BOOK REVIEW: David Shields & Shane Salerno SALINGER. Simon & Schuster, Sydney, 2013 (700 pages)

 This is the 'official book' of the recent documentary film Salinger which had a limited release in Australia in June 2013.

After reading the dozens of scathing testimonials on Amazon about this latest biography on Salinger, I was curious to read the book:  http://www.amazon.com/Salinger-David-Shields/dp/1476744831

The main criticism by readers is that Salinger is not a traditional biography, it is more of a collection of short, fragmented quotes over hundreds of pages- many from books previously published by friends and critics.

I found the form of the book annoying at first. I'd read a typical 100 word passage from say Alex Kershaw and then flip to the Biographical Notes at the back of the book to see who Kershaw was and then flip to the extensive Bibliography to work out if he was listed there and then flip back to where I was up to in the book.

After a couple hundred pages I got to admire this post-modern style. The voices largely speak for themselves unadulterated by the author's opinions, and read compositely, they provide a wide and interesting range of conflicting perspectives on key events in Salinger's life. You have to remember that the book supplements the film and therefore mirrors its style. Ken Burns effectively used this amalgam of voices style in his brilliant series on the American Civil War about twenty years ago.

Another criticism is that Salinger is not so much a biography but a character assassination. The book certainly wouldn't have been published during Salinger's lifetime considering how trigger happy he was in threatening to sue people.

Unfortunately, one of the main focuses of the book is on fleshing out Salinger's relationships with the many young women he pursued throughout his lifetime- Oona O'Neil, Jean Miller, Claire Douglas, Joyce Maynard, Catherine Oxenberg and Coleen O'Neill & others. The book sometimes takes on a trashy, soap opera feel to it. Do we really want to know that the writer had a undescended testicle that he was embarrassed about or that he was repeatedly unable to penetrate the hymen of one of his young lovers?

Others hate the book because of its self congratulatory tone. There are a half a dozen times during the book when Shields & Salerno chest-beat that they have uncovered some stuff about Salinger which is to be revealed 'for the first time'. Usually these exclusive interviews derive from ex-lovers who are now prepared to come out of the closet and reveal all now Salinger is dead.

Another well founded criticism is that there is little discussion of Salinger's literary style. The book is not intended as a literary biography although readers have to eventually work this out for themselves.

In their 'Introduction' Shields & Salerno clearly state they began with three goals: "We wanted to know why Salinger stopped publishing; why he disappeared; and what he had been writing the last forty-five years of his life.

The book, however, disappointingly focusses on Salinger's quirky behaviour and on his relationships with younf women. There is even a sensational chapter 'Assassins' which examines Salinger's impact on three socio-paths- Mark David Chapman, John Hinckley and Robert Barbo- who carried around as their bible Catcher in the Rye and somehow used it to justify their use of hand guns on celebrities.

A couple of years ago I reviewed Kenneth Slawenski's biography- J.D. SALINGER- A Life Raised High (2010):  http://georgedanderson.blogspot.com.au/2011/07/book-review-kenneth-slawenski-jd.html  It is interesting that although Shields & Salerno don't acknowledge Slawenski's biography in their detailed bibliography, they are quick to lay the boots into him for the "dozens of errors about Salinger's war record" (page 26). Slawenski has also surprisingly publicly kept his silence about the film and book on his blog- a kind of hymn devoted to Salinger: Dead Caulfields: http://deadcaulfields.com/

I wouldn't recommend you rush out to buy this book. I loved the photos and the overall impressionistic feel to Salinger. I certainly came away a lot clearer as to why he never published after 1965 and about what he may have written in the bunker. You are probably better served downloading the film and borrowing the book from your local library.

BOOK REVIEW: RD Armstrong (Editor) LAST CALL: The Bukowski Legacy Continues. The Lummox Press, San Pedro, 2011 (145 pages).

This is an interesting and diverse collection of poetry, short stories and essays related to Charles Bukowski’s continued influence on writers almost twenty years after his death in 1994. The book is a follow up to editor Armstrong’s LAST CALL: The Legacy of Charles Bukowski (Lummox, 2004).

As RD Armstrong clearly states in his introduction, the purpose of the collection is “to showcase writers whose work shows the influence, not necessarily in style or form, but in the feelings that their pieces (especially true of poetry) provoke in the reader (or in the editor)”.  He is interested, in particular, in the dark, “visceral quality” of Bukowski’s writing- how he is able to capture “the magic of ordinary moments” but also how he cuts “through the bullshit of life’s pretense like a laser through case-hardened steel”.

Bukowski’s enormous body of work refuses to go away and continues to sell tens of thousands of books each year. Armstrong metaphorically sees the strength of Bukowski’s work as rolling on “like an errant hubcap, released and hurtling towards the horizon, inspiring us to follow.”

