Southern Bookman

Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton shared their dreams over martinis at the Ritz

Boston University writing students commune with the ghosts of Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell at Room 222, 236 Bay State Road.

In the cramped, book-lined classroom where the Charles River can be glimpsed through arching windows, Plath and Sexton met each other at Lowell's two-hour writing seminar each Tuesday afternoon in the spring of 1959. Classes for the university's writing program are still held in the space.

Plath, 26, and Sexton, 30, had both grown up in Wellesley, but never knew each other until entering Lowell's seminar. The flamboyant, glamorous Sexton and circumspect, intensely intellectual Plath shared enormous ambitions as poets rebelling against the male-dominated American literary establishment.

Along with fellow seminar member George Starbuck, Plath and Sexton would head after class to the Ritz-Carlton near Boston's Public Square for martinis and discussions of poetry and their suicide attempts.

Author Gail Crowther looks back on their alcohol-fueled friendship in her new book, "3 Martini Afternoons at the Ritz: The Rebellion of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton." Literary Hub published an excerpt Wednesday.

Sexton came late to class, wearing ostentatious print dresses and making a drama-queen entrance, dropping papers and waiting for a male to rise and offer her his chair. In contrast, Plath wore conservative suits and arrived early.

The demanding Lowell terrorized his 18 students, relentlessly probing their poems' weaknesses. He recognized the talent of Sexton, Plath and Starbuck. Plath stood out for being able to match Lowell's intellectual knowledge.

The class's drama was heightened by Lowell's frequent manic attacks, in which he would begin to obsess over certain points. One afternoon, the class feared he would leap out of one of the classroom windows. Meetings were derailed when Lowell was at last admitted to Boston's famed McLean Mental Hospital. Plath and Sexton were also alums.

Married to salesman Alfred Muller "Kayo" Sexton II, Sexton battled to overcome the restrictions placed on American women, who were expected to be uncomplaining housewives. As Sexton's fame as a poet grew, she increasingly engaged in extramarital affairs. Starbuck was one of her lovers.

Unlike Plath, Sexton lacked a college education, but began writing at the suggestion of her therapist. As her poetic mastery grew, Sexton also studied at a special Radcliffe College program for women, explored in Maggie Doherty's recent book, "The Equivalents: A Story of Art, Female Friendship and Liberation in the 1960s."

After receiving recognition as a major American poet, Sexton's mental turmoil overwhelmed her, and she took her own life.

Plath, already married to the successful English poet Ted Hughes, took Lowell's seminar seeking to overcome writers' block and a loss of confidence in her work. After the workshop, she moved back to London with Hughes, killing herself during the bitter English winter of 1963 after discovering that Hughes was involved in an affair.

The poet achieved posthumous fame with the publication of the groundbreaking collection "Ariel," two years after her death.

The sad young women found brief hours of happiness at the Ritz. I imagine their laughter as they raised their glasses against the repressive American culture of the time. Alas, they were not able to escape in the end.

 

Bookshelf discoveries: Ring Lardner Jr. and Robert Fitzgerald

Discovering unread books gathering dust for years has been one pleasure of the pandemic.

One of those salvaged bookshelf treasures is Ring Lardner Jr.'s memoir, "I'd Hate Myself in the Morning," which gives a vivid account of the Hollywood blacklist era during the McCarthy years.

An admitted communist, Lardner as a member of the "Hollywood 10" went to prison for refusing to disclose names to the House Committee on Un-American activities. He told the committee that he could reveal the information it wanted but that he'd "hate myself in the morning." Instead, he was thrown into a jail cell for a couple of years.

The book tells how his privileged childhood as one of the sons of noted author Ring Lardner led to  his conversion to leftist politics. After leaving prison and surreptitiously writing TV and movie scripts, Lardner won an Academy Award for authoring the "M*A*S*H" screenplay, his second Oscar.

Lardner ranges from the literary world of the 1920s to the film community as it progressed from the repressive 1950s to the New Hollywood of the 1960s.

