Trailer Park Tuesday: City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.

If you read one book in October, make it City on Fire—and with its 944-page length, Garth Risk Hallberg’s debut novel may very well be the only book you read this month. It wouldn’t be time wasted. I’m halfway through it now and I’m here to tell you this book is a luxurious bath of words. City on Fire is big in all senses of the word: not just in page volume, but in the scope of its plot and the large cast of characters—every one of them interesting to some degree. When you start reading this novel, you are in its world...and there you stay until your eyes lift from the page. It is a full-immersion baptism of story. City on Fire reminds me, at times, of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities (but de-fanged of that book's satire) and Don DeLillo’s Underworld (though Hallberg confines himself to just one place and time: New York City in the mid-1970s). With the seamless dazzle of a Las Vegas magician, Hallberg juggles so many different plot threads—all of which will eventually tie together—that it feels like several books smooshed into one. Not only is City on Fire one of the best books of 2015, it has a rich, eye-bursting trailer featuring a couple of poetic passages from the Prologue, narrated by the author, and a collage of images that move so fast they can only leave a subliminal impression in your brain. Driving the video forward is a terrific new song called “My Reward,” written and performed by Hallberg’s friend Hamilton Leithauser of The Walkmen, along with bandmate Paul Maroon. Music, from punk to pop, plays an important role in the novel, so it’s only fitting that the trailer adds a nice sonic layer to the two-minute video. If you see only one book trailer in October, make it this one.

My First Time: Emily Ross

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands.  Today’s guest is Emily Ross, author of the young adult mystery/thriller Half In Love With Death, forthcoming from Merit Press in December. Set in the 1960s, Half in Love With Death was inspired by the eerie, true story of serial killer Charles Schmid, aka “The Pied Piper of Tucson.” Kate Racculia, author of Bellweather Rhapsody, says, “Half in Love with Death is as dreamy and dark as the beautiful boy at the center of its twisty mystery.” Emily’s fiction and nonfiction have been published in Boston Magazine, Menda City Review, and The Smoking Poet. She is an editor and contributor at Dead Darlings, a website dedicated to discussing the craft of novel writing (where a version of this My First Time post first appeared). Emily is a 2012 graduate of Grub Street’s Novel Incubator program.

The First Time I Fell In Love (with Writing)

There wasn’t a specific moment when I realized I wanted to be a poet, novelist, or whatever. I would spend years working out those details. But there was a moment when I fell in love with writing.

It happened in third grade. My teacher was named Miss Gamrad. Behind her back everyone called her Miss Ramrod, because she was tall and thin, straight up and down. She had a triangular face, a wide unsmiling mouth, bulging eyes, and dark curls that stuck to the sides of her head. Except for the curls, she resembled a praying mantis, or rather a “preying” mantis, more than a ramrod, and she was mean. She was never mean to me, of course, because I was perfect, but other kids in the class weren’t so lucky. She especially liked to yell at Russell M, a boy I loved. Russell had an edge, a wise mouth, and a problem with subtraction. Miss Gamrad would frequently subtract him from the room. He spent a lot of time standing in the hall.

Outside of Russell the other thing that made her yell was lunch. Our six-room schoolhouse didn’t have a cafeteria. Lunch was brought in from another school miles away. The food arrived cold, and included such appealing entrees as salmon wiggle with peas on saltines. Miss Gamrad made sure that we finished every last bite. Fortunately my parents wrote me a note saying that I didn’t have to eat anything I didn’t like (yes, they were probably the world’s first helicopter parents). Russell wasn’t so lucky. His shirt cuffs were frayed and he wore shoes without socks. Everyone knew he was poor. On the rare occasions when he brought lunch, it was something weird like a cold fried-egg sandwich — with mustard! Miss Gamrad made it her personal mission to see to it that Russell got enough to eat.

