Homer & Langley

Ever since I first dealt with Amazon.com as a Publisher, sometime in the mid 1990’s, I also became their customer. Back then we were receiving regular faxed orders, usually for a few copies (with a photocopy of Jeff Bezos’ personal credit card!). I might have spoken to Bezos at the time, or one of his colleagues. Customer service, they explained, is their credo and they will build their business on that. We began to ship on open credit. The rest is history.

I buy most of my books from Amazon, frequently from their partners which costs nearly nothing, except shipping. It is sort of ironic as this can undermine prices on their Kindle, but given my interest in the physical book itself, the Kindle is not for me. I’m not a Luddite, but there is nothing like handling a printed book.

When we were recently in Asheville, we made our regular visit to Malaprop’s, one of the great remaining independent bookstores. They usually have a good selection of autographed copies and a couple of years ago I bought Russo’s Bridge of Sighs there. I was looking for Russo’s new novel That Old Cape Magic. Disappointed they didn’t have one this time, I sought out the next on my list, E.L Doctorow’s Homer & Langley. It is the best Doctorow novel I’ve read since Ragtime and the World’s Fair.

Reading an autographed copy has its drawbacks. No turning back corners to be able to find favorite passages. No reading on the beach. Handle with care. After reading, it belongs under glass like a museum piece.

The book itself is beautiful, printed on antique eggshell paper with a deckle edge, set in the Caslon type face, an old style face in the same family as Garamond, the classic crispness of which almost cries out to the reader to savor every word. And Doctorow’s writing is of museum quality too in its stark clarity and beauty. There are four main characters in the book, the brothers Homer and Langley Collyer, New York City, and Time (or the passage of the same).

Homer is blind but he is the one who can see truths as the book’s narrator and in various parts of the book is the one who leads the sighted. “People my age are supposed to remember times long past though they can’t recall what happened yesterday. My memories of our long-dead parents are considerably dimmed, as if having fallen further and further back in time has made them smaller, with less visible detail as if time has become space, become distance, and figures from the past, even your father and mother, are too far away to be recognized. They are fixed in their own time, which has rolled down behind the planetary horizon. They and their times and all its concerns have gone down together.”

A “Theory of Replacements” obsesses Langley, his older brother. “Everything in life gets replaced. We are our parents’ replacements just as they were replacements of the previous generation. All these herds of bison they are slaughtering out west, you would think that was the end of them, but they won’t all be slaughtered and the herds will fill back in with replacements that will be indistinguishable from the ones slaughtered.” Consequently, Langley lives his life collecting newspapers, categorizing stories, preparing what would be a “perpetual newspaper.” “He wanted to fix American life finally in one edition, what he called Collyer’s eternally current dateless newspaper, the only newspaper anyone would ever need. For five cents, Langley said, the reader will have a portrait in newsprint of our life on earth. The stories will not have overly particular details as you find in ordinary daily rags, because the real news here is of the Universal Forms of which any particular detail would only be an example. The reader will always be up to date, and au courant with what is going on. He will be assured that he reads of indisputable truths of the day including that of his own impending death, which will be dutifully recorded as a number in the blank box of the last page under the heading Obituaries.” Langley devolves into an antisocial eccentric, hoarding everything he finds, including his newspapers.

Doctorow’s story is somewhat based on the real life of the Collyer brothers who lived in New York City but it only serves as a loose sketch for the canvas of this tour de force. An odyssey of people, representative of time’s passing, drift in and out of their home, inherited from their parents, people from the depression, to WW II, to the Vietnam era, and the flower generation. While the brothers wage war with New York, the utility companies, and their neighbors, their home slowly degrades as time has its way and they withdraw from life itself.

