I do suspect that my recent reviewer on Amazon must be chums with the amiable person who dropped in here after the last post. I can't recall remarking anywhere that I intended to write a trilogy, but both writers seem to share that curious assumption. Actually I only intended to write one book, virtually on a dare, but in the lengthy gap between creation and publication it became enticing to write the beginning of a second and see if there was enough interest to warrant proceeding with it. The enthusiasm from some of my own characters remains a bit of a shock.
One has few bones to pick with the reviews. Invention was challenged by the effort in Ballpark to include requests from more than one quarter -- it helps when a major paper publishes one's e-mail -- and one concludes that the twenty-first century's answer to the epistolary form (so beautifully exploited by Bram Stoker in his day) does not work as well as its forerunner. The tale currently in the works will contain no Internet exchanges, instrumental as they are in the political life of Arlington, where it seems every neighborhood has its own Yahoogroup.
It is harder to apologize for Pastorelli, who is the sort of character prone to take over a situation if he is not watched (readers of the tease fragment for Murder Behind the Scenes will deduce that I have found a way to sideline him for most of the story, without removing him utterly from the cast, which would be a pity). Truly, his model is someone whose long history of heavy-handed board-room performances, dating back to the days of the revered Ellen Bozman, strike one as having been already made up by some comic writer.
But I do dearly hope no one expects these bagatelles of mine to be a Baedeker of Arlington politics. One uses local affairs as a jumping off point, but it would be churlish to involve too much bald truth in a story colorful enough to make good fiction. One is not attempting to write Primary Colors, or any similar hinted-at tell-all. In fact, the backroom dealings and romantic upheavals of both novels are purely the invention of the author, who primarily enjoys drawing a good portrait -- and then seeing how well those portraits can be fitted into the festival of stock situations that is the generic pulp mystery plot. (One's hero must be crossed in love; get soundly roughed up at some point; do a bit of hard drinking; and oh so necessarily, be pounced upon by a femme fatale.) Truly, the rampant improbability of various parties having New Jersey Mafia connections, or attracting the attentions of loose women, etc., is part of the amusement. And then there was the author's ambition to use more characters made up out of the whole cloth in a second attempt. Perhaps Ballpark tried to do a few too many things at once. Life does imitate Art in some small ways, though. One hears that some of the real estate dealings of Ballpark have been approximated in real life, though without the desperation and coercion.
As for this "trilogy" misapprehension, perhaps it should be hexed right away by seeking requests for a future installment built around the well beloved Arlington County Fair. Whom would my readers like to see showcased? Or simply eighty-sixed? Which County Department seems to you most rife with skulduggery? I will avoid trying to do everything at once this time, but take all suggestions under advisement.
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11 comments:
I'm sure that many will be pleased to hear that some of the problems of the second book (too much Pastorelli, too many internet postings) will be avoided in the third installment. Also, I am happy to learn that there are plans for more than one more book. (After all, "practice makes perfect"). Moreover, I applaud your statement that your novels are not to be taken as Baedekers of Arlington politics; now if we can only get the real life versions of some of your characters to understand that. Finally, I hope that the real movers and shakers of the Arlington community make an appearance this time around. These numerous long-time community activists probably have more influence on County policy than the developers, the County Board, or the small group of fringe players that figure so prominently in your prior work.
Now, now, we cannot call very many of my characters "fringe players." (We can wish they were, depending on our views, but we can scarcely un-person colorful folk who have spoken first at Board meeting after meeting, won the Journal cup for their careers of activism, chaired a local party, or organized a citizens' resistance movement -- now can we?) One has the deepest respect for the folk who labor such long and often thankless hours with this commission or that neighborhood group, but by that same token, how many such does one wish to embroil in a sordid murder? Would there be, by definition, anything about their escapades to satirize? But we can look forward to at least one leader of a longtime activist group in the next novel.
As for the ire of real-life models (other than "Pastorelli," whose zest for his depiction, as evidenced on so many of those Yahoogroups, astonished even moi), gracious, did no one read the careful disclaimers? Oh, I can understand the shock of waking up one morning to discover one has been slain in an abrupt and possibly sordid manner. But none of the victims can yet complain that I failed to emphasize their nobler points post mortem. As for the rest -- madre de Dios!! it is fiction.
As for the Internet postings, here we sit at out respective keyboards, you in your pale anonymity, I with my four-legged familiar (no, not the redoubtable Fang) and my glass of Italian bitters. It is such a fact of our modern life, is it not, and was quite a fact of the baseball battles, so it seemed like a plot device to play with. But future intrigues go in quite different directions. One does not stick one's tiny tootsie into the same river twice: so said Heraclitus.
Well, let us just say that in the real world of Arlington politics, with the exception of the elected officials, the folks that you write about simply have had no influence on any matter of substance in the 30 years that I have been here. Good theatre? sure, but that is about all. I used to think that these folks were the only ones who thought they had influence and that you were just using them as interesting props in a fictional tale. Now I see that you have swallowed their pipe dreams too. What a pity!
As far as sitting here in my "pale anonymity," we are both anonymous, are we not? And I'm hardly pale!
Miss Jane A. Barcroft said...
