Genre As A Dirty Word

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Zachary Klein

When I first began reading fiction as a kid I never knew the word. I was just happy to read The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift and others of the same ilk. (I read the second generation Swift books because the first were flat out racist and made me uncomfortable.) In fact, I enjoyed these series so much I read and reread them and still have many ceremoniously sitting on the top of my mystery bookshelf.

Mystery bookshelf? Why do I have one of those? Or a science fiction bookshelf? The same question is also relevant to my classics, modern, and non-fiction shelves. Why aren’t they simply in alphabetical order by author?

For decades I read without even thinking of categories-let alone the word. I was omnivorous. I’d gobble The Foundation Series, chomp down on popular bestsellers like Hawaii or Exodus—I’d finish Hawaii and move on to Christopher Isherwood, Hemmingway, and Ursula K. Le Guin. Later I’d go from Bukowski to Harry Crews to Bernard Malamud to The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (which I still imagine a great book and movie, though I haven’t revisited either in decades) to one of my all-time favorites Neuromancer. In this sci-fi bullet train, William Gibson (known as the “Godfather of Cyberpunk”) chose not to explicate the world he creates but demands that you to buckle up and go for his ride trusting that you’ll get it.

Within all these mixes were sprinkled classics (a few), jags of nonfiction where I read everything I could find about one subject or another. And, of course, tons of detective fiction by famous authors like Hammett, Chandler, Ross Macdonald, and the not so famous like Bart Spicer, Max Byrd, Brad Solomon, and Stephen Greenleaf. (In one of these posts, I’ll dig more deeply into detective fiction authors and their influences on my books. Though it might take a while since, at the moment, I haven’t much of a clue.)

Until I began my own writing career I never really gave the word much thought. Though, by that time I was in my 40’s, and finally realized that genre was somehow less than literature, despite a definition that is not particularly pejorative. “A category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter.”

Benign enough. But definitions don’t always marry reality. Is a symphony inferior to a quartet? Most wouldn’t think so. Is rock music inferior to classical? Hmmm, now the critics start yammering. And if you translate this to literary equivalents, you’d have the same arguments. Or at least quietly smug, smirky looks. Genre books are always considered a lower rung on the writing ladder.

So I began to wonder why I was choosing detective fiction which, though elastic, really fits the word’s definition. Was I afraid to stare at a blank computer screen without any structure to serve as a safety net? Did I consider myself less a writer than those who strive to write “literary” novels?

For a while there, the questions kicked up a real block. But then I reread Red Harvest and realized that if I could tell a story halfway as well as Hammitt, I would be lucky. I picked up The Long Goodbye and decided that if I could pen sentences as descriptive as Chandler, I didn’t give a shit what my books were called.

And then I took it further. If I were going to be labeled a genre writer, I was going to do everything possible to stretch the boundaries. Sure, I’d use a generalized detective fiction structure where plot was important, but the heart of what I was writing about had to do with relationships, characters and their interactions. Themes. Those were important to me and would be at the heart of every book I’d write.

It also didn’t escape my attention that relationships, characters and their interactions are the meat and potatoes of every novel. Which brought me to the point where I am now. A novel that contains these ingredients, that explores them intimately, that is written well, that reveals something to its reader, and makes the reader feel–that’s a good book. And if the author does enough of it beautifully, it’s a great book. No matter its classification.

But it’s a funny world we live in. People feel a need to categorize damn near everything. During my last literary go-round, I repeatedly heard I wrote “airplane books” or “beach reads,” that is, books to toss once you finished ’em. It usually wasn’t meant to be mean; ironically it often came on the heels of people telling me how much they enjoyed one of them. But truthfully, despite my stalwart belief mentioned above, it used to bother me, made me angry or sad.

I can’t say whether I succeeded with my goals in my previous Matt Jacob books, or whether I’ll succeed when I write him out of retirement. And while Matt and I are much older now, with eyes that look upon the world with a different perspective, both of us still think our hearts are in the same place about the interpersonal issues I care about. And we both agree those issues will always be the guts of my books.

But while writing the Matt Jacob books, I learned something I had never before realized. No matter the genre, whether it’s a bad book, or one that wasn’t even published, I have huge respect for anyone who takes the time and effort to write a complete beginning, middle, and end.

