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James Houston: "Deep within my heart lies a melody, a song of old San Anton" [Recorded music playing] I grew up listening to my father play the steel guitar; it was his pastime and his passion. Once or twice a month our front

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room would fill with fiddler's and guitar pickers who had come West from Texas, and Oklahoma, and Arkansas, and other places farther South to make money in the fields and in the shipyards of World War II. Dad was more or less the leader since he had

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most equipment: a little speaker, two mics, an old Westinghouse recording machine. From upstairs with my head and my radio under pillows and covers while I was trying to concentrate on The Shadow, I could hear them ripping into

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"San Antonio Roads," or "Detour, there's a muddy road ahead." Clutching the radio I would groan and burrow deeper, and to fend off the guitars, imagine the look of The Shadow himself, my sinister and worldly nighttime companion. I thought I

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was groaning about the music but it was dad who made me cringe. Coming of age in San Francisco I was a smartass city kid, cool and sullen, and ashamed of all his downhome tastes and habits. During those years, I lost a tremendous amount resisting the

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things he cared about and denying who he was. At the time I had no way of knowing how much was working against us. No two points of origin could have been farther apart. Alan Cheuse: I could tell by the way my horse through its head

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back that it had picked up the sound of the engines being revved at the Khiva aerodrome. The wind brought these sounds sometimes as a faint dull throb and sometimes as virtual thunder. And then, just as unexpectedly, the wind changed

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direction and the noise of the engines of the fighter planes would be canceled out by the distance. As we galloped through Khiva's northern gate, the noise and the wind blended into a single turbulence of sound and blinding sunlight. My horse

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reared when I forced him into a sudden stop in the sentry booth before the aerodrome. Sasha Kadikoff and others had arrived ahead of me, while some of our squadron we're still galloping behind me. The aerodrome was full of activity, all the ground

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personnel seemed to have been summoned to the field as well as all the pilots. De Havilland bombers were taxiing for their takeoff runs in tandem. Our fighters were being warmed up, refueled, and armed by swarms of men. "You're familiar with the

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area around Badir Tazh," said major Smirnov, standing on the platform before a map of the region. [...] Minutes later we were flying low in triangle formation taking advantage of a slight tail wind. The shadows of our ships moved swiftly beneath

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us over fields of ripening cotton and acres of rippling summer wheat ready for the harvest. Irrigation canals like arteries, carrying the life giving waters from the Amu-Darya to the fields. Here and there in the lush acres divided up into

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canals, ancient water wheels turned in their endless circles driven by camels and donkeys walking unhurriedly in the circular paths etched by forever into the earth. Morton Marcus: That was Jim Houston and Alan Cheuse, authors

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respectively of "The Men in My Life," and "Fall Out of Heaven," reading from their two new books just named. They are the subject of tonight's Sunday night special, a look at two very similar books and yet very dissimilar books because these

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books are about the search for the father, the search for cultural identity, the search for being male in a man's world. And I will be talking to them tonight. I'm your host, Morton Marcus. And we will be discussing all of these subjects

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and I would like right now to welcome both men. Welcome, Alan and welcome, Jim. Alan Cheuse: Thank you Mort. James Houston: Thanks, Mort.

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Alan Cheuse: Pleasure to be here, back in Santa Cruz again. Morton Marcus: Well, it certainly is a pleasure to have you here. James Houston: Alan has traveled with for others to be here of

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course. Morton Marcus: How far has Alan traveled? Alan Cheuse: Well, I woke up this morning at three o'clock Pacific Time in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but I came to Ann

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Arbor from Virginia. But Jim has traveled far metaphysically to get here. James Houston: I woke up this morning at 6:30 Pacific Standard Time, Pacific Daylight Saving Time, about 150 yards away

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across one lagoon. Alan Cheuse: But it's only just now in front of these microphones that he's really come to attention. Morton Marcus: Well, what is interesting here is that there

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are distances being covered in both books, there are physical odysseys but there are also psychic odysseys that are going on in both of your books, and those things that I would like to talk about tonight. But first, let me turn this

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Shostakovich down and welcome you both. Why don't you tell us something about these books? Um, let's start off with Jim, since you gave the first portion of the reading, why don't you tell us about what your book is about Jim. And I'm talking about "The

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Men in My Life" which has come out from Creative Arts Book Company in Berkeley. James Houston: "The Men in My Life" is a collection of- of stories and sketches, all of which are based upon my my own

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personal experience. They're all told in in the first person, the subtitle is- it's called "Men in My Life, And Other More or Less True Recollections of Kinship." And these are all stories that have to do with men who have in one way or another had an impact

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on my life. Starting with my father, who I was just reading about, a couple of my uncles, my football coach, people I knew in the Air Force, men who are in the fraternity that I pledged when I was in college -- I was in a fraternity for about six

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months -- my barber here in Santa Cruz, my plumber, Count Basie is in there, Hernando Cortés is in there, who appeared to me in a dream. So that's sort of the range of male figures that I tried to write about, not only write about those- those

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people as people, but to get it- what it was about their relationship and what I discovered about myself as a male through those relationships. Morton Marcus: Okay, Alan, what about your book?

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Alan Cheuse: My book- that section that I read from my book is- comes from the story of my father's life that he wrote himself before he died. And as I tried to make clear in the opening of the book, it was a manuscript that I refused to

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read while he was alive. It was only after he died that I began to work on it and I realized that it was a story that I couldn't- I could not tell if I wanted to move forward myself as a writer, that it- it was the next story up for me to work on

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after after my father died. So I put aside a novel that I'd been working on and- and started editing my father's manuscript. At the same time, deciding that I should- well, I should backtrack a bit and say that he was Russian born and served in

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the Red Air Force in the early 30s in Central Asia, that passage I read comes out of that section of his manuscript. And he fought in these unpublicized small wars against rebellious Muslim tribesmen, much like the Afghan rebels today. And we

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fought our own unpublicized small wars when I was growing up, we didn't get along at all. And I decided I was going to have to make some kind of pilgrimage, and my son went with me. And as soon as I crossed the borders of the Soviet Union, my

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old man's ghost began to talk to me. Something like a metaphysical or astral air traffic controller guiding us into that- on that trek to Hiva, that little desert, thousand year old desert town where he spent the best days of his

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youth. James Houston: Excuse me on you- you say you actually- you actually heard your father's voice? Alan Cheuse: Jim, I'm not making that up, it's in- it's in the

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book. I don't believe in ghosts, but I've heard them. All I can tell you is that he spoke to me and that- Actually, there's a- there's a little epilogue to the book in which I describe hearing and seeing the ghost of my dear late friend John Gardner, that

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was the first time that happened. John died in September and my father died seven months later. James Houston: Well, you make the point in the book that- that it's not a literary device referring to your father's

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voice, but that- that too can be a literary statement. Alan Cheuse: Literary device, yes right. James Houston: Given the state of contemporary narrative that can be one of these ever, ever circular literary devices.

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Alan Cheuse: I know but Dante did it , and when he- when he says, ‘‘now, I'm going to tell you- I'm- I'm now going to tell you the things that are impossible to describe‘‘ and he goes ahead and describes them anyway for you.

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James Houston: But I know that- that's fascinating that you actually heard- heard his voice and I think- I think, you know, that sort of thing happens to me quite a bit. But you know, one of the strange things about- about narrative now, some- you

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hardly know what- what to believe because everything has- has been turned into a some kind of device for- for- for having experience reflect back upon itself some way, you know. Morton Marcus: Well, we've gotten to a very sophisticated

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point in there where that can happen, most certainly. What's interesting is the way Alan wrote the book also, which is three tracks, and they parallel each other. And one of the tracks is the actual trip you're making almost like a journal

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entry with your son, which is contemporary. Then there's the memory of your growing up with your father in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. And the third parallel strand is your father's memoirs, which were actual memoirs. Why don't you say a few things about

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that? Alan Cheuse: Yeah, well, I took his manuscript and- Well, he left me a 400 plus, 400 plus page manuscript and I edited it down to about 200 pages. And I had to work on every line,

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there's no line that wasn't edited. His- his grasp of English syntax was not terrific, but he- he‘s a perfect case of- well, Jim and Mort you know that if you give a reading in a large enough place, there's always somebody who hangs around after

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the reading and says, ‘‘you know, I have this story. Can you help me write it.‘‘ And I always regarded my father as one of those writing lunatics who's- you know, who had this story and he wanted me to help him write it, but in his case, it turned

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out to be a fascinating story. And if- if early reaction to the book is- is an example of what's to come, now he may well overshadow my part of the book completely, because it's so- you know it's full of romantic adventures and-

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Morton Marcus: Right. Alan Cheuse: -it takes you places where -- what's the cliche? -- where you've never been before. Morton Marcus: Oh, absolutely, it's, um, Lawrence Kovitch(?)

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in- in Russia, And it- it just really- Alan Cheuse: It's kind of a Jewish Lawrence of Arabia Morton Marcus: Yeah, exactly. And it's- it's just a wonderful read as far as an adventure story is concerned, but you

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weave all of these relationships, and certainly not the most unimportant is your own son, who forms one generation after another into the book. Now, Jim, he has divided his book into two sections and the second section - I'm going to

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find my table of contents here - deals with heroes and ancestors and goes back and talks about actually different people you've known as a wonderful family elegy. And he talks about Hernando Cortés, and if I'm just talking to you listeners out

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there, it's because I think you should both go out and get both of these books, they‘re just absolutely wonderful. When he talks about Cortez, what he does not tell you is that he is Cortez‘s priest on Cortez's trip to California and it is very,

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very funny. And yet it gives us a sense of California and what it will become in a very ironic, piquant fashion. And the first part of the book deals as he said with football players with his early experience in the Air Force, and initiation rites is

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part of the 1950s classical fraternity. Alan Cheuse: But you know in that in the- in the section of the book where he- he writes about his- his grandfather, I was kind of astonished, really taken aback when I first read

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that because despite the really disparate nature of our- our various subject matter, I mean, he's doing exactly in that chapter, what I- what I do in my book, we're both recreating the past of our ancestors.

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Morton Marcus: Well, this is what we're gonna get into, and this is interesting too, I'm going to throw myself in here. This is one of the reasons we're doing this program but I have a book coming out next year are called "Pages From a Scrapbook

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of Immigrants," in which I do the exact same thing and I go back and look for the grandfather, which to me was very interesting because it is Jim having his father who looks for his grandfather. And what I do is go back and I look for my

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grandfather and recreate him, and recreate my whole family in Russia, and then moving over here. So there's a great similarity in what all three of us are doing. What I would like to do right now though, is to have both of you read from these

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books, and there's so many different things that I hope what will happen is that we will have a number of different occasions to read from the book. So I leave it up to whoever wants to go first. Jim, you want to read "The Hip Plumber" or

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something like that? James Houston: Well, let's see. Maybe I'll read. I'll read the first couple of pages of ‘‘The Dangerous Uncle,‘‘ how about that?

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Morton Marcus: Great, terrific. James Houston: That doesn't take too long. We don't want to- we do short- Morton Marcus: Short

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James Houston: Short takes James Houston: Short takes Morton Marcus: Short shots Morton Marcus: And that'll be terrific.

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James Houston: Yeah. Morton Marcus: It's how we really give the style, the sense to the people, whet their appetites out there. James Houston: There are several pieces- as Mort mentioned, the

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priest Mort was just talking about is called- is the title story, "The Men in My Life," which is a sort of ancestral memoir about the ancestors on my mother's side. There's three, I guess, three stories in here that are- that are about my

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father. In this story, I'm going to read the introduction. It's called ‘‘The Dangerous Uncle.‘‘ It's been my father and his closest brother, and I am in this story, not as a central character but as a sort of witness to their- their

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relationship. This starts with a- with an epigraph quote from a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, "God bless you, Mr. Rosewater." The line is ‘‘If you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.‘‘

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THE DANGEROUS UNCLE by far the most attractive, a man who could not hold his liquor or his money or any of the numerous women who passed through his life. Among my father's four brothers he was

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the closest in age, so they had grown up together in east Texas, Dudley and Anderson, companions and cohorts, two years apart. I have seen my father rigid with fury at something this brother had recently done to him. I have also watched him laugh as he

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recounted a boyhood stunt that foreshadowed the kind of life Anderson would lead. I mention this because my father was not what I would call an outgoing or expansive man. He was not given to shows of pleasure, yet Anderson could make him laugh

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aloud. “I remember a day we were down along the creek,“ he told me once, “and back in that part of Texas, the creek was the only place where you could cool off in the summer. I guess I was

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around twelve and Andy was around fourteen. He had this trick he liked to do, just to show off. He used to do it at school until the teachers made him quit. He was always real limber, you see, he had a way of putting one foot up behind his

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head, like a Hindu, and he was mighty proud of himself whenever he got his foot up there, since he was the only one in our family who could do that. “Well, sir, on this particular day, just about the time we had

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our shirts pulled off, but still had our trousers on, a couple of girls came walking along the creek trail. Anderson decided he would show them something they would never forget, and he commenced to shove his whole foot and ankle up behind his

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head. The girls saw that and they got to giggling and ran on I went over there and pushed and pulled a while, with him telling down the creek. Anderson got to laughing so hard he fell over. me what to do and where to grab hold. But it turned out there

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He'd been standing on one leg you see, like a stork. For a wasn't much either one of us could do because his foot was while he was laying there in the dirt by the creek laughing ‘til just plain stuck. He shoved it over too far and got his neck

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the tears ran down his face. Then he quit laughing and looked turned some kind of way, and I had to leave him there and run up at me with this funny look, and he said- he said, ‘Hey, back home to get my dad and our oldest brother, who has already

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udley, come over here and give e a hand, will ya, while I get grown, and stronger than anybody else too, because he did y foot down.‘ push-ups and lifted weights, and bring them down there. It was a

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mile to the house and a mile back. Before we got near where where he was we could hear Anderson yelling. His heg had cramped up. He thought he was going to die alone by the creek bank with one foot locked behind his head.‘‘

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The way Dad told it, that was the prelude to Anderson's entire career - the family clown and a born nuisance, always leaving a mess behind that someone else had to come along and clean up. It was also the longest story I can remember hearing him tell.