On this particular day, she said none of us would be able to go out for recess until Russell finished his spinach. We watched as he forced small bites through his thin defiant lips. It took a while, but when the plastic tray was empty except for a pool of greenish water, Miss Gamrad smiled in triumph. And then Russell put his hand over his mouth, rushed past her, and vomited the spinach into a sink at the back of the room. As we crowded round and watched the food-flecked stream go down the drain, I’m surprised we didn’t all vomit. When Miss Gamrad was through cleaning it up, she announced that because of Russell we would miss recess. Instead we would have to write. There were groans. Not writing! Anything but that.

By now you’re probably thinking that on that afternoon I wrote my first story about Russell. I should have. I had a crush on him. I hoped he had a crush on me. He was a hard-scrabble, vomiting James Dean, in a tiny classroom in the middle of nowhere, perfect fodder for a budding young writer. But I didn’t write about him. I hadn’t yet figured out I could write about the world around me. Instead, as I sat in a room that smelled of Lysol and vomit, I wrote something called, What the Waves Tell Me. It wasn’t a poem, but it wasn’t really a story either. It was just something that I wrote on yellow blue-lined paper, and I couldn’t stop writing it. I wrote about sitting on a beach and how the waves told me a story. I moved to another beach and they told me another story. Then I moved to yet another beach, and they told me a different story. The words just kept just coming and there was no way I was going to stop them, because nothing had ever felt so right. When Miss Gamrad said to put our pencils down, I didn’t.

I would like to say that she had to tear the paper from my feverish hands, that I refused to give it to her and was defiant for the first time in my life, that Russell came to my rescue, read it, and fell instantly in love with me, but that would be the made-for-TV version of this. I ended things by simply making the tide go out. Today I can’t remember much of What the Waves Tell Me but I suspect there was a certain lack of plot, an absence of dramatic tension, too many multiplying existential beaches, but that doesn’t matter, because the feeling I got from writing it is still with me. It was as if a door had opened to a place I’d never dreamed was there. But it was there. It still is. And I keep coming back for more.

Sunday Sentence: City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.

The coffee tasted like water colored brown with a crayon.

City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg

Friday Freebie: Emma by Jane Austen (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Congratulations to Jonathan Butters, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie, Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff.

This week’s book giveaway is the gorgeous new edition of Emma by Jane Austen, published by the fine folks at Penguin Classics. Even if you already own Emma (and if you don’t, why the dickens not?), you’ll want to add this dee-luxe, annotated edition to your shelf. Released in honor of the novel’s 200th birthday, it is handsomely packaged and comes with a new introduction and notes by Goucher professor Juliette Wells. I’m happy to offer one paperback copy to a lucky reader (sorry, international readers, U.S. only entrants for this contest). Read on for an interview with Professor Wells, describing some of the work she did in preparing this edition of Emma for publication.

When we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Emma, what in particular are we celebrating? What’s new about this edition?

We’re celebrating the 200th anniversary of Emma’s original publication, in London in December, 1815. The date of publication is a little confusing because “1816” was printed on the title page of the first edition of the novel, but it was actually released in December, 1815. I think this gives us the right to celebrate for a whole year! And what better way to celebrate than to re-read Emma, or read it for the first time? Our 200th-anniversary annotated edition has everything you need, all in one place, to help you appreciate this wonderful novel. You can immerse yourself in Austen’s world and also have, right at your fingertips, explanations of some of the elements of the novel that tend to trip up or puzzle today’s readers.

In the Austen canon, what would you say makes Emma special and unique?

Emma is special because it’s the capstone of Austen’s career as an author. She had already published three novels (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park), and she was at the very top of her game as a writer. She didn’t know it, of course, but Emma would be the last book she saw through to publication. When Austen died in July 1817, she left two essentially completed novels (Northanger Abbey and Persuasion), which her brother published at the end of that year. So Emma is the last Austen novel that was published in the exact form that she herself approved. Emma is also special because it’s the most perfect example of Austen’s particular genius as an author, which is (I think) to create a recognizable, engaging fictional world from the slenderest of materials. She writes about everyday life and ordinary people—you won’t find kings and queens in her novels, or ghosts or vampires. Her effects are wonderfully subtle.