It really is that hard.

“A bad book is as much a labour to write as a good one, it comes as
sincerely from the author’s soul.” Aldous Huxley

Who Won The Game?

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Zachary Klein

I’ve been a sports junkie for most of my life. In fact, the only period I can’t remember being glued to the sports pages and tube was during my years in Madison, when the 60s provided their own other world. But even then I kept my eye on Bob Gibson, the great St. Louis pitcher.

Sports have been a significant topic between me and many of my friends. Is Big Papi washed up? Compare Charles Barkley’s lifetime stats to Larry Bird’s, then tell me who was the better player. What do we think about millionaires playing for teams owned by billionaires? The list stretches endlessly (at least according to my life-mate Sue). It’s that guy thing—the substitute or perhaps testosterone version of intimacy.

But today’s post isn’t about professional sports or my obsession with it.

The subject’s up because this year I’m co-managing a community co-ed softball team, Jah Energy (named after the Jamaican god). I’ve played for Jah nearly twenty-five years, much of which I was a pretty good first baseman (“if you’re gonna throw wild, throw it low. I’m too damn short and fat to leap high, but I can pick ’em out of the dirt”).

Now though, I’m too old to play much anymore (probably close to, if not the oldest person, in the league) so the shift to co-manager makes sense. Still, it’s super cool to hit the field every once in a while as catcher, watch my son playing first or outfield, my nephew covering third, and the diamond stocked with representations of Jah’s different generations–including some first year newbies. One of the benefits of catching is you see it all.

But managing a community co-ed softball team is more of a challenge than I ever had as a player. There’s finding enough women who want to join, for example, and deciding the minimum number of games people must attend to be on the playoff roster. Collecting dues. But for me, the most difficult issue is finding a balance between my desire to win and trying to have everyone play—no matter their skill level. A seriously schizo experience.

When I held down first base, the answer seemed simpler. Everybody plays. But truth be told, I was a starter and mostly played full games. It was the other positions where people were shuttled in and out. Kinda made my largess an easy do.

Come a decade or two, (and I was no spring chicken when I first joined Jah) our manager at the time began subbing me out. I knew my skills were eroding and that the woman who replaced me was the better athlete. Not only in the field, but at bat. (A banjo hitter, I never hit a home run during the course of my twenty-five years.) So for me it was still “everyone plays” in part, because I now was one of those “everyones.” But another part of the conflict went internal; should the shadow of my former self play at all, or just let others take my spot? And how much of the “let others” take my “spot” was really for the good of the team, or was I simply embarrassed by my declining ability?

Well, for the past few seasons, whatever the reason, I mostly chose the latter, satisfied to coach third base and enter a game in the late innings every once in a while as a defensive replacement at first or catcher. This arrangement continued to shield me from the winning/playing time conflict.

Ain’t shielded no more. Now most of you know I’ve had a pretty turbulent spring, so, much of the weight has fallen on Sara, my co-manager. She also has difficulty balancing playing time and winning. We talk about X, we talk about Y, but eventually we end up with a back-and-forth about playing a terrific outfielder the whole game or replacing him halfway through when each fly ball then becomes an adventure?

One might think it’s an easy call. Stay the course, play everyone, and that be it. But losing regularly, even in a community league, grinds the grit from your spirit. Not just mine, but the whole team’s–even those who spend a lot of bench time. Slowly my take on “everybody plays” began to change. I too was tired of losing and grew closer and closer to playing our best players as much as possible.

Only as manager, I’m forced to see and accept both sides of the issue. Despite my desire to win another championship (we’ve won two), a season that runs April through August requires a significant time commitment. From where I now sit, it’s just not fair or okay to keep people with less skill off the field game after game. To say nothing of the legitimate complaints that would hit the fan if we actually worked it that way.

So Sara and I middle it, which probably pleases no one. We work hard to find times when substitutions might not affect the outcome—a situation that doesn’t occur during too many games. We also try to play our best players much of the time, but wewill take ’em out if the need to get someone else into the game is greater. Much to the chagrin of those who come out and those who really want to win.

And this is just the regular season. What’s gonna happen during playoffs?

