The 4th Wall

I wrote a story awhile back called "The Devil to Pay" and, at the end, Tommy is visiting his grandmother, who's living in a nursing home.

It's a beautiful fall day, crisp and clear, with just enough breeze off the river that she needs a lap robe. He's pushing her around the grounds in her wheelchair. The gravel on the path crunches underfoot. He's telling her a story, full of gangsters and gunrunners. She doesn't really follow it. Too complicated, too many foreign names, too many people she doesn't know.

The point, of course, is that he's telling her the story you've just read. There's a term for his, and I believe it's called metafiction– correct me if I'm wrong– meaning a narrative that's self-referential, where you play with convention, and the story comments on its own structure or dynamic. This, in turn, got me thinking about breaking the Fourth Wall.

Hamlet begins his story by addressing the audience, "O, that this too too solid flesh would melt…" Richard III does the same, "Now is the winter of our discontent…" Macbeth, after he first meets the witches: "If chance will have me king…" In each case, they don't step out of character, in fact, the reverse, but they step out of the play, to invite us into their confidences, and make us complicit in what follows. The soliloquy is a dramatic device going back to the earliest theater, but Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan playwrights, like Marlowe, use it in a very specific way, to enter a character's thoughts.

The equivalent these days would be first-person narration, where whoever's telling the story let's you know what's going on in their head, or admits they don't in fact know what's going on. MAGNUM P.I. often used voice-over, and one common phrase Magnum was fond of, as he went off on some errand you knew could only lead to trouble, was "I know what you're thinking, but–" This is actually a variation on a Victorian literary trope, had-he-but-known. Nor were the Victorians at all

embarrassed by addressing you directly: "And now, Dear Reader, we must leave this scene, and return to…" whatever it is. Dickens does it all the time. So does Trollope. The effect is to make you a party to the machinery, or joinery, and remind that this is all invention. It removes you from the fiction, so to speak, that the story is accidental.

We follow certain conventions, and I think rightly, because we assume a bargain between the writer and the reader, and you basically have to play fair. It doesn't mean you can't have an unreliable narator, or be deceptive, or simply mischievous, but the reader understands you're in collusion with each other. He or she surrenders to the illusion in hopes of being entertained, or invigorated, puzzled, or shocked, or surprised, even transported. When do you break the rules? In effect, only when you have the reader's permission. If you step out from behind the curtain, you have to do it in good faith. "I know what you're thinking, but---" In other words, the reader is your accomplice.

The trick, really, if I can put it that way, lies in not losing the reader's confidence. When you do close-up card magic, for example, the distinction is between the "effect," the agreed-upon narrative, what the audience sees, and the "sleight," meaning the method you use to pull it off. This is known in magic circles as misdirection, but the audience is asking to be fooled.

This is part of the bargain, that you enter into a world of masks, and the writer can let the mask slip, if you have what amounts to informed consent. You're dealing from a marked deck. The reader accepts this, if the narrative is convincing, and the sleight of hand reinforces it. What your reader won't forgive is the loss of trust. You've invited them in, after all, and they've made the choice to be included, to inhabit the fiction, the understanding that you'll give good weight. You promise, across the footlights, to make mad the guilty, and appall the free, unpack your heart with words. They'll take you up on it.

Elegy

                                            She stands in the cold water, facing

                                            south toward an invisible island. 

                                            In the Sunday morning quiet 

                                            the redwing blackbirds 

                                            shuffle nervously in a thicket 

                                            behind the beach. The loon 

                                            makes no sound at all in its 

                                            purposeful passage. 

                                            For sixty years and more 

                                            she has tested the waters 

                                            this way. Soon she will 

                                            take the plunge. Intrepid swimmer. 

                                            For her there is never 

                                            backing out. Never. She will dive 

                                            into the salt waves and there will be 

                                            friendliness and fellowship and 

                                            sisterhood, and a spot of

                                            solitude. 

                                            Her landlocked husband, a creature of air 

                                            and dirt, leans against a boulder 

                                            and watches her. His silence 

                                            goes with her, and with the loon. 

                                            He guards towel, glasses, sandals, 

                                            His heart flutters in the thicket. 

