Shuffling off

A few days ago, during my weekly visit to the comic book store, I stopped at the dense graphic-novel shelves, tyrannized by choice.  Before me sat row upon row of the laughably misleading (The Essential Dazzler), the highly unnecessary (ElfQuest: Volume 14), and the already-read (Essex County).  After a minute of unfocused browsing, I arrived at a chunk of Punishers.  Thanks to a 2009 alt-weekly story, I’d recalled that The Punisher’s Six Hours To Kill was set in Philadelphia, where I live.  I picked it up and flipped on through, remembering why I hadn’t read The Punisher since I was 13: it was really kind of dumb. Still, I’d come closer to buying the book than I reasonably should have—and the only reason for that was its setting.  Eighteen years had passed since I’d given Frank Castle any thought—eighteen years in which he’d killed his way through Queens, Detroit, and Nome.  Yet all it had taken to rekindle my interest was for him to hop in his van and roar down the Turnpike.  Had I read Six Hours To Kill, I might’ve recognized a street, a park, or a building—and that would’ve drawn me in.  Whether in comics, films, or novels, this verisimilitude is a gift—recognition that you actually exist. In 1995, Steve Lopez debuted with Third and Indiana, named after an intersection in Philly’s crumbling Badlands.  The book was mediocre—its villain was a cartoon, its heroes whimpering saints—but its street details were compelling.  “An old man with a white mustache and a newsboy hat cooked ribs and chicken on the sidewalk in a barbecue fashioned from a black metal drum.”  “Kensington Avenue… sat in eternal darkness and gloom under the El, and the tracks were supported by an archway of rusted iron crablegs, a symbol of the city’s industrial death.” In Pete Dexter’s Brotherly Love, gangsters and union guys battle it out on similarly gritty streets: “Michael sees them too late, one on the sidewalk, one on the street.  He takes the pistol out of his coat pocket, beginning to run, and shoots four times, blowing out the front window of a poultry store kitty-corner in the Italian Market.”  I live two blocks from the Market, and when I walk through with my wife, I’ll point towards Ninth and Catherine.  “In Brotherly Love, there was a shootout right over there,” I’ll say.  My hope, perhaps, is that she’ll find me somehow tougher—after all, I witnessed a goddamn shooting.  Instead, she’ll ask, “Wait—this was in a book?  So it didn’t actually… happen?”  “No, not really,” I’ll mumble.  But… I could’ve sworn… Such split thinking speaks, of course, to the vitality of narrative, to how it tricks us towards belief.  But unlike camping with the Joads or mourning poor Piggy, reading about one’s hometown doesn’t transport so much as extend, enlarging our maps with each page.  I’ve spent time in nearby Germantown thanks to David Goodis’ Black Friday: “He was very careful about it as he walked along Morton Street, watching the doors, the porch posts, the brick walls underneath the porch.”  When Point Breeze makes the paper, I’ve been there through The Corrections: “Friable houses with bedsheet curtains.  Expanses of fresh asphalt that seemed to seal the neighborhood’s fate more than promise renewal.” Until I wrote this piece, I hadn’t seen the thread that runs through my Philly reading: I focus on areas that I’d otherwise never enter; on things I’d rather not see.  Like a Baltimorean watching The Wire, I experience the nearby underbelly without having to actually experience it.  This might make me an earnest investigator or an entitled cultural sightseer; probably a mixture of both.  But whatever my motive, I’m not nearly as interested in the places I already know.  Were there a Philadelphia novel about a Bella Vista freelancer, I’d probably have to skip it.  I spend enough time with myself. In a recent issue of Superman, The Man of Steel began a cross-country walk in West Philadelphia.  As with The Punisher, his visit made the news—but this time, much of it harped on errors.  For one, Superman trekked through “The South Side”—a term used in Chicago, but never Philadelphia.  And at a diner, he ordered a “Philly cheese steak sandwich,” as natural-sounding as a Bulgarian weekender.  Such details, while seemingly petty, are crucial to hometown readers.  We might be too busy, or nervous, or lazy to go out and explore what surrounds us—but if you’re the author, by God, you’d better get it right.  Because we’ll take your stories as journalism; they’ll shape our thoughts for years.  We may or may not be tourists, but you are surely our guide. (Image: west philly, from lisacee's photostream)

This week is turning out to be a mini-family reunion for me. My parents and two of my brothers are in town as are some aunts and uncles and cousins. Yesterday evening at a family barbecue near Venice Beach I fell into a conversation with my aunt and uncle about the reading habits of my young cousin, Tim, who is 10. He's a very precocious reader and has finished off nearly all of the highly recommended children's series that are out there right now: Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, and Brian Jacques' Redwall Series (I recommended Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy since he hasn't gotten to that yet.) The thing is, there's a limited amount of high quality young adult fiction out there, so what do you do if your kid has read it all? Since I started working at the bookstore I have occasionally been posed this question by parents. It's actually a crucial moment in the life of a young a reader, the point where they could very easily lose some interest reading because they have read all the kids' books and aren't allowed to read adult books. What folks sometimes forget is that there are quite a few books that, though they are shelved in the adult fiction section, are perfect books to help segue strong, young readers into the wider world that lies beyond the young adult section. Some people call these books classics, but they are perfect for challenging kids and keeping them interested in reading: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Time Machine, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Journey to the Center of the Earth, to name just a few. I would also recommend that these children read the books in their original forms, not the abridged versions. I remember reading abridged versions of various classics when I was younger, and I think lots of other folks do as well, but looking back it just doesn't seem necessary. In fact, as an eleven or twelve year old, I learned a lot of complex things about the world around me from the books I read, and these important details, the harsh language in Huck Finn, for example, seem to be just the things that are excised in order to create the kid friendly versions. We challenge kids in many aspects of their lives, why not challenge them to explore the big questions that arise from reading the classics. I hope that the children's book industry continues to move in this direction, and a lot of the intelligent and challenging kids' books that are out there indicate that it will. On the other hand, my friend Edan pointed out to me the other day the upcoming release of a "Student Edition" of Yann Martel's international bestseller Life of Pi, from which, one can assume, the editors have removed anything that might distress, and therefore challenge, a young reader. Here's hoping that this doesn't kick off a new trend.

but I hope you don't mind if I post about a couple of things that pertain to, well, me. The first is a fantastic and fantastic looking publication called Two Letters, which contains some very worthwhile writing and art, and for which I was the literary editor. I worked on this when I lived in Los Angeles. The selection process for the art and writing ended just before I moved to Chicago, so I wasn't involved in the production of the book. I had no idea what it would look like until it showed up at my doorstep a couple of weeks ago. It looks terrific - great art and a very distinctive layout. All the writing is illustrated with subtle but expressive line drawings. I am also very happy with the writers I helped select (two of them, Cem and Alexa happen to be bloggers). If you want to pick up a copy visit the website, or, if you are in LA, please consider attending the release party at the venerable Book Soup in West Hollywood. It's on Wednesday, January 26th at 7pm. It will be fun, and I would attend if I could.In other news about me: You may have noticed from my bio on the right that I'm currently a graduate student in the Medill school of Journalism at Northwestern, and today I reached a milestone that I felt I should share (because what else is a blog for, if not for moments like this.) Today, I got my very first byline in a daily newspaper, the Daily Herald. It's a 100,000+ circulation paper that serves the suburbs of Chicago. The story isn't about books. Since I'm studying business writing this quarter, it's a business story. You'll be happy to hear that I was able, if only just barely, to keep myself from nudging the news stand guy and saying, "I'm in this," when I bought the paper today.