To Live

Northville, MI picture by Bruce G. Smith

First Draft

Bok Tower, Photo by Bruce G. Smith

The first draft doesn't have to be perfect.

It just has to be written.

A Tribute to F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald 1921

I had finished The Great Gatsby, and was looking for something else to read when I noticed West of Sunset by Stewart O’Nan. It’s about the last three years of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life. He did justice to the phrase live fast, die young, stay pretty. He died of heart complications at the age of 44.

O’Nan wrote the biography in a creative fiction tone. It reads smoothly like a fiction story rather than a regurgitation of facts. He draws the reader in, and keeps him hooked throughout the rest of the book.

The story begins in 1937. The United States starts to climb out of the Great Depression. Europe gallops towards another war. Fitzgerald’s career has ended. People are no longer interested in reading about partying, extravagance and the Jazz Age. They are still trying to put food on the table.

Fitzgerald's wife Zelda lived in an asylum, and his daughter Scottie attended a private school. Scott has become broke and homeless. He started working as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Ernest Hemingway has returned from Spain, and Scott gets assigned to adapting one of Hemingway’s short stories to the big screen.

Unfortunately and no big surprise, Fitzgerald has a problem with alcohol. He can’t manage to stay off the gin long enough to put his life together. He worked on Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz scripts, but got fired before the projects were completed. He received no credits and no royalties. It was sad to read about his inability to defeat his demons. He would get so close, and then plummet once again.

His friends and associates continued to bail him out. They would loan him money, find him jobs, and give him cash advances against projects that he never finished. He had tremendous talent and opportunities. Even at the end he remained charismatic.

In addition to his wife and daughter, he had a long time girl friend, Sheilah Graham. She would get tired of watching his self-abuse, but she always felt sorry for him and would come back. He had a housekeeper and a secretary that by the end he couldn’t pay, but they also adored him and stuck with him.

It’s a sad story, but O’Nan manages to keep it light and entertaining. I loved this paragraph, and I have to share.  It’s Christmas, Sheilah and Scott go tree shopping. 

“Here they drove to a used-car lot on Pico and chose from a few drooping specimens lined up against the fence like prisoners while a loud speaker hectored them with tinny carols. The salesman charged him an extra fifty cents to wrap the tree in burlap and lash it to the roof of the Ford, and then, on Ocean Boulevard, as Scott braked for a light, it slipped its bonds, sailed free like a torpedo or a body prepared for burial at sea, banged off the hood and continued into the intersection where it finally came to a stop.”

I enjoyed the book despite its sad topic. O’Nan wrote descriptive narrative that treated Scott with respect, and also made the reader feel like they were living the experience with the cast.

What Makes a Master

The Great Gatsby: Would it be a popular read today?

Henry Ford Museum

I enjoyed The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald spins the language with a touch of elegance not seen in the pulp fiction stories today. Our reading mimics our life style. It has become short sound bites filled with action. People don’t want the story gummed up with text. We want a story in 120 characters.

If Fitzgerald wrote this today more than likely he would need to self-publish. The big publishing houses wouldn’t touch it. They want a fast pace and lots of action. It’s an unfortunate loss for the reader. 

Fitzgerald uses the language to its full extent. He takes advantage of beautiful poetic prose and metaphors. Unfortunately, I felt most readers wouldn't get it.

At least that is what I thought as I read the book, but I checked Amazon’s sales list. The Great Gatsby is ranked 106 on the bestseller list, and number 6 on the classics list. Wow!

Then I thought, maybe it is because of the movie. Maybe DiCaprio’s role in the movie is selling books. Again I turned to Amazon. It has been reviewed over 5,000 times, and only 5% of those gave it one star while approximately 60% gave it five stars. Most of the bad reviews were because of formatting quality rather than the content.

Readers get the story. Readers enjoyed the poetic language. They didn’t mind the slow story with very little action. They like Fitzgerald’s use of metaphors. Or maybe they like a story about the filthy rich living a life of drunken debauchery. Either way the book has been around for over 90 years, and it still sells. Who wouldn’t want to write a book with that kind of track record.

Calico Joe by John Grisham

Baseball 1973, the National League won the All Star game. Teams tweaked their rosters for their run to the World Series. In John Grisham’s Calico Joe, the Cubs gave Joe Castle of Calico, Arkansas the nod.

