Toni Fuhrman authored The Second Mrs. Price, our recent Lagoon House Press publication. She joins us as our guest blogger to talk about the “drama of the mind” in contemporary novels…

“Novels do interiority and the drama of the mind infinitely better than TV and film do,” a New York Review writer says in a recent article. It compares the experience of reading a novel and that of watching a movie or TV.

I’ve often pondered the question of why I am drawn to novels—both reading and writing them. My upcoming novel, The Second Mrs. Price, dwells quite a bit on this “interiority.” Selene, the principal character, is continually examining her thoughts, her motives, and her actions.

This “drama of the mind” propels the narrative forward. It enables the reader to understand Selene’s mixed emotions, her divided loyalties, and her overwhelming attraction to Griff. Here is a brief passage from the novel:

Why the brother? she asked herself. They share the same last name; they emerged, bloody and enraged, from the same womb. There’s something similar in the stacking up of the features, the way the ears fit snugly against the head; but how at odds they are, otherwise. Alex so solid, so grounded, so cocksure of himself; this other one so tentative, so unsettled, perched on his chair as though waiting for, expecting an alarm—a signal to flap his wings noisily, heavy and awkward as he lifts himself up and flies away.

There is no doubt a talented actor could convey this comparison between Selene’s husband and Griff with little more than facial expression and eye movement. But it would be a general impression, without the narrative detail, or the opportunity for metaphor. In addition, it would be conveyed, first, by the skill of the actor, and then, indirectly, by the writer and the interpretation and additional consciousness of the director, the cinematographer, and the editor—not to mention the production designer and the composer of the musical score.

There is much discussion these days about the declining popularity of the novel, especially in view of the increasing popularity of the TV drama series, in which there are no time or viewing constraints. Viewers have an in-depth experience as they watch characters develop over time—one of the great achievements of the novel.

In a novel, however, there is nothing between the reader and the writer. The novelist provides the narrative, with or without authorial interpretation. The reader takes it from there. The story goes from mind to mind without filters.

The comparison between the novel and visual storytelling bears some resemblance to that of the artist versus the photographer, after photography made its debut. What could a painting or sculpture do that a photograph could not do better, and with more precision? Photography is, and was from its inception, an art form, because it involves making artistic choices. But the traditional artist is still very much alive and kicking, as is the novelist.

All art forms, in their essence, examine the soul. They do not so much compete with each other as add to the ever-evolving manifestations of creativity.

This was in the 80’s when I lived uptown, in the 70’s – West 72nd Street, in fact, the front apartment just above Mrs J’s Sacred Cow. It was early spring. I’d been taking an acting class downtown that went very late. I was on the uptown side of the IRT at 18th Street, well after midnight – and I was alone. Very alone – not a soul on the downtown side, and just me on the uptown platform – actually seated on one of those benches that was made of wood back then, with those wood slats for backing.
I sat there and waited. No train in sight. Nobody, in fact – until about 10 minutes into my late night solstice when two young men appeared. The lead guy wore a knit cap, his sidekick was that kind of bald that looks like a skin-head. They shuffled on, spotted me, then stopped, mumbled some words to each other and then, in a well defined change of pace, headed in my direction, cold eyes zeroing in.
Oh shit. Oh no. Oh dear Christ.
I was young, too, early forties, a husky six-footer but I was an actor who could now and then impersonate a thug – I wasn’t one. Plus, there was two of them, hard-edged and eager and one of me, just wanting to get home and go to bed. I could get angry, fly off the handle, sure, and maybe even let ‘er rip — on stage. In life? I was all smiles, charm, and ‘a good guy’. That evening I was tired, lonely – and right then it’s the kind of fear where your bowels begin to gurgle, your knees begin to shake, and your mouth starts to dry up.
Now they were close, ten feet away, hunched, hands in pockets, both of them ready to rumble. Knives in pockets? Fists at the ready? Oh shit.
This is the one thing I began to learn early during my life in the Big City. When danger is imminent, do not cross to the other side of the street. A guy comes near, don’t back off, don’t walk away – instead, counter-intuitively – walk toward the danger. Ergo, I caught the lead guy’s eyes and said, very slowly, carefully, these words to him:
“ Hey – you know what? If I could’ve been born anybody – my pick of a Kennedy or a Frank Sinatra or Henry Ford – or, um – even the King of Greece? Out of that whole hat of births, I still would’ve picked to be an Etruscan…you know?”
I said this in a kind of slurred New York accent, but cheerily.
The lead guy stopped. His buddy bumped into him. They both watched me. I went on:
“Really. Nobody knows where the Etruscans came from…the archaeologists guess maybe they were one of the first tribes of Rome about a million years ago – you know?”
The lead guy nodded, “ Yeah?”
“…When Romulus and Remus were posing for that statue of them – that baby picture – of them suckling life from a wolf, right?”
“Okay”, the lead guy says, “Sure.”
“… Well, Romulus and ol Uncle Remus must’ve hoarded all the wolf milk because the Etruscans vanished without a trace. Like a high curved wave that breaks on the sand and retreats right back into the sea. Vanished. Poof…Splash!”
That’s about as far as I got. They both looked at each other, nodded and then very quickly – it was kind of remarkable – retreated back down the platform, now and then looking back. But. They – vanished. Poof. Um – splash!
I’ve always wanted to thank the playwright John Guare. So now, my life in hand, belatedly, I will. Thank you, Mr. Guare. Have to say it was one of my most riveting and life-threatened performances of that speech — Jack Argue’s – from Mr Guare’s one-act play, MUZEEKA. There was no round of applause, no standing ovation, but the clatter of uptown train pulling in and my quickened breath was more than enough.

