A splendid debut

One of the things you always hear said to a young writer is "Write what you know." That is, write about something you're familiar with, so you're coming from a position of authority, rather than casting about to sound believable.

It's good advice and, in the case of first-time novelist Tom Rachman, it's a winning formula. I just finished reading "The Imperfectionists," a collection of 11 intertwined short stories that together make up an impressive and intriguing whole. Rachman is a journalist who's worked as a foregin correspondent for The Associated Press and as an editor for the International Herald Tribune in Paris, and now lives in Rome.

So when he sets out to write about editors and reporters who inhabit the newsroom of an international daily newspaper that's based in Rome, he's writing about what he knows. As a journalist myself, I recognize the flawed characters he sketches -- some who live and die for the story and the next deadline; some who struggle to have any semblance of a meaningful personal life; some who seek to hide their insecurities by throwing themselves into work.

I'd never heard of Rachman or his book, but my friend Bob, a frequent commenter on this site, recommended it highly and loaned it to me recently. I had no expectations going in but I found myself absorbed by the characters and the interlocking narrative that weaves them all together. With one exception, I found each of the chapters strong enough to stand on its own as a self-contained story.

Rachman nails the newsroom banter and insecurities of the various journalists -- including the ambitious editor, a workaholic news editor and a past-his-prime correspondent -- as well as the idiosyncracies of the eccentric publisher, the non-nonsense chief financial officer and other characters.

Their individual stories are set against the backdrop of an English-language newspaper with falling circulation, dwindling corporate support and no Web site -- an unpardonable sin in these times.

The book is an easy read and full of surprises that will make you feel sympathy toward several characters. They come across as real people, with complicated lives and personal challenges that circumscribe their lives. Bottom line: This is an entertaining book well worth reading. Christopher Buckley, writing in The New York Times Sunday Book Review, certainly liked it.

Photograph by Alessandra Rizzo

The writer's life

How appropriate that I've come to Iowa City, just having finished "Mentor: A Memoir" on the flight out from Portland.

The Iowa Writers' Workshop is the only university-based organization to be honored with the National Humanities Medal and, as the nation's first creative writing degree program, has become the model for similar writing programs across the country. Graduates of the two-year residency program at the University of Iowa have won 17 Pulitzer Prizes and numerous other literary awards. The long list of notable alumni no doubt includes authors whose work is on your bookshelf: Michael Cunningham, Kim Edwards, Adam Haslett, John Irving, Ann Patchett, Jane Smiley, Wallace Stegner, John Edgar Wideman, just to name a few.

You get the picture.

So I pick up this memoir, knowing about the program's reputation but not knowing the author, Tom Grimes, or its subject, Frank Conroy, who directed the workshop for 18 years and died in 2005.

Understand, the memoir is one of my favorite literary genres; there's no question it brings you up close and personal with the writer and often takes you deep inside an unfamiliar culture or set of formative experiences. But it also can have its flaws as an inherently biased (or perhaps incomplete) point of view, since it is, after all, one person's version of events. How truthful the writer is determines the memoir's credibility. It's not just what the writer says but also what he or she omits.

That said, I'll say I appreciated this memoir for its literary qualities. Grimes, the author of five books and director of the creative writing program at Texas State University in San Marcos, obviously knows how to write a sentence, how to construct a scene, how to draw meaning from an event or conversation. He is insightful and candid about his insecurities, bordering on the irrational. But he's also a little too adoring of his subject (at times uncomfortably so), too quick to draw parallels between his life and Conroy's, though respectful of the gaps in accomplishment and recognition between himself and his mentor.

Grimes as a young man was an aspiring writer working as a waiter in Florida when Conroy rescued him by choosing him for the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The older man nurtured him, singling him out for attention even as he seemed to ignore other students, and became his friend and a father figure, even inviting him to live in his house during summers when Conroy and his wife vacationed in Nantucket.

The deeper I got into the book, the less I liked the two main characters, with Grimes appearing to fawn over his mentor, seemingly unable to submit a manuscript or make a career move without Conroy's blessing or, worse, opening a door for him.

To his credit, Grimes is incredibly forthright about all this. And I have to say, the final third did redeem the book as Grimes reflects on what he has learned about himself.

"Every great novel, it's been said, is a 'long story with a flaw in it.' Well, I've mastered the flaws and have diligently produced long stories to contain them. But something all along was missing -- me. And this book redresses that absence. For twenty years, I believed Frank filled that absence. But he didn't; my idolization of him did; moreover, my fictionalizing of him did. Frank is the protagonist of my best novel, and my best novel is this memoir. In the end, my memoir about Frank is a memoir about me. By writing about Frank, I could no longer turn away from myself, which is what I've done all of my life. Now, I'm gazing at myself."

