Emerging Writers Network

Source of Lit - Conjunctions

One negative about so many books or journals coming into the house is that they consume the home, our lives, and also, tend to get misplaced very easily amongst stacks, shelves, boxes, piles. One positive, the nice bonus when you "find" something you didn't remember buying or receiving, have not read yet, etc.

The last time I was near the University of Michigan campus, I stopped by a used bookstore looking for a specific author or two that had recently gotten me excited about their work. I don't even remember if I found any books that day, but in the journal section, I found a copy of Conjunctions 34: American Fiction--State of the Art. Just read this partial list of the contributors within and you'll see why I was more than excited to plunk down eight bucks for this eleven year old issue:

Paul Auster, Russell Banks, Ann Beattie, Mary Caponegro, Sandra Cisneros, Robert Coover, Lydia Davis, Matthew Derby, Rikki Ducornet, Steve Erickson, Brian Evenson, William H. Gass, A.M. Homes, Paul LaFarge, Ben Marcus, Carole Maso, Rick Moody, Bradford Morrow, Joyce Carol Oates, Padgett Powell, Richard Powers, Pamela Ryder, Joanna Scott, Leslie Marmon Silko, Christopher Sorrentino, Alexander Theroux, William T. Vollman, John Edgar Wideman, and Diane Williams.

That's the partial list as the other names were not recognized by me upon first or second glance, but based on their inclusion, I plan to get familiar with their work inside these pages at the very least.

The Source of Lit - The Quarterly 2 - Summer 1987 - Leon Rooke

The third story in this, the 2nd issue of The Quarterly, is Leon Rooke's "I Want to Know the Answer," which begins:

     I had with me this woman. I said, Are you prepared to accept sexual fidelity to me until we can be together in paradise?

Quite a question to throw at both this woman, and his reader. Not long after this, the narrator notes:

... When I was a boy--but wait, I'm not falling into that trap, ot in that "when I was" trap. That trap--you're walking along, I'm walking along, and I can see that "when I was" trap in front of me before my foot steps down, the same way Tarzan could see a pool of quicksand.

This leads to nearly a full page of him thinking about Tarzan and quicksand and traps, and suddenly something about this line of thinking reminds him of a time he was a young boy at the end of his mother's bed being used as the brace by his father's feet as the father and mother were together in paradie, so to speak.

So, in effect, the narrator did indeed fall into his own trap, and coming out of that trap, suddenly there is the thought in his mind of fifty dollars, an agreed upon price, and I realize that I, the reader, fell into a trap of Rooke's. In following the narrator from his question, to Tarzan and quicksand, and this encounter between his parents that he so oddly became part of, the last thing in the world I was ready for was to find out that that initial question--"Are you prepared to accept sexual fidelity to me until we can be together in paradise?"--had been asked of a hooker. I believe at least part of what Rooke was trying to do was surprise his reader as the story wound down, and if so, well, he succeeded with at least one reader.

The Source of Lit - The Quarterly 2 - Summer 1987 - Mark Richard

Mark Richard's short story, "On the Rope," starts:

     I have to tell my uncle it is just a bread wrapper, a crubbly piece of paper thrown up on the fence by the wind. I run out to show that is all it is, but the spell is already on my uncle. When I come back in from showing, it is just as well I should have stayed inside.

Just under four pages later, it ends:

... They stood looking, giving good hard long looks, because they knew, like my uncle knew, that once we were back up the bayou they would never be able to watch a stew pot boil, or look at something caught on barbed wire ever the same again, even with someone like me coming in to show it is nothing but a crubbly piece of nothing thrown up on the fence by the wind.

In between those paragraphs are just under four pages of fantastic sentences and images of the bayou post-something terrible where the narrator's uncle was forced, seemingly by soldiers, to take his boat out into the water to help them scoop dead bodies in various stages of disfigurement up out of the water, down from branches overhanging the water, etc. Richard hits these images hard enough with his prose that the reader is right there with the uncle by the end, fully understanding why seeing a crubbly piece of paper up against a fence might just create a much more frightening image in his head.

A quick example:

     My uncle said the girl swimming on the barbed-wire fence had skin that did not come off in his hands like the skin on some of the others did.

or

... The baby was cutting through the current with its arms and head thrown back like it had just broken up to the surface to take a long deep breath that it was still taking.

My understanding is that this story is in Richard's debut story collection, which I believe I have somewhere in the boxes from a long ago purchase that I don't remember reading. I'll be looking for it now.

The Source of Lit - The Quarterly 2 - Summer 1987 - Noy Holland

The second issue of The Quarterly (which on the front cover has a subtitle that appears not on the title page within--The Magazine of New American Writing) begins with a short story from Noy Holland. It's titled, "The Absolution." It begins:

     Me and him, we're lovers. Sure, I know, he's a crazy motherfucker--and I'm the Banana Queen of Opelousas. They say I'm the prettiest since Luana Lee.  But you best clap your eyes on Jimmy--he is something, too.

Holland's writing is full of these slightly odd turns of phrases like "Me and him," and "you best clap your eyes on." They aren't quite different enough to stop you from reading as your eyes pass them by, but they do get you to slow down a little bit and make sure you understand exactly what they mean. One thing, if you read them aloud, they tend to flow really well, leading me to believe there's at least a touch of aural writing on Ms. Holland's part.

Holland also has a nice turn with similes, as for example:

I seen his bare black arms, though, veins standing out like hard-ons in church.

Again, just different enough in thought process and phrasing to get you to slow down a bit. It's not at all an uncommon thing for me when reading stories or poems or "letters" from The Quarterly--slowing down my reading that is.

