Octavia E. Butler Week - Friday Wrap-Up

Over the past week, I have reviewed/discussed four different books written by Octavia E. Butler: Fledgling, Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents, and Kindred. Today, I'd like to have a discussion about these works more generally and about some shared themes I saw. I appreciate all the comments I've gotten so far on each post and welcome more. As a word of warning, some of my comments below contain spoilers.

Slavery
No point in beating around the bush - we're starting out with the hard stuff here today. When I wrote my review of Kindred, I had to look up synonyms for "horror." That was just the word that kept coming back for me as I thought about the events in this book. The horror of slavery, the horror of what happens to Dana, the unbelievable horror that slavery really happened in this country and for so long.

While Kindred is demonstrably about slavery, I also saw this theme pop up in the other books I read. In Parable of the Talents, Lauren and the other Earthseed members are enslaved in the name of religious re-education. The symbiots in Fledgling are held voluntarily - but how voluntary can it be when your life depends on staying?

Race
Another loaded topic - and one that, as a Caucasian woman, I can give only my thoughts on. I'm not capable of talking about race in a larger sense, or even of analyzing all the ways Butler discusses race. But in everything I've read from Butler so far, race is there as an issue, whether overt or not, so it would be impossible for me to write this post without at least touching on the subject. Examples of racial discrimination are present everywhere in Butler's books, even if its not vital to the plot. Like, in Parable of the Talents, Bankole is a doctor but his white neighbors distrust his skills, because he is black.

The topic of race is somewhat related to that of slavery. The black characters in Kindred are enslaved because they are of the wrong race. But in the other books I mentioned above, race isn't, that I saw, a factor in the slavery aspect. For example, in Fledgling, Shori is an Ina (a vampire), so therefore is of the race that holds the power. But she is also black, the result of the mixing of genes from an African-American woman and Ina. So she is held to be inferior by many of the other Ina and is Other, even to them.

Religion
Butler was raised Baptist but walked away from it. So its really, really interesting to me that she ended up founding a religion. Unlike L. Ron Hubbard, I don't think she did it intentionally. But there are people practicing Earthseed, the religion she created in Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents. They call it SolSeed. I wonder what Ms. Butler would think of that.

Octavia E. Butler
This isn't a theme, obviously, but these books do all share one very important point: they were written by Octavia Butler. An African-American woman, writing science fiction. Add in her personal history - dyslexia, her father dying when she was a baby, her spiritual upbringing - and its clear that there are not a lot of writers like her. All in all, she was a remarkable woman.

I hope you have enjoyed my week celebrating Octavia E. Butler. There are many more books from her I haven't read, so maybe I will do this again some time in the future. If you have a suggestion for the next Butler book I should read, please leave it in the comments.

Octavia E. Butler Week

Welcome to Octavia E. Butler Week! No, its not a national holiday or her birthday (which is in June). This is just an opportunity for me to talk about the work of an author who is quickly becoming one of my favorites. As an avid sci-fi reader my whole life, I had heard marvelous things about Butler's work for years. But it wasn't until this time last year that I finally got around to reading one of her novels, Parable of the Sower (link goes to my review). Sower blew me away - it was so good and the dystopia so spot on. It took me a while, though, to work up the courage to read more though. Spot-on dystopia is a scary thing. I finally dove in, though, so this week I'll have reviews of other Butler books. I'd love to be able to start a discussion of Butler's work and maybe about who she was and why her career was so important. In addition to being one of the few prominent African-American women writing science fiction, she was the first sci-fi writer to receive the prestigious McArthur Genius Grant. Ms. Butler died unexpectedly in 2006.

For a little more information about Octavia Butler, you can see her author page at SFWA, her Wikipedia entry or visit OctaviaButler.net, a fan site.

Photo of Octavia E. Butler signing a copy of Fledgling via Wikipedia.

Justin Allen: For the Love of Pete, Don’t Mix Your Genres!

Justin Allen (author of Year of the Horse) has written an essay in three parts, published today. Here's a taste to get you started, then follow the link to read more.