That's a pretty piece of writing. As is this passage, which strikes me as absolutely true:

"While writing this memoir, I believed I knew Frank completely. The illusion was necessary. But the truth is: like all of us, Frank was a mosaic. We know a person not only by what we observe and what he or she says or tells us but also by what we infer, imagine, and are told by others. Toward the end of his life, the latter is how I knew Frank."

The book ends with Grimes' eulogy for his friend, a succinct and welcome note of grace.

The amazing story of HeLa

Four months ago on this blog, I served notice that I intended to read what sounded like an intriguing book:  "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." It's the little-known story of a poor African American woman from Baltimore whose cancerous cells were taken from her cervix -- without her knowledge or her family's -- and, through unprecedented reproduction in labs at Johns Hopkins University, helped to expand medical research and launch a multimillion industry in the sale of human tissues.

Thanks to Molly, a friend who bought the book and loaned it to me, I'm happy to say I read it recently -- and happier still to give it a five-star recommendation, based on the number of pages I dog-eared along the way.

It's an absorbing read -- part science, part biography, part social and cultural history -- that covers several decades, beginning in the 1950s when "colored" folks were treated in a separate wing of Johns Hopkins University Hospital and continuing up to the present. Author Rebecca Skloot explains the scientific practices and procedures then in place for harvesting cells, along with the ethical considerations and commercial applications that have evolved since then. She also sketches compelling portraits of Henrietta Lacks and her family -- none of whom knew their wife/mother had been the subject of this research until 20 years after her death, and all of whom struggle to get health care themselves.

"I've tried to imagine how she'd feel knowing that her cells went up in the first space missions to see what would happen to human cells in zero gravity, or that they helped with some of the most important advances in medicine: the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization," Skloot writes in the prologue. "I'm pretty sure that she -- like most of us-- would be shocked to hear that there are trillions more of her cells growing in laboratories now than there ever were in her body.

"There's no way of knowing exactly how many of Henrietta's cells are alive today. One scientist estimates that if you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they'd weigh more than 50 million metric tons -- an inconceivable number, given that an individual cells weighs almost nothing. Another scientist calculated that if you could lay all HeLa cells ever grown end-to-end, they'd wrap around the Earth at least three times, spanning more than 350 million feet. In her prime, Henrietta herself stood only a bit over five feet tall."

I suspect that only those who write professionally -- or aspire to -- can fully appreciate what went into the making of this book, which landed on The New York Times Bestseller list this spring and has brought much acclaim to its author, a former Portland resident who now teaches at the University of Memphis.

Skloot first learned about HeLa cells in 1988 -- 37 years after Lacks' death -- at age 16 when she was in a community college biology class. Later, as she was working her way through graduate school studying writing, she began researching Henrietta's story. She read scientific journals and historical documents. She interviewed scientists, lab assistants and several members of Henrietta's extended family, even spending time in Clover, Virginia, where the Lacks clan traces its roots to an old, segregated town where their slave ancestors worked on tobacco farms. The reporting and writing consumed an astounding 10 years.

This is Rebecca Skloot's first book, and it's immensely satisfying. In an interview with The Oregonian's Jeff Baker, she and her father, author Floyd Skloot, talked about the writing process. Read about it here -- "The story behind the story" -- and then do yourself a favor and go get the book. Quick, before it becomes a movie produced by Oprah!

Artsmith Salon Series

It's Monday night at Doe Bay Resort. Lori and I pull into the nearly empty gravel and dirt parking lot at 6 p.m. The sky is still light, the temperature is mild and we've arrived to have a light dinner before the start of the Artsmith Salon Series, a weekly get-together involving the literary community here on Orcas Island.

It's our first time attending one of these programs, though we've been here plenty of times before for Open Mic Pizza Night, a virtual grab bag of local musical performers.

Jennifer Brennock, the emcee for the night and someone I met last year during a writers' workshop she led), joins us for a quick bite and how-do-you conversation. She's an MFA student at Vermont's Goddard College, with both Oregon and California roots (Southern Oregon University, Saratoga High School), and worked briefly as a reporter for the island newspaper.

We bring an open mind to the program and leave feeling inspired, invigorated and even a little bit envious. If this is the qualtity of programming from week to week, boy, we're missing out on a lot that full-time islanders get to take in.

