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Thank you, Mr. Salinger.

I don’t think I would be in publishing if it wasn’t for Salinger. -Ben

Today is a sad day. A man who has essentially been dead to the rest of the world for nearly fifty years has actually gone and died. For real this time.

My introduction to J.D. Salinger, like I’m assuming most other people’s, came with the assignment of Catcher in the Rye in a high school English class. I was, at the time, aware of the book’s mark as a passage from childhood to adolescence, a secret handshake for disaffected youth.

But I didn’t love Catcher in the Rye like I hoped I would. That, I was expected to by my teacher Mr. Ihle, who, if I’m allowed a bit of conjecture would have figured me for the exact kid who would love that book.

It might have been where I was in life, maybe I was already too alienated and desperate to not fit in. Maybe I didn’t like Holden because in some stupid way, I looked at him as competition. In any case, I wasn’t moved the way I was supposed to be by Catcher in the Rye.

Four or five years later I was at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as an English major. I’d already gone to college for a year, taken a few semesters off to move to Dallas, moved back to Madison to work in a warehouse, to install carpet, to busy myself with all of the trappings that come with post high school kid trying to find a place in the world. I’d fallen in love. I’d had my heart broken. I had energy, but no real direction or faith or, if I want to overanalyze it—no sense of my place in the world.

During the spring semester of 1998 I took a literature class at UWM. On the first day the syllabus was handed out, I took a cursory glance at the list of books we would be reading, rolled my eyes dismissively (as most 22 year old boys who can’t be satisfied with anything do), and let out a sigh when I saw that Salinger was on the list—this time for his two novella/short story collection Franny & Zooey.

Because I was never an exceptional student, I put off reading every book on the list until the very last second, and in most cases, I probably didn’t even read the book as much as skimmed it. When I initially cracked open Franny & Zooey the technique wasn’t any different.

From Amazon.com’s description of Franny & Zooey—

Volume containing two interrelated stories by J.D. Salinger, published in book form in 1961. The stories, originally published in The New Yorker magazine, concern Franny and Zooey Glass, two members of the family that was the subject of most of Salinger’s short fiction. Franny is an intellectually precocious late adolescent who tries to attain spiritual purification by obsessively reiterating the “Jesus prayer” as an antidote to the perceived superficiality and corruptness of life. She subsequently suffers a nervous breakdown. In the second story, her next older brother, Zooey, attempts to heal Franny by pointing out that her constant repetition of the “Jesus prayer” is as self-involved and egotistical as the egotism against which she rails.

Though the elevator pitch probably wouldn’t go over all that well in today’s publishing environment, the book itself hit me harder than any other before or since.

**

I’m not one for celebrity worship. I try to respect that we’re all people and really when the planet finally turns to dust, none of our names are going to echo in the wind. In my time in the publishing industry I’ve had an opportunity to meet best selling authors and other recognizable faces in the music and movie world.

Sometimes I’ve found myself feeling sorry for people, because it’s clear they’re so used to being pulled every direction to sign things and smile for cameras, and if you talk to them for even a second and you listen you can hear the exhaustion. I can only imagine what it was like for Salinger after the publication of Catcher in the Rye. It’s not hard for me to understand how a guy could start daydreaming about disappearing, especially when everything else seemed to be a distraction from what he really wanted to do—write.

I would have loved to had an opportunity to meet the guy, sure. But I have the feeling I’d only come away disappointed. Our heroes have a way of being molded by us, independent of their actual realities. I’m content to have a little less space on my bookshelf because of the things he wrote.

The importance of Salinger’s works on my life can not be overstated. They are not only my favorite novels and the basis for my intense love of language, but they are the very framework for whatever spirituality I may have—a mishmash of Christ and the Tao and a resilient but often dented faith in people’s inclination to do right.

I often cringe when I hear people dismiss books as an afternoon’s entertainment—as though the beginning and end of its potential impact is a few forgettable hours on a Saturday. I realize that we all read for different reasons and that I’m probably in the minority at this point, but I want to believe that a book’s impact is forever. And I want to buy into the myth when I get done reading that if I only found the right phone book, I’d very well be able to find the folks I’ve just been reading about and that I could have them over for dinner.

The appeal of the last four novellas/short stories is in the depth of the Glass family. But that depth was not without its detractors.

