Seventeen vintage Stephen Dixon stories collected here. For the purposes of my review, I've focused on the below three from the collection, stories where the main character is a writer.
THE PLAY
"He doesn't know what's there but goes in to find out. He closes the door, sits, uncovers it: nothing's there." So begins the tale about our frustrated playwright, a chap I'll call Chad who wrestles with his psychic demons in an attempt to come up with the subject matter for his next play.
We quickly learn the room he entered is his writer's den up on the third floor in the house where he lives with his wife and daughter and the object he uncovered is his typewriter. Sorry, Chad, nothing's there, just a blank page you'll have to fill in as the first step in typing out your next play.
But wait - maybe the object he uncovered isn't a typewriter, it's a small crate hidden in the corner, a crate where he keeps his secret bottle of whiskey under a pile of old books.
Or maybe a third possibility: the "nothing's there" refers to his imagination. In other words, no play in progress from Chad the playwright - not even the first bit of dialogue. Zero, zero, zero.
Whichever way, words or whiskey or wit, nothing's there. Looks like our man Chad will have to start from scratch.
Coming down the stairs, now in the living room, Chad hears his little daughter whining. His wife's trying to calm her down. Whatever his wife says, it doesn't work. Whine, whine. Damn, he wants to have a good talk with his wife but can't with all that whining. Interferences, non-stop. Forget about it. Better to leave.
Outside, Chad thinks about taking the car but his wife might need it, so he decides to walk. First stop, the mailbox at the foot of his driveway. No mail but there's someone walking on his side of the street. Oh, no, it's Gazen, Mr. Know-It-All, Mr. Straight-from-the-Hip, Mr. Chatterbox. Chad's drawn into a banal conversation (of course, banal, what else?) about his screenplay, the one that made it to TV, the one that brought in some money, the money he and his family havd been living on for the past few years. Ah, finally he can pull away from Gazen the Chatterbox and continue his walk.
What I've noted above covers the story's first five pages of signature Stephen Dixon staccato spin of consciousness (close cousin to stream of consciousness). Dixon gives us a clear picture of the prototypical creative literary artist's personality, combination wifty, passionate, oddball, volatile, erratic, eccentric. Oh, yes, even when a writer is in a phase of funk, unable to come up with even a sketch or the opening lines for his next work, in Chad's case, his next play, the writer's mind is never passive. Neither is the writer's soul.
Chad's rambling walk down a path takes him to a shack along the water. He invents multiple stories he can convert into his next play, all centering on a woman and her baby, the woman escaping from an abusive husband, using the shack as a temporary hideout (Gazen says its a clammers' shack). And beyond the shack, down the coast, there's a lighthouse. More stories about a lighthouse; no, better to have a man digging a hole in the sand some ways off from the lighthouse. Why digging a hole in the sand? The guy's a philosopher and gets his deepest thoughts digging a hole.
Walking is good, walking helps him with his compulsion to write. To be working, writing on something; to be at his typewriter a minimum of two to three hours a day. To have the pages accumulate. "To know that there's one page today, was one yesterday, was another the day before or one for the two days before, that it's all adding up, will add up, will be a play, a one act, a two-act but in the length of the average two-act play. He used to say during these blocks, "It's part of the creative process.""
Ah, so that's the problem. It's a case of writer's block. Chad's spinning of consciousness spins to the point where he reveals he's in an artist's quagmire, a block unlike his previous blocks that lasted a week at most; this one has gone on for almost a year. And the money is starting to run out.
The story continues, a tender story of a writer moving through his day forever on the lookout for the spark of inspiration that will hit him between the eyes, enabling him to break through the ice blocking him from his own creative juices, his ability to sit down to write his next play.
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Stephen Dixon never once wrote a book review. But he did write this rib-tickling short story that's a cross between letter to the editor of a leading magazine and scathing book review. Ouch! Oh, man, I wouldn't want to be the author reading Stephen Dixon's review of my book.
THE BOOK REVIEW
Stephen Dixon tells us he hasn't written a book review since high school, a class assignment he loathed. "But just to say I've done one and also to stop book-review editors from asking why don't I write my first one for them, I'm writing this review." Dixon acknowledges the only people who will probably read his book review are those readers familiar with the famous author of the book he's reviewing; they certainly will not read it on the strength of his name as reviewer. After all, he, Stephen Dixon, is a virtual unknown.
Dixon gives us the skinny on the novel under review, how it's about two main characters, husband and wife, flying from New York to San Francisco. We get their conversation and internal dialogue but then crisis hits: one of the passenger gets drunk, has a gun (obviously prior to 9/11) and murders the wife. Due to a severe storm over San Francisco, the plan is rerouted to Los Angeles. Just so happens the wife's sister is at the LA airport. Why this coincidence? The author doesn't explain but Dixon tells his editor maybe he's not such a careful reader and probably missed something since he only read the novel once. Anyway, the sister tries to kill the murderer with a pair of barber scissors she's carrying in her bag.
