“I get swept away by the sincerity. I do not get swept away by what people call pyrotechnics & prose. I do not get swept away by wit. I think wit is in a lot of ways damaging to fiction. I just feel like I’m listening to a writer and not the character. When I read the writers I really love like Philip Roth and Alice Munro—and their prose is beautiful—they’re more interested in truth than in fancy clothes for their prose.”
Author Ethan Canin (Emperor of the Air, A Doubter’s Almanac) Interview on The Moment with Brian Koppelman
“There should be no sorrow at this funeral because The Great Santini lived life at full throttle, moved always in the fast lanes, gunned every engine, teetered on every edge, seized every moment and shook it like a terrier shaking a rat.” Pat Conroy Colonel Don Conroy’s Eulogy (The book & movieThe Great Santini was based on Pat Conroy’s Marine jet fighter pilot dad)
Yesterday when I learned of the March 4th death of writer Pat Conroy my first thought was that he was at the center of one of my fondest moments with literature. For one month in the summer of ’99 I backpacked around Europe with Mr. Conroy at my side—in literary form of course.
I have a distinct memory of being on a train in the Swiss Alps reading Conroy’s Beach Music and thinking, “It doesn’t get any better than this.” It was one of those rare beautiful moments in life where you are fully aware that you are alive—and you at least have the illusion that all is right in the world.
Only later did I learn that it took Conroy a decade to write Beach Music. While some writers distance themselves from the autobiographical aspects of their writings, Conroy had no place to hide. He once said,“One of the greatest gifts you can get as a writer is to be born into an unhappy family” (I think Hemingway said basically the same thing), and Conroy’s own tortuous relationship with his father was the foundation for his life’s work. A tough price to pay.
His literary career started simply when he was a high school English teacher in Beaufort, South Carolina when he self-published his first book The Boo. He was paid $7,500 for his next book The Water is Wide, which was made into the movie Conrack. His book The Prince of Tides sold 5 million copies, and he also worked on the screenplay version of that book and received an Oscar nomination. A movie was also made of his book The Lords of Discipline.
If you’ve never read Conroy’s work The Great Santini is the one I’d recommend you’d start. And the single best movie scene made from his writings (and was reflective of the relationship with his father) was the following scene from The Great Santini.
Good drama, bad parenting.
A fitting end to this post is a quote by author and University of Iowa writing professor Ethan Canin (who Pat Conroy said of Canin’s new book A Doubter’s Almanac, “With this extraordinary novel, Ethan Canin now takes his place on the high wire with the best writers of his time.”):
“I was driving the other day and there’s this this traffic jam, it was this miserable traffic jam, and I thought what in the hell is this? I finally get to the curb and I look up and there’s wild flowers in bloom and all these cars had just slowed down a couple of miles an hour to see the wild flowers. And it was this incredible moment where everybody who was on the way to work—they’re pissed off— they were still slowing down for the wild flowers. Not to sound too California-ish about that, but that’s amazing to me that despite the inutility of all of this stuff we are wired to just love this. To love gossip—which is what literature is—to love hearing about someone else. To love to see how other people have done things wrong. And also to rehearse for your own death. I mean that’s what reading is about. Generally most novels are about life. Many novels are about life, [A Doubter’s Almanac] is about life—birth to death, and it gives you a chance to look at it. Do it once, do it twice, read another novel. ReadMoby-Dick, read The Adventures of Augie March, read some novel about a life and you can live a life, and imagine how you will face the inevitable.”
Ethan Canin The Moment podcast interview with producer/screenwriter Brian Koppelman (Billions)
Chances are good that you won’t be on a train going through the Swiss Alps this week, but you can slow down and take in some beauty. Be it in nature, a book, a movie, or just hanging out with friends and family.
P.S. If you’ve never been to the South Carolina lowcountry where Conroy often wrote about, lived a chunk of his life, and where he died, do yourself a favor and visit the area. There’s much beauty and rich culture there, and Beaufort is one of my favorite towns in the United States.
P.P.S. Conroy does have a connection to Iowa, and it’s not the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, but his father (Don Conroy) attended college in Iowa at Saint Ambrose College, and as a youth Pat and his family spent an uncomfortable summer in Davenport once while their military family was in transition.
So I was minding my own business this weekend when I see this list pop up on Yahoo! of The Top Ten Bookstores in the US. That sounded interesting and the usual suspects where there, a couple of stores in your typical East Coast West Coast settings— New York, LA, Seattle, Portland, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and a great and popular Denver store snuck in …leaving just one slot for the rest of fly-over country—The Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City.
Of course, this list by Daniel McGillivray is a subjective one, but I enjoy seeing things from Iowa continue to pop up all over the place in regards to the arts. (Of course, to many of us in Iowa the fact he Prairie Lights is so highly regarded is not that much of a surprise.) McGillivary writes of the bookstore near The Iowa Writer’s Workshop:
“Ahhh, Iowa. Lush fields of corn, flowing hills of grazing land, and the country’s most-famous writing program. The Prairie Lights Bookstore, though not associated with the University of Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop, seems to have benefited from its reputation. The store is filled with over 30 years of history and has hosted internationally bestselling authors, Nobel Prize winners, and nearly every presidential candidate of the past 20 years.”
