The Maplewoods Mirror

(Something odd is going on here.)

The Maplewoods Mirror #41 - August 2009

Welcome to my monthly newsletter on life and writing. If you want to see my website for past issues and other news, please visit www.chrismeeks.com. I also have an author site (click here)

IN THIS ISSUE:

The Last Hurrah (Essay)
Eulogy for Philip Wear
New Book Marketing (A Positive Approach For Negative Times)
Eighty Years (My mother)
Frank Lloyd Wright Fans (Photos)
Spirit Knob (Photos)

Spirit Island, Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota

THE LAST HURRAH

I wrote the following just after my stepfather, Philip Wear, went into the hospital a few weeks ago for what seemed to be pneumonia.

After William F. Buckley and his wife had died within the same year, their son, the humorist Christopher Buckley, had a hard time dealing with the loss, and he wrote, “One realization does dawn upon the death of the second parent, namely that you’ve now moved into the green room to the River Styx. You’re next. Another thing about parental mortality: No matter how much you’ve prepared for the moment, when it comes, it comes at you hot, hard and unrehearsed.”

Being a child of divorce with parents who’d remarried, I have two sets of parents. Over the last two years, my mother, Sidney, and stepfather, Phil, have become as fragile as toothpick sculptures. Both have lost weight and move slowly as if walking through water. Two nights ago, 1500 miles away in Minnesota, my stepfather was whisked to the hospital with breathing problems.

This morning, doctors will punch into one of his lungs to drain away fluid. If they don’t do this, he will die soon. However, he’s only 112 pounds, down from his trim muscular weight of 175 in his middle years and the 128 pounds from a few months ago. Lately, he just hasn’t felt like eating much.

I learned about this and his hospital visit via email read on my Palm Pre phone late at night--news from a new medium. My sister-in-law Kim wrote, “Phil is in the hospital, intensive care. He has fluid in his lungs and when his heart was racing, they moved him from a regular unit to intensive care. We told him that his family loved him; he loves us. He looked right at me despite a breathing mask and thanked me for making Stuart happy in our marriage. Then he said several times that 'this is what it’s all about.'”

I paused. As I writer, I’m always searching for what life is about. Here was my stepfather telling me. “I’m listening,” I said to myself.

I can’t say he knew this when I was growing up. From his and my mother’s rare parties, I learned that his friends thought Phil eloquent and witty. I never saw this side, especially as he was yelling at us on some outdoor project such as hauling logs, planting trees, mowing the acres of lawn, raking the gravel driveway. I’d often felt a part of a chain gang.

He only went with us on one family vacation—to Jamaica. Otherwise it was my mother driving my three brothers and I somewhere, such as to the Black Hills of South Dakota or a long road trip through Canada to Maine.

I had little to do with him in college or in my twenties, but in my thirties, I connected with him when he was divorcing my mother. His despair seemed so naked and honest, and when he remarried to an incredibly wonderful woman, Della, he still remained my stepfather.

In fact, as he’s sailed into infirmity, he’s done so with panache. Each setback, such as his hearing going out, his memory leaving him, his second wife dying suddenly from a heart attack, and his arthritis growing worse, has always seemed like more lead weights strapped around his neck; yet he continues on with dignity. “With my memory going, I can’t remember if I’m supposed to be sad about something, or not” he said with a laugh once.

Phil in the Zen Garden at the Huntington Gardens near Pasadena

I took him to Palm Springs two years ago, which he loved, and I vaguely remembered a story of him coming here when he was younger. I brought that up. “No,” he said looking around the wide boulevard of Frank Sinatra Drive. “I don’t remember being here. It’s a beautiful place, though.” I asked my mother later about this and learned Palm Springs is where they’d gone on their honeymoon. “It ain’t easy getting old,” Phil’s said more than a few times.

My sister-in-law continued in her note, “Phil was, despite the breathing mask, leads, monitors, and more, very lucid. His pale blue eyes were direct and sincere, and we leaned in to hear his words from inside the clear mask…. He really reached out tonight--beyond himself to give us a message. He knows that we love him and that we have never given up on him.”

