From the monthly archives:

December 2007

falling in and out of love with jonathan lethem

by jackie sheeler on December 29, 2007

i am a voracious but disorganized reader. i graze in the territory of lit fiction, with occasional forays into experimental (carole maso), mainstream (jodi picoult) and self-help (eckhart tolle). you would think, after nearly half a century of reading-as-breathing, that someone with my appetites would have come to lethem sooner. i did read “as she climbed across the table” a couple of years ago, picked it up at an office book swap and did enjoy the quirky read — though not so much that it sent me to The Strand for more of the same. in november, hungry for a good book to read on the plane and fairly annoyed with some of the books that i’d just gone through (the zero; blindness) i picked up a copy of “motherless brooklyn” — a title that has to appeal on some level to most of us born in that borough.

and i discovered a genius! i could not put the book down and was not disappointed for a moment — the character (whose name i don’t remember, but that’s OK, i don’t remember the names of real people that i’ve met either) with Tourette’s is so finely and compassionately drawn… i can still hear one of his tics (eat me bailey!) ringing out at the most inauspicious times. and bravo for the little seeker who slept with him, too. anyway, as soon as i finished the book i went to amazon and ordered everything lethem they had.

as they say, timing is everything. i put my stack of books (over-packaged as usual in amazon’s annoyingly consistent anti-environmental style) on the windowsill where All Books Waiting To Be Read live in my apartment. my sense of well being expanded along with the height of the stack. an embarassment of riches! not wanting to spoil my honeymoon with jonathan, i first selected a martin amis (”money” - great writing as usual, but his protagonists are always so depressing — i finish an amis book contemplating suicide) and only when i got through that did i give myself the gift of lethem.

it turned out to be one of those gifts that are so tawdry and embarassing you hardly know where to put yourself when the blasted thing pops out of its package. the appetizer to my jonamarathon was “gun with occasional music” - great title, right? i hated the narrator far more than i loved the title. the book brought me nothing: a nasty science-fiction detective in a land of talking animals where everyone snorts drugs to live. what a smarmy, self-satisfied, ignorant and pompous narrator! jonathan, how could you? i worried about my windowsill pile. did i have the receipt still? could i send them all back?

but the man who wrote “motherless brooklyn” deserves another chance. after all, lethem is the guy who gave away the movie rights to one of his recent books, to whoever came up with the best treatment. i like boldness. gotta give him another shot.

the gods smiled and i picked up “fortress of solitude”. i haven’t finished it yet, but that’s because i have to take time out to eat and sleep. what an amazing book, what an amazing character dylan is. there’s one scene in a park with dylan and three of his black partners where a well-meaning but nosy white hippiemother fucks up the whole deal and sets dylan back years. some of the writing and imagery is so keen, so well-drawn and insightful that, yes, i’m reading in bed while my eyes are doing the tear thing.

i have about another half day left at the fortress. then what? men and cartoons or girl in landscape? amnesia moon?

please, anybody, don’t let lethem let me down again — tell me what road to travel!

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what passes for privacy in brooklyn

by jackie sheeler on December 25, 2007

i am getting a headstart on my 2008 resolution, which is to do more blogging — an entry every six months just doesn’t cut it.

last night i took my dad out for xmas eve dinner at his favorite restaurant in brooklyn. he’s been eating there for decades — perhaps half a century — and doesn’t care how much (or little, in most cases) anybody else likes the place. but hey, it’s xmas, and my family stopped doing the wrapped-packages thing many years ago. eating dinner with dad at Garguilo’s without complaining is my holiday present to him, and at this point in his life all he wants for christmas is at least one of his three kids sitting across the white tablecloth, not fighting with anybody.

were just sopping up the garlic butter sauce from our shared appetizer of baked clams when a quiet commotion broke out a few feet away. i heard somebody say “he fell, he fell” near the knot of waiters and diners and (soon) white-hatted chefs that gathered in and soon entirely blocked the aisle. i saw a pale hand on the floor and told my father i thought a kid had fallen down. “a kid?” he says, “are you sure?” i’m not sure. all i can see at this point is a wall of black-suited backs and if it’s a kid i don’t want to get up and spectate, it might scare the shit out of him worse than he is already. a friendly bottle blond passes by, nods, says “yeah, he just fell down from the chair dead. heart attack. he’s gone.” how can she know all this so quickly? yet the minute it’s out of her mouth (in pure brooklynese, of course: hejuzz fehdown fromduh cheyah ded — hard atteck, heezeGAWN) we know it’s true. i stand up.

wannabe patrons are edging up the short flight of stairs, peeping whatever it is that’s keeping them from their dinners. somebody’s doing slow motion CPR. waiters and owners and busboys and chefs are running in all directions. i autodial my brother in new hampshire. of all the long and usually tedious dinners he’s suffered through in this place, this one he misses. “guy’s not breathing,” i tell him. by then i could see that and also can (still) hear several voices from the knot of worried penguins above him saying it. it occurs to me i can record this for him so i get off the phone and stand up again just as a handful of diners come flying up from the back room. a young woman in a black sweater muscles everyone aside and starts doing real CPR on the guy. one of the waiters sees me standing up and being shy about my little digicam, and encourages me to move to the front, actually pointing out the open seat with the best sightlines.

turns out the rescuer gets his heart going just a moment before the EMTs and all their equipment hit the scene. murmurs of “miracle” go around the room, the man opens his eyes, seems to be trying to talk. he’d been out for at least 4 minutes, likely longer. i didn’t think it worked that way, that you just get up from the dead and start answering questions, but here he was.

the woman in the black sweater medical student from georgetown (”just graduated top of her class” her cousin tells me, “we got two doctors in the family now”).

i didn’t even realize that NYPD was on the scene until one of them got in my face. “you recording this?” he asked. “yeah. bad idea?” he says “yes. this is a private moment.”

as i see it, this was likely to have been one of the least private moments the poor guy has ever had — there are a few hundred people in this restaurant and every one of them watching. but it’s christmas and i have to remember my present for dad. eat at The Garge and don’t have no arguments. i shut down the camera and get back to my table just as they carry the poor lucky guy out the door on a stretcher.

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