prose poetry. I left the corporate world to get my M.F.A. in creative writing. I wrote and raised a family while working full-time as an arts administrator, a rapidly dissolving field thanks to MAGA. Agents and editors will admit over late-night beers at writers' conferences that white guys aren't getting published because it's a new world out there, a new multigenerational, multiethnic, gender-neutral world out there. And young white guys are spending their 10,000 hours gaming and not sitting alone in a cafe populating their journals with trenchant observations. So suck it up, buttercup (what is a buttercup anyway? Must Google it). 

I am including a photo of a buttercup.

This buttercup looks happy. Or surprised. Or maybe it's surrendering. They can be poisonous and in the South they are seen as an invasive species. On the plus side, kids like to hold the flower up to their chins and the reflective petals turn skin the color of butter. Like butter!

Since I'm a buttercup, I ordered a nifty little chapbook by Meg Pokrass, "Old Girls and Palm Trees." Published by Bamboo Dart Press, a nifty little outfit with offices in Claremont, Calif. It's illustrated by artist Cooper Renner, who has a playful style. I tackled this book late at night and it pleased me. Meg is a writer friend I met a dozen years ago on Facebook who wasn't afraid to put her flash fiction on display for all the e-world to see. She's from California but now lives in Scotland. Many writers, me included, were a bit concerned about placing our work on social media. Into what dark and dreary and corporate place will it end up? Any Tom or Dick, Harry or Sally, can scoop it up and claim it as their own. That occurred to Meg but didn't faze her, probably because she is represented by crackerjack agent Peg Mokrass who sports huge eyeglasses and looks a bit like Meg. So here it is, years later, and Meg had published some 900 pieces in various mags and online sites. And she's published eight flash collections and two novellas. I brought her to Casper, Wyoming, in September 2014, as a presenter at the Equality State Book Festival.  

The book is delightful. Can a SWMW say delightful? I await your response.

Meg's book features flash pieces about her imagined life with an old friend in California. In the opening piece, she imagines this old friend behind her, "a friend who had become a shadow that needed to be sewn back on." I had to stop there because this is a scene from the black-and-white "Peter Pan" I grew up on. Peter loses his/her/their shadow and has to sew it back on. I watched my own shadow for weeks after that, afraid if it came off I wouldn't know how to sew it back on. I close my eyes and remember that feeling. I'm scared, but also aware that my shadow is a living thing with its own life. It may have turned me to writing, as my Mom read Peter Pan to us after and I saw that words were kind of like a shadow of life, that the writer has thoughts and it travels down the arm for finger to make imprints on the page. Did I think that at five? No, I am imagining that now. Something magical was going on, I knew that much. Somehow I understood that knowing how to read those shadow words could open up new worlds to me. I was a nuisance. I read everything: cereal boxes, candy wrappers, billboards, and eventually magazines and books. I am still a nuisance; any printed matter within reach is not safe. I can read upside-down like a noir detective. So much joy and heartache comes from reading and I wouldn't have it any other way.

There is joy and heartache on the pages of "Old Girls and Palm Trees." It is a dream, basically, and dreamily written. 

About the book: It's a chapbook, 6.5 x 6.5 inches. Well constructed, with a sturdy coated cover, and easy to carry on the Metro or to the beach (as we retirees do) in your E-Cycle or E-Tricycle basket. Nice gifts at $10.99. E-book version available but that kind of defeats the idea of having a nice little chapbook to carry around. As I mentioned, art is by Cooper Renner. Cover art by Meg and Dennis Callaci. 

Support small presses: www.bamboodartpress.com

For book and bookstore fans: "Bloomsbury Girls" probes the inner workings of a 1950 London bookshop

I can see why a few members of the Historical Fiction Book Lovers Facebook group wrote “DNF” when discussion rolled around to “Bloomsbury Girls” by Natalie Jenner. It’s about books and bookstores. The time is 1950, a very boring year which launched a million Boomers me included. In London and all over the world, the war is over. Women are finding jobs but it’s a hard slog through male-dominated society. A few years earlier, these women were building ships and planes and tanks. Those warmaking items are no longer in demand so neither are working women. Bookshops in London’s better neighborhoods attract workers who love books and may even be writing one of their own, as happens in “Bloomsbury Girls.” Patrons come from all economic levels but tend to be well-educated with money to spend on books during a post-war period when necessities such as fuel and foodstuffs are still being rationed.

The book’s conflicts do not come from warfare and skullduggery and shady politics. Women try to claim their places in the working life and men stand in their way. It’s another form of warfare that the female characters in the book have to negotiate with skills equal to army strategists.

As the story progresses, Jenner features cameos of female literary figures of the era. Daphne Du Maurier, Ellen Doubleday, Sonia Blair (widow of George Orwell) and Peggy Guggenheim, one-time lover of Samuel Beckett who also shows up at the bookshop just as he finished writing his new play, “Waiting for Godot.”

There is a bit of a Wyoming connection. Ellen Doubleday was mother to the late Neltje Blanchan Doubleday whom we in Wyoming know as Neltje of Banner, Wyo., artist and arts patron. Neltje founded the Jentel Artist Residency Program along Lower Piney Creek and adjacent to her homestead and studio. She endowed writing fellowships in the names of her grandparents. She willed millions to the University of Wyoming for its arts and culture programs.

I have undergraduate and graduate degrees in English and read lots of books. I am a writer. I once worked in a chain bookstore in a dying mall. Barbara Cartland sold better than James Michener and Irwin Shaw. We sold more romances than any other category. Classic literature gathered dust on the shelves, although an occasional high school kid might wander in looking for “Catcher in the Rye.” I loved it when patrons bought books I loved so we could conduct a book discussion right there at the cash register.

I have fond memories of those days. But the daily workings of the Paperback Booksmith were not high drama. Somehow, Natalie Jenner turns the proceedings of a London book shop into a series of interpersonal dramas. In good hands, any situation can be exciting.

Jenner also is the author of “The Jane Austen Book Club.” Book clubs? Kill me now! It’s not always a soul-stirring topic although World War II dramas have hung on the concept. I’m thinking about you, “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.”

I have been reading a lot of books on my Kindle. Not this one. I found it in my local Albertson’s Grocery Store while waiting for prescriptions. A small book bin is located nearby. Bins for discontinued items are located through the store. This one features lots of children’s books. I recently picked up “Pop, Flip, Cook!” for $5, a nifty interactive tutorial on cooking including a cardboard slice of toast and knife to spread jam with. It’s almost like if you have a book, you don’t even need a computer.

I found “Bloomsbury Girls” in the same bin for $3.99. The enticing cover features three young women – the book’s main characters – strolling down a street in what must be London, bookshop in the background. Big problem: the characters are decapitated. I have begun to notice cover art with headless characters. Sometimes, they are shown from the rear so faces are hidden. Members of the Historical Fiction group say the publishers do this so as not to spoil the characters’ image we have in our imaginations. I get it. Publishers must have no faith in readers’ imaginations. Stop this trend immediately. It reminds me of the ridiculous trend on house-flipping TV shows to show bookshelves with pages showing but spine hidden. I am told that this is an attempt by realtors to not prejudice a sale when you see when you see a row of books about Trump. What kind of idiot lives here? They must be hiding something. Check the basement for bodies!

One thing about bargain bin books. Authors make nothing from the sale. At one point, the books were sold new and the writer ended up with a few pennies. The book supply chain is a long and weird one. Get your bargains when you can so you can go to Cheyenne’s new bookstore, Bonsai Books, and buy a new book at full price and begin reading it while sipping a latte in an easy chair. Bonsai Books debuts the same week as the new Barnes & Noble opens in the space that once housed Natural Grocers which now is in the original Barnes & Noble building on Dell Range.  