Think about that a moment. The Prairie Lights Bookstore is small considered to The Tattered Cover (Denver) and Powell’s (Portland) and Iowa City is a considerably smaller than cities like Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Miami, Kansas City, San Diego, Baltimore, Nashville, Cleveland, etc., but there it is in the top ten list.
I don’t know how many writers who have had films made from their writing have wandered through the isles at The Prairie Lights Bookstore but I’m sure there have been a few. The odds are pretty good that screenwriter Diablo Cody spent a little time and money there while a student at the University of Iowa —and before she won an Oscar for Juno. (The Juno—Iowa Connection.)
The last time I was at The Prairie Lights Bookstore I picked up Ethan Canin’s short story collection The Palace Thief. (Canin teaches at the The Iowa Writers’ Workshop and one of the stories in that book, The Palace Thief, was the basis for the movie The Emperor’s Club.) Prairie Lights also has regular readings from authors (Live from Prairie Lights).One I’d like to make is Sept. 13, 2010 when Susanna Daniel reads from her debut novel Stiltsville. (About an Atlanta woman who moves into a house on stilts in Miami’s Biscayne Bay.) Archives of pasts readings are available online.
I’m telling you there is something in the water in these parts. I often stop in The Prairie Lights Bookstore when I head through Iowa City in hopes that some of it rubs off on my own writings.
Yesterday the Oscar nominations were announced and Diablo Cody and her script Juno were nominated for best original screenplay and the film was also nominated for best picture. I recently pointed out her Iowa connection as having graduated from the University of Iowa.
If you’re not familiar with the creative talent that has come out of the University of Iowa hold on for what I’m about to tell you. You’ll be hard pressed to find a university that has educated and attracted more novelist, poets, essayist, screenwriters and short story writers at such a high level of proficiency and acclaim.
The campus is located just off Interstate 80 in Iowa City. Head west on 80 from New York City and you’ll run right into it. Head east on 80 from San Francisco (or via Park City if you’re coming from Sundance) and you’ll be heading toward the promise land of creative talent. And if you happen to be in Cedar Falls where I’m typing this, it’s just a little over an hour drive south.
Its famed Iowa Writers’ Workshop is the oldest and most prestigious MFA writing program in the country. The program has produced thirteen Pulitzer Prize winners, and has had professors such as Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five), Robert Penn Warren (All the King’s Men) and Philip Roth (The Human Stain).
Its notable MFA alumni whose writings have become movies include John Irving (The World According to Garp), W.P.Kinsella (Shoeless Joe, which became the movie Field of Dreams), Leonard Schrader (screenplay, Kiss of the Spider Woman),Ethan Canin (The Palace Thief that became the movie The Emperor’s Club), Michael Cunningham (The Hours), Nicholas Meyer (Oscar-nominated The-Seven-Percent-Solution), Robert Nelson Jacobs (screenplay, Chocolat), Max Allan Collins (The Road to Perdition) and Anthony Swofford (Jarhead).
Most recently two Iowa grads have had books listed in The New York Times 10 best books of 2007; Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson and Then We Came to an End by Joshua Ferris.
Those educated at the University of Iowa (though not in the writing program) include Stewart Stern (Rebel Without a Cause), Barry Kemp (Coach), actor/writer Gene Wilder (Young Frankenstein), producer Mark Johnson (Rain Man), Richard Maibaum (12 James Bond films including From Russia with Love), and the great playwright Tennessee Williams (A Streetcar Named Desire). I’m sure I’ve missed many people, but I think you get the point.
So Diablo Cody joins a distinguished list of honored writers from Iowa. Congratulations on her success. I’m sure her 12 years of Catholic schooling in the Chicago area also played a part in developing her talent. The list of Catholic influenced (some positive, some negative) writers is too long to address now but may be worth a future blog. (I’m neither Catholic nor did I attend the University of Iowa, but I do like to notice trends.)
But make no mistake, Cody’s quirky mix of Midwest roots (she wrote Juno while living in Minneapolis) are what make her writing original. (Ditto that for the Minneapolis raised Coen brothers who just received writing and directing Oscar nominations for No Country for Old Men.) And that originality is what makes Cody attractive to Hollywood, both as a writer and as a person. Stick to your dreams and more importantly keep writing.
And paste this quote from Ohio screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct) above your writing area: “If you write a good, commercial script and start sending it out – someone will recognize that it is good and commercial…If they think your script will make them money, they will option or buy your script.”
May 2008 Addition: The Juno-Iowa Connection Part 2. Ellen Page the talented lead actress in Juno is in Des Moines this month shooting Peacock with Cillian Murphy.
“If your journey is anything like ours, at some point you’ll hit a wall. Festivals will reject your screenplay. Agencies will pass on representing you. Executives are going to tell you no. Then maybe one day, someone will say yes to your script.” —Screenwriters Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (“A Quiet Place”) From the forward […]
Screenwriting from Iowa 