A local playwright named Bill Westlake reads two of his short stories -- both very well written with interesting narratives. During open mic, a guy named Carlos (at right) uncorks a wine bottle and pulls from it a scroll containing the short story he reads aloud. (He thought of the idea as a way to express his anti-Internet sentiments. How, he asked himself, could he formulate his story in such a way that it couldn't be replicated on the Web? Very creative.) Another guy recites a poem and a woman named Renee (sp?) reads three newly composed poems.

In between comes the program's highlight: a photographer and a writer from Lopez Island do a narrated slide show on their self-published book, "Hands at Work." A simple enough concept -- to portray in images and words the beauty, the dignity, the passion of what people do with their hands to earn a livelihood -- and one done with obvious respect for each of the subjects in the book.

Iris Graville reads from the book's introduction, plus three or four essays in the book, as photographer Summer Moon Scrivner projects a series of black-and-white images on the pull-down screen. Together, their words and photos convey the meaning and fulfillment -- and often a spiritual dimension -- that people find in their work. Some choices for the book are obvious: a physical therapist, a midwife, a baker, a weaver. Others, not so much: a vibraphonist, for instance.

What I enjoy most about their book and their presentation is knowing that every step in the process from idea to book is driven by integrity. The way they approach the subjects, reading each other's non-verbal cues during the interviews, editing the photos and words, framing and titling the book to give it a sharp focus -- all of this speaks to a coherent vision and an honest channeling of people's words and values.

I can't help but think of the contrast between a project like this, which involves so much human interaction, observation and engagement, and what we are subjected to nearly every day with the 24/7 news cycle, the me-me-me world of YouTube, the phoniness of "reality" shows and the shouting matches that pass for political talk shows.

As the clock turns to 9 o'clock, we get up to leave with nothing but good feelings about a great evening: A delicious seafood dinner, consumed at a table overlooking the water; a new friend in Jennifer; a pleasant introduction to the creative community on Orcas and Lopez islands; and a brand-new book, signed by Summer and Iris, to take back home to Portland before bringing it back up to rest on our coffee table at the Orcas cabin.

Photo: Photographer Summer Moon Scriven, left, and writer Iris Graville

The weaker sex?

I don't think so.

Not after reading Joyce Carol Oates' collection of nine short stories involving mystery and suspense, in which the protagonist is either a woman or a child contemplating or causing the death of another.

"The Female of the Species" is a fast read and perfect for a change of pace from a full-fledged novel. It's the kind of book you can plow through all at once or dip in and out of as you please. I read it in a single weekend and pretty much agreed with what various critics said in the promotional blurbs accompanying the book -- it's gripping, creepy and imaginative.

Whether the main character is an abused wife or an adulterer, a 6-year-old climbing to a rooftop with her infant brother, a dying woman looking back on her past or a mild-mannered nurse dispensing her brand of mercy in the wee hours of the morning, Oates pulls you in with great characterization and luminous prose.

An excerpt from "Angel of Mercy":

A pillow. A pillow is best. She'd come to believe so. for when the patient is smothered, oxygen ceases to flow to the brain and the heart races and lunges and begins to falter and fails and will stop. And where, in the City of the Damned, hearts are old, leaky, strained, there is a yearning to stop. And so an ordinary pillow over the mouth and nose satisfies this yearning. And so the death pronouncement will be cardiac arrest. And so no physician would suspect, for why would he? Nor any nurse, mostly. Though Agnes must be alert to her sister nurses who look upon her (she has reason to think) with some suspicion.

Oates is way too prolific for me to have read even a tiny fraction of her novels and short stories. But what I've read -- "We Were The Mulvaneys" and "The Falls" -- I've thoroughly enjoyed. Some writers are absolutely in command of their material and it shows in every single sentence. Oates is one of those masters.

Here's an unofficial home page about the author that's pretty comprehensive: http://jco.usfca.edu/index.html

A Writers' Roundtable on Orcas

As our week on Orcas Island was winding down, I made time Saturday afternoon to attend a Writers' Roundtable at the public library. I went with modest expectations. I left with a sense that, with some practice and discipline, I just might be able to tap my creativity in ways I hadn't imagined.

What's more, I felt as if I'd glimpsed what life could be like if I were a full-time or even seasonal island resident. More on that later...

Discussion leader Jennifer Brennock, a graduate student completing her MFA in Creative Writing at Vermont's Goddard College, came well prepared for the two-hour session. She led us through an ice-breaker (tell one thing about a coming and one thing about a going, as you introduce yourself); some readings and handouts; and, finally, a free-writing exercise that saw nearly all of us -- four men and 16 women, mostly in their 40s and 50s -- read aloud from our hastily constructed stories.