Saturday Morning Round-up: Snow arrives -- finally -- and "Stay Close" keeps you guessing

Saturday Morning Round-up:

I’ve been interviewing the recipients of the 2021 Governor’s Arts Awards. These are the awards given annually by the Wyoming Arts Council for "substantial contributions made in Wyoming that exemplify a long-term commitment to the arts," Recipients include intriguing artists and very interesting people running arts organizations. Sometimes the person running the arts org is an artist, That artist continues to make art while promoting the arts in their community. It’s a time-consuming task, one that pays very little. But real people keep doing it. Read the articles in the next issue of WAC Artscapes. 

Just finished watching the eight-episode Netflix series “Stay Close” from the novel by Harlan Coben. Kept my attention through all the twists and turns. Surprise ending. The murderer is a character I didn’t suspect. The series is set in an English town surrounded by lots of water which figures into the plot in ways major and minor. Coben’s novel, as are most of his works (including scripts for the "Fargo" series) is set in the U.S. It’s a funny thing to watch a murder thriller transplanted to England. It’s almost as if we don’t expect people to die gruesome deaths in the land of Downton Abbey, stiff upper lips, and way too much tea-drinking. It’s also the home of Jack the Ripper, Sweeney Todd and inventive ways to torture and kill those who have ruffled the king’s feathers. Its staid demeanor helps make throat-slitting and gang-style executions stand out. Some inventive killing goes on in “Stay Close.” Keeps you guessing. Watch it.

Jan. 6 marked the anniversary of the 2021 Capitol Insurrection. While the Democrats in Congress, the president, and TV hosts made a big deal out of it, Republicans were nowhere to be seen except on Fox and some loony right-wing outlets. For those of us in the reality-based world, the attack on the Capitol was an attack on democracy. Repubs don’t see it that way. A few do. Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney does. Her pops too. They were the only GOPers that attended the Congressional prayer service on Thursday. I know, Dick Cheney to war criminal standing up for what’s right? It was rich in irony seeing his masked face. But Rep. Cheney is one of two Republicans serving on the Jan. 6 Commission. She’s also blasted Wyoming GOP leadership as deluded radicals leading the party down a dangerous path. I’m no fan of the Cheneys. But when people do the right thing, you have to thank them.

We’re finally getting some snow. November was almost snowless but we started catching up with the season on Christmas Eve and the ground is covered as I write this. Ski areas that delayed opening are now chest-deep in the stuff. I am closer to most Colorado ski areas than I am to Wyoming's Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. But JHMR reports some incredible snow amounts on its blog this morning:

As of January 8, since New Year's Day, we have received 63"! We received 42" in the last 48 hours. As of this morning, we received 24" in 24 hours. Total snowfall is now 240" on the year.

Damn. Most Colorado ski areas have received half of that. For the record, Cheyenne at 6,200 feet elevation receives about 60 inches of snow in an average year. Last year was one of extremes when we received half our total in one March blizzard. If we received 240 inches of snow, we would be digging tunnels to our cars and those tunnels would be pointless because the city would be waiting for the sun to come out for the its primary snow removal tactic. And waiting.

Weekend Round-up: Wolf says Meow, gigantic garden seed pods, and Notre Dame Cathedral visits the West

The garden has been winterized and the bulbs are in the ground. A pretty good year for tomatoes and Purple Podded Pole Beans, which I keep getting from the library's seed library because I like the name. Sounds like a crop a Martian might grow. The vines took over my container garden. Not tasty raw but can grow to incredible lengths because the beans blend in with the purple stems. There are some big ones, too. Not "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" big, but they're scary. The bigger they are, the tougher they are. Tomato varieties: Gold Nugget and Baxter's Early Bush Cherries. 

Mystery foliage still thrives in my big front yard flower pot. Looks like parsley but at first I thought cilantro since I was throwing around cilantro seeds in the spring. I used Plant ID but came up with nothing. I'll take some leaves into the Botanic Gardens and ask the experts. 

My two crabapple trees seem to be taking hold. Planted by Rooted in Cheyenne in August, they're six-feet tall and the leaves are dropping with the seasons. Must remember to water them on a regular basis. Weather Channel has mega-storms hitting the West Coast but whether the moisture makes its way to the Interior West is yet to be seen. Forecast calls for hurricane-force winds and giant waves on the Washington coast and up to eight inches of rain in California and multiple feet of snow in the Sierras. Pray for snow! Fortunately, Halloween is nigh and we all know what Halloween usually looks like around here.

I finished an article for WyoFile this week and it should appear online mid-week. It features two Wyoming-bred artists now living in Denver who highlight their work at the new Meow Wolf Denver. The four-story art outpost, wedged between I-25 and Colfax Avenue, opened Sept, 17. More than 300 artists contributed to the immersive art exhibit called Convergence Station, “the convergence of four different dimensions.” Haven't seen it in person yet but traveled there virtually through the imaginations of the artists. Look for my byline this week.

I just read "The Lincoln Highway" by Amor Towles. Color me clueless but I had never heard of this writer who has written many books. I will read more now that I blew through the latest on Kindle. The title attracted me. I live along the Lincoln Highway which was Hwy. 30 until it was swallowed up by I-80. I've researched the origins of America's first transcontinental highway for my novel. Fascinating stuff. Billy, an eight-year-old Nebraska boy in Towles novel, is fascinated by it and wants to travel it. But wanting to travel it in 1954 as Kerouac did just a few years earlier is tougher than it seems and launches his 400-page adventure. Great read. 

I'm also reading the new book of poetry by Betsy Bernfeld of Jackson and Laramie. Betsy is not only an accomplished poet but also an attorney and former librarian. I still treasure the tour of the old Jackson library Betsy led me on when I first came to work at the Wyoming Arts Council. That was the old log cabin library that smelled of wood. The new library is a work of art. I visit it every time I'm in Teton County. Betsy's book, "The Cathedral is Burning," was published by the fine Finishing Line Press in Lexington, Kentucky. It's one of the small presses that keeps literature alive in the U.S. and around the world. The book's cover features "The Mothers: Las Madres Project. No Mas Lagrimas, a public artwork about migrants in the Arizona desert at Pima Community College in Tucson. 

The other day I was thinking: how come there aren't more movies about poets? There are a few big names who have made it to the screen: Dante Alighieri, Allen Ginsberg, Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Emily Dickinson. That's a pretty good start. 

Surfing the streaming channels, I came across a film on Netflix about John Keats. I know Keats as a suffering English poet of the Late Romantic Period who died young at 25. He excelled at odes -- you don't see to many of those these days. "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," etc. I wasn't familiar with "Bright Star," a poem that speaks of mortality and youthful love. It's a beautiful poem that became the title of Jane Campion's movie, "Bright Star." Set in 1819 in a rural area just outside London, it tells the tale of a morose Keats and Fanny Brawne, a lively young woman was makes her own clothes and loves to dance. She is smitten with the scrawny poet. He eventually is smitten enough to write her several poems. His consumption gets supercharged after a night out in the rain. 

It's all over but the suffering. 

Thing is, Keats is doomed but the film is about Fanny's lovesickness. She is obsessed with Keats and she gets little in return. When he travels to London, she's in bed for five days, asking her mother why love hurts so bad. I kept hearing Nazareth's "Love Hurts" in my head. But her infatuation puts any pop song's lyrics to shame. She is physically ill when Keats goes to Rome to heal and won't take her along. She is torn asunder when word reaches her about the poet's death. They weren't married but were only informally engaged because her mother won't consent because she thinks her daughter is tetched and "people are talking." In mourning, she makes her own widow's weeds, cuts off her hair, and walks the heath for six years reciting her man's poems. That is worth a collection of odes right there. So sad to see her walking the heath reciting "Bright Star." She eventually marries and has three children but her future is also tied to Keats' gathering fame. 

