Athens (Ga.) Daily News story on Richard Grayson: "Presidential Contender Calls for Nuclear War"

The Athens (Ga.) Daily News has an article today (Monday, July 18, 1983) reporting on presidential candidate Richard Grayson's call for immediate nuclear war.

Gargoyle Magazine reviews Richard Grayson's EATING AT ARBY'S: THE SOUTH FLORIDA STORIES

The Washington, D.C.-based literary magazine Gargoyle reviews Richard Grayson’s Eating at Arby’s in issue 22/23 (1983):

___________________________________________
Eating at Arby’s: The South Florida Stories,
by Richard Grayson, Grinning Idiot Press,
P.O. Box 1577, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11202,
1982, 24 pp., $3, saddle-stitched.
___________________________________________


In this short collection, Richard Grayson has found a style of daffy unreality to make his experience of anomie in South Florida. In one-page vignettes, he writes of such diverse subjects as Haitian refugees, Cubans, Blacks, gays, “crackers,” old people, and the proliferation of malls, guns and Colombian dope through the eyes of a Looney Tunes duo, Manny and Zelda. They and their friends talk in Dick and Jane sentences about these subjects. Always they react with zany blankness, sometimes with hilarious “logic,” as in this example:

“Guns can be fun,” said José. “Guns can be fun and help you if you own a clothing store like I do . . . Guns can be your friends.”

“It is important to have friends here in South Florida,” said Zelda. “Manny, I want to shoot that gun. That gun will become our friend, just like José is our friend.”

“Nuestro amigo,” Manny said, as José handed him the gun.

Some pieces zing, as “A Long Boat Ride,” in which Manny mistakes Haitian refugees for newly arrived tourists. Correcting him, Zelda says:

“Soon they will be happy. . . Now that they are in South Florida, they will be very happy."

“Everyone is happy here,” said Manny. “. . . Let’s make friends with those Haitian refugees. Let’s take them with us to eat brunch at the Rascal House.”

“Oh Manny!” cried Zelda. “You are so silly. Haitian refugees do not come here to eat brunch at the Rascal House. They come here for freedom. You cannot get freedom at brunch at the Rascal House.”

Other piece deliberately court banality, as in “At the Beach,” where Chip says:

“. . . It is beautiful here. . . My gay friends and I like it very much. We have fun here. People are nice. The weather is good. We can enjoy the beach and make friends.”

The repetitious style of first-grade primers is surreal; its deliberate flattening suggests vacancy, diminution. Words like “nice,” “happy,” “fun,” clone themselves with dizzy inarticulateness. The satirist’s spleen, though clearly present, is muted. The grand style as in Swift is here deliberately monochrome and reductionist. There’s a buttoned-down quality, a muffling, even evisceration of content in places. Grayson’s too hip, maybe too pessimistic, to breastbeat. For his method, he appears to have taken literally, for humorous effect, a quotation from Emerson:

“Do not craze yourself with thinking, but go about your business. . . Life is not intellectual or critical, but sturdy. Its chief good is for well-mixed people who can enjoy what they find without question.”

And of course Zelda and Manny do just that. The vacation mentality, the weather, the wardrobe choices (“I like to see people wearing pink pants and white shoes”)—all point to a dreamland emptiness gussied up—or down, in Graysonstyle—as if for the Saturday morning cartoon crowd. It’s a method of despair.

Grayson’s deliberate lightness, though, is flawed by the final “Some Sad News,” where we learn José has been murdered. Though “murder is not fun”—virtually the only thing Manny and Zelda say isn’t fun in South Florida—the heavy-handedness spoils the Disneyland feeling. I would have preferred to have the collection end with the wonderful “A Chanukah Party.” A skewed United Nations gathers at Manny and Zelda’s: Bob the bisexual (who says he’s not bilingual), José the Cuban, Chip the gay, gramps and grandma, and Lois, the black chiropractor from Liberty City who wears Sasson jeans. Lois brings Hassan, her Palestinian friend, to the Chanukah party. Zelda says:

“You will be our Palestinian pal, too.”
“Thank you, Zelda,” said Hassan. “I will be glad to be your pal. I like your Sasson jeans and the food you have brought in from Arby’s.”
Zelda smiled. “In South Florida we are all friends. We are lucky to be here. We have malls and condos and happy, friendly people.”
“I love it here in South Florida,” said Manny. “Every day is like a Chanukah party here.”

