2.19.2007
PASTE
A MIRACLE OF CATFISH - Paste Magazine Review, 03/07
"Trailers, hog hunts, trotlines, and age-old aches"
In A MIRACLE OF CATFISH, late novelist Larry Brown digs out a pond in backwoods Mississippi, stocks it with a monster-sized momma-fish named Ursula (plus 3,000 whiskered kin), and spins a tale of nearby happenings, mostly in the mingled lives of four men and a boy.
Brown knows well the shabby, rusted-out places we all drive by Out There. MIRACLE's five narrators, for instance, walk the gravel stretches of life: They're stove factory workers, fish farmers, kids with rotting teeth, mothers unwed and men with secrets in the barn. The book's powerful author conjures them to life - old and young, black and white, aquatic and psychotic.
Beginning in the late '80s, Brown brought common folk like this to the surface, showing them as true avatars of fault, wit and wish-for goodness. He would know. A one-time Mississippi fireman, Brown worked himself into a Southern Lit benchmark before dying, at age 53, in 2004.
So is it the miracle of fiction? Reading CATFISH, you sense Brown - whose real-life grave rests by a pond on Mississippi family land - is eerily close, like a great fish circling the mudbottoms. TB
2.16.2007
A MIRACLE OF CATFISH - Paste Magazine Review, 03/07
"Trailers, hog hunts, trotlines, and age-old aches"
In A MIRACLE OF CATFISH, late novelist Larry Brown digs out a pond in backwoods Mississippi, stocks it with a monster-sized momma-fish named Ursula (plus 3,000 whiskered kin), and spins a tale of nearby happenings, mostly in the mingled lives of four men and a boy.
Brown knows well the shabby, rusted-out places we all drive by Out There. MIRACLE's five narrators, for instance, walk the gravel stretches of life: They're stove factory workers, fish farmers, kids with rotting teeth, mothers unwed and men with secrets in the barn. The book's powerful author conjures them to life - old and young, black and white, aquatic and psychotic.
Beginning in the late '80s, Brown brought common folk like this to the surface, showing them as true avatars of fault, wit and wish-for goodness. He would know. A one-time Mississippi fireman, Brown worked himself into a Southern Lit benchmark before dying, at age 53, in 2004.
So is it the miracle of fiction? Reading CATFISH, you sense Brown - whose real-life grave rests by a pond on Mississippi family land - is eerily close, like a great fish circling the mudbottoms. TB
posted by TB at 11:52
HOW I LOST AUDREY
I tried moving on. Leaving it. Whatever you do. When I next heard from Cee, her note mentioned fond memories and a warm night when we carried a sofa onto the June grass. The words stretched and touched my arm again.
Months passed. I remained in Latin America, learning to roll my r’s and finding Sandinistas and surfer colonies. Mangos came sliced every few miles and hand-me-down school buses sparkled down thin highways. The sun baked the impurities out and the salt water washed them away. The travels cleansed me. They stripped me down, embraced me, and pointed me home again. It was to Tennessee.
I collected things for Cee. I bought pocket mementos, sunny postcards, paperbacks with inscriptions. None were sent, but all were saved. For another day, I thought.
I almost handed her a beaded street vender’s bracelet when she came through town in late October. Instead, when her hand drew too close, or mine did, I bolted from dinner to meet Miss Green Dress.
Cee, the following day, somewhere north, phoned in tears. I could see them rolling down her tiny bright cheeks. The salt sunk into my skin.
I don’t know what this means, she said. It was quiet for a minute, and autumn broke.
Where have you been? I said. I’ve been here. •••
A full essay, "How I lost Audrey Hepburn," can be found in Portico Magazine, February's issue.
2.03.2007
I tried moving on. Leaving it. Whatever you do. When I next heard from Cee, her note mentioned fond memories and a warm night when we carried a sofa onto the June grass. The words stretched and touched my arm again.
Months passed. I remained in Latin America, learning to roll my r’s and finding Sandinistas and surfer colonies. Mangos came sliced every few miles and hand-me-down school buses sparkled down thin highways. The sun baked the impurities out and the salt water washed them away. The travels cleansed me. They stripped me down, embraced me, and pointed me home again. It was to Tennessee.
I collected things for Cee. I bought pocket mementos, sunny postcards, paperbacks with inscriptions. None were sent, but all were saved. For another day, I thought.
I almost handed her a beaded street vender’s bracelet when she came through town in late October. Instead, when her hand drew too close, or mine did, I bolted from dinner to meet Miss Green Dress.
Cee, the following day, somewhere north, phoned in tears. I could see them rolling down her tiny bright cheeks. The salt sunk into my skin.
I don’t know what this means, she said. It was quiet for a minute, and autumn broke.
Where have you been? I said. I’ve been here. •••
A full essay, "How I lost Audrey Hepburn," can be found in Portico Magazine, February's issue.
posted by TB at 15:16
BASEBALL FOLK
The young outfielder drove in from Triple-A Louisville the night before, curving along the northern Kentucky hills, seeing the Queen City spread lit and waiting below. He'd gotten the elusive call-up. Surely, arriving felt a lot like heaven. Ken Griffey, Jr. recounted his first meeting with Dernell Stenson. It was Aug. 13, 2003 and the Diamondbacks were in town.
Dernell, thick-chested like a power hitter, wore his mesh Reds jersey, a rookie's end-of-the-summer number 63.
"Hey, six-three," Griffey said across the spacious clubhouse. "I think you may be in the wrong stadium. Try next door." The Bengals new riverfront home sat colossal just down Second Avenue. And, Stenson had the body of a linebacker.
"Mr. Griffey," Dernell said, introducing himself with a smile.
"Just call me, Junior."
This August moment began Dernell's six-week string of big league baseball, twenty starts, a few home runs, the culmination of a million swings and also only the beginning. But, this was to be it, the end of things. Shot and killed in the November following his call-up, the object of a dark and chilling story, his summer in Cincinnati was his sad high note.
"You've made it now," Griffey told the 25-year-old in one of several clubhouse talks. "Now, just play."
***Dernell's story will be published in the Oxford American this summer.
The young outfielder drove in from Triple-A Louisville the night before, curving along the northern Kentucky hills, seeing the Queen City spread lit and waiting below. He'd gotten the elusive call-up. Surely, arriving felt a lot like heaven. Ken Griffey, Jr. recounted his first meeting with Dernell Stenson. It was Aug. 13, 2003 and the Diamondbacks were in town.
Dernell, thick-chested like a power hitter, wore his mesh Reds jersey, a rookie's end-of-the-summer number 63.
"Hey, six-three," Griffey said across the spacious clubhouse. "I think you may be in the wrong stadium. Try next door." The Bengals new riverfront home sat colossal just down Second Avenue. And, Stenson had the body of a linebacker.
"Mr. Griffey," Dernell said, introducing himself with a smile.
"Just call me, Junior."
This August moment began Dernell's six-week string of big league baseball, twenty starts, a few home runs, the culmination of a million swings and also only the beginning. But, this was to be it, the end of things. Shot and killed in the November following his call-up, the object of a dark and chilling story, his summer in Cincinnati was his sad high note.
"You've made it now," Griffey told the 25-year-old in one of several clubhouse talks. "Now, just play."
***Dernell's story will be published in the Oxford American this summer.
posted by TB at 10:28