The portrait of Lardner's family makes the book a treasure by itself.

Along with his legendary father and his friends such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lardner gives warm remembrances of two brothers, one killed in the Spanish Civil War and the other World War II. He also affectionately recalls his brother John, a noted TV and sportswriter for magazines and newspapers during the 1950s and '60s.

Following Lardner's book, I found the poet, translator and critic Robert Fitzgerald's "The Third Kind of Knowledge, Memoirs and Selected Writings."

Critically praised for his translations of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," Fitgerald was a close friend of Georgia writer Flannery O'Connor. Fitzgerald and his wife, Sally, were among O'Connor's first supporters.

Along with a remembrance of O'Connor, the book offers memoirs about Fitzgerald's close friendships with James Agee, Vachel Lindsay and Randall Jarrell.

Fitzgerald also recalls working as a young reporter for the New York Herald Tribune during the Depression, colorfully describing legendary editor Stanley Walker and other stalwarts of that great vanished newspaper.

The book closes with critical essays on Dante and translating classical literature, and an interview with Fitzgerald.

Such bookshelf treasures have helped make the pandemic more bearable.

Robert Caro donates extensive archive to New York Historical Society.

Robert Caro's archive will inspire future scholars and history lovers.

The New York Historical Society announced earlier this month the acquisition of Caro's interviews, research materials, notes and writing drafts.

Caro's files for his massive biographies of  New York City public works director Robert Moses and Sen. and President Lyndon Johnson will be open to researchers without restrictions, as stipulated by the 85-year-old Caro, the Historical Society said.

The writer's book on Moses, who transformed New York City and surrounding areas with his massive 20th century construction projects, examines New York history from the 1920s through the 1970s.

Covering Johnson’s origins in rural Texas and his long political career, the multi-volume biography gives an expansive account of American and world history over the same era.

A former investigative reporter for the Long Island newspaper Newsday, the New York City native in his monumental books traces the dynamic eras of World War I, the Jazz Age, the Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. Caro's won multiple awards, including the Pulitzer Prize.

Ducuments also will be displayed in a permanent installation, "Robert Caro Working," that will feature rotating materials "allowing practitioners and lovers of history and biography to observe the writer and his craft," according to the Historical Society.

The installation will feature recordings of Caro speaking about his research methods, along with TV appearances.

The collection includes the extensive interviews Caro has conducted. For his biography of Moses, "The Power Broker," Caro carried out more than 500 interviews, including many with the the last people then alive who had known New York Gov. Al Smith and New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

He also conducted a multitude of interviews for his Lyndon Johnson biography, of which four volumes have been published.

Along with extensive rewriting, Caro is known for his immersive research methods, such as moving to Johnson's Austin, Texas, for an extended period.

For work on his forthcoming final volume of the Johnson biography, which covers Johnson's presidency, Caro and his wife, Ina, who works with him, moved for a time to Vietnam.

Caro's devotion to old-fashioned writing methods will also be honored. The archives include his outlines, the legal pads on which he's written the first versions of his work, the succeeding drafts hammered out on Smith Corona electric typewriters and galleys of his books, including comments scribbled by his well-known editor, Robert Gottlieb.

"The Power Broker" is receiving a new burst of fame during the Covid-19 pandemic as one of the books often viewed on bookshelves of reporters and analysts when they do TV Zoom interviews from home. Volumes of Caro's Johnson biography are also frequently visible.

Caro said he chose the New York Historical Society as the permanent home of his memoirs because of his warm memories of spending hours there as a child. When his mother was seriously ill, a favorite aunt often took him to the historical society, he said.

As Caro enshrines his legacy, his readers hope that the exhibit eventually will mark the completion of his Lyndon Johnson biography. After detailing Johnson's rise to the leadership of the U.S. Senate, vice presidency and presidency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the final volume will encompass Johnson's tragic demise.

After the passage of landmark civil rights legislation, Johnson's presidency collapsed over his escalation of the Vietnam War. In striking contrast to Donald Trump's refusal to accept Joe Biden's election as president, Johnson gave up the presidency when his support eroded.