Much current writing is decidedly casual. Big deals are out. This is an age of burnout. Grayson follows this trend here with his stylish vacancy, his deadpan blankness. Moreover, the discontinuities that flourished in her earlier fiction are tethered down here. Eating at Arby’s is a seamless collection of virtually the same encounter repeated eighteen times—the two innocents making happy-face babble as if they’re playing dolls. (Maybe the repetition of the encounter itself is a discontinuity, one which suggests hopeless stall.) Reading this collection is a little like finding Clark Kent when you’d hoped for Superman. Eating at Arby’s goes down easy: it entertains, it disturbs, but not too much. It’s a little like a sitcom, where the same joke gets repeated week after week. You like it but you look around uneasily and say, is this all?

—Maryl Jo Fox

Gargoyle Magazine reviews Richard Grayson's LINCOLN'S DOCTOR'S DOG

The Washington, D.C.-based Gargoyle reviews Richard Grayson's Lincoln's Doctor's Dog on page 78 of issue 22/23 (1983):

___________________________________
Lincoln's Doctor's Dog, by
Richard Grayson, White Ewe
Press, P.O. Box 996, Adelphi, MD
20783, 1982, 187 pp., $11.95,
Hdbk.
____________________________________

Don't let the cover picture or the title of Lincoln's Doctor's Dog, Richard Grayson's third collection of short stories, mislead you. Despite the realistic line drawing of Abraham Lincoln, a doctor, and a dog on the cover, the title story and the rest of the stories have nothing to do with a dog running to get Lincoln medical help or performing other heroic doggy deeds. Grayson couldn't care much less about Lincoln, his doctor, or his doctor's dog. This is bad news for all of you readers in search of sentimental mush about famous pets, but good news for those in search of a confirmed tongue-in-cheek.

In the title story, Richard Grayson thinly disguises a comic opera as a shaggy dog story. He shows off many of his favorite tricks: writing about writing; terrible plays on words ("Lincoln's doctor's dog's mother was a bitch"); a determination to involve the reader ("First of all, congratulations on your good taste in reading this story. . . But. . . I'd like you to consider if there's something else you should be doing at the moment."); manic speed (Grayson manages to race through all of the dog's life and describe a day in his own life in four pages); and using Richard Grayson as a major character.

One of the pleasures of reading Grayson is just watching him crank up his imagination and run with it. He experiments with different formats: question and answer, short paragraphs headed by adverbs, numbered fragments, and straight narratives. He tries writing about all sorts of different situations. His characters get paralyzed from flu shots, find work with the women of their dreams in x-rated movies, and have intimate relationships (including joketelling sessions) with porpoises. Going farther and father into an idea brings outstanding moments, such as this one in "Why Van Johnson Believes in ESP":

When Van Johnson first left Hollywood, his sister cried. He took her aside. . . and asked her, "Mabel, do you believe in dragons?" That was an old thing between them.

"Yes," his sister answered.

Then she didn't cry anymore and it was okay for Van Johnson to leave for Hollywood.

Grayson usually mixes up similar concoctions of absurdity and realism, with a dash of neurosis thrown in. My favorite stories capture an alienation, a sense of the individual as hopelessly puzzled as he or she stumbles through life. Expressed in "For the Time Being":

They do it with mirrors. That is how other people live. They have tricks I do not know about.

Not all of his efforts succeed. But you have to admire his reach (although you might wish he had exerted a little restraint by keeping the failures out of this collection). "I, Eliza Custis," the first-person tale of woe of George Washington's step-granddaughter, must have been a lot of fun to write in its ornate pseudo-eighteenth-century, self-pitying style ("But I feel it is important to me, having passed the age of fifty, to recount the events of my life for those who wish in the future to know the full story of my existence upon this planet."). But twenty-four pages of this quickly becomes tiresome. Also, Grayson's characters, despite the variety of their external circumstances, are very similar in internal circumstances.

But these are minor objections. Lincoln's Doctor's Dog is a lot of fun to have around the house and requires less effort than any other type of pet.

—Susan Lloyd McGarry

New York Times reports on Richard Grayson's campaign for President

The New York Times today (Saturday, May 28, 1983) reports on Richard Grayson's campaign for the Presidency as the candidate of the Committee for Immediate Nuclear War

Windsor Star Books Columnist Favorably Reviews Richard Grayson's I Brake for Delmore Schwartz

Today, Saturday, May 21, 1983, The Windsor Star's Books columnist Marty Gervais published a column, "My Lovely Enemy is a real stinker," reviewing several books, including Richard Grayson's I Brake for Delmore Schwartz, of which he said, "This slim, nicely designed book, written with unique wit, humor and stylized innocence, was an utter relief after those other two books."

