”’Whatever you do won’t be enough,’ I heard their voices say. ‘Try anyway.’”
Obama had just been drubbed in an election against a popular candidate when”’Whatever you do won’t be enough,’ I heard their voices say. ‘Try anyway.’”
Obama had just been drubbed in an election against a popular candidate when he made the absolutely crazy decision to run for the US Senate. Michelle thought he was out of his mind. He was talking about “magic beans” and shit, but he assured her that this was it. If he lost, he was done with politics. Their credit cards were maxed out, and their overall financial picture was dire...let’s just say, the Star Trek klaxon bells were sounding, and Scotty was screaming at Kirk that he couldn’t hold it together much longer.
Would he really have done with politics if he’d lost? Hell no. I don’t believe it, and as reassuring as the words probably sounded to Michelle, I seriously doubt she believed it either. He had a fire in his belly, and that candle was burning hot. He had a dream, and he wasn’t going to hide it under a bushel. Unh uh!
So in March of 2004, he won the senate election, and in July he was tapped by John Kerry to give the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. I can remember looking over at my wife and going...who is this guy? I’m a pretty savvy political person. I can remember watching LBJ’s funeral when I was six. I was nine and can remember feeling sorry for President Gerald Ford, even though I had supported President Jimmy Carter in the 1976 Presidential election. Let’s just say that I tuned into United States politics...early on. So I was thinking...this guy...for the keynote?
A guy named Barack Hussein Obama?
I love this conversation he had in the White House with his team, but it sort of sums up the dream-like quality of his rise to the presidency. Spoiler alert...he wins the presidency in 2008.
”’I guess the question for you, Mr. President, is, Do you feel lucky?’*
I looked at him and smiled. ‘Where are we, Phil?’
Phil hesitated, wondering if it was a trick question. ‘The Oval Office?’
‘And what’s my name?’
‘Barack Obama.’
I smiled. ‘Barack Hussein Obama. And I’m here with you in the Oval office. Brother, I always feel lucky.’”
*Phil Schiliro may have watched too many Dirty Harry movies.
I admit, when the Kansas caucus came around, I was sitting in a small room of people supporting Hillary Clinton. I thought Obama was running a cycle early. It was time to elect our first female president, and who knew how long it would be before another woman with the name recognition of Clinton would emerge from the process? I was flabbergasted at the number of people, mostly younger people! who caucused in the gym for Barack Obama. I kept thinking to myself, If these people would actually vote, we could turn Ford County blue. To give you an idea of how red the county is that I live in, 41% of Kansans voted for Joseph R. Biden, but Ford County came in at 33%. In Phillips County, where I grew up, only 11% voted for Biden. Needless to say, my extended family are not only Republicans but are unabashed Trumpsters. I am the black sheep of the family, or should I say the blue sheep of the family.
Obama ran a terrific, revolutionary, grass roots campaign and, against all odds, won the primary and electrified a nation in the process.
So this book primarily covers the election campaign and his first term in office. The second book will cover his second presidential campaign and term in office. Normally, I wouldn’t read this book this soon. I ordinarily like history to get smaller in my rearview mirror before I read any books about it, but after a bruising four years of Trump and an election campaign that slenderized my Facebook friends, mostly family, list, I decided that I needed some time with a voice of reason. I needed to experience our future by reading about the past because I do feel that Obama was the future, even when he was our president of the present.
I like the way he was self-deprecating about his mistakes. Even Obama made some gaffes while speaking...remember “cling to guns or religion?” Stating the stark truth isn’t always the best strategy. I love this little scene with David Axelrod while prepping for a debate.
”’Your problem,’ he said, ‘is you keep trying to answer the question.’
‘Isn’t that the point?’ I said.
‘No, Barack,’ Axe said, ‘that is not the point. The point is to get your message across. What are your values? What are your priorities? That’s what people care about. Look, half the time the moderator is just using the question to try to tip you up. Your job is to avoid the trap they’ve set. Take whatever question they give you, give ‘em a quick line to make it seem like you answered it...and then talk about what you want to talk about.’
‘That’s bullshit,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ he said.”
Okay, we were all distracted by the fly that flew into Vice-President Mike Pence’s hair and died from toxic embalming fluid during the debate with Vice-President Kamala Harris...I can say that now! Yeah!...but I have never seen a politician during a debate completely ignore any of the questions he was asked like he did. It was hilarious.
