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May Book Picks - Joyce Carol Oates, The Accursed and Edna O'Brien's Country Girl

My hometown Petaluma branch of Copperfield's Books, Inc scored a significant coup back in April, with a visit from one of the most pre-eminent American writers of our time.

Prolific novelist, short story writer, playwright, poet, literary critic, Princeton professor and editor, the masterful and esteemed Joyce Carol Oates came to town to introduce her brilliant new novel: "The Accursed."

Oates, I would describe as an intellectual genius. An audience of book lovers and long time Oates literary devotees was easily entranced by a visit and reading from the spritely almost-75-year-old Pulitzer-nominated recipient of the National Book Award (amongst too many additional international accolades to list).

For over an hour, Oates captivated the crowded bookstore gathering with a fascinating multi-layering recount of her writer's process. With 40 novels to her name and hundreds more published works, hers is an impassioned life of interwoven imaginings, constant plot creation and sub-plots, character development and richly detailed historic research.

Oates talked of the immense historic archives available to her in the Princeton area. Not surprisingly, with such enticing material to hand, she has (literally) penned in her latest work what has been described as an eerie, unforgettable story of possession, power, and loss in early-twentieth-century Princeton. Chilling supernatural elements, psychological insight and transporting historical detail in "The Accursed" allude to best selling potential to potentially rival the author's "We Were The Mulvaneys" and "Blonde".

Joyce Carol Oates was the first in her family to graduate from high school. She was raised in the working class farming community of Millersport, New York. Influenced by Faulkner, Hemingway, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, the writer has been an unstoppable force in American literature since being gifted her first typewriter at the age of 14. 

Having taught at Princeton since 1978, the present Roger S. Berlind '52 Professor in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing has indicated that she will teach her last writing seminar at Princeton, in the fall of 2014, formally retiring from teaching in July 2015. 

I had an extra special reason for standing in line at Copperfields on that April evening, waiting my turn to meet Joyce Carol Oates and have her sign my newly purchased copy of The Accursed. My newly graduated 21-year-old son was so very fortunate to have been one of the professor's select 15 students in her Advanced Creative Writing Class at U.C. Berkeley for his final semester of senior year, this Spring. Words, for once, almost failed me - but not quite!

Also on my to read pile is Edna O'Brien's new memoir, Country Girl. This book has been positively reviewed in such a wide variety of my usual haunts for hunting down great selections, that I put it on my A list. 

Born in 1930 and raised a village girl in the west of Ireland, Edna O'Brien has lived in London for many years.Widely recognized as one of the greatest Irish writers of the 20th Century, O'Brien was for a long time, considered something of a Jezebel in religious County Clare for her escape from propriety into the 'red hot center of London's swinging '60s'.

According to the New York Times: "Her early novels were frequently banned, and burned, in her native Ireland when they appeared". The frank and beautifully written novels, drawn from her own experience, were about young women wishing to flee stultifying small town family life. 

Considering rave reviews, awards and literary accolodes of brilliance the best revenge, Edna O'Brien authored The Country Girls Trilogy, A Fanatic Heart, The Light of Evening, Saints and Sinners amongst many more internationally acclaimed books.

Drawn into the wild heart of 1960s culture, now 82-year-old O'Brien describes herself as having been: "Ravenous. For food. For life. For the stories that I would write, except that everything was effervescent and inchoate in my overexcitable brain."

O'Brien  describes Tuamgraney, the village in which she was raised, as: “enclosed, fervid, and bigoted.” Her father was a farmer, a drinker and a gambler. After convent school in Galway, she made a move to Dublin to work in a pharmacy while studying at night school. 

Her first, opressive marriage to older writer Ernest Gebler produced two sons and a move to London. It was at that time, during stolen moments in between mothering, that Edna O'Brien found her voice. 

I love the cover photo on Country Girl. It seems to say it all. In actual fact, it was her author's photograph from her fourth novel, 'August is a Wicked Month' - 1965.  

 

 

Historic Budweiser Clydesdale Barnwood - Old Growth Redwood Heads For Sonoma County's Heritage Salvage

 

Petaluma-based Heritage Salvage has recently scored all of the framing materials from the original Budweiser Clydesdale Barn, framed with old growth redwood from original water tanks .

In the process of being loaded on a semi along with the original metal storefront columns from the Brecht Butcher Supply buildings built in 1890-1917 (see photos below), the St. Louis Budwieser Clysedale Barn wood will arrive in Petaluma this May.

  

 

Back in 1933, August A. Busch, Jr. and Adolphus Busch III surprised their dear Dad, August A. Busch, Sr., with the gift of a six-horse Clydesdale hitch to commemorate the repeal of Prohibition.

"Realizing the marketing potential of a horse-drawn beer wagon, the company also arranged to have a second six-horse Clydesdale hitch sent to New York on April 7 to mark the event. The Clydesdales, driven by Billy Wales, drew a crowd of thousands as they clattered down the streets of New York City to the Empire State Building," writes the intrepid king of U.S. reclaimation, Bug Deakin on his Heritage Salvage site. "After a small ceremony, a case of Budweiser was presented to former Governor Alfred E. Smith in appreciation of his years of service in the fight against Prohibition."

Delighting thousands of Americans on its way, the hitch apparently continued on a tour of New England and the Middle Atlantic States, making a stop in Washington D.C. in April 1933 to reenact the delivery of one of the first cases of Budweiser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

"The St. Louis hitch, driven by Art Zerr, also toured in celebration, stopping in Chicago and other Midwestern cities," reports Bug.

Soon after the hitch was introduced, the six-horse Clydesdale team increased to a team of eight.

A Dalmatian dog travels with each of the Clydesdale hitches, a tradition started in 1950 when a Dalmation was first introduced as the Budweiser Clydesdales’ mascot at the opening of a Newark Brewery.  These days, Anheuser-Busch owns around 250 Clydesdales - an enduring symbol of the brewer’s heritage, tradition and commitment to quality.

Restaurants and brew pubs throughout California and beyond have been clammoring for Heritage Salvage makeovers over the past few years. If you're in the market for something special in the custom-build department that would warrant the repurposing of some of this wonderful, historic old redwood haul, you'd best not wait too long. Contact Heritage Salvage for pricing.

Next to arrive will be  a bunch of materials from the 1869 Evans Grain Mill that Bug bought in Crestline, Ohio a couple of years ago. Stop by the shop at 1473 Petaluma Boulevard South or call 707 762-6277.