Highbrow Magazine - publishing https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/publishing en Simon Winchester Tackles the History of the Pacific Ocean in New Book https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5684-simon-winchester-tackles-history-pacific-ocean-new-book <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 03/16/2016 - 20:51</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1pacificbook_0.jpg?itok=QLdPxb0l"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1pacificbook_0.jpg?itok=QLdPxb0l" width="480" height="270" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><strong>Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, </strong></p> <p><strong>Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal</strong></p> <p><strong>Dictators, Fading Empires, and the</strong></p> <p><strong>Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers</strong></p> <p><strong>By Simon Winchester</strong></p> <p><strong>Harper</strong></p> <p><strong>492 pages</strong></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>How does someone go about writing a history of the Pacific Ocean? If you’re Simon Winchester, you come to the challenge with one “oceanic biography” already under your belt. In <em>Atlantic</em> (2010), he looked at the ocean from its “birth” more than 500 million years ago on through modern times, an account suffused with broader themes of justice, warfare and pollution. Winchester proved more than equal to the task of addressing such a vast topic.</p> <p> </p> <p>In his new book, <em>Pacific, </em>he takes a different approach, first laying out facts about this “oceanic behemoth of eye-watering complexity,” such as:</p> <p> </p> <ul> <li>Looking westward from Panama to the eastern coast of Malaysia, “there are more than 10,600 miles of uninterrupted sea.”</li> <li>From north to south, the Pacific encompasses some 9,000 miles, while “the sixty-four million square miles in between” comprise nearly a third of the surface of Earth’s surface.</li> <li>Almost 50 percent of total surface waters are located in this ocean, with “the earth’s deepest trenches” found seven miles down.</li> </ul> <p> </p> <p>The narrative strategy Winchester settles on is a look at 10 “singular events” in the history of the Pacific, “each appearing to me to herald some kind of trend.” In this admittedly idiosyncratic structure, the focus in <em>Pacific </em>swerves from the testing of nuclear weapons on the Marshall Islands to the invention of the transistor radio and the rise of the Sony Corporation, diverging again for a look at surfing and the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2pacificbook.jpg" style="height:625px; width:388px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Along the way Winchester recounts the misadventures of the U.S.S. Pueblo, a Navy intelligence ship captured by North Korea in 1968, and, of more recent note, China’s emergence as the prevailing superpower in Asia. It’s the author’s belief that “the wisdom or otherwise of these choices is what, of course, will determine whether this portrait of the ocean is judged to be fair and right.”</p> <p> </p> <p>As it turns out, these choices <em>are </em>“fair and right,” though readers may differ as to which topics carry more weight than others. (A section on the ouster of Australia’s prime minister in 1975, for example, seems less accessible or representative than a later chapter on the Great Barrier Reef’s tragic decline due to global warming.)</p> <p> </p> <p>Throughout <em>Pacific, </em>Winchester is never less than an engaging guide. Sometimes his sentences lapse into a convoluted patchwork of pacing and length, but the images conjured up are distinctly memorable. Take, for example, this passage, concerning the choice of Bikini as the island site of an atomic bomb test in 1946:</p> <p> </p> <p>“For once the Pacific war was fully over—once the unbearable sounds of battle, and the landing craft and the tanks and the gun emplacements and trenches, had gone away; and once all these things had been replaced by a half-forgotten quietude called peace, and there were lapping blue waters once again, and multicolored fish and white sands and green parrots and thermal-dancing frigate birds and coral reefs and ranks of palm trees leaning into the endless trade winds; once all such things had reestablished themselves as the hallmarks of the South Seas; and once they had particularly done so on tiny, pretty, peaceful, caricaturedly Pacific Bikini—Admiral Blandy and his team devised a plan to end all this, and turn Bikini and all her islands and their lagoon once again into a hellish gyre of ruin and mayhem.”</p> <p> </p> <p>After a far-ranging look at the world’s largest body of water, it’s the vision of “green parrots and thermal-dancing frigate birds” that lingers in the reader’s mind—representing all that’s been lost in that immense region. Here is where Simon Winchester’s willingness to take on the “eye-watering complexity” of the Pacific Ocean is at its most impressive.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em></strong><strong>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic, is the author of </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Deep-Winter-Lee-Polevoi/dp/0976951657/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=">The Moon in Deep Winter</a><a name="_GoBack" id="_GoBack"></a>.</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/pacific" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">pacific</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/simon-winchester" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">simon winchester</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/authors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">authors</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/publishing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">publishing</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/pacific-ocean" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">pacific ocean</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Thu, 17 Mar 2016 00:51:36 +0000 tara 6745 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5684-simon-winchester-tackles-history-pacific-ocean-new-book#comments Ann Beattie Returns With New Collection of Compelling Short Stories https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5460-ann-beattie-returns-new-collection-compelling-short-stories <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 11/22/2015 - 17:06</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1beattie.jpg?itok=uxd_Apio"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1beattie.jpg?itok=uxd_Apio" width="480" height="362" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>The State We’re In: Maine Stories</strong></p> <p><strong>By Ann Beattie</strong></p> <p><strong>Scribner</strong></p> <p><strong>206 pages</strong></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>2015 has been a banner year for practitioners of the short story. We’ve seen new collections from giants of the form, like Joy Williams, David Gates, Adam Johnson, Elizabeth Tallent and <a href="http://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5188-comedy-tragedy-collide-thomas-mcguane-s-crow-fair">Thomas McGuane</a>. Anthony Marra, Colin Barrett and Mia Alvar have produced notable debuts.</p> <p> </p> <p>Ann Beattie, secure within this elite pantheon, returns after a decade’s absence with a new book, <em>The State We’re In: Maine Stories. </em>Those familiar with her work will immediately recognize the wry perspective, the closely observed details, and the smooth texture of her prose.</p> <p> </p> <p>As the title announces, these stories revolve, directly and indirectly, around people living in the Pine Tree State. They purr along at a low-key emotional register, with occasional breaks for near-psychotic episodes and loud lovers’ quarrels.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Endless Rain into a Paper Cup,” one of three interlocking stories about a  girl named Jocelyn, is among the best in the collection. Jocelyn, 17, has been shipped there from Massachusetts <a name="_GoBack" id="_GoBack"></a>to stay for the summer with high-strung Aunt Bettina and down-to-earth Uncle Raleigh. “Endless Rain” shows Beattie off at her best—moving effortlessly between points of view, while combining brisk, dead-on dialogue with Jocelyn’s clear-eyed and stubbornly adolescent take on life:</p> <p> </p> <p>“[Raleigh had] been as mystified as the next guy by women when he was young and dating, but now he seemed to think the mere sight of one was as lovely as seeing the first robin of spring. As far as she knew, he’d never strayed in his marriage to Bettina, but who ever knew about such things when few birds and even fewer people mated for life.”</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2beattie.jpg" style="height:417px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>“Road Movie,” an equally impressive story, takes place in and around the Nevada Sunset Motel in California. Moira is staying there with Hughes, a man who’s cheating on his girlfriend. After a contentious few days together, she wonders if she’ll someday become “one of those stereotypes, the amoral woman who does whatever she wants, but who never gets what she wants, because she doesn’t even know what that would be?”</p> <p> </p> <p>Some stories read like moments snatched out of life, rather than perfectly polished short fiction, but tug at the heart nonetheless.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Silent Prayer,” for example, recounts a prickly exchange between husband and wife, just before he leaves for a business trip. Old arguments and recriminations suggest a marriage at the end of its tether, until after the husband leaves the house: “Please let the plane not crash, she thought, going weak in the knees. This was a habitual thought. More or less like prayer.”