Today I read a batch of Keats' poems and they are impressive. I also read some criticism that followed Keats post-mortem. I've always been more taken with Wordsworth and Coleridge and Blake of the Early Romantic Period. Later, Shelley was pretty cool although his wife was more cool. Lord Byron dies the true Romantic's death when he leaves poesy to fight a war that had nothing to do with him. Strange thing is, it seems as if Keats has a stronger legacy as the suffering creative genius. He was poor and unknown in his time. But the poet who suffers is still with us. And the poet's betrothed is the one whose suffering I felt most. 

Family Lore: in May 1915, Martin Hett waits in Liverpool for a British ship that isn't sunk by U-boats

My sister Molly sent me a packet of family letters and documents a few months ago and asked me to make sense of them, see if they came together in a story we could print for family consumption.

I finally read through them all and placed them neatly in a box. They sat in the box with me pondering the contents. I wasn't sure what to do next.

I decided to liberate one batch of papers from the box every day and post about it on my blog. That's the best I could do. 

This is a page about the early history of Martin James Hett, my maternal grandfather.  

Born July 14, 1899 in County Roscommon, Ireland. His mom (maiden name Nora McWalters) died at the birth of her fifth baby in 1900. Martin was 15 months old; Nora was buried in Galway. Widower Thomas Hett remarried to Delia Byrne; they had 11 children. Thomas, whose nickname was Bob, was born in village of Kiltobar, County of Roscommon. He died in 1932 and is buried in County Mayo. He farmed 15 acres and raised cows, chickens, ducks, sheep, and had one mule. Grew potatoes and tended a vegetable garden.

It rained a lot.

The family lived in a thatched-roof house (we have photos). Four rooms, flagstone floor. Cooked and heated with peat (turf) in large cast-iron pots hung from a hook. When Martin was eight years old, he worked for neighbors at six pence a day. He walked barefoot one mile to a school that had segregated classrooms for girls and boys. He allegedly left home voluntarily at 14. In family lore, Martin was 12 when kicked out by his evil stepmother and told to fend for himself. 

He went to Manchester, England, and found work in a coal mine. He worked two miles underground and was paid six shillings a day which was worth approximately $1.50 USD. 

He saved enough money to buy a steerage ticket to America out of Liverpool for $59. He first booked on the Lusitania which didn't arrive at port due to being sunk by a German submarine. He then booked on the Transylvania that was sunk by another U-boat. He finally got on the Cameronia and sailed to New York City in nine days, without incident. Went through Ellis Island and was released into the wild in America. What happened next will have to wait until we dig out the follow-up paperwork.

Editor's Notes

The Cameronia was a feisty little vessel. While sailing into the Mersey River on its return voyage in June 1915, it was attacked by a U-boat. The ship's captain tried to ram the German vessel which dove beneath the waves and broke off the attack. Two years later, the Cameronia was a British troopship headed to Alexandria, Egypt, when it was torpedoed. The ship sank in 40 minutes with 210 souls lost. More than 2,000 soldiers made it to the lifeboats and were saved. 

What it was like to be in England "The Summer Before the War"

The war was World War I or The Great War, as it was known before there was a second installment to worldwide slaughter. In the village of Rye in Sussex in England, the Edwardian Era was in full bloom. Men were men, women were women, and sheep grazed peacefully in verdant pastures. A young Latin teacher, Beatrice Nash, lands in the village. She still mourns the death of her father, a semi-famous poet. In Rye, she confronts the sexism of the time with great aplomb which caught this reader's attention right away. Her story is woven into those of Agatha Kent, a spunky middle-aged matron who lobbied to bring Beatrice to the local school. She also shelters her two nephews, Daniel, a foppish budding poet and Hugh, a medical student. The scene is set for this comedy of manners which eventually runs headlong into The Guns of August.

"The Summer Before the War" is Helen Simonson's second book and her first historical novel. She's done her homework, as far as I can tell. I am researching the same era in the U.S. for my novel "Zeppelins Over Denver," although a more accurate title might be "The Summer after the War." Only five years separate 1914 from 1919, but those years changed forever the very different worlds of Rye and Denver. The scope of those changes in Rye were perhaps more remarkable, given that the place had hundreds of years of history with pubs in buildings built in the 15th century. The settlement and later the city of Denver was but 60 years old in 1919, Colorado just 42 years into statehood and still possessed many of the traits of the frontier. Native Americans lived there for centuries but they were expendable during The Great Western Expansion, especially when gold was discovered in Cherry Creek. And we all remember the Sand Creek Massacre.

What happens when you deposit a crop of restless people into a restless place going through its own historic changes? A novel, I hope, a good one and publishable. Some 20 million people died in World War I and millions more in the Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919. More than a million U.S. soldiers went overseas and many returned changed in body and in mind. Nurses, too, women who had only imagined a quiet married life found themselves in bloody field hospitals while German shells exploded around them. Wars tumult sent many of them on the move to new places. Women would get the vote in 1920 and Prohibition began (Colorado got an early start in 1916). Racial strife spawned the "Red Summer" of 1919, when race riots flared in U.S. cities as black soldiers returning from war said they weren't going to take this shit any more. Working men went out on strike and were beat up and killed for their efforts. The Communists had turned Russia red. That "subversive" influence was felt in the U.S., and helped spawn the investigative unit that would eventually become J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. People traveled in automobiles and airplanes, even zeppelins. Jazz was the new sound and the Charleston the wild new dance.

What a time. I share Simonson's passion for the era. It involves digging into archives and digital records available through Google. War videos can be viewed on YouTube, and you can also listen to some great tunes such as "Come Josephine in My Flying Machine" and "How You Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm after They've seen Paree." The audio is tinny and scratchy which only adds to my listening pleasure. As I conducted research, it occurred to me that this entire generation is gone. A baby born in 1900, such as my Irish grandfather, would turn 119 this year. If you were born when the war ended, you would turn 101. There are some centenarians out there, but they are rare. Their collective memories lie within us, their descendants, and in the records they left behind. Their stories live on. However, it is through fiction that they really come to life.

Thus it is with Simonson's novel. Her leisurely writing style is reminiscent of the writers of the era, some of whom lived and worked in Sussex, such as Henry James and Virginia Woolf. But a formal tone and leisurely pace does not a boring book make. Simsonson''s characterizations are sharp and her conflicts very real. Humor, too, a real penchant for satire with writers as her favorite target. She has a lively time portraying the Henry James-like Tillingham, the poet Daniel who, a few decades on, would be wearing a black beret and mumbling his poems in a smoky coffee house, and Beatrice's almost-but-not-quite-famous father.

SPOILER ALERT! The townspeople rise to the occasion when was breaks out. They welcome refugees from Belgium. However, when one of the young women, Celeste, turns up pregnant and its discovered she was raped by German soldiers, angry residents lobby to turn her out. When her father arranges for Celeste to go to a convent, Daniel, the foppish poet, agrees to marry her. While Simonson sets her book in a bucolic setting in the midst of a beautiful summer and fall, she doesn't want us to forget that humans are fallible, even horrid, creatures..

"The Summer Before the War" is published by Random House. The trade paperback sells for $17. Listen to the 2016 Diane Rehm NPR interview with Simonson at https://dianerehm.org/shows/2016-03-22/helen-simonson-the-summer-before-the-war

Catching up on my reading -- D.H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers"

The most recent book I've read by D.H. Lawrence is "Sons and Lovers."

It's the only Lawrence novel I've read. Ever.

Not sure how I missed them. Although he published this and two other books prior to The Great War, his reputation was mostly made in the 1920s. He was in the midst of the "Lost Generation" of writers shaped by the war. He and his German-born wife, Frieda, were booted out of Cornwall in England for allegedly signalling German submarines. Lawrence is is mainly known in the U.S. for his time with Georgia O'Keefe and Mabel Dodge Luhan and writers such as Aldous Huxley in a ranch near Taos, N.M. He is the author of "Lady Chatterley's Lover," banned in the U.S. and U.K. in 1928. The first unexpurgated edition came out in 1960, 30 years after Lawrence's death from TB.