What was the publishing process like when Emma was first published? How was the novel received critically? Was Austen as popular in her own day as she is today?

The publishing process was recognizable in some ways and very different in others. Austen didn’t have a literary agent; at that time, authors dealt directly with publishers. With Emma, she chose a new, more prestigious publisher—John Murray—than she had used for her three earlier novels, and she negotiated hard for a good contract with him. As authors are today, Austen was responsible for proofreading and approving copy before publication. Since being a published author was considered not so respectable for an unmarried woman, Austen chose to remain anonymous on her title pages throughout her lifetime. Emma identifies her as “the author of Pride and Prejudice.” Her identity wasn’t made publicly known until after her death. Like Austen’s earlier novels, Emma was praised by reviewers, who appreciated Austen’s ability to convey a very realistic fictional world. Austen wasn’t a bestseller in her day; then as now, thrillers, adventure stories, and romances outsold quiet literary fiction. But Austen did have the satisfaction of knowing, in her lifetime, that readers appreciated her work. In addition to reading reviews, she kept track of the responses of her friends and family, which offer a wonderful glimpse into what everyday readers of Austen’s own time thought of Emma. Some of what they liked and didn’t like may be very familiar to us!

One of your specialties as a professor of English is how Jane Austen’s work continues to appeal to people, how it remains at the forefront of pop culture conversation. Last year, Alexander McCall Smith updated Emma, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies hits the big screen in 2016, and movie and TV versions of Austen continue to draw viewers. Why do you think we keep updating and adapting Austen? What are your favorite adaptations or updates, and what makes them successful?

Austen really is endlessly adaptable, much like Shakespeare! You can transpose her stories and her characters to other places and times, and they still work. My own favorite creation inspired by Austen is Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, from 1995. Clueless is a joy to experience, and smart too, much like an Austen novel. I’m also a big fan of Sense and Sensibility, also from 1995, for which Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay. Experiencing Austen through the eyes of a witty, thoughtful contemporary woman—it doesn’t get any better than that! I like Karen Joy Fowler’s novel The Jane Austen Book Club, from 2004, for the same reason—an experienced writer chooses to think about how Austen’s works matter to us today, and takes us along for the ride. Lost in Austen, the British miniseries from 2008, is also a big favorite of mine. A rabid Austen fan finds her way into the world of Pride and Prejudice and messes it up. It’s a hoot to see the Austen characters we know so well doing and saying things that they never would have done or said in the original novel. I think TV and movie adaptations of Austen are so popular for two main reasons. They’re beautiful to watch, no question. And they offer a respite—which a lot of people of all ages value—from the loud, fast, scary, stuff that much of mainstream entertainment is these days. The tricky part comes, sometimes, when someone knows and loves Austen through the films and then goes to pick up one of the novels, only to discover that the reading experience is a lot more complex and challenging than the viewing experience. I had those first-time readers of Austen very much in mind when creating this new edition of Emma.

What is it like to prepare a new edition of a book that’s so well-known and exists in many editions? What kind of research did you do? Did anything you learned during the process surprise you?