</p> <p> </p> <p>“Major Maybe” harkens back to New York City, c. 1980, and memories of a bohemian life in Chelsea (“more of a mom-and-pop neighborhood. No art galleries, just a few sex clubs way west.”). Another story, “Aunt Sophie Renaldo Brown,” offers richly painted character descriptions, but seems to stop before it gets started.</p> <p> </p> <p>A strain of sadness permeates these stories as well. In “Adirondack Chairs,” a heart-wrenching piece about summer, love and death, the narrator recollects in tranquility:  </p> <p> </p> <p>“Who hasn’t been twenty-one? Who hasn’t sat outdoors on a summer night and known—known without questioning it—that through the impenetrable black sky, someone or something is looking down at you? The stars just glitter to draw your attention.”</p> <p> </p> <p>The impeccably crafted stories of <em>The State We’re In</em> glitter and hold our attention throughout.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em></strong><strong>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic</em>, <em>is completing a new novel.</em></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ann-beattie" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ann beattie</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/state-were-maine-stories" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the state we&#039;re in: Maine stories</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/american-writers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">american writers</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/literature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">literature</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/publishing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">publishing</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 22 Nov 2015 22:06:44 +0000 tara 6482 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5460-ann-beattie-returns-new-collection-compelling-short-stories#comments Shining a Light on Harold Hayes and the Glory Days of ‘Esquire’ Magazine https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5045-shining-light-harold-hayes-and-glory-days-esquire-magazine <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/film-tv" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Film &amp; TV</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Wed, 06/03/2015 - 11:02</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1esquire.jpg?itok=Invfjdjk"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1esquire.jpg?itok=Invfjdjk" width="343" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>When one thinks of <em>Esquire</em> magazine today, we think of the ‘Sexiest Woman Alive’ poll, as well as articles on men’s fashion, and a platform for new and emerging hotshot writers. Yet, <em>Esquire</em> was the hot magazine of the ‘60s thanks to its experimental, then boundary-pushing forms of journalism and its star editor Harold Hayes.</p> <p><em>Smiling Through the Apocalypse: Esquire in the 60s</em> documents the rise and fall of both <em>Esquire</em> and Hayes’ presence in the social and cultural mainstream. Written, directed and narrated by Tom Hayes, Harold Hayes’ son, the documentary features interviews with past and present <em>Esquire</em> writers, editors, photographers and staff, as well as film clips and sound recordings of Harold Hayes at work and at home.</p> <p>The documentary dives into both Harold Hayes’ past and <em>Esquire’s</em> history; this context is important because it demonstrates just how fateful it was for their two paths to coincide. Hayes was a southern liberal constantly seeking knowledge and pushing boundaries. The best example is of his experience with his college literary magazine, where he tracked down the jazz band Dizzy Gillespie played in, and invited them back to his campus at Wake Forest University for an interview. The band ended up performing as well.</p> <p><em>Esquire,</em> on the other hand, started out as a gentleman’s magazine featuring pin-up girls, fiction and fashion. It soon switched to general interest under the guidance of its editor, Arnold Gingrich, who became a mentor to Hayes during his time with the magazine. Its experimental format was the norm for the magazine, but still relatively new in the world of magazine journalism. Hayes played with <em>Esquire’s </em>presentation, and is credited with ushering in the era of “New Journalism.”</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2esquire.jpg" style="height:436px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>It’s important to note that back in the ‘60s, <em>Esquire</em> would take four to five months to print, so conten<a name="_GoBack" id="_GoBack"></a>t would have to be topical and refreshing. Hayes had a gift for finding a new angle and getting the appropriate, talented writer. Additionally, Hayes and <em>Esquire</em> were a platform for creative giants such as Diane Arbus, Nora Ephron, Norman Mailer and Gay Talese, which helped added further prestige to the magazine.</p> <p>While the documentary mostly praises Hayes (as seems normal for a son to do), it does touch upon some of the editor’s failures—namely the Gore Vidal and William Buckley feud that carried over from the 1968 Democratic National Convention into the pages of <em>Esquire,</em> which eventually resulted in a lawsuit against the magazine. This along with a few other humbling instances help humanize the admirable subject of the film.</p> <p>A magazine’s voice is shaped by its editor; <em>Esquire’s</em> unique voice in the ‘60s can be attributed to Hayes’ burning interest in culture and quest for information. As the documentary states, Hayes was interested in both sides of a story, of humanizing who or what might be considered monstrous, as long as it was interesting. Although a slow-paced film, <em>Smiling Through the Apocalypse</em> is a treat for any journalist, history fan, or pop culture aficionado to watch, with its happy narrative and inspirational, larger-than-life character of Harold Hayes.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><br /> <strong><em>Gabriella Tutino is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/esquire-magazine" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">esquire magazine</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/harold-hayes" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">harold hayes</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/magazines" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">magazines</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/publishing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">publishing</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/esquire" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Esquire</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/smiling-through-acopolypse" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">smiling through the acopolypse</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Gabriella Tutino</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:02:18 +0000 tara 6057 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/5045-shining-light-harold-hayes-and-glory-days-esquire-magazine#comments Truman Capote’s Tale of Murder: ‘In Cold Blood’ Fifty Years Later https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4948-truman-capote-s-tale-murder-cold-blood-fifty-years-later <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 04/13/2015 - 13:00</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1capote.jpg?itok=pLhFwPEs"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1capote.jpg?itok=pLhFwPEs" width="480" height="359" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>The party is at Jean Stein`s in the spring of 1965. In a room full of literary and theatre people is British drama critic Ken Tynan, famous for ensuring the success of John Osborne`s <em>Look Back in Anger</em>, and Truman Capote, author of best-selling <em>Breakfast at Tiffany`s</em>.  At the centre of the noise and gaiety, Capote, dressed immaculately as usual, is in especially high spirits.  He has just heard that the final appeal has been lost - Smith and Hicock will be hanged for the murder of the Clutter family six years earlier. Tynan observes Capote jumping up and down with glee - `I`m besides myself! Besides myself! Besides myself with joy!`</p> <p>Can this be right, he thinks - this celebration of two men`s forthcoming deaths, however terrible their crimes, just because it provides closure to the writer`s book. There is a quarrel but no reconciliation and a few months later Tynan writes his review of <em>In Cold Blood</em>, accusing Capote of a lack of moral responsibility - of failing to properly intervene in the legal process to save the accused from the rope. `No piece of prose, however deathless, is worth a human life.`</p> <p>Almost from the moment of first publication in book form <em>In Cold Blood</em> - soon to be a best-seller and Book-of-the-Month Club selection - is surrounded by controversy. Has the author, by not doing enough to prevent the two culprits` executions, compounded the ruthless and chilling murders depicted in his book?  After all, without them and their co-operation, there would be no book. In spite of Capote`s furious protests and in spite of such notable defenders of his cause as the notable cultural commentator, Diane Trilling, the phrase `in cold blood` begins to take on additional significance - to refer not only to the original killings portrayed, not only to the refusal of the Court to show mercy but also to the author`s own behavior.