If you have been pining for the days when Obama was your president, you will absolutely love reliving those sometimes rocky roads as Obama tried to change our world for the better, despite the best efforts of the Republicans to block anything he tried to do. The Republicans made it very clear from the beginning that they were going to put the party first over the country. The Obama years, despite the obstructions, were certainly halcyon days compared to the last four years. The behind-the-scenes stuff that he shares made me respect and like him even more. He is genuine and cares about the same things that all of us care about, our family, our friends, our dogs, and our need for a sustainable future. He has some of the same fallacies and self-doubts that the rest of us have, but he was determined to become someone who could make a difference.
And he did.
Let’s hope President Joseph Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, after getting the White House fumigated and clearing away all the McDonald’s hamburger wrappers, can start driving the car in the right direction.
The voice in his head sounded like his Daddy. That rough, whiskey-soaked melodic voice that haunted his daydreams. B”’We are who we were meant to be.’
The voice in his head sounded like his Daddy. That rough, whiskey-soaked melodic voice that haunted his daydreams. But the words belonged to someone far more eloquent that he couldn’t recall. He ran his finger over the hood of the Duster. People had been shot. They might even be dead. There was going to be major heat coming down after such a brazen robbery in broad daylight. He had a feeling Ronnie was going to try and fuck him over for his cut. Quan was a fucking train wreck.
But they had gotten away. He still had it. Whatever ‘it’ was.
‘We are who we were meant to be’ he said.”
Beauregard Montage is a loving father, a dedicated husband, a terrific mechanic, but that isn’t who he really is. He can tamp it down, ignore the fierce need, and the siren call of the blacktop, but the man he really is can’t exist in tandem with the man his family needs him to be. Those on the opposite side of the law from the East coast to Florida to Mississippi know the best wheelman is Bug Montage.
Behind the wheel, he is Fred Astaire, Rambo, and the Black Panther all rolled into one package. If you try to stay with him while attempting to catch him, you will find yourself flipping, rolling, smashing as you miss the turn he made with ease. You might find yourself in a body cast, wishing you’d never, ever laid eyes on his taillights. Beauregard can get away; the question is, Can he stay uncaught.
”Don’t get killed. Don’t get caught.”
Things would have been fine if Precision Auto hadn’t moved into town with their rock bottom prices. Montage’s business went from good enough to pay the bills to a ghost town. Not only are the bills piling up at the shop, but they are at home, too. To make matters worse, the old folks home wants to toss his mother out. If there is any reason to pick up robbery again, it is the thought of his mother moving into the house. She has a mouth on her that would make a marine sergeant shudder. Beauregard also struggles with his memories of his father, his own inherited violent Montage tendencies, and those same tendencies beginning to show up in his son.
So when Ronnie and Reggie Sessions come to him wanting his help taking down a big score at a jewelry store, he is a desperate man, on the verge of seeing everything he has worked so hard to build go up in flames. Why shouldn’t he use his god-given talent to make things right, to give himself some breathing room? Besides, when it really comes down to it...he loves the game. He knows Ronnie is always working some angle. Mrs. Montage didn’t raise no fool, but Beauregard thinks he can stay one step ahead of his scheming mind. The robbery turns into a shit storm, but the cops are clueless. The problem is, they just robbed a front for one of the baddest gangsters in the South. The gangster boss is vaguely amused by their antics, but he wants his diamonds back.
And then things really turn to shit.
I first heard about this book when I was watching a zoom event with Stephen King and James Lee Burke. I’ve read a lot of books by these guys, so this was a real treat for me to watch them together. King is a big fan of Burke’s work and was very complimentary, as he usually is, for the writings of other authors. He made a point of encouraging people to pick up this book. I’m so glad he mentioned it because it was so reassuring for me to read a neo-noir book being published in 2020. I feel like there has been a dearth of hardboiled, gritty mysteries being published in recent years. It is obvious to me, while reading this book, that S. A. Cosby has a real love for the genre, and that he has read extensively in the genre. This is a wild ride with wonderful twists and turns and not just when Montage is behind the wheel. The only thing missing is a femme fatale to throw one more monkey wrench into an already messed up situation.
I bet he gets to her in his next book.
Buckle up buttercup, and hop in Montage’s Plymouth Duster, and wait for him to hit the nitro. You’ll be rolling like a rocket through the blacktop wasteland. You’ll hear the sirens recede until the only thing you’re listening to is the whistling of the wind through a crack in the window seal. You’ll feel that occasional wobble as the car navigates the soft swells of the rolling hills. You’ll feel a singing in your blood. You’ll look over at Beauregard and match his grin with your own.
Ralph Merrit buys a house on Court Street in an exclusive white neighborhood bordering Harlem. He looks white. He sounds white, but he ain’t white. Ms. Agatha Cramp, who has no idea that Merrit is playing with her in the conversation above, also lives on Court Street. She is so happy to have this successful lawyer moving into her neighborhood, until someone clues her in to the undeniable fact that he is... colored.
