davidtreuer.com
Novels:
Little
The Hiawatha
Dr Apelles
Essay Collection:
Native American Fiction
we’re getting the christmas tree. usually we walk out in the woods, argue, and cut one down and drag it home. however SOME people in the x-mas tree lobby want to buy one because they last longer. i am hoping the sacred tree flowers again.
last night we drove to red lake and watched the red lake/cass lake basketball game. saw a lot of old friends, bought a sweatshirt, ate a snickers. The game was a damn good one. It began with the Flag Song, sung by what looked like like a skeleton crew of students lead by one of the Battle River singers; but since this is Red Lake, even with a few kids and one or two adults the song was totally impressive. This was followed by the Star Spangled Banner, which, since there is no band program at RL, was a canned tune played over the PA system. It seemed tinny and lackluster and expected compared to the flag song.
And then the game began. RL is all Indian, Cass Lake (CL) was mostly Indian. Both teams had Indian coaches and Indian assistant coaches. The refs were almost all Indian. Both teams were good. Crisp passes and solid defense to begin, but then as the game got the better of them, wild grabs and reach-ins and inspired passing. But they played good ball throughout. And what was interesting was that even at its most intense neither team said much. THe boys didn’t trash talk and very few spectators called out to the refs. The coaches stayed in front of their benches. The cheerleaders against the east wall and elders in wheelchairs along the west. No one freaked out. No one complained about the injustice of anything. There was just the game. The boys sweating, huffing, and even, I saw, laughing at themselves when they bobbled the ball or passed to a ghost. There was just the game, that was it. Everyone enjoyed it. Everyone was IN it. Red Lake won by 10.
today we got the christmas tree–a long walk in the woods past my snares, over the hidden humps and valleyes of old tracks . . . and ended up cutting down a balsam in my mother’s yard next to her garage.
Hello All–Check out the “last line” section of esquire.com for a new essay about my new novel NEVERLAND. It’s prurient, but it’s got heart.
For those of you who have come here FROM the Esquire site, here’s the exceprt from the new novel that I wrote about. Let me know what you think. Of course, excerpting a novel is a bit like interrupting sex: it’s usually ill-advised and not worth the trouble. But here it is anyway, and like interrupted sex, it probably won’t make much sense.
Lily was on the couch watching television while Windy made hotdish in the kitchen. Weissman let the door close behind him and he stood just inside the door for a few minutes while he warmed up, surveying the scene. Lily looked up and smiled warmly at Weissman, and since there was no rush (and perhaps because they had seen one another so recently in the hotel laundry and their passion reached such a pitch that now, in the warm incandescent light of the house, they were a little embarrassed) she turned her attention back to the television. Windy acknowledged Weissman but stayed in the kitchen after informing Weissman that he needed to hurry and finish his hotdish because he was going to another wake and Weissman was welcome to come along. Weissman, who had grown very cold while talking with Caspar, kept his coat and gloves on and let himself warm up by the door. This way he could pretend like he was gazing in on Lily’s life, as he was simply a viewer and not part of the view. It was a pleasant sensation.
Lily sat as she had before, when he had first come to Windy’s house after visiting the sacred fire at the school; with her legs tucked underneath her and her arms folded under her breasts, breasts that he now knew by touch. She wore a loose, comfortable-looking sweatshirt. She must have woken up not too long before because her straight beautiful hair was pulled up casually and folded into a black scrunchie at the back of her head, which exposed her long neck and smooth, unblemished skin. She didn’t wear any make-up.
Weissman turned his attention to the television. He once again admired the large, sleek, flatscreen attached to the far wall. The program itself was confusing. The program looked like a talkshow. A studio audience mostly made up of teenagers and youths in their twenties sat in stacked rows, like those of an amphitheatre, which bent around a small stage. A very attractive woman in her late twenties with a microphone and ample cleavage walked both through the audience and gave the audience members a chance to speak into both the microphone and the cleavage before adding her own comments. The occasion had an informal feel to it. The kids in the audience wore hip T-shirts emblazoned with catchy or cryptic sayings. Their hair—male and female—was architecturally messy. From what Weissman could see they looked happy and enthusiastic. After talking to a few audience members the host spoke into the microphone and addressed the camera after which the program faded into a music video.
