A Story for the California Fire Season

As I write, the Carr fire in Northern California -- a blaze that at its peak had characteristics that seemed almost apocalyptic -- has diminished, but still remains a significant threat to some communities.

Shruti Swamy, a woman of Indian extraction who says she grew up in the woods of Northern California (but now lives in San Francisco), has a story in the Summer 2018 edition of the Paris Review entitled "A House is a Body." It's about a woman and her sick child living in a region where "rain had not come for months and months."  What has come instead is a fire.

Ben Marcus and "Notes from the Fog"

Ben Marcus is described as a dystopian writer, but he's far from apocalyptic when it comes to the bad news that lies ahead. Rather, Marcus sees the world as a stagnant pool with little to recommend it.

Death is a welcome development, readers learn in "Notes From the Fog," a short story published in the summer 2018 issue of "The Paris Review."  It is also the title of a new book of Marcus short stories scheduled for release next month. Among others, the book includes "Cold Little Bird" and "The Grow-Light Blues" about which I have previously written.

Gbessa, or "She Would Be King," by Wayétu Moore

Myths, some more religious than others, appear to be essential to human existence. They serve to explain the origin of various societies and often are the source of values and behavioral norms. Most have important supernatural elements that elevate such stories above the commonplace and render them seemingly timeless.

Artists, seeking to give their work and thus themselves a transcendent quality, often anchor their efforts in myth. One thinks, for instance, of Richard Wagner basing what he considered his masterpiece – the Ring Cycle operas – in Norse legend. And James Joyce appropriating Homer’s epic to give “Ulysses” a framework and a name that serves to place the book in a more universal context than early 20^th century Dublin.

Then there’s T.S. Eliot who identified Tiresias, a leading prophet in Greek mythology, as the most important voice in his poem “The Waste Land.”

All of which brings me to contemporary American author Wayétu Moore, who has apparently decided that Liberia, her distant homeland, needs a foundation myth that she provides in her debut novel, “She Would Be King.” Scheduled for released in hardcover in September 2018. Moore, in interviews, has described it as “a novel of African magical realism.”

Impressionable Cacao Beans; the Wisdom of Bourbon

"Thoughts About Fiction" -- the title of this blog -- could easily extend well beyond literature.

How about marketing, for instance?

What about this assertion from the folks at Raaka, a maker of what might be called artisanal chocolate bars:

"This chocolate is years in the making. Our bourbon casks have lived multiple lives before we receive and fill them with cacao.  As they age, the young impressionable beans absorb the history and wisdom of the bourbon before them." (my emphasis)

Really?

New Narratives for a New Diversity

The  May 14, 2018, issue of The New Yorker includes a short story by Edwidge Danticat entitled "Without Inspection" that can be viewed as representing a new narrative for a more diverse America.

This country has always been a nation of immigrants (after it was "discovered" by European explorers at any rate), but until relatively recently, the vast majority of the newcomers were Europeans who arrived legally.  Thus, the classic immigration story has long been one of persons, parents or grandparents who arrived from the "old world" at Ellis Island in New York harbor and after various trials and tribulations, often including discrimination, eventually achieved the American Dream, if not for themselves for their offspring.

Tell Me a Story, Mommy

Remember when digital books were all the rage and various companies were rushing to bring out new readers?

Well, no more it seems. Audio books are now where it's at.

That's according to a lengthy article in the Seattle Times entitled "Listen carefully, book lovers: Top authors are skipping print for audio."

Freedom or Just Trying to Live: Differentiating Character

If one is writing stories short on plot, character development is often critical. That raises the issue of character differentiation and how to go about it.

In that vein, here is an interesting quote from a May 14, 2018, New Yorker article on rapper Post Malone.

"Some people are free to live their best lives. Others are just trying to live."