</p> <p>If questions about the author`s relation to the ending of <em>In Cold Blood</em> provokes one set of moral issues, another set is suggested by the genre of the book. Determined to break out of the constraints of the conventional novel-form, Capote seeks to merge fiction and non-fiction - to record what had happened at Holcomb (an event he read about in a <em>New York Times</em> report) and its impact on the community by conducting a series of interviews with local residents and investigators. Relying on memory for 6,000 post-interview notes, using the novelist`s techniques of selection, scene arrangement, dramatic presentation and crafted language but at the same time claiming that his work `reflected ...the essence of reality`, Capote`s `nonfiction novel` unsurprisingly drew criticism from those concerned about the ethical implications of what he was doing.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2capote.jpg" style="height:432px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>In the same manner that such major American writers of the Sixties as Roth, Mailer and Vonnegut seek to grapple, in their different ways, with the problem of finding a form and language to convey the particular texture of the turbulent decade, Capote turns to the hybrid form of the nonfiction novel  to capture the reality of the times. If there are a few inaccuracies or distortions, then this is the price that has to be paid for a work that does justice to a `truer truth.`  </p> <p> </p> <p>From the 1965 publication of <em>In Cold Blood</em> then, the line between fact and fiction and, arguably between truth and lies, becomes a lot less clear-cut.   </p> <p>Issues of moral responsibility are also involved in Capote`s choice and treatment of his subject matter. His decision to select one of the most brutal killings in American history as the centre of the book, after the light and delicate portrayal of upper-class New York society in <em>Breakfast at Tiffany`s</em>, is both brave and risky. Asking readers to watch and emotionally engage with the killing of a whole family in their home would obviously shock and horrify many. <em>In Cold Blood</em> is no detached report of a crime committed hundreds of miles away but rather the detailed and graphic representation of the invasion of a secure and affluent home by terrifying alien forces. Not only the Clutters are threatened and terrified but so also, at one remove, are all middle-class, Midwestern American families. In a society that is witnessing increasing violence, whether from political activism or social unrest, the implied and disturbing message of<em> In Cold Blood</em> is that no part of America is completely safe.</p> <p>Capote`s depiction of some of the key participants in the crime - both victims and perpetrators - also has the potential to disturb. Whilst the Clutter family is depicted as eminently upstanding and respectable, we might wonder, as each member is briefly referenced in the book`s opening pages, as if in an inventory, whether there isn`t something a little cold and detached about the presentation?</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3capote.jpg" style="height:375px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Similarly, although husband and father, Herbert, is certainly a widely admired figure in the community -someone who looks after both his wife, who suffers from psychiatric problems, and his children, with admirable care, his self-assurance and dominance - he is referred to as `the master of River Valley Farm` and wants to break-up his daughter`s relationship with her steady boyfriend - do little to endear him to the reader.  When Capote writes - `Always certain of what he wanted from the world, Mr Clutter had in large measure obtained it`,  his style - the neatly balanced sentence, the use of the formal  `Mr.` and the somewhat impersonal vocabulary seem to reinforce the idea that he lacks a certain amount of warmth. This lack, together with Herbert`s puritanical traits - `of course he did not drink` - and his caution - he has recently undergone a medical examination for a life- insurance policy - mean that we only occasionally - as when he is shown as a caring husband or a decent employer - sense his humanity.</p> <p>Whilst Mr. Clutter may be shown limited sympathy - at least before his death - Perry Smith, one of his murderers, is shown a good deal. Capote, sent away as a child to live with distant relations after the break-up of his parents` marriage, seems emotionally drawn to Perry, whose dislocated and poverty-stricken life as the mixed-race child of itinerant circus-performers, speaks to his own insecure upbringing.  </p> <p> </p> <p>Instead of the distanced style used for Herbert, Capote renders the murderer`s thoughts and feelings from inside -`Still no sign of Dick. But he was sure to show up`. And throughout the narrative, in the references to his liking for adventure, to his playful experiments in front of the mirror and to his singing, there is a strong emphasis on the character`s inwardness and imagination. In spite of the terrible acts he commits, he possesses, unlike his partner, a sensitivity to others - he is careful, for example, not to cause the Clutters unnecessary pain before their deaths - and an intelligent self-awareness about the crimes he commits - `And just then it was like I was outside myself... It made me sick. I was just disgusted` - that subverts conventional responses.</p> <p>Here again, <em>In Cold Blood</em> raises serious questions for the reader about the writer`s moral position. Shouldn`t our sympathies be focused on the victims of the crimes depicted rather than on their perpetrator - particularly as Capote describes the crimes in such dreadful, slow-motion, detail? The fact that the book prompts such concerns suggests its power to disrupt settled and taken-for-granted attitudes, reminding us that it is written and published at a time when a whole range of such attitudes - social and political as well as moral - are under attack.</p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/4capote.jpg" style="height:625px; width:393px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The links between <em>In Cold Blood</em> and the wider shifting Sixties` culture is also apparent in the treatment of sexuality. Although heterosexual relationships are presented through  the typically traditional adolescent courtship between Nancy Clutter and Bobby Rupp - a matter of  dates and dances - and through Hicock`s crude and exploitative attitudes to girls and sex,   Capote is also interested in something a bit more unconventional and subversive. There is  the intense, if fraught, connection between the two murderers, there is Perry`s strong feelings towards the prison chaplain he encounters while serving  time and there is the author`s own close bond with Perry, hinted at in the closing stages of the book but suggested by subsequent rumours and gossip. It is these male relationships that have an authenticity and intensity that are absent from the heterosexual relationships of the book. </p> <p>Capote may have started his investigative project, with Harper Lee as his collaborator, as a literary experiment to record the impact of a crime on a community but he was increasingly affected by the emotional claims of the killers` lives. Never really on the wrong side of the law himself himself, his own identity as an openly gay celebrity means that he knows the meaning and implications of deviance from the inside - a knowledge that enables him to recognise the pain and fear of those on the margins of society - whether they be murderers or not.</p> <p>By the end <em>of In Cold Blood</em>, readers have been asked to overlook the author`s own problematic relation to the fates of his characters, to ignore the traditional boundary between fact and fiction, to extend their sympathies towards the brutal killer of a whole family at the expense of his victims and to recognise that heterosexuality may be a less powerful force than homosexuality in Capote’s world. In addition, by questioning the capability of the US legal process to provide a fair trial for two young men whose lives have been stunted in different ways by the society in which they have grown up, Capote is also raising concerns about the morality of capital punishment.</p> <p>If <em>In Cold Blood</em> is not be quite as directly critical of the system as some other 1960s` texts - for example, <em>Catch 22</em> or <em>One Flew Over the Cuckoo`s Nest</em> -  nevertheless it also belongs to that time, 50 years ago, when traditional certainties were coming under critical scrutiny and attack.  Just as much as Heller or Kesey, Capote wants his readers to reflect on their preconceptions and to think and feel differently about the world around them.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><strong><em>Mike Peters is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/cold-blood" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">in cold blood</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/truman-capote" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">truman capote</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/authors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">authors</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/murder" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">murder</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/publishing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">publishing</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Mike Peters</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Google Images; Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 13 Apr 2015 17:00:16 +0000 tara 5907 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4948-truman-capote-s-tale-murder-cold-blood-fifty-years-later#comments Victim and Accuser Clash in David Bezmozgis’ ‘The Betrayers’ https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4393-victim-and-accuser-clash-david-bezmozgis-betrayers <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 10/27/2014 - 13:16</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1betrayal.jpg?itok=j4lGqhP9"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1betrayal.jpg?itok=j4lGqhP9" width="480" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>The Betrayers</strong></p> <p><strong>David Bezmzogis</strong></p> <p><strong>Little Brown </strong></p> <p><strong>225 pages</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>The setup of David Bezmozgis’ second novel is refreshingly simple. Baruch Kotler, a prominent Israeli politician (and former political prisoner in the USSR) has fled Tel Aviv in disgrace with his much younger mistress, Leora. They come to Yalta, a resort town in the Crimea, where, after a mix-up over hotel reservations, they rent a room in an apartment owned by a Russian woman, Svetlana.