For the Love of Pete, Don’t Mix Your Genres;
Or… The New York Times Book Review Hates YOU, but I Don’t;
Or… Why Where Your Book Gets Shelved Determines Your Intelligence, Work-Ethic and Value to Society

That’s a longish title I’ll admit, and while I generally don’t go in for such larded vessels, in this case I’m willing to make an exception. Monstrous though it may seem (and most assuredly is), the above title sums up pretty much everything I have to say on the subjects of writing and publishing. The first line ought to be read as a word of warning to struggling writers. The second explains - in as much as an explanation of the unintelligible is even possible - why the publishing industry behaves
as it does. And the third highlights our common enemy, which turns out to be ourselves.

Really - if I must say so myself - that title is a wonder of economy, precision and restraint. But maybe you’d like me to elaborate? Normally I’d refuse - principally on the grounds that my arguments tend to be weakened by exploration - but as I have been contracted to provide a minimum of fifteen minutes of reading diversion, I will betray myself and attempt to explain…

Why Where Your Book Gets Shelved Determines Your Intelligence, Work-Ethic and Value to Society.

Continue reading A Manifesto of Imaginative Literature

Interview with Justin Allen, Author of Year of the Horse

A few weeks ago, I reviewed Justin Allen's fabulous Wild West coming-of-age novel, Year of the Horse. (link goes to my review) I had so many questions about his ideas for the book and how he came up with him, so I was thrilled when he agreed to be interviewed.



Lorin: Where did the idea or inspiration for Year of the Horse come from? How did you get the idea to incorporate fantasy into what is otherwise a Western, coming-of-age story? Year of the Horse, to me, is a rarity: it tells a story of the Old West through the point of view of a person of Chinese descent. Where did the idea to do that come from?

Justin: I first came up with the idea of writing a Wild-West Fantasy Novel while on a short vacation to the Florida Keys with my friend, Kennon Irons. We were sitting in a diner, eating breakfast and wishing that the Monsoon-like rain we’d been experiencing for the last three days would JUST QUIT for a few minutes, so we could go to the beach, go to the Everglades, or just go OUTSIDE.

Anyhow, I got to complaining about how so much fantasy fiction is nothing more than the eternal rehashing of King Arthur, Tolkien, and the Chronicles of Narnia. Kennon, who very much likes that sort of thing, wondered what I had against King Arthur, and it suddenly came to me… What I hated wasn’t King Arthur (I love King Arthur, by the way, and all that sort of thing). What I hated was that when Americans write that sort of fantasy, it’s just as though we’re still stuck in some sort of pseudo-Colonial state. Why can’t we produce American fantasy? Kennon argued that fantasy was as much swords and chivalry as magic and wonder, and that any attempt to replace the broadsword with the six-shooter would ultimately fail. “Bull!!!” I said it then, and I’ll say it now with even more ferocity! In fact, “Bull CRAP!!!” The Western has always been mostly fantastical. Don’t believe me? Watch some old Clint Eastwood films and see if you don’t begin to have a whole passel of wonderings. For instance, how in heaven’s name does he always have the right number of bullets in his gun? Or, how come there aren’t more than six guys he has to shoot? And where in the name of all that’s holy is he anyway? Is that supposed to be Mexico? Then how is he escaping from a Confederate Prisoner of War camp? Yeesh! Did the filmmakers know anything about North American Geography at all?

In fact, the Western has more fantasy aspects to it, by its very nature, than just about any other genre. It’s just dying to be exploited. That’s why I dedicated Year of the Horse to ‘our favorite Oxford Dons.’ It’s my way of saying, “Thanks, but Enough. We’ve had all the medievalism we need for a while. We’re DONE with that.” I say, let’s strike new ground! Let’s make myths out of our own people, landscape and mythical heritage.

As for Lu…

I don’t know exactly how or when I decided to make an American-born Chinese boy the main character in the book. The first character I thought up was actually Jack Straw - itinerant adventurer, gunfighter and mystic. Lu came a good deal into the planning.

I’d read China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston, and very much enjoyed the sections where she described the dangerous jobs that Chinese immigrants performed during the American push westward, especially in mining and railroad building. Huge numbers of Chinese men were killed or maimed while handling explosives (no one knows just how many). So I figured a Chinese explosives “expert” would be a fascinating addition to my story about the west. Plus, using a Chinese boy, and making him pretty much no different from any other boy his age, allowed me to say something about what it means to be an American. I wanted to show Lu realizing, over the course of the journey, that he was truly an American, as much a symbol of his country as Sadie or Henry or Jack. And I wanted readers to come to that realization with him.


