GWA Annual contest entries

I entered seven short stories in the GWA annual contest.

1. Broken Keys


2. Christmas at Grandma's


3. Flip Flop Flap


4. From Dogs to Cats


5. One Man's Church


6. Tuning Hammer


7. Within a twilight Cave

All shortened to 2k words or less for the contest. That's probably too short for some of these stories, but I wanted to increase my chances as much as possible. I don't know who the judges are or how long it will be before I hear the results.

GWA November Contest - third place

The theme was "Chaos". My entry was Chaos Theory: From Dogs to Cats. I managed to pull out a third place. This is a strange little story. If I couldn't see, hear, taste, feel, or smell it, I left it out. No thoughts and very little dialog.

Joyce Carol Oates: The Falls

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, I have a chance to catch up on some reading. This is the second novel by Oates that I have read, the other was Them. As usual, the characters are more important than the plot to Oates. Many plot points were left unresolved though, and that tends to drive me nuts - I like to have everything resolved and wrapped up at the end. One thing that was never satisfactorily resolved for me was the original "Widow Bride" sequence. I was hoping that the eldest son, at least, would visit that topic again, but it never happened. None of the children knew about that part of their mother and father's lives. The other problem I have is with the passive voice and tense confusion that is apparent repeatedly throughout the book. I don't remember that from the other book of Oates that I read. I could never get away with it, but I'm not a published novelist. On the other hand, I liked the dark, gothic nature of the book. I would prefer that she go a little further in that direction, but it would be difficult to do without becoming melodramatic.

Another thing that bothered me was the introduction of new characters late in the novel. Is that wise? It seemed to be at the expense of earlier characters, like the mother.

NaNoWriMo wrapup

I reached the 50k goal about Thanksgiving, but not the end of the story. I kept plugging away, and wrapped it up today (11/28) at about 66k words. I'm so glad I finished the story and brought it to a satisfying ending.

It's pretty rough. The first part, about 40k, is more cohesive than the second part. The last 27k suffered from my fatique.

It has holes also, and needs to be re-arranged, but it has successfully achieved what a NaNoWriMo novel should. I have a rough draft of a novel down on paper, and I did it in a month.

I really like the story. I realize it won't appeal to many people, but this is the Southern Gothic, grit-lit novel that I wanted to write.

NaNoWriMo completed!

I reached the imaginary, arbitrary, 50k word boundary sometime Thanksgiving Day. The first draft of the novel is not complete though, and I will continue on until I get a "finished" story down on paper. Currently I am at about 54k words.

It is a dark novel, there is no doubt about that. I may change the name to "Midnight Blue", the name of Edgar Stokes' bluegrass band. Right now I just want to rest and take a little break.

NaNoWriMo ahead of schedule

My work schedule got back closer to normal this week, and I actually had some energy in the evenings to work on the novel. I think I am actually ahead of schedule, sitting at 38k words in 20 days. The first draft of the novel is going to be longer than 50k. I can't tell how long at this point. I will probably keep churning away, even after the end of the month, until I reach a satisfactory stopping point. It is definitely more satisfying to wrap up that first draft into a complete story than to stop prematurely at an arbitrary 50k. The characters have taken over and changed the story. The female character that was to die early in the novel survived all the way to 37k words. There is still a lot of story to go. The character that was to be the main character hasn't made much of an appearence! Oh well, that's the way the story unfolds.

NaNoWriMo - almost on schedule

The good news is that I have gotten some writing done and I am only slightly behind. If all goes well I should make the 50k target. Of course, the novel is going to be much larger than that. I am halfway to 50k and just getting started good on the novel. The characters are taking over, and my plot line is in trouble. I planned from the beginning to have one of the major characters die halfway through, but now I am having second thoughts. I have gotten attached to her. If I don't eliminate her, then I have to change the second half of the novel - that won't be fun. So I guess I need to get out the scissors and cut her out of the novel.

GWA Monthly Contest - an interesting sample of the judges

I have been entering the Georgia Writer's Association monthly contests the past few months, and have managed to get two third places and a first place. For October I got a third place, my short story "Flip Flop FLap". The contest organizers were kind enough to forward to me some general feedback from the seven judges, which I am printing here, anonymously, A through G:

A. Good introduction- engages the reader. Cute problem (sock/sandal issue) to introduce tension. Ending let me down a bit. Explore your story, flesh out the ideas and end with more punch.

