Short Story Wednesday: William Maxwelll, ALL THE DAYS AND NIGHTS, collected stories

 

I think if it weren't for Short Story Wednesdays, books like this would have been donated to the library long ago. But because I need to draw on ss collections, this remains on my shelf. Maxwell was a novelist and ss writer as well as an editor for THE NEW YORKER. I have read stories from this collection for this project in the past. I wonder if a young reader would enjoy these stories as much as I do. Perhaps their style and subject is dated. I am not sure.

This time out I read two stories, both written toward the end of Maxwell's career. "The Holy Terror" is about two brothers in their boyhood. The older one loses part of a leg, needlessly it turns out, and the story discusses their relationship and how this loss had a huge impact on the family, despite the brother's fortitude in getting on with his life. "What He Was Like" is the story of man who keeps a journal for years and what happens to that book after his death. It's a chilling short tale. 

Maxwell wrote two of my favorite novels too. TIME WILL DARKEN IT and SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW. For me, he's a very readable, enjoyable writer. 

George Kelley

TracyK 

Jerry House 

Casual Debris

Monday, Monday

LA CHIMERA is an Italian film that is magical in many ways. The most magical thing was that three thirteen year olds came in the theater as the picture was starting, ordered food (I didn't know you could do that), and sat through ninety minutes of the movie in complete silence. Did they know Italian? Or were they used to reading subtitles? Did their parents tell them it would be like Indiana Jones? (It has been compared to that in reviews) But then they left (wordlessly) without seeing the final forty minutes. Quite an unusual film with Josh O'Connor giving a standout performance along with Isabella Rossellini. I am very grateful that the theater down the block is showing this sort of film. I hope it lasts. 

RIPLEY is gorgeous to look at it if nothing else. But there are other delights: Dakota Fanning is wonderful and if Andrew Scott is too old for the part, he does give it a gravitas that Matt Damon didn't. Also watched a documentary on Charlotte Rampling called LOOK on you-tube. Watched the first episode of THE SYMPATHIZER (HBO-MAX).

I think I give up on SUGAR. NORTHERN EXPOSURE is better than ever. Did I appreciate it at the time? Not sure.

There's an article in the NYT today about how people pick up and ditch streaming services constantly now. I got rid of three in the last few months and am considering ditching APPLE and HULU. Really, you have to have more to offer than one show if you're going to charge $15 a month. The best value for me is Criterion. They have a tremendous library of films--if film is what you like.

Still working on reading THERE, THERE, (Orange)which is good--I just am reading more slowly than ever. 

Going to hear the Philadelphia Orchestra play Brahms in Ann Arbor today. It was a choral piece. Very moving. He wrote after the death of his mother. 

And you?

FFB: Hollywood and LeVine, Andrew Bergman

 

 Reviewed by Randy Johnson in 2014

I’ve written about P.I. Jack LeVine before.

It’s 1947 and Jack LeVine runs into an old college friend he hasn’t seen since before the war. Walter Adrian had made a career in Hollywood writing screenplays. One LeVine had loved, another not so much.

Adrian looked terrible, worried about something. Laying one false story on LeVine, he finally admitted he was having contract problems and wanted His friend to come to Hollywood and find out why. A new contract was in negotiation and Warner Brothers not only wasn’t offering him a raise, they wanted to cut his pay.

LeVine heads for Hollywood and goes to Warner Brothers where Adrian was working late on a script, only to find him on the back lot on a western set hanging from a scaffold.

The police call it suicide, but LeVine was suspicious. The trapdoor he’d been standing on that killed him when he fell through didn’t allow Adrian to hit the lever that opened it. Bot to mention the lump on the back of his head.

LeVine decides to look into it.

But no one wants him doing that. Shots are taken at him, the police are warning him off, and the meeting with freshman Senator Richard Nixon reinforces what they consider the problem.

Remember this is 1947 and Nixon is heading up the west coast version of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

LeVine keeps plugging along. The highlight of the story is the finale, a long car chase and shootout with LeVine aided by none other than Humphrey Bogart doing the driving. Lauren Bacall was left behind at the party where it started.

A fun read.

Short Story Wednesday: "Late Love" Joyce Carol Oates, THE NEW YORKER

 

This story started out as a story I might like: an older couple is newly married but both have previous marriage that ended in death or divorce. One night, the husband thrashes, groans and grunts with a bad dream. And it happens again. And again. When the wife confronts him with it, seeking to comfort him, he denies he was dreaming and accuses her of being the one that had a bad dream. This goes on and on and on. Leeches enter the plot. It morphs into horror. Has he killed his first wife. The second wife can find out little about her even from people who should know the story. The reader doesn't know if she is mentally ill or if he is trying to kill her. It ends ambiguously and is apparently part of a longer work. 

This was so, so long. Although the writing was good, I just don't care for horror stories on the whole. You can listen to JCO read it on THE NEW YORKER website. If you dare....

Jerry House

TracyK 

George Kelley

Kevin Tipple

Monday, Monday

 

Been trying hard to produce a new piece of writing for my group on Thursdays. What was once so pleasurable is agony now. But there's no point feeding them old stories twice a month.

Watching a lot of movies lately. I especially enjoyed UNDER THE SAND from 2001 with Charlotte Rampling and THE AMERICAN FRIEND with Dennis Hopper and Bruno Gantz. But the best movie of the week was FRIDA, a film using her own words and artwork. Just gorgeous. Although it is streaming, this was as part of the Detroit Free Press Film Festival.

Also watching RIPLEY, SUGAR, and still NORTHERN EXPOSURE.  

Starting THERE, THERE by Tommy Orange. And the new book by S.J Rozan is waiting at the library. 

What about you?

FFB: ORDINARY LIGHT, Tracy K Smith

 

Tracy K Smith is mostly a poet but this is her memoir. It's a story about a mother and a daughter and the religion that bound them together and nearly drove them apart. Although I have read many novels about Black girls from poor and abusive families, this one is not that. Tracy's family is middle-class, her father is in the military for most of her childhood. The five children are well-cared for and loved. They don't face the kind of bigotry that many Black children face. But, of course, it is always there to some degree. (A white friend calls her Black Girl).

This was an amazingly honest and forthright book. Ms. Smith does not shy away from telling you about many facets of her life that most writers might skip over or at least dull the impact. She spends a lot of time on her religious life and how she grew away from it. I found it interesting and am going forward to read her poetry

She is in Michigan this week, speaking at the Marygrove Conservancy. Each year, it hosts a Black writer of note. Marygrove, a mostly Black college on the fringes of Detroit, no longer exists as a college. But the Conservancy has preserved some of its institutions.