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He was not a talkative man, yet he would talk about Anderson. I think he had to, there was so much to get off his chest. Anderson called things out of him no one else could call out. My dad was not given to shows of anger. Yet this brother could

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make him curse and slam a fist into the side of the house. He was not a violent man, but one day Anderson made him angry enough to kill Morton Marcus: And it‘s great Jim. And as you read it, I was

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thinking about another piece in here which this resembles in so many ways. And that- one of my favorite pieces in the book, is called ‘‘The Lost Brother‘‘ in which you meet a fellow in Sweden who's actually German.

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James Houston: Yes. Morton Marcus: And who was come to live in Sweden and you have one of those moments which is so rare, but we've all in this room I'm sure experienced people out there too, when you make a

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connection and you realize that this is the connection with a lost brother, the brother you never had, the brother who died, I guess stillborn. James Houston: Yes.

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Morton Marcus: And very, very moving piece. But here is the your father's lost brother. James Houston: Yeah Morton Marcus: You know, almost his alter ego and it's just a

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wonderful, wonderful piece. In fact, these pieces keep playing off each other in the book. You can pick up threads and one section or another where they sort of start making little dust devils, and then finally, the whole book makes a circle as

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interestingly Alan's does. Alan Cheuse: Talking about devil, we shouldn't exclude the other gender from this. Sometimes we meet lost sisters too.

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Morton Marcus: Very good. Very good. Alan, how about you reading a piece of yours? Alan Cheuse: I'll read a section to start- the- because the book is- has a lot of very various tones. I'll read a section from

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the travel narrative that runs through it. This is- comes in Moscow. There's a- I should explain, there's a- there's a dinner theme that runs through this that comes out of a meeting with a woman named Frida Laurie(?) who is the liaison for

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the Moscow Writers Union and American writers, excuse me, and Laurie had just finished translating Anne Tyler's “Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant“ when we first met her in Moscow. She had a stack of books on her desk and that theme runs through

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this- this passage and through other parts of the book as well. Moscow is beginning to weigh on us with its austere breath and its certain boredom. We know that all over the city people are gathering and living rooms or kitchens, and friendly talk,

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listening to bootleg Western rock and roll tapes, discussing the serious matters of art and life, paintings by artists out of favor on their walls, smuggled novels on their bookshelves, but for the tourists seeking diversion,

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there's very little. By now we tnow that there's no cafe life here and no restaurant going as we understand it. Nothing except movies and scarcely an English language film to be seen, so no use to us. And theater tickets, theater tickets are extremely

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scarce, and the traditional ballet and orchestras are for tourists alone. We haven't done much of that. We are tourists of the heart on this homecoming journey, taking roundabout as the shortest way back. Dinner, it's time for dinner, adiversion

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which is not as nearly as relaxing as Josh and I feel it should be. Josh is my son. Here it is- It's much- here it is as much of an effort as is just about everything else. We have to go down to the lobby and make our way to the hotel restaurant

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and there explain after the maître d' again tries to turn us away that we're guests at the hotel. All of this is becoming boringly familiar. But this time tonight, we discover there's a band, a band

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that opens with some unfamiliar popular tune and the guitar player picks up a violin, and then begins to play an old Russian melody that I recall my mother humming and singing to me, "Ochi Chernyye," and the piano picks up the tune, and I'm

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suddenly called back to those days on State Street, Perth Amboy, New Jerse when my grandfather would play his violin for me and my brother, one eye covered with his patch, the other brimming with tears. My mother was so young, so

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young, as young as Josh's mother was when we took him to Mexico long ago. And both of my mother's parents were still alive, though her father was ill even then, the eyepatch the sign of the disease that was already creeping into his liver. But for

00:23:20.960 - 00:23:31.370

that time, while the music played, we were all there in one place in that small town by the river where it flowed into the bay and I could love all of it because I had not begun to think, and none of them had begun to die. And my father sat

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in the small room off the living room on Sundays at his typewriter tap, tap, tapping away. All these memories swirl through me, conjured up by the sweet melodious music. And I'm missing my daughters, watching the

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fleshy-hipped waitress sidle up to a table, then a swarm of East German teenagers come in for dinner, noisy, bubbling over with their adolescence. And I wish Josh hadn't left the table and gone up to his room, he'd enjoy the spectacle of all the-

00:23:53.780 - 00:24:05.780

of all these kids trying to dress just like him. Then the music carries me away again. That gypsylike violin style, "Ochi Chernyye, la di da da," and I'm remembering the sounds of the Russian as my mother sang her version of it.

00:24:05.990 - 00:24:17.180

Did my father chime in on the chorus? She's dancing around and I'm up on my feet whirling around and about to the beat in my mother's arms and someone's clapping time, maybe my aunt Bess, and her deep contralto adds to the luster of the song,

00:24:17.180 - 00:24:27.470

and who knows who else is there, my cousin, my great grandmother, all of them singing deeply and with abandon to the music of the violin... And I'm sitting here stranded, tapping my foot to the music in

00:24:27.470 - 00:24:39.500

this Moscow restaurant so many years later, like something left wriggling on the beach after an ocean tide of decades has pulled back with the recession of the moon. And just when I think the music is finished with me, the duo

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begins to play the blues and I get called home to different old times in the Jersey Beach. To my friends who never saw their childhood as I did, like a costume to be put on for a play. Where are they now? I never saw much of them again after I left

00:24:52.280 - 00:25:04.520

home except for Joe S. who was in the hospital the same time as my father's next to last stay, and they took a brain tumor out of Joe, and I visited him in in- his room, his head swelled up under the bandages, his face black and blue. And it wasn't as

00:25:04.520 - 00:25:15.020

if he'd gotten old but more as someone had pumped out or sucked out or drained all the youth from him, all the old times and the dirty alleys in the corner lots and the beach in the school yards and the basketball courts.

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The years fall away and I'm walking with my mother along Smith Street, and we meet one of her friends, a woman who like herself as a child in tow, and she pushes me forward to speak. And I don't want to be told to say anything to anybody, that's

00:25:28.200 - 00:25:39.840

the streak of my father in me, that stubbornness. And the guitar riffs collapse into themselves and the piano player takes over. These Russian guys have been listening to B.B King, at least the guitarist has, and the piano player now

00:25:39.840 - 00:25:51.390

burrows down deep into the blues, that anguish, that suffering that comes with having discovered that you've been standing on the platform and the train of life has passed this station by, no local stops, and your baby's left you, the best

00:25:51.390 - 00:26:03.720

gal you ever had, or she's dead of a sudden illness, or gone off with your friend. And you've seen how much she hates you, made your face up to the end, you got the blues, the deep down dirty U.S Yankee blues, the American national anthem that we

00:26:03.720 - 00:26:12.930

got it all and even that ain't enough. I'll always be lonesome, capitalist, tragic outside looking in, never find my lover, your daddy's left you, give it to another, where‘s your pretty baby, blues.

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I go up to the guys when they finish and try to talk, but they have as little English as I have Russian. All they've done has to come to me in that old cliched notion of the interland- international language of music, and it suggests that there might

00:26:24.570 - 00:26:36.240

be some hope, since it's one of the few art forms that doesn't get- get lost in the translation. And it makes the Soviets feel what we feel, or at least what most free-to-suffer Americans can come- can come to feel on occasion. That tragic

00:26:36.240 - 00:26:47.430

sense of life that seems summed up in so many Russian novels of the 19th century. And in that melody I heard only a few minutes before on the violin, and it was there too. "B.B King, da," says the guitarist, "I like B.B King,

00:26:47.430 - 00:26:59.520

da!" And the pianist shakes his head pointing to the guitarist, ‘‘he makes jass, good jass maker,‘‘ he says and I put on my best Russian and shake hands and nod and say, ‘‘Horosho, horosho, good, good, "pahzhalsta," thanks for the music."

00:27:00.020 - 00:27:12.140

I head back upstairs, my mind full of the blues, my memory, my heart replete with emotions of old times, new places, and I return to the room and undress and fall back onto the bed listening to Josh‘s, by now familiar, deep adult breathing,

00:27:12.470 - 00:27:25.010

and listen to the sounds of the city. And I'm thinking about a number of things inspired by that music, “Ochi Chernyye," and the blues melody, thinking about old times, Perth Amboy, New Jersey, images of those boys I ran with rising vividly before

00:27:25.010 - 00:27:36.860

my eyes, thinking about the way life makes you connect to the chord changes in the blues, and how the Russian gypsy melodies so different can evoke a similar response. And I'm thinking gypsy, and blues, Jews, I'm thinking back on yesterday's

00:27:36.860 - 00:27:48.350

travels, the well ordered round of the- of the Ukraine, how it was built up after the Nazis rolled through new cities out of the old rubble, and not after all a place that anywhere near resembled at least in spirit that place where my father

00:27:48.350 - 00:28:00.470

roamed about in his youth. Unlike, say Perth Amboy, New Jersey, where every time I visit becomes more and more like the place where I grew up. In fact, year by year becomes more familiar to me than it ever was when I was a child and found the

00:28:00.470 - 00:28:11.930

world around me a place as strange as another planet. So we grow from the discomforts of first experience into the familiar fit of memory. At this rate, nothing will ever seem so real to us, as it will at the moment we die.

00:28:11.000 - 00:28:24.380

And I'm thinking blues, Jews, and I'm thinking America, Russia, and I'm thinking America, America, my town, your town, the old life, the New World, the way I felt things then, the way I see now, how I'll feel tomorrow, my talented

00:28:24.380 - 00:28:36.500

son, my smart, attractive daughters, on their way to school now or sitting already at their desks, heads bend to their tasks on paper, pencils in hand, their legs kicking to some internal rhythm beneath a wooden seat as I'm about to tumble over

00:28:36.500 - 00:28:49.940

the bluff into that river, the place beneath the falls where boys, like my father once was, swim and old men fish. Remembering old Jersey, New Jersey, East and West, travel South with my first wife to Texas and Mexico. Josh's first

00:28:49.940 - 00:29:03.140

year in the Mariachi town of Tlaquepaque, the pungent odor of jacaranda, and the dry hot Jalisco- Jalisco air, and driving west through Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, over the Sierra to meet the mother of my girls. I'm thinking, and I'm dreaming, and

00:29:03.140 - 00:29:16.100

I'm dozing and I'm stopping, stopping now, ‘‘Hey, Ma Mama, I ate the Homesick Restaurant tonight!‘ Morton Marcus: That was Alan Cheuse the author of "Canvas and Other Stories," "The Bohemians," and "The Grandmother‘s Club,"

00:29:16.880 - 00:29:31.790

who on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" is a regular reviewer. And as you know, Alan is here with us live in the studio with Jim Houston, the author of six novels and a number of books of nonfiction. Alan was reading from "Fall Out

00:29:31.790 - 00:29:43.670

of Heaven, an Autobiographical Journey, which when- we've been discussing tonight, in case you've just tuned in, and Jim Houston has been reading from "The Men in My Life," and we will be back in several moments. Stay tuned, we still have an

00:29:43.670 - 00:30:40.970

hour and a half to go with both of these wonderful writers. Unknown: [Music] Morton Marcus: We are back on the Sunday night special and we are talking to Jim Houston and Alan Cheuse, the novelist short

00:30:40.970 - 00:30:50.750

story writers and actually writers who represent the East Coast and the West Coast in many ways. And we are- Alan Cheuse: We should be doing this on the Mississippi, right? East to West.

00:30:50.780 - 00:31:00.010

Morton Marcus: Neutral ground Alan Cheuse: Omaha Morton Marcus: Neutral ground. And the book is James Houston‘s "The Men in My Life," ad Alan Cheuse "The Fall Out of Heaven,

00:31:00.040 - 00:31:14.890

an Autobiographical Journey." By the way, both these men will be reading this Tuesday night at eight o'clock in San Jose, at the Olympia on First Street, South First Street in San Jose. And I would urge everyone to go out and hear them as you can

00:31:14.890 - 00:31:28.120

already tell they're wonderful readers and tell your friends, tell everyone you know, in San Jose to make it. This as an event sponsored by the San Jose Poetry Center. But right now, Alan, you had a question you wanted to ask Jim?

