Reading Recommendations

To those of you who have known me as a bookseller, let it be known that my interest in the printed page began long before I owned a bookstore. I was the best customer of the local library. I can describe bookstores that have not existed since the sixties. Now that the bricks-and-mortar are gone, I have the impulse to share some titles that I feel are above and beyond the average quality you find in the mix. As a Michigan resident, I am proud to say that there are quite a few writers based in my state who have published fine work in the last year.

Steve Amick's Nothing But A Smile is a fine novel that combines a finely-tuned WWII home front story with enterprising characters who survive by turning a small, failing camera shop into a secret studio that produces naughty photos. Set in Chicago and later in Michigan, the plot centers around the problems created by stepping outside accepted morals. The world of racy pinup production and distribution is only one piece of this time capsule, but Amick does retro well, avoiding cliche and taking the reader back without blinking at conditions much like ours: economic slump, small businesses struggling, soldiers returning to few jobs. Those who lived through these times should particularly enjoy the ride, which ends in postwar Ann Arbor.The author credits his late father-in-law for providing him with the material for the novel, but once again, he reveals his talent for stories that move beyond the superficial, as he did in
his first novel, The Lake, The River, and the Other Lake.

Bobbie Jo Campbell's American Salvage is the second of her books that I have enjoyed. The first, Q Road, joins those of Charles Baxter, Janet Kauffman, Laura Kasischke, and Charles Dickinson in my hall of fame for novels depicting small town life in the mitten state. American Salvage is a collection of short stories; but each one contributes its part of the microcosm of the small town, which Campbell admits might resemble her hometown. The stories are tough and the characters gritty: they don't indulge the reader with a cutesy tone. Amazing things happen on these pages, but I won't give too much detail here. Just know that this writing was fine enough to have earned Campbell a spot as finalist for the 2009 National Book Award, which is saying something. American Salvage is part of the Made in Michigan Writers Series published by the Wayne State Press.

A note of full disclosure: although I attended graduate school in English at Wayne State, and could see the press from the not-very-fabulous teaching assistant office that I inhabited there, I am absolutely not compensated for writing this review and would love the series even if I had never been a Wayne student.

Two other books that bear mention here are from the same series: Michael Zadoorian's The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit and Janet Kauffman's Trespassing:Dirt Stories and Field Notes. The former is written by Michael Zadoorian, with whom (again, disclosure) I attended grad school at Wayne. Zadoorian does urban wreckage in much the same way that Campbell does rural squalor: with an eye for the people and their noble attempts at survival in a storm of economic decline. He has the appreciation that I share for the wonders of a city that is generally thought to be beyond repair, including a number of commercial buildings (restaurants, bars, motels) that were built to resemble exotic Asian civilizations, hence the title of the collection. In the process of telling these stories, Zadoorian brings a humanity to the settings by noticing the smallest details and finding the oddments that make life as he sees it very real.

Kauffman's book is more non-fictional, though she has published many fictions that demonstrate her intimate knowledge of rural Michigan. Trespassing is actually two books: first, it's a series of stories and fragments, nearly non-fictional; then, it's an actual account of the environmental response when her Hillsdale County neighborhood is trashed by the introduction of a factory farm. If you don't care about one half of the book, you will find the other very interesting. If you are really lucky, you will enjoy both halves and be motivated to consider how you might support the movement to rid the planet of factory farms, having been shown their effects in Kauffman's deft fiction.

A final note on this series: it now includes two books that I have not yet consumed: Anne-Marie Oomen's collection of essays, An American Map, and Kasischke's novella, Eden Springs. If the series continues its fine eye for local talent, these will be on my reading list before long.

Domestic Archeology, Part I

If there is any justice in the universe, when you've reached an age where downsizing becomes necessary, you will find that your work presents special challenges. When I began taking apart my house after a decade of residence, I thought I had a good idea of what was involved. Months later, with the task mostly completed, I feel that all the complexities of unsorted stuff and personal nonsense somehow offered a new and very instructive view of my last ten years. Yes, it's a cheap form of self-assessment, and at present, it's all I can afford.

