The splintering of Literature into a vast set of genres and subgenres has had a lasting effect on the world around us. As we discuss the various periods and cycles, the most time-representative works tend to coagulate and shoot back through the bloodstream of Literature as "Romantic," "Transcendental," and "Modernist."
The nomenclature of the latter derivation gathers so many authors and works beneath its umbrella that it is easier to understand that the most indicative slots of 20th Century Literature would be filled by works that arrived in its wake. Still, we ask ourselves who can follow Faulkner, Woolf, Hemingway, Baldwin, Salinger, and all the others. These figures are still discussed on a last-name basis like they were once scientists in crowded laboratories whose ingenuity led to continuing studies as "effects."
Here we are a nation emerging from World War II as the world's superpower. For the first time ever, the width and breadth of our literature must define who we are.
Richard Wright. Carson McCullers. Shirley Jackson. Ray Bradbury. John Steinbeck. Flannery O'Connor. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. The introduction of African-American, Horror, Science Fiction, and Southern Gothic into Literature.
Truman Capote. Harper Lee. Joan Didion. Malcolm X with Alex Haley. The introduction of what is elementally Nonfiction into Literature as reportage and autobiography (to push toward social change.)
Judy Blume. Stephen King. Octavia Butler. Norman Mailer. The available chairs are getting crowded. How is any writer expected to follow in these giant footsteps and carve a place next to them?
By the Eighties, America had survived social upheaval and dramatic alteration, seen the seeds of several minority-based movements germinate, and survived the first economic downturn since The Great Depression. Nothing literature can do but engage in rebellion (like the Modernists).
The first skirmishes are small. The best-selling author of hundreds of Westerns, Louis L'Amour takes a sojourn to write a Reagan-age tale of survival in Cold War-era Russia, Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy leap into redefining Westerns. The landscape was changing. As the malls were erected, the chain stores like B. Dalton and Waldenbooks followed. Three thousand square feet of best sellers for a mass of shoppers with only five channels (or maybe 35 if you had cable.)
Young Adult. Science Fiction. Horror. Fantasy. One genre defines most of us. What about the minority voices? They were lost in the barrage of Ludlum, Follett, Sheldon, and Belva Plain. Dale Peck was born on Long Island, but raised in Kansas. Two completely different environments that furthered his feelings of separation and lost identity. As a budding writer, Peck turned to criticism and made his name registering negative reviews for The New Republic of the most revered writers of the day. Peck destroyed all their icons including DeLillo, Wallace, Pynchon, and Zadie Smith (note: only listed the ones that inspire me - there are so many more.)
In its place, Peck excavated the minority short story writers of the Eighties who were lucky to earn small pressings and places in tiny publications that might not even appear at the back of the jammed magazine rack at B.Dalton or Waldenbooks. Peck's collection of "The Soho Press Book of 80s Short Fiction" is dominated by voices that went largely unheard. A brilliant example is Buffalo-born/Virginia-raised Christopher Bram (who would later write the novel that gave us the film "Gods and Monsters.") Published in tiny Christopher Street Magazine thirteen years after the Stonewall riots enveloped the same Greenwich Village street, Bram is exploring his identity but only in the sense that his preference still carries the demands of living under morals in the real world.
Bram's ability to capture both the world of workaday ennui and commitment set his apart from many other writers. As he falls in love with a friend who is running for local office (so he sees his countenance everywhere - but not his person,) Bram is almost too passive about it. ("Here I was happily married, and not only had I fallen in love with somebody else, I had fallen in love with a guy.) With Bram, it is a feeling, not an obsession. In the beginning, there is nothing that even promotes the literary notion of "life change." In addition, he still loves his wife ("all our pleasures and desires seemed to blur together...but I found myself missing the sharp edges things had had when we were first discovering each other.")
There is a casual causality within Bram's language that binds you to both he (as Scottie the protagonist and narrator) and his wife Cathy. They are together in a new city where as married people they see themselves together, yet they pursue their own lives to the point where other interests are quickly developing. Bram is even successful at implying (without a flashback to score any differences) how they both changed upon moving to Richmond - as any of us would in making such a dramatic choice. For literature of this nature, one finds oneself either waiting for the conflict to begin or savoring a real relationship from these pages. Bram's conversational tone and slight dream-like engagement with the prose make you further appreciate how human it is to make oneself vulnerable to anyone else.
