Showing posts with label Jonathan Baumbach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jonathan Baumbach. Show all posts
Monday, December 28, 2015
Sunday, December 20, 2015
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Saturday, December 5, 2015
Friday, October 30, 2015
Friday, September 4, 2015
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Friday, April 3, 2015
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Monday, June 2, 2014
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Sunday, January 9, 2011
B.H. Friedman, RIP
Because of the tragedy in Tucson, it's been a sad weekend, and this morning we were further saddened to learn of the passing of B.H. Friedman, a terrific writer whose nonfiction was justly celebrated but whose fiction -- novels and stories -- deserves wider recognition.
We first learned of B.H. Friedman when his 1974 novel, Museum, was published as part of the opening three books put out by the Fiction Collective; the others were by our Brooklyn College MFA professors, Peter Spielberg and Jonathan Baumbach, the first co-directors of the Collective, where we worked as an editorial assistant.
We read Museum, Friedman's fourth novel, 35 years ago and still recall it as a highly intelligent, spare, well-crafted story that both told us a lot about the art and museum world and delineated a compelling family drama. An excerpt:
Despite its legalistic impersonality, Em knew how difficult this letter must have been to write - or even to have had written. He imagined discussions between lawyer and client about spreading the gift over five years, the lawyer being tactful, Helen being - what? - hopeful? - self - deluding? Despite Alton Riggs's "suggestion," Em had long since decided never to ask her for such a letter, but rather, if necessary, to double his own pledge. Now once again he leaned over and kissed her hollow cheek.
"What about the others, besides Bill?"
"Leslie's the biggest surprise. Though I've often questioned her motives, she did suggest Louis, and she's been absolutely supportive on every design issue that's come up. Maybe she sees the new building as a way to re-establish our side of the family. Whatever it is, she's so excited I'm almost beginning to like her."
"As children you were closer than you think," Helen shut her eyes for a moment, trying to remember. "You teased her and she bossed you and all that, but underneath I'm not sure if you two didn't get along better than most brothers do with older sisters."
Em wasn't sure either. He shrugged, moved on to the remaining member of his committee: Ellis Murdoch.
"He attended this last meeting. He's just back from Europe-"
"I know. He's the only one from the museum, besides you, who's come to see me. The people from other organizations I'm involved with visit, but your family - I wouldn't give a dime to the museum, if it weren't for you-" Her eyes shut again - and her mouth, on an unintelligible phrase, perhaps "and your father."
"Until Ellis returned Byron Lord had been feeding us the information about the museum's operation. D'you know By?"
There was no response. Helen was asleep, breathing deeply. Em tiptoed from the room. All that about Ellis's and By's opposed ideas concerning lighting, hanging, systems of movable partitioning, almost everything - all that could wait until Em's next visit.
In the New York Times, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt called it "the most intellectually stimulating of the three [Fiction Collective's initial] books" and said it "poses interesting questions about the function of museums and offers credible fly-on-the-boardroom-wall views of the way such institutions are run." For us, a kid who knew nothing about the art world, it was an insider's peek and a meditation on the limits of idealism written by an erudite literary mensch who was, in his daily life, a highly successful businessman and executive.
B.H. Friedman, of course, was best known for his innovative and magisterial biographies of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Jackson Pollack, but his fiction was also first-rate. Especially his stories: his collection Moving In won the CCLM Award and his collection Duplex (our favorite) won the Nelson Algren Award. His last book of short fiction, Swimming Laps: Stories and Meditations, proved that he never lost his touch, even in his seventies.
The first non-family trustee of the Whitney Museum Board of Trustees, B.H. Friedman was beloved by many in the art world. We offer condolences to his family and hope that lovers of literature will check out his books of fiction if they're not familiar with his work.
He was the one of the most gentlemanly writers we dealt with as an editorial assistant at the Fiction Collective in the mid-1970s and a different kind of role model than our creative writing professors. Like many others, we will miss him.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Kirkus Discoveries reviews Richard Grayson's AUTUMN IN BROOKLYN
Today, August 26, 2009, Kirkus Discoveries reviewed Richard Grayson's Autumn in Brooklyn: September-November 1978:
AUTUMN IN BROOKLYN
Author: Grayson, Richard
Review Date: AUGUST 26, 2009
Publisher: Superstition Mountain
(261 pp.)
