True to form, a brief excerpt in the L.A. Weekly from John O’Brien’s third posthumous title, Better (behind The Assault on Tony’s and Stripper Lessons) reveals that the Leaving Las Vegas author was mining the deep dark shaft he understood all too well, chronic alcoholism:
The sharp sound of breaking glass awakens me. As I dozed my drink fell from my hand, rolling for seconds? Hours? It has apparently left the deck and shattered on one of the many large rocks that lie just over the edge. The sky may or may not be lighter. Looking west at this hour requires imagination, which then steals the show. Consulting my watch, I find that I have just under an hour until Morning Vodka, so I pour a short gin in a new glass and wait.
More and more I am emitting the telltale odors of an alcoholic, though I think I have merely the proclivity and not the condition; more and more that seems like a fairly innocuous problem, though I suppose I know better. No matter; without comment Double Felix will tolerate the organically tinged scent of liquor emanating from my pores this morning. He has his own troubles, and I shall shower in lieu of lunch.
As a reminder, Better gets the red carpet treatment at L.A.’s Book Soup this evening.
Filed under: Hideous Music and the Sound of Many Shotguns | Tagged: Better, books, John O'Brien, Leaving Las Vegas, writers, writing
Okay, so you sent me to the library tonight; not the main, downtown St. Pete, but the new college library in our town. I was looking for Fitzgerald’s work, but found none at tall. I asked the librarian what the kids with English Lit majors are reading. She handed me a tome of not less than 10,000 thin pages labeled “Anthology of American Literature.” Does it contain “Tender is the Night?” Nope.
So I searched the back room shelves where Friends of the Library, such as I, cart the stuff from our shelves. No F. Scott Fitzgerald there either, though I know I donated at least two of his books, along with sixteen linear feet of other stuff.
What did I come home with? A damned Tom Clancy page turner. Clancy moved out of the Cold War right into the Terror War with a whole series on covert and special ops. The last one I read moved from Argentina through Brazil into Paraguay faster that a Lear Jet can fly. I hope this one doesn’t get bogged down in Afghanistan like the war there has.
Did you get the note I posted on Lela’s site? Re: PayPal invoice for $25 to buy a book?
No Fitzgerald at all? Did you check their card system to see if perhaps they had FSF but the titles were checked out?
P.S. The librarians, all but one, never heard of John O’Brien. The one who had was younger than A.J. and she only saw the flick, not the book. “Better” isn’t even in their catalog, damn it!
Do you know about alibris.com, Mack? It’s an online consortium of used book dealers throughout the world, a great place to find authors like John O’Brien in very reasonably priced editions (though often used and/or former library editions in wraps). Of course, the author and/or his/her estate does not see a dime when you buy from these retailers so you have to leave your conscience by the wayside …
I knew abut alibris.com, but I saw what you were looking for on Amazon, cheap in used. . .hell, cheap in hard cover.
So where’s that invoice? Or can’t you use $25.00?
We had a family meet, a sit down, with the Social Worker at the hospital. It was trying! But between the three of us, A.J. and Chris and I we may have part of the problem solved. C seems to feel I’m turning her into a Liza Doolittle. I can see her point, but what I do is not without cause or reason; she never learned the meaning of “integrity,” something that was drilled into me until it stuck to the bone.
“He won’t let me have any friends,” she wailed. “Friends from the flight deck are not friends; they are users.” “See what I mean,” she said to the Social Worker. C was surprised when the woman agreed with me. “I’ll buy you a membership in the recreation center, pay for jazzercise or whatever. But no more psychos; I have to deal with them in my groups.” I put up a good fight, but lost the battle.
I think you won the battle, if I read that correctly.
Rodger,
I signed on for the long haul, not a brief affair. I tend to vent my side of the story only. As Carl Jung wrote in Modern Man in Search of a Soul, “Whatever we look at, and however we look at it, we see only through our own eyes.”
To tell the truth, as Holden Caulfield often said, I do tend to play the teacher role in our Pygmalion dramas.
At times I think my age superiority gives me license to preach, to talk down to Chris and to pontificate on morals. From what I’ve read about women of her generation (maybe women in general) she’s not alone in her inability to defer gratification of her desires. Unlike this writer, who has to have his ducks in a row and cash in the bank before he’ll shop for a used pair of trousers or a shirt at the Goodwill thrift store (a congenital tight wad i.e.) Chris is susceptible to the advertisements she’s constantly bombarded with via TV, snail mail catalogs, coupon distributors and so forth to the point of feeling compelled to shop ’til she drops. Even our former President advocated shopping as the cureall for our recession–did I mention that she watches Fox News?
