John Williams' 'Stoner'

Author John Williams doesn't just tell us that even the most boring and obscure lives can have value. In his 1965 masterpiece "Stoner," he proves it--by turning a cradle-to-grave recounting of a life with no adventure and few accomplishments into a page-turner.

How does he do it?

First, Williams imbues every page of this tight, 278-page novel with significance. We see a perfectly edited highlight reel of William Stoner's life, all unnecessary information cast aside. Every chapter is a turning point; every page drips with emotion and meaning.

Even Williams' descriptions of the minor characters carry great significance that make otherwise unimportant details completely absorbing. Stoner's mother-in-law's face isn't just "heavy and lethargic"--it also "bore the deep marks of what must have been a habitual dissatisfaction" (p. 57). Her voice isn't just "thin and high"--it "held a note of hopelessness that gave a special value to every word she said" (p. 59).

Second, the novel paints such an intimate portrait of Stoner that we can't help but be extremely invested in the conflicts that shape his life--conflicts that never could have anchored a novel by a lesser author but are presented here as high-stakes contests of wills. We want his marriage to succeed, until we don't. We want him to win his principled stand against a fellow professor with an ax to grind. We want him to maintain a loving relationship with his daughter despite his wife's best efforts to keep them apart.

It is only through specificity that fiction takes on a kind of general quality that captures human nature--and in developing his title character, Williams succeeds brilliantly at being so specific that Stoner becomes almost a stand-in for humanity itself.

The writing itself is also breathtaking. At once it is simple and profound--every sentence, every snippet of dialogue, infused with layers of subtext.

"Stoner" is a novel that will be with me forever.

The best paragraph(s) (p.115):

She laughed at him and shook her head. "Poor Willy," she said. Then she turned again to her daughter. "I am different, I believe," she said to her. "I really believe I am."

But William Stoner knew that she was speaking to him. And at that moment, somehow, he also knew that beyond her intention or understanding, unknown to herself, Edith was trying to announce to him a new declaration of war. 

David Grann’s 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

J. Edgar Hoover and his then-nascent FBI emerge as heroes of David Grann’s masterful “Killers of the Flower Moon” -- raising interesting questions about the levels of accountability under U.S. federalism.

The book explores the “Reign of Terror” against the Osage Native American tribe--a series of dozens (maybe hundreds) of murders committed against the Osage from the 1910s to the 1930s by white people in Oklahoma determined to rob tribe members of their oil wealth.

Grann’s examination of this dark period is riveting, often reading more like a Western or murder mystery than a deeply researched work of non-fiction. As I read, I felt I was witnessing something revelatory--a master journalist working at the top of his game. Grann leaves no stone unturned, even managing to uncover new information about the vastness of the conspiracy against the Osage a century after the fact.

The murderous scheme at the heart of the book is so sweeping that it would likely be considered too outlandish if it were proposed as the plot of a work of fiction. The book introduces us to cold-blooded killers-for-hire who murder the Osage at the behest of a wealthy cattleman, William Hale, an evil mastermind who comes across like a James Bond villain. But Hale is just one piece of the puzzle. The book also introduces us to doctors who served as accomplices in a widespread effort to poison the Osage and blame their deaths on natural causes or alcoholism. It introduces us to judges and lawyers who helped cover up the crimes, state and local law enforcement officials who worked to sabotage federal investigators, white husbands willing to murder their Osage wives and children for their oil rights, and unwitting witnesses who refused to speak out. “It seemed impossible to find twelve white men who would convict one of their own for murdering American Indians,” Grann writes (p. 217).

The killings were systematically planned to allow whites to inherit the vast wealth the Osage had accumulated after oil was discovered on their reservation, with much of white society in Oklahoma viewing the Osage as sub-human and undeserving of their riches. Hale and other perpetrators used marriages, life insurance policies, and other means to position their family members as heirs to Osage oil royalties, known as “headrights.” Grann grimly notes that “the world’s richest people per capita were becoming the world’s most murdered” (p. 95).