Homer is a gifted pianist, the artist in the work, clearly Doctorow’s voice and sensibility. Homer has had one true love in his life, Mary Elizabeth Riordan, who, like everyone else in the novel, transits through the Collyer home never to return. She was his “prompter” in a silent movie theatre, whispering the changing scenes on the screen in his ear so he could play the appropriate music, his only job when he was younger. Then, she becomes his piano student and finally she leaves, becoming a Sister and a missionary in far away places, Homer occasionally receiving a letter. She is apparently murdered in Central America. Homer laments, “I am not a religious person. I prayed to be forgiven for having been jealous of her calling, for having longed for her, for having despoiled her in my dreams. But in truth I have to admit that I was numbed enough by this awful fate of the sister to be not quite able to connect it with my piano student Mary Elizabeth Riorden. Even now, I have the clean scent of her as we sit together on the piano bench. I can summon that up at will. She speaks softly in my ear as, night after night, the moving pictures roll by: Here it’s a funny chase with people hanging out of cars…here the hero is riding a horse at a gallop…here firemen are sliding down a pole…and here (I feel her hand on my shoulder) the lovers embrace, they’re looking into each other’s eyes, and now the card says…’I love you.’ ”

And as at the end of a silent movie the lens slowly closes and Homer cannot “see to see.”
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Ikey Lubin's and Letters from the Past

I finished Russo's Bridge of Sighs and like many of the characters in the book, I am drawn into Sara’s drawings of Ikey Lubin’s, the family grocery store that survives three generations of Lynches and their extended family. At first Bobby enters their lives, then Kayla, but, and this is Russo’s genius, it is you, the reader that is swept into the store as well and into the novel.

For me, it raises my consciousness of my family and the family business, which is no longer. It reminded me that somewhere in my home I had a few letters that my father wrote during WW II to his brother, my Uncle Phil. After finishing Russo’s novel, those letters called out to me, demanding that I locate them, which I did.

Reading them puts some of what I’ve already written in earlier posts in perspective. They actually exaggerate a sadness I feel concerning my immediate family, with my parents living out their lives in discord and unhappiness, sharing their pain with my sister and myself.

Now that I’ve located those letters and have read most, I will occasionally transcribe parts of them. The one that follows was written on August 12, 1945 when my dad was younger than my youngest son is now. It is particularly momentous as it was written only days after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6 and the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days after. Until that time, his letters expressed the foreboding that he will be shipped off to Japan with his unit, the 3264 Signal Service that had recently become attached to the famous “Screaming Eagles” 101st Airborne Division.

The contents are also bittersweet as he laments about possibly being held in Germany as part of the occupational force and his desire to return home to his wife (“Penny”). Little did he know that upon his return my mother would “joke” that she had hoped his transport ship would sink.

In my last blog entry I made the connection between literature and family. For me, Russo offers a glimpse of family, although troubled at times, that holds together in spite of declining mill towns and changing ways of life. Hence, we are taken into Ikey Lubin’s, coming together “in the present to recall the past and share a vision of the future.”

Here are my father’s hopes and thoughts on Aug. 12, 1945, in a letter to his brother, Phil, from Wiesbaden, Germany:

“As you no doubt already know, I informed my sweetheart some very discouraging news – that is being stuck here as [part of the] occupational [force]. On the heals of that letter came the wonderful news that Japan is asking for surrender. As this wasn’t definite as yet, I can’t say that finally war is ended, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of a day or two.

The Atomic bombings, and Russia’s entry into the conflict just overwhelmed the Japanese, especially the Atom smasher, a deadly and destructive thing, which has great future development for the betterment of mankind, but what I fear is some nation to use it for a complete destruction of civilization. I hope that this fear never will materialize.

What I began to say concerning the news [staying here as part of the occupational force], which I hated to tell Penny, is this – the sudden ending of all hostilities can possibly bring me and hundreds of other guys back to homes sooner than is predicted. I’m sure that those who are the law makers at home aren’t going to leave us in these foreign lands against our will – especially as there are millions of other Joes who have never left the good old USA and faced a future of sudden death.

I fought for freedom, freedom for all peoples. Now that we have won victory over the oppressors, haven’t I the right to enjoy that freedom? The Army is composed of civilians. Is it not the democratic way that we all share the fruits of victory, especially those who fought for it and were fortunate enough to be sparred a hideous death?

I don’t want you to feel, Phil, that I’m preaching or insinuating directly at you – only my desire is so strong, the urge so great to be able to come home again – this is now it is with most of the soldiers. I feel if we all write our families, congressmen and such something will be done. How about it, Phil, will you write a note to our congressman expressing your views

Now here’s some big favor you can do for me, Phil – I’m going to miss Penny’s and mine anniversary – we will be married seven years this September 4th. God, how those years flew and how I love my sweetheart. Will you buy a big bouquet of flowers, spend what you think will fill an order of a large one, but beautiful and then in the evening take her to dinner at that Swedish restaurant and musical show afterwards? I know this is a tall request and maybe puts you in a sort of embarrassing position, but I hope not. I want it to be all a surprise for Penny and I’d leave that to you as how to do it.