</p> <p> </p> <p>As we quickly discover, Svetlana’s aged husband, Chaim Tankilevich, is the man who long ago denounced Kotler to the KGB, which led to Kotler’s 13 years of exile and imprisonment.   </p> <p> </p> <p>It’s a mark of Bezmozgis’ skill that such an outlandish coincidence feels only mildly surprising in the course of human events. The author is equally adept at capturing Kotler’s sardonic nature in this early exchange with Leora, after the hotel reservation they’ve made turns out to be canceled:</p> <p> </p> <p>– The cow says they have no record of our reservation, Leora announced. An outright lie. I was tempted to tell her whom she was dealing with.</p> <p>—I’m sure it would have made a profound impression.</p> <p>—I wouldn’t be so dismissive of your importance.</p> <p>—Well, there’s something I’ve seldom been accused of, Kotler said.</p> <p> </p> <p>But as he deftly engineers the inevitable confrontation between accused and betrayer – after decades of bitter recriminations have passed – Bezmozgis takes us out of Kotler’s perspective (which extends for nearly the entire length of this short novel) and into the world inhabited by Chaim Tankilevich.</p> <p> </p> <p>The ex-KGB informant and his wife live a hand-to-mouth existence in near-total anonymity, and while we’re reflexively inclined to sympathize with the man he betrayed, we’re also made to understand the hobbling conditions that have made Tankilevich the man he is today.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2betrayal.jpg" style="height:402px; width:607px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Every week he takes a long, painful bus ride to attend a faltering synagogue in Simferopol, in exchange for which he receives a small subsidy from a local Jewish charity. But the hours of travel back and forth are breaking him down:</p> <p> </p> <p>“He could anticipate every roadside stand with its jars of honey and strings of purple Yalta onions. He could anticipate the sloping vineyards and the pastures with their cows and horses like indolent fixtures of the landscape. And he could anticipate the cement bus shelters and the blank-eyed men who sat on their haunches beside them. This pitiless monotony, this drone of a life, to this he had been condemned. Especially in this land, to this they had all been condemned … He was forced to look, to contend with the unremitting dreariness of existence. He was a seventy-one-year-old man afflicted with cataracts, arrhythmia, and sciatica, captive of the trolleybus, tormented body and soul.”</p> <p> </p> <p>At the heart of <em>The Betrayers </em>are two extended conversations (“showdowns” is too strong a word) first between Leora and Svetlana, then between Kotler and Tankilevich. In long discussions, the four probe issues of loyalty and betrayal, truth and deception, and the terrible toll the past always exacts upon the present.</p> <p> </p> <p>But despite the inert nature of two women and then two men talking at great length (where nothing else happens), these conversations are both compelling and enlightening. Pages keep turning without the need for any stylistic fireworks.</p> <p> </p> <p>The novel falters somewhat in its portrayal of secondary characters like Kotler’s long-suffering wife Miriam and his son Benzion, an Israeli soldier tormented by a moral quandary created in part by his high-principled, yet curiously detached father. Wife and son appear primarily as voices at the far end of a long-distance phone call and, as a result, fail to convey the impact the author desires near the end of the story.</p> <p> </p> <p>But Bezmozgis’ voice, with its echoes of Bernard Malamud, is witty, sinewy, insightful and captivating. <em>The Betrayers</em> is an accomplished piece of work from an author who takes a long view of the follies and misery of the past.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Lee Polevoi, </em></strong><strong>Highbrow Magaazine’s<em> chief book critic, is completing a new novel.</em></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/david-bezmozgis" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">david bezmozgis</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/betrayers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the betrayers</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new fiction</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/publishing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">publishing</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/authors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">authors</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/american-writers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">american writers</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 27 Oct 2014 17:16:51 +0000 tara 5353 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4393-victim-and-accuser-clash-david-bezmozgis-betrayers#comments Ayelet Waldman Goes In Search of Lost Treasures in New Book https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4058-ayelet-waldman-goes-search-lost-treasures-new-book <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Thu, 06/12/2014 - 10:24</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1waldman.jpg?itok=JmHPrEjJ"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1waldman.jpg?itok=JmHPrEjJ" width="360" height="480" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>The year is 1945. The setting, the outskirts of Salzburg, Austria. Newly victorious American soldiers approach a series of over 40 passenger and freight wagons from Hungary. To their surprise, inside the wagons are the countless possessions of Hungary's displaced Jews--from gold watches, to silver candlesticks, to silk bedsheets, to old manuscripts--they number in the hundred thousands, their records of ownership tenuous at best. This mass of abandoned items will become known to history as the Hungarian Gold Train, and from it emerges a mysterious keepsake: a jeweled pendant designed with an enameled peacock of amethyst and peridot. This necklace will transcend generations with its beguiling history, entwining the lives of three different women whose combined stories span over the course a century.</p> <p> </p> <p> So begins <em>Love and Treasure</em>, Ayelet Waldman's latest, critically-acclaimed novel. With a precision to detail that astonishes and sweetens with each page, the reader is introduced to Jack Wiseman, a Jewish-American lieutenant charged with the duty of reorganizing and cataloguing the Gold Train's contents. In doing so, he meets and falls in love with Ilona, a Hungarian Jew who has lost her entire family to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.</p> <p> </p> <p>Desperate to locate Ilona's family possessions from amongst the Gold Train's contents, Jack discovers within its piles a peacock necklace from Ilona's hometown of Nagyvarad. When Ilona abandons Jack for life as a Jewish refugee at the border of Palestine, Jack pockets the peacock necklace in an act of wistful sentimentality. Decades later, he asks his only granddaughter, Natalie, to find the rightful owner of the peacock necklace, the true history behind which is not illuminated until the final third of the novel.</p> <p> </p> <p>With <em>Love and Treasure</em>, Waldman has clearly employed an arduous amount of research to create an air of verisimilitude that brings both the politics of early 20th century Hungary and the bedlam of postwar Europe to life. Through each interweaving tale Waldman explores issues as diverse as American reparations in the face of World War II's unspeakable atrocities, anti-Semitism and the Jewish diaspora, early Freudian techniques of psychotherapy and dream analysis, Suffragism and feminist literature, even the underground Communist movement in Budapest.</p> <p> </p> <p>Though the novel jumps from one steep socio-political climate to another, a continuous theme found throughout is the question of rightful ownership, particularly in regard to the invaluableness of family heirlooms, and the transcendence of memory through material items. This theme in particular is what drives the events of the second part of the novel, in which Natalie and Amitai Shosha, a Syrian-Jewish art dealer who specializes in recovering stolen Holocaust art pieces, find themselves sussing out the relation between 20th century suffragist Nina Einhorn and the aforementioned peacock necklace, as well as her connection to a lost painting by an artist named Vidor Komlos.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2waldman%20%28pixabay%29.jpg" style="height:469px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The slickly unctious Amitai serves as a kind of foil to the conscientious Jack Wiseman, whose guilt over stealing a single necklace from the thousands of forsaken items on the Gold Train plagues him to his very deathbed. Amitai, on the other hand, is more concerned with gaining a commission off stolen art treasures than deriving any satisfaction from proper repatriation or reinstatement of rightful ownership. Natalie, however, seems to share her grandfather's indomitable sense of duty, a stubborn adherence to honor that spurs her on a madcap hunt across Europe to locate whomever  possesses the best claim to ownership of the necklace, be it through bloodline, marriage, or friendship. In rectifying her grandfather's crime, Natalie not only honors an old man's dying wish, but she symbolically memorializes her slain Jewish countrymen, restoring the dignity of ownership to those who were made to forfeit their treasures and family heirlooms to the Hungarian Gold Train.