Calico Joe came with a pedigree. His grandfather played for the Cleveland Indians, his father played for the Pirates. His brothers played for the Senators and the Phillies. The Cubs felt good about bringing him up. Joe rewrote the record books, and Cub fans visualized the World Series. Baseball pandemonium ruled the North Side of Chicago.

Eleven-year-old Paul Tracey became enamored with Joe. He listened to as many games as possible. He cut out articles from the paper and glued them in his scrapbook. Only one problem, Paul’s dad, Warren pitched for the Mets.

Warren was hard and Warren was mean. He wasn’t a good father. Warren ends Calico Joe’s career with a bean ball, a 98-mile per hour pitch to the head. Bam! Knocks the guy out, right in the eye.

In Calico Joe, Grisham writes a story depicting a slice of Americana. He gives us baseball at a point in time when baseball meant more than just money. Entwined in the story of baseball, we get family emotions, child abuse, adultery, cancer and death. We also get reconciliation and forgiveness.

Warren Tracey suffers with pancreatic cancer, one of the most painful and deadly forms. No one feels sorry for him. Grisham does a good job of vilifying the man, but maybe by the end you’ll feel differently. Maybe.

Paul tries to over come their differences, the neglect, the abuse, and the KOB (knock out by baseball). Paul wants to make things right, for Joe and baseball, not his dad. In the process, may be he does help his dad. You’re the reader, you decide.

Baseball books in general contain lots of statistics and trivia. This one has some trivia, but doesn’t overdo it. In the author’s note, Grisham admits that some of the facts have been changed to make the story flow better. Baseball aficionados will catch him on these. However, the basics are correct. It is Willie Mays last season. The Mets do make the World Series, and the Cubs are trying to catch them.

Much like baseball, this book pulls the emotional strings. At times you’re not sure if you love or hate the characters. Except for Joe, he’s perfect. It contains and revolves around baseball, but you don’t have to know baseball to enjoy Calico Joe.

Steampunk, Vampires, and Cherie Priest

So far I’ve read two books by Cherie Priest, and I’ve liked them both. Her distinctive literary voice resonates well with my tastes. She tends towards the strong female main characters in the supernatural/steampunk realm of fiction. She does it with out bashing men and the male readers. Her male characters are almost equally strong in their own way. In addition to here great characters, she keeps the text active, and doesn’t rely on a lot of narrative to tell the story.

Priest published her first book, Four and Twenty Blackbirds in 2005. It covers ghosts and magic. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but it is on my list. I will let you know how it turns out.

She hit the big time with her steampunk novel, Boneshaker in 2009, part of the Clockwork Century group. This was my first read of hers, and I lost a night of sleep. I picked it up and read it straight through. This was also my first encounter with steampunk. I liked the book and the concept. Technology drives steampunk literature, and provides lots of alternative equipment. Boneshaker provides the reader with good characters, a decent story containing lots of action and tension. In addition to steampunk, it is an alternative history of Seattle during the Civil War. The three other books in the Clockwork Century group include Ganymede, Dreadnought and Clementine.

Priest’s latest creations Bloodshot and Hellbent give the reader a female vampire recovery specialist, Raylene Pendle. She helps people find lost or stolen items. Okay, so she steals things. She is also in the process of collecting a band of misfits to help her with her special collections.

I recently finished Hellbent. At first, I wasn’t sure I liked it. Priest does a major switch from Boneshaker. Where Boneshaker treats the reader to a suspenseful quest and fairly serious story, Hellbent leans towards slapstick. I had to get my mind around the change, but once I did Hellbent really worked for me.

In Hellbent Priest created a cross between Robert Aspen’s Myth Inc fantasy series and John D. MacDonald’s, Travis McGee, salvage expert/recovery specialist. She incorporates Aspen’s humor and supernatural characters and McGee’s toughness and personality. McGee’s exploits often bordered on the unbelievable side. He carried so much extra metal from bullets and broken bones, he’d never be able to get through a TSA checkpoint. Raylene on the other hand is a vampire. She heals quickly no doctors needed. However, unlike Travis, you won’t find her basking in the sun on the deck of a boat in the Florida Keys.

Hellbent and Boneshaker held my attention and interest. They have great characters and a good story. Priest keeps the stories believable and stays true to the genre in which she is working. She has several non-related series going with three to four books each. I think, I’ll try Four and Twenty Blackbirds Next.