As spawn of the 1960s, I am surprised that I never read -- or tried to read -- "Lady Chatterley's Lover." Wasn't on the shelves in any of my K-12 schools, public or Catholic. It may have been in the public library but librarians of the day were on the lookout for impressionable teens attempting to check out smutty books. Guardians of the Book Galaxy.

Published in 1913, "Sons and L:overs" tells the story of Paul Morel as he comes of age in the Nottinghamshire coal-mining district. That's what initially attracted me to the book -- the coal-mining setting. But, unlike the film "How Green Was My Valley" (saw it on TCM last week) very little time is spent on the coal miners and their daily grind. Instead, we are absorbed in Paul's tale, almost absorbed as Paul is in his young life. Nothing new for a coming-of-age tale. But Paul's mother has a smothering presence. She's not evil but has transferred her attentions from her nogoodnik husband to her sons. When eldest son William dies, Paul is left holding the bag. He is talented, too, a young man who loves to paint and who knows his poetry. He is not destined for the mines, but something greater, and his mother intends to help him along the way.

That's the "sons" part of the tale. The "lovers" are Paul's, the innocent Miriam and the worldly Clara. You'd think an artistic chap such as Paul would have fled his one-horse town for life in London or Paris. But his mother keeps him close to home into his twenties.

I admire Lawrence's skill as a novelist. It's as plain a plot as any in literature. Will the guy flee his mother? Will he get the girl? I admit that the first 100 pages were hard-going. The pace of a 104-year-old novel is slower, as were the times. Lawrence takes his time noticing his home town of Eastwood, renamed Bestwood in the book. The flowers of summer, dazzling sunsets, people's feelings. We get inside Paul's head as he tries to determine the course of his life. Sensual -- but not sexual -- scenes power the novel. And leads me to rethink my own writing, more influenced by Raymond Carver than Henry James. Minimalist. Funny thing is, Lawrence was shocking in his time. His books were banned and so were the paintings, which were labeled as part of the daring Expressionist movement.

One of these best sensual sequences is when Paul accompanies Clara to the theatre. She wears a daring frock (daring for the time, anyway). "The firmness and softness of her upright body could almost be felt as he looked at her." (page 360).

'And he was to sit all evening beside her beautiful naked arm, watching the strong throat rise from the strong chest, watching the breasts under the green stuff, the curve of her limbs in the tight dress."

Something is going on on the stage but Paul hardly noticed. Clara and her parts "were all that existed."

The priggish Paul is enraptured. The foreplay goes on for quite a few pages until Paul and Clara finally get together in her bed. Sort of.

It's instructive to notice the shift in perception from 1907 rural England to 2017. Today, foreplay takes many fewer than 200 pages. Two-hundred characters, sometimes.

I did not find any graphic sex scenes in the edition I read, issued by Barnes & Noble Classics. It was published in 2003, so the scenes initially cut from the novel and returned in 1993, should be in there. Just for kicks,

This brings us the issue of censorship. That novel you are reading -- what edition is it? Was it cut up into a more acceptable shape before being published? To return to Carver, I've read varying versions of his stories. Apparently, his editor Gordon Lish had his own vision of Carver's stories. In our modern era, how much editing should authors allow? How much should they do?

I have found a few of Lawrence's public domain stories on the Internet. I will read some, especially those written during and after the war. One of my motives for reading Lawrence is to get a feel of the era, which is the setting of my novel. I've read quite a bit of nonfiction about The Great War and its aftermath. In some ways, fiction can do a better job of recreating the era. Good examples abound. "All Quiet on the Western Front." "The Good Soldier Schweik." "Farewell to Arms." And there are the British war poets who had a great influence on how the war was perceived by other generations. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. "Dulce et Decorum Est.."

"Wintry Peacock" is a malevolent short story by Lawrence. While some of the wording is dated, its theme of betrayal is as current as today's headlines. Here was a writer not Flannery O'Connor who featured peacocks in a story. Lawrence portrays the peacocks as dumb as stumps, more dim than the Morel family, which is experiencing a drama of its own making.  His style reminds me of that of his friend, E.M. Forster. See "The Other Side of the Hedge."

That is what aging provides, some perspective of what came before. I had good schooling. I have been filling in its blanks for 50 years. Maybe that's one of the positive aspects of the love of books and reading and writing. University liberal arts majors are belittled and, at some schools, discontinued. But my knowledge of books powered a career and sustains me in my retirement. I continue to discover treasures of other ages.

I just started "Three Soldiers" by John Dos Passos, yet another complicated writer of the Lost Generation. The writer was an ambulance driver in the war. I bought a slightly-used 1921 edition of the book for four bucks at an estate sale of a veteran of another war. The book still has the sleeve that housed the borrowers' card at the Merced (Calif.) Free Library. A date stamp on the title page reads March 21, 1922.

I hold history in my hands. I read.

Reading a novel of letters -- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

It takes skill to pull off an epistolary novel. That's one of the reasons I was so impressed by "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," co-written by American aunt/niece duo Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows. The authors reveal the story through letters from the main characters. The voices ring out through the letters, a lost art, unfortunately. You can find out so much about a person through letters, material you won't get through Twitter and Facebook.

One of the fascinating things about "Guernsey" is how much we learn about communication in the England of 1946. Letters to Guernsey on the Channel islands arrive by boat and airplane. Characters send cables and telegrams. On the island, note are slipped under doors. There are phone calls that are recalled via letter. When they aren't writing, people talk to one another, hang out together and take walks. They later write letters about it.

On the surface, the book is about the main character's effort to find a suitable topic for her next book. Juliet Ashton's claim to fame is her biography of one of the benighted Bronte sisters, Anne. She followed this up with a collection of newspaper columns she wrote during the war, "Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War." Ashton's plucky alter-ego recounts, with humor, her spirited efforts to make it through the home front during the Battle of Britain.

Did you know that the Channel Islands were occupied by the Nazis during World War Two? I guess I did, in an offhand sort of way. The occupation went from 1940-45, which is longer than some of Europe's German-occupied countries. The Channel Islands were isolated, closer to France than England. The British War Office realized bombing or invasion would kill more civilians than have any lasting effect on the war. A Resistance existed, with citizens sabotaging the Germans in subtle and unusual ways. Some hid escaped Todt (imprisoned) workers. That spells doom for one of the islanders, Elizabeth McKenna. She is sent to a Nazi concentration camp and, for most of the book, we await news on her fate. We also await the future path of Elizabeth's daughter Kit, conceived in an illicit affair with a German officer who was more human being than Nazi automaton.

The novel is a bit of a potboiler. Will Juliet find love with the American millionaire or the rugged islander? Will she adopt Kit? Will he ever write the book about Guernsey occupation during the war? Alas, dear reader, you have to read the book made up of many letters. Or you can watch the cable series (Showtime, I think) in the works for 2018.

As you know, the book is best.

Part II: Mudder's World War I diary

July 27, 1918, Saturday
Breakfast at 5am, can you beat it. Just an hour of so with Peany, my but I hate to see him go; but he promised to see me in Southampton tonight. We rode eight hours on a train, and so different from ours, four in a compartment. We were given a ration in the boat; we are to eat it for lunch, coffee served at Birmingham, with our sugar. We arrive at the Southampton hotel just in time for dinner. Goldie and I started out for a walk, got the funniest looking trolley, had trouble about money, some of the English don’t want to take our American money, others great for it. Goldie happened to have three pennies, which was enough. We were afraid we would have to walk back but we met two majors, not the one I wanted to meet though. We took a taxi ride got back about ten thirty. Met two Lieutenants of the 346 Artillery, had some ginger ale and took another taxi ride.