Please give me this benefit of a doubt: for six of those years, I had a full-time job that sucked the air out of the rest of my life. What was left in the wake of not sorting and organizing was amusing, horrifying, endearing, and bizarre at times. The house I am about to sell was about double what I actually needed, but when you are in your forties, you sometimes forget that all that junk will pile up like new year's resolutions. There was definitely an acquisitive phase and I acquired too much. Word to my friends who are thinking of downsizing: you probably have no idea of what all has gathered under your roof, and you'd better get to dealing with it.

Twenty years ago, I started grad school, and clinging to every book on every topic I could find was only logical. (Now, you can look it up on the web or join an online library like Questia.) So there were books and more books and books beyond the posted limits of what one mind could absorb. Some collections of books are still precious to me (novels set in Michigan, Motown Records histories, Janis Joplin biographies, several boxes of anti (Vietnam) war books and studies of hippie counterculture, and some important tomes from my youth. Who knows why I need to hold on to my fourth grade poetry textbook, but there is at least one item in there that I cherish because I once had to memorize it.

Other media forms follow suit: I love the tapes I made on grainy VHS twenty years ago, though several trash bags worth have been deleted. My pre-recorded VHS tapes went to charity. I have only kept VHSes of the following categories: obscure silent film, cult standards, and personal oddities, including (like the fourth grade poem) a bunch of old TV shows I taped. Who can live without an old Schmenge Brothers special with John Candy and the rest of the SCTV wackos? (Look them up on YouTube.) I also have vinyl, cassettes, and a few music or video things on little discs that I am not at all sure how to play, since the formats failed. For full disclosure's sake: a few 78s, no eight tracks or wax cylinders.

There are other categories to consider, but as any good writer should, I will take my readers' attention span into consideration and save my brain cells (and yours) for later. Just view this as the first part of a cautionary tale: you could end up like me if you aren't careful...

No Best of Decade Lists,New Year's Resolutions, or Profound Thoughts

Needless to say, I have been watching too much TV. The endless list of stories involving the above topics makes me wonder if every media outlet is so dumbed down that we can't get to the real stuff we should be discussing. As the year begins, there are always lists to endure, resolutions to proclaim, and final views of the preceding year to review. Not that I object to these things out of hand: we need to review to progress as individuals and as a society. But this year's lists are pretty mortifying to my sensibilities. Who presumes to rank marital infidelities and other bad behaviors? And how does this matter to most of us? I'm trying not to be cynical here, but it's not easy to resist.

On balance, my last decade was spent in a charming little town that showed its heart on more than one occasion. I rejected my former suburban existence and I found a lot of what had been missing. I owned the house of my dreams. I had a big stake in all sorts of community projects and issues. I lost a lot of battles, but won a few important ones.

I learned to slow down, and within months, discovered that I did not need to speed from event to event without seeing a bigger picture. When I returned to Oakland County to visit, I noticed how hassled and hurried everyone seemed to be, and I didn't miss that aspect of life at all. Nor did I miss the conspicuous consumption of fancy cars, clothes, etc.

To some, it would seem that the biggest story of the past ten years would be changes in technology. When I first came to Chelsea, I had one not especially reliable cell phone and an ancient computer. Now I have a smartphone, a laptop, a desktop, and wireless Internet at home. I clearly remember not being able to get anything but dial-up at first. DSL didn't arrive for several years. Wireless Internet was the most recent addition to my home. Being a student of human nature, it's hard to ignore that such changes have encouraged an impatience that comes with instant access.

So to those of my generation who have rejected technology because it seems too artificial, or too complicated, or too frivolous, let me encourage you to be a bit more open-minded. I am using the technology that I have to try to move forward. I've reconnected with old friends that I couldn't otherwise have found. It's genuinely terrific to think of all the things gained, that I'd be missing without my tools.

Now to the problems created by the beginning of a new decade. Let's back off the endless lists: I don't think that the best web videos of the year need our help. And for those items on each person's lists of blunders, heart-breakers, and annoyances, I imagine they're going to fade away as life progresses. Nothing is as important as accepting life's imperfections, especially one's own.

On balance, these are the things that matter most as the new year unfolds.