Classics have an impact on new books, whether intentional or not, and it is fun to read surprising twists on older literary forms. The James A. Cain classic crime novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, is certainly an ancestor of P. David Ebersole’s inventive and darkly hilarious crime novel, 99 MILES FROM L.A. (Pelekinesis).
The action of this book takes place in L.A. and Palm Springs. The title’s an allusion to the role of Palm Springs in the heyday of big studios and stars under contract. Contract players were required to go no further than 100 miles away from L.A. (theoretically they might be needed on a set) so they fled to Palm Springs to avoid studio scrutiny. A destination for anonymity and forbidden love, bungalows and “love nests” flourished along with a population to serve them. Impoverished Mexicans crossed the porous border to work and return with cash and goods. That historic comes alive in this hard-boiled crime story.
Elegantly written, 99 MILES FROM L.A.’s erotic energy is emotionally real and a send-up of romantic cliches, which the narrators ironically acknowledge, especially the “hero,” a sweet crooner of Johnny Mathis. Unlike Postman, the eroticism is bisexual and begins at a bar, not a diner. Both novels feature a plot against a rich husband by a miserable wife, but Ebersole’s characters are contradictory. The trophy wife is “too clever by half,”the romantic crooner a disillusioned music professor, the quietly charismatic Mexican bartender speaks no English. And the family business isn’t a restaurant but the drug trade.
The group’s plan is complicated by motives conscious-unconscious; behavior tender-inhuman, obtuse-obvious, silly-horrifying. The story told by a trio of unreliable narrators, has a Rashomon effect adding to the stakes. What happens is shocking, unexpected and entirely right. I can’t wait for the movie.
Dawn Raffel’s BOUNDLESS SKY (Sagging Miniscus Press) opens with a quote from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities–”If I tell you that the city toward which my journey tends is discontinuous in space and time, now scattered, now more condensed, you must not believe the search for it can stop.”
Calvino’s stories, like Raffel’s, are imaginary worlds we inhabit. The first part of her short story collection BOUNDLESS SKY “The City Toward Which My Journey Tends” is made of “fables and tales. some of them true.” Photographs further illustrate imaginary worlds of our past and present, from fan dancer, Sally Rand to the famous Cube at Astor Place in NYC. Below is a familiar place we may recognize from the back of our minds.
The All-New Sanitary City
Sneezing is illegal in the Sanitary City. Also unlawful are sniffling, drooling, sweating, and sighing. Kissing! Verboten. All of the walls in the sanitary city are stainless, wiped in the hour. Sheets on the beds are made of paper, all the mattresses de feathered. Many people come to the sanitary city for refuge from bodily fluid. Menustration has been ended, Even insemination is mechanical. There is no fear in the sanitary city, no sorrow, no want, no unintended consequence. Nothing may swim from one life to another. Nothing may float from the breath to the ear.
I enjoyed my visit to the boundless sky…..
ROCKED IN TIME: Confessions of a Radical Theater Artist by Charles Degelman (Harvard Square Editions) is the third volume of a trilogy that began with
Gates of Eden, and
A Bowl Full of Nails. This
Resistance Trilogy is set in the political and social movements of the 1960s and 70s in the United States. Fiction based on fact, this novel recreates the era from a variety of viewpoints of race, sex and class. The basis of the struggle, what was accomplished at what cost, and what it was like to be on the cultural ramparts of historical struggle are explored.
Compared with France’s short-lived June Rebellion of 1832, popularly immortalized as Les Miz (from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables), resistance movements in the U.S. from 1960s-70s are rarely studied beyond a paragraph in U.S. history textbooks. The era is dismissed in pop culture memes or in narratives narrowed by current politics by subjects in Ken Burns’ epic presentation. But this period of radical political and social change altered the course of a nation. Over 15 million people participated in the only mass political movement in the U.S. that succeeded in ending an unpopular war. Every age, race and religion participated, and it was supported by broad participation by civic, political and military groups, such as The Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Fuelled by the escalation of the war and the growing power of the “military industrial complex” that profited from the war, as well as the inspiration of Martin Luther King’s vision of the spiritual nature of freedom and “the storm of hope” to end racism and oppression. The huge national concensus, visible from President Johnson’s window, was a major factor in ending the war. My favorite book in the trilogy, ROCKED IN TIME: Confessions of a radical theater artist is great fun. It’s the story of a cultural foot soldier, pre-internet, using his art to entertain, communicate the state of the nation, and rally the people.
Les Miz is loved for the fight of Law and the political power it serves, and human dignity. The hero of ROCKED IN TIME is similarly inspired by the powerful political plays of German playwright Bertolt Brecht, a kind of guiding light in his work with The San Francisco Mime Troupe, a ’60s guerilla theater dedicated to toppling the war machine with pratfalls, punch lines and comic rebellion. He first encounters the legendary group in a Berkeley park. Wildly entertaining Comedia del Arte poked fun at the war and “Whiteface” vaudeville at racism.
Our hero’s apprenticeship in ROCKED IN TIME began with the founding director’s grueling physical work-outs, which included classical mime and dance training for split-second timing. The author’s talents as a musician, designer and performer were put to use in works that were performed in parks and universities, in street forums, concerts, formal auditoriums and political demonstrations. Venues could feature arrest and/or injury, so protecting personnel and equipment was a reason to be fast and nimble.
Mummers marches enlightened audiences, as did controverial “gutter” hand puppets, which dramatized the Black Panthers’ bids for housing and education. This serious theater troupe, exposed truths about society and of course had their own failings. There was a corp group, the director Vinnie and the beautiful compelling Olivia and newbies who became corp cadre, like the hero and the lovely dancer-actress Nikki. The politics of the troupe are fascinating, a communal command with a leader. A leading lady forced to deny her strength. While celebrating the 60s search for life’s deeper purpose in authentic experience, the author shows that the nascent woman’s movement had yet to break through.
Alternative lifestyle experiments in the 60s-’70s led to breakthroughs in media, science, art, architecture, as well as “sex, drugs and rock and roll.” Unfortunately, the excesses of the era are better known than the triumphs. Think of freewheeling hit-and-run theater with something serious to say, free stores with clothes, tools, furniture, food and sometimes housing provided by the antimaterialistic Diggers Commune. Think of a nation, linking arms in Marches in cities across the country. The Mime Troupe, an ancestor of Mabou Mines, has yet to be matched for its serious inspiration, effectivenes and pure fun. Read ROCKED IN TIME for vicarious FUN.
S.W,
Source:
https://notanotherbookreview.blogspot.com/2022/11/new-classics-99-miles-from-la-david.html
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