No Pictures, Please

Imagine my surprise when my cover artist reminds me that we need permission from a vendor prominently displayed on the cover of the new novel, Among Men, and in the bulk of the story, much of which happens around a hot dog cart in New Orleans. I found a great picture and negotiated with the photographer for its use as the background for the cover, which is coming along beautifully, thanks to Michael R. Reighn, my cover artist, and now I might have to take out the hot dog cart.

I'm a take the bull by the horns kind of writer, so I took the bull by the horns, looked up the number, and called the vendor. I asked to speak to the manager and ended up with Jerry, who I assume is the manager. I can't possibly be the guy I worked for over 30 years ago because he was probably 40 or 50 then and Jerry didn't sound that old. He sounded positively friendly -- at first -- when he said, "Sure, go ahead and use it. It will be great advertising for us." When I responded in a similar friendly manner, his tone changed immediately. "We need to deal with this in a more professional manner," he said, a note of we are not going to laugh and have a good time in his tone. And he got professional on me.

He said I could not use the logo or the cart or mention the company after he found out it was for a novel, a fictionalized version of my own experiences in New Orleans and working for the company 30 years ago. He suggested I fictionalize the name as well, as John Kennedy Toole did when he called the company Paradise Dogs in his novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, which, Jerry told me, is being made into a movie with a sequel already planned. I began to see what was really on Jerry's mind.

Jerry wrote a book about the company in Managing Ignatius, which was published in February 1999, and is now experiencing a resurgence of sales due to the focus on Confederacy, which is why he is coming out with a sequel to his own nonfiction offering about the company. I own the book, by the way, as I also own a copy of Confederacy. I bought my copy of Jerry's book for a penny and there are lots more available for a penny, too. I imagine the price will go up once the movie and the sequel to Jerry's book are released. I wish him luck with his second book. 

At any rate, we settled on a compromise of sorts. I will send him a finished copy of the novel and a copy of the cover so he can look it over and decide that my use is in no way defamatory and I can continue with it as planned. I do not foresee any problems and I hope I won't find the photo I bought royalty-free rights to isn't a costly mistake, though not as costly as it could have been. The photographer and I were able to negotiate a compromise that benefited us both and I will rely on my talent with talking my way out of or into whatever crops up in my path. I do not want to have to change the book that drastically or dilute the story, especially since I may have mentioned the company in the first novel, a copy of which I have sent to Jerry to scan for defamatory remarks and misuse of the company's good name.

I know one thing. The company is as much a part of New Orleans and the French Quarter with the carts on nearly every corner up and down Bourbon Street and along the Riverwalk. They can be found all over New Orleans and everywhere there is a gathering of hungry people, each vendor in the red and white striped shirt that marks him or her as a vendor for the company and purveyor of 8 inches of meat in a bun with whatever condiments will draw the hungry crowds. I ate a few of them before and after I worked for the company, but never when I was working with the company. Here's to indie publishing, even without lawyers and a high powered publisher's name to shock and awe companies willing to have their logo displayed prominently in novels the world over.

 

It has been 2 days since my grandson Connor died. Time weighs me down and numbs my brain. I can't think. I don't want to think. I don't want anything, except for Connor to be alive, for all of this to be a hoax, a mind warp, an alternate reality, an aberration of this reality, my reality. I want Connor back.

And I want to hear from my son. I'd left messages for 2 days with no response. I was jealous of Beanie because David Scott returned her call and not mine.

Julie's dad called me this morning while I was passed out from lack of sleep and grief. I didn't hear the phone and I'm a light sleeper -- on a normal day. These have not been normal days. Mr. Larkin wanted to know if I had heard from David Scott or Julie. I hadn't. My first thought was they had dived into twin bottles and were on a binge. He was considering calling the police and reporting them as missing. My heart raced and then stopped. I wanted my son to be all right. I cannot lose anyone else.

I called Beanie to ask if she had heard from David again. No. She sent him a text message but he had not returned even that. Two days. No word. What could he be thinking? Where the hell was he and what was he doing? I called David Scott one more time, not even hoping the phone would be turned on this time. I waited for voice mail.

"Hello?"

It was David Scott. I should have known what he was doing, what he always does when he's in pain. He was hiding. Not communicating. Curling into an emotional ball around his pain and shutting down.

"Where the hell have you been?" I yelled.

As angry and worried as I was, I was happy to hear that petulant tone in his voice even as I told him not to yell at me, to moderate his tone.

Julie tried to throw herself off the balcony, to kill herself after having turned on everyone else, blaming them for killing her son. My son responds by hiding like an octopus pulling his tentacles and his amorphous bulk into as small a space as he can find. My daughter-in-law responds by cursing and lashing out at everyone and anyone who comes within her sight.