A heavier rebellion comes from George C. Wolfe's second play from 1986. Before Wolfe became a talented director (1991's "Jelly's Last Jam," 1996's "Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk," and two installments of "Angels In America,") he proved himself to be a talented scribe. To confront African-American history in the Eighties was an important step for authors like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. Wolfe's series of vignettes give you a multi-faceted view of unresolved conflict from both outside and inside of the culture. While Wolfe does borrow from August Wilson, you can trace his writing as the inspiration for Tyler Perry's "issue plays."
Wolfe called his play "an exorcism and a party." These 11 "exhibits" are vignettes where Wolfe provides a voice to many of the most strident conflicts facing the culture over the last 25 years. "Symbiosis" has one character throwing away all the elements that are unique to African-American culture to - in his words - "survive the upcoming catastrophe." As his counterpart struggles to hear clothes, albums, and books that define him go in the dumpster, his first notion is to fight and his second is to meekly promise "to do better." "Soldier With a Secret" is brilliantly written to illustrate the horrors of war - when the soldiers come home. When the central soldier dies in the piece, he gains a Cassandra-like ability to see the future of his fellow soldiers. Wolfe even favors us with comedy ('The Hairpiece" has two wigs that spring to life,") but his overall message acknowledges the past, satirizes the present (and its differences), and celebrates pride in the variety of identities that emerge in the future.
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Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
New music of the week
GRACIE ABRAMS - The Secret of Us [YELLOW LP/CD](Interscope) • Subtract everything you know about her famous connections, the careful sculpting of her career so far, and even the appearance of a certain megastar on "us," and you can see that being on the "Eras Tour" clearly helped Abrams develop toward the growing female-dominated (yeaaah!) mainstream Pop audience (err..ok.) Still, Abrams is another breathy singer of lovelorn songs who is smart enough to work with Aaron Dessner. Her acoustic, quieter cuts ("Block Me Out" and "405" both from the deluxe "Good Riddance" still rank as her best) reign supreme, but kudos for snagging a danceable Pop single out of "Close To You."
LAKE STREET DIVE - Good Together [BLUE LP/CD](Lake Street Dive/Concord) • When you are so proficient as musicians that you can play almost anything, why do you strive for hits that - for lack of a better phrase - fit in. Rachael Price is a dynamite singer (check out the collaboration with Vilray on 2023's "I Love A Love Song,") but porous sub-Diane Warren writing like "Twenty-Five" does not best use her range. As for the band, locking these talented players into faux Soul like "Good Together" is an ill fit (mostly root notes plunking away by a super talented bassist in Bridget Kearney.) At least "Dance With A Stranger" finds another Hall & Oates-style groove that works for a potential hit single, while working in an original idea of feel-goodery.
THE STORY SO FAR - I Want To Disappear [ORANGE SPLAT LP/CD](Pure Noise/The Orchard) • Walnut Creek, CA's The Story So Far is one of the new standard-bearers for the return of Pop/Punk. While Parker Cannon's adenoidal yelp is not the most original, TSSF does have a knack for catchy Nineties-ish choruses. "Letterman" layers its driving verse with harmonic call and response so that the chorus explodes with excitement and the most important lyrical content. This "reverse-Emo" manner of writing bodes well as they even show their humor ("you spin me around like a ceiling fan" and "wrap me tight, I'm a rubberband") which offsets the emotionally wrought conclusion ("Admit that you're gone and just accept it.") "Big Blind" takes Blink-182ish harmonious strum und drang to a different height (thanks to producer Ben Hirschfield's skillful mixing) and employs a powerful but subtle resolving chord to make its point.
KEHLANI - Crash [BLUE JAY LP/CD](Atlantic) • Kehlani continues to stake out room for her identity on her fourth album. After the left turn that was the underrated "Blue Water Road," it is back to the business of finding that elusive R&B hit. "Crash" is equal parts modern Dance Pop album/R&B-meets-Hip Hop joint. If anything, Kehlani 2024 is a little too calculated. "After Hours" features a great bumping undergroove for her trilling voice. However, the lyrics and melodies are not as memorable as the samples she is pulling in. On the outset, it sounds dangerously close to Janelle Monae's bumping Summer 2023 jam "The Age of Pleasure." However, being perfectly honest, it is likely that all dance music will suffer over the next couple of months at the hands of her labelmate Charli XCX's growing-more brilliant-with-every-listen "BRAT."