Lorin: In the acknowledgments for Year of the Horse, you wrote that the female characters in the book were based on several of your actual family members. Were Lu and the other members of Jack's gang also based on real people? If not, where did the ideas for those characters come from?

Justin: All of the characters in Year of the Horse come from somewhere. All of the minor characters do, anyway. The main group: Lu, Jack, Henry, Chino, Sadie and her father, are all my own creations. I never met anyone like Jack, have no Uncles like Henry or any old enemies like Chino. I developed these core characters entirely on their own, discovering each as I followed him or her across the country.

Their NAMES, however, were all chosen for historical, literary or personal reasons. Lu’s name, for instance, comes from The Analects of Confucius. Tzu-lu was one of Confucius’s favorite disciples, known as an adventurer and swashbuckler. Likewise, Henry is named after John Henry, the famous “steel driving man.” His last name, Jesus, comes from the practice of freed slaves taking on the names of their former masters. Henry would have none of that, I thought – his only ‘master’ being his Savior – so I figured he’d take on the name that meant most to him. Manuel Garcia – also known as ‘Chino’ – got his name from a famous bandit in the old west. MacLemore was named after Louis L'Amour - “Mac” in Scottish meaning “son of” - as well as a family I know in Montgomery, Alabama (my sister-in-law’s last name is McLemore). And Sadie – This is something I have NEVER told ANYONE until now – is actually named after a dog I had when I was a boy. I loved that dog more than I could possibly say, and so appropriated her name for Year of the Horse. Jack Straw takes his name from a revolutionary figure in British History, and from the fact that I always liked the name ‘Jack’ for a gunfighter.

But as I said before, though their names come from some association that means something to me, there is no ACTUAL relationship between my characters and their namesakes. The minor characters, now that’s a different story…

Lorin: Clearly, you referenced Washington Irving in Year of the Horse. In my review, I mentioned that it also reminded me of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Were you influenced by Mark Twain? What other authors inspire your work?

Justin: Thank you, Lorin, for mentioning Mark Twain. I can say without reservation that no writer anywhere has influenced me more. In fact, in Year of the Horse, I actually referenced some of Twain’s characters. You remember that scene where Lu and the gang cross the Quapaw River on a log raft? Well, I was thinking of Jim and Huck there (in fact, if you go back and look, you’ll notice that the customs agent’s name is ‘Jim’). Honestly, I’m not sure you can have a log raft in a book and NOT have people think of Huck Finn. Also, try Googling ‘Philip Traum’ and see what you find. I’ll bet you’ll be surprised.

There are references to famous American (and a few non-American) authors sprinkled throughout Year of the Horse. I get a big bang out of finding (or inventing) connections. In the book you can find references to Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. I even made what I thought to be a funny reference to one lesser-known American Author. It’s when Lu is following Bill through the Hell Mouth Canyon and they come upon a waterfall. Most readers probably won’t recognize that reference, but one or two might. In fact, Bill himself is a sort of reference to the tall tales of Pecos Bill, his wife Slue-Foot Sue, and his horse Widowmaker.

And though I made no conscious references to them, there are oodles of other authors I’ve learned from and loved. I particularly love Jack Kerouac, Alan Moore, Larry McMurtry and Phillip K. Dick. I am a big fan of Ursula LeGuin and Barbara Kingsolver, think the world of Robert Heinlein and Charles Dickens (everybody please read A Christmas Carol – it is sooooo good!). And yes, I love Tolkien and CS Lewis as well. But for the references I sprinkled into Year of the Horse I tried to stick mostly to American writers of the 18th century.

Lorin: How much research did you do for Year of the Horse? Where do you do your research – Google, the library?

Justin: Well, there were a lot of little details that I had to look up. For instance, I don’t know much about guns or saddles, or any of that sort of thing. So I got me a copy of Illustrated Directory of the Old West. The pictures in that book were Invaluable. For example, I knew I wanted Lu to discover a brass revolver – the confederate army really did make brass revolvers for their officers to wear as side-arms, stealing the designs from all sorts of legitimate gun-makers (I have no idea whether they could actually be fired). But what kind of revolver ought it to be? A colt? An Allen? Something more unique or unusual? In the Directory, I was able to go from page to page, looking at drawings and descriptions of all sorts of pistols, both rare and not so rare. The same with Henry’s rifle. And the MacLemores’ saddles. If you’re thinking of writing a western, I suggest that little book. It’s a good’un.