Armstrong mentions in his forward ‘About this Book’ that he has been a tough task-master and has held fast to his definition of what he sees as Bukowski-esque- “namely writers of the solid, clean, and unpretentious line and not necessarily having to do with the Buk.”

POETRY

This is the largest and best section of the book and consists of 47 tightly written poems by some of the best writers from the underground- Henry Denander, Charles Ries, John Dorsey, John Yamrus, Frank Reardon, Ben Smith, A.D. Winans, Doug Draime, William Taylor Jr., Gerald Locklin, Neeli Cherkovski and RD Armstrong & others. As you would expect in a collection of this sort, the poetry is raw, streetwise and highly accessible.

Many of the poems make an incidental reference to Bukowski. Others are tributes to Buk or are memoir poems like Cherkovski’s ‘Shostakovich Came to Visit’ and Gerald Nicosia’s ‘Fourth of July with the Buk in San Pedro.’ Other poems, such as Michael Lefanto ‘Forty Short’, F.N. Wrights ‘Bukowski & Me’ and Joy Buckley’s ‘Not Bukowski’ try to emulate Bukowski’s drunken & sexual exploits. Others focus on adapting various aspects of Bukowski’s no bullshit, free verse style. Rick Smith’s ‘We’ll All Go Together’ is an excellent example of an original writer borrowing from Bukowski but stamping his own extraordinary voice onto his work. 

Bukowski’s poetry often exudes great warmth and humour and this aspect of his writing is often underplayed by his readers- but not by the Swedish poet Henry Denander in his poem ‘At the Racetrack’. Denander is a serious collector of Bukowski memorabilia. In the poem, unlike Bukowski, he is not interested in the horsetrack but buys some whiskey glasses on eBay because they are from a track that Buk used to attend frequently. At the end of the poem, Denander knocks back a glass or two of whiskey and cheekily quips as he starts to get pissed that he is “beginning to understand/ the art of horseracing/ after all.”

AT THE RACETRACK

On eBay I bought four whiskey glasses from

Santa Anita Park; this was Charles Bukowski’s

favorite race track and he spent a lot of time there.

I’ve never betted on the horses myself but there was

a race track close to our summer house in Sweden

and I went there when I was a kid.

I never really liked to watch the horses run but

I came to see my uncle Allan who was a

regular at the track. I liked him a lot and he

always gave me money for ice cream,

so even without betting I came out ahead.

And now, 45 years later, here I am

with my large Santa Anita whiskey tumbler

with the engraved horses and jockeys,

a couple of ice cubes and a large splash

of Glenlivet whiskey.

Maybe I’m slowly

beginning to understand

the art of horseracing

after all.

(reprinted with the permission of the publisher)

Personal favourites also include William Taylor Jr’s political ‘Poem’, John Yamrus’ self mocking ‘Bukowski’s Property’ and John Dorsey’s ‘Doctor Bukowski’s Monster’ – perhaps the best poem in the collection.

Dorsey’s poem has a cut & paste feel to it. He combines Buk’s lower case free verse style, popular culture references and multiple allusions to Bukowski & his work to create a monster of a poem.

DOCTOR BUKOWSKI’S MONSTER

for abigail

in the sunlight of madness

bukowski’s monster

has been turned into

the shadow of a young james dean

the meaning gets lost

caught up in the moment

where stanzas get tattooed

into the golden forearms

of nelson algren’s over medicated grandchildren

searching for cool

with a broken flashlight

beamed toward karma

there is a junky born

every minute

read the label

shoot dice

ask questions later

ask the dust for its last dime

spit words at the sun

an eternal hot walker

wait for the photo finish

become a split second god

in another man’s miracle

(reprinted with the permission of the publisher)

FICTION

Due to the paucity of quality submissions, this section is disappointingly short and only includes five short stories whose total length is about twenty-five pages. The content is full-on underground and explores such issues as assisted suicide, heroin use, work place harassment, teenage drinking and wife bashing. The language is gritty and often guttural in a go-fuck-yourself way.

Jason Harding’s ‘America the Beautiful’ is easily the strongest and most compelling of the lot. It is the tragic story of a woman symbolically called America who can no longer take the pressures of day to day living and asks her ex-boyfriend Maceo to kill her. What follows is a zany, unpredictable joy-ride for the reader.

ESSAYS

This is a solid section of the book and includes a short buk memoir, a book review of Bukowski’s last poetry collection The Last Night of Earth Poems, a short reader’s tribute plus three essays.

In D.A. Pratt’s ‘Who Gets to Read Bukowski’ he suggests that new readers be strongly encouraged to read poetry Buk wrote during his life-time rather than the posthumous ECCO collections usually available in book stores. In his extended essay “Bukowski and the Romantic Influence: Writing as a Means of Transgression’ the French critic Alexandre Thiltges argues that Bukowski is a radical poet in the Wordsworth and Whitman tradition. This is an erudite study brimming with ideas.