Just about every facet of white society in Oklahoma was in some way complicit in the murders--and engaged in a mass cover-up. With all the levers of justice in Oklahoma corrupted, only a strong federal police force could get to the bottom of the atrocity. As Grann details, Hoover saw the murders as an opportunity to demonstrate “the need for a national, more professional, scientifically skilled force” (p. 221) that would bolster the case for enlarging his domestic law enforcement agency. After bungling initial efforts to crack the case, the FBI director assigned a talented and fearless agent to oversee the investigation--Tom White, who quickly becomes the book’s most endearing character.

Ultimately, White succeeded in overcoming enormous obstacles to win convictions against Hale and some of the other worst perpetrators of the conspiracy, though Grann shows through his reporting that investigators only managed to scratch the surface. Nonetheless, the case became a major success story for Hoover’s FBI against state-level corruption.

White, Hoover, and the FBI are the “good guys” in this sad tale of human depravity. And yet, at a macro level, Hoover has largely become viewed as a villain of U.S. history for committing his own heinous abuses of power as he weaponized the FBI as his own private police force, using it to exact revenge on his many perceived political enemies.

This, of course, raises a question often asked in comic books and other literature focused around themes of crime and punishment: If federal intervention was required in this case as a check against corruption at the state level, what happens when a check is needed against corruption at the federal level? In other words, who watches the watchmen?

Grann, through his dogged determination to expose the truth a century later, offers an answer--albeit one that will provide little comfort to present-day victims of corruption. The perspective of time often renders its own verdict, upending legacies and forcing future generations to reckon with past wrongs. “History is a merciless judge,” Grann writes. “It lays bare our fragile blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset” (p. 256).

The best paragraph (p. 24):

At the grave site, standing with Ernest, Mollie could hear the old people’s song of death, their chants interspersed with weeping. Oda Brown, Anna’s ex-husband, was so distraught that he stepped away. Precisely at noon--as the sun, the greatest manifestation of the Great Mystery, reached its zenith--men took hold of the casket and began to lower it into the hole. Mollie watched the glistening white coffin sink into the ground until the long, haunting wails were replaced by the sound of earth clapping against the lid.

My favorite reads of 2019

I read 31 books in 2019. These were my favorites:

1. "Go Tell It on the Mountain," James Baldwin

2. "True Grit," Charles Portis

3. "Conversations with Friends," Sally Rooney

4. "The Last Picture Show," Larry McMurtry

5. "The Book Thief," Markus Zusak

Here's to a year of great reading in 2020!

From good to great: Donald Maass' 'The Emotional Craft of Fiction'

In his masterful book "On Writing," Stephen King says that "while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one."

Most writing books, including King's, are geared toward just that: turning competent writers into good ones.

But Donald Maass, in "The Emotional Craft of Fiction," aims to do what King deemed impossible: take good writers and make them great.

It's easy to see why King considers the task so unlikely. When reading the true masters, it can sometimes seem like what separates good from great is a matter of wizardry, of metaphysics, like what separates men from gods.

The miracle of Maass' book is that he succeeds in deconstructing greatness in a way that makes it accessible to us mere mortals.

What he reveals is that great writing is not about the order of the words on the page, although strong craft certainly helps. Instead, great writing is about the experience it stirs in readers--the feelings it provokes.

"Classics have enduring appeal mostly because we remember the experience we had while reading them," Maass explains. "We remember not the art but the impact."

Maass, who runs one of the most successful literary agencies in New York, offers specific techniques for "creating a powerful emotional experience for readers as they read." These include the use of subtext, digging beyond a character's obvious emotions, playing against expected feelings, and allowing characters to "get real."

I can't recommend this book highly enough for anyone looking to take their writing from good to great -- something Maass proves is not only possible, but a rewarding emotional journey in and of itself.

