Lots of people could never be a novelist, so I don't feel inferior to anything. I just recognize what the limitations are on what kind of sentences I can string together. And that number could NEVER turn into a book—even non-fiction.
If the high school guidance counselor, Mrs. Bittkower, that I went to see after I dropped out of my second college had sent me to a job opening at the NYT rather than a health insurance company, I might have made my way up from whatever entry position that was to perhaps a byline. Who knows?
I certainly was the clay that could have been molded into a reporter. I knew the city. I was, and still am, sardonic. And in those days drinking was a pastime, so I'm sure I wouldn't lack for a partner or two downstairs at whatever bar was favored by the crew. I did lack a driver's license, but so did Jimmy Breslin. He just got someone to take him to wherever he had to go.
This blog scratches my itch to write, and as anyone knows who might admit to reading it, there is nothing posted that could ever be turned into a novel—at least not one written by me.
A favorite subject of NYT obituaries are those who have passed away and might have achieved some fame in the arts, perhaps writing. So when I read the obit for Susie Steiner I was intrigued by what she might have written.
It was described that she was British and created a woman police detective Manon Bradshaw that she featured in three novels. Having started the first one in the series, "Presumed, Missing" I don't think "police procedural" applies, although the settings are a police detective squad and a young adult missing female from a well-connected family.
Why Masterpiece Theater hasn't caught up to creating a miniseries on Manon is a mystery itself to me. Perhaps one is in the works, although since I'm halfway through the book, I can offer that Manon is not a very exciting person. Or even eccentric by most stretches of that definition. Manon, 39, is unmarried and goes on Internet dates, which gives the author things to write about that have absolutely nothing to do with police work. They do however have plenty to do with Manon.
Each chapter is titled after one of the characters in the narrative, Manon, Harriet, Miriam, Davy, Helena, etc. Sometimes consecutive chapters are titled after Manon. She is, after all, the chief protagonist.
"I've lost track of the number of jackets designed to look like hers, and the number of publishers, scouts and film companies who've used her name to describe a genre of writing they want: They mean literary crime, with a compelling plot, an elegance and wit in the writing, combined with a depth of perception about which leaves you feeling deeply satisfied."
Well, she was her agent after all.
But it's true. There are whole chapters about what someone is doing other than police work: how they're feeling. I'm only halfway through the book and there are only a few people who the police are interested in. Edith has been missing for over two weeks now, and we all know what that usually means for a missing person.
I remember reading about Frank McCourt who taught creative writing at my old high school, Stuyvesant. He was before my time, and of course he went on to some fame for writing about his Irish upbringing, particularly in "Angela's Ashes."
Frank took over the Creative Writing curriculum from the English teacher I had, but who I never took Creative Writing with, Henry Wozniak.
We always suspected Mr. Wozniak might have been gay. Honestly, we didn't care. I might have had him twice for English, and I will always remember he was well dressed, and that he spoke with precision.
There was a day when he announced that he's become aware that the cut rate for his class has "reached epic proportions." I never cut any classes, and I've never forgotten the use of the word "epic."
I was told that several years after I graduated in 1966, Mr. Wozniak came out of the closet and showed up to say hello in front of the old building on 15th Street in full leather, earrings and hopped off a Harley, clearly enjoying himself. I wish I had seen that. I might have told him his look was "epic." Frank McCourt wrote about in his book "Teacher."
Anyway, I read that McCourt would instruct his students how to write creatively by revealing more detail. A student turns in a story and says, "He came back from the store." Okay, what store, what did they buy, what did they do with the items after getting home, what's the weather like? Creative writing. I could never be bothered to paint in all those details.
I just finished a chapter in "Missing, Presumed" that is devoted entirely to Harriet, the missing girl's mother, and the emotional roller coaster ride she's going on because the police have really made little to no progress in finding her daughter—in any state.
The rain spits into Miriam's face, spattering the shoulders of her beige Burberry—too thin a layer for January—and she squints into the wind up Chamberlayne Road toward Kenal Rise station, relieved to have said goodbye to Jonti [Edith's old boyfriend] and the guilt.
Only in England would there be a thoroughfare named Chamberlayne Road, and an ex-boyfriend named Jonti. God bless the Brits.
I could never be a novelist.
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