</p> <p> </p> <p>At one point in the novel, Peter Elek, a seasoned jewelry and art dealer, and Dr. Dror Tamid, a professor of history, engage in a heated argument over the rightful disposition of the Herzog collection, a compilation of art amassed by the Baron Mór Lipót Herzog, a Budapest Jew, and the cause of a "diplomatic fracas" between Hungary and the United States.  Though he acknowledges the Herzog family's right to restitution, Elek regrets the possibility of Hungary losing yet another historically significant art treasure to a Western country. Upon finding out that Elek is himself a Jew, Dr. Tamid, who sides with the Herzogs' right to ownership, reprimands Elek for lacking sympathy. To this, Elek responds:</p> <p> </p> <p>"For whom should I have sympathy? The Herzog family? Aristocrats whose gold allowed them to escape in comfort and safety while the rest of Jewish Budapest tried to keep from being shot and thrown in the Danube? A gang of robber barons who got out with millions and lived to produce a gaggle of squabbling spoiled heirs?....What about those like my family, who lost everything, though it was so little? To my mother, a new pair of shoes was worth more than an El Greco to a Herzog. Where is her compensation?"</p> <p> </p> <p>In uttering these words, Elek not only points to an obfuscation of "rightful ownership" when dealing with Holocaust victims due to varying levels of wealth and opportunity, but argues for a kind of nullification of personal inheritance in the face of vast historical significance. After all, as Elek is quick to point out, "Baron Herzog's is one of the last great collections remaining in Hungary." To Elek, the Holocaust's extant art treasures carry the weight of Europe's murdered Jews, regardless of who claims ownership to them. These treasures, like Nina's necklace and the Komlos painting, tell a story of livelihood lost, an insight into one of the darkest eras in history. And despite aiding Amitai in his reclamation of stolen art for many years, the spirit of this argument bristles somewhat against Amitai's penchant for splitting proceeds with the descendants of the very people who stole the art in the first place.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/1WWii%20%28wiki%29.jpg" style="height:391px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>In pursuit of Nina Einhorn, the Komlos painting, and the history behind the peacock necklace, Amitai gradually undergoes a re-examination of his attitudes toward rightful ownership that culminates in a field trip to the renowned Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. While standing in the museum parking lot, Natalie confesses to Amitai that her pursuit of the necklace's rightful owner had simply served as "a container for (her) grandfather's grief. In the same vein, her lifelong fascination with the Holocaust had nothing to do with her own personal history, but was simply a vehicle by which to experience the pain and suffering she, a Jew, had been spared from undergoing.  Conversely, Amitai suddenly feels justified in identifying with the Holocaust by sheer virtue of his Jewishness, as evidenced by the following realization:</p> <p> </p> <p>"Before today, his lack of personal connection to the Holocaust had made it a distant history, no more relevant to him than any other. But Natalie, the locket, the painting, the Hall of Names, taking responsibility for Komlos in the Pages of Testimony, these had brought him to the realization that , merely by virtue of being a Jew, even a Jew from another place and time, it was his history, too. Not personally, but collectively. It belonged to him, as he belonged to all thoses Jews rising up into the infinite ceiling in the Hall of Names."</p> <p> </p> <p>Rightful ownership in <em>Love and Treasure</em>, then, appears to be somewhat of a nebulous concept. Though Natalie and Amitai unknowingly trace the necklace back to its original owner's nearest living relative, their ignorance concerning the keepsake's true provenance ironically results in the relative choosing to sell it off to bolster a foundering household income. The reader is thus left with a series of questions: What, exactly, is true ownership, and how is it established? Is it established via blood relation, association? Does historical significance rightfully relegate it to a national museum? Is it solely possessed by the individual, or does historical significance  establish collective ownership by an entire country? By a group of people? Or does it belong, perhaps, to whomever develops a sentimental connection to the item? Can ownership be claimed by identification of history?</p> <p> </p> <p>The answers, much like the individual histories uncovered in <em>Love and Treasure</em>, may be rather complicated.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>Kaitlyn Fajilan is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/hungarian-gold-train" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">hungarian gold train</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/love-and-treasure" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">love and treasure</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ayelet-waldman" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ayelet waldman</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/new-books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">new books</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/literature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">literature</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/authors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">authors</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/american-writers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">american writers</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/publishing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">publishing</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jews" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">jews</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jewish-history" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">jewish history</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Kaitlyn Fajilan</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Pixabay; Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Thu, 12 Jun 2014 14:24:11 +0000 tara 4832 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/4058-ayelet-waldman-goes-search-lost-treasures-new-book#comments Gruesome Murders Haunt ‘Quiet Dell’ https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3937-gruesome-murders-haunt-quiet-dell <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 04/28/2014 - 10:49</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1quietdell.jpg?itok=Mncc02g7"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1quietdell.jpg?itok=Mncc02g7" width="480" height="295" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>Quiet Dell</strong></p> <p><strong>By Jayne Anne Phillips</strong></p> <p><strong>Scribner</strong></p> <p><strong>445 pages</strong></p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p>In 1931, after an exchange of love letters, a man calling himself Cornelius Pierson first relocated a middle-aged widow named Asta Eicher and later her three children, from their home in Park Ridge, Illinois, to the small town of Quiet Dell, West Virginia. Weeks later, the bodies of the Eicher family were discovered beneath the garage of a home owned by Harry Powers, who turned out to be a psychopathic killer. Powers was convicted of their murders (and others) and executed in 1932.</p> <p> </p> <p>The story behind this grisly real-life crime is the subject of Jayne Anne Phillips’ uneven but beautifully written new novel, <em>Quiet Dell. </em>In the early pages, she chronicles the lives of the Eicher clan members—Asta, desperate to maintain a decent lifestyle after the death of her husband, and the children, Grethe, a mentally challenged 14-year-old girl, Hart, 12, the “man of the family,” and 9-year-old Annabel, a youngster with a rich imagination.</p> <p> </p> <p>Asta Eicher’s fate is kept from our view in the first part of the novel. We are witness, instead, to the second journey made with the children in Mr. Pierson’s automobile. The well-dressed, fastidious and oddly impatient man promises them that their mother is waiting to reunite with them after a week’s absence. He’s attentive to their needs during the long drive, even while he hurries them along through a picnic by the side of the road:</p> <p> </p> <p>“Mr. Pierson had shown them the view from the outlook, pointing out the rills of water tumbling into a ravine far below, and the hairpin turns in the road, looping here and there like bright stripes suddenly visible between the tops of trees. He’d carefully put everything back into the basket after their meal and walked across the highway to the outlook, as though to see the vista once again, carrying the basket. He stood even beyond the sign, with the basket at his feet. Then he turned suddenly, sending it over the edge with his foot.”</p> <p> </p> <p>The children are unaware of the menace “Mr. Pierson” represents until it’s too late. Phillips’ decision to keep the details hidden away until later perfectly matches the ingratiating horror of the murderer himself.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2quietdell.jpg" style="height:625px; width:414px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The events leading up to the family’s disappearance closely align with what’s known about the victims (mother and daughters were found strangled, while the boy was beaten to death with a hammer). What follows, and forms the central part of <em>Quiet Dell</em>, is an account of Harry Powers’ arrest and trial, seen through the eyes of Emily Thornhill, a fictional <em>Chicago Tribune </em>reporter assigned to cover the court proceedings. Emily covers both the investigation and the trial, while becoming romantically involved with the Eicher family banker, a man riddled with guilt for not having done more to help Asta when she was alive.