A goal in my life – I have many – is to teach American literature in college. However, the possibilities are not looking too great because of the excessive cutbacks in classes. Many experienced instructors will get the call before I.
So in lieu of in-classroom lectures, I offer my hopefully worthy but biased view of my favorite genre, contemporary but classic American literature. I am also hopeful that many of you will pass on my love of books to other people – especially to those younger who think books’ main purpose is to elevate a computer monitor or to relate the latest vampire tale.
The literature I refer to as contemporary classics are works that could be considered part of the 20th Century canon but really have not aged sufficiently. I realize names like William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Thomas Wolfe, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald and even more contemporary writers like Toni Morrison, John Updike, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth strike fear into the hearts of many people, not just high school students. While I guarantee that most of you would appreciate these authors as you mature as readers, I would like to suggest four regional writers who definitely belong in this group but are also immensely readable, entertaining and educational.
The first is my all-time favorite author, Larry McMurtry, who represents the southwest and is responsible for the best western ever written, Lonesome Dove. Writers of the West like the accomplished Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour and Max Brand can be very entertaining, but their writing ability blanches in the face of McMurtry’s pen. First, McMurtry writes women characters impeccably. Second, his dialog, his plot, his characters and settings are as aptly portrayed as almost anyone I ever read. McMurtry started out with a contemporary western, Horseman Pass By (made into the wonderful movie called “Hud” with Paul Newman) and followed that with The Last Picture Show, an Oscar-winning film about life in a small Texas
In 1985, the Pulitzer Prize-winning story of rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow F. Call, Lonesome Dove, not only the best western I ever read but easily one of the greatest novels, arrived. This was followed by a series of westerns by the prolific McMurtry from Streets of L:aredo and Dead Man’s Walk to Comanche Moon to the Berrybenders sagas (Sin Killer, The Wandering Hill, By Sorrow’s River, Folly and Glory.) Suffice it to say that anything McMurtry writes is worth reading.
Representing the New England region, is John Irving, best known for The World According to Garp (a movie). Reading Irving can be quite an experience, as he is both accessible and dense. Lot of things about his years of growing up in New England and wrestling are peppered throughout his books. He is also the author of another favorite book of mine, A Prayer for Owen Meany (made into a movie inexplicably called “Simon Birch.”) This is told from the viewpoint of our hero who is friends with Owen Meany, a dwarf of a boy who accidentally kills our hero’s mother with a baseball and believes God has a divine purpose for him. I won’t tell you more. It is enough to say that this book is the epitome of Irving
The third great regional novelist is Pat Conroy who represents the South. He is also the author of a nonfiction book called My Losing Season. This is his story as a mediocre – supposedly – point guard for his last season for the Citadel Bulldogs, a military college in Charleston , South Carolina
Last is my representative of the western plains, Kent Haruf, who is the author of another great book, Plainsong. This is a story, set on the northeastern plains of Colorado (guess who is from there?), and recounts the tale of a high school history teacher, his two young sons and emotionally disturbed wife, a pregnant teenager and two old farmer brothers who take her in. It is so simple, so real and so true that their experiences seem to be our Eventide is a sequel to Plainsong and just as heart-rendering. Where You Once Belonged and The Tie that Binds are his first novels and very affecting.
One more author, who is neither living nor regional even though most of his novels were set in New York City, was one of the most impressive American writers of the 20th Century – Chaim Potok. A rabbi, he was a great storyteller, who re-created the Jewish experience as well as anyone who has ever lived. His great work, “The Chosen” (also made into a movie in 1982) is memorable as are “My Name Is Asher Lev” and “The Gift of Asher Lev” and many others. His books are inspiring because much of his creation mirrors his own life and his need to fulfill an artistic gift in spite of all obstacles – in his case, secular fiction conflicting with his Jewish faith.
If my recommendations lead anyone to read anything, I will consider my efforts a success.
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