Ralph’s white complexion is so deceiving that he really needs to wear a sign or something warning racist old ladies that beneath that pale exterior is the red blooded, beating heart of a primordial, black man.
Linda Young first works for Ms. Cramp, and it is through her encouragement that Agatha shows an interest in devoting time and money to a Black organization, which leads to the unfortunate conversation with Mr. Merrit. To make matters worse, Merrit offers more money to Linda to come work for him. What audacity this uppity dickty is showing even before the paint is dry on his remodeling. This is simply intolerable. He’s not showing deference as he should, but actually acting like he’s one of them!
Joshua ‘Shine’ Jones has taken a shine to Linda. Just because he is a handsome specimen of a man with enticing, brooding qualities doesn’t mean diddly squat to Linda. She has big expectations for her life, and unless his plans dovetail with hers, she’s going to go her own way. Shine’s friend, Bubber, is about to tell you how good lookin’ she is. ”’Man--oh--man! A honey with high yaller laigs! And did you see that walk? That gal walks on ball-bearin’s, she do--ev’ything moves at once.’” I like the way Shine describes her better. ”And Lindy was sure good to gaze on. Skin like honey--honey with red cherries in it. Clear like thin wax with light behind it. You could almost see through it--you could see through it--you could see red flowers behind it; and when she got excited over anything it seemed that somebody waved the flowers back and forth.”
Now that Merrit has been outed as black, not that he was hiding it, but then he wasn’t advertising it either, what will the insecure white folks of Court Street do? Maybe they will set aside their natural racist tendencies and bring him a plate of cookies, slap him on the back, and invite him to the next neighborhood barbecue.
That would be a negatory.
Just as important, will Shine win his ambitious honey red cherry girl?
I was reminded of Rudolph Fisher while reading one of Langston Hughes’s autobiographies. Fisher was one of the bright stars in the Harlem Renaissance. Langston said he was one of the wittiest, smartest men he’d ever met, and though his books were good, they didn’t fully capture just how amazing a conversationalist he was in real life. Given the fact that Langston was a bright man in his own right, this is high praise indeed. The vernacular Fisher used in this book made me feel like I was fully immersed in Harlem just as it is blossoming into an oasis for Blacks. I was watching Bubber’s antics as he described this high yaller gal strolling down the street as if she was gliding. I was listening to the conversations between Shine and his work buddies as he hauled a piano up to a third story window. The prose flows so easily that I read most of the book during the course of one afternoon.
When I talk about things such as vernacular it scares some people, but don’t let that hold you back from reading this classic. A glossary of terms is included with the book for those who may find a slang word or two difficult to define.
This book came out in 1928. His next book was The Conjure-Man Dies, which came out in 1932 and is considered the first mystery novel written by a black man. Now isn’t that intriguing?
”When I was in the second grade, my grandmother took me to Lawrence to raise me. And I was unhappy for a long time, and very lonesome living with my g”When I was in the second grade, my grandmother took me to Lawrence to raise me. And I was unhappy for a long time, and very lonesome living with my grandmother. Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books--where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas. And where almost always the mortgage got paid off, the good knights won, and the Alger boy triumphed.”
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This is one of my favorite author pictures. What an engaging smile! It is almost impossible not to smile back at him.
I think it is hard to know where we are supposed to be. People have spent lifetimes searching the planet for the place that speaks to them in ways that makes them never want to leave. Few find paradise, but eventually, most people discover that they can make a good life for themselves almost anywhere. Langston Hughes found misery in Kansas, but he also found a way to escape it. He discovered books. I love that line: “books began to happen to me.”
I don’t think that Langston Hughes would have ever been a writer, a poet, or a world traveller if he had never been a reader. Books fueled the flame for him to be all of those things and more. It drove him to go to Paris, to Africa, to Harlem, and many parts beyond. All of that began for a young boy in Lawrence, Kansas, who discovered the world was large enough for him to find a place that would want him to be there as much as he wanted to be there.
”Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pull.”
Anthony Bourdain included Langston Hughes’s book I Wonder as I Wander on a list of his favorite books. Those books may not be the best books you’ve ever read (they can be both) but are the comfort books that you can return to time and time again and enjoy the book as much or more than you did the first time you read it. When I looked into I Wonder as I Wander, I realized that it was the second autobiographical travel book he’d written. From a linear time standpoint, it made sense to read The Big Sea first. Besides, it also covered his time in Kansas, which is of special interest to me.
When he travelled to Africa, working as a crew member of a freight ship, he had expectations of Africa.