John Updike said, “Salinger loves the Glasses more than God loves them. He loves them too exclusively. Their invention has become a hermitage for him. He loves them to the detriment of artistic moderation.”

I would move that it was this hyper devotion to the Glass family that made them unique in the pantheon of literary characters, and what made the books so much more powerful and lasting to me, and I’m sure others. What is most remarkable, perhaps, is Salinger’s dedication to eschew all other things, apparently, in pursuit of the realization.

It is also because of that devotion to creating and defining them, that makes me, as a reader, care and believe in what is being said so much so that it became a quasi-religious experience.

Towards the very end of Zooey there’s a conversation between Zooey and Franny—who is in the middle of a nervous breakdown because of the intersection of God, her decision to quit acting out of frustration with the audience, and perhaps a tinge of the same thing that is bothering Holden in the other book—and Zooey says,

“One other thing. And that’s all. I promise you. But the thing is, you raved and you bitched when you came home about the stupidity of audiences. The goddamn ‘unskilled laughter’ coming from the fifth row. And that’s right, that’s right—God knows it’s depressing. I’m not saying it isn’t. But that’s none of your business, really. That’s none of your business, Franny. An artist’s only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else’s. You have no right to think about those things, I swear to you. Not in any real sense anyway. You know what I mean?”

What, if nothing else, was Salinger doing but shooting for perfection on his own terms without listening to the critics—deafened as he was by the distance from the world he fled when he famously retreated to his 90 acre compound in Cornish, New Hampshire.

A few pages later, Zooey and Franny talk about something that Seymour, the oldest Glass brother had said to both of them on different occasions. One time, before going on the air for a radio program, Seymour told Zooey to shine his shoes. Zooey, stubborn and unsure why it mattered what his shoes looked like for a radio program asked why in the world he should do it. Seymour told him to do it for the Fat Lady. In another instance he told Franny, who was on the same radio program to “be funny” for the Fat Lady. Both Franny and Zooey worked up their own images of the Fat Lady.

Said Zooey, “This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind. I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with her radio going full-blast from morning till night. I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer, and—I don’t know.”

I’m almost done here, indulge me for one more second if you will. This last little bit was the flipping of the Gestalt Switch for me. When anybody asks what the most important thing I ever read was, this is, inevitably what I will point to.

Zooey continues admonishing Franny for her frustration with the audience,

“I don’t care where an actor acts. It can be in summer stock, it can be over a radio, it can be over television, it can be in a goddam Broadway theatre, complete with the most fashionable, most well-fed, most suburned looking audience you can imagine. But I’ll tell you a terrible secret—Are you listening to me? There isn’t anyone out there who isn’t Seymour’s Fat Lady. That includes your Professor Tupper, buddy. And all his goddam cousins by the dozens. There isn’t anyone anywhere that isn’t Seymour’s Fat Lady. Don’t you know—listen to me, now—don’t you know who that Fat Lady really is?…Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It’s Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.”

I’ve bought copies of Franny & Zooey for my artist friends, my religious friends, and the aged Holden Caufields of the world still looking for direction. It is the closest thing I have to a holy book.

Thank you, Mr. Salinger.

News for the new week

As part of our irregular reportage, here are some things of note in the crime fiction universe:

* Former Bleak House Books author and good friend of Tyrus, Craig McDonald, will have a new book on the shelf on February 16. That’s right, those of you who want more Hector Lassiter action should pre-order PRINT THE LEGEND as soon as you get a chance. We’re going to drag Craig onto Tuesdays with Tyrus in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

* The good folks over at Crimefactory are up and running with a new website (www.crimefactoryzine.com). Check out an excerpt from a new Ken Bruen novel that’ll punch you square in the teeth, fiction from the always charming Steve Weddle, some non-fiction from Scott Phillips talks Charles Willeford, and then there’s a bunch of other probably great stuff from probably other great people. It’s also available for your Kindle. Check it out!

* The Edgar Award nominations are out. You can read all about them here.

Alright! I’m done with the Monday morning reporter bit. Have a good week.

Tuesdays with Tyrus with Brad Parks

New episode of the podcast is up with special guest host, author Brad Parks.

Check it out!