Have the flowers delivered in the morning of that day with an enclose card which simply says [unfortunately, and ironically, this portion of the letter was destroyed when it was sliced open]. The amount of money this involves I know won’t be cheap – and I can’t at present send anything to cover it, but I will repay you fully Phil, not only in money, but with my sincerest appreciation and many thanks. Do you think you can do this for me and for Penny? The main thing Phil – keep it a surprise somehow. Let me know your answer and details.

So, Phil, this is all for now. I hope everyone is well and of course yourself and that the business is beginning an upward surge. Give my regards to everyone.

Love, Robert”

Literature and Family

I am reading Richard Russo’s new novel, Bridge of Sighs. I generally stretch out reading a book by one of my favorite authors, savoring certain passages, making it a point of putting the book down to enjoy the next day so I do not finish the book in a few ravenous readings. Russo is in one of the group of contemporary writers of which I have read nearly everything they’ve written and eagerly look forward to their next work and their next: Philip Roth, John Updike, Anne Tyler, John Irving, Russell Banks, Richard Ford, Richard Russo. To this list I could add recently deceased contemporaries such as Joseph Heller, John Cheever and Richard Yates (whose first novel, Revolutionary Road, I reprinted in the early 1970’s when it was already out of print. -- it will soon be released as a major motion picture -- it has taken the world that long to recognize him).

What draws me to these writers is families, or more specifically, dysfunctional families. Strong mothers or weak fathers or weak mothers and strong fathers with borderline “crazy” behavior, dark humor and the unpredictable maturation of children from those families. Of course if art mirrors life, it may be that “dysfunctional” is merely normalcy in today’s world. I am from one of those families, with parents who were quasi alcoholics. My mother thought she married into a “family” who would give her the love and the things she thought she was denied as a child. But when my father returned from WW II, with no other aspirations than running a family photography business that was established at the end of the Civil War in NYC, the realization that she will never move from her middle class roots in Richmond Hill, N.Y. became just one of the many rages that consumed her from within. Add to that mix extramarital affairs she hinted at, and my father’s inability to “make” her “happy,” and one has the ingredients of a novel, if I could only write it.

No wonder I am attracted to this literature and theatre such as The Subject Was Roses, which my wife and I recently saw at Dramaworks in West Palm Beach. This Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Frank Gilroy from the mid 60’s chronicles a few nights and days in the life of the Cleary family, whose son has just returned from WW II, changed, but not changed enough not to fall into the fold of the old conflict between his controlling, driven, alcoholic father and his abused, emotionally depleted and disillusioned mother. The son is forced to take sides with one parent or the other – to “make nice” – entering into the dynamic trying to ameliorate his parents problems. His attempts, as were mine, are fruitless. Here is a review from the Palm Beach Post.http://www.palmbeachpost.com/arts/content/accent/epaper/2007/10/24/a6e_feathea_roses_1024.html

But I digress, so back to Richard Russo. I think his work has elements of the best of all the writers I most admire, the sardonic humor of some of Philip Roth (Russo’s Straight Man is one of the funniest, laugh-aloud books I’ve ever read), the fragile characters of some of Anne Tyler’s works, the great story-telling ability of John Irving, and the family / husband-wife relationships that resonate in Cheever and Updike.

One of the major issues in Russo is place, upstate NY mill towns that are in long-term decline, the characters caught in the maelstrom of such change, some trying to leave, but emotionally attached forever. Russell Banks touches some of the same bases. Richard Ford makes the New Jersey shore his place while Philip Roth has his Newark environs. Russo brings a gentle humanity to this change, documenting its subtleness and it’s impact on his characters, people who are not larger than life, but are ones we all know and grew up with.

Yes, many of his novels tend to repeat some of the same themes and settings, and one could easily see the similarities between Nobody’s Fool, Empire Falls, and, now, Bridge of Sighs. But while you know you are reading a Richard Russo novel, the stories and characters are somehow different – like movements of a symphony are different, although they are the same work. So, I continue take pleasure in the Bridge of Sighs, reading fewer pages as I reach the end. Like life, if it could only go on.