Born in 1950, she was brainwashed from birth to desire a Good Housekeeping environment, top-of-the-line booze, and apparel from shops that copied Jacqueline Kennedy’s wardrobe. And me? I grew up knowing that I could only wear one pair of trousers, one shirt and one pair of shoes at a time and I wear them until they’re rags without feeling bad about it.
Furthermore, I hate to shop! I hate being faced with choices and having to make decisions about the goods on display, even when my pockest are full of money. There you have the essential conflict.
One of the maternal Aunts with whom I lived passed along her philosophy of spending to me. She, in the words of my father, “is so tight they’ll have to split the cheeks of her ass to get her eyes closed when she dies.” I thought that was gross too, but damned if it wasn’t true. If I complained about my ass hanging out of the holes in my jeans she’d say: “Take ‘em off and I’ll patch them.” Thus I learned early on to defer gratification of my desires. Then too, the Corps provided more clothing than I could carry with ease and replaced the stuff from time to time, thus leaving my mind free to absorb their propaganda.
There’s a large Generation Gap in the crotch seam of the trousers I’m presently wearing; does it bother me? Hell no. I’m waiting, nevertheless, for her call to come get her so she can clean up the messes her new dog has made and to stitch up my crotch on her sewing machine. What I’m saying is this: WE NEED EACH OTHER; it’s a matter of survival. Next time she tells me to hit the road, I’m not leaving. Every time I’ve taken her seriously about “leaving,” she’s felt unable to live without me. Isn’t that the definition of co-dependence? And isn’t co-dependence what we all seek in a mate?
I haven’t bought new clothing since 2006, Mack (although a family friend recently purchased some new skivvies for me after the elastic in my remaining tatters began unraveling). I own two pairs of years-old Levi’s and one pair of navy blue slacks and a lot of winter garb, which doesn’t do me much good in summer months.
Re “isn’t co-dependence what we all seek in mate?”
No!
However … the fact that someone depends on us for anything should be enough inspiration to better oneself at every opportunity. Chris sounds like she has OCD or something similar if she can’t resist a basic advertisement. It’s not generational, nor even gender-based. If you make an agreement with someone, and they don’t stick to it, they may not be able to.
Thank you for everything you’ve done for Rodger, Mack.
OCD is what they call it; they being those with the DSMIV on their desks. My old climbing buddy, now a psych counselor, identified that one fifteen or twenty years ago while cooking his famous Chili Rellenos for us. But that’s merely for starters; there’s a whole lot more to her than that. And you’re right about it being less of a generational and gender problem. I’m still the misogynist I always was, dion’tcha know? I was just trying to drum up a bit O’ sympathy from the gentry readng these pages, ya know?
I keep slipping out of my native dialect, but you doubtless noted that. You’ve such a keen eye; I may name you in my will as my literary executor. Like Mary and Patrick Hemingstein, you could maybe get my stuff in print in the afterlife. As it is now, I’m going to have to rent a storage room to house the file boxes filled with typescripts. Btw, I began the chore of scanning some stories from the typed copy into MS Word, but my scanner keeps picking up the fly specks and rain stains so I may as well hang up a board and copy them myself instead of relying on the OCR program I use.
Don’t be surprised if some day a UPS truck pulls up to your door with half a ton of stuff for you to copy and edit. C could do that job, but I’m afraid she’d excise most of the good stuff instead of merely changing the names.
Today was our grand daughter’s birthday, so I took her, her brother, mom and pop with C and I to the Outback Steak House. I think we brought home 80% of our orders plus more than half of that bloomin’ onion. C had prepared a gift shopping bag filled with stuff she knew a 13 year old would love. That 2′ tall teddy bear made for sleeping with was the biggest hit with the girl. C is enjoying being a Grandma to A.J.’s step daughter.
I made the mistake of wearing my hearing aids to dinner. That joint was so crowded and noisey my brain is rattled. But the food was great, even though the check gave me sticker shock. The girl got a big kick when the staff assembled by our table to sing a happy birthday song to her. All in all a fine outing. I resolved to do that more often; do you suppose I could catch OCD that way?
P.S.
C’s discharge is being processed. I’ll pick her up with my ass hanging out. All the bullshit aside, I love that woman and I’m hanging by the phone for her call telling me the damned paperwork for her discharge is finished and to come get her.
Check your PayPal, pal.
Thank ye, Mack, we can now scratch “Barrymore’s Ghost” off that research needs list at Boil Some Water (I found an affordable ex-library edition at Alibris).
Re: Alibirs. I bought a couple of used books from them today. Come the 21st I’ll kick back and do some reading. Thanks for the reminder.
I wish I could do more, Rodger. But in addition to the birthday dinner, both C’s and A.J.’s cars are in the repair shop on my tab. I’ll be lucky if I’m not out on the streets with a tin cup before the Eagle squats again.