The Caro exhibit will honor historical truth, which Trump and his followers have attacked.

 

 

 

Casey Cep uncovers Harper Lee quest to write non-fiction book to rival Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood"

Harper Lee carried out much of the reporting in rural Kansas for her friend Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood," a book she abhorred because of Capote's fictionalized scenes.

The celebrated author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" sought to match Capote's "new journalism" classic by writing her own true-crime book, which would be rigorously based on facts. As with "In Cold Blood," she did extensive investigative work. But she never produced a book.

Lee found her subject in a curious case in her native Alabama. A rural black preacher named Willie Maxwell was accused of murdering five members of his family in the 1970s and receiving payments from insurance policies he'd taken out on them.

Some in Maxwell's hometown of Alexander City, Ala., believed him a supernatural practitioner of voodoo. Represented by the flamboyant Alexander City defense attorney Tom Radney, Maxwell kept getting acquitted and escaping insurance fraud charges.

Maxwell's final victim was his 16-year-old stepdaughter. During the child's funeral, her brother, Robert Burns, pulled out a pistol and shot Maxwell at point-blank range, killing him instantly.

Radney also represented Burns at his murder trial, winning him a verdict of non-guilty by reason of insanity.

A fervid supporter of the Kennedy family, Radney was known as Alabama's most prominent liberal Democrat, a former state senator who had unsuccessfully run for lieutenant governor.

Lee grew fascinated by the case, moving to Alexander City to witness the Burns trial, interview those who'd known Maxwell and conduct research on his murder cases.

The New Yorker writer Casey Cep delves into the Maxwell story, Radney's career and Lee's abandoned book in "Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee."

The first half of "Furious Hours" completes Lee's project. With superfluous digressions such as histories of life insurance and the insanity defense, Cep's Maxwell-Radney saga amounts to an extended magazine article, flavored by Southern Gothic accents and arcana about Alabama politics and history.

Cep's mini-biography of Lee in the book's second half broadens the appeal and energizes the narrative. Her portrait of Lee is one of the best in the growing corpus of books about Lee, especially Cep's revelations about the breakup of Lee's lifelong friendship with Capote.

While Capote gained literary fame before Lee, and produced several books considered classics, he was jealous of the extraordinary popularity of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Beginning in their childhoods in Monroeville, Ala., the model for Lee's Maycomb in "To Kill a Mockingbird," as well the setting for some of Capote's stories, their lives intertwined and diverged. They'd grown irrevocably apart when Capote died of a drug overdose, years before Lee's death.

Trying to write her true-crime book, Lee like Capote battled acute alcoholism. Capote likewise died with a book unfinished, the long-promised "Answered Prayers," which alienated his New York City high-society confidantes because of his exposure of their secrets. That came in a short story published in Esquire, but the novel was never finished.

In Cep's view, Capote's death freed Lee from the need to write a successor to "To Kill a Mockingbird." Giving up alcohol, she found serenity in her later years, leading an increasingly private life in Monroeville and New York City.

Cep details Lee's diligent efforts to finish the book. During Burns' trial, Lee lived at the Horseshoe Bend Hotel in Alexander City, along with a cabin on nearby Lake Martin, formed by the 19th century damming of the Tallapoosa River, which Cep exhaustively documents.

Radney even gave her a briefcase with his complete file of defense documents on Maxwell and Burns. Lee never returned the documents to Radney, but Cep found them in Lee's possessions after the author's death and gave them to Radney's family.

Over the years, rumors surfaced that Lee had completed a Maxwell manuscript, that a book was forthcoming, that her publishers had refused to produce it because it was too racially incendiary. Only four pages have been found. Cep reports that Lee might have destroyed a manuscript.

When the literary world was jolted by reports late in Lee's life that she was publishing another book, many of her friends expected the Maxwell work. But the publication was "To Set a Watchman," Lee's first novel about Atticus Finch, narrated by his grown daughter Scout.