Weissman couldn’t catch what the artist’s name was. It flashed across the screen too quickly, and all he managed to read was the last part of her name, “—ilera” and the title of the song, “Candy Man.” What he did catch was that she was a very petite platinum blonde with an enormous vocal range. The song itself sounded to Weissman like a send-up of an Andrews Sisters number. But the vocalist was much sexier than the Andrews sisters had been, that was for sure. The story or theme of the video was a pastiche of images from the 1940s, set mostly in a very stagey version of a USO club. The singer was dressed in a body-hugging version of a sailor’s dress whites with her cap set at a jaunty angle. As soon as Weissman’s eyes had absorbed the cocktail of music, image, and song the video cut to another scene—this time the singer had joined the audience of shouting servicemen and was dressed in a baby pink dress. The jitterbuggers of Weissman’s era never looked so good. Then the video jumped again to the singer made up like Rosie the Riveter or the female factory worker from Ypsilanti, MI featured in the We Can Do It! poster. Her hair under a scarf and a red work shirt clinging to her ribs, her naval exposed and her breasts pushing out the top. Weissman wished, with a sudden ache, that Norman Rockwell had painted this singer instead of the scarily brawny woman featured on the Saturday Evening Post. The tune itself was catchy and Weissman felt his toes and feet beginning to move in time with the peppy music. The reinvention of WWII in the video made the war, at least this side of it, seem like a party that everyone was invited to. Black and white soldiers jumped and jived and marched in integrated formation, which made Weissman chuckle. The song ended in a large dance number, the singer having lost most of her clothes. She was clad now only in baby blue sequined hot pants and matching halter top—a combination of stewardess, officer, and prostitute. Needless to say, Weissman enjoyed the video, even though it seemed to come from a different world.
When the song was over and the program returned to the studio, Lily dimmed the volume and turned to Weissman.
“You should come sit next to me.”
He took off his coat and shoes and walked over to the couch and sat next to Lily. She didn’t change her position on the couch except to reach out and take Weissman’s hand. They both watched the television instead of gazing at one another. It was very pleasant for Weissman. Very comforting and family-feeling. His heart surged and he imagined sitting like this into old age, which was a very strange feeling because he was already old, but he didn’t feel that way. He felt quite young actually, not just physically, but emotionally as well. The simple thrill of sitting next to a very beautiful girl on a couch holding hands and watching music videos made him feel as though he had stepped out of his age. And there was also the fact that his heart beat wildly and his thoughts churned and turned, jumping from subject to subject.
“What is this program?” asked Weissman with awe.
“Oh its nothing, a video program. On MTV.”
Weissman had heard of MTV, of course, everyone had. But he had never watched or heard MTV even though he, and many others, made casual references to the “MTV generation” or the “MTV-ication” of America, by which they meant the plastification and packaging of culture and art itself, ready for easy consumption. If he’d known he’d enjoy it so much he would have been less critical.
“I know you’re thinking this is a very silly thing to watch—”
“Not at all!”
“—but it’s actually pretty amusing. It’s a program called TRL, which stands for Total Request Live. Audience members talk and chat and choose their favorite videos, which are then played, and then more talking, and more videos. Obviously, the program was given a playlist and told that certain videos have to be played. But it’s fun anyway.”
On the program the chat with the audience drew to an end and another video began. This time Weissman caught the name of the artist: Christina Aguilera. The video was entitled “Ain’t No Other Man.” The video was once again set in the 1940s. This time the director had chosen a noir theme, complete with femme fatale juke joint singer and private eye in double-breasted suit, but had opted to omit any kind of plot in lieu of a sequence of dance numbers ranging from on-stage (where Aguilera was clad in a silver sequined dress) to the dressing room (white satin and tulle corset) to a mixed-race slumber party scene (red scoop neck sweater and white cotton panties). Weissman was once again speechless. He suddenly hated his record player and his Mahler records and never wanted to see them or hear them again. When the video was over Lily once again turned the volume down.
“When I was little, I always wanted to be an actress who specializes in music videos. Watching this stuff now seems silly, especially with you because I’m watching with your eyes and mine at the same time, and this seems like a program for children.”
“I don’t think it is childish at all. And it’s certainly not for children.” He was thinking of the corset.
“Maybe. But it was made by children, don’t you think? But as I was saying, when I was younger I wanted to be in videos like this. I didn’t want to be a singer or a dancer or even a regular actress like many girls want to be. I just wanted to be in these videos. I wanted those worlds to be my world. I wanted to be someone else’s fantasy. Life is so much easier that way. I wanted to borrow their fantasies. No wonder America is in love with music videos and movies and such things: it is much safer to borrow someone else’s fantasies than it is to make your own. Or to have your own. When all you can imagine for yourself is more pain and sorrow and bad luck and uncertainty, it seems much better to borrow a world that always keeps you entertained and you can be sexy without fear of repercussion and everyone’s always dancing and instead of talking you sing and everyone loves everyone else and even enemies dance out their aggression instead of shooting one another.”
Weissman suddenly remembered the musicals of his day. Sound of Music, Camelot, South Pacific, even West Side Story. World War II spawned these productions—the terror life sending ordinary citizens into the arms of musical fantasies that were just as Lily had described. Much safer indeed to live inside someone else’s fantasy indeed.