I know how expensive and over-rated Outback Steak House can be. Jeez.
It’s 0315 hrs here and already there’s an “alert” in my inbox from B of A warning me that someone used my debit card at the Outback Steak House to the tune of $123. and that didn’t include the $20 cash tip for the waitress, I went to bed two hous ago, trying not to worry about the money spent earlier, but the B of A ain’t gonna let me forget it. I actually had to dig the debit card receipt out of my wallet to find out how much I paid for that “bloomin’ onion.” Never mind the cost; it was delicious, could even become an addiction. After posting the debit in my register, I must have put the receipt in our boxs for same, but while I was getting another cup of fresh coffee it disappeared. Loosing a receipt can derail my train of thought easier than an “alert” from the bank. Oh yes, like many franchised restaurants Outback is not uniformly excellent. The one in St. Pete happens to be one of their best. Portions were so large we’ll be eating those left over ribs, roast pork loin, and fried onion for a day or two. And damn they were excellent. My usual order–as if we went there more than once a year–is their grilled salmon steak. They fly the fish in from Alaska. Our stores only carry the fish farm salmon with red food coloring added, which don’t satisfy an old salmon eater the way the fresh stuff does.
Sans transition, I have to rave about “Look At The Birdie” –a 2009 pub from Delacorte Press of Kurt Vonnegut’s Jr’s previously unpublished short fiction.
I gave up some sleep and kept C asking what was so funny. Yes I was LOL
What I love about Vonnegut Jr.’s stuff is how funny it seems at first glance but how deep it is when savored a second time. I suppose it has already been reviewed, but this stuff would make excellent fodder for your “Deconstruction Zone” column. Sidney Offit’s “Forward” for the book had too much Offit for my taste and the reason they were “previously unpublished” may have been because they haven’t been through Vonnegut’s usual half dozen rewrites like those tales he sold to Collier’s prior to writing his novels. Why mention Collier’s? I guess I miss it. Their fiction offerings were every bit as good as the stuff in the slicks like New Yorker, Atlantic etc.
Okay, so the full belly has given me verbal diarrhea ; I’ll shut my trap for a while. I’ll mail this copy of Look at the Birdie to you after I give it another reading.
It’s normal for the bank to suspect fraud on your card when your debit history does not include expensive dinners on a somewhat regular basis.
I read an excerpt from “Look at the Birdie” in Harper’s a couple of months ago, a story about an artist and his philanderings with students/models and a “Fatal Attraction” scenario that blooms as a result; the story itself was a little flat and predictible but the narrator’s voice was engaging.
Here’s one for Miss L. The Browns live on our street. The Brownses’ house is painted green. See anything wrong with that?
Well, yes. They should have painted it blue.
Does it need that apostrophe?
The apostrophe is fine, but the “es” is not.
The Browns’ house is painted green.
Sorry for the pert answer above, I thought you were pulling my leg because “Brownses” is definitely not correct.
Just as I suspected. Maybe Kurt Vonnegut Jr’s editor was pulling our leg when the “Brownses’ ” wasn’t corrected in a posthumous publication of a Vonnegut manuscript. I’m reading “Look at the Birdie,” and thus far the errors have derailed my train.
We had a discussion of this before. It raises the question: Would the author have authorized the publication of stuff he didn’t consider the Final Draft?
From experience with reading my tales, you know I seldom take the time to edit first drafts. I may put them out for a look and save a copy in my “Work in Progress” folder for further editing (when I can afford to hire someone like you to edit the stuff, that is.)
The parenthetical at the end of the above graph is a good example; I don’t really know where the period goes. Should it be within the paren, or outside of it?
The period goes outside, Mack. I heartily encourage you to obtain a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style. Even if it’s not the newest version, the basic principles don’t change.
My third husband was furious when his first book was published. The publisher had promised to edit the ms but didn’t. The book became very popular in its niche and was even translated into Spanish so the embarrassment is permanent.
But I think readers know the author isn’t at fault and hopefully keep reading. Although with some reads, such as the one you reference, mistakes are very distracting.
I have the Chicago Manual of Style, Strunk and White and several other books, such as Modern American Usage, Foreign Words and Phrases, Simon & Shuster’s Handbook for Writers, and the MLA Handbook just name a few. I’m not pulling your leg when I say “I’ve read them all.” I simply can’t recall rules in the heat of the writing. If I break out the book to correct punctuation while writing the thought evaporates and is gone, forever encircling the planet in the Nuusphere. Until one fine day someone like Rodger or you jot something down and draw that thought from the Exosphere or wherever it’s been wandering, along with those damned ultraviolet rays and Mu Mesons.
Thank you. Can you use any of the above listed books in your work? If so, I may as well ship them to you, for all the good they’re doing me.