                                            He rests quietly at the margin 

                                            of the liquid world, waiting. 

                                            When she rises, rebaptized, 

                                            from the sea, she will find 

                                            a harbor here. 

                                                                    James Lowell McPherson 

                                                                    "She Stands in the Cold Water"

       Last month I posted an article that largely praised the wonders of computerized research and our ability today to secure virtually any bit of information by merely clicking the correct keys on the nearest available laptop. At the time I wrote that post I intended to also address the flip side of the equation -- the things that we lose as we spiral down into that all-knowing ethernet vortex. But I have this problem (likely already evident) -- once I get started I can have a tendency to “write long.” The previous article sort of outgrew itself, leaving no practical room for a second chapter.  Also I came to realize that the rest of what I had to say was not only about losing the more personal side of the research process, but about losing people themselves.

       As noted in that previous article, ready access to the troves of information now available on the internet comes at a cost -- studies indicate a trend toward the reduction, and at times near disappearance, of short term and long term memory. As we come to rely on information assembled and cataloged on the internet more and more, our need to store facts in memory decreases, as does our ability to do so. What we potentially lose when this happens is the personal clothing that facts otherwise wear; the human side of the dry answer. 

       Dr. Kathryn Walbert, a professor at North Carolina University, has set the stage for the problem we face: 

Historians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can rely on extensive correspondence and regular diary entries for information about life in the past. But in today’s world, telephone, email, and web-based communication have largely replaced those valuable written records. Without oral history, much of the personal history of the late-twentieth and twenty-first centuries would be lost to future historians.

       Now we risk losing even that if personal memories, anecdotes and remembrances, upon which oral histories are based, are no longer being retained by our galloping brains, which have concluded this congeries of entangled memories and recollections need no longer be stored. 

       And what do we risk losing, here? How better to illustrate than with an anecdote. 

Jim and Phyllis
on the deck of the Mandalay

     Twenty-eight years ago my wife and I were on a Windjammer cruise -- 14 days, Antigua to Grenada, all under sail on a lovely ship that held 74 lucky passengers. The first night, at dinner, I glanced over at the couple sitting next to us and did a double take. They were in their sixties (to our 30s). He had shoulder length hair tied in a ponytail and sported a full beard; she had waist length hair. Both were dressed in tie-dye. Wow, I thought.  Relics of the '60s!  These are folks I need to meet.  

       That encounter, on the tall ship Mandalay, was the beginning to a 25 year friendship with two of the most interesting people we ever knew. 

       I referenced Jim McPherson and his wife Phyllis King in that previous article, specifically in reference to Jim's amazing facility with words.  Both Phyllis and Jim were poets, each an observer of all things past and present, and each a raconteur of the many adventures and lessons they had experienced in their varied lives. Over the years we spent many more vacations with Phyllis and Jim. And when they came down to Washington D.C. from their New York City apartment on Riverside Drive for visits we would spend memorable evenings in our backyard, or in our living room, drinking scotch and regaling each other with stories and observations. 

       One of the things I did not mention in that previous post was that Phyllis worked for twenty-five years at the telephone reference desk at the New York City library. I do not know how that desk is now run, but in the day -- in her day -- anyone could call in with a question and be assured that, for the number of minutes allotted each call by the library rules, the caller would have the undivided attention of a library employee who was both knowledgeable and willing to help them find the information that they sought. 

       All of this does tie back to our theme here. And here we go.

       In 1989 a short article by the well-known author and photographer Stanley P. Friedman appeared in The New York Times, The article was also published in the December 1990 edition of Reader's Digest, from which I quote. 

       I needed to do some research for an article I was writing, so I called New York City’s library information service. A woman whose mellifluous voice I’ve recognized for years came on. Her willingness to help has been boundless. “What do you want?” she asked.

       “I don’t think you’d have it. It’s sheet music. I need lyrics.”

       “Which?”

       “It’s a ‘40s song: ‘Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year.’”

       “Oh, yes. That’s from a Deanna Durbin movie.”

       Pause. And then, would you believe it, she started singing it to me. Mind you, sing, not recite. The lyrics tripped along swiftly.