It was really important to me to create a truly new approach to Emma—a welcoming, reader-friendly approach. Excellent editions of Emma already exist for scholars and for devoted “Janeites.” With this anniversary edition, I wanted to open Austen up to people who hadn’t given her a try before, and to support their reading experience by using everything I know from years of teaching undergraduates and from talking with everyday readers. I certainly reached for plenty of scholarly and reference sources on my shelves, but I’d say my most important preparation was to have built up, over time, a sense of what readers are curious about and what frustrates them in their first encounter with an Austen novel. And, through my teaching, I’ve had a lot of practice at explaining historical concepts in an accessible way. I also had the huge pleasure of re-reading Emma myself, slowly, with pencil in hand, making lists of topics to cover in my contextual essays and marking words that would likely be unfamiliar to present-day Americans. By doing this, I developed a much deeper appreciation of Austen’s artistry with words. This surprised and delighted me—I would have said I appreciated her artistry plenty before! But it wasn’t until I was trying to figure out how to convey the meaning of a particular phrase that I realized how much meaning she packs in with her clever, economical word choices. Thinking about readers’ experience with Emma also shaped how the contextual material is presented in this new edition. In my experience, many ordinary readers, and even college students too, are put off by footnotes, or at best ignore them. So we decided instead to group topics together in contextual essays, which are easier—and, I hope, more fun—to read. Here too my experience explaining historical concepts And, there’s no question, the gorgeous cover by Dadu Shin is a beautiful invitation to pick up this Emma!

Click to enlarge

The illustrations for this edition are drawn from historical copies of Emma in the Jane Austen Collection at Goucher College, where you teach. Can you tell us more about that collection? What is it, exactly?

The Jane Austen Collection at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland began as the passion project of an alumna of the college from the 1920s, Alberta Hirshheimer Burke. Alberta loved, loved, loved Jane Austen’s writings and decided that her own purpose in life was to gather as much material as possible relating to Austen. So Alberta bought first and rare editions and even some manuscripts—such as letters in Austen’s handwriting—all of which she felt brought her closer to her beloved author. The images in our new edition reproduce turn-of-the-twentieth century illustrations of Emma by English and American artists, from books that Alberta owned, and which she bequeathed to her alma mater when she died in 1975. (Her manuscripts went to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.) Alberta also cared deeply about ephemera with an Austen connection, such as newspaper and magazine articles, which she preserved in ten overstuffed scrapbooks. So our Austen Collection at Goucher is a terrific resource for popular culture studies as well as book history.

As a college professor, what’s your favorite aspect of teaching Austen? Do you face any challenges in interesting students in her writings?

Absolutely the best part of teaching Austen is that so many students are enthusiastic about studying her writings. She is an easy sell! Shakespeare is the only other English writer who has a draw like hers. And Austen has the advantage that her life story as a woman writer is especially appealing. Many of my students are creative writers themselves and find Austen’s confidence and perseverance to be very inspiring. That said, I do often encounter people—students and ordinary readers—for whom Austen just seems unappealing. Maybe her novels seem girly; maybe they seem awfully full of privileged white people (not untrue); maybe the sentences or paragraphs are just too long. Stephen King said recently in a New York Times Book Review that he had never read any Austen, and I feel it’s a real shame that a great writer like him has missed a great writer like her! Maybe I’ll have to send him this new Emma and see if he can get into it. I love it that everyone who reads Jane Austen has her or his own ideas about what’s important and what’s interesting. Some readers gravitate towards her humor, while for others, the morality really resonates. Pretty much all of us can find at least one character who reminds us of someone we know—and we’re lucky if it’s a character who’s nice!

Do you think we have a modern-day equivalent of Jane Austen? Or do you have any “further reading” suggestions for Austen fans who’ve read all of her books a thousand times and are looking for something new?

I love to read contemporary novels and memoirs, and I always keep an eye out for hints that an author is influenced by or interested in Austen. I recently re-read Allegra Goodman’s novel The Cookbook Collector and really appreciated how she weaves in elements from Emma as well as from her more obvious place of inspiration, Sense and Sensibility. I also particularly like that Alison Bechdel, author of the graphic-format memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic and the Dykes to Watch Out For comics, gives several shout-outs to Austen. Flyover Lives, Diane Johnson’s hybrid family history/memoir, includes a fascinating account of what Johnson’s foremothers in America were up to at the same time that Austen was writing about much more privileged women in England. I’d also warmly recommend the novels of Barbara Pym, a 20th-century English writer. Pym’s dry humor and close observation of everyday people ally her very closely with Austen. And it’s always rewarding to read, or re-read, 19th-century novels by authors who knew and loved Austen’s writings. In that category, I’d especially recommend Elizabeth Gaskell (start with Cranford) and George Eliot (outside of Austen, Middlemarch is my all-time favorite novel). And, finally, I’d say that Austen lovers are the best people to ask about what to read next! Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of shout-outs for the novels of Anthony Trollope, so I may have to get cracking on his enormous oeuvre...

