Fiction, Writing, Articles, Essays, Reviews.
I have already created a list of the Most Important Novels in My Life (which is up for occasional editing and review). Now comes my list of must-see movies. As with the most important novels, for a film to make the list it must meet one or more of the following criteria: It was so profound and meaningful to me that I’ve seen the movie multiple times. It significantly influenced me as a...
Fourth of July 2020. I looked up and down the street. Many houses were flying their flags. I was conflicted. I put mine out. I managed to fly it for an hour or so until I became uncomfortable and took it down. Here I am getting triggered by my country’s flag. I’ve allowed to happen what I’ve railed against: the flag being a symbol of Republicans and the shithead in the white...
In my first graduate fiction writing workshop, I submitted a story called “Landscaping.” It was about a woman who lives largely inside her head and her stream-of-conscious voice narrates the day that a landscaper comes to her house to plant a garden. The professor asked the class, “Who’s writing does this remind you of?” Immediately someone responded, Virginia Woolf. I said, “Who’s she?” I was...
To go out to dinner as a child was a rare and special occasion for my family, even when we went to the ubiquitous Your Host, a chain of 31 mediocre family restaurants in the Buffalo area. Fish fries and toast points. Yum! As we got older, into our teen years, my parents would take us out to dinner to a nice restaurant once a year, so we could get a little culture and practice our manners. These...
I’ve submitted my latest novel, THE SUITOR, to my agent, after we’d gone back and forth on some edits. The story centers on three characters: recent college-grad and law-school-bound Anna; the ambitious and scheming Kyle, who loves her; and Anna’s father, Art, who doesn’t like the idea of Anna and Kyle together. Read the first chapter. I’ve got another shot with this...
Certain words are becoming important to me. One of them is savor. I wrote about savoring the experience of shaving. Today I took time to savor the wind chimes around our house. We have many. Right now it’s ninety-five miserable degrees outside, the air is silent, nothing stirs the chimes. But when savor calls, you listen. Our newest wind chime. This bronze beauty was a father’s day...
No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and the emotions shared by all. I probably would not have chosen to read “the Plague” if we were not in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic and had I not found the novel on a bookshelf. But it seemed an appropriate read, tucked between my rereading of the most important novels in my life. I had just...
Yesterday we attended the protest rally and march in Troy. It was an incredible scene: thousands of protesters, peaceful marching, incessant chanting, almost everyone wearing a mask. I was proud to attend. I recently wrote about my earliest memories of race and racism. Here’s what I remember after that, from my years growing up in Buffalo: In sixth grade I joined the St. Mark Lions 90-pound...
I’ve posted less these last few weeks because my attention is occupied elsewhere. One focus of attention has been finishing my novel, THE SUITOR. I’ve gone back and forth with my agent on some potential changes that might clarify, crystallize, and strengthen the story. I’ve spent hours each day writing and rewriting, trying to solve those nagging problems of narrative and...
BUFFALO, NY, 1960s. I’m seven or eight years old, the fourth of five children in my family, three girls, two boys. We live on a busy street in a wood-structure, single-family house in a white neighborhood. At the end of the block is the Catholic elementary school I attend. I have no black classmates. I don’t know any black people. Next door to us is a two-family. The Millers move in on the second...
During the period of COVID-19, I’ve been re-reading novels from a list of twenty-five of The Most Important Novels in My Life. Next up: THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP. Published in 1978, when I was in college, the first time I attempted to read Garp I put it down. A few years later I started reading it again, and this time I couldn’t put it down. What changed? Sometimes you’re just...
Julia asked if I was putting the flag out today. I realized I should. I flew it for one reason only: It’s Memorial Day and I wanted to honor those who died while serving in the U.S. military. They deserve this honor. Otherwise, I haven’t been flying the flag. The last time I did, in 2016, I flew the flag upside down as a call of distress. I got some pushback over that. I’ve been...
May 24, 2020. Memorial Day Weekend. This is the front page of the New York Times today: 100,000 thousand dead so far in the United States from COVID-19. So far. The sub-head to the story states, “They Were Not Simply Names on a List. They Were Us.” There will be more deaths. Probably many thousands more. Compare this number to the number of U.S. deaths in war. Almost twice as many...
I’m on page 38 of 327 pages of a novel I’m reading and I want to put it down. I’m uncomfortable reading. Anxiety is building in me. Anguish weighs me down. Even shame. And yet — I also experience a sense of wonder. The novel is called THE PETTING ZOO, and it’s the first novel I wrote, 30 years ago. I came across the manuscript — wasn’t sure I still had it...
My calendar has been a lot less full these days. It’s the nature of my lifestyle during COVID-19 and my life in general as a writer: I have unstructured time that I use the best I can. Today I had an alert from my calendar: this is the weekend I’m supposed to open the family cottage. The cottage is an inherited asset shared among my siblings and is a lifelong gathering and living...
The tennis nets around town have been taken down. Solitary running and my home gym set up only goes so far. I need competition. I need a sport to play, one conducive to social distancing. Croquet anyone? I have an old backyard croquet set I inherited from my father. It’s very ordinary, but I guess you could still call it an heirloom. The mallet heads are grass-stained and dented, and you...
I recently made a list of the 25 most important novels in my life and have been rereading them to see how well they’ve stood the test of time. I had included this short, harrowing crime novel on my original list. I must have first read it when I was a teenager or in my early twenties, and the impression it made on me was indelible. The novel’s protagonist — Joseph Lambert, a...
William Faulkner said, “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” What does this mean? It’s a common piece of advice for writers who must cut sentences, scenes, characters, even entire plots because they no longer work within the story world. They might be beautifully written. You might love them. Still, they must be axed. I’m doing some darling murder these days as I...
I don’t fly my country’s flag very often. I used to put it out on Memorial Day or July 4th or Labor Day. Harriet once questioned my appreciation for the flag, because to her it seemed more of a Republican symbol — they were the flag-waving party. I insisted that we can’t let Republicans own the flag. It belonged to all of us. It represented our entire country. I still feel...
I’ve been working out alone in my garage for years. It’s a spartan space: unheated, floor of concrete, shelves packed with garagey stuff. There are bicycles, tools, garbage cans, recycling bins. Unfinished walls. But I’ve got a set of dumbbells. And I’ve got a pull-up bar and a yoga mat and a Bosu and a jump rope. I’ve got everything I need to get a solid workout...
