By Pat Browning
Growing up, I thought everything had been written. Who could top the King James Version of the Bible, the plays of Shakespeare, the novels of Charles Dickens?
In grade school, a teacher stood at her desk and read Longfellow’s poem “Evangeline” to us. I sighed and cried over it, but I thought of it as a fairy tale, not a story about real people. It would be years before I met Cajuns who lived on a Louisiana bayou, the poem made flesh, so to speak.
In junior high school the boys lined up for Zane Grey’s westerns even though the teachers didn’t accept book reports on such novels. I would be middle-aged before I read a Zane Grey book and realized what a good writer he really was.
In high school English class we read Beowulf, the Old English epic poem by an anonymous poet, and Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. Chaucer’s language fascinated me. I still remember “Whan that aprill with his shoures soote/The droghts of march hath perced to the roote.” Translation: “When April with his showers sweet with fruit/The drought of March has pierced unto the root.” Not nearly as musical as the original, and loooooong before my time.
In college I was put into an advanced freshman English class where we each got to choose one book to study for an entire semester. I chose John Steinbeck’s THE GRAPES OF WRATH, probably because the novel and movie were only whispered about in Oklahoma. I fell in love with Steinbeck’s writing and eventually read everything he wrote, but at the time GRAPES OF WRATH had nothing to do with me. I didn’t know any of those people.
The day would come when I moved to the part of California where Steinbeck lived while getting material for his novel. I would end up working on the local newspaper with a woman whose family had come from Oklahoma just like the Joads, and lived in an Okie camp, just like the Joads. She was a good writer and a good friend whose mantra – “The Lord will provide” – comes to mind almost daily.
Tme and fate led me to Dorothy Baker, who was beyond famous when I met her in late l962. Baker had literally been there and done that in the literary world. In Paris she had met and married Howard Baker, a poet, critic and novelist who became a citrus rancher in the rural Fresno area.
The Bakers taught and wrote, together and separately, but it was Dorothy Baker’s 1938 novel, YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, that really made a splash. Loosely based on the life of jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke, it became one of 1950’s hit movies. She was back on the citrus ranch when she wrote her fourth novel, CASSANDRA AT THE WEDDING, the story of a young woman who tries to sabotage her twin sister’s wedding.
Baker was a careful writer. CASSANDRA AT THE WEDDING appeared more than 20 years after YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN. Reviews were mixed, ranging from “a perfect novel” (London Observer) to “a crushing disappointment” (Time magazine.) To me it was a revelation. Cassandra, the book’s narrator, drove home from Berkeley on the same roads, past the same fields, that I now drove to reach Baker’s house. Suddenly here was a piece of work from a famous writer that mirrored the here and now of my own life.
As a new stringer for The Fresno Bee I showed up at Baker’s door expecting to be awestruck, even intimidated. Instead, I found her company to be as comfortable as an old shoe -- no airs, no archness, no visible trace of vanity. She talked about famous people she had met, good books she had read, her writing technique, how she sometimes sat for hours before typing a single line.
My clipping of that interview is brown with age but still readable. The best quote from Dorothy Baker: “A writer should have a thorough understanding of what the Greeks call the ‘recognition scene,’ that moment when a character has a revelation, an insight that will change the course of his life and the course of the story. It’s a basic technique.”
Toward the end of our chat I confessed that I had written a brief memoir, hoping to turn it into a novel, but I was stuck. She dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “Don’t worry. If you have something to say, you’ll say it.”
Life takes its own sweet time. It would be almost 40 years before I finally had something to say and time to say it. FULL CIRCLE, my first mystery, was set in a fictional version of a small Central San Joaquin Valley town. A fictional version of the here and now of my life, as many first novels are, I self-published it in 2001.
In 2008, Krill Press, a small start-up press, picked it up and republished it, after some revisions and a new cover, as ABSINTHE OF MALICE. Best of all, the publisher put it on Amazon’s Kindle, where it has sold almost 400 copies in this month of October.
It was nine years after the book’s first publication before the brief memoir that started it all finally made it into print. “White Petunias,” about growing up in Oklahoma, had been revised periodically because I liked it too much to throw it out.
In 2007 “White Petunias” won second place in its category in the Frontiers in Writing contest sponsored by Panhandle Professional Writers, Amarillo, Texas. In 2009, after more revisions and polishing I submitted it to the RED DIRT BOOK FESTIVAL ANTHOLOGY: OKLAHOMA CHARACTER. In 2010 the anthology finally appeared in print. In the words of the Grateful Dead, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”
And in the words of almost everyone who ever entertained a deep thought, “It’s not the destination that matters, it’s the journey.”
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Photo of Dorothy Baker by Patricia Cokely (Browning), 1962
**"Charming An Audience" was first printed in The SouthWest Sage, newletter of Albuquerque-based SouthWest Writers, in the August 2007 issue.
**The photo of comedian Sid Caesar is cropped from an 8x10 black-and-white glossy publicity photo given to me more than 40 years ago.