B. Humorous, silly ending, not much color

C. This is a really cute story. Very Sweet

D. Good title. I found the writing engaging, amusing, with that hook that interests you enough to wonder what IS going on, making you want to read on.

E. very good

F. Enjoyed the story--you could almost picture yourself in his shoes (sandals).

G. I thought this was a bit corny and I didn't really get what it was all about.

They are all over the place, everything from "very good" to "I didn't get it". For what it's worth, this closely matches the typical feedback I get from Critique Circle. On the whole, a few people will like it a lot, a few will not like it at all, and most will fall someplace in-between.

NaNoWriMo Progress

I got back on track this weekend, since I thought it was prudent to cancel the vacation trip because of the Mother-in-law situation. I should be at around 24k words right now and I am at 15k. Still behind the projected schedule, but close enough considering that I lost a week because of work.

As usual, the characters are taking on a life of their own. It is a very rough first draft, of course. It's a pity that I am going to kill off the character of Beth Womack, since she is interesting and sympathetic. The planned main character - Joey Womack - hasn't captured my attention very much. Perhaps after the death of his mother.

I worry that it may be totally confusing to the reader. I am jumping around in three different time frames, and only the chapter titles set the year. Readers will have to pay close attention. Of course, some readers will love that, because of the mystery and the mental challenge to keep it straight. Others will hate it.

NaNoWriMo emergency CPR

OK, I have to admit things are not going well. Life has gotten in the way. Work has taken every waking moment this week. I am up to over 300 machines connected in the new building. Things finally tapered off today and I was able to take a lunch!

My vacation next week has been postponed (or canceled) because the Mother-in-law is having a crisis related to her Alzheimers and Dementia. My major concern is for Laurie. I couldn't possible go backpacking for a week, and be totally out of touch in the woods, and leave her without any means to contact me in the event of an emergency. Hopefully we will reach a resolution next week about the MILs status, and I need to be available for the nursing hoom move.

So, I haven't given up on NaNoWriMo - tomorrow I will devote some time to getting back on track, although I am (almost) hopelessly behind.

NaNoWriMo Progress

I got some writing done this weekend, finally, although I am still behind schedule. The move at work went well on Friday, and I had to do some stuff from home, but there was time for writing also. I am close to 8K words, and there have been two deaths all ready. I have alternated between Joey and Edgar/Emmett once, and will go back to Joey for the next section.

NaNoWriMo Stall

I'm exhausted. At least the move to the new building is going well. We delivered a Penske truck full of servers today, and I managed to get the two most critical ones back online. That has nothing to do with writing, of course, but it means I can devote some time this weekend to the novel.

I'm been dreaming about it. During that last hour of sleep, from 4-5 am, the novel (or at least the current part of the novel) plays out in my mind. Now if I could only find the time to type it in.

NaNoWriMo Slow Start

Work has gotten in the way. Moving 50 faculty/staff and 200 grad students to a new building is taking all my waking time and energy. Who'd a thunk it? I did manage to write about 1000 words - maybe this weekend I can get things started correctly.

NaNoWriMo Eve

I thought last year was rough, this year is looking harder. I took a week last year to move my mother-in-law from Chicago to Atlanta. This year my work is moving to another building to start the month. It's not just my office, since I am part of the computer support. Fifty faculty and 200 grad students have to be moved and their computers networked. Then, a week after that, I am going on vacation - a week long backpacking trip in the Nantahala Mountains of North Carolina, assuming that the work move goes well.

I'm not too worried about the plot. The characters are all strong and diverse - I think I will let them go and see where it ends up. I know the climax points that I will work toward - how I will get there is still undecided.

There are two plot "times". Half of the novel occurs in the contemporary period - or actually the 1970s. The other half occurs in the 1930s to 1950s. They are not told one after the other, but interspersed. I start with the 1970s, then skip to 1930s, then back, etc.

I also alternate the viewpoints of the characters. Joey Womack, Edgar Stokes aka Emmett Smith, Beth Womack Britt, Nathaniel Womack, Cleve Britt, Debby Womack.

