Dot Dead Diary

Lush Life, Literary vs. Genre Fiction, and State of Play

Overwhelmed by the reviews of his Lush Life, I headed over to M is for Mystery yesterday afternoon to hear what Richard Price had to say.  As happens so often, Mr. Price spent too much time of his allotted sixty minutes reading from the book.  If I'm going to buy the book, I want to read it myself and not have someone else steal the juicy parts.  During the Q&A, I asked why reviews seemed to treat Lush Life as "literary" fiction rather than crime fiction.  A little explication here.  I expected him to rant about artificial lines between genres.  In fact, I wanted him to, since such words would be a balm to me who recently received a rejection from a major publisher that said my opus "is a gripping book that kept me turning pages from the very start."  Then came more compliments, before the conclusion:  "However, at the end of the day... the subject matter is just still too firmly in the genre world" for us.  All right, all right.  Enough whining.  Anyway, Price said he was treated as a literary writer because that's the way he wants to be treated.  He said that he himself doesn't read "detective stories" since you forget what they were about minutes after finishing them.  In his mind literary fiction deals with big themes and describes an important slice of the world in a way "detective" fiction does not.  (Remember I did ask about crime fiction.)  He did say he was an admirer of George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, and Elmore Leonard as well as the old-timers like Hammett and Chandler.

In response to another question, Price said what he originally turned into his editor was twice as long as the final manuscript.  He said he and the editor worked together to find the story hidden in that first draft.  How many editors do that kind of thing nowadays?

I had hauled #4 along with me -- he's nine -- since we were due at our synagogue right after the signing.  He sat in the front of the store during the reading and Q&A where he was supposed to be keeping his nose in a Tom Swift: Young Inventor book, but he confessed to listening to Price talk.  I hope the words he heard were new to him, but with three older siblings I fear they were not.

One other piece of advice that I keep forgetting to pass along.  Recently, I watched State of Play, a BBC miniseries about a murder wrapped in a political scandal.  It's available on DVD from Netflix.  Get it.  Watch it.  It's being turned into a big deal movie in 2009 with Ben Affleck, Helen Mirren, Robert Wright Penn and Russell Crowe, but don't wait for that.  It can't be as good (especially since they are moving it, of course, from London to D.C.) 

A Dirty-handed Dentist?

The Spitzer Scandal reminds me of a story my rabbi told me years ago.  He said that you don't much care if your dentist is a tax evader, your accountant cheats on his wife, and your rabbi doesn't wash his hands after going to the bathroom.  But you care alot if your dentist doesn't wash his hands after going to the bathroom, your accountant is a tax evader, and your rabbi cheats on his wife.

People, of course, are comparing the Spitzer imbroglio with the Bill Clinton fling with Monica Lewinsky.  In 1992 people knew, or at least strongly suspected (remember Gennifer Flowers?), that Bill fooled around and voted for him anyway.  (He was like the accountant cheating on his wife.)  He stayed in office.  But Spitzer made his rep on prosecuting wrongdoers.  He was the avenging angel of the law.  (That makes him the rabbi cheating on his wife.)  If true, I suspect and expect he will resign because his wrongdoing goes to the core of the reason the voters elected him.

American Idol: Presidential Edition

The TV writers have been on strike, but I haven't missed them.  That's because the most compelling reality show ever is playing itself out in a long-running series.  It's called "Presidential Primaries" where in American elections an African-American has pulled ahead of a crown princess and a war hero has risen from the dead to beat the rich, famous, and evangelistic. 

When I was a boy, I read Convention by Knebel and Bailey and The 480 by Eugene Burdick, both about presidential contests.  Although I almost always prefer the written word to what I see on the screen, the current, ongoing reality show surpasses even my memories (from an impressionable age) of those two books in drama, pathos, arrogance, earnestness, and human failings. 

Several years ago, NBC used the slogan "must see TV."  Now watching CNN on primary and caucus Tuesday nights is must see for me.  I cannot wait till March 4 for the probable climax of the show.

I wonder if the sequel, called "General Election" and coming this fall, will be as compelling.

Breakfast with Barack

This morning I had breakfast with Barack Obama.  I'd met him last June and came away with a favorable impression-- enough to want to hear him again.  Today, in speaking to me and a couple hundred others, the Senator was inspirational, insightful, optimistic, funny, and approachable.  He'd been good in June, but he was great today.  He dazzled me.

I don't use the term "dazzled" lightly.  I spent four years on Capitol Hill and have worked with and heard from many members of the "world's greatest deliberative body."  I haven't ever been present where a politician spoke better.

What I care most about in a president is not what he or she will do to make my life easier or better.  What I want is a president who will help make this country the best possible inheritance for my children. The Senator spoke eloquently about how to fix our "disease care system," to achieve better education for the young, and how to make the United States stand for the right thing in the world.  My wife, too, was impressed.  "There's so much more there than you hear in sound bites on TV," said she.