July 28, Sunday
Peany said he was very angry with me, I don’t know whether he meant it or not, he acted angry anyhow, he came around about ten thirty this am, stayed about an hour and a half. He left for France today. Saw him flying by in a large car he waved. Goldie said I sure was acting funny, I did feel rather blue. Went to bed about 930pm, homesick, the first time since I had left the states.

July 29, Monday
Goldie and I went shopping in Southampton today, bought some stationary and found some wonderful candy. We thought we should leave today, forty of the girls did go; but I am doomed for another night. To bed early again after we had some cake and ginger ale.

July 30, Tuesday
We have been getting up very late, eating breakfast at 10am, my that will never do. Up town again, went in an old church that is 1,000 years old, the second oldest in England. Surely was antique looking. We also went to Tudor Hall, lots of old curios that were mighty interesting. The most beautiful garden you ever saw. Rushed home to dinner and heard the good news, we are to leave at 3pm, thank goodness. We rushed around packed our suitcases, and ran back up town again, there we met two strange US officers who were so glad to see some American people. We told them we were going in to buy a diary book and some stationary. They insisted on going along and treated us to the purchases, which was so sweet of them. We got on a hospital ship at Southampton, only nine state rooms, so 31 of us had Ward A, a great large room with lots of beds in it. We had to be in bed at nine thirty but before going we donned our life belts and had a drill. We were quite used to them at this time. I did not sleep much, the channel was not rough but the ship seemed to tilt so much and the pillows, were they hard; I should say so.

July 31, Wednesday
4am, some man poked his head in our window and told us we had arrived safely. We were anchored out until 2pm. Such a dry old trip, one man on board and he married. Me, Goldie, Miss Kaufman, and Miss Monroe played 500 all morning. Reached Havre at 330pm, and mighty glad to see the place. We were received by American officers, put in great large US trucks and escorted to another hotel (“Moderne”), this life is so tiresome. Goldie and I were given a room alone; we rushed out then for a stroll. Lots of Americans here, and they never pass without speaking or saluting, oh it is so good to meet your own people and they are all so pleasant. On our way back we met Major Pesego, he insisted on us having something to drink, chairs and tables are all out in front of the hotel enclosed with shrubbery, rather nice looking too. Well I took ginger ale, whether the Major played a joke on me or not, I would not drink; it tasted so queer. We then took a ride, not in a machine, gas is very difficult to get, but we had a one-horse vehicle, only out an hour, rather nice ride, home in time for dinner. Nothing exciting happened at night, it is 9pm, I am blue so will retire; I heard the 346 had left Havre the day before, how disappointing.

Thursday August 1, 1918
What an exciting night, awakened at 1am by the falling of bombs. Was I scared, I should say. The first time Havre had ever had an air raid. The French people were all running for the stairs, I could not make anyone understand me, I told Goldie I thought we were supposed to go to the first floor, we found our kimonos and slippers, did not take time to put them on, and we ran down stairs, could not find one American person, and oh such a dark place. We remained down for about an hour. I don’t think we had much sleep afterwards. Was delighted to see daybreak, that was our first experience with bombs, I am sure there are a great many ahead of us. We all left the hotel in large trucks, on arriving at the station, we were put six in a compartment, given a ration for the following day consisting of canned tomatoes, salmon, beans and jam, we had white bread which was a treat. We did not sleep very well that night, as we had no berths, and we arrived in Paris at 5am. We only remained there two hours.

August 2, 1918
We went to the American Red Cross in Paris and they gave us coffee, bread and cheese. It tasted very good and then we got on another train and had a very pleasant journey nearly every station we met a lot of American boys and also a great many in cars along the road. We played 500 all morning, tried to take a nap in the afternoon, but impossible, so many interesting things. The country was wonderful. I really saw such beautiful scenery. We reached Bazoilles at 9pm. There we met several officers we knew, talked a while and then had supper. Goldie and I were given a room together, which is real nice, needs a little fixing up.

Here’s some background history, courtesy of Dr. Marian Moser Jones, assistant professor of family science at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. Dr. Jones wrote this description of the Bazoilles-sur-Meuse hospital complex:

This was a large hospital complex originally designed to handle up to 13,000 patients. It included Base Hospital 18 (the Johns Hopkins Unit), Base Hospital 42 (the Maryland Unit), Base Hospital 46, Base Hospital 60 (from Bismarck Hospital, North Dakota), and Base Hospital 116, from New York. Base Hospitals 79 and 81, organized from the Army at large, arrived in October at the complex. (See The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, Chapter 24, Army Office of Medical History website.)

Dr. Jones found that "the nurses, orderlies, and doctors from the Bazoilles-sur-Meuse were moved around" quite often. Some of the reasons can be found in the 1929 book by orderly Frederick Pottle, Stretchers: the Story of a Hospital Unit on the Western Front:

When the American Army arrived in France, there was a good deal of disagreement as to the status on which it should operate. General Pershing naturally wished for the American armies to preserve their identity, and be assigned a sector of the front as their own particular project. The other Allied generals would have preferred to use the American troops as replacement battalions for the French and British lines, which were already holding the trenches. In the end, General Pershing prevailed, and chose, or was assigned, as the American sector, the line east of Verdun, a part of the front which was then quiet. Back of this area a vast and complicated service of supplies was being built up, including the necessary hospital centers. Bazoilles-sur-Meuse was one of the places where it was intended to concentrate the resources of several hospital organizations. For this purpose a considerable number of wooden barracks had been erected, and were awaiting companies to take them over. In the normal course of things, we should have encamped there, equipped our operating rooms and wards, and held ourselves in readiness for the moment when General Pershing thought the time had come to order a general advance. 

But these plans were roughly upset. In the spring of 1918, as everyone knows, the Germans launched a series of furious and successful drives against the French and British lines. On May 27 [the Germans'] third drive broke the French line, swept across the Aisne and the Vesle, and pressed on to the Marne, a gain of thirty miles in three days. The peak of the advance rested at Château-Thierry on the Marne, forty miles east and slightly north of Paris. General Foch asked Pershing for his best available troops. Pershing at once sent in the Third Division to hold the bridges at Château-Thierry and to prevent the Germans from penetrating farther south, and the Second to stop any German advance westward on Paris. Since June 1, while we had been jaunting across France, the Second had been suffering fearful casualties in the memorable battle of Belleau Woods. No American hospital service had been organized back of this part of the line, and the French, because of their great loss of hospitals and materials in the German advance, found themselves unable to care adequately even for their own wounded. An evacuation hospital was urgently needed back of Château-Thierry. Although we were far away in the Vosges, we were the only evacuation hospital in France then available. We had hardly reached Bazoilles-sur-Meuse before the order arrived for us to go back and set up our hospital somewhere northeast of Paris.

Again, here's Dr. Jones:

Dr. Arthur Shipley, a prominent professor of surgery at the University of Maryland, was featured in a series of articles published in the Bulletin of the University of Maryland School of Medicine; between 1919 and 1920. Florence Green mentioned meeting Shipley and working with him in her Oct. 26 diary entry. Frederick Pottle worked under him as an orderly. He later wrote a supplement to Pottle's book, The Officers and Nurses of Evac. No. 8. Although Green only served at this hospital for a short time, Shipley lists her in the supplement.

Here's Dr. Shipley describing Paris at about the time of Nurse Green's visit:

"During June and until July 15 Paris was being shelled almost every day and every clear night the German bombing planes went over us toward the French capital. Sometime between the last of June and the beginning of the Second Battle of the Marne had occasion to go to Paris number of times. I had seen something of Paris twelve years before. It was very changed. Not much so in mere outward appearances; the boulevards, the bridges, the churches, the open spaces and monuments were the same, but the crowds, the movement, the boulevard life were all gone. Sad and deserted, and waiting for its doom; doom that seemed at that time not far off. During this time there were no leaves granted. Soldiers were everywhere with their commands, and saw practically no officers or men in Paris. It was time of great anxiety and still greater watchfulness. Everyone was wondering where the big drive would take place."