Joey Womack is the principal character, and the contemporary plot line follows him as his parents pass away, he puzzles out his parent's relationship with Edgar/Emmett, and locates his grandfather Cleve Britt. Debby is his sister, and Joey tries to protect her through the entire novel.

Tomorrow I begin!

NaNoWriMo Approaches

National Novel Writing Month begins November 1st. I completed it last year - my novel Please Release Me was a NaNo novel. Some may say it's crazy to write 50k words in a month - they may be right.

I had several distractions last year, not the least of which was the trip to Chicago to bring back the MIL. This year I have to change buildings at work Nov 3rd and 4th (and probably the 5th and 6th). I'm also planning a week-long backpacking trip starting the 12th, but I plan to take a pad and paper (and plenty of batteries for my headlamp!).

What will I write about? I am determined not to use any MacGuffins, science crutches, or surreal episodes. I plan to be true to my natural tendencies and write a Southern Gothic, a grit-lit, focusing on the characters and a plot of family secrets, pride, revenge, and murder.

I have installed a graphic in the sidebar that I will keep updated with my wordcount. Hopefully that will be an incentive to finish!

Hell At The Breech by Tom Franklin

The best Southern Gothic I have read yet. It starts with a shudder and grips you all the way to the end. Based on a true story, I suppose it could be called historical fiction, but it's much more than the usual novel associated with that genre.

I wish I had written it, or that I could write one like it. It's written from several viewpoints, always in the third person past tense. There is some jumping around in time, but just in the beginning, and only for the effect - it's not confusing.

You won't find many adverbs here, or passive verbs. The author knows his craft and works hard at it. What I liked most about it was the excellent mix of plot and character. There was even a surprise at the end - rare in a literary novel. And I do consider this a literary novel.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The novel we all had to read sometime during our school years. I wasn't interested at the time. Why should I read a novel about a girl growing up in the South? I was a boy growing up in the South. Now, of course, I wish I had paid better attention.

Reading it now, I can see more reasons why I wasn't impressed as a schoolboy. Almost all the action happens off-stage. Only the final confrontation with the white trash father of the girl that cried rape is really narrated, and even that is confusing and murky.

I would be really surprised if this novel could get published today. There are so many passive verbs in that first page that agents would reject it on sight. But if you slow down to the pace of the book and the pace of the small town, it does have a mood and atmosphere that sucks you in. And it is very easy to read and understand.

The symbolism, as explained in any textbook or cliff's notes version of the book, if obvious but not overstated. It is a true Southern gothic, pointing out the good and the bad in Southern culture.

There do seem to be many manipulations by the author. Each little scene seems to have some deeper meaning or offer some insight into the world of the little girl. It almost seems as if Lee planned these little episodes just to preach to us.

If someone like Atticus Finch can rise above his ancestry and education, perhaps there is hope for all of us.

Light in August by William Faulkner

This is one of the easier Faulkner novels to read, even easier than "As I Lay Dying." The problem that may lead to frustration for the modern reader is that Faulkner really doesn't care about the plot; his concern is for the characters.

This is not to say that there isn't a plot. There are actually several entwined plot lines, any of which could have been engaging for the reader. Time after time Faulkner ruins these plot lines by revealing the climax before it happens.

As an example, and probably the worst example, look at the murder of Miss Burden. We know very little about her before she is murdered. Faulkner tells us who murdered her - Joe Christmas. Then he starts a chapters long tale of the life of Joe Christmas, from his life in the orphanage all the way to the murder - which we know that he has already committed.

It happens again at the capture of Christmas and his death. Each time Faulkner tells us it has happened as if the fact is of little importance, then proceeds to fill in the details after the fact.

I guess I prefer a little more attention to the plot than this. Who am I to say that the novel could have been a lot better? Nobody, I guess, but I wish that he had simply arranged things to provide actual climax and release periods. The raw material was there, he just ignored it on purpose so that he could focus on the characters.

My favorite Faulkner so far is still "As I Lay Dying."

The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner

Another difficult to understand but rewarding Faulkner novel. More obtuse than "As I Lay Dying" but not nearly as difficult as "Absalom, Absalom!", this novel is full of complex characters.