In the breakfast crowd were a fair number of venture capitalists, my brother among them.  The Senator asked for our support in terms familiar to those VC's.  Supporting him, he said, was a moderate risk investment with a very large potential payoff.  Exactly.

Terrible Reality

I write mysteries and thrillers. When writing them, I live in an alternative reality where deaths occur. It turns out though that alternative reality is not as real as the one I live in when not writing.

I met Benazir Bhutto in college where she kept the name Benazir to herself and introduced herself as “Pinkie.” One night at a bull session in my dorm room, she and I had a screaming match over what should be done in the Arab-Israel conflict. One of her friends ran from the room crying because she could not handle our disagreement. For me politics discussed at high volume was situation normal. Evidently for Pinkie, too, and our argument made no difference to our casual friendship. Someone told me that newspapers in Pakistan opposed to her ex-foreign minister father alleged that his daughter was hanging out with Jews and left-wingers. Maybe so. I myself did not spend a lot of time with her, but I did fit both categories.

Pinkie and I overlapped at Oxford, too. I remember going by her room at Lady Margaret Hall, which in those days was women-only. She seemed overly appreciative of the visit and insisted I take an oversized tea tin – which I still have somewhere – as a gift.

I did not see Pinkie after Oxford, but when she was assassinated two days after Christmas, I felt it. My college friend had been murdered. Bullets had torn through her. That's reality and it is terrible.             

               

Pinkie as an undergrad.

Cross-posted at the Inkspot blog.

Syzygy

A syzygy occurs when three or more celestial bodies form a straight line.  At 3 AM this morning, #1 and two equally eccentric soon-to-be college freshmen were lying in our frontyard staring up at a lunar eclipse where the Earth, sun, and moon are aligned.  By 8:30 AM, my wife and I had delivered our #2, #3, and #4 to three different schools for the first day of their tenth, sixth, and third grades respectively.

Last night at 7 PM, I sent off the latest (and final?) draft of Two Graves to my agent.  Maybe my subconscious was at work figuring that the confluence of the eclipse and first day would augur well for its reception.  All would be aligned.  The protagonist of Two Graves is a Stanford history professor who is recruited to work on anti-terrorism by the Senate Intelligence Committee.  In the writing, I drew on memories of my stint as a counsel to that committee way back when.  On the very day when I sent off the manuscript, the front page of the country's paper of record featured a story about the committee during my time there.  The Times article recalled the controversy that had erupted over the mumble-mouthed Director of Central Intelligence, William Casey.  Fred Thompson, the former Watergate minority counsel and the future presidential candidate, was called in to help by the new Republican Senate majority.  It was Fred's unstated mission to clear away Casey's problems if possible, which he did.  An old colleague from those days once told me she had a picture of Thompson at an after-work party in my townhouse near Dupont Circle in the District. 

Two Graves, my memories, and the appearance of the Times article. Another alignment, another syzygy.

Juan Sebastian Gomez and The Golden Door

Here are the facts.  Juan Sebastian Gomez, born in Colombia, is brought into the U.S. at age two by his parents.  Sixteen years later, he graduates from Killian High in Miami with a 3.96 GPA and top scores on 11 AP exams.  He does his homework on borrowed computers and in his spare time volunteers at a homeless shelter.  It's the American story!  Right?  It's what this country stands for.  You know, just as is written on the Statue of Liberty -- "Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed to me:  I'll lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Wrong.  On July 25 immigration agents in Florida detained young Mr. Gomez and prepared to deport him.  He remembers nothing of Colombia and does not speak fluent Spanish.  America is his home.  Only because his plucky high school classmates who do still believe in the American Dream started protesting in South Florida and then went to Capitol Hill to make a case for him is Mr. Gomez still in this country. One of those who went to the Hill was Andy Dubbin, son of dear friends.  Here's what Andy says in this morning's N.Y. Times:  “I truly see Juan pursuing a career that does America good.  He could do anything. He’s just genuinely smart and sociable.”

A bill sponsored by Illinois Senator Richard Durbin lays out a path to citizenship to high school grads once they do military service or two years of high school.  Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida has introduced a much narrower bill that would grant legal immigrant status to Mr. Gomez and his brother.  I don't want to get into a discussion of secure borders and immigration policy, but it is clear that Mr. Gomez, who did not enter the U.S. voluntarily -- he was brought as a baby by his parents, is about to suffer an injustice.  I'm going to let my repesentatives in Washington know that I stand with Andy Dubbin -- Mr. Garcia would be an asset to our country and we'd be lucky to have him.  Our government, you know the people who work for us, should not exile him from his homeland and send him to a country that he does not know.