”And further down the coast it was more like the Africa I had dreamed about--wild and lovely, the people dark and beautiful, the palm trees tall, the sun bright, and the rivers deep. The great Africa of my dreams!
But there was one that hurt me a lot when I talked with the people. The Africans looked at me and would not believe I was a Negro.
You see, unfortunately, I am not black. There are a lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word ‘Negro’ is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins. In Africa, the word is more pure. It means all Negro, therefore black.”
In America, he was discriminated against for being too dark, and in Africa, he was dismissed as a “white man” for being too light. As he traveled across the United States, he often found it convenient to say he was Hispanic (he could pass...a word that makes me shiver even to write it), and while living in Mexico with his father is probably when the idea first occurred to him. His father “hated negroes” and “disliked all of his family because they were Negroes.”
According to Langston, his father moved to Mexico because of the problems existing for biracial people in the United States. James was also absolutely obsessed with money, not spending it or enjoying having it, but piling it up like Scrooge McDuck. As if Langston wasn’t struggling enough with figuring out his place in this wacky world of mental color charts, he had to have a dad who was suffering from so much self-loathing that he was racist against himself.
Langston found a place for himself in Harlem during the Black Renaissance in the 1920s. Josephine Baker, even though she was in Paris, was influencing the way black women and white women dressed back in America. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, among many others, were driving jazz music to greater and greater heights. He met fellow writers Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, Rudolph Fisher, and became good friends with Carl Van Vechten, who was instrumental in encouraging him to write The Big Sea and other projects that eventually proved important for Langston’s writing.
Carl Van Vechten was famous for throwing these huge parties in which he brought writers, artists, and musicians together regardless of their skin color. He wrote a peppy book about these events titled...>Parties, and if you want a real slice of how people had a good time in the 1920s, that book will give you a peek inside those historic gatherings. I will soon be reading and reviewing Van Vechten’s book Nigger Heaven, which caused a huge controversy when it was published. It was condemned by many for the title before they ever read the book. Knowing what I know about Van Vechten (he is the opposite of racist), I must say I’m intrigued by where the book will take me. The book went into multiple printings. The current edition of the book is published by the University of Illinois which might signify a cultural importance. Black and white people were wrapping the book in cloth so they wouldn’t be seen reading the book, but as we know, controversy for a book is sometimes better than good press.
Langston Hughes wrote a very engaging story. He lived during a time when so many wonderful things were happening. African-Americans were not only proving that they were equal to any, but that they were also capable of great genius. I followed along with Langston all over the world and enjoyed my stay wherever he took me. He worked the most menial jobs as he tried to teach himself how to write poems and stories. He had a goal, not to be rich, but to be influential.”I think it was de Maupassant who made me really want to be a writer and write stories about Negroes, so true that people in far-away lands would read them--even after I was dead.” Mission accomplished Langston!
She pressed her forehead gently against his shoulder. ‘I know, sugah...I kno”’Pearl…’
‘What’s wrong?’ she whispered.
‘I love you...That’s what’s wrong.’
She pressed her forehead gently against his shoulder. ‘I know, sugah...I know.’”
Demetrius Octavius Calhoun (D.O.C.), trumpet player extraordinaire, was a member of the famed Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s and a veteran of World War Two. He was among 2800 Americans who volunteered for service in the Republican army of Spain, the same war that Ernest Hemingway supported and which later inspired his Pulitzer Prize winning novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Okay, let me amend that statement. The committee voted unanimously for the novel to win the Pulitzer, but because of the “scandalous” nature of the book, the president of the board, Nicholas Murray Butler, convinced them not to give an award for letters in 1941. Hemingway fully expected to win the award, so I can only imagine the steam coming out of his ears when he heard about the board’s decision.
Can you envision what would have happened if Butler had ever walked into the wrong bar in Key West?
The interesting thing about the Spanish Civil War is that, since Germany and Italy were fighting for the Nationalists, this war was really a dress rehearsal for WW2. Doc was fighting on the right side of history. If America and Britain had supported the Republican army and defeated Germany and Italy, they could have very well avoided fighting WW2 altogether. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and both Britain and the US were still licking their wounds over WW1, and another war was almost unimaginable.
So you’re thinking this book is about the Spanish Civil War, or maybe it is about Hemingway? Nope, this book is about Pearl and Doc. When Walker Smith writes a book, she places her fictional characters firmly in the realities of history. Contemporary society, soon to become history, has a very real impact on people’s lives. There is one more nugget of history I have to talk about, and it is really Smith’s fault because she makes it a central piece of her novel. The McCarthy communist witch hunts from about 1950-54, one of the darkest stains on American politics, swept up people like Paul Robeson, who, thank goodness, was born with a silver tongue. ”Because my father was a slave, and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here, and have a part of it just like you. And no Fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear?” That man gave me chills. Doc, because he fought on the communist side of the Spanish Civil War and had a good buddy who was a communist card carrying member, was right in the crosshairs of the Communist witch hunt. Being an honorable veteran of WW2 gained him nothing.