LA Times list of “weed reads”

Now, I think that Tyrus Books may have a suggestion for an eleventh title for this list

After all, Richard M. Davis, curator of the USA Hemp Museum, has this to say about Stein, Stoned:

Lengendary 60’s “hempecurian” Harry Stein and champion young pot cultivator Brian Goodpasture take you on an exotic trip to recover a stolen medical crop grown to relieve hospice patients. This exciting trip leads from the backwaters of Los Angeles to the cafes of Amsterdam’s Cannabis Cup competition. Hal Ackerman writes with the pen of one who has been in the thick of the drug war. His screenwriting skills are very apparent in this novel. You will visually see it, smell it, taste it. Hempsters!  It is a trip you won’t want to miss.

Carolyn Haines named 2010 Harper Lee Award recipient!

We could not be happier for Carolyn, who has been an absolute delight to work with on the forthcoming Delta Blues. Congratulations!

Carolyn Haines named 2010 Harper Lee Award recipient

Carolyn Haines of Semmes has been named the 2010 recipient of the Harper Lee Award for Alabama’s Distinguished Writer of the Year.  Haines will receive the award at the Alabama Writers Symposium in Monroeville on April 30 at the annual luncheon.  The conference will meet April 29-May 1.

The Alabama Writers’ Forum, a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, coordinates the process to select the Harper Lee Award recipient annually from nominations from the field. The honor is presented annually by Alabama Southern Community College at the Symposium. It is made possible through a generous grant from George F. Landegger.

“We are delighted with the selection of Carolyn Haines for the 2010 Harper Lee Award,” said James A. Buford Jr., president of the Alabama Writers’ Forum Board of Directors. “On April 30, she will join twelve other distinguished writers whose contributions to the literary arts follow in the tradition of Harper Lee.”

“I’m deeply honored to be the recipient of the 2010 Harper Lee Award,” said Haines. “To Kill a Mockingbird had a tremendous impact on me as a young reader and helped shape my destiny to become a writer. Fine writing is part of the Alabama heritage, and I am proud to be included among the winners of this award, which bears the name of an author I so greatly admire.”

“Great congratulations to Carolyn Haines on being named the 2010 Harper Lee Award recipient, and on adding this wonderful award to her string of writing honors and accomplishments,” said Rick Bragg, last year’s recipient.  “The award was one of the nicer moments of my writing life, and I hope it is that for her as well.”

Haines is the author of ten books in the popular Sarah Booth Delaney Bones mystery series. Her latest, Bone Appétit, will be released in July by Minotaur Books.

She has received critical acclaim for her mystery series as well as for her stand-alone titles. Fever Moon, an historical thriller released in 2007, was a Book Sense notable book, and Penumbra, set in 1952 Mississippi, was named one of the top five mysteries of 2006 by Library Journal, a distinction given to Hallowed Bones in 2004.

Her first anthology of short fiction, Delta Blues, will be released by Tyrus Books on May 1. The book includes a foreword by Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman and short stories by some of the finest writers working today, including John Grisham, James Lee Burke, and Charlaine Harris. The stories focus on the Mississippi Delta blues, a unique musical form that originated in that region, and a crime or noir element.

Her first non-fiction book, My Mother’s Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story, tells the story of a woman who testified against Byron Dela Beckwith, a white supremacist who murdered civil rights worker Medgar Evers.

Along with Rebecca Barrett, Haines edited a collection of memories about Mobile author Eugene Walter, titled Moments with Eugene.  Touched and Summer of the Redeemers, two general fiction novels, have been reissued in trade paperback. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Haines received a 2009 Richard Wright Award for Literary Excellence and a Literature Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts in 1999.

She received a B.A. in journalism from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1974 and an M.A. in English from the University of South Alabama in 1985.

Haines, a native of Lucedale, Mississippi, makes her home in Semmes, Alabama. She teaches the graduate and undergraduate fiction writing classes at the University of South Alabama, where she is an assistant professor and Fiction Coordinator. An animal activist, she works to help educate the public about the need to spay and neuter pets.