In Toronto last week, I popped into This Ain't The Rosedale Library bookstore (one of the very best bookstores in North America for avant-garde, small press and underground literature) and picked up I Brake For Delmore Schwartz (Zephyr Press, 95 pages, $6.50), a book of stories by Richard Grayson. This slim, nicely designed book, written with unique wit, humor and stylized innocence, was an 1 utter relief after those other two books.

For one thing, it was interesting, and each of the 15 stories sustained my interest. The other thing is that although the writing is straightforward and simple, it is experimental, drawing upon different approaches and forms.

FOR EXAMPLE, in "Only Time Will Tell", Grayson employs the interview form to profile a fictional character and, curiously enough, one gleans a lot more of the frustration and truth of a character's life.

And another, "Different Places", uses a series of short vignettes. Grayson introduces us to his own America in a unique way. He headlines each segment by the name of a different community, and by including the U.S. postal code, somehow your focus is narrowed to the neighborhood level and you feel privy to the private lives and feelings of new characters. In essence, Grayson is showing us how he can rewrite Sinclair Lewis's vision of America.

IN ANOTHER, "Nice Weather, Aren't We?" - one of my favorites - Grayson uses word play and deliberately befuddles the reader. Midstream into the story, he starts introducing new characters or details that seem almost contradictory. It makes you suspect the typesetter or printer juggled the pages. But then Grayson saves the day, interjecting a comment like, "Come on, admit it, how many of you really thought the last part was true?"*

In this story, Grayson may actually say something about his whole approach to literature when he writes, "All I do really is manipulate reality."

Most novelists would agree with that, I'm sure. But the trick is to do it successfully and to find new ways of saying things.

In I Brake For Delmore Schwartz, Grayson achieves that. He not only makes you laugh but he makes you appreciate good writing.

Francis Marion College Writers' Retreat to Feature Poet Susan Ludvigson & Fiction Writer Richard Grayson

The Francis Marion College Writers' Retreat on May 26-28, 1983, directed by Robert Parham, will feature poet Susan Ludvigson and fiction writer Richard Grayson as staff.

ISRAEL TODAY May 6 issue features "The Writings of Richard Grayson"

The Friday, May 6, 1983 issue of ISRAEL TODAY features an article on page 13called "The Writings of Richard Grayson" by Mark Bernheim:

The Writings of Richard Grayson

MARK BERNHEIM

Which is the harder job – writing literature or writing about it? For those of us committed to writing about writers, we face the challenge to determine who has something to say and who has nothing, when the voice of the genuine writer is to be heard above the copyist or the mimic. At what point does a "promising talent" metamorphose into an established literary presence? For the greats even, when did they enter that state; when were they no longer "new voices" looking for an ear?

Of the many ambitious new writers whose works I receive, I could point to one Florida-based author, Richard Grayson, who seems genuinely posed for flight with a recognizable voice and content his own. A couple of years ago Grayson brought out a collection of sketches whimsically called Lincoln's Doctor's Dog, since he had read that the best selling books of recent times dealt with three subjects – presidents, animals, and diseases – and as a combination, well, a sure thing. Over the past few years he has brought out an impressive number of stories written in a widely experimental range of forms in small magazines. They are important efforts by virtue of their innovative voices and treatments of anxiety. Grayson is able to create a full range of masks from behind which the artist peers out to make his criticisms of artificial modern life. Among young writers born in the mid-point of our century, he holds an important place.

Many readers where drawn into his penultimate publication, commissioned by the Florida Arts Council, the flamingo-colored Eating at Arby's, which I thoroughly enjoyed last year. Grayson sounds a genuinely original voice in this slim volume that punctures the pretensions of never-never land life in what passes as America's idyll. The book is written in a deceptively simple, primitive style which invites our judgment on vacuity as the substitute for human contact. Florida may never be the same again after his portrayal of it in its plasticity and gaud. Underneath the shiny surface, the absence of human values becomes apparent, and Grayson looks everywhere in the exploding population of immigrant – the old, the ethnic, the outcast – for signs of some spirituality:

"Let's make friends with those Haitian refugees. Let's take them with us to eat brunch at the Rascal House."

"Oh Manny," cried Zelda. "You are so silly. Haitian refugees do not come here to eat brunch at the Rascal House. They come here for freedom. You cannot get freedom at brunch at the Rascal House."

"Zelda, you are right. I made a silly mistake . . . someday I hope those Haitian refugees will have brunch at the Rascal House. We should give them free Danish and onion rolls so they know they will be welcome here in South Florida."

"Oh, Manny, you are being silly again. Even in South Florida there is no such thing as a free brunch."