REISSUES THIS WEEK
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE [LP](Matador) • There was Desert Rock. Out in the California dust with speakers piled as high as the sky, bands put together low-frequency wielding second-generation biker rock. Stoner Rock that was so scorching, it would leave you sunburned and parched for more. When the Palm Desert tied Psychedelia, Glam, Punk, Grunge, and Metal together in groups like Kyuss, their trance-like grooves carried them across state lines and even landed them on MTV. For the next step, Josh Homme convened Queens of The Stone Age. While he was still assembling his dream band, Homme constructed "Queens of the Stone Age" in 1998. This was no longer just Stoner Rock. Those aforementioned grooves grew more serpentine and almost sensual. While the guitars remain set to stun, Homme found new ways to sound metallic but without the sting. "Regular John," "Avon," "If Only" and "Mexicola" benefitted from a new kind of repetition. Like Black Sabbath with swagger, Queens of the Stone Age were stepping away from the fodderstompf banging away of Metal and Sludge introducing a sleek, machine-like pulse that would redefine Alternative/Metal as the millennium turned. "Queens" is the encapsulation of the blistering heat of Desert Rock with its interstellar overdriven future. Long live the Queens!
SADE - Diamond Life/Promise/Stronger Than Pride [LP](Epic/Legacy) • Post/Punk and Post/Romantic English Pop experienced a new interest in Soul. Paul Weller formerly of Punk godfathers The Jam founded the slick Curtis Mayfield-meets-Mod Soul The Style Council (even charting a US hit with 1983's "My Ever Changing Moods.") Sade Adu was a model singing backup in a band (Pride.) Once she wrote a song for the band ("Smooth Operator,") she started to pick up interest. So naturally, the band went with her and became Sade. Before the group was even signed word of their cool Jazz/Soul spread like wildfire with them selling out 1000 seat halls. In 1984, Sade's campaign opened with the hit single "Your Love Is King" in February and her newly recorded album for Epic in July. As audiences saw the band and raved, critics joined in on the seductive debut record. By September, Sade was on the third single from "Diamond Life." This Cool Jazz-ish Bossa Nova groove "Smooth Operator" would be her breakthrough. A Top 5 single in the US, Sade would even crossover into R&B and the Adult Contemporary charts. 1985's followup the more dramatic "Promise" sought out more smoky torch songs ("Is It A Crime?") and became the first transatlantic #1 for Sade as "The Sweetest Taboo" went Top 5 on all three charts again. A household name now (with everyone finally pronouncing it correctly SHAR-day,) her third album "Stronger Than Pride" cemented her place among the Pop/R&B hitmakers with two major hits.
AC/DC - '74 Jailbreak/Let There Be Rock/ If You Want Blood, You've Got It [GOLD LP](Legacy) • 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of AC/DC. The Australian Hard Rock group still is not one to slow down even with problems and passing members (Malcolm Young forever!) These brothers of Easybeats legend George Young were a huge part of the Seventies Hard Rock boom internationally. At their creation, Rock had only been playing on Australian radio stations for a few years. So, there was something primal about early AC/DC. Based in the Blues (like most bands,) AC/DC gave it a high-voltage charge. Before their 1975 debut "High Voltage," the band recorded the five-song EP "'74 Jailbreak." The Blues was still evident in their music (the blazing cover of "Baby, Please Don't Go") but Bon Scott's growling "Jailbreak" and the defiant "You Ain't Got A Hold On Me" showed real spark.
By 1976, it looked like the band was running out of steam. Ahead of Punk and Disco taking over, they were signed to a worldwide deal by Atlantic Records who showed longterm interest in them even though they were only hitting in Australia, New Zealand, and England. "Let There Be Rock" was American radio's first true slice of playable Heavy Metal. Since it still had that rugged post-boogie bar band base, "Whole Lotta Rosie," "Dog Eat Dog," and "Let There Be Rock" could lead listeners to an entire album of burning churning Rock N'Roll. By 1978, the time arrived for a live album. "Blood" is the only official live album of the Bon Scott era and it captures all the excitement of a band on the brink of super stardom.