The Harper Lee Award is made to a living, nationally recognized Alabama writer who has made a significant, lifelong contribution to Alabama letters. It includes a cash prize and a bronze sculpture by Frank Fleming of the Monroe County Courthouse clock tower.  The courthouse is a setting for Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

This year is the thirteenth annual Harper Lee Award.  Previous recipients include Rick Bragg (2009), Rebecca Gilman (2008), William Cobb (2007), Wayne Greenhaw (2006), Andrew Hudgins (2005), Sonia Sanchez (2004), Rodney Jones (2003), Mary Ward Brown (2002), Sena Jeter Naslund (2001), Helen Norris (2000), Madison Jones (1999), and Albert Murray (1998).

Day One trailer

New News for a New Year!

Hello, Tyrus Books readers! Happy New Year to you all, and happy reading.

There is SO MUCH going on in the Tyrus universe this month:

1. Our Spring line is in full production swing, with Hello Kitty Must Die, The Deputy, and Delta Blues en route to the printer soon! Can you believe it?!

2. BLIND ITEM: Which Tyrus Spring title will be featured in a forthcoming exciting and important announcement regarding m-o-v-i-e-s? STAY TUNED!

3. ARCs are here for Hello Kitty, The Deputy, Delta Blues, and Thunder Beach. Are you a reviewer who would like to see one? Email us at publicity [at] tyrusbooks [dot] com!

4. Frozen Stiff and Day One are headed to interior layout, and are next up for the ARC printer!

5. Speaking of Day One, Bill Cameron is awesome and has created a first-look trailer for his incredible book. View it here! (We’ll be adding it to our site, soon, but for now it’s over at Bill’s!) (Also, if you’re a regular listener to the podcast, you may appreciate the fact that Bill also knows how to ride a Segway. And we have proof.)

6. Revisions are back for Stein, Stoned and Late Rain. And they’re good, readers. They’re good. I can not wait to get these books in your hands!

7. I’m enjoying editorial passes through our last two Spring titles, Listen to the Dead and Florida Heat Wave. Sometimes I feel guilty about getting to read all this great material so early. But only sometimes. :)

8. This is a big one: We’re announcing our first title for Fall 2010, and it’s a unique partnership between us, the author, and Busted Flush Press! Tyrus Books is SO proud to announce that in Fall 2010, we’ll be publishing Reed Farrel Coleman’s SIXTH Moe Prager book, Innocent Monster, in hardcover. That’s right! The author who’s been racking up the praise at the close of the year will be bringing you another installment in his acclaimed series. Also, this year Busted Flush will be reissuing the fourth and fifth books in the series, with brand-new forwards by Craig Johnson and S.J. Rozan.

9. We have a few more titles lined up for Fall 2010, but for now I’m keeping them under my hat. But I will perhaps drop this hint: one of them involves a goat.

10. Though we’re busy at work, and that work involves oodles of reading, I still can’t seem to get enough. Two of the wonderful YA novels I’ve recently enjoyed in my off-hours are The City of Ember and, currently, The Knife of Never Letting Go. I recommend both very highly — and the best part is, they both have sequels!

11. And in closing, the Tuesdays With Tyrus podcast is slated to continue, and with more interviews. There’s been a delay this week due to some loud fix-it work happening downstairs, which is muddying up our recording abilities. We’ll be back asap, though, for all your listening entertainment!

Tuesdays with Tyrus – new holiday episode

Hey all, we had time to put up one last podcast this year. Thank you for listening in 2009 and we hope you’ll be back for 2010!

Goodbye 2009!

Great News for a Friend of Tyrus

Hi, readers! Be sure to tune in to Fresh Air on NPR this coming Monday. Maureen Corrigan is set to name her favorite mysteries, and Reed Farrel Coleman’s The James Deans will be included!

Reed will also be interviewed on Sirius XM’s Cover to Cover Live on Tuesday.

We’re so happy for Reed, and we look forward to whatever he has in store next for Moe …

John Grisham on Diane Rehm

Well, for anyone who missed it, you can listen to Delta Blues contributor John Grisham talk to Diane Rehm by following this link.

It was a very interesting interview. Grisham was there to promote his new book of short stories, Ford County. He also takes listener questions (well, mostly comments), and discusses his time, years ago, in politics.

About halfway through the interview, Rehm and Grisham discuss his short story “Fetching Raymond,” which is included in Ford County and will be included in Delta Blues this coming Spring. (It’s the story dealing with the death penalty — they don’t talk about it by name in the interview.)