00:31:28.000 - 00:31:44.020

Alan Cheuse: Well, yeah, they're not only affinities that I noticed in this- in this struggle with the past that we're both engaged in- in these seemingly quite disparate books. But I noticed Jim that there's a- there's a really straight

00:31:44.170 - 00:31:58.300

line, kind of, you know, the education of an American boy as much as "Portrait of the Artist", a work in your book. Maybe it's there in mine, but I see it more clearly in the work of others than I do in my own from, you know, working up

00:31:58.300 - 00:32:17.470

through sports, through music, discovering those kinds of things that you need to do in order to stay sane in- in the world of men. What about the fact that the women seem to play secondary roles? Do you think that we, you know, as men that

00:32:17.470 - 00:32:31.090

we need to come to terms with the males in our lives before we can be any good with women, or even write about women? I mean, it's the questions I find interesting because I've written a number of works of fiction from the point of view of women

00:32:31.090 - 00:32:45.850

characters, and yet I still wonder whether it's- it's possible for me to do that in any kind of authentic way. James Houston: Well, the reason there aren't too many women characters in "The Men in My Life" is because of the the

00:32:45.850 - 00:32:52.850

theme of the book. I was- I was Alan Cheuse: So we're gonna have a sequel of the women in your life? James Houston: Well, the next book is going to be the cars in

00:32:52.850 - 00:33:11.990

my life story. No, I was- I was focusing on male to male experience here. So, the women are- are in rather short supply, my grandmother plays a- was a pretty significant role in one of the stories, and my wife plays a role in one of the

00:33:11.990 - 00:33:26.570

stories. But for the most part, there are stories about my own relationships with men. But I don't mean to suggest that- that- that those relationships are more important than relationships with women, that just happens to be the theme of

00:33:26.570 - 00:33:37.040

this particular book. My previous book- Alan Cheuse: It‘s true, "Love Life" was written- James Houston: "Love Life" was written entirely from the point of view of- of a woman.

00:33:37.000 - 00:33:48.520

Alan Cheuse: That's right, I guess come to think of it now, e-, both our- our books before these, each of our last novels were written from the point of view of women. James Houston: Yeah, and in my own experience, that was an

00:33:48.520 - 00:34:03.520

important sequence because I worked on "Love Life" for a couple of years, and during those two years, trying to see the world from a woman's point of view, trying to see the material of a novel, of this relationship in that novel

00:34:04.780 - 00:34:27.070

through a woman's eyes, it did a couple of things for me: one it- it put me in closer touch with the female within, the feminine part of myself, whatever you want to call it, and it also gave me a newer or maybe a larger perspective on- on some

00:34:27.070 - 00:34:39.820

of these stories that I had been trying for many years, or thinking for many years about telling. Some of the stories in "The Men in My Life" have been on my mind for 20 years and I never had- could get them righ, but after after I'd- I'd spent

00:34:39.820 - 00:34:55.450

that time working on "Love Life" and the particular challenge of that book, writing from a woman's point of view, it released me into the stories that became "The Men in My Life." That's my own personal history as a writer on that

00:34:55.450 - 00:35:04.870

subject. Alan Cheuse: Well, I, you know, I understand exactly what you're talking about and in a certain way it pleases me and certainly it troubles me because, you know, in the lives of many of

00:35:04.870 - 00:35:21.400

the writers whose work I admire tremendously, I don't notice any particular aspiration for self improvement. I- you know, Hemingway became more and more of a- of a bastard as he became more and more proficient in his work. For example, Faulkner

00:35:21.400 - 00:35:37.150

drank more and more, the better he got. But yet you and I seem to think that, you know, the better our work becomes, or the better we get at our work, and the particularly- the better we get at working through certain subjects, we might- the better

00:35:37.150 - 00:35:54.350

people we might become. James Houston: Well, I'll tell you, I- one of the ways I look at fiction now, what I've discovered just in the last three or four years is the extent to which we all contain

00:35:54.350 - 00:36:10.460

within us, I think, a lot of voices, a lot of people, a lot of personalities, a lot of layers of our own our own lives that take the form of voices. And one of the- one of the great things about fiction and poetry too is the opportunity to

00:36:10.460 - 00:36:26.540

release some of those voices. I mean, we have a great privilege in a way as writers as you- as you gain more and more technical- technical control of the language and- and you can move out on a- on a on a path where- where more voices- you

00:36:26.540 - 00:36:38.910

gain access to more voices within yourself: the ancestral voices, the males within, the females within, the children within. I take it all the way back, you know, Alan Cheuse: Ancestral voices, the proper sign of war.

00:36:38.930 - 00:36:53.960

James Houston: Yeah, the primal creatures, all of that kind of stuff, they all- they all- If you, you know, if you- taken to the extreme end of that idea that we have, we all contain within us the- the entire experience of the universe,

00:36:54.680 - 00:37:12.230

which is, you know, one of the fundamental yo- yogi ideas. And I think as as as writers that- that, to me is a very exciting prospect. It's not just selling a story to get it published in a magazine, you know, you're- you're, you're doing something

00:37:12.230 - 00:37:23.510

with your own- your own evolutionary process. Alan Cheuse: Well, so we do look at things differently than the previous generation of writers, at least you and I do it if we're representative of anything. In a way, I think

00:37:23.510 - 00:37:37.310

it's- I mean, it's fascinating, whether it does us any good or not, I think it's fascinating to think about. Well, I wonder if Mort could- can add his voice to this subject? Morton Marcus: Well, yes, yes, I definitely can. First of all, 20

00:37:37.310 - 00:37:49.460

years ago, when I was in an anthology called Young American Poets, they asked us to write something on our poems. And what I wrote was a prose poem and I'm, maybe you remember it Jim, maybe you don't, but in that I talked about all my poetry is is

00:37:49.460 - 00:37:57.810

giving voice to all the voices inside me. James Houston: Sure. Morton Marcus: And I start to talk about all of the different voices and finally get all the way back to those frozen gases

00:37:57.810 - 00:38:11.910

out in space that are- that cannot speak yet, you see, but are just ready to make some kind of enunciation just by movement, just by energy, and that all of that is in this kind of talk. And it received a response from the editors, I mean, "Do you

00:38:11.910 - 00:38:20.100

really want to put this in here." And I think that there is this difference. Alan Cheuse: Do you have this poem with you? Morton Marcus: Actually I don't, I don't carry it around in this

00:38:20.400 - 00:38:30.060

manuscript, too bad. But- James Houston: I thought this is a- Alan Cheuse: I thought we were going to hear the frozen gases, right here on the air before the fog rolls in.

00:38:30.000 - 00:38:47.760

Morton Marcus: Something [inaudible] who knows. But in relation to going back to the artist in pages from "Scrapbook of Immigrants," throughout that book there are portrait of the artists or the poet at three, the poet at five, the poet, at

00:38:47.760 - 00:39:01.890

10, the at poet 15, and he is dealing with all of this material, not only the voices and the people, but he's dealing with the material. Let me read you one called ‘‘The Poet at 30‘‘ and it shows the kind of decision that one had to make

00:39:01.920 - 00:39:14.370

from where Alan and I are from anyway, which is back East and with the same cultural background Russian-Jewish. And- and in this choice, it is the choice that I think we were given in the 50, and-

00:39:14.730 - 00:39:25.740

Alan Cheuse: Sing it, sing it Mort Morton Marcus: I‘ll sing it, here it is, and the voices, the voice will be quite obvious, the voice of my grandfather. And this is the male world and the power and the press that it had

00:39:25.740 - 00:39:40.430

on me. THE POET AT 30, THE MIDDLE PLACE Learn early boychik and learn it good, the world's your face. It's either an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or turn the

00:39:40.430 - 00:39:59.840

other cheek. You got to choose and choose right. The boy finds the world is a little of both a tooth for a cheek, an eye for a nose or an ear, and wonders why his grandfather left those features out. His hair gets pulled and combed, his lips get

00:39:59.840 - 00:40:17.870

kissed and punched, and no matter how still he sits or stands behind a door the world rushes in. ‘‘Shurprise,‘‘ yells Uncle Frankie and whirls him in the air. He's got to make a choice. Is it better to give than to receive, receive what?

00:40:18.590 - 00:40:35.030

Pain of course, pain‘s the issue. Do you pass it out to the populace like Joseph bestowing the stored grain or do you absorb it, like a dartboard? ‘‘Boychik, boychik,‘‘ the old man shakes his head. ‘‘You either are a winner in this

00:40:35.030 - 00:40:51.530

world or a loser, remember that, there ain't no middle place.‘‘ Which years later will be restated as ‘‘shed or get off the pot‘‘ by a sergeant from Lubbock. ‘‘Lublin‘‘ asks his grandfather leaning out of heaven, ‘‘no Lubbock, get back

00:40:51.530 - 00:41:09.800

there where you belong.‘‘ Either or, either or, the choice is a pendulum that swings heavy, razor-edged through his brain, fixing his face in a perpetual grimace. The months peck at his lips, the years beat at the bones in his head, flattening

00:41:09.800 - 00:41:28.230

his features until that day when standing ghastly before the mirror, he discovers the impossible middle place, and in the looking glass of the poem begins to re-dream his face. Alan Cheuse: That's a very nice poem.

00:41:29.520 - 00:41:43.170

James Houston: Nice stuff Mort Alan Cheuse: It- it makes me rush right back to the question I had for Jim originally. And maybe I can say it better now with- with your poem, the wind of your poem at my back. That-

00:41:43.200 - 00:41:56.660

that Morton Marcus: You always hear Alan Cheuse: That- that -that mispronunciation of that good old American name, Lubbock, Texas makes me- Well, let me put

00:41:56.660 - 00:42:12.080

it this way, Jim. I mean, I had to- I I feel as though I had to invent my entire American life because my father, being an immigrant, had no notion of what it was like to be an American father. So I had to go out into the world and find- let's put

00:42:12.080 - 00:42:29.480

it- I had to learn it in the street, you know, and I had to find a lot of fathers and uncles who could serve as spiritual advisors, and teach me how to sail, and you know, or how to throw a ball, or whatever, and to do all of those things that

00:42:29.480 - 00:42:47.540

we guys have to learn how to do in order to keep sane and healthy. But I wonder if you know, growing up as you did with, you know, 4,000% American forebears didn't have the same problem, that is you had to invent your own life no matter

00:42:47.540 - 00:43:11.620

what- what your background was. James Houston: Well, it's- it's- I kind of had a half of a- half- half of an established American boyhood, because my ancestors on both sides have been in North America since- on my mother's

00:43:11.620 - 00:43:19.540

side since the 17th century. Alan Cheuse: Well, I want to say at the outset, Jim that we don't hold this against you. James Houston: My father says, ‘‘please let me finish.‘‘

00:43:21.220 - 00:43:31.120

Morton Marcus: Stand up for your rights, Jim. James Houston: On my father's side since the middle of the 18th century, and if I had- if I had grown up in the South, I would have had the advantage. If I'd grown up in Tennessee or an

00:43:31.120 - 00:43:54.130

Alabama, either one of the family headquarters, I would have had the- the constant presence of extended family, of four or five generations, you know, for my entire life. But I didn't get that, even though my family's been on this continent

00:43:54.580 - 00:44:11.980

since the middle of the 18th - 17th century. My parents moved to the West Coasts, moved the second half of the distance across the continent, 1500 miles, in the early 1930s, and left behind the family network, left behind the ancestors, left

00:44:11.980 - 00:44:25.630

behind whatever tradition had accumulated, and they started their lives over in San Francisco where I was born. So I grew up here without that extended family, without that sense of heritage, and in a typical West Coast California

00:44:25.630 - 00:44:39.880

fashion I had to, you know, I had to make everything up. You wake up, one of the- one of the crazy things about Cali- one of the characteristic things about California, it's filled up with immigrants. My parents happened to be immigrants from Texas, my

00:44:39.880 - 00:44:53.950

wife's parents are immigrants from Japan, but we have in common the fact that we both had to invent our lives in a new environment, which was the California environment. And it's only in the middle of my life that I feel this overwhelming

00:44:53.950 - 00:45:10.960

desire to have that ancestry fixed and in place for myself. So I have to go back, I have to recreate it, I have to make it up, and in the middle of that essay, the title essay "The Men in My Life," I'm- I'm getting sort of rhapsodic about my great

00:45:10.960 - 00:45:25.750

great, great, great grandfather Noble Bolden, who I've for years thought of as my primal ancestor, and suddenly I did a little genealogical chart, just did a family tree mathematically, and discovered that I had 36 great, great,

00:45:25.960 - 00:45:40.090

great, great grandfathers. What happens the other 35? Why didn't I pick out one of those guys to be my primal ancestor? I chose one, out of 36. Well, that's like writing a novel, you know, that's like deciding where you're going to start your

00:45:40.090 - 00:45:49.090

novel. Alan Cheuse: I hope you'll read- you'll read some of that. Morton Marcus: There's there's one section, I don't know Jim, if you want to read this or not, but it's- it's great when Noble

00:45:49.630 - 00:45:57.730

looks at the territory, he's coming over the Blue Ridge Mountains and the great Smokies- James Houston: Yeah. Morton Marcus: -and you give this glorious description, you

00:45:57.730 - 00:46:06.740

know, this heroic, romantic American painting out of the 19th century- James Houston: Yeah. Yeah. Morton Marcus: -and- and then suddenly you go into the second

00:46:06.740 - 00:46:17.750

paragraph, I'd love you to read those two paragraphs. It's on page 132. I'm going to cover. This takes some totally unexpected turn without [cross talk]tation. Alan Cheuse: That's a wonderful section.

00:46:17.900 - 00:46:28.400

Morton Marcus: Yeah. It starts off with, you can even start it above that, but it starts off with ‘‘perhaps,‘‘ and then that paragraph and the next paragraph, well, you can do whatever you want, but the juxtaposition of those two

00:46:28.400 - 00:46:33.800

paragraphs- James Houston: We have plenty of time Mort, why don't I just start at the beginning of it. Morton Marcus: That's a much better idea.