**The photo of Fred Harris signing a copy of COYOTE REVENGE for a fan, Judge Tom A. Lucas of Norman, Oklahoma, was taken by me at a Red Dirt Book Festival. (Judge Lucas is my brother.)
What follows is an excerpt from the original article.
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Charming An Audience
By Pat Browning
Showbiz legend Sid Caesar gave me my first lesson in charming an audience. He was in San Francisco starring in Neil Simon’s “Little Me.” I was a new stringer for the Fresno Bee and wangled a backstage interview.
The play was hilarious. I could have laughed all night. Ushered into Caesar’s presence after the last curtain call, I blurted, “You’re a lot funnier in person than you are on television.”
He raised one of those expressive eyebrows and offered a simple explanation for the magic of live theater. He said that because I had bought a ticket, dressed for the occasion and made an effort to get myself into a seat, I was primed to think he was funny. In short, performer and audience worked together. We expected to be entertained and we helped to make it happen.
The same kind of interaction takes place when you’re selling books at personal appearances. You are the star of the show, whether you’re speaking to a library group, a book club or a mixed bag of readers and browsers in a bookstore. It all comes down to the marketing mantra: It’s not about the book; it’s about you.
Elegance is not a word I associate with bookstore signings but an event with Fred Harris at Full Circle Books in Oklahoma City came close enough. A star of considerable magnitude in the worlds of politics and academia, Harris was there to promote his first Okie Dunn mystery, COYOTE REVENGE. It was another version of the performer-audience dynamic.
We were seated on the mezzanine, not far from a coffee cart. The host circulated with a carafe of wine. Harris told a couple of funny stories about writing the book and the tips he got from Tony Hillerman. He opened the book and read the first chapter aloud. Afterward, he answered questions before taking his place at a signing table.
Natural charm is a gift. Experience is earned. Standing up before a roomful of strangers may make your knees knock but it gets easier. Ask ahead of time about a podium. You need a place to lay your notes and your book. You may also need something to hang onto. Put some markers in your book so you won’t fumble when you want to read a passage.
Nothing limbers up a speaker and an audience like refreshments. You don’t have to spring for wine and cheese. Homemade cookies with tea, coffee and soft drinks work just fine. Napoleon said that an army travels on its stomach. Trust me, that distant rumble you hear is not an army. It’s the whole human race.
What the great comedian told the green reporter is as true as ever. The audience is not your enemy. The audience is part of your presentation. Whether they know it or not, the people behind those smiling faces want you to succeed. The interaction that Caesar described is 99 percent of a successful program. With a little preparation and practice you can handle the other one percent.
By Pat Browning
Comedian Sid Caesar raised one of those expressive eyebrows and explained the magic of working before a live audience. The place was Caesar’s dressing room in a San Francisco theater, where his latest show, “Little Me,” a smash hit on Broadway, was playing. I was a new stringer for the Fresno Bee and somehow wangled an assignment from the Bee and an interview with Caesar.
Green I was, and so star struck I didn’t take a single note. I walked into his dressing room, looked into his brilliant blue eyes and blurted, “You’re a lot funnier in person than you are on television.”
This got me the raised eyebrow and the explanation. That was 40 years ago and it’s been my backup ever since.
Caesar said because I bought a ticket, dressed for the occasion and made an effort to get myself into a seat before the curtain went up, I was primed to think he was funny. In a nutshell, performer and audience worked together. We expected to be entertained and we helped to make it happen.
It’s so simple I wonder why any writer is ever nervous about presenting a program at a library or a book club or a conference. The same kind of performer-audience interaction takes place when you’re selling books at personal appearances. You are the star of the show, and the audience wants you to succeed. Marketing gurus have been saying it for years: It’s not about the book; it’s about you.
The creative process seems to be the same, whether you’re writing a book or dancing in a Broadway musical. I recently watched the 1933 movie “42nd Street” starring Warner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, Bebe Daniels and Dick Powell.
Baxter plays an ailing, hard-driving Broadway producer who wants one more hit show. Powell plays a romantic lead who sneaks Keeler into the chorus line of Baxter’s play. Daniels plays a Broadway star torn between her career and her love for a less-successful actor. When Daniels breaks her ankle just before opening night, a desperate Baxter pulls Keeler out of the chorus to take the lead.
Keeler is terrified. Daniels pays her a visit on opening night and says:
“You’re nervous, aren’t you? Well, don’t be. The customers out there want to like you. Always remember that, kid. I’ve learned it from experience. And you’ve got so much to give them.”
The YouTube clip, showing Baxter browbeating Keeler into shape for the role, and Daniels coming in with her good advice, is worth watching. Forget Keeler’s clunky tap dancing and watch the agony she goes through to get ready for her shot at stardom. It’s not that different from a writer who writes and rewrites and lurches from despair to success.
http://tinyurl.com/dxtvms
This line is the point of the whole struggle -- “...you’ve got so much to give them.”
Who, me? you think. Yes, you. If you have the intelligence, imagination, wit and discipline to write a book, you have a lot to share with your reading audience, your customers. Try not to forget it.
Wait for your cue. Take the stage and claim your spotlight. Shake off the trembles and come back a star.