Florence Green ("Mudder") arrived on Aug. 2, 1918, at U.S. Army Base Hospital No. 42, Bazoilles-Sur-Meuse, France, University of Maryland Nursing School Alumni Association Collection.

Part I: Mudder's World War I diary

Here’s a puzzler that could be on the Travel Channel’s “Mysteries at the Museum:”

The object, almost 100 years old, measures four inches by seven inches. It has a black cover that’s falling apart and is held together by a strip of duct tape. Its inside pages are turning brown and are filled with tiny, hard-to-read handwriting.

What is it? Answer: Mudder’s diary.

The diary belonged to our paternal grandmother, Florence Green Shay. She’s called “Mudder” because her eldest grandchild, me, couldn’t pronounce Grandmother or Grandma and shortened it to Mudder. The name stuck. She looked more like a Florence than a Mudder. She was a bespectacled bridge-playing Denver matron when we grandkids got to know her as we grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. She screeched for joy and hugged us soundly when we came to visit, especially after we moved away from Denver in 1960.

A Baltimore native, she was a devoted baseball fan who loved her hometown Orioles. She took my brother and me to Denver Bears games even though they were a farm team for the Orioles arch-nemesis, the New York Yankees. When she died in 1980, she had been married to her husband Raymond for almost 60 years.

The two shared a common bond. They were both World War I veterans when they met at Fitzsimons Army Hospital in Aurora, Colo., in 1921. She was an officer in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. He had mustered out as a cavalry officer in the Iowa National Guard. They are buried together in Fort Logan National Cemetery in southwest Denver. We can’t hear any more stories in person from our grandparents. But Mudder’s diary survives, and it tells tales. We knew little about the diary. Mudder occasionally mentioned it when she was alive. It wasn’t until my sister Eileen Shay Casey in Winter Park, Fla., got her hands on it after our father died that I had a chance to read it. Eileen, also a trained nurse but now working for a private foundation, transcribed the diary. No small task, as our grandmother’s handwriting is cramped and sometimes difficult to read. And – 96 years after the final entry – these inked memories are fading. This transcript gives us all a peek into the life of one of our ancestors cast into a far-off war.

I’ll post excerpts (along with photos) every few days on this blog. I appreciate any comments, although I’ll only print those that have some bearing on the subject at hand. At the end, those interested will be able to order a print transcript from blog2print.com – more about that later.

My sister and I would like to thank Dr. Marian Moser Jones, assistant professor of family science at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, who provided some of the background information about Florence’s experiences, which I will intersperse among the diary excerpts. She is a passionate researcher who has written extensively on the subject of World War I nurses. Thank you, Dr. Jones.

The following is the transcript of the diary Florence Green Shay kept while in the U.S., England and France, 1918-1919:

July 12, 1918, Hotel Bristol 
We were all very much pleased when Miss Sarin told us today that we would leave the hotel the following day. Of course we felt a little blue to think we were going so far from home. Goldie and I proceeded to a first class restaurant and had a last good meal. We also thought of a half dozen things we wanted. We went to Keith’s at night but did not enjoy it very much, shows were becoming quite boring.  

July 13, Saturday
I was quite excited waiting for the anxious moment. Before going on ship, I decided I must have a certain record for the Victrola, Baby’s Prayer at Twilight.  Did some tall rushing to get it too. The staterooms were wonderful. May Callaway, Goldie and I am occupying #30.  We all went to bed early the first night. Everything was strange, but only the first day.

July 14, Sunday
Before sailing, we had our first boat drill. Seemed very funny to carry life preserver`s around every place we went, but towards the last we felt lost without them. Sunday was not a very exciting day. The hands played some music but not popular songs. We sailed on the Balticand had twelve other ships in the convoy. Destroyers and aero planes were with us for a day and a half. Felt funny when they left.

July 15, Monday
We started to get acquainted this day; I think there were about 200 officers on board and 100 nurses. We had a good time. Danced from five to seven, the jazz played for us, some music too. July 16, Tuesday The ship seemed to rock more this day. I did not tarry in the dining room long. Seasick, I should say not, I would never be guilty.

July 17, Wednesday
Met some dandy people, everybody seemed so nice. Would buy candy, but to think I refused it from Sunday until today and only one piece. They needn’t think I am going to get seasick. July 18, Thursday We are still having our boat drill every day or I should say twice a day. So often we are called at a most inopportune time, but no difference, get your life jacket on, and run. I am eating a little more candy today.

July 19, Friday
Rather foggy and raining. The sun is also rather rough but did not affect me any. We had our dance just the same, lots of fun too. The 62^nd Coast Artillery gave a dandy entertainment, was mighty good, and closed the evening by playing the Marseillaise, God Save the King, and The Star Spangled Banner.

July 20, Saturday
Nothing special happened. We had the Victrola out in the morning, danced a few dances. This is my bath night, and to think it is Saturday, so much the nicer.  The bath steward will be in, in a moment, he does want us to keep clean.

July 21, Sunday
Went to church in the afternoon, quite different then the services I usually go to. After dinner we all went back in the 2^nd class dining room where the troops were and helped them sing some songs. After this, I met a very interesting man, Major Gay - only talked to him a few minutes. Heard a few rumors about submarines, but have not worried about them much.

July 22, Monday
Met the major this morning. His girl went back on him, so I promised to stick. He nicknamed me “Pinky” an awfully nice man. We had a dance and believe me, the major is some dancer.

July 23, Tuesday
Seeing a good deal of the major. Had a big scare today. They say there is a nest of submarines in our course, but our convoy has changed its route now. Believe me, it is sure cold too, only 700 miles from Iceland.

July 24, Wednesday
Rather thrilling to see about twelve destroyers around us on this day, we feel so safe now. Our cruiser left us last night and oh how lonely we did feel.

July 25, Thursday
This is the most dangerous of days, as we are wearing our life preservers all the time now. We are in the real war zone now, but not too much danger to keep from dancing. I forgot to say we had to be in our staterooms every night at 900pm, lights out at 10pm.  The Red Cross furnished us with rubber suits the funniest looking things; they are supposed to keep us up in water for three days. I will try to have mine handy tonight with a little chocolate handy. We have been told it would be better to sleep in part of clothes.

July 26, Friday
Well we are safe and sound; I have not seen a submarine yet. To think we are looking at land once more. It looks wonderful! Liverpool looks good to me. We are to anchor out tonight, the lights will be all lighted and a great celebration, a big dance. Peany, the major, asked his old girl for a dance, it made me jealous but him very foolish. We are allowed to stay out until 11pm. To think it is our last night on the ship, I feel real sad.

Editor’s Note: Listen to Henry Burr’s 1918 rendition of “A Baby’s Prayer at Twilight (for her daddy over there)” at https://youtu.be/nfuZ4rT1j88

May 11, 1915: Florence Green (far left, second row) graduated from Maryland General Hospital Training School for Nurses. MGH Training School operated as a nursing school from 1891 until 1987, when it closed. Maryland General Hospital now operates under the name University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus. 

Maryland General Hospital Training School for Nurses in Baltimore.

The Baltic, the ship that took Mudder's Unit to Europe.

Meanwhile, in Liverpool, my grandfather awaits the Lusitania

In "Dead Wake," Erik Larson tells the story of the last Atlantic crossing of the R.M.S. Lusitania, Larson is a fantastic storyteller and I should have known better than to start reading his latest book before bedtime. Two hours later, I was deep into the tale but had to get some shut-eye. Tomorrow's another day....

Larson's "Isaac's Storm" was my first contact with the writer. As always, he takes a defining historic event, this time the devastating 1900 Galveston hurricane, and takes it down to sea level, seeing the cataclysm through the eyes of local meteorologist Isaac Cline.

