A Moment in the Sun

by John Sayles

I know before I even begin to write about this book that my skills are nowhere near adequate to the task of expressing how much I have loved reading this book.  John Sayles has written a sweeping (and rather damning) gigantic (955 pages) novel about America in the closing days of the 19th century - a time of imperialism, racial conflict, greed, and somehow, optimism.  The book is mammoth, having more in common with a cinder block than anything else on my bookshelf (except perhaps the work of William T. Vollmann), with an equally long list of characters that I came to have great affection for.

If this book were to have a geographical centre, it would be Wilmington North Carolina, the place where most of the characters began their lives.  Much of the early parts of the book are set there, until what amounts to a white supremacist coup sends most of the black, and many of the white characters out of the town.  While the heart of the book is Wilmington, the story also takes place in the Klondike, Cuba, the Philippines, New York, Colorado, Texas, and a lot of other places.  Among the topics covered, the reader is given a grounds-eye view of America's war with Spain (played out in Cuba and the Philippines, the latter also the sight of a protracted guerrilla insurgency by the people the Americans 'liberated'), the Gold Rush, the newspaper industry, including how political cartoons were crafted, New York sweatshops, the mining industry, the birth of the motion picture industry, the plight of Chinese prostitutes in Japan, the New York dead horse removal industry, Filipino resistance, and the execution of the man who assassinated President McKinley.

Sayles never glosses over anything in this book, preferring to stop and explore a new element to the story to his satisfaction.  When the character of Mei, a Chinese washerwoman working at a hospital in the Philippines is introduced, Sayles spends fifty pages exploring her past, which began when her mother decided not to have her feet bound.  When the assassination of McKinley happens, Sayles introduces Shoe, a prisoner at the prison where the assassin, Leon Czolgosz, is held.  Shoe gets around forty pages of the book to himself, despite the fact that the novel is almost over.

I can see where things like this could annoy some readers (I think there are probably thirty central characters in this book), but I love it.  These digressions made the book ever more rewarding to read, as they helped Sayles achieve his goal of portraying as rich and full a snapshot of that time and place as possible.

Reading a book like this, it's hard to not look for parallels to the America of today.  I think that there are many easy comparisons to make between the US in the last decade of the 19th century with the America that began the 21st.  There are the same wars fought for dubious reasons which turn into protracted insurgencies, and the same pompous belief in personal and national infallibility.

I've spent the last couple months with this book (it being something to savor and not devour), and know that I'm going to miss many of these characters a great deal.  While working to portray such a broad portrait, through his comfortable prose, he made many of these characters people that I began to care about.  This is an incredible novel.  I only hope that Amigo, Sayles's new film, which I believe serves as a companion to this book, plays in Toronto.

McSweeney's 37

There is so much great content in this McSweeney's, but I want to talk about the design of the book first.  Looking at the image to the right, this latest volume looks like it's just a regular old hardcover book, yet that image is taken looking at the book straight on.  It's designed to look like a 3D image, with the upper left and lower right corners cut out accordingly, reminding me of the papers on Battlestar Galactica.

Inside the reader is greeted with a booklet that contains four chapters of John Sayle's A Moment in the Sun, which I didn't read because I'm working my way through that book now (it's amazing).

The book has a ton of great writing.  Jonathan Franzen contributes Ambition, a story about an aging couple.  Nelly Reifler's The Grove is about a rabbit who moves into the wider world, and discovers just how difficult life can be.  It jumps around a lot, but is a very well-written piece.

Etgar Keret's story, 'Cheesus Christ', is an exploration of causality, as it plays out in a cheeseburger fast food joint, encompassing such topics as the Butterfly Effect, depression, and suicide.  'Take Care of that Rage Problem', by Edan Lepucki, examines the life of a woman whose parents have split up, and while they're okay with it, she is not.  Keeping with the divorce theme (it's pretty common this time around) is Kevin Moffett's 'Lugo in Normal Time', about a sad sack father trying to stay relevant in his daughter's life, while imagining that he has some control over the passage of time, or at least his ability to process it.

I've never been tempted to read a novel by Joyce Carol Oates, but I do like her shorter pieces.  In 'A Brutal Murder in a Public Place', the narrator (the author?) finds a bird flying around in an airport in New Jersey, and spends a chunk of time thinking about it.  Joe Meno's story 'Lion's Jaws' was terrific.  It is about a man who has a few dates with a video artist who dreams of being killed by a lion.  Funny and strange, I quite enjoyed it.

In terms of non-fiction, there are five excellent pieces (two of which will be discussed in my Kenyan paragraph below).  In 'Now Ye Know Who The Bosses Are Here Now', J. Malcolm Garcia explores an unsolved murder that happened in Northern Ireland in 2007, after the ceasefire.  It seems very likely that the killing was done at the hands or the orders of the IRA, but nothing has happened to prosecute the case.  This piece depicts all aspects of community life there, and is very sad and effective.

Closer to home is Jess Walter's 'Statistical Abstract for My Hometown, Spokane, Washington', in which he details, in fifty numbered sections, what life is like in this mostly forgotten town.  There are lasting images of grown men riding childrens' (stolen) BMX bikes, and the proliferation of womens' shelters in the area.  This piece is very evocative of the place, and where the author fits within it.  It's probably my favourite piece in this whole book.

In 'Still Looking', John Hyduk writes about his struggles in finding a job in the new American economy.  He has had a number of low-paying and dead end chances over the years, but is now really struggling to find something that pays a living wage.  I love this sentence:  "sweat labourers are the kids from the first marriage, and just about as welcome."

 The book ends with five pieces of contemporary writing from Kenya; three that are fictional, and two that are memoirs.  The first memoir, 'The Life and Times of Richard Onyanga' tell of how the painter got his start in life, and the source of his recurring subjects of buses, Land Rovers, and his first girlfriend, a domineering muzunga who was significantly older than him.  It's terrific.  

Annette Lutivini Majanja's piece, 'It Is Only The Best That Comes Out' is a highly amusing accounting of the rules and regulations at Precious Blood Riruta, the secondary school she attended.  There are discussions of which biscuits to purchase, and how to hide extra food in laundry buckets or where they incinerate sanitary napkins.

Binyavanga Wainaina's story 'Boonoonoonoos' reads as the opposite of Majanja's piece, as it is a story about school girls who sneak out to meet soldiers, and to generally cause havoc.  It provides a nice notion of what life was like in Kenya in the 80s.  Billy Kahora's story 'Urban Zoning' is an interesting look at how a man on a month-long bender (it's all about staying in The Zone) is able to manipulate his bosses into letting him keep his job.  There is another story in this section, but it is the only thing in this book that I didn't enjoy.

In all, this was another excellent edition of McSweeney's.  I increasingly am only interested in reading short pieces of fiction or gigantic, sweeping novels.  I love how the fine people at McSweeney's are handling both of those needs this summer.