At the suggestion of her editor, Lee recast the book with Scout as a child narrator, producing "To Kill a Mockingbird." Cep gives a fresh look at the familiar details of how "To Kill a Mockingbird" came about.

"To Set a Watchman" depiction of Atticus as an aged racist dismayed "To Kill a Mockingbird" fans, and many thought the uneven manuscript should have remained unpublished. But it boosted interest in Lee's life.

Cep makes a convincing case that Lee abandoned her true crime project, unable to find a narrative shape for the massive amount of material she uncovered.

In Cep's gripping narrative, Lee's effort turns into a noble quest, like Atticus Finch's defense of the black defendant in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas Friedman wants Kamala Harris to boost rural America

What's the future of rural America?

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman Wednesday called for Vice President Kamala Harris to make her top priority redeveloping rural America, which lags behind in education, health care, jobs and Internet bandwidth.

Rural Americans' support for Donald Trump and the GOP reflect their anger and despair, Friedman said.

The Democratic Party in catering to better educated urban and suburban voters have lost rural areas, according to Friedman. In concentrating on those needs, Harris can reclaim rural America for the Democratic Party, he says.

I don't fully agree with Friedman; Harris with her talent and experience should be given wider responsibilities. But the country should determine what can be done to improve rural America.

Those communities' failings have been a longtime problem, especially in the South. But as suburban areas spread after World War II and economic benefits broadened, rural America progressed.

Over the last 20 years, however, smaller communities have withered. Globalization, the centralization of agriculture, income disparities, chain retail and opioid addiction have devastated small communities outside of urban areas.

A possible future for rural America was revealed in a Times article Wednesday about Princeton University's major new study about how the United States can transition to a carbon-free economy by 2050 and alleviate climate change.

One of the five "pathways" suggested by Princeton's research, funded by British Petroleum and Exxon Mobil, is a widespread extension of wind and solar power.

With clean energy growing less expensive, the country can make the shift without exorbitant expenditures, the study found.

But a significant expansion of wind and solar power, as well as a major retooling of the electrical power grid, will require major acquisition of land for wind and solar farms, the study found.

Small communities appear a prime source for such sites, which would boost rural economies. But farmers and landowners often object to wind and solar projects, according to the Times article.

A similar major study should be carried out to determine what is meant by rural America.

Smaller communities have lost manufacturing plants to countries like China, Mexico and Vietnam, and won't recover, as  economists who supported globalization like The Times' Paul Krugman now admit.

Thanks But smaller cities like Greenville, S.C., have flourished by attracting international companies such as BMW.

Along with rural areas, major cities like Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland and New Orleans have declined economically, while cities like Nashville, Austin, Columbus and Atlanta have boomed.

Rural areas in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and other states have never overcome their historical backwardness. But other once rural parts of the South have made economic and social gains. For example, North Georgia above Atlanta has been an economic hotspot as areas below the "gnat line" have deteriorated.

The United States definitely needs a reckoning with rural America, however that's defined.

 

SEC football says farewell to CBS Saturday afternoon broadcast

Goodbye to another tradition like no other: SEC football on CBS.

For years, SEC fans have grown up watching the game of the week on the network with the big eye.

Similar to its Masters broadcasts, CBS made the games beginning at 3:30 Saturday afternoons into a semi-religious ritual.

As shadows lengthened across the South's gridirons, we witnessed epic clashes between Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Georgia, Florida, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Tennessee and South Carolina.

Heisman winners such as Johnny Manziel, Derrick Henry, Tim Tebow and Joe Burrow have blazed across the screen.

Bigger than life coaches Nick Saban, Dan Mullen, Hugh Freeze, Steve Spurrier, Les Myles, Ed Orgeron, Bobby Petrino, Mark Richt, Kirby Smart and Gus Malzahn have scowled and screamed, lost and triumphed.

Now, ABC will take over the broadcast made famous by Verne Lundquist, thanks to a 10-year deal that will reportedly pay the conference around $300 million a year, substantially boosting each school's payout. The SEC received around $55 million from the CBS contract begun in 1996.