There are four viewpoints, told in Faulkner's characteristic stream of consciousness style, followed by a final short chapter in the omniscient point of view. Everyone that reads this novel remembers Benjy, the mentally retarded man-child. The first chapter is in his viewpoint, and is a confusing sequence of out-of order and out-of-time memories of Benjy's. If you can make it through the first chapter you will probably make it through the book!

Once again, we have to piece together the plot, which is secondary to the characters. It doesn't help that there are two Maurys and two Quentins (one male and one female!) The setting is not quite so important in this novel as in other Faulkner works. At least the characters are not doing battle with the land, but with their own selves and each other.

There are plenty of family secrets. Castration, incest, theft, adultery, suicide - a whole list of sins. The last chapter, in the omniscient viewpoint, seems racist in it's treatment of the black characters of the novel.

Not my favorite Faulkner novel, and not the one I hate, but still well worth the time and effort to read and understand it.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

This has to be one of the easier Faulkner books to read, and I would suggest it as a good starting point if you want to start reading Faulkner. It is typical of his work: hard to understand until you grasp his technique.

It is written in first person present tense from the viewpoint of about 15 characters. Some of the characters are used only once and then forgotten, others are followed throughout the novel. It is the story of the Bundren family as they bury their wife/mother. The burial is not the focus, of course, but the journey to deliver her body. Even that is subvervient to the characters, and the characters are subservient to the world of the Bundrens. It is a perfect example of the Southern Gothic.

It is necessary, of course, to piece together what is happening as you read along. In that sense it's very similar to a mystery novel, although you are not solving a murder or a crime, you are attempting to understand what is going on. That is the appeal that the novel has to the literary experts. It presents a puzzle that must be pieced together.

Needless to say that I, or any other unkonown author, could not get away with such a puzzling novel. No one would bother to take the trouble to read this if I submitted it.

As I read it I started to realize some of the tricks that Faulkner uses. When he wants to exercise his literary prose, he uses the character Darl. When he wants to use the stream of consciousness style he is so famous for he uses the child Vardaman. The incidental characters are usually the most lucid and easiest to understand - Tull, the doctor Peabody, Armstid, Moseley.

I also enjoyed the subject matter, the hapless and unlucky family that nothing seems to go right for. If it weren't for bad luck, they'd have no luck at all.

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

Grim. If "Fay" is a car wreck, then this book is a slow death from cancer. You know it's going to end bad; there is no alternative. The ending is even worse than expected.

Allison's treatment of the setting, the characters, and the tone is perfect. My childhood came back to life, and I remembered cousins and aunts I had forgotten years ago. Thank God my family was not quite the "white trash" that hers seems to have been.

And the novel does seem autobiographical. Written in the first person, it reads like a memoir. A little search on the internet reveals that she actually lived the core of truth at the heart of this novel.

Definitely Southern Gothic, and Grit Lit. You don't finish this novel crying, you finish it wanting to shoot someone.

Oral History by Lee Smith

This is an excellent book, well written and executed. Is it a Southern Gothic? If not, it's close enough. It's about a cursed family, and their history is told by those who know them, relatives and friends. It spans generations.

It also seems to be meticulously researched. Set in the mountains of Virgina, it stays faithful to the culture and heritage of that region.

There is no ending. Which is what you would expect from a family history - it continues on in the lives of the next generation. There are plenty of subplots to keep up the readers interest, but if you are looking for a non-stop thriller - this isn't it. It's also sad and dramatic in places, and of course, dark. Yes I would classify it as a Southern Gothic.

Fay by Larry Brown

Reading this book is like passing a car wreck on the highway. You get caught in the backup first, not knowing what is ahead. Emergency vehicles pass you, lights flashing and sirens blaring. You could get of the highway, turn around, take another route. But you stick it out, and eventually, up ahead, you can see the wreck. Twisted wreckage, bodies on stretchers. You gape. Even after you pass the wreck you are slow to accelerate. You can't look away.

That's Larry Brown's "Fay". It's another in the series of Southern Gothics (or in this case, Grit Lit) that I am reading. It's a simple style, heavy on the "to be" verbs, light on action verbs and adverbs. Definitely not purple prose, but also not as spare as Hemingway. Brown is also not terse. The book is full of long descriptions of drinking, driving, drinking and driving, sex, drugs, fishing, and strip joints. All the essential features of the rural South.