If you’d like a chance at winning Emma, simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on Oct. 8, at which time I’ll draw the winning name.  I’ll announce the lucky reader on Oct. 9.  If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.

Everybody Read Now: The Middle on ABC-TV

Since it premiered in 2009, I have watched every episode of The Middle on ABC. I have laughed, cried and, when the truths about parenting hit a little too close to home, squirmed uncomfortably. Mike and Frankie Heck of Orson, Indiana represent the Everyfamily of modern America with their foibles and follies raising three children, Axl, Sue and Brick. They take imperfect parenting and turn it into classic comedy TV. Hilarious stuff, each and every week.

But I think the latest episode, “Cutting the Cord,” will always hold a special place in my heart for youngest child Brick’s impromptu pep rally dance as the new school “mascot,” Bernie the Bookmark. For those of you who’ve never seen The Middle (and if not, you better start binge-watching on Netflix now), a brief word of explanation: Brick, played by Atticus Shaffer, is the socially-awkward, but yet self-assured, nerd who would always rather be reading a book than dressing out for gym class (as he tells his brother Axl: “I don’t play sports. I don’t exactly have a ton of friends. I have books.”). He’s full of ticks (I call him “the Lap Whisperer”) and will defend his right to read to the death (“I’ve decided from now on, I want to spend every moment I can with the things I cherish most. So, I’ll be in my room with my books. Try not to bother me.”). But he may have reached his apex in Season 7, Episode 2 this week. Take a look and I think you’ll agree when I say, “Everybody read now!” is the new earworm for library lovers.


Apologies for the poor sound and video quality--I just grabbed this off my computer this morning; if you’re a Hulu subscriber, you can see the full episode here.

My First Time: Gayle Brandeis

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands.  Today’s guest is Gayle Brandeis is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write, Dictionary Poems, and the novels The Book of Dead Birds, which won Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize for Fiction of Social Engagement, Self Storage, Delta Girls, and My Life with the Lincolns, which received a Silver Nautilus Book Award and was chosen as a state-wide read in Wisconsin. Her essays, poems and short fiction have appeared in such places as The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, Salon and The Nation. Gayle served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014. She teaches for Sierra Nevada College, the Incarcerated Student Program through Lake Tahoe Community College, and the low residency MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles.

My First Wardrobe Malfunction

I wrote my first poem when I was four years old:

Blow, little wind
Blow the trees, little wind
Blow the seas, little wind
Blow me until I am free, little wind.

A simple ditty, but I think I understood even then that writing can be like a wind that blows through us, making us spacious inside, setting us free. I was a shy, quiet girl; writing was the place where I could be most open and brave in my life—it still is, today. I published a neighborhood newspaper when I was 10—writing it gave me the courage to interview my neighbors, to sell subscriptions door to door. If I wasn’t doing something in service to my writing, I could barely make eye contact.

When my first book, Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write, came out in 2002, I was thrilled, of course, but I was also terrified. In my heart of hearts, I was still that shy, quiet girl and the thought of being a public writer out in the world made me want to climb into a cave. I was grateful my first book event was going to be held at a venue where I felt deeply at home.

The Frugal Frigate—an independent children’s bookstore in Redlands, California, that also had “A Room of Her Own” featuring books by women— had opened when I was a student at the University of Redlands in the late 80s. It became a place of respite for me--I would go there to have a cup of herbal tea (free—much appreciated on my student budget) and daydream and read for pleasure; a welcome break from academia. When I found out I was pregnant my senior year, I bought What to Expect When You're Expecting there, and everyone at the store was very supportive at a time when I wasn't sure I'd be accepted as a young mother. The store continued to support me as I came in to browse the shelves with my little ones and talk to the owner about writing. Katherine, who had become a beloved presence in my life, offered to host my book launch, and I couldn't imagine a better place to usher Fruitflesh into the world.