To be honest, this managing gig is a gut buster and man, I miss the days when playing time decisions weren’t mine to make. But time doesn’t reverse itself (except in Superman comics) and since this team means so much to me that I plan to have my ashes spread over our home field, I expect to be struggling with this shit for years to come.

Part 2: Television Giveth, Television Taketh Away

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Zachary Klein

Given the nature of my personality I’m starting with the “takes.”

Like it or not, we live in a capitalistic society where viewership rules commercial television. (That is, stations whose programs are interrupted by commercials as opposed to those that are not.) Hell, you can’t sell four-hour erections if no one is watching. I also understand, maybe better than most, that sometimes the best thing to do is to let a program die. Writers or actors can “burn out.” Or, their shows can–as character arcs or plots are plumbed past the point of authenticity. It’s not for nothing that our standard phrase for artistic burnout, “jumping the shark,” was named and defined by a specific episode of a long running show. (Curious? http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jump%20the%20shark.)

The above factors also play into corporate decisions made by “non-commercial” television as well–a prime example, The Sopranos on HBO, which didn’t depend upon specific sponsors. Truth is, I was fine with the way they ended the show—it was time and rather than milk their cash cow, they gave viewers plenty of warning and resolved many of the ongoing subplots. Although I wasn’t particularly jacked by the last shows, I felt the station handled the conclusion in a timely and fair manner.

Not so with a couple other HBO programs, which I believe also had significant artistic merit.

About two weeks ago HBO announced that In Treatment was going to be cancelled. No explanation, no viewership numbers, no warning, no tying up of loose ends, no nothing. In a statement, the network said: “It’s true that we have no plans to continue with ‘In Treatment’ as previously formatted. However, we are in continued conversations with the executive producers to find another way to continue telling these rich stories.” I hope they do, but given their bullshit about Deadwood, I frankly don’t believe them.

For those unfamiliar with the show, In Treatment was based on an Israeli series about a psychiatrist and his work with clients,Bi Tipul, which copped every possible drama series award at the Israeli Academy Awards. The American version didn’t do too shabby either, scoring an Emmy, Golden Globe and Writer’s Guild during its three year run. The show starred Gabriel Byrne as a psychologist who worked with four different clients (one a night the first season then his own therapist, Diane Wiest, on the fifth.) Later HBO changed tinkered with the nightly set-up, but the format (four clients then his shrink, Amy Ryan, who took over when he moved to Brooklyn) remained the same. As a former therapist, I was impressed with the interactions Byrnes had with his clients and especially those with his own therapist in season three when his life was dissembling. His ability to both succeed—especially with adolescents–and fail despite his best efforts, reflected a reality with which every counselor must deal. The show also presented the difficulty of keeping ‘clinical distance’ from people with whom a therapist has an intimate relationship—one sided as it may be. The presentation of Byrnes’s interactions with his own shrink was often brilliantly written with undercurrents of his clients’ issues permeating his own.

Then In Treatment was gone–as if you were in the middle of a fine book, movie, or play that was simply snatched away. This is not only lousy television business, but a psychologically damaging situation that any decent therapist would find extraordinarily painful. It is as if the cancellation spit upon the very nature of the show itself.

The other series HBO taketh away much too soon was Deadwood, a sprawling western that, season by season, tracked the establishment of the Dakota Territories—from wilderness to outposts, to towns, then states–along with the beginning of western capitalism. Not for the faint-hearted, Deadwood had no qualms mixing Shakespearian language and drama with over-the-top profanity and violence that actually occurred in the settling of the West. Through the three twelve episode seasons, Deadwood, with the use of historical characters like Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, and George Hearst told the story of an evolving country and economic system. This was no “shoot ’em up,” but the depiction of actual American history delivered in a unique and incredibly interesting manner. Not for nothing was it awarded eight Emmys and a Golden Globe. But no matter, the show was simply shut down mid story.

This time though, HBO promised a consolation prize—finishing the series with two full length movies. Seduced and abandoned, I’ve been waiting since 2008. My popcorn is stale. Time to stop holding my breath.