Wasn't that a mighty storm
Wasn't that a mighty storm in the mornin'
Wasn't that a mighty storm
It blew all the people away.

Larson has a novelist's eye for detail and characterization. We all want to hear other people's stories. When we tell stories, we always tell it from a person's P.O.V. What did you do in the way, daddy? How did you two meet? Who are you named after?

How did you get to the U.S., Grandpa?

My maternal grandfather, Martin Hett, waited in Liverpool for the Lusitania to dock on May 7, 1915. Martin,. 14, held a steerage ticket for New York. One way. For the past two years, Martin had worked in the coal mines of northern England. In 1912, he left the poverty of County Roscommon in Ireland to make his own way in the world. His ultimate destination was the United States, home to an older brother and sister who earlier had fled Ireland.

Martin was not a gregarious Irishman. Gruff and hard-working, he didn't spend a lot of time telling tales. His Lusitania tale was a short one. He waited for the Lusitania to arrive in Liverpool. Pieces of it arrived, the flotsam and jetsam left after a German U-boat attack. He rescheduled his ticket for the next ship to New York. The Germans sunk that one, too. The third time was a charm.

That's it. No florid touches. No grandiose descriptions. He made it to New York and then to Chicago, where his brother got him a job working downtown's elevated trains.

As a trained reporter and researcher, I could easily trace Martin's story. And I will, one of these days. It's a fine story as is. It's as good as my paternal grandfather's story about General Pershing riding his Iowa National Guard cavalry mount during a break in the action during World War I. It's as good as my maternal grandmother's claim to have served as the first postmistress of a PO in small-town Ohio. It stacks up against my Maryland-raised paternal grandmother's claim that her mother's family was kin to Robert E. Lee of the Virginia Lees. All of these claims can be tested. That's what the Internet is for. DNA tests, too.

I'm also a fiction writer. I make stuff up. Sometimes I begin with the kernel of a story. Sometimes it's a situation or a snippet of conversation. It might be an old memory. It might be someone else's memory. I am blessed and/or cursed with wonderful recall. Thing is, when I tell a story at a family gathering, other family members remember the same situation differently. Memory plays tricks on us. Writers need fact checks if they are writing non-fiction. If writing fiction, we still need to make sure that we have the names and dates right. The Lusitania was sunk on such a day and such a time. As for the reasons why, we still have writers speculating 100 years later. And why is that? The sinking of the Lusitania is one of the reasons given for the U.S. entry into the European war two years later.

The more history I read, the less I understand. I love the stories, as does Larson. One incident leads to another. The Lusitania, the fastest ship in the Cunard Line inventory, the greyhound of the Atlantic, races toward Liverpool. Unterseeboot-20 awaits. The German submarine is captained by Walther Schweiger, his surname the same as my wife's maiden name. "No relation," she says. "How do you know?" I reply. She shrugs. Her German relatives were simple farm folk who immigrated to the U.S. before World War I. Capt. Schweiger was a well-to-do city boy from Berlin, "No relation," she said.

My grandfather must have been wrapping up his job in the mines, ready to head to America. At 14, a veteran coal miner. Imagine that. What were you doing at 14? At 14, I graduated from Catholic grade school which, in those days, was eighth grade. My only job up to that point was paperboy. I had never seen the inside or the outside of a coal mine.

Martin Hett had already left his home country of Ireland. He now was leaving his adopted country to travel to America. His adopted country was at war, as he would discover dramatically in Liverpool. That was 100 years ago next month.

Larson illustrates his tale of the Lusitania with portraits of the ship's captain and crew, and a variety if passengers. He imagines life in a crowded and dangerous submarine. He doesn't mention my grandfather awaiting the big ship to dock and take on new passengers. That's up to me, of course.

It's all in the story.

The BBC transforms a great Brian Wilson song into a video promo

Brian Wilson's great "God Only Knows" has been transformed by the BBC into a "for the love of music" video promo with a cast of thousands. I like it. The song comes from Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys' masterpiece, according to many critics, and one of the influences for The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I barely paid any attention when Pet Sounds came out in the summer of 1966 as I was busy sharpening my dancing skills for Motown hits. Take a look...

Lesson for politicians and military leaders: Never talk to poets

On Thursday evening, CNN's "The Sixties" aired its segment on the Vietnam War. In real time in Washington, D.C., Vietnam War veteran and POW John McCain was beating the war drums, this time for our re-involvement in another quagmire, Iraq. All week chickenhawks such as Dick Cheney had been screeching about Pres. Obama losing Iraq. President Obama staged a press conference is which he said he was sending advisers to help the Iraqi army turn back the attacks by ISIS, basically a bunch of zealots dressed in white pajamas fighting an unconventional war in the desert.

Chris and I watched the one-hour history of our involvement in Southeast Asia. Kennedy sent advisers to Vietnam and Johnson, intent on following in the slain president's footsteps, did likewise. Nobody wanted to be accused to being the one who lost Vietnam to the commies. The "domino theory" was first espoused by Ike in a 1954 speech. "The Sixties" showed a black-and-white TV news clip of dominoes set on a big floor map of Southeast Asia. The newscaster tips the first domino and the rest of them fall, one by one. If Vietnam goes, so goes Laos and Thailand and so on. Soon, little guys in black pajamas would be prowling the suburbs of Denver and Dallas and Detroit.

So we sent millions of young men from Denver and Dallas and Detroit to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. And for what?

You tell me.

It's a long story, I know. It keeps playing out in myriad ways in our own politics. The war was fought in pitched battles in Vietnam and on the home front. It left lasting scars. We made some attempts at healing in the 1970s but then along came Ronald Reagan and his Cold Warriors. We fought proxy wars with the Soviets all over the globe, rebuilt the military and then the new century arrived and Bush and Cheney launched a whole new wave of foreign misadventures.

We'll soon mark the 100th anniversary of "The Guns of August," those missteps that launched the first global war. Farmers in France and Belgium are still digging up unexploded artillery shells. Trench lines can be seen from space. Historians have spent the last 100 years explaining the slaughter to us. As is often the case, we have to rely on the poets and writers to get at the gut-level experiences if war. This is "Does It Matter" from 1918 by Siegfried Sassoon:

Does it matter? — Losing your legs?
For people will always be kind,
And you needn't show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting,
And gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter? — Losing your sight?
There's such splendid work for the blind,
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering,
And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter? — Those dreams from the Pit?
You can drink, and forget, and be glad,
And no one will say that you're mad,
For they'll know that you fought for your country,
And no one will worry a bit.

And Randall Jarrell's "Death of a Ball Turret Gunner" from 1945;

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Here's "Facing It" from fellow CSU grad and Vietnam vet Yusef Komunyakaa:

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

Carolyn Forche wrote a scary and much anthologized prose poem, "The Colonel," about the proxy war in El Salvador. Forche went to El Salvador in the late 1970s as a poet and a fan of Claribel Alegria but ended up being a campaigner for human rights. Members of the military junta thought she was a CIA agent working as a poet, which may have led to her being invited to dinner with high-ranking military officers. It was during one of these dinners that Forche had the following encounter:

WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried
a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went
out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the
cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over
the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English.
Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to
scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his hands to lace. On
the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had
dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for
calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of
bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief
commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was
some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot
said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed
himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say
nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries
home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like
dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one
of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water
glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As
for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck them-
selves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last
of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some
of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the
ears on the floor were pressed to the ground. 