I’m now trying to figure out what I wish for him. It’s this: not to die in the hospital today. I hope the procedure lets him breathe easier and that he overcomes the pneumonia and that he then gets physical therapy to get his muscle tone and weight back. I wish that he would stop smoking and be able to enjoy the next few years continuing to live independently.

Note: When the doctors went into to drain one of Phil’s lungs with what seemed to be fluid, they found he had end-stage emphysema. The pulled out the respirator and drainage tube, per his wishes, and he died a few days later. His funeral was last Sunday in Minnesota where I gave his eulogy. The service included a pair of singers who sang “Danny Boy,” “The Lord’s Prayer”, and “Amazing Grace,” and Deacon Sean Curtan offering inspiration.

EULOGY FOR PHILIP WEAR

Phil Wear was a complex and simple man. He was an enigma at times, and so clear as a person at other times. Phil was both a brave father and a reluctant one. He was contradictory—aren’t we all?

Born in 1930, his early years were in Minneapolis. His father, an accountant for Northern States Power, had a grand notion of becoming a farmer and bought a farm in Long Lake. Phil hated the farm, and any stories he told us about it were always terrible. My brothers and I were never allowed to wear blue jeans to school because jeans were for “farmer boys.”

He was studying at the University of Minnesota when he was drafted into the Army and the Korean War, where he served valiantly. He drove for General Samuel T. “Hanging Sam” Williams, then, wanting more action, joined the 27^th Infantry Regiment (Wolfhounds), 25^th Division. After leaving the Army in 1954, Phil worked at a number of sales jobs, including Dove Soap, Northrup King Seeds, and Shell Oil Company.

When my mother Sidney met him in 1957 at a party at Bob Flannagan’s, Mom was divorced and had two children at home—me, age four, and Laurence, age two. Sidney and Phil married in April, 1958, and Phil was brave to take on two children even though he wasn’t yet thirty. We moved to Iowa where Laur and I were told to call him Dad. However, I already had a dad, and I remember not wanting to call him that. Now I can tell you this: everyone should have two dads.

Along came brothers Stuart and Elihu, and Phil, wanting to build a new house, said he would hire any architect my mother wanted. She said, “Frank Lloyd Wright.” By God, he found Wright was located in Wisconsin and called there, only to learn he’d just died. Nonetheless, he hired Wright’s company, Talesin, and Mom and Dad built a modern house here in Minnesota. One of Elihu’s teachers wrote home that Elihu had a developmental problem because he drew houses with flat roofs. I have a feeling our personalities were all shaped by that house with just the right edge.

In 1978, Phil created his own company, Popco, specializing in point-of-purchase sales tools. Once Stuart graduated college and joined the company, Popco really took off. Elihu joined them and later so did Phil’s nephew Joe. The company continues to prosper.

Dad was reluctant in that he didn’t really like doing the usual family things. Rather, he worked us every Saturday in the yard, and we kids called the place Phil’s Labor Camp. He was reluctant in that he took us to few movies and only came on one family vacation—to Jamaica. But you know what? When I was older, in my thirties, he said this was his biggest regret. He wished he’d done more fun things with us. And later we did.

After Mom and Phil divorced was when I really got to know the real Phil. For the first time ever, I saw him as vulnerable. He wished his marriage had gone better. He wished he’d been a better father. Yet when he told me these things, I felt closer to him. We grew from there. In fact, in my new novel, The Brightest Moon of the Century, I used his personality to help create the father character--a simple and complex man.

The deacon suggested I read from the book, so I will, a small passage. The Brightest Moon of the Century takes the reader through the life of a Minnesotan named Edward Meopian, from ages 14 to 45. In this section, Edward is fourteen and he hates the all-boys school that his father has sent him to, a place where he is teased. This day, someone has shoved him down and Edward has hurt his hand. He wakes up in the night, and he can’t feel his hand. His father helps him.