Hat tip to K.M. Weiland's "Helping Writers Become Authors" podcast, which is where I first heard of Maass' book.

The best paragraph (p. 205):

It is time for all novelists to own the mandate, get beyond their fears, and write with force. What is holding them back? What is holding you back? The ultimate in emotional craft is nothing more than trusting your own feelings. Having faith. Confidence. I don’t mean just the faith that you will be published. I don’t mean only the confidence that you can master the craft. No, I mean faith in your mandate as a storyteller and your fearless surrender to the heroes and monsters inside you.

Terry Alford's 'Fortune's Fool'

What can we learn from reading about the villains of history?

Terry Alford offers an extraordinarily entertaining and well-researched account of the life of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth in his book "Fortune's Fool," which took a quarter-century to research and write.

The biography presents a plethora of reasons for Booth's crime:

Despite growing up in Maryland, Booth identified with the culture of the South, where actors enjoyed a much higher social status than in the North. He internalized the "death-to-tyrants" motif embodied by many of the Shakespearean martyrs he depicted onstage. He was a racist who despised abolitionists and was "particularly unsettled" by the prospect of blacks achieving citizenship. He was an alcoholic who occasionally showed signs of mental illness. And he was an attention-seeker who had an unhealthy obsession with fame.

Even taken together, these explanations don't feel quite satisfactory in explaining an act of terror that robbed our nation of its greatest leader, that ended all hopes for reconciliation between North and South, plunging our nation into a century of continued racial strife.

Despite Alford's commendable efforts, Booth remains a mystery.

The best paragraph (p. 175):

Free of the stage, he could now atone. Did he do so from a simple sense of duty? Or was it more complex - a sort of self-conscious performance with himself as star? These opposing viewpoints will be endlessly debated. One thing will not. John Wilkes Booth had reached a turning point. He would stop playing history. From now on he would make it.

Larry McMurtry's 'The Last Picture Show'

In his 2012 book "The Righteous Mind," social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes that within every human brain is "a full-time public relations firm."

I was reminded of this quote when reading Larry McMurtry's 1966 novel "The Last Picture Show," which was his third novel and which was written--amazingly--when he was just in his late twenties.

The novel offers moving psychological portraits of the residents of Thalia, Texas, focusing on the sexual awakening of several high school seniors.

The book is uproariously funny, occasionally disturbing, and always on point in its portrayals of lovesick high schoolers plotting to gain advantage over one another in the social (and sexual) pecking order.

The novel is at its best when it demonstrates the stark divide between the characters' outward actions and their inner motivations -- the public-relations firm at work.

This is best exemplified by Jacy, the most sought-after girl in school who juggles relationships with three boys -- and is determined, if nothing else, to be noticed.

"Courting with Duane when all the kids on the school bus could watch gave Jacy a real thrill, and made her feel a little like a movie star," McMurtry writes, explaining that Jacy rejects all of Duane's attempts to move their "courting" to a spot on the bus less visible than the back seat directly under a light. "She could bring beauty and passion into the poor kids' lives."

Here's my selection for the best (two) paragraphs (p. 40-41), which paint such a vivid picture of what happens when boys and basketballs are left alone together in an unsupervised gym:

All but two or three of the boys ignored the ten-lap command and began shooting whatever kind of shots came into their heads. The only one who actually ran all ten laps was Bobby Logan, the most conscientious athlete in school. Bobby liked to stay in shape and always trained hard; he was smart, too, but he was such a nice kid that nobody held it against him. He was the coach's special favorite.

When the coach came back he had Joe Bob at his heels. By that time all the boys were throwing three-quarter peg shots, like Ozark Ike in the comics. Balls were bouncing everywhere. Once in a game Sonny had seen an Indian boy from Durant, Oklahoma actually make a three-quarter court peg shot in the last five seconds of play. It didn't really win the game for Durant, because they were already leading Thalia by about sixty-five points, but it impressed Sonny, and he resolved to start trying a few himself.