Bottom line: Viewers deserve better from both network and cable television. There needs to be room in this medium to carry critically acclaimed shows whether they attract enough subscribers and dog food buyers or not. And why stop at television? Artistic merit needs to be a commitment that every publisher, producer, and studio adhere to. It simply cannot just be “show me the money.” Yes, commerce is all—we live in America—we get it. But perhaps our entertainment media should tithe—devoting a percentage of their budget to artistic books or programming that deserve to be out there just because they’re worthwhile or make their audience richer, better people. And if they can’t do it “for art’s sake,” producers and publishers can think of them in commercial terms—loss leaders.

And now for the “Giveth.”

Two shows immediately spring to mind. Since I just slammed HBO it’s only fair I give it its due for carrying Tremé, a program named after a New Orleans neighborhood. The action begins three months after Katrina’s devastation of the Black community. We follow musicians, chefs, Mardi Gras Indians and regular New Orleans citizens as they try to rebuild their lives.

Again, the interpersonal relationships seem spot on and the horror of the storm’s damage and our government’s indifference is immensely moving. Although there are multiple plot lines carried by Melissa Leo, (Academy Award winner for Best Actress from the movie The Fighter), Wendell Pierce (from The Wire), Khandi Alexander (CSI Miami), and more, for me, and many people I know, the show is really about the redemptive quality of music in the face of tragedy. An intangible phenomena but one that wails loud and clear from Tremé’s constant foreground and background musical notes. Even the opening credits’ song and dance brings a smile despite the depiction of the ravages of people’s lives. From where I sit (which is often in front of my TV), the show wraps its arms around the healing quality of music, food, and people’s refusal to give up. As an aside, the show uses actual New Orleans residents and professional musicians to create this healing process.

The Killing, shown on American Movie Classics, (AMC), concerns a Seattle-based murder investigation of a young girl with each episode lasting one complete day. The lead detective is Mirelle Enos (a Tony nominee [Honey] for the Broadway playWhose Afraid of Virginia Woolf and the twin sisters, Kathy and Jodeen Marquart, in Big Love.). The New Yorker has trouble with her low key acting, but my take has her playing off the surrounding characters except during her personal life scenes when Mirelle’s inner intensity and conflict are clearly apparent. Her partner is a strange young man who seems more criminal than cop—someone who Enos has a great deal of trouble trusting. Nonetheless, they manage to work together well enough to move the investigation forward, if not always in the correct direction.

The other aspect of the show worth noting is what Ms. May from The New Yorker calls “atmospherics.” That is, the constant, unending drizzle Ms. May decries as rain making machines. I beg to differ. We celebrate “atmospherics” (lighting) in film noir. In The Killing, like in Blade Runner, the rain becomes another character that underscores the loss and pain of losing a child and control of one’s life. Tears.

For me, the primary draw is the dead girl’s parents. The Killing follows their slowly devolving emotional spiral rather than presenting one note grief, anger or an accelerated 5-stage Kubler Ross demo. The show takes its time and pulls no punches when it comes to their pain, rage, impotence, and demands to the police. There are suspects, but as the days pass, the plot twists and turns in some pretty complicated and surprising ways.

The Killing is an adaptation of a Danish series called Forbrydelsen, (The Crime) but the AMC producers, directors. writers, and actors have managed to create an original, unique procedural detective show. Bravo, AMC.

My concern, however, is whether the station will actually allow the show to continue since it’s not your garden variety Law & Order or CSI.

A fear for all that I find special on television.

“When you re-read a classic you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.” Clifton Fadiman

Dreams Don’t Quit, People Do

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Zachary Klein

My cousin Hank didn’t know he was my role model when we were growing up. Truthfully, I don’t think he paid much attention to me. We were more than a decade apart in age and I hung with his much younger brother Jeff. In fact, when I recently mentioned that he had his boyhood friends punch me in the stomach to show how well I could “take it,” Hank denied it ever happened. Of course, he wasn’t the one who took the hits; why should he remember?

Hank was older and cool, but most importantly he was a saxophonist. I was still a kid when his band moved to Las Vegas and grabbed the town by the throat. We heard great reviews of his playing, with lots of accolades to Barbara, his wife and the band’s singer.