00:46:33.950 - 00:46:48.860

James Houston: I'll start at the beginning because this is the title story. And actually, it's of all these, it's a story that I wrote last in sequence of composition. And it's, again, it's one of these pieces that for years I had been trying to

00:46:48.860 - 00:47:02.570

find a way to write, to tell the story of my ancestor, and I never thought I could get away with it. So much of writing is what you can get away with. And once I had this title, and I had publisher who was willing to go along with the idea of this

00:47:02.570 - 00:47:18.680

book, it gave me a container into which I could put some things that I'd been looking to put somewhere for years. And finally this thing came out. Again there's an epigraph. This is from the song "Dixie," by Daniel Decatur Emmett, this is-

00:47:18.710 - 00:47:31.220

I love this song, you know, it was the war cry, the battle cry of the Confederate Army during- during the Civil War. It was written by a man from Ohio, who was living in New York City at the time, he wrote the song, ‘‘I wish I was in the land of

00:47:31.220 - 00:47:44.890

cotton. Oldtimes there are not forgotten...‘‘ Here's the way THE MEN IN MY LIFE begins In 1809, my great-great-great-great grandfather left Buncombe County, North Carolina and

00:47:44.890 - 00:47:59.380

crossed over the Appalachians into central Tennessee. I have thought a lot about that trip. Of the numerous trips it has taken to bring my family - that is, the handful of us scattered along this coastline - from the eastern edge of the continent to

00:47:59.380 - 00:48:14.620

the western edge, that one looms largest in my imagination. I cannot say it looms large in memory. No one now living knows much at all about it, nor have I heard it talked about or seen anything written about it, apart from the dates and the names of

00:48:14.620 - 00:48:27.640

counties, and the prices he paid for a couple of pieces of land, and the name of his wife, Temperance, the names of their four sons, Gideon, Louis, Reuben, Nathan, and their one daughter Elinder.

00:48:28.810 - 00:48:43.870

His name was Noble Bolden, a church-going farmer who came from a long line of farmers, as far back as lineage can be traced. The first Bolden to cross the Atlantic, they say, was a fellow named Thomas, a Warwickshire yeoman who landed

00:48:43.870 - 00:48:59.440

at Jamestown in 1610 and quickly acquired some land along the James River. Perhaps he was the original immigrant ancestor. If not, there was another Bolden sooner or later, very much like him, who carried the seed, and Virginia was the homeland for

00:48:59.440 - 00:49:15.340

almost two hundred years, until after the Revolutionary War, when the West began to beckon, the West, at the turn of that century, being Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In those days, nothing happened suddenly. A family on the move

00:49:15.340 - 00:49:30.610

might stop a while along the trail, set up a cabin and clear a piece of land, as Noble did in 1803 or thereabouts. He paid a hundred for fifty acres, between the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Great Smokies and worked it for a couple of years, no doubt

00:49:30.610 - 00:49:43.500

picking up scraps of information here and there about what lay beyond the peaks in the distance. Perhaps he made the next trip alone, the first time, scouting ahead before bringing his family farther than most white

00:49:43.500 - 00:49:59.910

Americans had ever traveled and in the territory few had ever seen. Perhaps it took a couple of weeks, or a month, with long days of solitary riding, during which he missed his wife and children, but also savor the solitude and the daily discovery

00:49:59.910 - 00:50:15.420

of new terrain. On one such morning he may have got an early start and reach the ridge top just as the sun rose behind him, adding sudden clarity and sharp shadows to the rippling landscape, causing his heart to swell and his skin to prickle

00:50:15.540 - 00:50:31.260

and his blood to run. He may have shouted something then, one long syllable of exultation. Or perhaps not. Perhaps he was a born slob, unmoved by natural wonders, insensitive to color and light, and concerned only

00:50:31.260 - 00:50:46.350

with grabbing the best piece of land he could find before someone else got hold of it. Maybe he was an ignorant, stubborn, hot headed redneck, a rifle-toting hillbilly racist from North Carolina. But I prefer not to remember him that

00:50:46.350 - 00:51:04.050

way. I prefer to dwell on his name - Noble - and to look in his farmer's heart for signs of noble character. I prefer to see him on the ridge top at dawn, like a wolf in the wilderness, celebrating with his voice, celebrating the miracle of his

00:51:04.000 - 00:51:17.080

Morton Marcus: And that's really wonderful and it says so own life. dramatically the- the man who is making the picture, the man who is creating this is the writer. And what you really do is, you

00:51:17.080 - 00:51:29.230

select what course you want to take, the roads are all there, they're always there, and you select what road you want to go down. And if you want to go down the road of the slum, you can but you're saying I don't. And I love when I got this, -- I'm

00:51:29.230 - 00:51:44.110

sure this is not intentional though, Jim you are such a subtle craftsman -- it may be the sense here of a very positive thinking Bartleby the Scrivener, who says, ‘‘I prefer too," not "I prefer not.‘‘ See, which comes in there very

00:51:44.110 - 00:51:51.640

clearly, especially even the way you read it aloud, which is very, very interesting. James Houston: You hear echoes of Bartleby the Scrivener? Morton Marcus: But the other side of Bartleby, the positive

00:51:51.640 - 00:51:58.840

Bartleby- Morton Marcus: -you see, who we never get to see, you see, James Houston: Oh. because you're saying ‘‘I prefer too," t-o-o, not "I prefer not‘‘

00:51:58.870 - 00:52:13.300

which is what Bartleby always says. So it's lovely, I just- when I came on that or ‘‘perhaps not, perhaps he was a born slob‘‘ I just said, ‘‘Man, what a magician stylistically he had totally set me up. I was buying it all, and he just pull the rug

00:52:13.300 - 00:52:24.440

out from under me," and I said, "of course," you know. Beautifully done, beautifully done. Alan Cheuse: And the tricky thing there is, I mean, you know, if you don't do it with as much powerful emotion as Jim can

00:52:24.440 - 00:52:39.380

conjure, so his language, the reader- the reader can just say, ‘‘oh, well, it's not true. I- there- why should I care about it,‘‘ but he makes you care. He makes you care. I have a similar, great sequence when I- I tried to reconstruct a moment

00:52:39.410 - 00:52:53.270

in my father's life when he- Just after having arrived in this country -- after he left the Soviet Union, which happened because of a misadventure: he had to ditch his plane in the Sea of Japan and never went back, lived in the Orient a

00:52:53.270 - 00:53:10.580

while, flew in the China mail service before he came here -- where his father had immigrated, I guess around 1910 or 1911, sent some money to the family back in Russia for a while and then made his own little family, married another woman, raised

00:53:10.580 - 00:53:27.470

another family. And so his brother, my- my father's brother, Joe, who had come here about, say, eight years before my old man, would not speak to his father, knew where he was in- they all lived in New York City. And my father got the

00:53:27.470 - 00:53:47.510

address and went to see him and I reconstructed that scene a little closer in time, but no less a problem in, you know, in dramatic reconstruction than Jim had to work on. Let me- let me read this, it- I could modulate into it or segue into it from a

00:53:47.510 - 00:54:06.480

scene in summer in the cabin that we used to repair to- owned by my Uncle Joe at Greenwood Lake, on the border between Northern- North Jersey and Southern New York State. Up in the family cabin that afternoon, the malty tang of

00:54:06.480 - 00:54:22.380

beer lingers in the air, mingling with the odor of freshly caught fish that lie on the nearby sink top ready for scaling. Alan and his cousin have just caught the fish, one of Joe's boys - Joe is, Alan's my uncle - one of Joe's boys

00:54:22.380 - 00:54:35.970

first showed him how to attach a worm to a hook, and how to sit quietly, attentive to the slightest motion of the weighted line in the water. How to turn fishing time into time outside of normal time. And so the boy came to love fishing as much as

00:54:35.970 - 00:54:48.270

baseball because of the special feel of the time involved, and how to take a small wriggling silvery bass off the hook, and later how to toss it into a butter smeared pan and fry it up. and how to separate its tiny bones from the meat.

00:54:48.990 - 00:55:01.200

The sun slants into the cabin, and it's still hours away from slipping down behind the low mountains to the west. Alan, his face a little flushed from a few hours in the sun, slinks off to a corner of the large common room ready to settle it- settle

00:55:01.200 - 00:55:12.300

in with a new comic book and stretch with Plastic Man, or fly with Superman, or watch in awe as Wonder Woman deploys her magic bracelets that send bullets ricocheting back at the very criminals who fired them.

00:55:12.930 - 00:55:24.120

In through the door comes the dark haired, slender woman with his younger brother and other cousins, they've walked up from the bottom of the hill from the woods around the lake. His aunt Sadie hangs dripping bathing suits on the line while humming

00:55:24.120 - 00:55:37.080

a little foreign tune. Soon she'll come in and prepare the fish for supper. Someone turns on a radio in the far corner of one of the bedrooms and the rear of the cottage, and "Bei mir bis du schön..." the voices of the Andrews Sisters enliven the

00:55:37.320 - 00:55:48.950

mote-laden air. "Means what is your name?" the dark-haired woman sings to herself in a flighty soprano, smiling benignly at her oldest son, who from his vantage point in the far corner looks up for a

00:55:48.950 - 00:56:01.790

second and then buries his gaze back in his comic. ‘‘Oh, Teel‘‘ her husband says in a complaining voice from where he sits at the table with his brother. ‘‘What is that singing?‘‘ Then he looks back at his jovial, chunky, balding

00:56:01.790 - 00:56:13.170

brother and continues talking, sometimes in a strange mixed up language only they can understand, rough sounding speech full of strange words and special looks. They've been sitting like this for hours talking about family,

00:56:13.350 - 00:56:27.960

about the old days in the old country, talking of docks and "dachas," of war and peace and villages and rivers, the weather, the destruction wrought by the Nazis, motorcars, sky, aeroplanes, Jews, gypsies, Roosevelt, taxes, one of their

00:56:27.960 - 00:56:41.730

boys doing this, one of their boys doing that, the New Deal, New York, farmland, their mother, their other brothers. There had been one Mother -I'm sorry - there had been one brother more before the war, but when the Nazis rolled into the

00:56:41.730 - 00:56:54.090

Ukraine, burning houses and flattening sections of the small towns among the fecund fields, they had found him and hitched him to a wagon and whipped him and whipped him as he hauled the wagon around the town square and his heart came out- gave- gave

00:56:54.090 - 00:57:04.980

out. They drank tea and tea and more tea sipping it with two lumps of sugar at least, Russian style. It had been now more than a dozen years since Phil left the Soviet Union and he doesn't

00:57:04.980 - 00:57:17.730

speak Russian much at all anymore and Yiddish hardly at all. And so he conjures- I'm sorry- and so he enjoys this conversation because using these tongues conjures up his years of best memory, he tells us to his brother, the years when he was

00:57:17.730 - 00:57:31.050

the baby of the family and their mother Sonya was healthy and attentive to all their needs. Joe, his brother laughs his lusty best and slaps Phil on the arm, "you're not a baby no more!" But as Joe is laughing, the boy looks up and sees his

00:57:31.050 - 00:57:44.460

father's face darkening at the thought, reflecting his own deep sorrow at the loss of his mother. The boy can see the man's eyes narrowing, can somehow feel his father's chest tightening, and Alan wanders with him in his mind and wanders

00:57:44.460 - 00:57:56.250

as he casts back over all his childhood, not just his own life, but the hard, long, lonely years his mother spent without her husband, and the boy can almost ride the hot wind of his father's anger that rises at the mention of that other man about

00:57:56.250 - 00:58:09.940

whom he's never heard a word until today. ‘‘I saw him once when I came to New York,‘‘ Joe was saying, and Phil nods, both in recognition of the story that he has heard before, and the seriousness of the telling. ‘‘I did too,‘‘ and

00:58:09.940 - 00:58:22.030

Joe tells his part of it, and then Phil tells his, the account of how after his long trip from San Francisco, you remember? he arrived in New York, and got in touch with his brother Joe and among other things, got their father's address from him, and

00:58:22.030 - 00:58:30.370

without Joe telling him more than a few words about what he knew would happen when Philip went there, the youngest brother set off on the subway for that address on the other side of Brooklyn.

00:58:30.960 - 00:58:42.870

He had put on his best suit that morning, he's telling Joe the same suit he would in fact be wearing when he went to a dance at the Jewish Club one Saturday night in Brooklyn when Tilly would come from New Jersey to visit her cousin Thelma. And he

00:58:42.870 - 00:58:55.080

put on his best tie, and he wore his wings pinned to his lapel and the Air Force Academy ring he always wore. What crazy things were going through his head? Thoughts of his mother and his comrades in arms, and some of the places he'd seen and

00:58:55.080 - 00:59:08.550

passed through, flown over, roared into, images of the sea and the clouds when flying in formation, and sounds in his ears to the roar of his fighter plane, and the pata-patap of the guns mounted on the wings, the rush of traffic in Shanghai, the

00:59:08.550 - 00:59:20.790

calm sky above the old villages in the Ukraine. It was as if he was about to drown, his entire life was passing before his eyes, except that he wasn't drowning, he was riding in this subway car beneath the streets of Brookly, part of this new

00:59:20.790 - 00:59:31.110

city where he had migrated after long travail and journeying over mountains, seas, oceans, continents, halfway around the world, and he was about to meet the father he had not seen since he was six years old.