Meanwhile, Doc was trying to win his Pearl, who just happened to be inconveniently married to a deadbeat junkie.
”’This is Pearl. She’s our new singer.’
Everyone went stone silent.
Doc closed his eyes and her name took up residence in his mind. Pearl.”
Most of us might have a summer thing or a spring fling or a winter wonderland of lust/love, but for Doc, this moment was the beginning of a lifelong obsession. He’d found his North Star, his soul mate, his yin for his yang. He blew a better horn when Pearl was frolicing through his mind.
And then they lived happily ever after.
*The sound of the power going out on a record player.*
Real life isn’t Disneyland.
Periodically, investigators showed up to harass Doc over his communist associations. Redneck Southern racists wanted to string Doc up for having the audacity to try to entertain them with music. Pearl’s brother, Ronnie, was struggling with a whole host of issues. They were raising kids now, which meant that Pearl couldn’t go on the road with Doc, which was always a recipe for dissatisfaction in the strongest of relationships. The spectre that loomed over their lives was worse than all their other problems put together, and it was aptly called Hydra.
The many headed beast from mythology was a designer form of heroin, where the highs are higher and the lows are lower. Trying to get off it could cost Pearl her life. Doc would do anything to part her from her addiction, except risk her life. He started to realize that their were insidious connections between a man with a badge and the drugs that were proliferating on the street.
The drug war had begun. Was Doc ready to take on one more fight? One more war?
I first met Pearl and Doc in Walker Smith’s book Bluestone Rondo, and even though this book is a prequel to Bluestone Rondo, I would suggest reading Bluestone Rondo first. You will be left with a burning desire to find out more about Pearl and Doc, and that is when you make the very smart decision to read The Weight of a Pearl. I actually enjoyed knowing Pearl and Doc without the baggage of their history. They are suave and sexy, caught in an epic love story, but when I reached the end of Bluestone Rondo, the first thing I said to Walker Smith was...I want to know more about Doc and Pearl. She already had my hit of hydra in the needle and a tube to wrap around my arm.
The incredible amount of research that Smith had to do for these books lends weight to every book she writes. Her characters are not just living in history; they are caught up in history. The reader is brought into the story with them. If you are fortunate, you might even hear Pearl call you sugah or Doc blow a few crystal notes on his horn. You’ll feel the outrage, the hardship of just trying to live, and the sadness of knowing the forces aligned against you are powerful enough to destroy you. But like Doc and Pearl... you will fight on.
”He had always heard that a light complexion was supposed to be the most valuable asset a colored person could possess, but Joe hated the term ‘light,”He had always heard that a light complexion was supposed to be the most valuable asset a colored person could possess, but Joe hated the term ‘light, bright, and damn near white.’ The hard truth about being light-skinned was that ‘damn near’ was still damn far. He had seen too many damn nears laboring their lives away, just like his father and all the other darker Negroes in the cotton fields.”
In the beginning, there are two brothers.
They are brothers, like Romulus and Remus and Cain and Abel, and their story, like the tragic consequences of those other brothers, is not about the blood that binds them, but those insidious, sneaking thieves of reason, jealousy, and envy.
One brother is light, and the other is dark. Joe is so gifted with song that you could believe that Artemis has taken the ability of both brothers and fused it into one. Calvin Jr., missing that song in his heart, is left with seething self-loathing and vengeful anger that curls his fingers into fists. It is a story as old as the world, told here with musical accompaniment...jazz.
Joe has a Betty Grable picture over his bed, and Calvin has a picture of Lena Horne. Betty Grable’s bathing suit pinup is the most popular photo of World War Two. That is what all those American lads went to war to fight for. They dreamed of coming home, and a Grable surrogate was going to be serving them beer in an Angora sweater and poodle skirt, while the fried chicken sizzles and pops in a cast iron skillet on the stove. Calvin can’t even dream about Betty Grable, but Joe, with his light complexion, believes that there is no dream he can’t make into reality. It is interesting to me that Calvin chooses Lena Horne, as if he is still trying to possess that song that is missing from his life.
Joe Bailey dies, and Joe Bluestone, the crooning jazz singer, emerges. Calvin Bailey often wishes he’d died but lands in prison instead. Two lives that start out in the same womb diverge, but of course, there are more types of jail than the ones with bars. Joe, living as a white man, has to live with the constant fear of exposure that someone will recognize Joe Bailey lurking behind the mask of Bluestone.