In an interview (http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/russo_richard.html) Russo said “I think the place you grow up in is a lot like ‘The Hotel California’: you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” And so it is with my roots as well as my parents. We are Richard Russo’s people, with “everyman’s” fragile dreams anchored in “anyplace, USA.” People such as my father who returned from WW II with expectations of a family life depicted in the “Father Knows Best” TV series of the 50’s only to be constantly disappointed. He found his “life” in his work as a commercial photographer where he had respect. Not long after he died at the age of 68 of pancreatic cancer in 1984 I wrote an essay about him, which I append below.

Snapshot of an Ordinary Man – Harry R. Hagelstein
Up Park Avenue we would speed to beat the lights from lower Manhattan in the small Ford station wagon with “Hagelstein Bros., Commercial Photographers since 1866” imprinted on its panels. The Queens Midtown Tunnel awaited us.

It is some summer in the late 1950s and, once again, I’m working for my father after another high school year. In the back of the wagon I share a small space with props, flood lamps, and background curtains. The hot, midtown air, washed by exhaust fumes and the smoke from my father’s perpetual burning cigarette, surround me.

My father’s brother and partner, my Uncle Phil, occupies the passenger’s seat. They have made this round trip, day-in and day-out since my father returned from WWII. Their discussions no longer center on the business, but they speak of the city, its problems, the Russians, and politics. I think of where my friends and I will cruise that evening in one of their cars, a 57’ Merc., probably Queens Blvd., winding up at Jahn’s next to the RKO on Leffert’s Boulevard.

Over the years, as a summer employee, my father believed I was being groomed for the business, the fourth generation to carry it on. My Uncle was a bachelor and I was the only one with the name to follow the tradition. There were cousins, but none at the time had any interest in photography, so the obligation fell to me.

This was such an understood, implicit obligation for my future maturation, that nothing of a formal nature was needed to foster this direction. Simply, it was my job to learn the business from the bottom up, working first as a messenger on the NY City streets, delivering glossies to clients for salesmen’s samples and for the furniture show (the primary commercial product photographed by my father). Then I graduated to photographer’s assistant, adjusting lamp shades under the hot flood lamps so the seams would not show, and, then, finally to an assistant in the color lab, making prints, dodging shadows to hold overexposures of glass tables. Osmosis was to be my mentor.

At work I see my father, as the camera would reveal contrasts with different filters. These were normally invisible to me. At home he was a more contemplative, private person, crushed into submission by a troubled marriage. But I see him strolling down the halls of his business, smiling, extending his hand to a customer, kidding in his usual way, “How’s Biz?” he would say. His office overlooks the reception area and there he, my Uncle, and his two cousins would preside over lunch, a burger and coffee from the nearby luncheonette.

In spite of my obligation to learn the profession from the inside, I inveigled his support to go to college – with the understanding I would study business. By then I think I knew that this would be the first step to take me away from HIS business, a step, once taken, would not be taken back. The question was how to reveal this to him.

But as silently as I was expected to take over the business, my retreat was equally stealth. We both avoided the topic as I went to college and I continued to work there during the summers. Once I switched majors from business to the humanities, we both knew, but still, no discussion. This was territory neither he nor I wanted to visit at the time.

My reasons were clear to me. In the hallways of the studio he was larger than life but he was also provincial in his business thinking. He, his brother, and his cousins had developed an inbred view of the future of photography. Like Willie Loman, they had bet the future of their business on producing prints for salesmen, unconscious to the developing mass media and its impact on door-to-door sales. Entering the business would mean conflict with beliefs that were sacrosanct, a battle I would surely lose. So, I kept my silence and progressively moved away.

Why he never brought up the subject I will, now, never know. Ultimately, I married, and began a career in publishing, with an office, ironically, only three blocks from his studio. I still joined him for lunch occasionally, with his greeting me when I arrived, “So, How’s Biz?”

“Hagelstein Bros., Commercial Photographers since 1866” went into a steady decline over the next two decades, finally vanishing in 1985, soon after my father’s death. That it lasted as long as it did was a testimony to his life and skill as a photographer