       They took me back to the London that I was writing about. September 1944. V-2s in blossom.... We met in the Strand Palace Hotel bar. We were both lonely and 19. We went to see Christmas Holiday with Deanna Durbin. She sang “Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year.”

       End of flashback. Back to the Singing Librarian. At song’s end I said: “That was beautiful. You broke my heart. But you’ll have to say the words slowly so I can write them down.”

       She did, I wrote, then I asked, “What’s your name?”

       “We’re not allowed to give that information.”

       “That’s okay,” I said. “I know you.”

        So do I.  No rules here:  That was Phyllis King. 

       Google will give you the lyrics to that Deanna Durbin song, but there is so much more that it will not be able to do. Life has a poetry to it that is beyond Google’s keen.  And that is what we risk losing.

Thomas Point Lighthouse

       Phyllis died in 2007. Jim brought her ashes, encased in a brightly colored origami wrapper of corrugated paper, down to Washington, D.C., and with him we struck out on our 1982 Carver, motoring up the Chesapeake Bay to Thomas Point Light. As Amazing Grace played over our speakers we set the origami boat afloat in the Bay. It bobbed a few times, testing the water, and then pointed down, just as Phyllis always did, and dove for the depths. 

       One year later Jim died. His ashes are spread on the shore, looking out toward the waters of Thomas Point Light. There with the boulders. Watching. 

                                                When I am gone

                                                I will not haunt 

                                                with sad face 

                                                and mournful cries. 

                                                I will follow you like a child’s balloon 

                                                bobbing at your shoulder, 

                                                bumping your face 

                                                with my red or pink 

                                                or blue surface, 

                                                touching you, 

                                                saying I am there.

                                                              Phyllis King 

                                                              "Early Morning Balloon Poem"

                                                              November 10, 2005

Looking Around

and I saved the best for last.  Please scroll down.

This was too good to resist after reading John's column on rejection a few weeks ago and Dixon's last week.    

Until we meet again, take care of … you!

Fertility Fraud

by Leigh Lundin

The Switch, Part I

Bill Manser and Elizabeth Sehr © MGM

Today’s article was suggested by a friend and neighbor. (Thanks, B!) The story involves Florida (where else!), DNA, and a man who spent half a decade in prison. And it’s about hubris.

In 1995, DNA lab worker Elizabeth Sehr submitted evidence for a paternity test involving William Manser. According to The Libertarian Republic and The Orlando Sentinel, Manser missed a court date and, when he failed to pay court-ordered child support for young Dylan Sehr, was sentenced to prison and served five years.

Bill Manser did not recall taking a DNA test and he expressed doubt the child was his. After prison, he built a relationship with Dylan and had at least one son with someone else. Then, two decades after Dylan’s birth, along comes a television program that combines those two favorites of daytime television, courtroom drama and paternity testing. (And people wonder why I don’t own a television.)

The program is called Paternity Court. It’s presided over by entertainer, lawyer, and dazzling drama queen Lauren Lake. I’ll be the first to admit it feels tawdry, even unseemly, but the show solved a riddle no one else seemed interested in resolving.

• The result was that Bill Manser was sent to prison on a lie. He was not the father.
• The broader implication is that lab technician Elizabeth Sehr either substituted the real father’s DNA or faked the test paperwork.

Less than a minute after the revelation, Lake asked Elizabeth if she knew who the real father was and Sehr readily admitted she remains in touch with him– then twenty seconds later complained Manser had called her a liar. In the build-up, the viewer experienced a sound dose of Sehr stridently insisting Manser’s the liar, that he’s a father avoiding responsibility. And we can’t forget she complained he wasn’t there for her son in his young years… completely overlooking she’d sent him to prison.

The mother blames LabCorp for ‘a mix-up’ and her son has said LabCorp should be held responsible. You don’t need a background in science to see what’s wrong with this rationale. If a lab failed to match, that might (or not) be considered a mix-up. But since the lab was able to identify the father’s DNA (if not his actual name), we know the real father’s DNA was in that lab, and there’s only one way it could have been placed there. Either that, or she faked the entire test.

What a plot for a murder mystery. But in case you think DNA might hold no more surprise, read on.