In the car on the way to the event, I sang the alphabet song over and over at the top of my lungs to remind myself that my voice, which is normally pretty soft, can have volume. My family had just had dinner out and I was hoping my breath wasn’t too garlicky, hoping I hadn’t spilled anything on my new outfit, a wrap blouse and flowy matching skirt in the same lilac shade as the jacaranda flowers that bloom from my favorite tree.

Katherine had decorated the store beautifully, with a big bowl of strawberries as the centerpiece—appropriate, given the first line of the book is “A strawberry changed my life.” As people started to flow into the store—friends, my kids’ teachers, kind strangers—I began to feel more at ease. These people were here to celebrate, I realized, not judge. I felt buoyed by all the loving, encouraging faces beaming at me as I perched on the edge of a tall stool and started to speak.

Midway through my reading, I felt air on my stomach. I glanced down and noticed my wrap blouse had come unwrapped, and was dangling down the sides of my body like an open robe, leaving my entire torso exposed. I fought a wave of panic; even though Fruitflesh is all about tapping into the body as a source of creativity, I wasn’t all that comfortable sharing my own body in public. Thankfully I was wearing a bra—not an everyday occurrence back then—and I was able to think on my feet, not something I can always muster. “I guess I’m sharing more of my own fruitflesh than I had planned,” I said, and the audience laughed as I hastily tied my blouse back together. After that, the air was even more festive. I could barely get through the rest of the reading without laughing, and the audience laughed right along with me. My blouse was lopsided and possibly sweat-stained, but I didn’t care. One of the worst things that could have happened happened, and it just made the event all the more fun.

The shy, quiet girl still lives inside me, but I love giving readings now. I love connecting with readers, having conversations about stories and writing and life. My heart still pounds a little right before I take the stage, but I try to let that help me feel more alive instead of more nervous. And while some people at my book launch told me I should make wardrobe malfunctions part of every event, I make sure to leave the wrap blouses at home.

Sunday Sentence: American Copper by Shann Ray

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.

Her voice seemed dislodged from her mouth, as if the words were not connected to her or were not hers at all but rather small black birds that darted into the sky.

American Copper by Shann Ray

Judging American Cuisine and Lassoing Unicorns: Edna St. Vincent Millay on Food and E. E. Cummings

Reading Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford in short sessions each day is like taking licks from one of those giant pinwheel all-day suckers you used to get as a kid at the county fair. Remember how you tried to discipline yourself to just twenty licks per day because you never wanted the beauty of that pastel-colored sugar to end? (Even though the sucker eventually grew furred with dust bunnies traveling through the air and became inextricably stuck to the top of your nightstand.)

So it goes with my sojourn through the life of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, minus the furred-over lollipop feeling. According to my Library Thing database, I started reading Savage Beauty on August 5, and it may well be another two weeks before I’m finished with the book. I’ll hate to see it come to an end. It is a literary sugar rush.

Milford not only expertly tracks the wild course of Millay’s life--and occasionally inserts herself, the biographer, in some of the most interesting sections--but she delivers exquisite passages from the poet’s poems, diaries and letters. Today, I thought I’d share a couple of them here at the blog. One is on food, and the other is about fellow poet E. E. Cummings.

In June 1932, while living in France, Millay was invited to give a reading at a home on the Left Bank, hosted by a woman named Natalie Clifford Barney, described by Milford as “rich, eccentric, tiny, seductive, and American.” The soiree was very bohemian. As one visitor put it, “No self-respecting American woman would be seen there. Oh no! Edith Wharton would never have come, never!”