Perhaps the echoes here of Albee and Ionesco will be a bit strong for critics who might term Grayson derivative, but for those who are familiar with the peculiar anxieties of contemporary life – and especially Jewish life, for Grayson comes directly from an observant tradition – his aim is right on focus.

His newest work, I Brake for Delmore Schwartz, is particularly impressive as a collection of pieces written and rewritten over a period dating back to the mid-seventies. To my mind, Grayson is best when he distances himself what only appears to be personal involvement but probably isn't. Nonetheless, when he is clearly creating fictional portraits of other disturbed people of all backgrounds, he is very sharp, and some of his characters will burn themselves into your memory. Did I say characters? One of the best in the new collection puts the narrative on the cold – yes, cold – that killed William Henry Harrison after the shortest term on record as U.S President back in 1841. In some respects, the story is typical of Richard Grayson – the unexpected insight into a cliché, a commonplace of the mind that we have never seriously thought about before. His best voices --- whether a two-page sketch of this pompous cold that saved a nation from an incompetent or a full-length picture of the gloomy artist who would brake – and probably break, too – for a broken figure like the poet Delmore Schwartz – these voices matter.

Grayson has written, "It's the pedestrian realities that are unchanged in my fiction, while the emotions go through great metamorphoses." It is these emotions that make the challenge of writing about writers a promise, never a discouragement.

Brooklyn Literary Review reviews Richard Grayson's EATING AT ARBY'S: THE SOUTH FLORIDA STORIES

The Brooklyn Literary Review has published a review of Richard Grayson's Eating at Arby's: The South Florida Stories on page 306 of issue 5 (1983):

Book Review

Eating at Arby's
by Richard Grayson
(Grinning Idiot Press)


by Bob Tramonte


It has always been my feeling that the best writers are linguists within their native tongue. They are able to bend and use every subtlety, nuance and tick of the language they were born to. This is certainly true of Richard Grayson in Eating at Arby's. In this tastefully wicked and funny tale, he combines the metre and sound of a first-rade reader to strip the pretensions of brain-bleaching vacationland mania and moronizing addlepated materialism. Imagine a writer able to do all that while you're laughing your cojones off!

Try to visualize if you will, Mr. Rogers scoring in Needle Park or Big Bird standing on Pacific Street looking for a trick. That's vaguely what Manny and Zelda are like. They remind us of the children and drunks God watches over as they stumble into every horror Miami has to offer, their innocence and ignorance unscathed. I had the unmitigated cheek to hand Eating at Arby's to three perfect strangers and got the following responses:
"IT MAKE ME CALL MY COUSIN SHIRLEY" - Tony Livotti.
"IT MADE ME JUGGLE LENTILS" - Hans Henning.
"COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN, READ IT WHILE SITTING SHIVA" - Irving Baumrind.

Frankly, I couldn't agree more with these three people. After my first reading, I scrambled eggs with my best wing-tipped shoes!

Brooklyn Literary Review reviews Richard Grayson's I BRAKE FOR DELMORE SCHWARTZ

The Brooklyn Literary Review has published a review of Richard Grayson's I Brake for Delmore Schwartz on page 307 of issue 5 (1983):

Book Review

I Brake for Delmore Schwartz
by Richard Grayson
(Zephyr Press)

by Tom Lane

Here is a slim collection of fifteen short stories, the fifth collection to be published by Richard Grayson. The style is largely experimental and occasionally novel.

Grayson respects the traditional approach to writing fiction: the well-wrought stories wherein every word counts. However, his education, two years of fiction writing at Brooklyn College culminating in an MFA, emphasized the experimental, and his own fictions as a result are both structured and fragmented. Such stories as "The Autobiography of Wiliam Henry Harrison's Cold" and "Oh Khrushchev, My Khrushchev" are well structured, and appeal to the reader on the strength of their novelty. Others are fragmented and spatial like "Different Places" and "That's Saul, Folks." These stories appeal too because they capture the rhythms of modern life and play them back faithfully.

Grayson's themes are the themes of the twentieth century. The theme of isolation abounds in "Hold Me" where the author comments, "I am living in a place with strangers. Even my family are strangers now." Other themes covered include the disintegration of the family, helplessness, and sexual indecisiveness.

The writing is often confessional. Grayson approaches writing as a form of self-analysis through which he hopes not only to understand himself, but humanity as well. Here he only partially succeeds, because at the book's end the reader is left with more insights into Grayson than into the world at large. Nevertheless the writing throughout is crisp and honest, and the style versatile, making the collection worth reading.