Joe hooks up with a jazz band, and that is when Doc Calhoun and his wife Pearl enter his life, but at the same time, Doc and Pearl enter our lives as well. Doc and the band are trying to help Joe see beyond the words and notes. ”Junior, I’m gonna tell you this one more time: Jazz tells stories, man. Let yourself get lost in one of ‘em. And some night one’a those antiseptic songs you croon is gonna grow a soul.”(Doc calling Joe Junior has more significance than he can even know.)
The band:
”’It’s sex, man.’
‘Sex?’ Joe repeated incredulously.
‘Yeah, baby,’ Reet said. ‘Remember? Musical intercourse. Music is loaded with sex.’
A lewd grin lit up King’s face. ‘Triple tonguing and ticklin’ the ivory, baby.’
Doc caressed his trumpet. ‘Lips on her mouthpiece, and she opens right up to Papa.’”
I’m going to cut this scene short because I’m already rolling a cold water bottle across my forehead and fanning myself with a French copy of Jazz Hot.
Pearl, by her very presence in his life, is teaching Joe about what it means to really love somebody. The relationship between her and Doc is added evidence for me to believe in the concept of soul mates. ”Doc’s smile seemed to draw her to his side, and she pressed herself neatly into his arms like an interlocking piece of a jigsaw puzzle. They spoke in low whispers, laughing and touching, and seemed to generate a heat that Joe could feel from across the room.”
Joe can see, but unfortunately he cannot seem to do. His life is on a trajectory to tragedy. As Joe’s star begins to descend, Calvin’s is rising. Cain is emerging from the wilderness, and redemption is within his grasp.
You can read this story just for the plot and thoroughly enjoy yourself, or you can delve deeper into the story by stopping and reading the letters that Walker Smith has strewn along the road that will guide you through the canyons and down the arroyo to sip at the river of truth. You can certainly say that she is a writer, a novelist, but if you want to be precise, you should say that Walker Smith is a consummate storyteller. The Houston Homer still gifted with (in)sight.
Walker and I played rock, paper, scissors, and she lost so she had to answer some of my burning questions.
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Look how surprised Walker Smith was to lose at rock, paper, scissors. As you can see from the great answers to my questions she provided that she is a good sport.
Jeffrey D. Keeten: I thought it was interesting that you used the word rondo in your title. Reading through descriptions of rondo, I saw the words digressions, episodes, speed, which are descriptive terms that really do fit the structure of the novel. I always think of rondo in association with Mozart and Bach pieces. Jazz is like a second skin wrapped around the plot of your novel. I’ve never really thought about rondo in regard to jazz, but of course, the music reflects its usage. What inspired you to connect rondo with your novel?
Walker Smith: Rondo: I knew the term “rondo” had to be in the title because of the music and the circular connotation. The precise definition is: “from rondeau, meaning round; a musical form with a recurring theme that often repeats in the final movement.” I write historical novels, which is a sort of circling back in time, and all my novels are presented in a circular format, not linear.
I started with one simple plot: a racial Cain and Abel story set to modern jazz. There is usually an occurrence early in my novels that is always revisited at the end, because life is filled with circles. Read the first text line of Chapter 1: “Calvin Bailey was singing again.” Then read the last line of the book. Neither Calvin, Sr. nor Calvin, Jr. could sing well, and they both lived harsh lives, but somehow found their respective songs. In the beginning, Calvin, Sr. is driving his family along the edge of the River. (Note: The River is the symbol of God in the novel’s Mississippi River Valley as Eden motif; this is why the word River is always capitalized in the novel). At the end, Calvin, Jr. circles back in his memories, all the way back to the River as the song A Change is Gonna Come plays on the radio. I did not have the permission to reprint the lyrics of that song, but the first line is: “I was born by the river – in a little tent – and just like that river, I’ve been running ever since…” Both times, the River was in the scene. I was sort of glad the lyrics weren’t there. Without hitting the reader over the head with it, the rondo has played. And perhaps it might encourage readers to download Sam Cooke’s rendition of that song.
Race has been the most divisive issue in American history, and Cain and Abel always seemed so appropriate to show the folly of that division. At first, I was just going to show it through a white boy and a black boy, but then I hit on the idea of making them true blood brothers, which makes their mutual hatred even more absurd; their only difference is pigmentation. And mismatched siblings, even twins, are a much more commonplace occurrence in black families than you might expect. That also dovetailed beautifully with my jazz theme, because of the juxtaposition of harmony against the caustic division of the races symbolized by Joe and Calvin. The harmony was so easy to depict because I had seen it growing up in my household. Daddy was a jazz drummer, and the jam sessions described in the book were from my childhood memories. White, Mexican, Jewish, Black, Cuban – you name it, they were all at our house like a United Nations of bebop! As my friend Jack Gibson used to say: “Jazz was the first great integrator.”