Then word came back that the group would appear with Jerry on the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. In those days, that was “can’t miss TV” replete with every famous headliner including the Rat Pack. Plus, this was gonna be the first time I’d get a chance to hear him play and Barbara sing. I couldn’t wait. Although scheduled for ’round midnight, they didn’t get on air until the early hours of the morning. No matter–despite threats from my mother who wanted me to go to bed–no way I was gonna miss his set.

I loved what I heard. He had the fastest fingers I’d ever seen and the horn just wailed, counterpointed by Barb’s husky crooning.

That night was the beginning of my dream to become a musician. When the band moved back to New York, I was attending a Yeshiva high school in Brooklyn. Hank’s willingness to sneak Jeff, me, and Frank (their middle brother, who along with Jeff and Hank is one of my best friends) into a dive off Broadway called The Wagon Wheel just reinforced my fantasy.

But like most people’s dreams, mine slunk into a corner when confronted by daily life. I’d quit college to go into Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) and discovered I was a talented organizer and counselor and enjoyed the work. Like most people, I continued to do what I did well. The fact that I never had a music lesson or any experience with musical instruments didn’t help all that much either.

Fast forward through decades: Twenty years of working in social services, raising children, and ten years of successfully writing detective fiction (another dream of mine).

Still, throughout those years, the thought of playing music never disappeared. In fact, at one point I asked Hank to pick out a sax for me to buy. Instead, he kindly sent me one of his, told me he never played it so I could keep it. I can only imagine him shaking his head and wondering what the fuck I wanted it for.

What the fuck, indeed. The sax sat in the closet for another decade while I delved into my next serial career as right-hand man to my blood brother Ron, a lawyer in D.C.

I took pleasure in facilitating focus groups, running mediations, preparing experts to testify, even editing briefs. I was especially proud that Ron’s practice was totally committed to fighting for the little guy against powers that be.

Still, something was missing. I needed the arts. Since I’d burned my writing bridges, it was time to pull out the other dream and Hank’s alto. I was sure to succeed–hell, I’d written a New York Notable novel without ever writing much more than a short story.

I found a teacher, Bob Brenner, and dug in. And while I could actually get a sound out of the sax fairly quickly, I slowly, unhappily, discovered over the next couple of years that muscle memory wasn’t a strong suit (memory in general, actually), and learning to read music, finger an instrument, understand ‘time” and enough theory to become competent in this new language, was a brand new bag. And not one in which I was particularly proficient.

Frankly, I was shocked. I’d been certain that with time and effort I was sure to succeed. Beginning at 50 years old was an excuse for a while, but some dreams ride with talent and some don’t. Images of playing weekend gigs at Holiday Inns weren’t going to become a reality.

Part of me thought about quitting. Just giving up. If I couldn’t snag my goals, why bother? But Bob knew better. He’d surely known my fantasies were just that–fantasies. But he also recognized and understood that the pleasure of playing music didn’t hinge on unattainable dreams. There was more to get from making music than gigs or muscle memory or nimble fingers. So he urged me to join a learning ensemble populated by much more experienced musicians than I.

At first I took to calling the ensemble, my Tuesday Night Humiliation Session. But I discovered that playing with people much better than me was a growing experience. Letting go of my pride made room for more music to enter–and I even got better.

During my writing years people continually asked what kind of book to write in order to sell to a publisher. I always replied with a question of my own; do you want to write or do you want to sell? Either is fine, but they ain’t neccessarily the same.

At that time it was an honest but facile response. My musical life has taught me how true that answer really was and then some. It’s taken close to a lifetime but I’ve finally learned that it isn’t always the “goal” that need carry the day, but the activity in and of itself.

I don’t know if what I’m about to say makes sense in today’s world, but I’m retro. I don’t think life means all that much if you don’t go after what you want. No matter how unlikely, unusual, or just plain difficult. No, I’m never going to play at a Holiday Inn, but I do love playing. Sometimes dreams don’t turn out as expected, but that doesn’t always mean worse. Sometimes it just means different.

“Inside every old person is a younger person wondering what the fuck happened.”

The Tea Party: We Gettin’ One Lump Or Two?

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Zachary Klein

There are plenty of labels people hang on the Tea Party: patriots, idiots, people who want to stop the insanity, people who are insane, rednecks, and racists–just for starters. Then there was an anonymous comment I read online: “Tea Party is just a nice way of saying KKK.”