More valuable to me was Abel Debritto’s ‘Atomic Scribblings from a Maniac Age: The Artwork of Charles Bukowski’ which concisely but comprehensibly provides an overview of the publication of Buk’s trademark drawings and doodles.

In 1965, for example, Bukowski began work on an unusual project he titled ‘Atomic Scribblings from a Maniac Age’ which was to be his “first book where his artwork would be predominantly showcased, with a few interspersed poems.” Bukowski sent Wayne Philpot, the editor of the little magazine Border dozens of drawings over several months. Promotional flyers, order forms were issued in late 1965, but the project had to aborted in 1966 when Philpot disappeared and pissed-off with Bukowski’s quality drawings- most of which have never been recovered. This is a remarkable, largely unknown story!

SUMMING UP

This is an enjoyable, tightly edited collection of diverse work well worth the read. There are many writers out there trying to out buk Bukowski but this is a sensible and spirited collection deeply grounded in the hard, clean line.

LINKS

You can look inside Last Call through Amazon. This link includes a contents page, most of Armstrong’s introduction and four poems:

http://www.amazon.com/LAST-CALL-Bukowski-Legacy-Continues/dp/1929878869#reader_1929878869

Find a more extensive 50 page sampler of the book on ISSUU here:

http://issuu.com/poetraindog/docs/lastcallsampler

I recently received this Lummox Update- Fall 2013 from The Outlaw Poetry Network: http://outlawpoetry.com/2013/10/19/lummox-update-%E2%80%93-fall-2013/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OutlawPoetryAndFreeJazzNetwork+%28Outlaw+Poetry+Network%29

 
Find here an excellent 2011 extended interview with RD Armstrong on HorrorSleezeTrash about his work as editor and writer: http://www.horrorsleazetrash.com/interviews/13-questions-with-rd-armstrong/

Purchase Lummox books here direct: http://www.lummoxpress.com/lc/

Chopper Read True Crime Novels

The notorious criminal and writer of ‘true crime’ novels, Chopper Read, died this week of liver cancer, aged 58.

Sydney Morning Herald news: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituaries/chopper-read-crime-figure-turned-legend-20131009-2v85e.html

Channel 7 News on his death: http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/19359945/chopper-read-to-have-melbourne-funeral/

ABC: 13 things you may not know about Chopper Read: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-09/13-things-you-may-not-know-about-mark-27chopper27-read/4991540

Andrew Denton interviews Chopper Read on Enough Rope in 2007 here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1939707.htm

Aussie True Crime: http://aussietruecrime.blogspot.com.au/2010/06/mark-brandon-chopper-read.html

His novels are crass, exaggerated tales but were popular, especially in the 1990s and Read sold in excess of 500,000 books.

Bibliography (from Wikipedia)

• Chopper: From the Inside (1991), ISBN 0-646-06543-2
• Chopper 2: Hits and Memories (1992), ISBN 0-646-10987-1
• Chopper 3: How to Shoot Friends & Influence People (1993), ISBN 0-646-15444-3
• Chopper 4: For the Term of His Unnatural Life (1994), ISBN 0-646-21014-9
• Chopper 5: Pulp Faction: Revenge of the Rabbit Kisser and Other Jailhouse Stories (1995), ISBN 0-646-25065-5
• Chopper 6: No Tears for a Tough Guy (1996), ISBN 0-646-29637-X
• Chopper 7: The Singing Defective (1997), ISBN 0-646-33923-0
• Chopper 8: The Sicilian Defence (1998), ISBN 0-9586071-0-9
• Chopper 9: The Final Cut (1999), ISBN 0-9586071-4-1
• Chopper 10¹⁄₂: The Popcorn Gangster (2001), ISBN 0-9579121-0-2
• Hooky the Cripple: The Grim Tale of a Hunchback Who Triumphs (2002), ISBN 1-86403-165-4
• The Adventures of Rumsley Rumsfelt (2003), ISBN 0-9579121-7-X
• Chopper 11: Last Man Standing: From Ex-Con to Icon (2007)
• Mark 'Chopper' Read: One Thing Led To Another (2010), ISBN 978-1-4050-4046-4^[20]
• Mark 'Chopper' Read: Road to Nowhere (2011), ISBN 9781742611457^[21]
•  
• If you are game, buy his books here: http://www.amazon.com/Chopper-Mark-Brandon-Read/dp/1904034144

Update 28 December 2014

Recently read Read's semi-autobiographical crime-faction CHOPPER 5: Don't Go Breaking My Legs (2005)

More later.