The original post of this comment was deleted because of a minor but irritating solecism: nothing more mysterious than that, for the record. Now, my dear fellow, isn't it a bit presumptuous to claim to know whether I do or don't swallow anything? And isn't it yourself – not moi – who has got theatrical utility and public profile muddled up in his head with ideas of influence and worthiness? But peace, I think I see one of the roots of your unrest, and it has to do with wounded amour-propre. "The County Board is overrated. The opposition party is irrelevant. Various past and sitting members of county commissions are irrelevant, the Civic Federation is irrelevant [possibly arguable, yet it remains a fact of Arlington life]. The folk who struggled for a whole summer either to procure or prevent the construction of a bloody great baseball stadium in the County are irrelevant, and local journalism is irrelevant. Yet all these tangential entities are represented in these railway-stall novels, while I have sieved them from cover to cover and find no trace of anyone resembling me, me, glorious ME!!" One would think there was a positive yearning to see oneself and one's best-respected friends caricatured, roughhoused in assorted unpleasant ways, shot in the derriere, linked with organized crime and nasty magical rituals, or taken into police custody.
Alas, one cannot please everybody. To paraphrase those reviews on Amazon, if anyone is looking for a tale which depicts the triumphs and tragedies of unsung community heroes, he will have to look elsewhere. I am not Zola or Steinbeck, nor yet a W.P.A. novelist commissioned to ennoble the Conscientious Citizen in some high-minded work of fiction. I am but a bargain-bin Raymond Chandler or Mickey Spillane, and I take my characters where I find them in positions of visibility. One also reserves the right to bring back characters who have been received well once, make up some as inspiration strikes, or knead several real people into one. But I could place a setting in my next novel under historic trust, if it means so much to anyone.
Very interesting. I've read both novels and find them rather amusing.
Clearly they are novels and, for the life of me, I cannot understand anyone getting their knickers in knots but then that, too, is the Arlington Way.
I must say that a book about the so-called real movers and shakers in Arlington would be the most boring read one could imagine. I'm glad to see someone take the fiasco of politics in Arlington and create something humerous out of it because politics in Arlington is not humerous.
Maybe in another novel Miss Jane can
build a plot around how we buy the
"so-called movers and shakers" for
what they're worth, sell them for
what they think they are worth, and
with the proceeds wipe out the total
debt of Arlington in one fell swoop.
Again, it would be a novel because
there is no market for brain-dead
politicians.
Keep those books coming, Miss Jane,
because we need some humor inserted
into Arlington life; otherwise, we'd
be crying about the reality.
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "Hamlet", Act 3 scene 2
Your latest post rails against a convenient strawman that, alas is another work of fiction. I have no desire to appear in your books and I would prefer it if you left me out. In any event, I do not include myself in the long list of influential community activists whom you choose to ignore. I am sure that most --- if not all of them --- would also prefer to remain out of your dime store novels.
I was merely responding to your assertion that the "Saturday Morning Regulars" are not the "fringe players" that almost everyone outside their little circle and yourself believe them to be. I dare say that if all of them had spent their entire lives in Cleveland, Arlington County would look and feel almost exactly the same as it does now. Remove one of those civic activists, however, and the County would be a noticeably different and poorer place in which to live.
You admit that you are aware that the real life version of your Pastorelli character is widely publicizing your books as more truth than fiction. It is he --- not me --- who claims that the first two books are in the tradition of Zola or Steinbeck. Perhaps because he helps you sell books in exchange for a starring role in your series, you have done nothing to correct or muzzle him. As the Thomas Moore character says in "A Man For All Seasons":
"Silence Means Consent"
ARE there any questions?
Oh now, Mr. Anonymous Grumpy, as I suppose I must call you, how can you say I rail? I never rail. It is bad for the skin. On the other hand, here you are with your knickers in knots, as Mr. Anonymous Amiable (also above) puts it.
As for "Mr. Pastorelli's" opinion of Smitty's adventures or their reflection on reality -- goodness, has anyone ever tried to change that fellow's opinion? What a vision you give us! the horror! the conspiracy! "Scheming novelist rewards boardroom tub-thumper with starring role in exchange for crass lucre!" I have said over and over again that it's all bollocky fiction, and as Mr. Anonymous Amiable says, one avoids the boring when one selects a model. And what writer is eager to disparage praise? But I suppose some folk will not be pleased until I have cybernetically prostrated myself, promised never to again to blaspheme the civic dignity of our fair county, and taken away Mr. P's dinosaur.
But there is no point trying. Already within the space of forty-eight hours I have been importuned to showcase Arlington's selfless community activists, then told that none of them want to be in my horrid little books anyway. It is too confusing, and I am going to go make myself a nice tall mimosa now.
You called me "Grumpy"? Insulting me just for expressing an opinion at odds with your views? Well, enjoy your mimosa, Miss Jane. I shall not bother you again. I will now leave you in your little world where I found you. Goodbye.
Goodness, we have a thin skin if that is all it takes to insult us! My dear mother used to call me Grumpy when I was in a cross mood on a rainy day, and it rather bounced me out of my doldrums. Which of the Seven Dwarves should I have called him? He was clearly not Happy, and somehow Sneezy, Sleepy, etc., do not fill the bill. Well, he would probably not have appreciated a good mimosa. But it is well past mimosa time anyway.
It sounds to me like certain residents of Arlington have apparently had sense-of-humorroidectomies :-)
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