00:59:31.030 - 00:59:42.730

‘‘How does a man behave at a time like this?‘‘ He's asking Joe. From a corner he saw Alan was listening. He'd reached the age when he was ready to become a father on his own and he was feeling those years rapidly falling away from his life the

00:59:42.730 - 00:59:54.070

closer and closer he got to the correct station. And he was a war hero and a world traveler, a man who dared to fly and fight, and work with his hands, and stand up to bigots, and put everything behind him when the time seemed right, and plunge

00:59:54.070 - 01:00:07.180

ahead into a new world, a new life, and he could see himself now as a young boy, younger than his oldest boy was now, and he could see himself seeing himself as a young boy and his knees trembled as the train slowed down. And he carefully read the

01:00:07.180 - 01:00:19.660

English sign outside the train to be sure that he was leaving at the correct stop. And he left the subway tunnel and climbed up out into the air of a warm sunny Brooklyn autumn afternoon, thinking I could be standing right now on a street in

01:00:19.660 - 01:00:31.420

Zhitomir back in the Ukraine waiting for my uncle to accompany me on a trip downtown. I wish I were he thought, and tears rolled up in his eyes so quickly, they caught him unawares. He missed his home, his homeland, though he'd been

01:00:31.420 - 01:00:44.020

traveling now all these years away from it, and missed it all the more as he was telling the story again to Joe. Missed it so much that he not only knew tears were coming, but he actually wanted the tears to come. People passed him on the street and

01:00:44.020 - 01:00:56.860

stared at the young man weeping. He glanced back at a woman in feathered hat and sleek green skirt. The woman tugged him momentarily out of his mood. Women did that to you, they had a certain power, they elicited a certain power in yourself. So he

01:00:56.860 - 01:01:09.040

pulled out his lapels and took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes and stroke a longs- and strode off along the street in search of the number Joe had given him. And apparently he had delayed long enough, had taken all the time he needed to

01:01:09.040 - 01:01:54.710

hesitate because when he found the building he fairly well leaped up the stoop and push the bell and bounded up the stairs to the second floor. When the- [cut off] Morton Marcus: Good evening everybody this is the Sunday

01:01:54.710 - 01:02:07.610

night special. I'm your host Morton Marcus, and we are talking with Alan Cheuse and Jim Houston. The authors of respectively, "Fall Out of Heaven, an Autobiographical Journey," and "The Men in My Life." And this is, as I said,

01:02:07.610 - 01:02:21.470

the Sunday night special and we will be here for another 40 minutes. We have been talking about men in our lives, men who have influenced us, and we have been talking about what it was like to come of age. And I would like to throw out to my two

01:02:21.500 - 01:02:36.920

friends here, that it was very different coming of age in the 1950s and we've had to go through a lot of changes that, let's say a young listener out there who was born in 1950, or in the 1940s, late 40s, did not have to go through

01:02:37.430 - 01:02:50.750

Alan Cheuse: Jim- Jim has a wonderful section in- in his book on fraternities which is so extraordinarily similar to my own experience in fraternities. I mean, we never talked about this Jim-

01:02:50.750 - 01:02:59.000

James Houston: Oh, I didn't know you were in it Alan Cheuse: That's right. But your chapter said it all. Yes, I mean, hazing was something that that kids went through at that time, and I think-

01:02:59.060 - 01:03:09.300

James Houston: I think it goes on. Alan Cheuse: In- in limited- in a very liimited way, but it was rampant when- when we were in college. James Houston: Yeah. It seemed to be, I mean, it's just a

01:03:09.300 - 01:03:21.090

grotesque distortion of the whole idea of the rite of passage, you know, into, into manhood, from adolescence into manhood, you- you go through some ordeal and somehow afterward you're- you're accepted into the- into the

01:03:21.090 - 01:03:39.060

brotherhood of men and- And the college fraternity initiation rite, it's just just a pathetic distortion of all that and upon- you know, as I look back on it now, although at the time it seemed enormously important at age 18 when you're, you know,

01:03:39.060 - 01:04:00.480

full of insecurity about your social status, and your capacity for friendship, and all this sort of stuff. So you're drawn into it for reasons you- you- you don't understand and suddenly you find yourself. And during this- this terribly

01:04:00.480 - 01:04:09.690

humiliating experience and thinking it's somehow manly, and by- by putting up with- Alan Cheuse: Your father was alive when you were going through that.

01:04:09.720 - 01:04:17.550

James Houston: Yeah. Alan Cheuse: Did you talk to him about that? Did he know what was going on? James Houston: No, he had no idea. I mean, that was so alien

01:04:17.550 - 01:04:33.750

to his experience. There was nothing in his life- perhaps when he was in the Navy, they do- they do a lot of hazing in the Navy nowadays. But he finished the 10th grade, he didn't go to college, and he was never a joiner. I mean, he never

01:04:33.750 - 01:04:47.820

joined the Elks or the Shriners or, you know, he never belonged to any fraternal group. In fact, he wouldn't- he wouldn't even stay in the- in the- in the Painting and Decorating Union. As a contractor he- he quit the union after about five or six

01:04:47.820 - 01:04:53.550

years because he didn't like the way that was going. He was always a, you know, a loner. Morton Marcus: Alright, let me give you a theme. Okay. James Houston: Yeah

01:04:53.550 - 01:05:02.940

Morton Marcus: You said these threads go through your book, there are intentional threads as you knot these things together, beautiful Navajo weaving if I- if I may say, but there are also these invisible threads.

01:05:02.940 - 01:05:13.980

James Houston: Thats a wonderful comment. Morton Marcus: There are these invisible threads that go through. So that now you see, we find that your father never joined, but I said to myself, of course not because in the very

01:05:13.980 - 01:05:26.010

first piece- and well, second piece in the book, but the first major piece in the book, we find Jim Houston moving out on his own from the communal existence of men in the exact same way your father did through music.

01:05:27.090 - 01:05:36.840

James Houston: Mhm. Yeah. Morton Marcus: Yeah. And that's, that's the “Prune Picker.“ Yeah, I want to talk with that and talk about sort of like going on this Bly article that both of us have read about how this

01:05:36.840 - 01:05:48.150

changed, how Genie(?) sort of became the- the guide for the 60s or the woman in yourself? James Houston: Well, yeah, I want to come back to that Bly article because I think that's really fundamental for what

01:05:48.150 - 01:06:13.320

we're talking about, or talking around. But in the- in the first part of "The Men In My Life," I was deliberately trying to examine, I guess three or- three- three very basic kinds of male rituals that are- that are just ingrained in our society.

01:06:13.920 - 01:06:31.140

The first is football in the story called “Prune Picker,“ and how I got drawn into the idea that I could be a successful and even famous football player. And again, it's- it's- it's a form of male achievement. That's all tied into the machismo end of

01:06:31.380 - 01:06:45.720

manhood, you know, and for a lot of reasons that I didn't understand until much, much later. But I wanted to- in writing that stories, it's one of those stories that took me a long time to write because it took me a long time to get to

01:06:45.720 - 01:06:59.610

the point where I understood my own history well enough to grasp why it was that it was so important for me to play football. And it had a lot to do with my uncle, my mother's brother and his his thwarted football ambitions growing up in

01:06:59.610 - 01:07:17.100

West Texas when he had to continually help my grandmother bring in her- her cotton crop, and all his ambitions got transferred to me. I couldn't see that, you know, for another 20-25 years but that was- that was one- one area of male

01:07:17.100 - 01:07:34.140

achievement that I- that I tested myself in and backed away from. The next- the next one was the- was the fraternity initiation, and trying, you know, trying- and I went through the initiation and I, you know, succeeded in it after a fashion,

01:07:34.140 - 01:07:44.490

I got accepted into the fraternity, but I just I never did like it. Having done it, having passed, jumped through all the hoops, I still didn't want to- that particular kind of brotherhood.

01:07:44.790 - 01:07:52.080

Morton Marcus: It is very important that you actually did jump through the hoops and you- I mean, the most humiliating, it just kept getting more and more humiliating. Why don't you talk about-

01:07:52.000 - 01:08:11.140

James Houston: Well, then and the third one was military experience, which is in- which is in this- in of a piece with playing football and being in a fraternity, and- and- and not- and not being able to- to what? engage that completely not being

01:08:11.140 - 01:08:27.160

able to accept it. Even though I was I- was in the service, and I was an officer, and I was overseas, and I had on my uniforms, but it's a story that focuses on the- on the occasion when I finally am responsible for transferring a nuclear

01:08:27.190 - 01:08:40.780

device, nuclear warhead from an ammunition dump out to the flight line on this Air Force Base, which is something I was totally unprepared for. And suddenly it opened up a window onto the realities of contemporary warfare, that was

01:08:41.020 - 01:08:57.580

very, very difficult to handle. And again, you know, I'm distancing- trying to distance myself from that idea of manhood. None of those ideas, traditional, and sort of establishment ideas of manhood were satisfactory for me at the

01:08:57.580 - 01:09:11.920

time. And I had to- and you know, and so where do you go? Where do you- if you're going to leave behind football, and military, and- and the fraternity idea of brotherhood, you know, where else do you locate your manhood? And that's

01:09:11.920 - 01:09:26.500

part of what I was trying to- trying to get at by beginning with those particular stories. Morton Marcus: Tell us where you did go to? James Houston: Well, I began to- I got into that story called

01:09:26.530 - 01:09:40.270

“The Lost Brother,“ you know, just finding that place in myself, finding that- that- that vulnerable place in myself where the lost brother still lived, and finding that vulnerable place in myself where the missing grandfather still lived,

01:09:40.900 - 01:09:57.850

and making peace with my father even though he had already passed away, in my own heart. And trying to write about that process, you know, those are all- for me they were- they were- those were more central, more meaningful rituals of rites

01:09:57.850 - 01:10:19.300

of passage through telling these stories which are really telling my- getting my- telling myself, taking myself through these- these narrow passages of understanding and- and awareness about- about these key relationships with men. It's

01:10:19.300 - 01:10:34.530

more a matter of- it's more a matter of consciousness, and honesty, and surrender. and trying to move to a new level of awareness. Morton Marcus: You know in the book, there's something that

01:10:34.560 - 01:10:48.570

really matches the- for one of the first questions you asked Alan, was there really the father out there, was the father really talking in Alan's trip to the Soviet Union, even though the father was dead. But a very similar thing happens in your

01:10:48.690 - 01:11:00.660

piece of your father, in which you're finally playing music, finally appreciating the music that was the love of his life, really. And you see him at this outdoor, what I gather was the corn rows.

01:11:01.290 - 01:11:08.250

Alan Cheuse: Yes, yes. Right. Morton Marcus: And that's how vivid that description was though you didn't say anything- James Houston: - the ghostly apparition there.

01:11:09.620 - 01:11:24.440

Alan Cheuse: The opening and closing lines of Robert An- Robert Anderson's play, "I Never Sang For My Father," which I saw recently at the Kennedy Center. "Death ends a life, it doesn't end the relationship." And I think that's- that's what we've

01:11:24.440 - 01:11:44.540

been wrestling with. But what about- I mean, we've been working in our minds in our work with our fathers, and we both have sons and daughters. I find it an interesting task that lies before us, and we've been working on it for years and

01:11:44.540 - 01:12:04.040

years, what- knowing the difficulties of the- the absent parent or the parent who separates himself in the life of the child, and the effect it's had on us. What do we do in our own family life to remedy that? I mean, what- what- what do we

01:12:04.040 - 01:12:17.690

do when we know that our children are living their own lives and- and taking a solid stance towards us because they believe that we don't know a damn thing about what they need to know. How do we take that step towards them?

01:12:17.730 - 01:12:34.200

Morton Marcus: This is one of the really bittersweet and ironic threads in your book because Josh acts you in many ways, the same way you act your father. And this is brilliantly woven by you throughout the book, but it certainly is a

01:12:34.200 - 01:12:49.400

legitimate question because we cannot force those kids to now suddenly become as sensitive or sensitized as- as let's say we as parents and become, and it's- it's- it's a great problem. Alan Cheuse: Yeah. I guess what I mean, are the teeth of the

01:12:49.400 - 01:13:00.680

third- even- [unidentified], even onto the third generation, I say to you, graded on the bitter wine(?) James Houston: Well, I think, you know, oh my God, Morton Marcus: That's one of the great mixed metaphores of all

01:13:01.520 - 01:13:14.270

time! [Laughter] James Houston: Not only do we get the question, we get the commercial. No, I think a key thing for- for any- any male, you- almost every male that I've talked to who's- who's come to

01:13:14.270 - 01:13:30.080

terms with the father involves forgiving the father. There's an- there's an act, there's a sense of forgiveness, which means you have to forgive yourself and you forgive the father within you, and you forgive your father for all the

01:13:30.080 - 01:13:47.180

things you think that he did to you or withheld from you or whatever. But raising children I think is is an essential part of that process. You don't have to raise children, but I think it- for me it accelerated the process considerably because in

01:13:47.180 - 01:13:56.460

raising our three kids, especially working with our son, who's now twenty- Alan Cheuse: Do you realize we each not only have affinities in the work, but we each have a son named Josh.