FROM THE BOOK:

Edward felt tears in his eyes, but he didn’t care. He let them fall. He saw, too, his father’s face now, and his eyes were watery. Edward wasn’t sure who leaned in first—maybe both together at the same time—but they hugged.

“Maybe you don’t understand this, Edward, but I easily love you as much as anyone on this earth, including your mother.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

Edward felt stunned, as if he were a pupil of Aristotle’s, learning that the world was not flat but round. “I love you, too, Dad.”

They each wiped their eyes quickly—they were men, after all—and his father left the room. Edward could hear him rummaging in the kitchen, where the aspirin was kept, and a few minutes later he returned with two tablets and a glass of water. Edward swallowed the pills, drank extra water, and placed the glass on his nightstand. His father tucked him in. “Everything will be all right. Trust me.”

“Will it?” said Edward. Through the window, a crescent of the moon appeared just above the trees.

His father leaned over and kissed him on his forehead—the first kiss since his mother had died.

I read this passage because it represents how Phil over the last few decades became more open. People can and do change for the better.

Dad came to visit me in Los Angeles every few years, and when he met Della, a gentle woman who adored him, I saw another side of Phil—the fun and witty side. When I was younger, his friends always said how Phil was so funny and clever, which my brothers and I never saw. After Della, he would joke and laugh with her and us.

He and Della married, and they loved traveling together—not only to L.A. to see me and Della’s daughter Kathy, but also to Australia, Europe, and Canada. Della really brought out the loving side of Phil, and when she was taken too early in 2000, Dad was devastated.

Which brings us to his last and perhaps most important chapter. Phil has taught me a major thing: how to age with panache and grace. Each setback, such as Della’s passing, his hearing going out, his memory leaving him at times, and his arthritis growing worse, always had seemed like more lead weights strapped around his neck; yet he continued on with dignity. He often laughed about what new thing was slowing him down. At Stuart’s birthday in December, where we had one last big beautiful party at the old modern house, Phil grinned ear-to-ear. He quipped a Bette Davis line: old age isn’t for sissies.

I leave you with two very short poems. The first is from W.S. Merwin, titled:

For The Anniversary Of My Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveller
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

---

The second poem is one that my wife, Ann, wrote while Phil was in the hospital this last time, and it says everything for me. It’s titled:

What Keeps You Here Today

For Phil Wear

It’s not the machine

measuring breath

into a weary chest

or the drip,

drip of sugar water

and pain-dulling elixir

or the anti-fever magic,

But an invisible tether,

an internal melody—

a son’s voice,

green summer

leaf dreams and the memory

of afternoon sunlight

glimmering on the surface

of that deep,

deep

lake.

People gather before the memorial service

The chapel

Phil's cremains

Phil and Della's children and their families

Phil and Della

NEW BOOK MARKETING (A Positive Approach for Negative Times)

Many novelists I know are a bit like Rodney Dangerfield, feeling like they get no respect. Yet after diving into publishing three years ago. I remain optimistic. Before I explain why, let me remind you of the state of publishing. Book advances continue to diminish. Imprints are disappearing. Red ink flows.

New York magazine in an extended article called “The End” shows that up to 25% of all books published in New York get shredded. The article’s author Boris Katchka writes, “Sales at the five big publishers were up 0.5 percent in the first half of this year, bookstore sales tanked in June, and a full-year decline is expected. But pretty much every aspect of the business seems to be in turmoil.”

My agent in New York, too, isn’t coming up with happy results for my comic novel, The Laughter and Sadness of Sex, which centers on a thirty-five-year-old physicist run amuck in Denmark. While my agent loved the story enough to sign me on, he reads me letters that sound at first like acceptances: “Thank you for sending me Christopher Meeks’s new novel. I found the book compelling, and I often laughed. I read it with pleasure. It’s clear Mr. Meeks is a fabulous writer. However, the book is a ‘tween,’ which is to say it falls between genres. I just don’t know how to market it. Sorry to have to pass on your submission. Please let me see his next manuscript.”

My agent Jim McCarthy

Two weekends ago, I read part of my recently published novel, The Brightest Moon of the Century, at Book Soup, a fabulous bookstore in West Hollywood. I was joined with a handful of other novelists whose latest works are gems. One of the writers, John Morgan Wilson (Spider Season), just wrote that the glow of our reading was later dimmed by new publishing news.

He said, “St. Martin's is not renewing my contract for more novels in my Benjamin Justice series. After eight novels, an Edgar, and three Lambda Literary Awards, it's effectively finished. The reason, according to my agent: The chain bookstores will no longer order a new book by an author whose last book fell below the chain's specific sales level requirement.

“This applies, she tells me, to all genres and even to new novels from the author in a different genre (which I'm writing now, my eleventh). It's one reason so many authors are using pseudonyms on their new books, trying to make a comeback and beat the system under another name.

“With Amazon and Barnes & Noble cannibalizing our hardcover sales by offering them used and much cheaper online almost as soon as they come out, our chances of keeping our credited sales levels high enough is difficult, even as we expand our readerships (via those cannibalistic used book sales). A major publisher who pays decent advances can't afford to publish an author whose next book won't be carried by the dominant chains, so contracts are not renewed.

“Of course, there are always the small presses, which pay little or no advances. I've been published by small presses and have great admiration and respect for them. But for writers like me who make a living at it, working for little or no money turns writing into a hobby, not a trade--which, I suspect, is going to be the continuing trend for most of us, writing as a labor of love and little more.”

This takes me to my optimism. Because I’ve been publishing literary fiction, I’m in a niche even more squeezed than John, so my expectations have been lower. With my first book, The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea, a collection of previously published short stories, I was realistic with it: who reads short stories? Some people do, but short story collections are not as popular as novels. They aren’t bestsellers. (And with every rule, there’s an exception, such as the bestseller collection Unaccustomed Earth by Jumpa Lahiri. That only adds to my optimism.)

My first agent told me that big publishers only publish short story collections as a favor to their best-selling novel writers. He’d told me then that there was so little advance for collections that it wasn’t worth the postage in his mailing out my manuscript for consideration. He didn’t want to be involved.

As I approached small publishers on my own, I discovered they were inundated with collections. Then I had a marvelous realization. Because I’d worked for a book publisher for eight years as its senior editor, I knew every step of the publishing process. I should create my own press.

Thus I did. White Whisker Books.

Because I worked for a dozen years in a public relations office after publishing, I knew how to write press releases and more. The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea was reviewed well in the Los Angeles Times and more than a dozen other places. The book received a huge mention in Entertainment Weekly on a short list of great independent books. I was onto something.

My second collection of short stories, Months and Seasons, was nominated for the prestigious and lucrative prize, the Frank O’Connor Short Fiction Award. My play I published, Who Lives?, received a fabulous production earlier this year in Los Angeles.

Thus, being my own publisher is working. Why? The books are not all me-me-me. I have a freelance staff. I also don’t rush to publication. Quality is a huge issue.

Boris Katchka in the New York article foresees that new publishers or older ones who can adapt will “try to reduce advances and returns, put out only a few books, and focus on cheap Internet marketing. They will publish quality books, and “the kind of targeted, curated lists editors would love to publish will work even better in an electronic, niche-driven world, if only the innovators can get them there.”

In an attempt to build on my successes, I’ve joined Backword Books, a new publishing enterprise out of Los Angeles. Backword Books fills a huge gap in the publishing business, according to founder and literary author Henry Baum (North of Sunset). “With the changing landscape of the publishing industry,” says Baum, “and the countless new avenues for authors to directly reach readers, there has never been a time like this. There’s a perfect storm brewing.”

The perfect storm is that publishers are less willing to take chances with literary fiction while, says Baum, “Emerging media make it easier for quality writers to reach readers. Backword Books is a new approach to the book business.”

Seven literary authors make up Backword Books. We are united in purpose under one banner to accomplish three primary goals:

• Attain mainstream media coverage.

• Generate sales.

• Bring an aura of professionalism and legitimacy to high-quality self-publishing.

“The writers in Backword put a lot of care into their work,” says Kristen Tsetsi, author of the novel Homefront. “We’ve all hired editors, book designers, and have acted truly as publishers. The reviews bear us out.”

My new novel, The Brightest Moon of the Century, joins Backword Books, an enterprise only a month old. We’re trying a few things immediately:

1) We’ve created a Backword Books website, www.backwordbooks.com, where you can read our blogs about writing and publishing in this environment.

2) We’ve pooled our money together to distribute media releases. So far, we’ve sent out two in the last two weeks. You can see one by clicking here.

3) One of our members, R.J. Keller (Waiting for Spring) is creating a video, which should be out in a couple of weeks.

4) We’re selling a number of Backword Books gift items--click here to see.

5) We’ll be giving away our books in a contest next month.

And we’re thinking up other ideas.

Already I’m starting to think what I’ll need to do to publish my comic novel that publishers have enjoyed but don’t know how to market. The first thing I’m going to do is pay good money for a great editor. I used one editor already to get it in shape for submission, but I want another viewpoint. Perhaps something besides marketing caused the publishers to turn it down. If I’m going directly to readers, I need to be sure every page is solid.

Second, I’ll hire a great book designer: Daniel Will-Harris. He’s done my previous covers.

Third, I’ll do some market research, giving the book to select readers for their feedback, and getting feedback on different cover possibilities. I’ll create a publication date with at least four months of lead-time so that I and/or a publicist can send out advance reading copies. Then I’ll join the book into Backword Books’ marketing stream.

This is all an experiment. I can’t say what we’re doing will beat Random House’s top books. It’s highly doubtful. Still, it’s being proactive. One web surfer who visited our site called us and anyone who self-publishes delusional. Yet we just heard Publisher’s Weekly is writing a story about us for next week.

If you believe in yourself, you have to do something, and do it well.

EIGHTY YEARS

A day before my stepfather’s funeral, we celebrated my mother’s eightieth birthday. I sensed she didn’t expect to make it that far. Also, though she didn’t talk about it, I sensed the weight of Phil’s passing was with her. When she saw the grandkids come in, though, she beamed.

The birthday group

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT FANS VISIT THE FAMILY HOME

As I showed a few issues back with photos, I grew up in a house designed by John Howe, Frank Lloyd Wright’s master draftsman who, while still with Wright’s Talesin Associates, designed the house I grew up in, a version of Wright’s Usonian Home.

A group of Wright aficionados out of Chicago came to Minneapolis by bus to see the house, led by a specialist who knows all things Wright. They arrived the morning of Phil’s funeral. I found the tour fascinating—to hear the effects that Howe and Wright were after and to see everyone enjoying seeing the place, inside and out. The house remains on the market.

SPIRIT KNOB

My great grandfather, John Washburn, happened to buy a special piece of land on Lake Minnetonka called Breezy Point. It was a four-acre arm that jutted out into the lake and gave amazing views of two different bays. He died in 1919, and after my great grandmother died, the house was knocked down in the 1940s—it had no insulation—and a new one was built in 1947.

The new house, built in 1947

Native Americans had used the land, apparently, as a sacred place and called it Spirit Knob. My great grandparents had trucked in a lot of black dirt and turned what had been nearly plantless into a forest with paths, statues, benches, and a variety of trees and flora.

Over the years, the place had become overgrown and the paths lost. Its present owner, David Nordmeyer, happened to contact me. Since 1992, he’s been restoring the gardens and the land to become much the way it looked when the Washburns lived there. He’s been working off of photos from the 1930s.

While I was back in Minnesota, my son Zach and I took a tour of the place—and it’s magical. The following photos are just some of the things we saw.