Lorin: This question ties in with the previous one: Did you have the opportunity go to all the amazing places the gang visits? Was there any one place that you enjoyed writing about the most?

Justin: As a matter of fact, I have been to All those places – in a sense. Of course, in another sense, none of those places even EXIST. The geography in Year of the Horse is highly fictionalized. I wanted to create a fantastic, mythical America, rather than a factual one. But I still wanted readers to recognize the landscapes as being palpably American. So, most everywhere they go in the book is based on some famous feature of the American landscape, only made bigger than life. For instance – The Hell Mouth. You can probably guess that it was based on the Grand Canyon. And yes, I HAVE been to the Grand Canyon. In fact, in 2005 my family rode Mules into the Grand Canyon on Christmas Day - an experience I can not recommend highly enough. But the Hell Mouth is not JUST the Grand Canyon. It is also Hell’s Canyon in Western Idaho (note the similarity of name), and the Salmon River Gorge. In fact, I guess you could say that the Hell Mouth is all American Canyons rolled into one, and then multiplied by ten.

Lorin: What hobbies do you have in addition to your writing? Do you think one of them will work their way into a book?

Justin: I am a ballet dancer! You didn’t expect to hear that, I’ll wager. In fact, I wouldn’t even call ballet a hobby. It’s more an avocation. I take ballet class pretty much every day, and I work with two ballet companies here in New York – Eidolon Ballet and Dances Patrelle. Right now I’m rehearsing with Dances Patrelle, getting ready to dance as the Mouse King in their annual “The Yorkville Nutcracker.”

I don’t expect ever to write a ballet book, but this past year I did write a story for ballet, and I got it performed, too. The ballet was called, “Murder at the Masque: The Casebook of Edgar Allan Poe.” It was very successful, with beautiful sets, amazing dancers, gorgeous costumes, an amazing original score by Patrick Soluri, and the breathtaking choreography of Francis Patrelle. The ballet was even reviewed by the New York Times! [Find the review here] The reviewer never mentioned me (doesn’t that suck!), but it was still cool to know that I had a hand in putting that ballet together.

Lorin: What are your future plans for writing? Are you working on your next book?

Justin: I have lots of other books I want to write, and a couple I am working on right now. First, I’m writing a travel book about the National Parks (that’s how I’ve visited so many of the places that inspired the geography of Year of the Horse). I am also half-way through a science fiction book about the unintended consequences of new technology (like, what if people decide that it is better to have robot legs than real? Will they allow them in the NFL?).

And I’ve been thinking about doing a sequel to Year of the Horse, too. What would you think about a novel that mixed fantasy with the gang-land era Chicago of Al Capone? Maybe Jack Straw could be working with Eliot Ness, or maybe he would work with Al Capone? I don’t know exactly what that book would be about yet, but I think it would be a fun challenge.

Thank you so much, Justin, for taking the time to answer my questions!

Find Year of the Horse: A Novel on Amazon.

Author photos provided by Justin Allen.

On This Day

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day today, so I should be writing this in pirate-speak, I guess. Here: Arrgh! Avast, me hearties!

In other, more literary news, author Italo Calvino died on this day in 1985. As I wrote last year, here are my three favorites works by Calvino:

Invisible Cities

Marcovaldo: or the Seasons in the City

Cosmicomics

Happy (Early) Birthday, Ray Bradbury!

Years ago, I lived in LA and drove up to the Bay Area every other weekend to see my (then) boyfriend (now husband). The only thing that made the trip bearable was listening to audiobooks. After listening to everything worthwhile at my very small, local library branch, I started to venture out to some of the larger libraries in the city to find books.

One random night, after work, I stopped by the Palms/Rancho Park branch to see what they had in stock. When I arrived at the library, I was surprised to find the parking lot packed, every light on and a big crowd inside, so I asked a librarian what was going on. Ray Bradury was there, giving a talk and signing books. There was no special occasion or reason why that I could see, he just liked to do this every now and again to support the library. (Donations were being accepted but otherwise there was no fee.) He was great to hear and the evening was just a real treat for me.

If you would like your chance to hear Mr. Bradbury speak, and support the library at the same time, he has several upcoming events going on in honor of his 88th birthday (which is actually on August 22). The LA Times blog Jack Copy has information for several Bradbury birthday events.