The topic? The pregnant pause: "writing that is stewing in stillness between two significant happenings.” Think of it, Jennifer said, as the author intentionally slowing down the narrative and focusing tension on all or something that has come before. The reader knows something more is going to happen but the writer uses the pregnant pause as a set-up rather than as a point of resolution. A key character may be ruminating about something but hasn't yet decided or acted on it.

Put another way, the pregnant pause is like a bridge between what's happened already and what is yet to come. Jennifer read from Jhumpa Lahiri's “A Temporary Matter,” one of nine short stories in her Pulitzer Prize-winning Interpreter of Maladies. Then, she had each of us draw two slips of paper from a cloth purse and write a pregnant pause based on the random pairings. I drew "getting fired" and "a nervous breakdown."

My first instinct was to write about them in that sequence but I decided to reverse the order -- to have the breakdown lead to the firing. I could have made it first person but I decided to write from a wife's point of view. In the pregnant pause, she reflects on the signs of her husband's emotional stress and grudgingly accepts the reality of his new situation. And that would set up how she'd deal with it.

I was pleased that I could knock out 300 words in 20 minutes and have that rough draft be so well received by others in the room. I was struck by people's creativity in framing their stories, as well as their sense of humor, their willingness to share and, in some cases, the quality of their prose. I also realized that, as a lifelong journalist, I may have crossed a threshold of my own in considering other forms of writing -- whether it be fiction, poetry or song lyrics.

Most of all, I left with a realization that it wouldn't take much to get plugged into the local writing community. These roundtables happen on the second Saturday of each month at the library. Next month, the second annual Orcas Island Writers Festival will spill out over four days. And, I know from past visits, that there are any number of book readings, workshops and other events going on year-round.

We're not due to visit the island again until Thanksgiving, so it seems nearly certain that I won't hook up with these fellow writers again until sometime next spring, when Lori and I can spend more than just a long weekend on Orcas. I'll be looking forward to it.

Above photo by Lori Rede: Moonlight on Orcas Island

August and "Perfect Sand"

All this week, I've tried to practice what I preached during the class I taught at Portland State last winter -- namely, to spend some time surfing the Web, exploring the blogosphere and becoming part of the universe made up of tens of millions of blogs.

These past few days I've mentioned blogs by my co-worker Mike Francis, new media professor Pam Cytrynbaum and news reporter-turned-food writer Heather Lalley (all of whom, now that I think about it, are graduates of Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism).

Today, I recommend to you "Perfect Sand," written by August. (That's her screen name; in real life, she is Rachel, living in Cincinnati).

But, first, some more background. When I began the class, I cited a few statistics, which even now boggle the mind.

According to eMarketer (May 2008), there were:
-- 94.1 million blog readers in the U.S. in 2007 (representing 50% of Internet users)
-- 22.6 million bloggers in the U.S. in 2007 (representing 12% of Internet users)

According to Universal McCann (March 2008), there were:
-- 184 million people worldwide who had started a blog, including 26.4 million in the U.S.
-- 346 million people worldwide who read blogs, including 60.3 million in the U.S.

According to Technorati.com:
-- 77% of active Internet users read blogs.

Summing up, Discover Magazine in 2007 said:

"The blogosphere is the most explosive social network you'll never see. Recent studies suggest that nearly 60 million blogs exist online, and about 175,000 more crop up daily (that's about 2 every second). Even though the vast majority of blogs are either abandoned or isolated, many bloggers like to link to other Web sites."

Given the explosive growth in this experimental medium, and allowing for extremes in quality, is it any wonder you can purposefully search for a blog on a specific topic and find treasure as well as trash? Likewise, is it any surprise you can stumble across something that disgusts or delights you?

It was the latter method that led me, about a month ago, to a blog that instantly appealed to me. It had all the qualities that I touted to my class: Well organized, clearly written with a distinctive voice, and thought-provoking content. A closer look revealed the writer's intelligence and tendency toward introspection.

What stood out to me? References to writers and topics that I care about, such as stories, teaching, writing, language, education. One post, "In the news," referenced David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, writing about a successful charter school in Harlem. Another, "Dishonor descended," discussed the words we use in everyday speech to either muddle or convey real meaning, citing the terms "waterboarding" and "water torture" as one example.

"Language," August wrote, "has the power to connect, to reveal truths, but it also can disguise or obfuscate...the truth."

As an editor, I'm all about clarity and specificity.

Anyway, I think August is a terrific writer. We've become followers of each other's blogs and I invite you to check hers out. http://perfectsand.blogspot.com/

And I hope you, readers, will expand this conversation by offering links to other blogs or Web sites that you recommend.