David Scott has been staying with a close friend, meeting with his sponsor and great grand sponsor (recovering alcoholic), and Julie has been in the hospital in the psych ward on a mandatory 72-hour watch because of her suicide attempt. No one knew what was going on. Now we know.

This has been a trying time for all of us and more so for my son and his wife because it is their child who has died. It doesn't help to know that Connor's cardiologist didn't know of our family history of a congenital heart murmur or that my father's youngest brother, a fraternal twin like Connor and Sierra, died when he was 10 months old of pneumonia complicated by his heart defect.

It may not have been Connor's heart. I still think the autopsy will show an aneurysm that burst while he slept. But it doesn't matter what caused his death. He is gone.

Everyone is blaming himself or herself and casting blame around like a hot potato. No matter what medical science will tell us, it will not assuage our grief. My 2-year-old grandson is dead and nothing, not even medical science, will bring him back. All we have left is questions with no answers and grief and my son and daughter-in-law are not dealing well with them. In spite of their ages, they are not equipped to deal with this. I am much older and, despite my seeming calmness in the face of this tragedy, I am not equipped to deal with this. I know there is a logical reason and I know that there is no reason, at least not a reason my heart or my aching soul will accept.

Death is never easy and I've had a lot of it to deal with this year with Mom dying in January and now Connor. Last year it was my half brother and a close friend. I expect to lose people, to lose family at this stage of my life, and yet I don't expect them to die. It is not logical; it is emotional, and I am very emotional right now. I doubt I will ever be un-emotional where this is concerned.

In the larger context, Dick Clark, the immortal Dick Clark who was hundreds of years old, has died today. In the end, even he was not immune to death's final embrace. So why do I feel like in the end it will be cockroaches, moths, and me left on this planet? I always thought it would be Mom.

Review: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Tony Webster begins his tale at the age of 60, a time when he reflects on the past and his friends, trying to find memories and meaning in what happened to explain the bequest from an old girlfriend's mother, who was once kind to him while the rest of her family taunted him and made him feel awkward and out of his depth.

Forty years ago, his best friend, Adrian, committed suicide, leaving a note that was the essence of the young man giving up his life, in Roman style, and asking that the coroner publish his note. It wasn't a cry for help or a plea for forgiveness, but a rational and studied message that gave his life -- and his death meaning. Shocking as it was for his friends, and especially for Tony, it made sense -- Adrian's kind of sense. 

Now, Tony must revisit that past and those memories to see what was true and remains true, and what was illusion.

It is not too difficult to find books that will blend past remembrance with current struggles, but Julian Barnes does not give Tony Webster anything to struggle against at first glance. Tony doesn't need to bring things full circle, as Victoria suggests, nor does he become maudlin and regretful about his past or his life since Adrian's death. Tony takes life as it comes, so he says, until he needs to wear away at the stones that bar his path, like an insurance company and most especially Victoria, hitting each with letters and emails that slowly, carefully, and thoughtfully wear down their resistance and give Tony what he wants. He is the water that drip, drip, drips until a hole is achieved. That is the essence of The Sense of an Ending, and what makes it work.

The Sense of an Ending is barely a novella but is sufficiently long to tell the story and give up all the details without too much overbearing style or too many bloated words. It is simply a good story told with economy and a subtle richness that makes the story fly; I read it in a matter of hours.

There are echoes of what is coming by the suicide of a school fellow who finds out his girlfriend is pregnant and hangs himself, leaving a quite note: Sorry, Mum. Adrian's death is more thoughtful and yet no one finds out, not even the reader, why he decided to end his life. Was it in typical Adrian fashion because he was finished or because he felt that nothing more could be accomplished after a first at Cambridge and honors to fill his cabinet? The answer to that lies in the diary that Victoria refuses to hand over to Tony, the diary her mother left him in her will, along with a letter and $500.

Tony is as clueless as Victoria claims throughout their relationship and during their struggle over Adrian's diary and that is aptly shown at the ending of The Sense of an Ending, but, in Tony's defense, little was given him and he wasn't curious enough to look farther than what was right in front of him.

What is best about The Sense of an Ending is not just a story told well, but how memory deceives and changes over time and how it can become as clear as clean glass when one least expects it. Although Tony claims to be a peaceful guy who wants nothing more than peace in his life, he is shown as someone who lets life happen to him rather than making life happen. He accepts all without rancor or regret, except when he finds out that Victoria is now with Adrian, and he muddles through without too much effort or thought, even to remaining friends with his ex-wife, who left him for someone else and eventually divorced. When she wanted to get back together, Tony said no because he liked his simple life as it was -- simple and without clutter or responsibility. In a sense, Tony committed emotional suicide in his youth and ghosted through the rest of life.

The Sense of an Ending, no matter its length, is worthy of the Man Booker Prize it won this year and I highly recommend it.