Why did the author write this piece of crap? According to Dixon, the answer is obvious: money. Much different than his reason for writing the review, a piece of writing he didn't want to do in the first place, a piece of writing he judges on the same level as his writing a car manufacturer about a rear-wheel brake problem. "Listen, the truth is that when you don't want to write something, you usually don't write it well."
Dixon admits, he could be off; perhaps the author sincerely believed she wrote something good. "Well, she's deluding herself. Because this book is pure junk. I know I'm supposed to use more critical terms and so forth. Explain why I like or dislike this or that - fairly, discerningly, unopinionatedly. But I can't. The book stank. It was the worst novel I ever finished."
Hey Stephen! Give us more specifics as to why her novel was so bad. Further on, he answers our question: "I just don't like her writing style. it's too ordinary, too old hat, too - well, whatever the expressions are. . . . And her narrative is so - oh, plodding plot, stock characters, fake dialogue, silly settings, and stilted language just never worked for me in fiction."
A few more swipes at the author and his own review and then Dixon figures he should review a different book, maybe write a review of one of his own novels under a different name. Or, maybe write a review attacking one of his own novels using his real name. That would be a first! But on reflection, such a review would most likely be published by some sensationalist rag. He wouldn't want that. Better to let his review stand as is.
So, the final question poses itself: Would you want someone like Stephen Dixon writing a review of your next work of fiction?
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Here's a piece of fiction any reader or writer, most especially a novelist, will appreciate. Stephen Dixon writes this short story in the first-person but since many readers of this review have had their own firsthand experience in dealing with challenges revolving around finishing a work, I've included a spat of second-person as part of my condensed retelling. Enjoy!
THE SECOND PART
There you are at your writing desk, ready to begin a draft of the second part of your novel. But before you do, an important first step must be taken - reading through Part One, all 301 pages.
You know the drill, you've been here before. This is hardly your first novel - hell, you're a bona fide seasoned novelist. But, damn, you tried every day now for the past couple of weeks but it seems like an impossible task, giving a careful read to each and every page of that bloody Part One.
The good news: you know your second part doesn't have to be as long as the first; matter of fact, all you have to do is continue for a reasonable length and finish the novel, although not to finish in a way to give the impression you finished in a rush just to be done with it. All you want, really, is the second part to seem like a natural extension of the first part - but enough said, now's the time to start and finish.
And to start, you'll have to pick up Part One, give it a good read through just in case there are any loose ends you'll have to tie up in the second part. All you want, really, is to write the second part in a way as to bring the first part down to the level it was when it began, the classical Aristotelian literary triangle: the novel on page one starts at point A, goes up to point B at page 301 and comes back down to end at point C, the last page of Part Two. Bingo. You're done.
You know from your high school geometry class that a triangle doesn't have to have all equal angles, an equilateral triangle (see, your memory is still sharp, you remember the term); no, that's not what you're shooting for in your novel, though it would be really great if the second part was also 301 pages, nice and balanced, at least in page numbers.
You have to ask yourself: what's the big deal with reading Part One? You've tried everything, reading at your desk, in your favorite reading chair, lying down in bed - and with all varieties of pick-me-ups: regular coffee, espresso, double espresso, green tea, seltzer, scotch, wine, beer. All for naught as you can barely make it through the first page. Actually, you were hoping to cash in on your frustration, write a short story, call your short story Part Two. But, alas, it seems like you're not able to do that either. Bummer.
So maybe you should change tactics, yes, that's it, settle for just reading up to page 100. Probably you'll be able to get enough of a sense of Part One to then finally be able to move on to Part Two. Or, maybe, better still, shift to writing that nifty short story and pick up with reading Part One tomorrow. Ahhhhh! Truth be told, what you're really saying is: Someone, anyone, please, please, take me away from my writing desk!
Perfect timing; saved by the bell - your spouse calls out "dinner time."
After dinner, back in front of his typer, Stephen Dixon reflects on prior years, a time when his mother called him for dinner. And even to this day his long dead father continues to make his presence felt - as a ghost walking over to his writing desk and demanding he make some real money for a change since, after all, he has a wife and son to support.
Then the fun starts: his former lovers, all six of them, walk in the room, take off their clothes, offer a deal: read what he has to read then they'll treat him to a round of unbelievable, luscious sex.
The tale continues. Pick up a copy of this Stephen Dixon collection to find out what happens next.
American novelist and short story writer Stephen Dixon, 1936-2019
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