Letters to the Editor
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There is Still that "Third" Washington
While I would highly recommend "The Night Gardender", "The Man Who Loved Children" and anything by Henry Adams (whose brooding memorial to wife Clover has haunted my all my life), there is - or was - also the Washington of those of us caught in a certain time in that certain space, as black and white members of "The Silent Generation" ran together like the entire sienna spectrum, and for a brief, fleeting moment labored under the impression that a New Age had dawned even as our parents plotted against us and that stillborn renaissance, that "future that never arrived."
Perhaps no one (other than me, and my piece on the subject is in the works, so hang in there)has touched upon this Third Washington than the late "Father of American Primitive Guitar" and DC icon John Fahey, in his short story collection titled "How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life." While sometimes seemingly surreal in an almost William Burroughs sort of way (as were all Fahey's copious album liner notes as well - also all about this mysterious Washington seen through the eyes of a Takoma Park resident), there is substantial fact in the book, and even if it were not so, it would be entertaining at least. But for those of us who were actually there, right upon the cusp of our idiot parents' White Flight lunacy, it is very real, with a ginsu-sharp edge to it.
The Federal City, that thing Gore Vidal skewers so jovially, deserves no better. The freak shows of writers like Blatty, whose "Exorcist" actually took place across the Maryland line in blue collar Mount Rainier (but I am nit-picking here - it's all part of that "third" Washington)teach us nothing about the coming and then, in Fahey's own words "disembowelment of the New Age." Until I can get my "monster in a box" to press, dig into Adams' notes and the works of Edward P. Jones, as Black Washington is far closer to the "third" and most real and tragic Washington of them all, while Adams' love for the city helped to create the setting for the coming denoument and eventual rebirth.
I prepare even now to make my return to that Holy Ground where I was born and where I lived for 57 years, where Fahey bestowed on me the name "Calhoun". Only then will I be able to finish the work started with the return of my own repressed memory of that "third" Washington. It just can't be done here in southern California, where there are no catalpas in bloom, and no lingering memory, no ghosts, no sweaty, sleepless nights, and no visits to Auguste Rodin's haunting, tormented sentinel and permanent mourner at the grave of Clover Adams.
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fifty degrees below has some great descriptions of DC
I've just finished reading the science fiction novel "fifty degree below" by Stanley Kim Robinson. I was surprised how vivid the descriptions of a Washington DC ravanged by cold weather and a flood (from the first book in Robinson's climate change trilogy) were. Robinson has captured not only the decay, paranoia and bureaucracy of DC, but also how lost most of the people living in it feel. Its also one of the few books I've read about DC which has fairly three dimenionsal homeless characters (except for one sence near the end of the book). Considering the vast numbers of homeless and damaged people in DC, it was nice to read a book that attempted to capture it.
Be warned however, that as this book is part of a triolgy it does suffer from being the middle book in the series.
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the literature of Washington
kind of hard to give much credibility to this piece when it ignores Ward Just, who has written about Washington better than just about anybody. jaf
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the Great Warshington Novel
The Great Warshington novel may never be. But it always puts a smile on my face to remember Garrett Epps, The Floating Island (1985). And you have to admit, his title itself has Warshington in a nutshell. Check it out.
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Don't Forget Jean Toomer
Jean Toomer was Washington's great contribution to the Harlem Literary Renaissance - and his descriptions of U Street jazz joints and negro movie houses of the era in his novel "Cane" are some of the most vivid writing of the era - and are the precursor's of both Pelicanos' and Edward P. Jones' chronicles of black D.C.
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the writer writes back
Jean Toomer! I knew there was someone obvious I was forgetting. He is who. Thank you, Districtorian. And thank you, Garrett Epps and Stanley Kim Robinson, for recommending writers I'd never heard of. And A.J. Calhoun, for correcting my memory of "The Excorcist." I was confusing it with the movie, of course. How nice to learn that John Fahey was a Washingtonian!
As for Ward Just, I knew I shouldn't leave him out. He is the most self-consciously Adamsian of Washington novelists and a local hero, but it seems to me Just finds his senators, congressmen, spies, reporters, hostesses, etc. interesting for the same reasons they do, and I don't. He sounds too cozy with his sources. Take his story collection "The Congressman Who Read Flaubert"--to me that title says too much about the story, and the work, and Washington itself.
But no doubt that's the point. Thank you for pointing out the omission.
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Don't forget Christopher Buckley!
Christopher Buckley's novels, which include "Thank You For Smoking," "No Way to Treat a First Lady," and "Little Green Men," perfectly capture (and satirize) life in the capital. I was born in D.C., as was my father, and know well the lawyers, lobbyists, legislators, bureaucrats, reporters, and social climbers who make this city what it is. Chris Buckley exaggerates less than you'd think, and he does it with love.
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wrong song but lovely essay
This riff on D.C. in fiction is delight. Unhappily for me, I was searching for such a welll informed and thoughtful piece on "Fiction about Democracy." Any suggestions?