 

Historical accuracy is important to me when I read an historical novel. But it’s historical fiction, correct? So where do I draw the line between an accurate portrayal and allowing a writer (myself and others) the leeway to invent situations, conversations and events to tell a compelling story?

When Water Was Everywhere takes place in Mexican Alta California in the early 1840s, only a few years before California became a state. I based one of the four protagonists on John Temple, or as he was known in the pueblo of Los Angeles, Don Juan Temple. John Temple was an American sea captain from Massachusetts. Following a voyage to the Sandwich Islands, he settled in the pueblo of Los Angeles in the early 1820s, shortly after Mexico won its independence from Spain.

Although few Angelenos today know the name John Temple, his name is immortalized in Temple Street, a major thoroughfare in downtown Los Angeles. His ranch, Rancho Los Cerritos, is still attracting visitors today in what became Long Beach, California, in the year 1888.

In using John Temple as a character, I changed his name to Don Rodrigo Tilman. I left most of Temple’s early life in New England intact but placed the young Tilman in historic Deerfield, Massachusetts for a time. The bucolic town offered too many charms to resist.

How to portray John Temple/Rodrigo Tilman’s character bedeviled me at first. I began by portraying Tilman as I had seen a reenactor portray Temple at the rancho—reasonable, generous, kind, affable—all the best qualities of a Californio. As I kept writing, though, he took on the character of the successful American businesspeople I’ve known through a work life of business consulting and journalism: a person who is primarily concerned with business, focused on a goal, possessing a serious demeanor but willing to show good humor when he wanted to be “one of the boys.”

In changing facts of Temple’s life and speculating about aspects of his character, did I cross an invisible line that blends fact into fiction? Have you noticed the blurring of fact and fiction in other writers of historical fiction?

I’m interested in knowing what you think. To comment, please scroll up to the Leave a Comment link under the title.

“There are no mistakes, just efforts.”
— Herbert Kohl, “Painting Chinese”.

Reminds me of the painter Robert Motherwell’s saying that all his paintings begin with a series of mistakes, corrected by emotion. And I’d add corrected by instincts or an aesthetic curiosity – what if I placed a thin line next to this blotch? Why? Just because. It feels good. It feels right.

Corrected by our lives, by this rough day that was. By my divorce. By my father’s suicide.

These efforts, not right or wrong but these impulses. I see the little boy, Perry, talking to his mother on the pink phone – it was a hint that rose up and then I just went with it. I incorporated it into the narrative.

Part of my loving order in my wee piece of the universe, and a danger, is that with this is an unspoken dictum that things must be right not wrong. Perfect. Just so.

I see now my years since a failed marriage, a slowed to faltering acting career, a life that might appear superfluous and of little renown or importance, is just this:
Mistakes, so many, that are now not right or wrong but are my life, my lives. Ego wants things right, perfect, achieved and my soul, full of instincts, surprise, and hints, says, Nuh-uh. Fail. Fail better. Get lost. Get little. Get so small that I may leak into the ordinary and join the light and the earth.

Actor friend Michael O’Neill thrives on ‘mistakes’ on stage – because they are so real, for the audience and the actor – and allow us entrance into the unknown, the unexpected, surprises and sometimes depth.

Perfection, being right, order from chaos, very tricky stuff: an ideal that brings a tightening, a hardening, an unyielding demand.

The mistake – like surprise – lets God in.