The Switch, Part II

Tom Lippert © KUTV 2014

Following a DNA test, the Branum family was surprised to learn Mr. Branum was not the father of daughter Annie. Before jumping to conclusions about Mrs. Branum, know that Annie was conceived in a fertility clinic. She was an in vitro test tube baby where a clinic affiliated with the University of Utah collected spermatozoa and eggs from Mr. and Mrs. Branum.

So the mother, Pam Branum, started detective work with the help of genetic genealogist, CeCe Moore, who tells the tale in her blog (with altered names). The story centers around Tom Lippert, a brilliant but troubled student who decades earlier had kidnapped and electroshocked a girl in the hope she might fall in love with him. After a term in prison, he returned to school and worked for nine years at the lab associated with the University of Utah.

• UU has proved less than cooperative, but it appears Lippert substituted his semen sample for that belonging to Mr. John Branum. 
• It’s suspected Lippert may have supplanted dozens or even hundreds of semen collections over the years at the university clinic.

Lippert is long dead, but his legacy lives on.

DNA can resolve many mysteries, but it’s also possible for DNA tests to uncover entirely new puzzles.

Getting into Big Trouble

Some of the columns I enjoy reading the most at SleuthSayers are those that tell me about past novels and stories and movies that I somehow overlooked or never heard about at all. I still remember how pleased I was to find out from Rob Lopresti about the quirky film In Bruges; as soon as I sought it out and watched it, it became one of my favorite crime movies.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered one of these long-lost little gems on my own, in the book-sale section of our local library. It was a novel published fifteen years ago by Miami journalist and humor columnist Dave Barry, called Big Trouble. In fact I believe it was his first attempt at fiction--and it was one of those books that I knew I would like as soon as I picked it up and flipped through it. (It also cost me only fifty cents, but still …)

In hindsight, I think I recall at least noticing it when it appeared in bookstores and hearing about the movie that was later made from the novel, but I just never paid much attention to either one. Turns out that was a mistake.

Funny business

A quick note. Big Trouble is not profound, meaningful, life-changing literature, and doesn't pretend to be. It's just a joy to read. On the book jacket, Elmore Leonard blurbed that it was the funniest book he'd read in fifty years, and Stephen King said it's the funniest thing he'd read in almost forty years. I'm not sure I'd go that far– some of the early Stephanie Plum novels made me laugh like a loon on just about every page– but I do agree that Big Trouble is hilarious, and delightful from start to finish.

Two more things, as I wrote this piece, reminded me of recent SleuthSayers columns. One is that we've spent quite a bit of time at this blog lately talking about humorous mysteries--presumably because so many of us enjoy them. And believe me, this book ranks right up there with the work of Carl Hiaasen, Janet Evanovich, Tim Dorsey, etc. My hat's off to all of them. It can be difficult to make crime funny, and we writers know that humor of any kind is hard to do well and easy to do badly.

The other thing I kept thinking of was Leigh Lundin's frequent columns about the weirdness of some of the residents of Florida. At times it does appear that many of the loose nuts in the continental U.S. have indeed rolled down and lodged in the Sunshine State, and most of those seem to have kept trickling down to the Miami area. Big Trouble is set entirely in South Florida, and sometimes the only reason given by some of the characters to explain the behavior of the other characters is that they simply happen to be residents of Miami. Goofy things happen there.

Troublemakers

I'm not overly fond of book reviews that go into great detail about the plot, so with that in mind (plus the fact that I'm basically lazy), here's my snapshot of Big Trouble: Two hitmen from New Jersey head down to Coconut Grove to "take care of" an embezzler named Arthur Herk, and in the process they encounter a tree-dwelling vagrant, a python named Daphne, two Russian arms dealers, a truckload of goats, a giant toad, a down-on-his-luck ad man, a dog named Roger, three teenagers obsessed with a squirt-gun game called Killer, a nuclear bomb, and an assortment of crooks, illegal aliens, airport security personnel, FBI agents, and charter pilots. And wind up, of course, in big trouble.

If you're so inclined, and if you like to belly-laugh, give this novel a try. I found that I really didn't want it to end, and when it did I was pleased to discover, via Google, that Mr. Barry has since written two other funny mysteries--Tricky Business and Insane City.