Another aspect of Holland's writing is just how well her descriptions allow the reader to visualize what's going on:

     If I ever flew, it woudl feel like this, like the earth was just something long gone. I got a big heart and can hold my breath, and when I go deep in this black, black river, my whole body disappears. I can feel water wanting me. I know it's a sin, but I open my legs. I shout Jimmy's name so it turns to music by the time that it finds air.

I found the story to be a great beginning to this issue.

Dzanc Write-a-Thon - My Work

While it may seem from the onslaught of Quarterly posts the past half a day that I'm doing everything possible to avoid sitting and writing something for the Dzanc Write-a-Thon, that is not the case. I'm working on something. For a small taste (apologies in advance):

     (I'm running. There is nothing in front of me but kneehigh grass and daffodil flowers. To the left, a stream; the water is clear and cool. My mane whips in the wind over my sweatglistened neck. Free. Free.)

                                                                  * 

     Butch bends down and kissed his wife Jill--some of the egg he has just consumed rubs off onto her cheeck. He walks out the door onto the large wooden porch. Heading toward the barn, he plans to wake up Lester, his farmhand. Lester should be in the fields already--the lazy bastard always needs to be roused. The only reason Butch keeps him on is his size, his bulging biceps. The leather gloves Butch wears fit his fingers perfectly but are a little loose in the thumbs. The soft ground gives way underneath his trunklike legs.

While I am not hoping for accodales for the above two paragraphs (and yes, there is much more), I do hope that you'll consider sponsoring me, or one of the actual authors, in this year's write-a-thon. You can do so by clicking on that link above. Many thanks to those of you that already have done so.

Source of Lit - The Quarterly - Spring 1987 - Issue 1 - Recap

December 24, 2009. That is when I began reading the first issue of The Quarterly. Or at least when I began posting about the issue, one post per each author, from beginning of the issue through to the end. The end, which happened mere minutes ago, July 23, 2011. Not the greatest pace in the world, especially when one looks and sees that the last 15 posts were done in the past 13 hours or so.  Seems maybe I could have wrapped up this issue a few months ago, at the very least.

There was definitely a moment shift when I finished reading the stories and novellas of the first half of the journal. The poetry didn't hit me the same way and re-reading some of it recently and then finishing up with the authors that I'd yet to read finds me still not appreciating the bulk of the poets nearly as much as the prose writers. Then hitting the letters was maybe even more hit or miss--I either really found something to dig into, or stumbled through wondering what in the world had caught Gordon Lish's attention that winter/spring 24 years ago.

I've discovered authors I was not previously familiar with that I really like (and have gone on to find more of their work) like Peter Christopher and Jane Smiley (who I knew of but had really not read before) and a pretty incredible range of styles and approaches to the written word. In the end I'm glad enough I started the project to know that I'll move on and do the same thing with issue 2--just at a slightly better pace I hope.

Source of Lit - The Quarterly - Spring 1987 - Dan Duffy

Dan Duffy to Q is the last letter, the last bit of prose (there is one final Nace page but I've not commenting on any of those, nor do I plan to) in the journal and it's a bit of a disappointment. With some of the fiction/prose as language driven as it was, Ithought the Cullen would have been a fitting ending. The Duffy on the other hand is more straightforward and just really didn't grab me as an exciting piece, neither in the writing, nor in the situations presented. There's a bit of a history lesson of the narrator's city and life, and places with counters (as in food counters) that he's dined at. There's more to it, it's also about the lifestyles that we each choose, but again it simply didn't stun me as some of the pieces in the issue did.

Source of Lit - The Quarterly - Spring 1987 - E.J. Cullen

E.J. Cullens to Q is full of interesting language and turns of phrase.

     Was when we to the graveyard went, checked out the stones. Walked high down the grass, climbed two hills, flagled wood, strendled a stream strembling through. An old Dutch Craven. Place of simple, stergend people, unhurried in their verdin lives, grackel and God-fearing, grain-fed and willow-shaded sandstone slabs.

is the opening paragraph and while I don't profess to fully understanding it (had to hit the dictionary more than a couple of times), I really like how his paragraphs and sentences sound when read aloud. There's certainly something to them beyond simply the language and each time I go back that something becomes a little clearer, but not enough so that I feel the ability to expound on it just yet. But I like the words enough to continue digging and know eventually I'll be right there with Cullen.

Source of Lit - The Quarterly - Spring 1987 - Robert Jones

Robert Jones to Q is a three page paean to words through a discussion about a relationship (through letters--she was in prison) with Squeaky Fromme. He notes how through events from his childhood he learned words such as suicide (Marilyn Monroe's death), assassination (JFK's death) and decapitate (Jayne Mansfield's death), and how:

There was a word for everything. The world became at once larger than ever imagined and more claustrophobic. It was impossible to get past the words.

And interestingly enough, he notes in it that Fromme didn't like the written word, didn't find it had the power that the spoken word did.

Source of Lit - The Quarterly - Spring 1987 - Patty Marx

Patty Marx to Q is more like a stream of very short diary entries than anything else. Beginning at number 635:

     Apples I set up to paint went rotten and fruit lady says she won't get any more of that kind until next year. Fruit lady says try winesaps, they taste just as good. This is not to the point, but it is no use explaning Art to fruit lady, so I end up buying five winesaps to be polite.

and going through 672:

     Lucy cannot accept criticism. Her art will never grow beyond the sash.

And in between there is a fairly interesting discourse on art and various viewpoints about it involving the narrator, the aforementioned Lucy (who created a line of sashes that achieved commercial success) and the narrator's brother and father, both successful in business.