</p> <p> </p> <p>It’s here that <a name="_GoBack" id="_GoBack"></a>some narrative challenges arise. Emily appears almost instantly full-blown in her drive and self-possession, despite the comparative rarity of young, strong-willed female reporters in the early Depression years. Some of the dialogue in her investigatory conversations borders on exposition (“I will interview Mr. Charles O’Boyle this evening in Chicago, before departing for West Virginia. I should arrive there a day after the Park Ridge police whose travel you funded.”) Minor details are repeated several times, assuming greater importance than they perhaps merit. And Emily’s relationship with the banker, Mr. Malone, assumes an implausible intensity almost from the moment they meet.</p> <p> </p> <p>These missteps aside, Phillips writes prose of an arresting and lyrical nature, and is ideally suited to capture such moments as Emily’s first experience of the crime scene in Quiet Dell:</p> <p> </p> <p>“The sun was low in the sky and the angle of light burnished the ground. Heavy-limbed trees stood silhouetted in the field, gravid, sentinel, their canopies subtly stirring. The sky was still pale blue against the darker earth, and the creek seemed to mark a line between one world and another. She imagined walking across the water, leading Duty on the leash to that other, empty meadow that lay bathed in the softest pearlized light, but could not bring herself to approach. None of them, on this side, were worthy of that place.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><em>Lee Polevoi is </em>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>chief book critic and the author of a novel, </em><a href="https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/the-moon-in-deep-winter/">The Moon in Deep Winter</a><em>.</em>  </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/asta-eicher" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">asta eicher</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/harry-powers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">harry powers</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/quiet-dell" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">quiet dell</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jayne-anne-phillips" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">jayne anne phillips</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/books" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">books</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">fiction</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nonfiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">nonfiction</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/literature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">literature</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/publishing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">publishing</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 28 Apr 2014 14:49:37 +0000 tara 4631 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3937-gruesome-murders-haunt-quiet-dell#comments Why Ralph Ellison Still Matters https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3825-why-ralph-ellison-still-matters <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 03/17/2014 - 10:28</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1ralphellison.jpg?itok=ni8emKIo"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1ralphellison.jpg?itok=ni8emKIo" width="480" height="270" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>From <a href="http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2014/03/ralph_ellison_s_legacy_endures.html">The Root</a>:</p> <p> </p> <p><em>“... Literature is an affirmative act, but, being specifically concerned with moral values and reality, it has to deal with the possibility of defeat. Underlying it most profoundly is the sense that man dies but his values continue. The mediating role of literature is to leave the successors with the sense of what is dangerous in the human predicament and what is glorious.”</em> —Ralph Ellison, 1972</p> <p> </p> <p>On March 1, 2014, Ralph Ellison would have turned 100. On that day, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem devoted a day to readings from Ellison’s classic novel, Invisible Man. In February the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in his honor. Earlier this month, in Ellison’s birthplace of Oklahoma City, an academic conference celebrating his centennial was held featuring The Root’s own editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., as keynote speaker. Also this month, the National Jazz Museum in Harlem launched an exhibit centering on Ellison’s record collection.</p> <p> </p> <p>Yet considering Ellison’s central place in 20th-century American literature and his sterling achievement as a black American thinker, more attention should be given far and wide. To address this lack of due attention, here are three reasons that Ralph Ellison still matters.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>1. The Achievement of Invisible Man</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Never out of print since it became a best-seller in 1952, and winner of the National Book Award in 1953, Ellison’s fictional masterpiece is generally recognized as one of the most influential novels of the 20th century. This is the tale of the often slapstick (mis)adventures of a nameless Negro American protagonist whose blues-drenched, pinball-like journey from the South to the North and from rural to city not only mirrored the historical trajectory of black folk, but whose search for identity resonates, even today, with all.</p> <p> </p> <p>The historical and psychological depth, the capturing of the range of polyglot American speech patterns, the intersection of individual desire for leadership and the ideological and political realities of the time, and the range of literary allusions—from Negro folktales and fictional predecessors ranging from Melville, Dostoevsky, Twain, Hemingway and Faulkner to James Weldon Johnson and Richard Wright—all combined in Ellison’s imagination and were conveyed in eloquent prose. The power of Invisible Man to still reach readers in their guts, hearts and minds—to relate to their sense of life, whether male or female, or from whatever ethnic or cultural background or nationality—is well-stated in the novel’s closing line: “Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>2. Ellison’s Definition and Defense of Black American Culture Over Race</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Ellison once wrote that the American “writer has a triple responsibility: to himself, to his immediate group, and to his region.” African Americans (whom Ellison’s generation called Negro Americans) were his immediate group, and following predecessors such as Langston Hughes and Alain Locke, Ellison embraced affirming what he called the “Negro idiom,” an attitude and way of life that manifests the way we move, make music and dance, play in speech and sport, style in cuisine and fashion.</p> <p> </p> <p>Ellison knew that race was built on surface perceptions that hid deeper human meaning and identities derived from culture. In fact, the Negro idiom, as he defined it, is integral to American culture overall. Comprehending culture and not confusing it with race was a key to his artistic liberation and is still instructive for us now.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2ralphellison.jpg" style="height:625px; width:401px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>In an essay defending black youth, titled “What These Children Are Like,” Ellison defined culture as “how people deal with their environment, about what they make of what is abiding in it, about what helps them find their way, and about that which helps them be at home in the world.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Culture is also a storehouse of values. In 1963, in an essay titled “The World and the Jug,” Ellison famously took white liberal literary critic Irving Howe to task for elevating Wright’s anger in Native Son over his more “modulated” approach in Invisible Man. Ellison, in one of the best literary beat-downs of the 20th century, informed Howe that Negro life isn’t only a burden “but also a discipline—just as any human life which has endured so long is a discipline teaching its own insights into the human condition, its own strategies of survival ... Crucial to this view is the belief that their resistance to provocation, their coolness under pressure, their sense of timing and their tenacious hold on the ideal of their ultimate freedom are indispensable values in the struggle, and are at least as characteristic of American Negroes as the hatred, fear and vindictiveness which Wright chose to emphasize.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>3. The Fulfillment of His Civic Duty as an American Writer and Citizen</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Ellison played a central role in the development of what became PBS, the Public Broadcasting System. This was one example of his civic engagement with the nation. But his main means of engagement was with his pen and typewriter. In the cauldron of the 1960s and the black power and Black Arts movements, the political fervor of the times led some to mischaracterize Ellison as standing aside from the movement.