They lapsed into silence and let Total Request Live do the speaking for them. Weissman’s thoughts turned to his high school years in Yellow Springs. This was the early 1940s and perhaps his thoughts went bouncing back there because of Christina Aguilera. She seemed like an obvious stimulus. So naturally his thoughts returned to this time. What was unexpected was that Christina Aguilera’s sexy video antics provided inspiration for a new series of thoughts about writing, and he was once again overcome with the desire to write. His thought was this: that new and unexpected literary styles aren’t shocking as much as comforting, that the unfamiliar can be very comforting and we can find our true expression in the strange. Of course, Bertoldt Brecht (his own father’s favorite playwright) had realized this seventy years before Weissman sat on the couch with Lily watching MTV on The Reservation.
Weissman asked Lily quietly, “Do you mind if I go write a little bit?” He needed to put down in words the thoughts that were cruising around his dome. He wanted to tell her about his conversation with Louis Boisson, but that could wait a few minutes.
“Of course not. Please write. But I have a favor to ask: could you stay here? Do you think you can write here on the couch next to me? That would be very comforting. If not, I understand, and you can go in one of the back bedrooms or even sit at the kitchen table. We can tell Windy to keep his cooking to the countertops.”
“The couch, your side, they will be fine. Better than fine. Perfect.”
Lily smiled. Weissman smiled. Then he got up and retrieved a pen and a pad of hotel paper from his coat pocket and then returned to the couch and began to write, with Lily and MTV in the background. His mind was split into three sections: one part stayed with Lily on he couch and watched Total Request Live. Another part skated far ahead into the future where he imagined being far away from The Reservation with Lily, someplace they could be happy forever. The third section of his brain, the writing part, wandered back to his own adolescence. Taken all together, he felt he could live on the couch with Lily for eternity and be happy. He was happy.
well, it had to happen. 8 months and 640pp later, the novel is finished. yep. done. usually it takes me 5 years to write a book so either i must be on to something or . . . well. or i’m on to something. we’ll see. i’ve managed to wander off in a new direction again, can’t bear repeating myself. this new novel is a strange, accessible, beast.
other than that, we’re getting ready for the paperback release of THE TRANSLATION OF DR APELLES slated for January 2008. So get your gift cards ready. APELLES will be cheaper soon.
oh–and look out for a piece on Esquire.com in the next month or two. in their “last line” section.
so . . . its been a while. sorry about that (it’s hard to apologize to millions but i’ll do my best).
i’ve been in paris, montreal, san antonio, wisconsin, home, wisconsin, home, montreal, paris. et cetera. for the last two months.
paris was wonderful as usual: the stellar group at Albin Michel were stellar as usual. Thanks Francis Geffard, Anne-Emmanuelle, Sabine, and the rest. I was there with Charles D’Ambrosio and Craig Davidson–both wonderful short story writers and great company. Read RUST and BONE and also THE DEAD FISH MUSEUM if you want to be reminded of why short stories can be so potent.
Montreal was incredible. I’d never been there before. San Antonio as well. Beautiful, despite the crickets.
What’s new on this end you ask? I now have 500pp of the new novel. Hush hush. But it’s almost done. And hard at work on the book about modern rez life. So if you’re a rezzy person and what to talk about what life is like for YOU–feel free to drop me a line.
Reading: Camus: Nuptials and Roth: The Professo of Desire and Richard Powers: The Gold Bug Variatons.
Hello all and everyone. I lied. I said that I would write a daily blog. I hereby formally apologize to the 3 people that care . . .!
In other news: the NYT (A09) announced today that I received a Guggenheim Fellowship for my work on a non-fiction book about contemporary reservation life. I am pretty pleased. Honored. The writing itself is going very well. So that’s a relief.
And a plug for the book of a friend: Mohsin Hamid’s THE RELUCANT FUNDAMENTALIST is an amazing book. Read it. Most of all, BUY IT. If you want a truly unique and strange tale about the terrifying paths the heart can take in this post 9/11 world, read this. Don’t read anything else.
Okay. So it’s not a daily blog yet. I missed a couple. Thanks for the comments–those of you that commented. And for those that care–I am STILL getting up at 4:30 and still cruising along. 125 pages and counting - - - over the last 9 days. I think I like this pace. Though the novel is getting more and more baroque as time and words pass. More on that later.
In realworld news: APELLES will be issued in paperback by VINTAGE this coming September. Very very cool. Cheers for VINTAGE. We are now in the process of choosing cover art and layout. I am sworn to secrecy about specifics. But I DO have a question: what are your favorite book covers (paperback covers that is?). Please send in jpgs of your favorites, and for those who’ve read APELLES, what covers do YOU think would work best? Who knows, you may be the lucky winner.
David
Nice kudo–thanks to the Post!