You know it's going to end badly, but of all the endings I could imagine, the real ending is not the one I would have picked. Honestly, by the time the book was over I was ready for someone to shoot Fay.

By all means read it, but be prepared to stare at the wreck on the highway.

Africans in America - Charles Johnson and Patricia Smith

An excellent book, the companion to the WGBH series. I hesitate to call it a history book. It's certainly not a scholarly history book, but nevertheless full of interesting facts.

It does sensationalize and editorialize. Interspersed in the text are "dramatizations" or "short stories" illustrating the historical facts. Of course it's incredibly difficult to treat such a horrific practice as slavery in a totally objective manner.

What I particularly liked about the book were the tidbits of history. There are plenty of quotes and excerpts from primary sources, and it is well worth the price to experience those.

The Georgia Gold Rush - David Williams

Subtitle: Twenty-Niners, Cherokees, and Gold Fever. A nice small book about a confusing topic. There are so many conflicting claims about the discovery of gold in Georgia that it is nice to see a book that actually goes back to primary sources to try to sort out the truth.

Not that it really matters where gold was first discovered. I am more interested in the accounts of the interactions between Cherokee and prospectors, and this book covers much in that area.

Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, 1540-1866 - Theda Perdue

An excellent small book that focuses on the issue of slavery and the Cherokees. It examines the traditional role of "slaves" in the pre-historic period and the evolution of the economic practice of slavery for the Cherokees as well as the Cherokees who were sold into slavery. It then examines the activities of the Cherokee nation after removal and in the civil war.

The Road to Disappearence - Angie Debo

A disappointing book that presents a biased and subjective view of Creek Indian history. Compared to "Creek Country" by Etheridge this book is an embarrasement.

For instance, examine the desciption of the beginning of the Creek War, the attack by the creeks on Fort Mims. In this attack 107 soldiers, 160 civilians (women and children) and 100 blacks were killed. Debo has this to say "Owing to the criminal negligence of the commander the attack was a complete surprise." No mention of guilt for the attackers, she places the blame on the commander, who failed to place an adequate quard on the gate. She sums up with "It must be counted to the success of the white man's tortuous diplomacy that it was only a minor faction of a distracted and weakened people that set itself to check the growing power of the young republic."

There are facts presented in the book that make it a useful source, provided that the obvious bias is overlooked.

Creek Country: The Creek Indians and Their World - Robbie Ethridge

This is an excellent book, full of detail, well researched and amply footnoted. I read this as another source for my historical novel.

It is not a history book, but a snapshot of Creek life about the beginning of the nineteenth century. It relies heavily on the correspondance and notes of the Indian Agent Hawkins.

Truth is stranger than fiction, and I really enjoyed the tidbits of truth that can be found here. It is amazing how different the world of the Creeks is than the history I was taught in school.

The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert Remini

This is the abridged version in one volume. It is also published as a three volume set! There is plenty of detail in the abridged version, especially for my purpose. I am researching another novel, a historical novel set from 1815 to 1838 in the Creek and Cherokee lands.

Naturally I need to have a good understanding of Jackson, his life and politics. This book is perfect for that task. The author doesn't sugar-coat Jackson's life, something that must have been hard to do. I couldn't imagine devoting my life to the study of one man without becoming so attached to the subject that I didn't color the biography with my own bias. Remini has done a good job.

Absalom, Absalom!

I would sooner drive a nail through my hand than read this book a second time. Faulkner's endless rambling sentences in endless paragraphs in endless chapters where all the action takes place forty or fifty years ago and it's just someone else's guess or secondhand narration about people long dead who no one is even related to anymore and we don't really care anyway make my head hurt. And that last sentence is as close to a Faulknerian sentence as I will ever write.

He had a good story to tell, with interesting characters and convincing motivations, but he obfuscated it so much that it's almost impossible to follow. If it weren't for the glossary of characters in the back of the book I would still be scratching my head. None of the action is immediate. All of it is narrated by someone else, some of it even guessed at. It's not told in chronological order either, but constantly skips back and forth.

The book does have a few moments that I admired, but they were few and far between. Some of his metaphors are nice, and that's about the only compliment I can personally give him.