The opening gun scene is visited twice more in the book – after Joe’s tragic odyssey as a white man, and then relayed by Calvin near the end. Each retelling provides a new piece of information about what actually happened in that room. This is structurally the “recurring theme that often repeats in the final movement” and establishes the musical world of the novel. The radio is also a key musical element that establishes itself as an anthropomorphic villain in many scenes.
Music is all through the book, not only in the obvious elements of several characters being musicians, but also in the rhythm and tempo, the rises and falls of conversation. Example: when Joe is asking his bandmates how they know when to come in for their solos when “trading fours and eights.” Their entire conversation was written as a fun little musical segment of trading fours and eights as spoken conversation. If the reader doesn’t get it, it doesn’t matter. It still shows how much fun these guys are having in their adoration of jazz. Also, I don’t know one human being who doesn’t have a virtual soundtrack to his or her life. A song plays, a grin spreads across a face, a memory of a high-school dance, a broken heart, a wedding day, a lover that got away. Bluestone Rondo has its own soundtrack.
Bluestone: The story is filled with divisions, duality, splits, discord, and separations. This theme is reflected in the Cain and Abel twins, the overtone of the country’s racial divide, the ruptures created by McCarthyism and the Red Scare, references to the Mason-Dixon line, but mainly the divisions inside the psyches of each character. The aquamarine cuff links given to Joe by the girlfriend he stole from Calvin were an obvious bit of symbolism. Split during the pivotal fight at “the crossroads,” Joe’s link is a good luck charm that inspires his assumed name – Bluestone. For Calvin, the link becomes a symbol of doom as a piece of evidence that convicts him of murder. The title itself is a subtle hint of duality, as well as a tribute to Dave Brubeck’s iconic Blue Rondo a’ la Turk. Known for its radical switches in time signature from 9/8 to 4/4 and back again, it jerks the listener from a feeling of mania to laid-back cool, then back to mania, then back to cool again. It was perfectly emblematic of the story, and I just couldn’t resist the similarity. (It was also my father’s favorite piece to play.)
And that’s how the title became Bluestone Rondo. (Sorry for the long-winded answer! OMG!!)
JDK: Pearl was the most fascinating character in the book for me. She was the gorgeous Nefertiti, exuding sultry charm and gracing all those around her with her soul deep empathy. Her soaring voice evoked an inner tremble in people, but that talent was being hidden away under the weight of her tragic heroin addiction. “The Hydra was making love to her, moving with the skill of an experienced lover, and exploding like a separate climax in each nerve of her body. When she felt him hit that spot ‘down low’ again and again and again, she remembered screaming and then seeing herself smiling like a trick....” She has this great love story with her husband Doc Calhoun, but no amount of love from him or for him can compete with the need she had for heroin. Hey, Sugah (as Pearl would say), talk to us about the process of her creation in your mind?
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Walker Smith at the Atlanta Barnes and Noble.
WS: For me, characters sort of form themselves. I began Pearl with physical traits and mannerisms of my own mother, whose name was Pearl. The deep, unrushed contralto voice, the chain-smoking, the love of books, the ultra-cool look and demeanor. The Pearl of my story and her husband Doc serve as the “bridge” to the song that is Bluestone Rondo. So I knew they had to be memorable, despite being secondary characters. They are both composites of people and ideas, but Pearl is more complex – a paradox of heroin addiction, wisdom, and pure love, which is the symbolic meaning of a pearl. I wanted readers to love her, to root for her, not to judge her for her failings. As she began to take shape, I realized that she had a teetering quality that made me want to reach out to keep her from falling. I knew that if I felt that way, the readers would, too. But the clearer she became, the more she began to rebel. She showed herself to me in memories of all the strong women I had known in my life, who had struggled and failed, only to rise up and keep going. Pearl then became the unlikely pillar of strength that held those two families together, while fighting the pull of the Hydra. I stepped back and gazed at her from a distance. She was whole when I realized that I loved her. She possessed a stately grace smack in the middle of her “damn mean world.”
JDK: I love the fact that you infused the novel with the history of the era. You have the McCarthyism of the 1950s. You have the famous Berlin, Germany, Kennedy speech that lit a fire in the civil rights movement. You have the cascade of assassinations from JFK in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, and then as if the left wasn’t getting the message MLK and RFK within a matter of months of each other in 1968. Vietnam is not just a background noise for your characters but a very real part of their lives. Talk a bit about the process of infusing history into the novel and the influence the history had on the direction of your story?