ESPN, which has been broadcasting a prime-time Saturday SEC game for years, will increase its SEC presence under the deal. ABC/ESPN runs the SEC Network.

With the ABC bonanza, the SEC will overtake the Big 10 as the richest conference, according to reports, at least until the Big 10 is able to shake more money from a TV network.

SEC schools' new riches cast a lurid light on the exploitation of players, who receive no salaries outside of their scholarships.

The league will have vastly more money to pay coaches and assistants and build lavish facilities, as the players risk injury hoping to someday receive an NFL deal.

Covering the old Confederacy, the SEC represents states that wallow at the bottom in education, health, and social services. But they're No. 1 in football, and getting even stronger.

 

 

 

New York Times' Anthony Tommasini won't give up his compact discs

New York Times classical music critic Anthony Tommasini in a Thursday essay vowed to hold on to his thousands of compact discs.

As the owner of many CDs, more rock, jazz, country and Americana-oriented than Tommasini's, I welcomed the support from a fellow pack rat. Tommasini also defended keeping old vinyl records, which I also possess from my college days.

For years, I've loved Tommasini's reviews and learned essays on composers, especially those not well-known. His essay affirmed art's power to enrich our lives.

When Tommasini recalled buying many of his CDs at the Harvard Co-Op at Harvard Square in Cambridge, Mass., across the Charles River from Boston, I felt the thrill of recognition.

Over the years, I've spent many happy hours at the co-op, as well as several other wonderful bookstores lining Harvard Square, one of my favorite places in the world.

Along with browsing and buying books at the co-op, I fondly remember eating lunch there one day, standing in the cafeteria line with Harvard students and professors. The stew was delicious, along with the overheard conversations.

Tommasini points out that the younger generation now listens to music through streaming services, as does his husband, Ben. I enjoy YouTube music videos, but haven't yet warmed up to services such as Spotify. Like Tommasini, I still enjoy going back to my CD collection for old favorites.

And, I keep buying new ones to add to those overflowing their ramshackle shelves. Perhaps I should adapt Tommasini's rule, imposed by Ben, that for every CD bought, one will be given away.

Tommasini also upheld the pleasures of reading old-fashioned books. I've also come to appreciate the convenience of e-readers. But I'm still a print creature.

Hey, Tony, I read your piece in the newspaper printed on paper, delivered to my driveway in the pre-dawn darkness each morning so that I can look up to see the moon, stars and planets. I don't even know the password for the Times' online publication, if that's the word.

Although I have a couple of turntables, I haven't returned to playing vinyl. I sometimes think of selling my vinyl record collection, which includes treasures like the original-cover Blind Faith album, but hold on to them year after year. And what about those cassette and VHS tapes? My house is a museum, or graveyard, of obsolete technology.

Thanks to Tommasini, I don't feel so alone and obsolescent myself in this de-clutter age. Anybody want a Moby Grape album?

 

 

 

 

 

Jupiter and Saturn taking Christmas star turn

Jupiter and Saturn are coming together to make a Christmas star.

On Dec. 21, the winter's solstice, Jupiter and Saturn will align to their closest appearance in the night sky since 1226, according to an article by Daniella Medina in the Nashville Tennessean.

The planets' yuletide fusion will emit a brilliant beam of light resembling the star that led the Wise Men to Bethlehem.

Known as "the great conjunction," the event occurs every 20 years. But this year, Jupiter and Saturn will appear just 0.1 of a degree apart. The planets also drew that near to each other in 1623, but sunset likely blocked their visibility, the report said.

Youngsters who miss the planets' near embrace this year will have another chance in 2080.

Like shy lovers, the big, slow-moving gas planets are already coming together in the southwestern sky just after sunset. Last night, I walked outside to see them peeking through a tree's branches.

A telescope might reveal Saturn's rings and Jupiter's moons, but binoculars are fine, University of Texas astronomer Stephen Hummel told the Texas Monthly.The conjunction is visible for about 45 minutes after sunset.