01:13:56.490 - 01:14:15.520

Morton Marcus: That's correct, that's right, that's right James Houston: But I, you know, repeatedly would see- hear my father in my own voice, hear- see my father in my own actions toward Josh. And- and it became just- just profoundly clear how-

01:14:15.790 - 01:14:29.380

how- how much of him lived in me and how much I was him. And then I spent a lot of time re-examining that, you know, because a lot of things that I found myself doing that I didn't like, things that I had not liked when my father did it, and

01:14:29.380 - 01:14:45.190

I didn't like any more when I was doing it, or saying it, or feeling it. And that led to a lot of, you know, self examination, and I hope personal growth, but in the process, learning who my fath-, learning who I- who I am, learning who my

01:14:45.190 - 01:14:58.330

father was brought me ever closer to the point where I could really see him as a human being rather than as this authority figure, or this monumental presence in my life. And that's a- that's a crucial threshold that I think you have

01:14:58.330 - 01:15:09.960

to cross, you have to be able to see your parents just as human beings, and not as you know, father with a capital F. Morton Marcus: See, that's the answer to one of the questions that Alan asked, you know, how are we different, is this

01:15:09.960 - 01:15:20.610

generation of writers different? I think that we're even talking about ourselves as parents, Dostoyevsky asked all the ques ions, but he never asked those questions of himself and e was a louse from everything e know, if we take certainly his

01:15:20.610 - 01:15:33.240

wife's view of things, you kno , and even Tolstoy never conside ed his wife. One of the things was gonna ask you to talk ab ut was the genie thing and how woman actually leads you, yo know, to the sense of your ow self, out of the initiat

01:15:33.240 - 01:15:49.230

on process into another kind of initiation, you know, which h s happened to us all also. A d this is another part of grow h, which Bly says, you know, i the 60s and the 70s, women w re assertive, women told us who hey were. and for the first t

01:15:49.230 - 01:16:00.090

me, men paid attention and cer ainly paid attention in this co ntry, and then tried to please he woman, and in that process he thinks they lost somethi g. Well, we'll go on from th t, but I'm just sort of cooing n the the listeners. But Alan, s

01:16:00.090 - 01:16:14.260

y some stuff about this. Alan Cheuse: Well, I was thinking, as Jim was talking, I mean, he's really talking serious truth here. When- do you recall when we were in our early 20s, someone would come up to us

01:16:14.260 - 01:16:26.170

and say, you know, be very careful about these women you're going out with, take a look at their mothers, because that's what they're going to look like in 30 or 40 years. That's what you're marrying. If you marry these women, you're gonna marry

01:16:26.170 - 01:16:39.610

their mothers. And I realized when, you know, when you're- you were speaking that we ought to all take a good look at our fathers because that's who, as you say, we could well possibly become if we're not careful. And what we want to do is use farm-

01:16:39.640 - 01:16:56.560

farm our past, farm our father's personality, and harvest the good and discard the bad and make up- make up something for our own children that's a better legacy than- than what we got. Which I'm not saying that, you know, our fathers were bad but

01:16:56.590 - 01:17:12.820

that they did it haphazardly, I guess, and as artists, I suppose, we want to make something more of a pattern and make more of a pleasing design and pass something on to our kids that they might not only admire more, but learn a bit

01:17:12.820 - 01:17:21.570

more without the same difficulties that we had. Morton Marcus: Alan, let me throw a question back at you. What- since your son is in the book and is obviously a part of this three generation-

01:17:21.570 - 01:17:34.050

Alan Cheuse: Let me tell you, I may- I may- I may get some really nasty reviews, but I couldn't feel any more fear as when I sent the finished manuscript to Josh to read, and waited for his answer.

01:17:35.430 - 01:17:45.090

Morton Marcus: Yeah, what was his answer? Alan Cheuse: He said, "Oh, it's okay." Best review I've ever gotten. James Houston: It's different.

01:17:49.710 - 01:18:04.260

Morton Marcus: Yeah, it's um, I mean, there- as you can tell out there on the airwaves, the levels of both of these books. They are going in so many directions, they have so many things to talk about, so many people to talk to that- that is

01:18:04.260 - 01:18:16.980

the reason why we are taking two hours in talking to these gentlemen because there is a richness that we not only can all partake of, but a growth in ourselves and a way of using literature as a mirror to show us that our experiences are not

01:18:16.980 - 01:18:28.310

only our experiences, but are also others, and others who can talk about them and define them as both Jim and Alan have Alan Cheuse: These are books that you can reach for when you know you've finished Bill Cosby's book on fatherhood, I

01:18:28.310 - 01:18:45.870

think. When you- when you- when your study of Cosby's book is exhausted, and you're- you're looking for more protein on the subject. James Houston: Cosby's book on fatherhood was the biggest

01:18:45.870 - 01:19:03.480

selling book in hardback, in the history of publishers week- weekly keeping track of how many books have been sold in a year in hardback last year. He sold more copies in any book that anybody remembers.

01:19:03.510 - 01:19:12.450

Alan Cheuse: Well, that suggests that the subject is in the air. James Houston: As the subject would seem to be. I mean Cosby's obviously in the air but father, the combination of Cosby plus Father.

01:19:12.480 - 01:19:22.980

Alan Cheuse: I don't think he would have sold as many books if it was, you know, Cosby on crawdad fishing or, you know, Cosby on- on his butterfly collection, that‘s the subject and [unidentified] I think.

01:19:23.640 - 01:19:33.010

James Houston: Cos- Cosby on nuclear disarmament, it wouldn't have sold as much. Alan Cheuse: No. James Houston: But it's those two things together. But I think

01:19:33.160 - 01:19:49.630

we were talking about this earlier, you know, the- you- you're doing a book, you've just- you've done a book on- on the search for your own father, both physically and geographically, and- and- and psychically and emotionally. And

01:19:49.630 - 01:20:05.530

Mort is in the middle of this- of this- this narrative poems- series of narrative poems, it has similar themes, and- And I've done a book called ‘‘The Men of My Life,‘‘ and I don't think it's an- it's an- it is that much of an accident that we

01:20:05.530 - 01:20:26.920

all find ourselves on this particular path at this particular time because it's- it's very much- it's very much in the air of America, men thinking about various aspects of maleness. And I think it has a lot to do with, as Alan was

01:20:26.920 - 01:20:39.340

saying, you know, the- the the women's movement, the feminist movement of the last 15 or 20 years, whatever you want- whatever label you want to put on that, it has forced a certain kind of conversation and a certain kind of rethink.

01:20:39.370 - 01:20:53.920

Alan Cheuse: That's absolutely true. James Houston: Not only the- among women, saying, this is who we are, this is what we're about, and this is how we want ourselves- we want ourselves to be regarded. But forcing men,

01:20:54.220 - 01:21:10.060

any men of- with any imagination or any thoughtfulness to re-examine not only what they want from women and what women want from them, but examine our motives, our values, ourselves, you know? And what Bly is talking about in that essay,

01:21:11.140 - 01:21:30.340

how- well he says that for a while men lost something, he talks about the, the evolution of the soft male in American society. Part of that is fine, there has been a release in a lot of men, a release of the of the feminine- of the feminine

01:21:30.340 - 01:21:45.040

side, a discovery of the feminine side, discovery of the female within. But that's not the end of the- of the journey, that's not the end of the quest, you know. There's- what I start to find in myself and among men that I talk to, you know,

01:21:45.040 - 01:22:00.250

there's a- there's a discovery, a re-discovery or re-releasing of the deeper male, not the macho male. There's- there's another level of maleness, of manhood that is richer and deeper and more spiritual, and just as forceful and just as

01:22:00.250 - 01:22:15.790

aggressive, but it's not macho. It's not- it's not manhood at the expense of somebody else, it's not manhood that requires some form of conquest to be validated, it's- it's- it's- it's a sense of manhood that comes from- from a deeper set of

01:22:15.790 - 01:22:31.170

values, and a kind of maleness that recognizes the feminine, you know. And- and the idea of that dance being part of- part of life, rather than somebody winning over somebody else. Morton Marcus: It's what Bly calls the ‘‘wild man.‘‘

01:22:31.200 - 01:22:46.120

James Houston: Yeah Morton Marcus: It is, from what I can get from that description of it, it is spontaneity. It is the ability to stand alone as an individual, and yet be cognizant of and be part of the whole male

01:22:46.540 - 01:23:02.770

aura of aggressiveness and a sense of muscular power. And yet it is not as you have said, again, and again, not machismo, you know, and it does have recognition to it. It's like, you can deny knowledge, the Daoists always say, you know,

01:23:02.800 - 01:23:15.010

learning is no good, got to get rid of it. But what's implied by that is that you learn and then when you learned, you can say okay, now I can deny learning, but you got to learn first. And one of the interesting things that Bly says to me in that

01:23:15.010 - 01:23:31.600

essay is that many young men, I mean, we are in our late 40s, early 50s, but many young men who are the soft males, go to women to ask what it is to be masculine, and what they're getting are female definitions.

01:23:31.630 - 01:23:47.740

Alan Cheuse: I find that very bizarre. I think it may well be that the feminist movement has now reached a plateau, it's come to a temporary standstill and we may be moving collectively in a direction that will answer some of the questions that they've

01:23:47.740 - 01:24:08.440

raised. Jim, the- would you read the elegi conclusion or part of it if you can to your book. I noticed that again, both of our books and- and it kind of- was kinds of elegies and I'd love to hear you read yours. It's one of the first pieces of yours that I

01:24:08.440 - 01:24:27.010

ever read when it came out as a separate chapbook from Capra Press and I- I see that it found a home at the end of this narrative about the men in your life and it couldn't be any- couldn't be any more fitting conclusion than this piece that

01:24:27.010 - 01:24:37.350

you wrote very early in- or relatively early in your life as a writer. James Houston: Well, yeah, it's interesting the way the book took shape because as I said, the- the second to the last

01:24:37.350 - 01:24:52.350

piece "The Men in My Life" is the last is the last piece I wrote chronologically. I mean, literally less than a year ago I wrote that essay, but the final, the final, that's the penultimate piece, the ultimate, the final piece. "Elegy" is the-

01:24:52.380 - 01:25:07.230

is the earliest one written, because it was in that- that chap book you mentioned, which is called "Three Songs For My Father," came out about a dozen years ago. So you're thinking- what the- right at the end? You like the ending?

01:25:07.000 - 01:25:21.550

Alan Cheuse: Well, can you read the passages where you're casting away his equipment, the artifacts of his life even as you bring them to life in your- in your book, your casting out the material side.

01:25:22.560 - 01:25:37.380

James Houston: Yeah, well let's see if I read the last two paragraphs. I would just have to say that this is a- this is a short elegy that I wrote after my dad passed away and the setting is at the county junkyard, and I've just cleaned

01:25:37.380 - 01:25:54.930

out his work shed and I'm throwing away all the stuff of his life. And he was a- he was a painting and decorating contractor, and he had this case, a leather case that he used to carry around all his paints and pigment samples and-

01:25:58.440 - 01:26:15.090

and for me, it was like a symbol of his job and the his pride in his job. And he was- he was just a working class guy who was real good at painting houses. And on this particular day, I found myself throwing away all the- all the details of his life,

01:26:15.090 - 01:26:31.140

including this- this- this leather case. And in the course of the story, the case reminds me of the first day that I went out on a- on a job with him when I was 13 and he had me painting the inside of somebody's house, and- and that was a day of great

01:26:31.680 - 01:26:52.800

kinship and male bonding between my- me and my father. At the same time, it was my first glimpse into the reality of his life, and this was- this was really, there wasn't much to it. I could already see that- that he was dissatisfied that he only

01:26:52.800 - 01:27:13.090

had this kind of a job to offer me. So it was a kind of double-edged day and at the end of that story, I come back to the- come back to the county dump. At the county dump I am throwing away my father, hefting this

01:27:13.090 - 01:27:31.150

suitcase to toss the last of him onto the smoking heap. When that shred of leather gives and the buckle brakes, the kit flies open. As if compressed inside waiting to escape, the pungent smell of oil and rare pigments cuts through smoke and rot and

01:27:31.150 - 01:27:48.910

fills the air around me. The few tubes still in there begin to topple. My throwing arm stays, my other hand reaches. I'm holding the suitcase, inhaling the smell that always surrounded him even after he had scrubbed. It rose from the creases in his

01:27:48.910 - 01:28:06.700

hands, from permanent white liners rimming his fingernails from the paint mode see sometimes missed with thinner at the corners of his eyes. I breathe deep, close the suitcase slowly, prepare to heave it once and for all. This time with both

01:28:06.700 - 01:28:27.280

hands out among all those things you only find by losing them, out and up and onto the truck bed where it lands with a thunk and sits solid. Those aromatic tubes give a density. I wait for him to tie his ladder on the overhead rack and we climb into

01:28:27.280 - 01:28:45.220

the cab. He winks once more as we prepare to leave Mrs. so and so behind. Reeking of paint and turpentine, bill caps shoved back, we are Sherwin Williams calling it a day with no way to talk much over the stuttering engine of his metal floored

01:28:45.220 - 01:29:05.850

Chevy. And no need to talk, the sticky clutch leaps, wind rushes in mixing paint and gasoline fumes, and all you need to do is stay loose for the jolts, and the whole long rumble ride home. Morton Marcus: That was, again, Jim Houston. If you have just

01:29:05.850 - 01:29:21.000

tuned in reading from his book, "The Men in My Life" and that is in fact the final piece of the book. And we are talking with Jim on the Sunday night special tonight, we're also talking to Alan Cheuse, the author of "Fall Out Of Heaven." Both of these

01:29:21.000 - 01:29:36.000

books are new just out, "Fall Out Of Heaven" has been out a week, Jim's book's been out several months. Alan, since you asked him to read something, let me ask you to read something. And I sort of want to save the last thing I want you to read

01:29:36.000 - 01:29:56.880

for last. But I would like you to read either 297 and 298, or page 298 which really gives us this same kind of sense of things going on. I then want you to read something later on which is the amazing words of your father after his death as he

01:29:56.880 - 01:30:11.250

comes to you, which are incredible. But all I have to say and you may want to introduce it, is that Khiva is the first aerodrome your father was assigned to. And it is in or near Tashkent.