Looking Backward -- and Forward

A long time ago I was counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee.  (I'm drawing on that experience to spice up my second book, Two Graves.)  I was reflecting on my days back in D.C. with a current member of the Senate the other night at dinner.  (See photo.)  He asked me what I was up to now and I told him I was writing mysteries and thrillers.  The upshot?  Despite my no freebie vow, I mailed him a copy of Dot Dead.

Tomorrow at the crack of dawn I'm off with #4.  The two of us are flying back to my college reunion.  I'll be awash with nostalgia for the rest of the week .

Finally, today is #1's 18th birthday.  I can recall the day she was born so vividly.  At the same time, how can a father look at his 18-year old and not be excited by what lies ahead for her?  The adventure of life.

The Horrific Good Old Days

When my dad used to read alot, one subject fascinated him above all others.  Every birthday, Father's Day, and Hanukkah, at least one of the book I gave him was a memoir, biography, or history dealing with World War II.  I thought this was somewhat peculiar because he was there himself in France and Germany in 1944-45.   When he moved out of the family house, he was able to donate a nice collection to the San Jose State history department.

As of late, I find myself following in Dad's footsteps.  A month or two ago, browsing at Kepler's, I picked up Alex Kershaw's The Few, the story of American flyers who joined the Royal Air Force to fight Hitler before Pearl Harbor.  The book is short mainly because there is so little to draw on.  Of the eight airmen featured in the book, only one survived the war.

Then came JFK:  Reckless Youth by Nigel Hamilton.  It takes the Kennedy story only to 1946.  President Kennedy's father was ambassador to the UK at the beginning of the War in 1939.  Over half the 800 pages of the book is dedicated to the war years of 1939-1945.  Fascinating stuff.  JFK's reckless youth was redeemed by the war.  The legend is that Jack's older brother Joe was the one slated to be president and Jack took his place when Joe died during the war.  Not necessarily so.  And it might have been Jack's wartime heroism that impelled Joe to volunteer for the suicide mission that cost him his life.

Just last night I finished Troublesome Young Men:  The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England by Lynne Olson.  She tells the story mainly from memoirs, diaries, and newspapers of how Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who had appeased Hitler before the war and then did little to prosecute it once it began, was replaced by Churchill.  Some people saw the danger that Hitler represented and some did not.  My graduate thesis covered some of this some territory, and I was not nearly as hard on Chamberlain as Olson was. 

Here's what these books have in common and what make them so compelling.  The authors write about a time when people could choose to fight against unadulterated evil (or appease it or do nothing).  I remember the scout who cleaned my room at Oxford.  Despite German bombing, despite casualties overseas, she always said the war years were the best years of her life.  Everyone was pulling together, there was a heightened sense of being alive even as death threatened.  What are we doing with our lives now that can compare with helping to defeat the evil that was Hitlerian Germany?  There could not be any doubt about life's meaning then.  There was no noirish sense that even the good guys were bad.  Until Hitler died in that bunker, there existed a cause worth dying for in a way that neither Vietnam nor Iraq could be.  I wasn't there and wish I could have been.  I understand my Dad's fascination. 

Courage: Some Have It, Some Don't

There's enough in the papers, on TV, and even in the blogosphere about the massacre at Virginia Tech that no one needs to hear from me.  Or at least that's what I thought until I read this statement in this morning's New York Times:  "This brutal attack was not caused by nor should it lead to restrictions n the Second Amendment, which guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms."  God, no.  If you're running for president, your first reaction should be not to stop massacres, but to toady to the NRA, right?  I don't know if John McCain made that statement from his bus, "The Straight Talk Express" or not, but it still makes me angry.  Rudy Giuliani who in the past had stood for federal registration of handgun owners, now says, "People have the right to keep and bear arms and the Constitution says this right will not be infringed.''   Don't think this is a Democrat-Republican issue.  Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said, "I hope there's not a rush to do anything" in response to the Blacksburg massacre.  A plague on both your houses!

When I worked on anti-terrorism for the Senate, I helped get a bill going that would place inert markers in gunpowder and other explosives.  In case of a terrorist bomb made with a substance that contained the markers, the government would be able to trace where the explosive was manufactured.  The National Rifle Association opposed the bill because some hobbyists made their own bullets from black powder.  The markers would not have stopped them from doing so, but that didn't matter.  The bill never had a chance.

Should people have the right to have assault weapons?  Should the perpetrator of the horror in Blacksburg have been able to get his hands on ammo clips that held more than ten bullets?  Why?  Does anybody doubt that if it were put up to a national plebiscite, we would have greater control over firearms?  Last October an ABC/Washington Post poll showed 61% in favor of stricter laws.  I want a president with morals beyond those required to get elected, one who will not toady, but will lead.  Sigh.

Finally this.  Do you know what broke my heart?  That Liviu Librescu, a 76-year old survivor of the Holocaust teaching at Virginia Tech, died while blocking the door to his classroom so his students could escape from the mass killer.  And that the massacre occured on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.