Just before she read from her poems, Millay was drawn into conversation with a Frenchwoman named Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, who recounted her recent visit to the United States. “Wonderful country!” she exclaimed. “So alive, so vigorous! But such bad food!”

This kind of culinary critique didn’t sit well with Millay, who’d been raised in Maine, which may not have been the foodie nirvana it is today, but there were certainly bountiful meals to be had there back in the day. She bristled and began to put Mme. Delarue-Mardrus in her place, as described by Millay’s friend Allan Ross Macdougall, with a speech that was “at once a patriotic dithyramb and a gastronomic prose poem.” Even though I suspect it’s filtered through Macdougall’s enhanced retelling, it really is a beautiful take-down.

     In your travels, chere madame, did you ever taste the lobsters that come from the waters off the coast of my home state, Maine? Broiled or boiled and served with melted, fresh country butter, they are unforgettable. Did you have fish chowder made of haddock, Maine potatoes, onions, salt pork and rich milk?
     Were you ever introduced to Boston baked beans? I mean the kind baked in an old-fashioned crock. We cook them slowly and for long hours in the oven and serve them sometimes with such brown bread as can be found in no other part of the world.
     Did you ever have Cherrystones or Little Necks; and did you ever, by chance, taste a Provincetown clam pie made of the deep-sea Quahogs and a liberality of olive oil and garlic? Were oyster-crabs and whitebait ever set crisp before you? Did you taste soft-shell crabs, lightly sauteed, or drink the juice of the soft-shell crab? Were you ever a happy member of an old-fashioned clam-bake on a secluded New England beach?
     Then what of the other American dishes that are seldom to be met with elsewhere on the gastronomic globe? There’s the shad roe and the shad itself, both broiled; sweet corn and sweet potatoes; pumpkin pie and deep-dish blueberry pie; diamond-back terrapin done as the Baltimoreans do it in a rich Madeira stew, or as the Philadephians do it with egg-yolks, cream, and “sweet butter in a lordly dish.” Then there’s Philadelphia Pepperpot which has tripe in it, and that same city’s surprising mixture of tripe and oysters.
     There’s the Creole Jambalaya of New Orleans made with savory rice and shrimps almost as big as your French ecrevisses. We also have our native blueberries. And there are our cranberries and beach-plums which I used to gather on Cape Cod. We make delicious preserves from them. Oh, there are many other products and dishes native to states and regions of my country. If you have never tasted them, ma chere, you cannot in all fairness judge American cuisine…

Speaking of judging, the next year found Millay making recommendations to the Guggenheim Foundation on behalf of poets she felt were worthy--and, in the case of 39-year-old Edward Estlin Cummings, a man she admittedly disliked personally and called “fetid,” applicants who were worthy of damning with faint praise. Here’s part of what Millay wrote in her Guggenheim “recommendation” for Cummings:

     ...here is a big talent in the hands of an arrogant, peevish, self satisfied, self indulgent writer. That is to say, here is a big talent in pretty bad hands.
     I am not one of those who stand for the untouchable holiness of the capital letter and traditional typography. So far as I am concerned, Mr. Cummings may do anything he likes with the alphabet, the English grammar, and the multiplication table, provided only the result of his activities be something interesting, and, after a reasonable period of application, comprehensible, to a reader of culture and brains. Mr. Cummings may not, however, I say, write poetry in English which is more difficult for me to translate than poetry written in Latin. He may, of course, write it. But if he publishes it, if he prints and offers for sale poetry which he is quite content should be, after hours of sweating concentration, inexplicable from any point of view to a person as intelligent as myself, then he does so with a motive which is frivolous from the point of view of art, and should not be helped or encouraged by any serious person or group of persons...
     But, unfortunately for one’s splendid hate which had assumed almost epic proportions, by no means all of Mr. Cummings poetry is of this nature. In these books which I have just been reading there is fine writing and powerful writing (as well as some of the most pompous nonsense I ever let slip to the floor with a wide yawn), and that this author has ability I could not deny; that he has more than that I gravely suspect.
     What I propose, then, is this: that you give Mr. Cummings enough rope. He may hang himself; or he may lasso a unicorn. In any case it is high time we found out about this man Cummings. Let us give him every opportunity to show us at once whether he is a genius, a charlatan, or a congenital defective,—and get him off our minds.