I'll be looking for them on the library book-sale shelves.

Potential New Market

Writers always like to hear about potential new markets and therefore I may have one for you. It's a new start-up with big plans for the future. In fact, it's so new they are still working on the web site and when you look at the list of books, you will only find three currently available. But, when you look at the list of authors scheduled to contribute works, there are several and you will probably recognize some of the names. (They've added at least two more names since I originally wrote this piece.) So, here's the information as I received it from the Stark Raving Group CEO, Jeffrey Weber.

Jeff is looking for quick read novellas, or short novels, in the mystery, crime fiction, action-adventure and thriller genres. 25,000 to 35,000 words; about 75 to 100 pages, which will retail for $2.99 as an e-book. The author gets $1.00 per book sale, no advance, and is paid by check. His group wants "pulp renaissance, pulp 2.0 if you will, in taut, terse, plot-driven, witty, sensuous, action-packed adventure fiction of the '60s and '70s." You can write a book a year as either a stand-alone or as a setup for a series.

Background: He has "spent over three decades in the music industry as a producer and label owner (180+ CD's produced, multiple Grammys, multiple Grammy nominations)." It is his plan to utilize these same music industry strategies "to market, promote and sell our books." One new technology, not yet applied to book publishing, is geofencing. "It places a virtual "fence" around a location and when you cross the invisible barrier, a message/promotional offer pops up on your smartphone or eReader. We're making plans to use the technology for airports, bus stations, train stations and so on."

"Through our distribution agreement with Consortium (Perseus Books), our e-books will be available just about everywhere, including Apple, Amazon, Barnes & Noble (Nook), Google Books, Ingram Digital, Kobo, Sony, etc." (It's a long list, so I condensed it and mentioned only some of the big names we all know.) Books will also be able to be purchased "through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc." The group has also created their own sales and distribution platform called Bookxy:  www.bookxy.com

For the future, they will be creating multi-cast audio books. And, here's an interesting thought, they will also make their books available by subscription. They expect to have 100,000 subscribers within the next three to five years.

How did I hear about Jeff? A guy, Rob Robinson, who I went to high school with and got reacquainted with a few years ago at a school reunion, happened to mention his friend Jeff''s new venture in one of the e-mails we exchanged. Shortly afterwards, Jeff Weber and I swapped e-mails.

Well, now it's up to you. If you are interested in trying out something new, take a look into the Bookxy web site and go from there. No doubt, some of us have questions on procedural aspects, etc., I just haven't yet asked and received answers to those particular questions yet. Feel free to inquire on your own and then share any further info with the group.

Peace, the Elusive

by Eve Fisher

I swear to God, I wrote most of this before I heard the story of the Florida theater shooter who is claiming that he had a right to stand his ground and shoot to death a man who threatened him by...  throwing popcorn at him.  So...

As you regular readers know, I do Alternatives to Violence Project workshops that at the state penitentiary.  Most people think I do them in order to help the prisoners - which I do - but what most people can't grasp is that I've learned an awful lot about violence and non-violence from these workshops:  violence and non-violence in my world, my state, my town, my self.  And as I say to the guys, each and every workshop, I need all the help I can get.


There's a lot of talk about peace - in the Middle East, in Africa, on our streets, and during the recent holidays the whole "peace on earth, good will to men" thing was, as usual, trotted out regularly and OH, how I wish there was more hope of its coming.  Every time I hear about another shooting, massacre, war, double-homicide, mass shooting, etc., all I can say is "How long, O Lord?  How long?"  To which the Lord might very well reply, "How long, O people?  How long will you keep beating your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears?"  Because we could stop.  We could try to stop.

Why don't we?

That's why I do AVP.  Because I'm wrestling with why we do not stop.  Why I don't stop.  Don't get me wrong.  I don't own any guns, and it's been years since I punched anyone.  But I can rage, inwardly, with the best of them, with the worst of them, and that troubles me deeply.  Why can't I stop?