WS: My first novel, The Color Line, was set during World War I and the Harlem Renaissance. I decided to dig for the most unknown history I could find, then place my characters there to live it. My goal was to dust off the feeling of history to give it the tension and immediacy of current events as seen through their eyes. I was going for a virtual ride in a time machine. Other writers have done it, of course; I’m certainly not the first, but I love it, despite all the hard work.
JDK: I am, to put it mildly, a jazz and blues devotee, and so I was excited about reading your “jazz novel.” I was not surprised to realize how well versed you are with the shakers and movers who contributed to this innovative sound. You even dropped a new jazz pianist on me that I’ve never heard play before... Horace Silver. Tell us a bit about your relationship with jazz and where your interest in this music comes from?
WS: From the womb! My father was a constantly working jazz drummer, and my mother was a literary geek with a beatnik coffee-house cool. They met in a jazz nightclub where he was playing. She was not a singer like the Pearl of my novel, but to quote my father, “She walked into the club right in the middle of a set, and man, I nearly dropped both my sticks! Then when I heard her talk, she just knocked me on my ass.” I ended up being their love child, born about six months after they got married. I had the coolest parents on earth! It was jam sessions in the living room, jazz and classical records on the hi-fi, and Mama’s books. I knew it was either going to be music or literature for me, but it ended up being both. When I was eighteen, I left home, drove to Los Angeles, and started gigging and doing background sessions. Somehow, I was in the right place at the right time and ended up being signed to the Casablanca label. But writing was still my passion. Singing was just something I could DO. Writing was something that demanded hard work, anger, frustration, self-criticism, passion, and fidelity. It had to be the love of my life, nothing less. I took creative writing courses at LACC and kept reading all the classics. Three albums later, I was done with the music business, and it was done with me! I headed for New York, and that’s when I really began to write. Between working a day job and editing for two local magazines, I began researching my first novel. In longhand. On the floor of my unfurnished apartment. No social life whatsoever. FIDELITY, baby! I had never been happier in my life!
JDK: With the turbulent relationship between the two brothers, Joe and Calvin Bailey, there is certainly the overtones of Cain and Abel. For me, what I really appreciated about the arc of your story is that my sympathies swung heavily in one direction, but then with time, my sympathies swung to the other brother. Both brothers have a tough path, but one steadily becomes a better version of himself, while the other flounders and drowns in his own lies. We tend to judge people by their worst traits or by the worst moments in their lives, but you really did a great job of showing the redeeming qualities of your flawed characters. It puts muscle on the bone. Can you talk a bit about your philosophy of redemption and how it played such a role in your novel? WS: Your shifting sympathies are the result of the internal duality inside each brother. They were both Cain, and they were both Abel. Perhaps that’s what the Bible story was telling us all. And in that recognition lies our redemption.
JDK: Tell us about your writing process. Do you write in the morning, the afternoon, the middle of the night? Do you write every day? Do you have a consistent schedule? How long does it generally take you to write a novel?
WS: My writing process is wild, unreasonable impulse controlled (somewhat) by a solid foundation. I have great respect for the principles of good writing, and I value great literature. Structure, symbolism, arc, rhythm, tension, character development, settings, etc. I’ve been told that I’m pretty good with dialogue. I’ve lived in many different regions, and I’m drawn to dialects. I fall in love with people and embrace their diversity. A soon as someone begins to talk, I turn on my mental tape recorder and my internal video camera. Speech inflections, laughter, a lifted eyebrow, a hand gesture. Committed to memory, locked in the vault for future reference. I do not start with outlines, only a time frame and a region. Then I begin to write visual scenes. Some occur early, others are ending scenes. I always write my ending very early in the process, and then all the scenes that will take me to that end. My timeline shifts and changes all over the place, and I do a lot of moving things around, switching the order of chapters, etc. I am ruthless with my editing. I overwrite to begin with, writing all sorts of detail that I know I will throw out later, but it gives me a deep knowledge of people and events that is essential to me as the writer, but will probably bore the reader. So, once I finish the long version, I start hacking away. I’ll read an entire chapter and grin at myself: “Lovely prose, Walker. You sound very pleased with yourself in a pompous, overwritten sort of way. Bye! Delete, delete, delete!” It gets my ego out of the clouds. There are plenty of others out there who can write circles around me! I have to keep telling myself, “Just tell a story; this ain’t Cirque de Soleil!” (Note: I promise you that “Cirque” was an inadvertent pun, but I’m leaving it in for no good reason.)
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