The planets' alignment through the years has been considered an omen of momentous events. We have many to choose from: a new presidency, the pandemic vaccine, the Super Bowl.

In 1226, the world was a lot quieter than now. But the two planets' celestial show still brings wonder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas Friedman pushes another dubious corporate utopia

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman took a break from presidential politics Wednesday to fashion one of his fantasies about the brave new economic world.

Friedman once again served as the mouthpiece for one of his favorite corporate pals, Infosys President Ravi Kumar, who gave Friedman his "world is flat" theme.

Infosys, founded in India but now based in covid-19-staggered New York City, is one of those new age consulting companies that help other corporations squeeze out profits more efficiently by ramping up "worker productivity."

Kumar filled Friedman's mind with visions of the post-pandemic world, in which workers will need constant refurbishing of unnamed skills so that they can toil at home carrying out some kind of corporate "modular" projects. The column didn't say what kind of tasks would be done by these happy domestic workers.

Sounded like corporate feudalism. In other words, an expansion of the contract worker model, without corporate benefits. Presumably, government health care would replace private insurance plans.

Friedman quoted Kumar as saying that unidentified technical skills are now more valued than university degrees, and that Infosys and other companies are investing in their own education programs, bypassing colleges.

Sure, Infosys still hires plenty of university-trained engineers, but the company also likes some kind of self-taught savants. All you need is to push a button on the robot assembly line, I suppose. Those rosy scenarios were sweetened by vintage Friedman chestnuts like "adaptive coalitions."

After this endorsement of technical education, Friedman made the contradictory assertion that corporations still will need workers who possess the kind of creative thinking traditionally developed by college liberal arts educations.

Perhaps old-fashioned degrees will have a place after all. Left unsaid was what kind of role public education will play.

Nor did the column say anything about the future of artificial intelligence, one of Infosys' main consulting areas. With robots doing more and more jobs, what will humans do in their cozy home workplaces?

Also missing was any mention of climate change, a curious omission since that's become a major Friedman theme.

Friedman's acclamation of Kumar's corporate utopia left huge gaps. The vision of workers constantly learning new skills to carry out the corporate agenda sounded more oppressive than liberating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Penguin Random House challenges Amazon in direct sales

I was surprised to order James Lee Burke's latest Dave Robicheaux novel, "A Private Cathedral," directly from the publisher, Penguin Random House.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the nation's largest publisher by far has increased direct book sales from upgraded warehouses, bypassing Amazon and Barnes & Noble, according to a profile of Penguin Random House CEO Madeline McIntosh in Sunday's New York Times.

Owned by German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, Penguin Random House increasingly depends on blockbuster best-sellers like former President Barack Obama's memoir, the article reported. Obama's book will be published after the election.

With the emphasis on established authors and well-known personalities, the company publishes fewer emerging writers, the profile said.

Yet, the company encompasses "300 editorially and creatively independent imprints and brands," according to its web site, giving a variety of venues for unknown authors.

Giving most of its resources to established best-sellers like Richard Russo, Zadie Smith, John Grisham, Jon Meacham and Michelle and Barack Obama, the company also promotes younger authors like Yaa Gyasi and her award-winning debut novel "Homecoming," published in 2016 when she was 26.

Her recently released novel, "Transcendent Kingdom," is a critically praised best-seller.

The company also introduced the acclaimed young Irish novelist Sally Rooney, who has published two immensely popular novels before age 30.

Writers like Gyasi and Rooney skyrocket to fame, bypassing the old model of slowly building a readership with several books.

Traditional printed books have gained new popularity during the pandemic, but the company publishes 70,000 digital titles a year to only 15,000 printed titles. Audio books are also booming.

Penguin Random House's increase in direct sales opens a new field of competition with bitter rival Amazon.

With its range of imprints and products, the publisher could challenge Amazon's marketplace dominance, especially if the retailing giant is broken up. But the publisher's move into direct sales undercuts bookstores, its traditional marketing vehicle.

Even more consolidation of the publishing industry is expected, further narrowing readers' choices beyond mainstream best-sellers.