This comes from Forche's interview with Bill Moyers as recounted in the 1995 book, The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets:

Moyers: Had I reported that incident as a journalist, I would have been quite literal: who, what, when, where, and why. What's the relationship between these facts as a journalist would report them and the truth that you're trying to reveal?
Forché: Some writers whom I admire very much say that facts often have little to do with the truth. What I was trying to do with this piece, as I finally allowed it to be in The Country Between Us, was to acknowledge that something important had actually occurred. But the poem also contains a truth about the brutality of that situation which seems to reach deeply into people. When I came back to the United States and began reading the poem, I noticed that some people were very moved by it and others were very angered by it. And some people simply didn't believe it, they said it could not have happened. There was a fierce denial and yet several years later a reporter for The Washington Post interviewed soldiers in El Salvador and they apparently talked about the practice of taking ears and all of that. In fact, one of these soldiers read the news story about his practice of taking ears and was so proud of the story that he actually clipped it out and laminated it and carried it in his wallet. Because now he was famous, you know, for this.
Moyers: That's what can happen to a journalist's account. But the poem is a condemnation.
Forché: It is a condemnation. As a journalist, maybe you wouldn't have been able to use the obscenity, and perhaps you wouldn't have been able to quote him directly. But more than that, I don't think it would've happened to you because I don't think the message was intended for the press. It was intended for a quiet communication back to Washington, and unfortunately they told the wrong person. They told a poet.
Moyers: Lesson for politicians and military leaders: Never talk to poets.
Forché: Never.

The colonel in the poem also had the reputation for warning Catholic priests that were targeted by right-wing death squads. So it goes...

Each war spawns more war poems. The launch of the "shock and awe" campaign in Iraq caused poet Sam Hamill to put out a call for protest poems for a web site and later an anthology called "Poets Against the War" (later "Poets Against War"). I made a modest contribution to the web site collection. I'm not a poet, you see, but poetry does focus the imagination and the anger. 

Now that chickenhawks are squawking about returning to Iraq, it's only fitting that I end with this poem by Iraq War veteran and University of Oregon M.F.A. grad Brian Turner:

The Hurt Locker   

Nothing but hurt left here.

Nothing but bullets and pain

and the bled-out slumping

and all the fucks and goddamns

and Jesus Christs of the wounded.

Nothing left here but the hurt.

Believe it when you see it.

Believe it when a twelve-year-old

rolls a grenade into the room.

Or when a sniper punches a hole

deep into someone’s skull.

Believe it when four men

step from a taxicab in Mosul

to shower the street in brass

and fire. Open the hurt locker

and see what there is of knives

and teeth. Open the hurt locker and learn

how rough men come hunting for souls.

Some samples from 100 years of poetry about war. No non-U.S. voices were included, although their numbers are legion. I'll save that for a future post...
 

Artist gives life to depression and its cousins

From the Daily Mail in the U.K.:

Toby Allen, a Cornish artist, has imagined what eight common mental illnesses would look like if they were monsters.

He drew what he believed anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, social anxiety, avoidant personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, paranoia and dissociative identity disorder would look like as monsters.

Allen said: ‘The artwork is not at all intended to make light of these conditions but instead is intended to give these intangible mental illnesses some substance and make them appear more beatable as physical entities.’

For starters, he has a pretty good take on depression.

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2449864/Artist-Toby-Allen-imagines-mental-illness-monsters.html#ixzz2k1WlVmDA 

Author Mary Gillgannon talks about publishing and e-publishing Sept. 20 at the library

My writing pal, Mary Gillgannon, is conducting a program at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 20, at the Laramie County Public Library in Cheyenne. She'll be talking about the strange world of publishing and the even stranger world of e-publishing. She will be answering questions and sharing her experiences in those odd realms. I also hear that she is making her delicious chocolate chip cookies for treats for the people who show up. So show up.

Let's pause for an unpaid commercial announcement:

The Silver Wheel, a novel of Celtic Britain, available now at
http://marygillgannon.com

I read an early version of The Silver Wheel at our critique group. It is terrific, made even better by the revision process. 

Unusual magic show about a British lunatic asylum had its roots in Cheyenne

"Battered Bride" by Forrest King

Today's Denver Westword carried a story about an unusual magic show that had its roots in Cheyenne. Denver magician Aiden Sinclair was asked by artist Forrest King to do a magic show in Cheyenne last summer to benefit for the Laramie County Safehouse. You may know Forrest King for his social engaged art. His most famous piece is "Battered Bride" (shown above) that he did in an effort to publicize the plight of the many abuse and battered women amongst us. He's travelled to churches and other venues, artwork in tow, to talk about the issue and to raise funds for Safehouse.

While in Cheyenne, Aiden Sinclair wrote an unusually magic show that revolved around abused women from another time and place. Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum was housed in a gorgeous British mansion. But what happened on the inside was far from gorgeous. Most of its "patients" were women committed bu their well-to-do husbands because it was easier (and cheaper) that getting a divorce. Most women were fairly young when committed, but they usually died there, because the only person who could release them were their husbands, who wielded all the power.

I'll let Westword tell the rest of the story:

At Aiden Sinclair's magic show, you won't see any bunnies pulled out of hats or ladies cut in half. Sinclair describes From a Padded Room: An Evening in Colney Hatch Asylum, which plays at 7 p.m. Saturday, September 8, at the Tattered Cover LoDo event hall in Denver, as an empathic journey back in time to the very real British asylum and the horrible practices that went on in its halls. Beyond the chilling entertainment, $5 from each ticket sold will go to support SafeHouse Denver, which provides emergency shelter, counseling and advocacy for survivors of domestic violence.

We caught up with Sinclair in advance of the show to learn about the history of Colney Hatch and his mission to raise awareness about domestic abuse.

Westword: How did the show come about?

Aiden Sinclair: The show came about by coincidence. A friend of mine in Cheyenne is a gentleman named Forrest King and he's an extremely talented artist. And the cool thing about him is all of his painting is really driven toward social issues that a lot of people don't talk about at all. So he did this painting that's called the "Battered Bride," and the first time I saw this painting it was extremely emotional. It's one of those things that's really hard to look at, but you can't look away at the same time.

So he had approached me about doing some magic at a benefit that he had, and as soon as he asked if I would do a benefit I said absolutely. It kind of struck me that normally when I perform magic for people the object of magic is the suspension of reality -- it's to take people away from the world and bring them into some imaginative creation that's somewhat impossible. Generally as a magician, for eighteen years I've been very happy to take people away from their problems. This, however, seemed like something that you needed to bring people to, not away from. And I thought it was important that if you have a bunch of people getting together to donate money to a cause, they should really be conscious of exactly what it is that they're donating to and that they're helping people.

So we stopped the show and took it off of production and went into pre-production of this show specifically for this cause. Just to raise money for safehouses. So that was the trick. How do you write a show about domestic violence and still have something that's entertaining, that people would want to sit down and watch?

--clip--

We basically designed the show around this place [Colney Hatch Asylum] and around the tragic tale of what happened to women in those days, and we take people on a very empathic trip back in time. It's not like any magic show that has ever really been done before. There are no card tricks, there are no bunnies out of hats, there is no traditional magic to it. We basically take those patient registries, hand them out to the audience, and we ask audience members to pick a patient. It's a free choice; these books have 500 different people in them, some of them are good, some of them are bad, and you basically will pick a person and become that person in your mind. You'll actually visualize what it would be like to be that person. And it's an extremely emotional experience for folks. It's really a neat show, mainly because it's not physical. It's very cerebral. It's exciting.

The first time we ever did it we presented at an art gallery in Cheyenne. We did four shows over a two day period and they were the most emotionally draining four days I think of my life. About 70 percent of the audience left in tears or visibly shaken. And not in a way that they were scared or anything, it just really struck them. And I wanted the show to have meaning but I was really unprepared for the response that I got, and that has been the consistent response.

To buy tickets for the Tattered Cover event, go to www.fromapaddedroom.com. For more information about SafeHouse Denver and 24-hour crisis help, call 303-318-9989 or visit www.safehouse-denver.org. For info about Forrest King, go to http://www.facebook.com/AlternativeArt.