Of course, plenty of people who presumably know better than I do think this is great fiction. Faulkner did win the Nobel prize and two Pulitzer prizes for similar work. I could never adopt this "stream of consciousness" style of writing - it would drive me nuts. I prefer to tell my stories simply and plainly.

It's about miscegenation. A big deal in the 19th century and enough to ruin this particular family. Here I am, a Southener of the 20th/21st centuries, and it's a little hard to imagine that it could be so important. But Faulkner does a good job of showing how the characters feel about it, even if he does do it over and over at length. The whole point of telling it at the distance of a generation removed is to show how important it was at the time? Possibly.

So I read this because it is another example of the Southern gothic style. If you like Faulkner's style then by all means read it. If you don't care for his style it will drive you crazy.

Fried Green Tomatoes - Fannie Flagg

This is a very entertaining book, full of interesting characters and stories. The movie is different - of course - but the book is much better I think.

I read this because I want to write a novel that takes place in two different generations, much like this novel does, and I was unsure how to proceed. After reading this I'm still not sure. Flagg's technique is to tell very short scenes, jumping around in time from scene to scene. No scene is really longer than a few pages, some are a single page or less. Interspersed are newspaper accounts of some of the events. Although there are many characters, we are really only privy to the thoughts of one of them - Evelyn, in the "present" time.

I have to say that the rest of the scenes are written in a more omniscient viewpoint, something that is not done much in modern fiction. Those scenes that consist entirely of Ninny narrating are written in the third person. Those scenes that take place in the earlier time are also in third person, but are not restricted to one viewpoint, changing quickly within the scene, and rarely showing us any interior monologue. This is why I think those scenes are really omniscient, although there is quite a bit of distance from the characters.

Writing the novel this way was understandable, of course, since the novel as a whole seems to be a story, or sequence of stories, told to us by the omniscient author. For instance Ninny never knew who killed Bennet, and could not tell Evelyn, but the reader knows.

Looking at that particular scene as an example, the chapter dated Dec 13, 1930, at first it seems to be in Sipsey's viewpoint, since Artis is asleep, then Artis, then we get a glimpse of what Frank Bennet was thinking. Then it returns to Artis and stays until the end. It's not really confusing though, and flows easily and quickly.

I have to say there are some errors. For instance, early in the novel, in the chapter dated Oct 15, 1929, Davenport Iowa Hobo Camp, there is an opening paragraph that we assume is in Iowa, then a long flashback to fill us in on Smokey's early years. When we return from the flashback we are in Alabama. Elsewhere in the book there are repeated words and typos. None of this really distracts from the enjoyment of the book however, and you have to be really paying attention to catch them.

I can't write my novel like this. I prefer well established viewpoints, close psychic distance, and a clear, unconfusing sequence of events. I am still unsure how to hadle the jumps between time though - I do like the dates at the beginnings of the chapters, and will definitely use something like that - see my short story "Alabama 1910".

A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe

I started reading this novel right after I finished Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!", and it was as if my fever had broken and I had risen from my sick bed and walked again. The contrast between the two cannot be greater. Wolfe's prose is clear, powerful and engaging.

The book is huge, over 300K words, but it is not repitition that fills the pages, it is detail. Super-realistic detail about the lives and surroundings of the characters continues untiringly to the end. It is not considered a Southern gothic novel, although I could make an argument that it is. Scenes like the breeding stable and the prison, characters like Conrad Hensley and Charlie Croker, and the examination of race and greed are worthy of the rest of the Southern gothic genre. It is a novel about the South, set for the most part in south Georgia and Atlanta. The plot is not especially complex, but it is detailed. The story revolves around the wealthy businessman Charlie Croker and those people in his sphere of influence.

It is very interesting to examine how this huge novel is constructed. It is 3rd person POV with five viewpoints. For the most part the viewpoint changes occur at breaks in the narrative, but beginning in about the last third of the novel Wolfe starts to speed things up and viewpoint changes occur within scenes more and more frequently. In the last full chapter (not the epilogue) the viewpoint changes 20 times between the five characters, sometimes just for a short paragraph to tell us what someone is thinking. This is all done very smoothly and seamlessly.