01:30:11.760 - 01:30:22.470

Alan Cheuse: [cut off] -even smaller jet to the other side of the desert to [unidentified] and then went by car from [unidentified] to Khiva. Morton Marcus: But this is as far as you're concerned, the

01:30:22.470 - 01:30:31.710

final place of the pilgrimage, you have reached now, where he reached in his first assignment in the Soviet Air Force. Alan Cheuse: Yeah. Morton Marcus: And it's really, it is beautiful style. What

01:30:31.710 - 01:30:45.840

happens in the book is that it just gets more and more poetic, more- if you will, elegiac and almost a form of lament in the end which I find very moving. And Jim's does the same thing, that throwing the stuff away in the junkyard is the same thing.

01:30:46.590 - 01:31:02.050

Alan Cheuse: Well, I'll read this as a very brief passage. We've come all the way to Khiva and well, I‘ll just read it: Somewhere outside in the town, a record or tape of the local music makes the air begin to quaver with a mixture of sadness

01:31:02.050 - 01:31:15.160

and hopeful ululation, a cock suddenly crows right through the layer of undulating sound, though it's certainly not sunrise and not yet evening. A donkey brays, too, and I feel as though all the particles of my life hang suspended in the

01:31:15.160 - 01:31:28.480

liquid light of this tea house. There's a bright burst of children's voices as someone has just released a flock of doves or cast a handful of pebbles onto the top surface of a drum. I still have many questions, I still have many things to see

01:31:28.480 - 01:31:43.060

and do. Yes (that yes is my father's voice in my head). And I still feel uncertain and not entirely satisfied with any single thing. But I know a little something now, as sure as I can say that I‘ve passed through this antique town of

01:31:43.060 - 01:31:55.570

mosques, and minarets, and markets, an old oasis between deserts as ancient as any place on the surface of the earth. As sure as I can say ‘‘we've been here!‘‘ I understand that just as life made it difficult for me to progress before I came here,

01:31:55.570 - 01:32:09.010

now it seems possible for me to move along. One can move through time, through a lifetime, ageing but never maturing, and one can travel tens of thousands of miles and always stay in the same mental place and so relic- really never leave home. Yes.

01:32:09.780 - 01:32:21.510

And if anyone can be said to ever have a home on this planet of wonders moving through space and through time, if the rest of it comes to nothing, and even if the gospels are mistaken, and all will be for nought, and even if the prophecies are skewed,

01:32:21.630 - 01:32:34.050

and all of us, not just some of us, come to very bad ends, even if our watches stop and love turns to dust and our children, the lovely fruit of the earth whose futures when we think in a dark mood can make us hold our heads and our hands and whimper

01:32:34.050 - 01:32:46.410

and jibber like helpless, stupefied apes, and even if our children turn their faces from our lights, and wander through deserts vaster than the Kara Kum, even when we call out to them, try to call them back in our best and smartest voices,

01:32:46.620 - 01:32:57.840

even if they wander away from us still, yes, we can say that at least we halloed to them, hailed them, spoke our love to them over miles and years, we can say each in our own way, we can say...

01:32:57.780 - 01:33:10.860

Yes, say it! We can at least say... And who knows but it might be more than least... A little more than least, at least if you go there and you must try to go there, save your money, and plan your trip, pack your bags, and suffer the little

01:33:10.860 - 01:33:22.980

discomforts and indignities of travel, the bad food, the danger, the heavy load of foreign pressures coming down on your brain... put home out of your mind for a while and give yourself over to the voyage, the air, the sea, the train, the

01:33:22.980 - 01:33:36.210

horseback, camelback, Jeep, the bus, walk across the sand in your tire-soled shoes. However you go, whatever your mode of motion, whatever it is, you're going in your dream, wherever it is you're going in your dreams you must plan to travel there

01:33:36.210 - 01:33:50.190

now... to whatever point on the map means the most to you, because of fathers mothers, brothers, sisters, children, uncles, lovers... Make up your mind now to take the map out and plan the route to where- wherever it is you have to head

01:33:50.190 - 01:34:07.730

for so that you can say sooner than later that at least... at least... at least... We have been to Khiva. Morton Marcus: Wonderful stuff. There's just so much, you know, we've got around 15 more minutes and I just literally just go all

01:34:07.730 - 01:34:22.100

night and also talk, I feel that the talk hasn't been flowing because I want to have people hear what you're reading. And I would remind everyone out there that Jim and Alan will be reading at [unidentified] upstairs on South First Street

01:34:22.100 - 01:34:37.190

in San Jose on Tuesday night at 8pm. And you have just heard Alan Cheuse reading from his wonderful new book "Fall Out Of Heaven." And Jim Houston reading from his wonderful new book, "The Men in My Life." And there are so many things, I've taken

01:34:37.190 - 01:34:50.120

so many notes on- on both books, and it's such a joy to me to read both of them. There is one line in Jim's book, which I did not want to get off the air thinking about, it's a wonderful line in the "Lost Brother," which I hope Jim will read from

01:34:50.450 - 01:35:09.770

and it's something that I don't think women understand, but it is a great line from Rudy, this wild, uncontrollable- He is a wild man figure, right- right out of Bly, and he is drunk, and he picks you up in the van with his buddy, they're both

01:35:09.770 - 01:35:21.770

furniture movers and haulers, Ollie. And they've got a girl with him, Ingrid, and the girl has obviously been Rudy's, except when Rudy takes you to this magical beach and your opening description of it, which I hope you'll read, it is like

01:35:21.770 - 01:35:35.300

something out of a Japanese scroll painting or a haiku in which the world has been captured in a grain of sand. It's just beautiful, beautiful writing. But anyway, he takes you to this beach, and he opens himself to you and begins to

01:35:35.300 - 01:35:51.110

weep, and touches in you a sense that this is the lost brother. But at one point, Ollie goes off with Ingrid on this beach and you have this wonderful line which women are liable to be offended by, but it just really shows the difference between

01:35:51.110 - 01:36:08.510

male experience and female experience. And you say, ‘‘You see the kind of partner I have-‘‘ watching Ollie go off with Ingrid around the cove. He says, ‘‘he is so foolish, he thinks this beach is a beach you bring girls to‘‘ And it really

01:36:08.510 - 01:36:23.390

says that this is not a beach for women, this is not a beach for seduction, this is a beach where males come to enact something. And it is being enacted at that moment on the cliff between you and Rudy. And I don't know what you want to

01:36:23.390 - 01:36:35.540

read from this. And so I will allow you if you- if you want to read from it to- to read from and even talk about that- that moment in here, which I thought was just a wonderful line of insight. Throwing all these curves to my friend Jimmy who

01:36:35.630 - 01:36:41.930

shuffles pages wildly. [Laughter] Alan Cheuse: This is the beach now, Jim. James Houston: Yeah, this- Alan Cheuse: Enacted.

01:36:41.930 - 01:36:54.680

James Houston: We're on the beach. Well, I'll read it, I'll read a little bit from this. I don't know how much I could read from this- I have never read from this story. I do like that opening paragraph.

01:36:55.320 - 01:37:05.250

Morton Marcus: At least- read that and then read something else. It is just so beautiful. I mean, we talk about style and we talk about the beauty of language, we've been referring to it all night. Well, this, this is what we're talking

01:37:05.250 - 01:37:19.590

about. Just- just read that, it's just gorgeous. James Houston: And it's true that this story has been on my mind. I first tried to write this story in 1961 right after I met this guy, and then I set it aside and I tried it again,

01:37:20.460 - 01:37:41.580

about 1965 or 66. And then I set it aside, and then I rewrote it again last year while I was in- I was in Hawaii. I rewrote it while I was staying over on the Big Island last year- a year ago last summer. It finally came clear to me. So this is the way

01:37:41.580 - 01:37:56.340

the "Lost Brother" starts: This story has been on my mind for years, the story of a German drifter and his silent Swedish partner and the quiet beach they took me to, which seemed at the time to be the quietest in the

01:37:56.340 - 01:38:14.640

world. It was a place where nothing moved. Water met the shore like a curving sheet of silver, cut to fit. The beach was made of round stones that clinked when you walked. For 25 years their sound has stayed with me, the dull clinking of

01:38:14.640 - 01:38:32.220

porous stones beneath the pearl-gray sky. They had the same effect of wooden mallet can have as it strikes a wooden gong outside of Buddhist temple, creating around it an enormous space, and you find yourself releasing into that space

01:38:32.670 - 01:38:43.930

unremembered memories, feelings you did not know you had. Morton Marcus: I wish I could write poetry that way. Let me tell you. James Houston: Yeah, it's interesting the way things come

01:38:43.930 - 01:39:05.500

together. I had just been- see I was in- I was on the Big Island and in July of 86 and in May we were going to Tassajara hotsprings and down at Tassajara, you know, they marked the passage, the moments in the day with these wooden mallets

01:39:05.500 - 01:39:18.760

because it's a- it's a zen- it's a center for Zen students and they are doing their daily disciplines. So even if you're down there as a- as a visitor guest you hear that wooden mallet going all during the day, and you're down in this- in this

01:39:18.760 - 01:39:31.810

canyon deep down in the Los Padres Range where there's no electricity, there's one- there's one telephone line, but there's nothing to break the silence except the creek, and this wooden gong. And it just put me in touch with that

01:39:31.810 - 01:39:48.820

particular kind of silence that creates space around itself. And then later on, there's a moment when- when Rudy and I are sitting up on the cliff, you know, the silence of the beach. And while I was in the Islands, we took a hike into Haleakalā

01:39:49.360 - 01:40:02.320

which is the world's largest dormant volcano. You're up at 10,000 feet, and there's literally nothing up there. It's a lunar landscape, there are no animals, there's no birds, and the day we were in there, there was no wind. And this silence

01:40:02.320 - 01:40:19.810

was so profound, it takes you right down to the- to the square root of silence, you know. And that brought me to the place where I could write that scene, took me back to that beach, and so it's like I had to wait 25 years for that season when I was

01:40:19.810 - 01:40:33.940

in Tassajara, and then six weeks later, in the Haleakalā like crater, and then I was back on that beach in Sweden in 1960. And I could tell the story, because the silence is right at the center of the story, what the silence releases between

01:40:33.940 - 01:40:46.710

these two guys, me and the German drifter. Morton Marcus: Can you think of any way you can get a passage out of this, you know, one of these- the difficulties of all these books is that we're just getting meaningful passages,

01:40:46.710 - 01:40:59.430

though Jim's book is composed of short pieces still. There, they're longer than- James Houston: Let's see, let's see, let's see. I don't know. I don't think I can read any more from the "Lost Brother."

01:40:59.460 - 01:41:05.640

Morton Marcus: Okay, you got something else you have to read from? James Houston: Do anything- well, what are we going to do? I'm going to read something short and Alan‘s going to read

01:41:05.640 - 01:41:16.860

something? Morton Marcus: Um, well, I we've got like around nine minutes and I think maybe that would be the best way to do it, any words you want to have or to sum up, let's say your side and then words

01:41:16.860 - 01:41:28.410

Alan would have to sum up his side. I know what I want Alan to read, but that doesn't mean that- that's what he's going to read because I want him to read what he wants to but to me- James Houston: I'll just- let me read- I'll read the the ‘‘Hip

01:41:29.130 - 01:41:35.640

Plumber‘‘ because- Alan Cheuse: I just read that to my nonfiction workshop in Virginia that just last week. James Houston: Oh yeah?

01:41:35.640 - 01:41:40.410

Morton Marcus: Did it break them up? Alan Cheuse: They loved it. Morton Marcus: They loved it, yeah. This is a whole other tone in the book a whole other style.