</p> <p> </p> <p>Yet Invisible Man itself not only reflected the history of black Americans from the mid-19th century through the mid-20th century. It was also a portent of the civil rights movement. As the epigraph at the beginning of this essay confirms, the creation of literature was not, to Ellison, a frivolous departure from structural or social realities. Writers, he often said, create or reveal hidden realities by asserting their existence. Ellison believed that one of his tasks was to explore America and to describe it in order for the promise of the nation to become a reality. To Ellison, this responsibility was almost sacred.</p> <p> </p> <p>In 1967 Ellison was interviewed by three young black writers. They asked: “What do you consider the Negro writer’s responsibility to American literature as a whole?”</p> <p> </p> <p>Ellison responded: “The writer, any American writer, becomes responsible for the health of American literature the moment he starts writing seriously ... regardless of his race or religious background. This is no arbitrary matter. Just as there is implicit in the act of voting the responsibility of helping to govern, there is implicit in the act of writing a responsibility for the quality of the American language ... ”</p> <p> </p> <p>In a consideration of Ellison’s contemporary significance, his interviews, essays and letters should also be factored in, as well as his uncompleted second novel, Three Days Before the Shooting. Ellison entire body of work remains relevant because it reverberates with a vision of American possibility as magnificent as that of any other writer of the 20th century.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>Greg Thomas, after a two-year stint as jazz columnist for</em> New York’s Daily News, <em>has gladly come back home to The Root.</em></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>This article was originally published in The Root.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/ralph-ellision" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">ralph ellision</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/invisible-man" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">invisible man</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/writers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">writers</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/american-writers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">american writers</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/black-writers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">black writers</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/literature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">literature</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/authors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">authors</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/writing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">writing</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/publishing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">publishing</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/black-experience" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the black experience</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/race-relations" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">race relations</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/discrimination" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">discrimination</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Greg Thomas</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">The Root</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 17 Mar 2014 14:28:13 +0000 tara 4445 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3825-why-ralph-ellison-still-matters#comments Between the Covers with Wendy Lesser’s ‘Why I Read’ https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3798-between-covers-wendy-lesser-s-why-i-read <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/books-fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Books &amp; Fiction</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 09:42</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1lesser%20%28Global%20X%20flickr%29.jpg?itok=KtOSPST7"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1lesser%20%28Global%20X%20flickr%29.jpg?itok=KtOSPST7" width="480" height="360" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books</strong></p> <p><strong>Wendy Lesser</strong></p> <p><strong>FSG </strong></p> <p><strong>223 pages</strong></p> <p> </p> <p>Why do we read? For some, the purpose is to escape the pressures of everyday life. Others wish to gain information and acquire knowledge (not necessarily the same thing). Many readers simply enjoy the satisfaction of encountering well-crafted prose, be it fiction or nonfiction. It may be safe to say that many of us never even consider the question – though knowing the answer might significantly enhance our reading experience.</p> <p> </p> <p>As the founder and editor of <em>The Threepenny Review, </em>a prominent American literary magazine, Wendy Lesser is uniquely positioned to explore the pleasures and strategies of reading. In <em>Why I Read, </em>she embarks on a free-ranging and broad analysis of certain novels, stories, plays, poems and essays that have resonated with her over a lifetime of reading.</p> <p> </p> <p>“ … When I ask myself why I read literature, I am not really asking about motivation,” Lesser writes. “I am asking what I get from it: what delights I have received over the years, what rewards I can expect to glean.”</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2lesser%20%28wiki%29.jpg" style="height:373px; width:279px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>The rewards, as well as the books she chooses to highlight, are eclectic. Lesser finds pleasure and meaning in the works of the 19<sup>th</sup> century masters (Henry James, Dostoyevsky) as well as literature in translation (Haruki Murakami, Roberto Bolano) and mysteries (Ross MacDonald, Patricia Highsmith and Scandinavian authors like Jo Nesbo and Henning Mankell). Readers of <em>Why I Read </em>will find her range of expertise impressive, but not oppressive.</p> <p> </p> <p>When Lesser goes deeper in her analysis of great works of fiction, however, some readers unfamiliar with those works may feel a bit lost.  Not all of us have read <em>Brothers Karamazov </em>or Henry James’ <em>The Golden Bowl</em>—and her acute scrutiny will either drive us to tackle these behemoths of literature or skim ahead to her examination of Highsmith or Isaac Asimov. But there’s no denying the authority with which she probes into what makes these novels endure from generation to generation.</p> <p> </p> <p>Lesser’s enthusiasm for “novelty” in literature is more qualified: “As an end in itself, stylistic innovation is merely a way of showing off, a useless if mildly entertaining trapeze act; only when harnessed to the author’s fervent story-telling does it become significant.” While addressing the “usual suspects” like Joyce, she does readers a genuine service by drawing attention to such lesser-known practitioners of stylistic innovation as Penelope Fitzgerald, who late in life “became an undisputed if rather strange master of the form.”</p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/3lesser.jpg" style="height:500px; width:330px" /></p> <p> </p> <p><em>Why I Read </em>offers a respite from the scattershot effect of reading as we know it today. As promised in her subtitle, Lesser is serious about the benefits of literature – and the commitment readers must make to reap those benefits. She’s also pragmatic about the idea of “progress” in the world of books:</p> <p> </p> <p>“There is no progress in the world of letters, as there is, say, in science or manufacturing. As the centuries pass, we do not get better or smarter at reading, and the authors among us do not get better at writing. Things come and go, make sense to us or not, depending on our particular state of mind, and we change our minds over the course of a lifetime.”</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>Lee Polevoi is </em>Highbrow Magazine’s <em>Chief Book Critic and the author of a novel, </em>The Moon in Deep Winter. </p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/why-i-read" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">why I read</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/wendy-lesser" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">wendy lesser</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/threepenny-review" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">threepenny review</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/reading" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">reading</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/writing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">writing</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/authors" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">authors</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/literature" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">literature</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/american-writers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">american writers</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/fiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">fiction</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/nonfiction" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">nonfiction</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/publishing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">publishing</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Lee Polevoi</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Global X (Flickr); Wikipedia Commons</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Fri, 07 Mar 2014 14:42:25 +0000 tara 4398 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3798-between-covers-wendy-lesser-s-why-i-read#comments Chevron Joins the Publishing World https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3437-chevron-joins-publishing-world <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Media</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Fri, 02/14/2014 - 09:15</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1chevron.jpg?itok=AqJ0fQMV"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1chevron.jpg?itok=AqJ0fQMV" width="480" height="300" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>From our content partner <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2014/02/chevron-joins-news-publisher-wars-in-richmond-calif.php">New America Media</a>:</p> <p> </p> <p>RICHMOND, Calif. -- There’s a good old-fashioned muckraker’s war going on in Richmond, Calif., and Chevron’s “community-driven” news site Richmond Standard is the latest fighter to step into the ring.