In a novel this size pacing has to be important. I have to admit the first half seemed to drag. The only character I really felt empathy for was Conrad, the young man laid off by Croker's business decision that ended up in prison, etc. etc. I was hoping he would have a major part to play in the novel and I was not disappointed. The strange coincidences involving Croker and Conrad and the stoic philosophy underline the whole moral point of the novel.

One of those coincidences, the earthquake that occured at just the right time to free Conrad from prison was almost too much for me to swallow. I started questioning the whole point of that deus ex machina. Cynically I wondered if Conrad had been placed by the author in California instead of the South just so that he could be freed by the earthquake. It doesn't matter, I suppose, but that was the weakest point of the plot.

I was also disappointed by the ending. I thought that Charlie would do something different and his attempt at evangelizing the audience just did not seem right to me. I always thought the stoics spread their beliefs by example?

Tom Wolfe has gotten somewhat of a bad reputation by having an ego, and after reading this book I am surprised by some of the things I have read in his interviews and essays. It seems that a man with a large ego would not write a book like this, espousing the stoic philosophy. The paperbook copy that I have gives you a good example of his ego though. In large red letters on the front "Tom Wolfe" - the title of the book seems almost an afterthought, in small black text, appearing almost as a nickname - Tom "a man in full" Wolfe.

It's an excellent book though, and I highly recommend it - if you have the time to read it. For the student of the craft of writing novels it is an excellent example to study.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

If you are looking for an upbeat experience or a novel that will leave you feeling good about mankind, then stay away from this book. I thought my writing was dark - compared to McCullers I am an eternal optimist.

I read it because this is one of the novels that is always mentioned when the discussion turns to Southern Gothic. It does have the elements of that genre.

It is essentially plotless. There is a plot, of course- things happen - but it is a very loose sequence of events that happen to the characters. Most of those events are tragic and sad. I am trying to think of at least one good thing that happens to the people in the book and I really can't think of any.

The book centers around the deaf mute Singer, and the other character's reactions and relationships to him. They believe that he is able to understand their thoughts and innermost feelings. In reality, he understands very little of what they say to him. In return they don't understand him at all.

I also suspect the author is trying to push a communist agenda. Two of the characters are communists, although, in the author's defense, neither of them is successful at influencing the people around them.

I failed to develop an empathy with any of the major characters. I suppose I liked Portia best, but she was just a secondary character.

As a Southern native, and a resident of Georgia, I find it hard to believe that liquor was available by the drink in the New York diner in the 1930s. Under the table or out of the back room, maybe, but not for sale in the open. This is the bible belt, and the home of dry counties. I have no historical facts to back this up. There were some other small things that struck me as uncharacteristic also.

It's interesting, as an author, to look at the structure. It's about 120K words, told from 5 viewpoints, all in 3rd person POV past tense. Mick, Biff, Dr. Copeland, Singer and Jake. Each change in viewpoint occurs at a chapter break. She does not follow a regular pattern in the change of viewpoints. For instance, there are seven chapters devoted to Mick, but only four to Singer. The book is divided into three parts. Part I basically establishes all the characters, with one chapter apiece, except for Singer, who gets two. All of the tragic events happen in Part II. Biff's wife dies, Bubber shoots Baby, Willie looses his feet, Mick has sex, and finally Singer commits suicide. In Part III the remaining characters all react to Singer's death, and continue with their lives.

So the novel is sad, tragic, dark, preachy, and not that authentic in its setting. So why is it popular? I believe that has more to do with the character of Dr. Copeland. It is rare to find a realistic and powerful characterization of a Black from that time period.

I can't imagine the dark funk that McCullers must have been in to write this book, or the state of mind she was in when she finished it. I know how my own attempts at writing fiction affect me. If she was similarly affected she must have been contemplating suicide before she finished the book. I applaud her though, for sticking with it to the end. Surely she must have been tempted to let something good happen to at least one of the characters? Mick go to college or get music lessons? Dr. Copeland have one of his children show some spark of interest in his beliefs?

I also find it hard to believe that she loved the South, or enjoyed living here. She seems to be deliberately pointing out all the negative aspects of the region at that time in our history. I guess that is part of the Southern Gothic genre, but in some of the other examples I have read, the author at least seems to have some fondness for the region and the characters in the book.

So if you are in the mood to be depressed, by all means give it a read...