Would that it were so simple. The KKK made no bones about their public hatred of Blacks. They were founded and acted on tenets of white supremacy, and weren’t the least bit shy about using terrorism to make their beliefs crystal clear.

But from where I sit, the Tea Party’s brand of racism is, in some ways, far more insidious because its followers are unable (or unwilling) to perceive that much of the underpinnings of their philosophy is indeed racist. That is, their demands to obliterate safety nets that have been in place since Roosevelt and Johnson in the name of small government–non progressive tax programs (flat tax), limitations on growth in federal spending, etc–would result in worsening the already lousy living conditions for countless people of color and the poor of every hue. The TPers’ obliviousness, their refusal to even acknowledge the logical consequences of their programs and philosophy, trades racist rhetoric for racist policy results, real lynchings for slowly twisting in the wind.

Worse, The Tea Party movement is a natural outgrowth of our domestic policies and ideologies. And Progressives miss the point when they froth at the mouth about the Palins, Rands, and Bachmans-as foolish and detestable as their thinking might be. The Tea Party is simply a naked distillation of historical and modern political thinking about race, poverty, taxes, and government.

LET’S START WITH RACE:

It’s not surprising the TPers landed where they are. How many decades have Republicans and “New Democrats” objected to Affirmative Action, citing time after time that we now live in a country that has a “level playing field.” Or, both parties raising the specter of Welfare Queens, which conjures up big Black women living high on the hog without a care in the world.

This wasn’t begun by TPers but from the Reagan Revolution that Bill Clinton did nothing to stop or undo. In fact, he encouraged the myths through his program “to end welfare as we know it. (Which in reality meant a huge jump in the prison population of women between the ages of 18-25 for non-violent crimes. With or without welfare, people need to survive). And if Democrats are honest about it, Clinton was more than willing to suspend civil liberties to invade Cabrini Green, a non-white housing project in Chicago.

So please let’s drop the pretense that somehow the TPers are more racist than traditional politicians who, in the face of institutional and individual racism, call our society’s opportunities equal for all. If anything, the TPers are more sincere in their mistaken beliefs than the regular pols, who actually know the truth but pander to the make-believe for political gain.

TAXES:

Another Tea Party inheritance. Prop This, Prop That, and trickle-down economics have been a mainstay of the Republican Party and, in their own way, post Reagan Democrats who act as if taxes have no relationship whatsoever to the betterment of people’s lives. I’m not suggesting there isn’t government waste. And I certainly have no truck with where a significant portion of our taxes go. But to eviscerate the idea of taxes, to turn the word into an obscenity has its roots much farther back than the TPers, who have come by this “no taxes” mantra via decades of politically professed hatred of government.

It’s time for Progressives to champion the belief that government has the potential to enhance people’s lives. That government is a social compact between all that live here, and the definition of that compact needs relentless work. Something we haven’t done effectively for decades. We seemed to take too many of our truths for granted, above discussion. But we were the only ones who stopped talking, stopped acting, and look what’s happened with issues like a woman’s right to choose, institutional racism, social responsibility-hell, even evolution. We need to recapture lost ground-ground that has allowed the TPers to plant their flag.

We need to trumpet that race is not irrelevant, that poverty exists beyond most American’s wildest dreams, and that it existsbecause of our social structure, not because of an individual’s own doing. We need to fight about how taxes are spent, not whether they should exist.

Our lack of organization, our inability to reach out and connect with people who don’t share our beliefs, our preference to react rather than act, our waste of time ad homonym name calling of people with whom we disagree, and especially our blindness to the real effects of the Reagan Revolution helped create space for the Tea Party.

As much as I hate to say it, most of them are pretty genuine in what they believe. And getting rid of their political ideology is gonna be much more difficult than comparing them to the KKK or deriding their “stupidity.”

We live in a political and cultural crossfire. Some call it Red versus Blue. Some call it North versus South. Some call it Conservative versus Liberal.

I call it Truth versus Myth. Our war isn’t against the Tea Party, but against the propagation of the myths that have infected our entire society. For it is these myths which aided and abetted the Tea Party’s creation.

A government of the 1%, by the 1%, and for the 1%.