</p> <p> </p> <p>This sprawling city east of San Francisco is home to Chevron’s oil refinery, which has made it a battleground between the company’s business interests and environmental activists who are calling for checks on air quality and safety.</p> <p> </p> <p>Now, as part of the company’s latest effort to rehabilitate its image in the city, Chevron is launching its own community news site.</p> <p> </p> <p>Chevron spokesperson Melissa Ritchie said that Chevron wanted to start the site because, “We want to make sure there’s a way to have a conversation with Richmond.”</p> <p> </p> <p>But many community members complain that Chevron is already communicating too much with Richmond – and that the communication only goes one way.</p> <p> </p> <p>Chevron is doing a lot of talking, but not much listening, says resident Najari Smith, a spokesman for Black Mobilization Organization Education Richmond (BMOER) and contributing writer for <em>San Francisco Bay View</em>. “While everyone can have a voice, you can pay for a lot of voice,” said Smith, pointing to the many billboards advertising Chevron across the city, the newsletters it sends out, and the publications distributed by For Richmond, a non-profit funded by the oil company.</p> <p> </p> <p>Chevron’s news site is the latest addition to a group of new media outlets in a city that for decades had no newspaper.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Newspaper wars heat up </strong></p> <p> </p> <p>A few years ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find a publication dedicated to covering Richmond. Today, you can take your pick of both publications and political perspectives. With the 2014 election season about to kick off, residents are sure to see a lively debate unfold in the papers, news sites, blogs, and e-forums that have recently cropped up here.</p> <p> </p> <p>“It’s as if there’s a number of people who want to address the news desert—the vacuum that’s been left since the demise of the <em>Independent</em> in 1978,” said lifelong Richmond resident, historian and NPR correspondent Richard Gonzales.</p> <p> </p> <p>When <em>Richmond Confidential</em> was established by UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism in 2008, the only daily newspapers available were the <em>West County Times</em> and the <em>Oakland</em><em> Post.</em> These papers cover Richmond along with other cities and towns in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.</p> <p> </p> <p>Then in 2011, the <em>Richmond Pulse</em> came along. The monthly bilingual newspaper was launched as part of New America Media’s project YouthWire, which generates and supports youth-led community media across the state. "<em>The Pulse</em> was originally supposed to be online only, but I saw a need for print news,” said editor Malcolm Marshall. Funded by The California Endowment, the <em>Pulse</em> was the first bilingual paper to spring up in response to Richmond’s rapidly changing demographics. Nearly one-third of Richmond’s residents now speak Spanish at home.</p> <p> </p> <p><em>La Voz</em>, launched in July of last year, was next to show up on the scene. “The Latino community needs good materials, reports, analysis and perspectives that reflect their issues and their concerns,” said editor Juan Reardon. Reardon is a progressive activist in Richmond, and the bilingual newspaper is largely seen as supportive of the Richmond Progressive Alliance.</p> <p> </p> <p>Though not based in Richmond, another interesting development in the local news scene was the arrival of the <em>San Francisco Bay View</em>, a left-leaning black newspaper that started delivering in Richmond in May. “We always wanted to go back to Richmond,” said the <em>Bay View</em>’s publisher, Willie Ratcliff. The paper has received funding from local non-profits, and Ratcliff said he now has an obligation to start reporting and distributing in Richmond again.</p> <p> </p> <p>Then in January, Chevron launched the Richmond Standard.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2chevron.jpg" style="height:349px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Mike Aldax, a former reporter for the <em>San Francisco Examiner</em> is acting as editor of the site. Though he is not a Chevron employee, he is a senior account executive at Singer Associates, the firm that handles Chevron’s public relations. When asked if he considers himself more of an editor or an advocate for Chevron, Aldax said, “My role is in a sense both.” Aldax sees his job as reporting the news accurately, and, “Heck, if the news is popular enough, people would read the Chevron Speaks section.”</p> <p> </p> <p>The site covers local news and events, and Aldax said he hopes to build the Richmond Standard in the model of neighborhood blogs like Bernalwood in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Corporation or community – How can you be both?</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><em>Pulse </em>editor Malcolm Marshall had a visceral response to Chevron’s claim that the Richmond Standard was “community-driven.” “The corporation is the community?" asked Marshall. "How can you be both of those?”</p> <p> </p> <p>Andres Soto of the Richmond Progressive Alliance puts it more bluntly. "Richmond Standard is a pseudo online newspaper to try to counteract info that's coming out <em>in La Voz</em>, the <em>Pulse</em> and the <em>Bay View</em>. It's part of their mass propaganda campaign to try to influence the democratic process in Richmond."</p> <p> </p> <p>Aldax said that critics of the site are missing the point. “The fact is that it’s a good thing,” said Aldax. “You can be skeptical and it’s still a good thing.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Richmond resident Felix Hunziker said he welcomes more news options.</p> <p> </p> <p>“It’s obviously an outlet for Chevron by Chevron, but as long as that’s clear—and I think it is—I don’t see a problem with it.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Hunziker said he sees a need for more balance in the papers currently circulating. Unlike Smith, who sees Chevron as the loudest voice in the room, Hunziker said he feels bombarded by progressive messaging. “Most of the yelling is being done on the far left. I think it’s important that people in the center start standing up.”</p> <p> </p> <p>But Hunziker said he is skeptical the Chevron-funded site can become a platform for community engagement. “I’m just not seeing it as a place where you’ll have active community dialogue,” he said.</p> <p> </p> <p>Marshall said Chevron isn’t aiming its messages at the progressives, who probably can’t be swayed, but at those in the center who see Chevron doing positive things in the community and take these actions at face value. "Those are the folks who Chevron is trying to speak to. Not the folks who are going to look too deep,” Marshall said.</p> <p> </p> <p>“It all seems like a very big ruse, a very big PR ploy, so they don’t have to do what’s right,” said Richmond resident Linda Schneider.</p> <p> </p> <p>Aldax, meanwhile, said he understands that people are skeptical, and maintains that the launch of the site has nothing to do with the upcoming election. “The onus is on myself to really prove to the community that we’re a reliable news source.”</p> <p> </p> <p>But Smith believes Chevron should be focused on making the refinery safe rather than dominating community dialogue in the run-up to an election.</p> <p> </p> <p>“You don’t need to tell me everything that’s happening in Richmond,” Smith said. “Tell me what’s happening with you.”</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/chevron" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">chevron</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/oil" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">oil</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/chevron-news-site" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">chevron news site</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/publishing" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">publishing</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/richmond-california" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">richmond california</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/california" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">California</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/oil-refinery" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">oil refinery</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/environment-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the environment</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/environmental-concerns" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">environmental concerns</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Sukey Lewis and Asha Dumonthier </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Fri, 14 Feb 2014 14:15:42 +0000 tara 4276 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3437-chevron-joins-publishing-world#comments