01:41:40.000 - 01:41:54.970

James Houston: Well, most of the stories are these ancestral stories. But there are three pieces in here that are- I think of as- as sketches in dialogue. They're not stories, they're short pieces just trying to catch the flavor and the- the-

01:41:54.970 - 01:42:15.490

and the quality of character through speech of three men in my life, one is the plumber, one is the New Age barber, and one is the kung fu teacher with eyes like G. Gordon Liddy. But the ‘‘Hip Plumber‘‘ is, is a sort of prologue to the book. So I'll

01:42:15.490 - 01:42:22.630

read that as a conclusion to the show, right? Or to my part of the show. Morton Marcus: Yes. James Houston: Read the- read the beginning as the end, which

01:42:22.630 - 01:42:34.240

takes me back to the- to the epigraph to the book, which comes from Lao Tzu, who says the way that leads forward seems to lead backwards. THE HIP PLUMBER, a prologue

01:42:35.440 - 01:42:50.590

The hip plumber is underneath my sink, squeezed in between the flung-wide cabinet doors, working his wrench to unscrew the trap so he can unplug the drain. "Sometimes," he says "when I'm up under here all by myself in the shadows with the

01:42:50.590 - 01:43:06.970

pipes and the smells, I think, what the hell am I doing in a situation like this? Then I just relax and say to myself, it's okay, It's okay to be here. This is where I'm supposed to be. If I wasn't supposed to be here, I wouldn't be here. You know what

01:43:06.970 - 01:43:21.720

I mean? What I am saying is I surrender to that place and that time and then I am at peace with it. I become one with it. Hand me that flashlight now so I can see what the hell is in here." I hand him the flash and he appears around at the stuccoed

01:43:21.720 - 01:43:36.060

underbelly of the sink, the chalky corrosion stains. ‘‘I don't take any of this seriously,‘‘ He says, I mean, it has to be fun. I have to enjoy it. I go out on one of these big jobs where some contractor calls me in to do the whole kitchen

01:43:36.060 - 01:43:48.630

and bathroom. And these other guys are out there, the roofers, the sheet rock, guys. They're glum. They're walking around doing what they do, but they can't wait for the day to end. And me I'm singing, I'm smiling. They say, ‘Hey, you don't have

01:43:48.630 - 01:44:01.950

any right to smile doing this kind of shit work.‘ In their view, see, anybody who smiles must not know what he's got himself into. They think something is wrong with me because I really do enjoy what I'm doing. But hey, it's all one

01:44:01.950 - 01:44:15.380

isn't it? Work is worship. That's what I tell them out there on the big construction jobs. I say ‘work is worship.‘ They just look at me. Now he has the pipes loose and he is feeding the snake-cable

01:44:15.410 - 01:44:31.820

down into the long drain a few inches at a time, feeding, cranking the spool handle ferociously, then feeding a few more inches of cable. "You see I am just a puppet. This came to me nine years ago, I saw that what I had to do was surrender

01:44:31.820 - 01:44:45.560

myself to whatever you want to call it: God. Brahman, the great force, the oversoul, you name it. I call it God, but you know what I mean, You surrender to it, you are a puppet and it works through you. Each morning I wake up and I think to myself,

01:44:45.860 - 01:44:59.240

Okay, what is important, feel good, that is the first thing, then share it, share what you feel and surrender to whatever comes your way. Look at this snake, you know what it's doing? It‘s flopping around down here at the bottom of your pipe or

01:44:59.240 - 01:45:11.930

all the gunk has accumulated, there is nothing wrong with your drain pipe by the way. Although, I might replumb this trap for you one of these days if you're into that, you have about a 10 inch loop here and all you need is four. Otherwise, you have

01:45:11.930 - 01:45:21.710

water standing on both sides of 10 inches plus two extra fittings you really don't need, who installed this stuff anyhow?" I tell them it came with the house. He inspects the loop,

01:45:21.860 - 01:45:38.660

eyes wide in the half-dark. He shifts his position, he gives the handle another crank with another smile, the fun-lovers grin playful, a prankster. "What I am saying is the drain pipe is innocent. The drain just does what it has to do, which is be a

01:45:38.660 - 01:45:51.110

pipe for the water and the water does what it has to do which is swirl as it descends so that over the years it coats the inside of the pipe with all the little pieces of stuff that come down out of the sink. And this makes it kind of donut inside

01:45:51.110 - 01:46:06.410

the pipe, a doughnut with a hole through the middle that gets a little bit smaller year by year. The donut gets bigger and the hole gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller until it is down to a very fine point which is just like meditation you see. Then

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one day, bip, the little hole closes, the drain stops draining and the snake goes down there and opens it up like the Kundalini snake of break-through perception, and whammo, a channel is cleared and the water is flowing again.

01:46:24.050 - 01:46:32.300

That's one of the main men in my life. The plumber, the hip plumber. Morton Marcus: And when you had your book signing, the man- the plumber was there.

01:46:32.300 - 01:46:38.670

James Houston: He was there. Morton Marcus: That was just about- you took that down as dictation from the guy. Alan Cheuse: Reminds me of that line from from Jack Gelber's pl

01:46:38.760 - 01:46:52.800

y "The Connection" - ‘‘That's the way it is, that's the wa it really is.‘‘ No, life is not that funny, Jim, you made it tha way with your Morton Marcus: Alan, as these two hours have just sped by, I

01:46:52.800 - 01:47:09.840

don't know what you want to read. You may want to read the Glinka piece. What I loved, and to me what- what ended the book was the almost outrageous chance you took here of bringing your father back to talk to you after he was dead. And he delivers one

01:47:09.840 - 01:47:27.060

of the the great hymns to life I think, on page 302 and 303. And I wonder if that's what you had intended to read? Alan Cheuse: Yes, I think I'll read that. With a text from some Bible that's unwritten, "Blessed is the man who delivers his own

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funeral oration after he dies. Well- James Houston: This is the book of Alan. Morton Marcus: It's actually the book of Phil. Alan Cheuse: Yeah, I'm known here in this section is Oll-an,

01:47:37.840 - 01:47:53.380

because that's how my father called me with this is slightly off English because of his Russian pronunciation. ‘‘I only wish we could meet on better occasions‘‘ said Oll-an's brother at the airport. He talked a great deal during the

01:47:53.380 - 01:48:06.970

car trip to the house, but Alán in merely slumped back quietly in the seat. The landscape around him did not help, the snow covered roads, icicle bedecked buildings so cold and frigid and unlike the South where he'd been living with his

01:48:06.970 - 01:48:21.730

wife and his young daughters. Poor Tilly, she and Oll-an clung together in the old living room patting each other, weeping for a short while, lapsing into silence. 20 times an hour she narrated for him the last minutes of my going, my waking

01:48:21.760 - 01:48:33.970

up, my request for a sip of water, the way I turned my face to her, then looked away as if at a sound in the night outside the house. The funny thing was, I hadn't gone all that far. Apparently,

01:48:33.970 - 01:48:49.180

we have to stick around, souls like us, to help the ones we've left behind. Like teaching children how to ride two-wheelers or use chopsticks. It's not all that easy, but we try. ‘‘Try Teel‘‘ I said to her over and over, ‘‘try, try.‘‘ I

01:48:49.180 - 01:49:03.310

worked all night with little success. All I did was stir her up so that around one or two in the morning, she sat up in bed and tried to speak to me. ‘‘I know you're there,‘‘ she said. ‘‘Are you there?‘‘ Oll-an meanwhile had gotten into the

01:49:03.310 - 01:49:21.460

liquor cabinet? ‘‘Daddy,‘‘ he was sobbing through his drink, ‘‘Daddy, Papa.‘‘ Oh, well and I wanted to say who isn't afraid when I set out on my own long trek away from home? Didn't I cry in the Taiga in the Siberian night? Didn't I call out for my

01:49:21.460 - 01:49:34.030

own father, that brutal and deserter? And if you're thinking now, oh, if I could have him back again in the world of the living, I'd even listen to his talk about the moon, and about writing, about Israel, and time travel, and video phones that

01:49:34.030 - 01:49:47.620

let you speak between the inner planets and the far stars, about the future, and about the past, all those adventures, all that young manhood stuff. And if you're thinking this, then good to think it, and make your peace and sleep a while, rest and

01:49:47.620 - 01:49:59.590

sleep. Toward morning, as they say in stories, he slept and he woke in an odd state still in disbelief at my absence. "Well, Sonny," I had to say to him, ‘‘it's time to face the music.‘‘ He didn't

01:49:59.590 - 01:50:13.270

hear it that way of course, but merely shivered in the chilly wind that suddenly blew through the overheated house, he sat up as though he'd heard a ghost. I said to him, accidentally letting some of it slip through. ‘‘it's just the way I always had

01:50:13.270 - 01:50:26.260

to wake you for school in the morning.‘‘ I wanted to pat him on the head, give him a hug, all the things I did to him when he was a little kiddo. ‘‘I'm going‘‘ I said, and he felt it again as a breeze. Leaving this place.

01:50:27.190 - 01:50:41.440

Neighbors began to arrive, and to each one, to small groups, Teel described the sequence of events of my going, waking, asking for water, taking a sip, and the rest. And each of them to Oll-an said, they hope to get together next time on a better

01:50:41.440 - 01:50:58.120

occasion. Oh, Oll-an, Teel, Shel. Then cars came, the drive to the hall, there were prayers, what a good man I was they said, which proves to me that anyone living must be praised as good since I was just an average son, and father, and husband, no

01:50:58.120 - 01:51:12.220

better no worse than the billions come and gone. It was raining as they drove to the graveyard, raining even harder when they reached it. A cold rain. And this icy water poured down on Oll-an's head. He was looking down at the sodden

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dirt, the barren patches where grass would spring up in a month or two thinking, unaccountably, about his daughter's pet gerbils, about work he had to do, about my manuscript, oh, that long story I wrote for him a few years back about my early

01:51:26.860 - 01:51:40.600

life which he took and tossed in the trunk of his car. ‘‘Read it.‘‘ I tried to urge Oll-an and the cold rain rained down, ‘‘cover your heads‘‘ Teel said,‘‘ cover your heads and pray.‘‘ And Oll-an was thinking he would read my story now, and

01:51:40.600 - 01:51:54.130

now that it was too late he would tell my story, perhaps even find the money to take a trip to my old native grounds. ‘‘If you won't pray for your father, then at least pray for me‘‘ Teel said. Oll-an refused, though his brother prayed. Nice

01:51:54.130 - 01:52:07.900

boy, his brother. Teel wept in the rain. For what good? Oll-an was thinking and he was right because I was long lost to prayer, as if they ever worked for such matters as someone's going. And Tilly had her friends, but Oll-an he had only

01:52:07.900 - 01:52:22.090

his own childhood to mourn, and the new worry of leaving someday his own children behind. Thumpk! the pounds of dirt hit the top of the wooden casket. Thumpk! a fist pounds against the door. Did a voice cry out to

01:52:22.090 - 01:52:39.220

enter? Thumpk! An the cold rain rained, and Oll-an, your mother wept bitter tears. Yet when you turned to her she accepted the comfort you offered and you two became one grieving creature, and I released now from my own passionate watch...

01:52:39.610 - 01:52:57.160

dropped... breaking the links... to kind of physics... and dropping, I felt a rising too... How I've always loved to fly... but how also like a whale diving and then sounding... or a shuttle ship shuttering at launch...

01:52:57.550 - 01:53:12.130

The moon! I come and go now rather easily, settled as I am among these outer spaces, conversing with my dear descendants back down on earth, pondering also the future of voyages further out. All is pleasant here, like eating every

01:53:12.130 - 01:53:27.760

meal at the finest restaurant and your taste buds never tire. I've seen my brother Joe, I've met my mother, I've even seen my father across the distance, but haven't yet flashed to his side to surprise him, though in time, I'll do it, I know. I'll

01:53:27.760 - 01:53:44.410

apologize to him and he'll apologize to me. But such events mean differently here over than over on earth, in earth back down on earth. Yet I do wander and look through crowds for a glimpse of one former soul, my father's father and perhaps even

01:53:44.410 - 01:53:59.830

for his father before him, though how I'd recognize any of them I cannot say, so many shrewd and ordinary beings from out of the long deep past to swarm here, traders, and camel drivers, herdsmen, craftsman, warriors, fire makers, wizards,

01:54:00.040 - 01:54:16.090

and the first who walked erect, all hairy, flintknives in hand, our primary fathers. Whoever made this plan so well for whatever reason, all of it fits and pleases except for one itch, the one I'm scratching

01:54:16.090 - 01:54:30.760

now, the sad -- yes, sadness here, too -- the sad fact that after a while recollection of earth falls away, the way hair falls out in old age when you brush it or run a comb through its former lush and thickly curling waves. So you must

01:54:30.760 - 01:54:44.380

exercise this muscle as I've been doing in order to keep account of all those acts and faces and things that meant so much. ‘‘Go out.‘‘ I say to you Oll-an, and then search for me if you care as you seem to. The last place I want to be caught

01:54:44.380 - 01:55:00.400

dead is here in this rain soaked park. Read my story. Go to Khiva, son! That will release me. I'll meet you there in the marketplace where the obsidian-eyed women peek out over their veils and the air holds more spices than moisture.

01:55:00.550 - 01:55:16.840

Take Josh with you, why don't you? We'll see how much has changed, how much has stayed the same, that way we won't have to wait for eternity for the chance to meet again as my own father and I have had to do. It's funny Oll-an, the urge that comes over

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me now and then to talk with you, to tell you stories, such a simple longing for everything past. Mothers, fathers, children, dunes, winds, dust, feet, camel flesh, earth, even shit, pardon my language, fire, mountains, channels, lakes,

01:55:39.040 - 01:56:01.630

rivers, oceans, woods, planes, houses, forest, moonlight, starlight, starfire, rain! Morton Marcus: We have been listening to Alan Cheuse read from his book, the autobiograghy- the

01:56:01.690 - 01:56:17.980

autobiographical journey, "Fall Out of Heaven." And we have listening to Jim Housten read "The Men in My Life," and talk about the books and talk about being masculine and male in 1987. This has been the Sunday night special, I‘m your host

01:56:17.980 - 01:56:26.680

Morton Marcus and I want to thank all of you for being out there, and I certainly want to thank both Jim and Alan for coming and sharing their time and some of their wonderful works with us.

01:56:27.220 - 01:56:32.800

James Houston: Thanks for inviting us Mort, this has been a real privilege for us. Alan Cheuse: Thank you very much, Mort. Morton Marcus: My pleasure.

01:56:32.920 - 01:56:35.530

Alan Cheuse: Terrific to be here with my friend Jim. Morton Marcus: Great.