SE Hinton Interview

Nathan Bransford (the agent) has a gem of an interview with author SE Hinton up on his blog here.

Also, I wrote about Hinton previously here, after her appearance at the LA Times Festival of Books.

Advertising Joan Didion in 1970

I liked Joan Didion's book Play It As It Lays but I can't imagine ever having picked it up on the basis of Gene Shalit's* recommendation! Maybe he was less scary in 1970.

This ad is from an excellent New York Times slideshow of archived book ads. It makes me wonder if in forty years, we'll look back and be amazed at how publishers today are advertising. "Book trailers? That's so quaint!" [Via BookSlut]


* For those of you having a hard time placing the name, here's a refresher:

P. G. Wodehouse

Sure, I've heard of P. G. Wodehouse. But he always sounded like one of those authors I should read, and therefore avoid at all costs. So I was pleasantly surprised when I read a recent post by Jacket Copy on Wodehouse that had me laughing out loud. From The Mating Season:

I am told by those who know that there are six varieties of hangover—the Broken Compass, the Sewing Machine, the Comet, the Atomic, the Cement Mixer and the Gremlin Boogie, and his manner suggested that he had got them all.

I love it!

Buy The Mating Season on Amazon.

There is also a lot by Wodehouse that is in the public domain and therefore available free online. Look at Wikisource or Project Gutenberg.

Negative Reviews

In light of some recent posts I've read where the author was very upset about getting a negative review from a book bloggers, I wanted to make something very clear:

I love getting books from publishers to review. I love being exposed to books I may not have otherwise picked up. Please send me an email, or leave me a message, and, most likely, I will be happy to read and review your book. However, I make no promises that I will like the book or write a positive review. I will be fair, and I try to think of who else may like a book, even if I did not. But I won't act like I liked something when I didn't.

That's all.

American Wife on NPR

Today on NPR, Terry Gross of Fresh Air interviewed Curtis Sittenfeld (photo above from The Observer), author of American Wife. Earlier in the broadcast, they had an interview with Josh Brolin, who is starring in the new Oliver Stone movie, W.

Find my review of American Wife here and the Fresh Air interview here. 

Interview with Dave King

Paper Cuts, the NY Times book blog, published an interview with Dave King, author of The Ha-Ha. Find it here. What amused me most about the interview was who the first commenter was-- Erica Jong! Assuming that's not a hoax, I'm jealous. I doubt Erica Jong will be commenting here anytime soon.

By the way, The Ha-Ha is a great book. Here is the Publishers Weekly description off Amazon:

Owing to a head injury he suffered 16 days into his Vietnam tour, Howard Kapostash, the narrator of King's graceful, measured debut novel, can neither speak, write nor read. Now middle-aged, Howard lives a lackluster existence in the house where he grew up, along with housemates Laurel, a Vietnamese-American maker of gourmet soups for local restaurants, and two housepainters—essentially interchangeable postcollege jocks—whom he refers to as Nit and Nat. But everything changes when Sylvia, the former girlfriend he's loved since high school, heads to drug rehab, saddling Howard with Ryan, her taciturn nine-year-old son. What happens over the course of the next couple hundred pages will not surprise readers—slowly, Nit and Nat learn responsibility, Laurel discovers her maternal side, Ryan opens up and Howie learns about life and love amid school concerts and Little League games—but it is lovingly rendered in careful, steady prose. Like Michael Cunningham's A Home at the End of the World, the novel explores familial bonds arising between people with no blood ties, and if the novel lingers too long on its notes, thematic and otherwise—Howard often ruminates on the nature of his injury and the things he'd say if he could; his days vary little—it does so with poise and heart. Drama arises with Sylvia's return and Howard nearly loses it, but life and healing are now forever
possible.

Check it out.

Fun Author Tool

I discovered a new, fun little tool online (sorry, but I can't remember who I found it from!). Its the Literature Map and it creates a map/chart of authors. According the web site, "the closer two writers are, the more likely someone will like both of them." Above is a screen shot of the map for Italo Calvino (one of my favorite authors). I get why Jorge Luis Borges is nearby, but I'm less clear on how James Frey ended up so close as well. Unfortunately, there's no explanation of the methodology that I could find, which is a little annoying. Then again, we're not trying to solve the world's problems, just to find a good book, so I guess that's okay!