Now back when I was a child, in the late 50's, early 60's, there were significant differences in how boys and girls were raised, especially about emotions, especially about anger.  We little girls were rigidly trained to NOT express anger.  We didn't have the right to yell and scream, throw temper tantrums or hit people - it wasn't nice, or feminine, or ladylike, and if we did, we'd get punished for it, usually by being yelled and screamed at and being hit.  Whereas the guys - well, they were brought up to "prove they were a man", by standing up for themselves, which often meant everything from verbal sparring to fighting to assault to killing.

Now you get a bunch of guys sitting in prison, they usually know they messed up somewhere, because they're there.  If nothing else, they got caught.  But if their crime was violence - say, beating someone to death or shooting someone who pissed them off - it takes a very long time for a lot of them to realize that killing that person was actually wrong.  That they didn't have the right to do that.  After all, they were just expressing their anger and/or standing up for themselves and/or defending themselves and/or their loved ones and/or the guy had it coming.  It takes a long, long, long time for some of them to grasp the concept that just because you are experiencing anger does not mean you have the right to take it out - verbally or physically - on someone else.  And your anger definitely does NOT mean you have the right to, say, kill the person who pisses you off.  (Yes, that includes people who text inappropriately and/or throw popcorn at you.)

That's why I enjoy doing AVP workshops:  because at least we discuss these issues and other issues of fear, jealousy, violence, pride, manhood, control, and what to do about it.  And I mean a real discussion.  Political and religious platitudes, slogans, etc., break down very quickly.  Instead we walk the guys through it:

For example.  I am angry.  At that person over there.  I have the RIGHT to make him/her aware of my anger, and change what they're doing to piss me off.  What do you mean, I don't?  What do you mean, I don't have the right to tell them to obey me, and if not to yell at them, cuss them out, hit them or kill them?  Why not?  What are the options?  What can I do?  I can't just sit here, feeling all this anger and fear and crap, I've got to DO something about it, right?  I'm a man, a man's supposed to DO something.  What do you mean, walk away?  Suck it up?  Think about it?  Work through what I can actually change and what I can't?  I'm a man.  Men don't do that.  Yeah, I'm sick of getting jumped, shoved, pushed, decked, punched...  I'm even scared of it.  But what the hell else am I supposed to DO?

Walk away.  Turn away.  Move on.  Suck it up.  Do something different.  Lead with your mind, instead of your emotions, at least until you have more emotions on tap than fear and anger.

The very idea that there is such a thing as a non-violent alternative is alien to almost everyone in the pen (unless they've been to our workshops), and it is, apparently, alien to a whole lot of people who have not yet reached incarceration.  We revere Gandhi and Mandela and King - but you know, our society reveres them the way you would admire saints in a niche.  Nobody studies them.  Nobody takes a look and analyzes how they managed to choose an alternative to violence.  We don't teach our children how to practice non-violence.  We don't teach our children self-control, or meditation, or how to recognize the emotions and thoughts that are running through their minds and how to deal with them.  

AVP has lots of exercises, from role-playing to community building to meditation.  In one exercise, we're divided up into pairs, A and B, and for two whole minutes, A tells B the things they like about themselves.  B has to listen, no comments.  Then they switch and repeat the exercise, with A listening to B.  99.9% of the time, what they say they like about themselves is what they do.  "I like to hunt, to fish, to play sports, to draw, to play music, to read, to watch TV, to hang out with friends, to work on cars, to..."  It's all about doing.  Almost never do you hear anyone say, "I like that I'm a loyal person, that I'm brave, loving, kind, hopeful, a dreamer, a hard worker..."  And never yet have I heard something like, "I like that I am a human being.  A child of God.  A man.  A woman.  Alive."

I think this holds true for all of us, not just people in prison.  We do not believe in being, we believe in doing. And yet, that's the most important part, isn't it?  Why is it so hard to talk about who we are?  And how can we change ourselves if we don't know who we are?  If we are running away from the reality of ourselves all the time?  How can we have peace if we do not understand the roots and ribbons and cables of violence that run through not just the world but ourselves?  Our own minds and hearts?

I do AVP workshops because I am working on all of this, and it suits my personality better than meditation or Freudian therapy.  Sometimes I see amazing breakthroughs.  (I'm still waiting for one of those for myself...)  Sometimes I don't.  But at least there the conversation is real.