Column in Boca Raton News reports on Richard Grayson's appearance at National League of American Pen Women Writers' Workshop in Boca Raton

On April 25, 1983, Marie Tone's column in The Boca Raton News reported on a writers' workshop in Boca Raton sponsored by the local chapter of the National League of American Pen Women:

Richard Grayson, a fiction writer of short stories, entertained the audience with wit and humor on his personal experiences in the field of fiction writing.

Boca Raton News article on Richard Grayson's appearance at National League of American Pen Women Writers' Workshop in Boca Raton

On April 11, 1983, The Boca Raton News reports on Richard Grayson's appearance leading a writers' workshop in Boca Raton sponsored by the local chapter of the National League of American Pen Women.

Library Journal reviews Richard Grayson's I BRAKE FOR DELMORE SCHWARTZ: "Highly Recommended"

Library Journal reviews Richard Grayson's I Brake for Delmore Schwartz on page 839 in its April 15, 1983 issue:


Grayson, Richard. I Brake for Delmore Schwartz
Zephyr Pr., 13 Robinson St., Somerville, Ma 02145
Apr. 1983. c. 94p. LC 82-63067. ISBN 0-939010-04-6.
$9.95; pap. ISBN 0-939010-03-8. $4.95 F

Forget the title. Forget the introduction. Both are far too cute. But Grayson is a fabulous storyteller and stand-up talker. His stories are short and anecdotal and rely upon captivating the reader immediately; then they sort of swim along, like a heavy bedtime story. Yet, Grayson can make us believe we are listening to something as outrageous as the voice of a dead United States President's cold. It works. We become a party to a benign assassination as we hear the cold alternately brag and confess. Grayson can be harsh and, at times, self-indulgent and completely without taste. Yet, his intelligence and imagination are fine. Highly recommended.
—Page Edwards, formerly with MIT Libs.

Tuesday Evening in Greenwich Village: Reading and Publication Party for I BRAKE FOR DELMORE SCHWARTZ by Richard Grayson at B. Dalton Bookseller

A reading and book publication party for I Brake for Delmore Schwartz by Richard Grayson took place on Tuesday evening, March 23, 1983, at the B. Dalton bookstore on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street in Greenwich Village. (We're pictured, top at right, holding a copy of the book.)

Publishers Weekly reviews Richard Grayon's I BRAKE FOR DELMORE SCHWARTZ

Publishers Weekly reviews Richard Grayson's I Brake for Delmore Schwartz in its March 4, 1983 issue:

I BRAKE FOR DELMORE SCHWARTZ
Richard Grayson. Zephyr Press (13
Robinson St., Somerville, Mass.
02145), $4.95 ISBN 0-939010-03-8;
hardcover $9.95 ISBN 0-939010-04-6


Most of the 15 stories here fall into three broad categories. Grayson is at his best in his most straightforward, traditional narratives, among them "That's Saul, Folks" and "Slightly Higher in Canada." Also pleasant are the author's obviously autobiographical stories, which are built of fragments of memories; he recalls his great-grandmother in "Reluctance," and an uncle dying of cancer in "Hold Me." Least successful are Grayson's more experimental pieces, many of which directly or indirectly deal with his perspectives on writing: "Y/Me" is a short diatribe on the letter "y." "Only Time Will Tell" presents an inconsequential self-interview. And in "Is This Useful? Is This Boring?" the author repeats these queries (asserting that it doesn't matter anyway), until the reader, alas, must answer both questions truthfully.
[April]

Fort Pierce-Port S. Lucie News Tribune reports on Richard Grayson's talk at St. Lucie County Library

The Fort Pierce-Port St. Lucie News-Tribune today, February 27, 1983, reports on author Richard Grayson's March 7 talk at the St. Lucie County Library in Fort Pierce:

AUTHOR TO SPEAK AT SLC LIBRARY

Writer Richard Grayson will speak at the St. Lucie County Library, 124 North Indian River Dr., as part of the author series, on Monday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m. in the library's meeting room.

Grayson teaches creative writing at Broward Community College. The author's book titles tend to be unforgettable. He has written With Hitler in New York and Lincoln's Doctor's Dog and Other Stories.

The Florida Arts Council awarded Grayson a $3000 grant for his paperback book, Eating at Arby's: The South Florida Stories. His career began in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he was an editorial assistant with the Fiction Collective.

Grayson has published more than 150 stories in periodicals and anthologies in the United States, Canada, England, France, and Australia.

Grayson has received a scholarship from the National Arts Council to study at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, a fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and an Ottille Grebanier Drama Award from Brooklyn College.

There is no admission charge for the lecture.