Price (paperback): $15.00
Publication Date: 2009
ISBN (paperback): 978-0-578-03208-5
Category: AUTHORS
Classification: NONFICTION
Three months’ worth of diary entries from a pivotal period in the author’s life and career.
Grayson (The Silicon Valley Diet and Other Stories, 2000, etc.), began keeping a daily dairy in 1969. It’s not entirely clear why he’s decided to publish the entries from this specific time period now, but his first semester teaching at Kingsborough Community College provides something of a narrative arc, and a number of dramatic events occur within these three months—his father’s surgery to remove a facial tumor, the editing of his first collection of short stories and the Jonestown massacre and assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk in San Francisco. Being dropped into the middle of someone’s life is a disorienting experience, and there’s not enough context for many of the names Grayson drops, but a handful take shape as real people: Ronna, the aspiring journalist who wants to keep sleeping with Grayson in spite of his preference for guys; Grandma Ethel, made miserable by the diet designed to keep her cancer in remission; and Rosa, the troubled student who frightens Grayson by lying to his face and then declaring her love for him. But the book is perhaps most intriguing as a portrait of a young man trying to make it as an artist in the 1970s. Almost every day brings acceptances or rejections from magazines with fabulous titles like Nit & Wit, The Smudge and Dirty Linen. Meanwhile, the author name-checks fringe luminaries such as Jonathan Baumbach, Susan Fromberg Schaeffer and Michael Lally. Elsewhere, Grayson worries his friends will think he’s a sellout for signing with the now-hard-to-remember Taplinger Publishing Company. As a writer, the author is known for his stylistic playfulness and irreverent humor, but these diary entries are straightforward and bracingly honest—the young man depicted here is kind, jealous, prickly, ambitious and frightened. Aspiring writers may feel a little less alone after reading this daily catalog of soaring ambitions and crushing doubts.
Those familiar with Grayson’s life and work will appreciate the inside look into these formative months.
Autumn in Brooklyn is available for free reading at Google Books and Scribd.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Kevin Killian reviews Richard Grayson's "Summer in Brooklyn" at Amazon.com
We were pleased and honored to discover that the noted writer Kevin Killian (Shy, Bedrooms Have Windows), whom we've read with pleasure but have never met or been in touch with, recently reviewed Summer in Brooklyn at Amazon.com:
I became aware of this book after stumbling across some extracts on the net published by Brian Pera in his invaluable LIFE AS WE SHOW IT blog. The extract grouped together every time Richard Grayson went to the movies in the early 70s, and the diary entries from which this info was taken were immediately appealing and fresh--and real, the work of an authentically young man. So I ordered the book right away from Superstition Mountain Press, in order to get a bigger picture of Grayson's youth than just his movie going habits.
I was not disappointed. SUMMER IN BROOKLYN gives us the diary entries from Memorial Day through Labor Day, for six different years. Each day skips to a different year (1969-1975, so seven years get covered). At first Richard is eighteen, but often he is 24, and what a difference between the two ages! It's confusing and ultimately exhilarating, to see Richard slalom among all these ages, like a pinball in a giant machine. Soon however you will get a grip on the immutable facts of his life. Nurtured by a loving Jewish family in the Sheepshead Bay area, Richard grew up bookish and bright, already a storyteller by the time he enters Brooklyn College. In a way, it's like a Neil Simon play over again, except Richard benefits from the sixties sexual revolution and has some passionate sex affairs over time with girls like Ronna and Shelli. He's bisexual, or so he says, though we never see him having sex with any guys--maybe that's a pastime he saved for winter months. He fell in with the Fiction Collective crowd (book is dedicated to Jonathan Baumbach)), who encouraged his gift for postmodern prose, and turned him onto like minds.
It was an incredibly exciting time to be young, and the boys and girls of his generation believed they could change the world through direct political action. But they didn't let that stand in the way of having fun--and the inevitable angsty gloom of adolescence. SUMMER IN BROOKLYN is a time capsule of names from the news I never thought I'd hear again--remember Clement Haynesworth for example? Otherwise Richard works hard, makes good grades--seems to go to school all summer long, makes the reader feel that being a "grind" has all sorts of glamour. I can't wait to read more of Grayson's work, and as for that picture of him on the back cover, arms folded, waiting for me on his stoop pumped up in khaki shorts and a gray T-shirt, well, either it's a fluke shot or Richard Grayson actually is the most attractive writer ever.
As summer begins, this is the perfect book to reveal the hidden flavors of summers long ago and far away.
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