In the end, Milford tells us, Cummings got his Guggenheim.

Friday Freebie: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

Congratulations to Jim Mastro, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie: Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekback, Past Crimes by Glen Erik Hamilton, The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman, Everyone Has Their Reasons by Joseph Matthews, and The 3rd Woman by Jonathan Freedland.

This week, I’m pleased to give away a copy of the new novel by Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies. It’s been getting rave reviews from all corners of the literary map--like these, for instance:

“With Fates and Furies Lauren Groff goes many levels below the surface of a marriage, into a place that is perhaps as hard to reach as it is to describe, but Groff, a bold and marvelous writer, is able to do both. Because she’s so vitally talented line for line and passage for passage, and because her ideas about the ways in which two people can live together and live inside each other, or fall away from each other, or betray each other, feel foundationally sound and true, Fates and Furies becomes a book to submit to, and be knocked out by, as I certainly was.”  (Meg Wolitzer, New York Times-bestselling author of The Interestings)

“Even from her impossibly high starting point, Lauren Groff just keeps getting better and better. Fates and Furies is a clear-the-ground triumph.”  (Ron Charles, The Washington Post)

“One of the pleasures of reading Ms. Groff is her sheer unpredictability: She can inject her narrator’s voice at any time, turn a sentence into a small hurricane.”  (The New York Times)

“[Fates and Furies] is a stunning 360-degree view of a complex relationship…There’s almost nothing that [Groff is] not interested in and her skill set is breathtaking…It’s an incredibly ambitious work, she writes like her hands are on fire.”  (Richard Russo)

Read on for more information about the book...

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years. At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed. With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it. Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and the heart.

If you’d like a chance at winning Fates and Furies, simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on Oct. 1, at which time I’ll draw the winning name.  I’ll announce the lucky reader on Oct. 2.  If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.

New story in F(r)iction: “Thank You”

I have a short story in the new issue of F(r)iction, published by Tethered by Letters. I’m really proud of “Thank You” (not something I say about all of my work) and think it might be one of the strongest things I’ve written since Fobbit. It’s a very short story, but it expresses a lot of my conflicted feelings about the Iraq War and the ways Americans have reacted to it. It can also be challenging to read, style-wise, as you can see by this punctuation-less excerpt:

Thank you Thank you for your service Thank you for going Thank you for coming back Thank you for not dying Thank you for taking the bullet, the mortar round, the shrapnel that is making its way to your heart by micromillimeters every year Thank you for eating that god-awful food gritted with sand so we don’t have to Thank you for eating Thanksgiving dinner on a paper plate

I send my own “Thank you”s out to editor D. M. Hedlund for taking on this admittedly tough story and for giving it a beautiful showcase in the magazine, and to artist Travis Mercer who brought the story to life with such pen-and-ink razzle dazzle (that’s just a small detail from the page you see at the start of this blog post); you need to buy a copy of the magazine to fully appreciate his talents.

Speaking of which, you should all buy a copy of F(r)iction, and not just for my little pissant story. The new issue of the literary journal is bursting with words and colorful artwork. There are stories by Justin Hocking, Eric Lundgren, Marie Helene-Bertino, Josie Sigler and many others. The whole issue is a thing of beauty, starting with the cover art.

Sunday Sentence: City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.

Indeed, a store detective with a rodential little moustache had trailed him from outerwear to menswear to formalwear. But perhaps this was providence; otherwise Mercer might not have discovered the chesterfield coat. It was gorgeous, tawny, as though spun from the fine fur of kittens.

City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg