When Survivalism met the '50's

Society always finds some lethal "Big Bad" to fear.  It might be a meteorite, or a pandemic, or even industrial pollution but every culture identifies some civilization-killing threat and then worries about how to survive it.  When I was little, adults were obsessed about "the bomb".  Everything was about  A-bombs, and the H-bombs: who had them, who would get them, and how would we survive if they went off.  The Bomb was the boogeyman of our culture and creative people used it in their work.  One of the earliest post-bomb stories is also one of the nicer ones.  Until you look at it up close, it's hard not to like Alas, Babylon.

Alas, Babylon is the story of how a small Florida community fares in the aftermath of a nuclear attack.   They're close enough to see distant mushroom clouds, but distant enough to avoid lethal exposure to radioactivity.  Many people die, from to illness, injury or suicide.  The people who survive have to adapt to a much tougher world and, in a few cases, the disaster gives their lives new meaning.  The author implies that by stripping some things of their  artificial value (for example money reverts to worthless paper) and keeping the intrinsic worth in others (the knowledge in books) allows some obscured values to reappear.  Those are fine sentiments if you can overlook some of the other sensibilities in the narrative.

More than anything, Alas Babylon is a novel of the '50's (it was published in 1959) and it shows the mindset of that time.  The author identifies racism as one of the artificial systems that society never needed.  Nevertheless, his black characters remain stock figures (the wise, old, preacher, the heavy-set matriarch, the shiftless male and the good guy who is needlessly killed) who support the protagonist.  None of them are really developed into recognizable, detailed individuals. 

A pervading air of unconscious sexism also pervades the tale.  All of the female characters fill supportive roles, important ones but never roles with decision-making capability.  One female character is classified as "all woman, and that's what she's made for" as if a female's function was limited solely by her gender.  It's like 1960's television: for all of the progressive ideas, the white guys still get the cool jobs, the best lines and the final say; no one disputes their command.  These distinctions stands out more with each passing year, reminding the reader that nuclear threats weren't the only "Big-Bad" in that era.

Even with this, Alas Babylon has a great deal to offer; of all the survivalist tales, it has the most optimistic ending and the realized characters are enjoyable and human.  The story moves along at a reasonable pace and it shows insight along with flashes of humor.  That could be why other works(like On the Beach ) go in and out of print while Alas, Babylon is still an assigned book in schools.  It contains the moral conclusions about nuclear warfare but it suggests a lucky few will survive.  Other books in this genre would give some kids nightmares.  This one should make them think.

My first Role Model

Every kid needs to have role models.  They show us what to do.  Our parents are great but they're grown-ups with lives we kids can't fathom.  The same thing goes for teachers.  Kids our own age are too close and smaller kids look up to us.  So, we look for role models among the kids a bit older and cooler than we are.  We follow them around and copy their ways hoping some of their aura will rub off on us.  Of course, my first role model came from a book.  I'm sure my Mom would have preferred I pick a real person or at least a heroine she could understand, like Mary Lennox.  Instead, I found a precocious, formidable loner and claimed her as my ideal.  I didn't know where my life was going until I met Harriet the Spy.

If your recollection of this eleven-year wonder is limited to the movies, you need to pick up the book.   Harriet is nobody's darling; she's a curmudgeon with eyeglass frames and a notebook.  To say she's focused doesn't begin to describe her; single-minded and blunt come closer.  Harriet has a single ambition in life, to become a writer.  She knows that writers record what they experience and, since she hasn't had many experiences, Harriet observes other people and writes down what she sees, in brutally honest detail.  Hence her title, Harriet the Spy.

You wouldn't expect a kid like that to be Every Parent's Dream or the Most Popular Girl in Class.  She's not.  With her spy route and notebook, plus a couple of outsider friends,  and her book quoting nanny, Ole Golly, Harriet doesn't need to be a Popular Girl.  To her, the world's complete as it is.  Unfortunately, no universe is static.  Ole Golly leaves just as Harriet's notebook is discovered and read by the rest of her class.  Once they read what she really thinks of them ("Sport's like an old woman"; "Carrie Andrews' mom has the biggest front I ever saw.") Harriet's a target in the enemy camp.

Believe it or not, this brilliant book has been challenged due to Harriet's personality.  She's an outsider, a loner, a hard-to-please-stick-in-the-mud.  So what?!?  The fact is, most kids feel like an outsider at some point in their lives.  (Those who never did may leave the room.)  Harriet speaks to that loneliness and tells kids they can survive the disasters and make up a fight with real friends, if they can apologize and give it time.  That kind of knowledge is powerful medicine and a lot of kids need to have it. 

Harriet the Spy also points out that the difficult kids also have feelings that can be hurt.  Harriet may have the natural subtly of an ax but she's not malevolent by nature.  When her classmates turn on her, Harriet goes through hell.  If there's a central lesson to this wonderful book, it's to have patience with outsiders and all those who need some extra lessons in tact.

There are very few books that satisfy the adult reader the way they did when the reader was a kid.  Harriet does, at least I think so.  Of course, she still is my Role Model.

A Love Letter to the Hometown

Everyone's hometown plays a  special role.  It's a part of each person's identity, and wherever they go, some fragment of home travels with them, tucked around a corner of their soul. Strangers may see the same place as a paradise or living hell but to to a native son or daughter, this spot is where they started to become the person they are today.  That tie never completely loses its grip and while a lot of us leave our hometowns, some of us eventually go home.  The rest return in their dreams.

That's the theme of Fannie Flagg's 2011 novel, I Still Dream of You.  On the surface, it's a story of  twentieth-century women adapting to twenty-first century demands.  Brenda's jumped into real estate work and politics with both feet, trying to improve the City of Birmingham and lose weight without losing her Krispy Kremes.  Brenda's friend Maggie isn't adjusting as well.  Maggie was raised to be a lady, considerate and kind but  her inbred courtesy is often undercut by other, unprincipled  real-estate agents.  Like her beloved old homes on Red Mountain, Maggie is in danger of being destroyed by opportunists driven by the almighty dollar. The friendship between Brenda and Maggie bring out the best in each other as they protect and develop the good parts of life here, in Birmingham.

The worst of Birmingham made headlines around the world; Maggie never forgets this or glosses over that pain.  Her sadness comes with realizing the Birmingham she knows, the city of trees with gracious streets, and caring, yard-proud neighbors is rarely remembered or cherished.  Maggie will not and cannot deny her past: good and bad, Birmingham is her home.  It's also Fannie Flagg's hometown and she writes of life there with unmistakable longing.  In this town, a person can hear the church bells miles away and the Spring sun nurtures both smiles and flowers.  No amount of stress can make the Warrior River run faster and nothing smells better than a box of locally grown peaches.  This is Miss Flagg's Birmingham, for better or worse; she and the town are bonded forever.

 To learn from the bad times and cherish the good is what memory is all about.  That's something Maggie learns, along with life's capacity to surprise you, when you least expect it.  I Still Dream About You is a dream of a hopeful futures and a love song to the places that loved us long ago.

The Rest of the Story

Anyone unaware of The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood must have spent the last twenty years under a rock.  The book came out with it's trademark blue cover and sweet story of survival, family and redemption and hit the ball out of the publishing park.  Then came the film adaptation and even though it cut some of my favorite bits from the book, it hit another home run, chick movie, older actresses and all.  All of the sudden, everyone was "Ya-Ya" and Girls Raised In The South until I was ready to scream.  Don't get me wrong, I loved the book but I knew there was so much the writer left out.  That's one reason I love Little Alters Everywhere, the story of these characters before they found forgiveness in the first church of Ya-Ya.  Trust me, there's a lot more to that story.

For example, there's Shep.  In the sisterhood, he's Saint Shep, the man who accepts punishment from a wife for not being the man she expected to marry.  He can't give her the life she thinks she deserves or she needs but he's her champion when the chips are down.  The worst thing you can say is that he's not always there for his children.  Little Alters fills in the back spots showing a man hemmed in by fear and asthma.  Growing up with a physically abusive father made Shep afraid he'd repeat the pattern, so he pulls away from his family, unable to give or receive affection. So when the guilt, the conflict and the emotions get too high, Shep runs to his hermit's cage of a duck blind until he develops the nerve to go home.  Shep's not a bad man but he lacks the courage needed to stand up and be good.  Little Alters shows the plantation man is far from a saint, just the man still married to Vivi Abbott Walker.

Vivi is still a fragile soul but her sins in the Sisterhood were easier to discount.  Lost love and lousy parents account for part of Vivi's damage and her worst sins come from a combination of the church, booze and pills.  Vivi can be forgiven for acts she committed when she was non compis mentis.  It's harder to forgive Vivi's nighttime visits and her inappropriate touching in the night.  Viviane Abbott Walker may have been a damaged child but she could dole out her own traumas as well.

But for all of the damage, there is sunshine and summers at Spring Creek and a family that loves each other, however imperfectly.  If "Ya-Yas" is a book about forgiveness then "Little Alters" is about learning.  Learning to be careful around some people you love, especially if they still drink.  Learn to listen to your instincts and set boundaries when you look after yourself.  Learn that while people mess up, they're still trying to to do the best they can.  And learn that if you will look closely, you can find a blessing in the pain. 

Listening to The Voice

If you hang out with writers or writer wannabes for any length of time, you'll hear them talk about Voice.  They mention the word with awe and respect, like the Voice is Gandhi's or Caruso's or God's (a Voice, according to the clergy and Kevin Smith, that would literally Blow. Your. Mind.) and every writer wants one.  A strong narrative voice.  A recognizable voice.  An exciting voice.  You might think that all these adjectives had made the word-nerds squishy-brained but the fact is Voice is often the hook that pulls a reader into a story.  For example:

 Listen my children and you will hear-
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

Hear those fourteen words again and suddenly you are a kid again, curled up with some pals by a wing chair  because the storyteller in the center has promised you tales of derring-do. Fourteen words and the narrator's in charge.   That, my friends, is Voice.

All of this is build-up for a novel I just finished called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.  My mentor, Javacia Harris Bowser (she of Writeous Babe fame) mentioned it as a topic for research but scanning it for data brought to light a fabulous tale graced by that starriest of gifts, a Great Voice.

Ninety percent of the Voice in this book belongs to Flavia de Luce, an eleven-year old chemist with a passion for poisons.  She lives in the kind of drafty English country house once favored by Dodi Smith and Agatha Christie near a small, English village.  Family and the villagers all interact with Flavia but few of them seem to realize they are sharing space with the female version of young Sherlock Holmes.  (Of course, that's a weapon in our heroine's arsenal and one she won't hesitate to use.)  Flavia is intelligent, acerbic, tenacious, and so emotionally detached that she should give most grown-ups pause. However, what our heroine lacks in sweetness, she makes up for in courage and a sense of fair play that extends to everyone except her own sisters.  One of the delights in "Sweetness" is the undeclared war between the de Luce sisters and it carries the ring of truth.  When you are growing up, no one can upset you faster or more than your own brother or sister, probably because they know you so well.  Flavia is the smartest de Luce daughter but Daphne and Ophelia are bigger and they can put their sister in her place.   Whenever they do, it stimulates Flavia's interest in revenge!

If you liked Agatha Christie novels or I Capture the Castle, if you doted on Flora Poste in Cold Comfort Farm or loved the arch humor in Jane Austen's books, (there's a Voice for you!) try  The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.  You'll fall in love with Flavia de Luce or, more accurately, you'll fall in love with her voice.

The Nature of Obsession

How does an obsession begin?  Usually with something unknown, an experience or event outside our frame of reference with an overwhelming amount of detail.  We want to understand how it happened, to put it into context, but the matters that trigger obsessions usually resist easy categorization.   So, we dig deeper, thinking one more visit, one more review of the facts and we'll figure out the problem and finally lay it to rest.  Obsessions don't work like that: they're spirals into a black hole of nothingness, they're the itch we cannot scratch and that's why they're dangerous.  It's the rare person who conquers an obsession; most survivors have to stage an escape.

Obsession is the key beneath James Ellroy's Black Dahlia, the novel grounded in the infamous murder of Elizabeth Short, a crime that still shocks almost seven decades after it happened.  Ellroy's novel focuses on two (fictional) detectives assigned to investigate her murder. In the post-war world of Los Angeles, officers Bleichert and Blanchard both enjoy the minor celebrity perks of being former boxers and members of the L. A. P. D. and both are reasonably happy in their lives until coincidence places them in the neighborhood when Elizabeth's body was discovered. Although the city  becomes fixated by the case, the investigators are in danger of being consumed; Blanchard, because Elizabeth's runaway history reminds him of a runaway sister and Bleichart because her rootless life mirrors his own.  The men comb the remnants of Elizabeth's seedy existence for clues while reporters and politicians manipulate facts for their own gain.  As Blanchard begins to fall apart, Bleichart must unravel a maelstrom of corruption that hides Betty Short's killer before he falls apart himself. 

The story is told in the bold, electric prose that made James Ellroy famous but his subject stimulates this question: why, of all of the murders in history, is Elizabeth Short's one of the few that people continue to find so fascinating?  The case is still officially unsolved although you could fill a bookcase with the published tomes identifying different murderers.  Is it her beauty that draws us or her youth?  Lots of pretty girls ran to Hollywood like Elizabeth and learned the bitter difference between movies and movie-making, though few suffered as she did.  Are we drawn in by the lurid details of what was done to her body, is this what fascinates us?  This is certainly part of the part, but another part is Elizabeth herself.  Beyond a few facts we know very little of her, what she cared about, how she felt.  That cipher of a personality leaves us free to imagine what the world looked like for a young woman who liked to dress in black.  The only thing we can be sure of is that her story didn't end well.

Ellroy's book helps decipher her story and it helped pave the way for his strong literary career. Nevertheless, Ellroy admits that Short's murder haunts him still, along with his own mother's death, ten years later.  I hope he finds periods of peace in his life from time to time.  That's the most a person can hope for when he lives with an obsession.

When Fans Go Bad: Finders Keepers

Fans are the double-edged sword to creative people, everyone knows that.  Actors, artists and poets makes a living (occasionally a good one) because the fans like and purchase their work, which is great.  Develop a big enough fan base and an artist will encounter those who want to thank him or her personally.  A smaller group than that will mistake their enthusiasm as the basis of a personal relationship.  Gain enough popularity and the artist will face fans that expect to control his/her life and work.  Take this to the extreme and the artist will certainly die. 

Stephen King covered this in his novel, Misery but he gave Annie Wilkes a few bits of leavening humor.  What other professed lover of words would cut herself off from expressions of anger, so her profanity is limited to words like "cock-a-dooty"?  As destructive and strange as Annie is, at times she's also comical.  That endearing shade of grey is missing from King's newest novel about toxic fans, Finders Keepers.  It suggests admiration may be the most dangerous response in the world.



At odds are two readers of a twentieth-century novelist.  Both readers are young males when they find their author's most-lauded works, a series of novels reminiscent of John Updike's "Rabbit" series. The younger man loves the structure of the books, the style, and the weave of fiction and autobiography that pulls each individual tale.  The elder identifies with the series protagonist in the way Mark David Chapman glommed onto Holden Caulfield and judges the world by his internalized champion's standards.  Two young men from damaged backgrounds, years apart and unknown to each other, but both obsessed with a writer's unpublished stories but with a difference:  the elder man wants to keep the stories for himself; the younger man would share them with the world.   The world is safe when the first fan hides the manuscripts until the younger man inadvertently finds them. 

This problem falls into the hands of Bill Hodges, King's retired detective of Mr. Mercedes.  It falls to Bill and his friends to piece together the disjointed story, find the manuscripts, and rescue their custodian before the murdering maniac can tear them all limb from limb.  If King has improved one aspect of his writing over the years it is pacing and Finders Keepers is a genuine page-turner.

So look out for the book, if you are interested.  And you are especially moved by someone's work, politely tell them, and then move on.  Don't expect them to be pals or your Jedi Master.  They are artists with their own lives and work and besides, they've learned to be careful of fans.  Among the adoring who just want to shake some creator's hand, stands the maniac armed with a gun.

Sympathy for the Villain?

I was thinking about the concept of grace last week when I flashed on a scene from Streetcar Named Desire.  Blanche hears a declaration of sorts from Mitch and, recognizing the man provides a real lifeline to her, responds "Sometimes there's God so suddenly!"  I smiled at Blanche's recognition of Grace until I remembered what I think of her.  Friends and neighbors, I hate Blanche duBois and I don't care who knows it.  That aging, insecure, Southern Belle works my last nerve and I'd rather sympathize with the devil.

 Think about Blanche's role in the play - She's the fly in the ointment, the wrench in the machinery and the source of the play's conflict.   She shows up at her sister Stella's home uninvited and unannounced to sponge off her for the rest of the play.  Okay, everyone needs help now and then but does Blanche show an atom of gratitude?   No, that narcissist takes up the center of the stage, hogging the bathroom and the liquor, and expects her pregnant sister to wait on her hand and foot.  She never tries to get a job or her own place and when she's not demanding sympathy or the red-carpet treatment, Blanche runs down her brother-in-law, Stanley because she and Stella had "superior" childhoods. Even if this is true (and one of the things we learn about Blanche is her propensity to lie) Blanche's upbringing gives her only the veneer of gentility, not the substance.  She's a dishonest, lazy, manipulator who seeks out grown men for gain and teenaged boys for sex.  She can't be trusted around innocents of any age and her perpetual role of victim warps the people who would help her along with those who resist her game.  She almost deserves what she gets.

Mind you, I'm not fond of Blanche's adversary, Stanley, either.  The Id to Blanche's Ego, Stanley is a creature of drive who goes through life focused only on his own needs.  He expects prepared meals to nourish him, poker with the guys to entertain him and a wife to pleasure him once the poker boys go home.  He doesn't mind pleasing his wife but he doesn't mind hitting her either.  Stanley has the emotional development of a toddler but he dominates his world through brute, physical strength.   If someone threatens Stanley's world, or picks at Stanley too long, he retaliates, dismantling his enemies' defenses and grinding them under his heel.

So who, between these two, who is Streetcar's villain?  (The only other alternative is Stella, the sister/wife torn between Blanche and Stanley in the play's tug-of-war.)  Neither character is malevolent by nature, only incredibly self-centered and driven.  Given her background and lack of resources, Blanche's only developed survival skill involves manipulating the kindness of strangers.  Likewise, Stanley's defense mechanism is to smash anything that manipulates or threatens his spot in the world.  So, in some ways, the outcome of the Streetcar is set when Blanche boards the bus for New Orleans, well before the curtain rises.  This is the story of flawed people on a collision course driven by compulsions they can't sense enough to change.

Maybe that's why people are still interested in this play, almost seventy years after its first production.  Because of their flaws, Streetcar's characters are people, like the ones we see in the mirror.  None of us are Stanley or Stella or Blanche or Mitch but we share some of their weaknesses and strengths.  To one degree or another, we are all inadvertant bystanders, victims, and predators, still searching for a moment of Grace.

The Failure of Good Intentions: A Passage to India

It's a phrase they teach  that makes no sense on its face.  How can the road to Hell be paved with Good Intentions?  If someone starts a course of action with benevolent goal in mind, the results should be good as well.  Well, history and nature say otherwise.  Sometimes the failure comes from lack of imagination: rabbits were sent to Australia as pets and a possible food source about the same time Kudzu was introduced to the U. S. as an anti-erosion measure.  Both brought the disasters of an invasive species: Australia was forced into biological warfare to keep the rabbit population in check and Kudzu is known as "The Vine that Ate the South."  Sometimes the well-intentioned element fails because of lesser parts of human nature.  Prohibition was called "The Noble Experiment" with the idea that making booze illegal would make people stop drinking.  Instead, people bought and drank unregulated, untaxed hootch and created a market for organized crime.  Sometimes everyone starts out with the best of intentions and still end up in tragedy. Some people may look to Romeo and Juliet as their choice for this mess but for me, it's E. M. Forster's A Passage to India.

Forster was a student, a writer and something of a civil servant during the time he lived in India.  As an English citizen in a country controlled by Britain, he saw  how fellow Brits behaved o n a very different soil surrounded by people from very different cultures.  As the  private secretary to the Maharajah of Dewas, he also got a glimpse of how the British were viewed by the native citizens of India.  Along with the growing issue of British sovereignty,  a monumental clash of language, values and culturescontinually threatened to destabilized Anglo-Indian relations and he put all of that into  A Passage to India.

Two English women, Miss Quested and Mrs. Moore are in India to see Ronny Heaslop, a British civil servant stationed in India.  Both women are progressive thinkers who are more interested in learning more about the authentic country and people who live there than socializing with the ex-patriot Brits in the colony.  They make the acquaintance of Dr. Aziz, a warmhearted, Muslim physician who wants to develop real friendships with as many British people as possible.  In an effort to be hospitable, Dr. Aziz takes the ladies to see the comples Marabar Caves.  That visit changes all of their lives.

The atmosphere in the cave distresses Mrs. Moore and she leaves quickly.  Miss Quested asks an unintentionally rude question and Dr. Aziz steps away until he can get his temper under control.  When he returns, Miss Quested is gone and the Doctor searches until he sees her with another British woman, far outside the caves.  Miss Quested runs away and a few house later Dr. Aziz is arrested for sexually assaulting her.

Now remember, these three central characters and Dr. Aziz's British friend, Mr. Fielding are basically, decent people.  The problem is, they don't understand each other and many people around them are idiots.  Miss Quested's initial inability to talk her experience in the caves make Ronnie Heaslop and the bigoted Brits assume something "too awful to talk about" happened there and that Dr. Aziz is the person to blame.  Mrs. Moore is sure of Dr. Aziz's innocence but the spiritual experience she craved overwhelms her and she doesn't become the champion he needs.  The remaining community divides by  racial lines with the British defending Miss Quested as a victim of Indian lust and Indian groups shouting that Dr. Aziz is the target of British prejudice.  Even after an act of bravery clears the doctor, the racial lines are drawn and Dr. Aziz realizes he and Mr. Fielding won't ever really be friends until India achieves her independence.  The problem is not differing ideas or values as much as the lack of parity.  Friendship demands an acceptance of each other as equals and as long as Dr. Aziz remains an lesser citizen in his own country, he can't enjoy the free exchange of equality available between British citizens.

Forster lived to see the India achieve her independence although he never returned to the country.   That's surprising because it's clear that Forster sympathized with the Indians who longed for self-government and predicted they would prevail.  I suppose he was far more "at home" in Britain and that is where he stayed, respectful and distant, for the rest of his life.

So, in the end, is it possible for people from different backgrounds to create a lasting friendship?  Perhaps, if it's based in equality and built with appreciation and respect. If not, it may be better to  respect someone from a distance than to blunder in with a wealth of good intentions.

The Great American Summer Novel

People argue about the Great American Novel.  Some folks say it was Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn since it captures the assets and liabilities in our national character.  Others suggest it is an epic of exploration like Lonesome Dove or (since we are a restless people, obsessed with reinvention) The Great Gatsby.  To me, the question is open because these and others are all brilliant, beloved works but I'm sure about one thing: Gatsby is a Great American Summer Novel.

As a nation, we honor the summer months.  It's the only season charted by three national holidays: Memorial Day opens the season, July 4th is near its mid-point and Labor Day waves summer good-bye.  Three times in (roughly) 90 days people traditionally take off work, recreate in the great outdoors, and, with luck, remember the sacrifices of others that gave us these freedoms.  Because we started as a rural nation, children missed school during the summer months, when they're needed the most on farms and that three month break is still a big part of our culture.  To us, summer is a season of work that's balanced by freedom.   It's also the season of Gatsby.

Take a look at your old copy of the novel.  (Everyone has a copy stashed somewhere, left over from a high school or college course.)  The story really kicks off when a stranger asks Nick Carraway for directions to West Egg Village.  Nick advises him and then walks on, pleased to be recognized as a resident.  How could this take place in winter?  People don't stop on a walk to exchange pleasantries with a stranger or meander when there's snow and ice all around.  The weather prohibits it.  No, this is a time of warm weather and Gatsby's fabulous weekend parties are the proof.  These are  held outdoors where girls shimmer in dresses and dance themselves out onto wooden platforms at night once they've swallowed the prerequisite cocktails.  It has to be a warm, summer night where the air is soft and the grass as green as the light on Daisy Buchanen's dock.

Daisy is, of course, a summer girl given to wearing white and watching for the longest day every year.  She floats in and out of scenes, charting her future with a pretty face and a voice full of possibilities, but odd or intuitive enough to weep over an abundance of beautiful, hand-stitched, silk shirts.  Does she weep for the beauty of the clothes or what that abundance means to the man who wears them, once a boy whose only asset was his love for her?

Gatsby's life is itself a metaphor for the summer season.  Good-looking and resourceful, he makes financial hay while the sun shines and has already harvested enough of it to fund a season of parties at the ultimate summer accessory: a mansion on the beach.  More than anything, success has taught Gatsby to believe in the art of the possible.  A decade of hard work and questionable deals have turned the poverty-stricken, mid-western boy, Jimmy Gatz, into Jay Gatsby, a veritable sultan of the East Coast. If he can create this kind of life for himself, what keeps him from adding Daisy Fay to it, the girl he always loved?

The thing is, the sun that ripens a crop also creates a murderous heat.  On the hottest day of the year, Gatsby's dreams come to a crisis and he learns how quickly a summer girl can leave.  He can love her, want her, woo her, but he can't keep her, not for long.  The girl he loved years ago has changed into a woman; one who knows where she's headed in life, and that place is not with him.  The rest of Gatsby's story slips by with the shortening days and leaves of autumn float beside him when his first/last swim has ended, during the first day of fall.

Yes, the story of Gatsby is a great novel and it does have valid things to say about the American character.  Like Fitzgerald's hero, we're a nation that believes in self-determination, about creating our own future.  We're resourceful, we have energy and for a long time, we've shared both the confidence and insecurity of youth but mainly, we aspire.   Like Jay Gatsby, American is a nation that dreams of big accomplishments and then sets out to attain them.  The cost or probability of failure doesn't deter us.  Every morning brings a new day and a new chance to see over the next horizon.  In our hearts we're still kids on the first day of summer, the swimming pool is open and the traffic light ahead just turned green.  The race is on.