A quarter century later, Marion Dane Bauer's 'Am I Blue' dream has been realized

The acclaimed young adult author dreamed 'that gay and lesbian characters will be as integrated into juvenile literature as they are in life'

It’s been 25 years since the publication of the groundbreaking young adult short story collection, “Am I Blue?”

The collection, edited by Marion Dane Bauer, was “the first-ever anthology of YA fiction devoted to lesbian and gay themes,” as Publishers Weekly declared in its review.

In her 1994 introduction, Bauer wrote: “It is my dream that ten years from now such an anthology will not be needed, that gay and lesbian characters will be as integrated into juvenile literature as they are in life.”

I recently contacted Bauer, now 80 years old and the author of dozens of acclaimed novels for young adults, to ask if she believes her dream has been realized, a quarter-century later.

“Yes and yes and yes,” she responded in an email. “Those of us who are gay and lesbian have truly come into a new world!

“I have published many books in my long career,” she added, “but this is the one of which I am most proud and the one, I am confident, that has done the most good.”

I read “Am I Blue?” as research for a novel I’m writing with a lesbian character, as the collection continues to be cited as one of the best works of literature for young adults dealing with gay and lesbian issues. It features stories by well-known young adult authors including Lois Lowry, Francesca Lia Block, and C. S. Adler.

I found the stories extremely compelling and believe they are still relevant today, especially for teenagers struggling with their own sexuality—and the loneliness and isolation that often accompany such struggles. Particularly poignant is the title story, Bruce Coville’s “Am I Blue?” in which a gay man expresses an unusual fantasy: He wishes all gay people could turn blue for a day.

“All the straights would have to stop imagining that they didn’t know any gay people,” the man explains. “They would find out that they had been surrounded by gays all the time, and survived the experience just fine, thank you. They’d have to face the fact that there are gay cops and gay farmers, gay teachers and gay soldiers, gay parents and gay kids. The hiding would have to stop.”

This has proven to be a prescient allegory for the very dream that Bauer believes has now been realized, with public opinion shifting dramatically on the issue of gay rights since the publication of “Am I Blue?” As parts of our society have reached a critical mass of people feeling comfortable coming out as LGBTQ, support for gay marriage among Americans—now the law of the land—has risen from 31% in 2004 to 61% today, according to the Pew Research Center.

“Am I Blue?” and other representations of gay identity in popular culture almost certainly played a role in making this shift possible.

Marion Dane Bauer

In her email, Bauer said she never could have predicted the impact “Am I Blue?” would have on the publishing industry.

“Apart from all the readers it touched across a wide range of ages, it became the first commercially successful young adult book dealing with gay and lesbian themes,” she wrote. “The importance of that, commercial success, is that it opened the door for other publishers to risk taking on many, many more books delving into or touching on this theme.

“To my immense gratitude, Harper Collins has kept ‘Am I Blue?’ in print these many years, but I am even more grateful that the book is no longer needed in the same way,” Bauer continued. “Many fine ‘gay and lesbian’ books have come onto the scene. Of equal importance from my view, more and more books for young people include a gay or lesbian character for whom the fact of their sexuality isn't the central problem of the story . . . or any problem at all. Imagine that!”

For my selection as best paragraph, I have chosen an excerpt from the story “The Honorary Shepherds,” by Gregory Maguire (p. 65-66):

Sex sells everything, even sex you might disapprove of. That’s why the image of the boys abed starts this story. It used to be stories could work up to such a development. But in the current day there’s no time for the slow buildup. Notice how movie musicals are passé? Now we make do with three-minute music videos. Notice how often the trailers they show at Cineplex 1-12 are more interesting than the ninety-eight minute feature film you’ve paid good money to see? In the future there will be no movies, only coming attractions. No symphonies, only advertising jingles. No novels, only short stories. Maybe only postcards. Vignettes.