P H I Berroll

06/06/2018

Fifty years ago today, my mother came into my room and announced: "Another American tragedy. Senator Kennedy was shot."

Of all the deaths of public figures, violent or otherwise, in my lifetime, none has ever effected me like the killing of Robert Kennedy. It wasn't just because as a politically precocious kid, I had gravitated to his campaign. It is also because I believe--and always will--that so many things in this country would have turned out differently had he lived. To name a few:

- He would have won the Democratic nomination for president, because of his unique ability to appeal to both liberal activists and conservative, Catholic-ethnic Democrats who revered his brother. As a result, there might have been so much less anger and violence--maybe none at all--at the party convention in Chicago.

- With a unified party behind him, he most certainly would have defeated Richard Nixon in the presidential election. (Thus, no Watergate.)

- He would have ended the war quickly, rather than drag it on for five more years in the name of "peace with honor."

- He would have continued the Kennedy-Johnson administration's efforts to fight poverty and racism, rather than scaling them back.

- And because of his popularity across class, racial, ethnic and religious lines, perhaps he could have prevented the defections of "Reagan Democrats" that led to the dominance of the G.O.P. in the '80s -- the effects of which are still with us today.

I am not naive. Bobby Kennedy was human; he had his flaws, and he was not universally loved. But as so many historians and journalists have observed, in the four and a half years following his brother's death, he had already undergone an amazing transformation--becoming his own man, a national leader, and a powerful voice for social and economic justice. With his and Dr. King's deaths, this nation was cursed. And in many ways, that curse has never been broken.

I'll always remember my only personal encounter with him, on a family trip to D.C. in 1965. My mother and I were walking down a crowded corridor in one of the Senate office buildings when she suddenly gasped, "Oh, Senator Kennedy!" Standing a few feet away, about to enter his office, he turned, smiled, and gave us a wave before proceeding inside.

I am passing that story on to my children. More importantly, I'm passing on the lessons of his life, so that hopefully, their generation can pick up where he was cut off.

Kennedy and Martin Luther King had never been close. But in this song, they are forever walking together over a hill.

05/23/2018

RIP Philip Roth, one of my literary idols and inspirations. I wish I'd had the chance to meet him. Yet I felt that in a way, I knew him, having read his books and followed his career, with all its twists, turns, and re-inventions, for almost half a century--sometimes with admiration, sometimes with exasperation, always with fascination. Every time it seemed that he had hit a creative dead end, he found an exciting new path. He will be deeply and sorely missed.www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/obituaries/philip-roth-dead.html?WT.nav=top-news&action=click&clickSource=story-heading&hp&module=a-lede-package-region&pgtype=Homepage®ion=top-news

Mr. Roth won almost all the major literary awards and published an exceptional sequence of historical novels in his 60s, an age when many writers are winding down.

01/13/2018

I'm pleased to find that the few bucks I gave Facebook to promote this page have had an effect. (We've even had our first argument -- not particularly nuanced, but such are the times in which we live.) Thanks to all who expressed an interest.

If you've read the earlier posts, you'll see that this page is primarily intended to highlight my writing -- a collection of which can be found at http://pbwordsmith.com/ (the photo is about ten years old, but I look pretty much the same, only grayer).

Some of the pieces were written to make money, before I returned to full-time work. I'm not embarrassed by them -- craft is craft -- but neither would I make any claims to their lasting cultural significance. Others, however, reflect my deeper interests: politics, culture, and the many ways, both subtle and obvious, in which they intersect. And that's what I plan to continue expounding upon in this space, moving forward.

"Political writing" is often held in low repute in this country, and not without reason. It's often the province of the hack, the professional ideologue, the Beltway gossiper sharing eye-glazing minutiae about the legislative process. That is not what I'm aiming for here. I have always been interested in the deeper "why" behind political developments--what leads people to hold certain beliefs or join certain movements (or conversely, steer clear of any political involvement).

And while I've always been on the left politically, I try not to be dogmatic about it. Pesky questions continue to intrigue me: Why do millions of people always respond to the latest outrage with "Obama was worse/Hillary would have been?" Do religion and patriotism have positive roles to play in society? Is it fair to lump all gun owners together--the paranoid racist with the small-business owner in a rough neighborhood? Etc.

So that is some of what you'll see in this space, along with random observations about writing, movies, TV, children, dogs, food, s*x, travel, and anything else I deem worthy (hopefully falling within the guidelines of Lord Zuckerberg's latest edicts).
I can't promise that you'll like everything I have to say.
I DEFINITELY can't promise a new entry every day, or every week. All I can say is that the words will keep coming, whenever possible. That has been the case for more than three decades, so why stop now?

Till next we meet.

01/02/2018

I was thinking about the 1980 mini-series MASADA, in which the great Peter O'Toole, playing a Roman general, is asked by a friend, "What did we wish for when we were young?”: O'Toole replies, "A world without Nero," the notoriously cruel and corrupt emperor.

We now have our own Nero, of course. And for many of us, when thinking of wishes for the new year, "a world without him" is high on our list. Yet we realize that it will probably be at least a year--at least--before this could possibly become a reality.

Which leaves us with two alternatives. One is to do nothing--to spend the next 12 months hoping for the desired outcome, or despairing that it will ever happen, or turning our backs on the whole bloody business and “cultivating our gardens”—losing ourselves in our own private, personal concerns. (All perfectly understandable responses; at different times, I've practiced each of them.) The other is to take action, however small: raise or give money, run for office, encourage others to run, make sure that everyone you know gets out to vote, vote, vote. And yes, talk to that independent/GOP-leaning friend, acquaintance or colleague in a friendly, non-didactic manner about what is at stake. The first course of (non)action is easier. The second is ultimately more effective.

I’m facing a similar situation. (Hey, the personal is political. You don’t like it, get your own page, pal.) I have written close to 180 pages--somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of what I expect will be the total length. And that's the first draft. It is highly unlikely, therefore, that I will achieve fame and fortune as a writer in 2018. I can react to this reality by throwing up my hands, taking the fetal position, trying to conceal my bitter disappointment from friends and family.

Or I can get back to work.

11/27/2017

Continuing to deal with lack of time (& sometimes energy) to write book. Not complaining, just stating fact. OK, complaining.

In the meantime, I'm reading Garth Risk Hallberg's CITY ON FIRE, which came out last year. Quite a read. As someone who lived through the mid-late '70s in New York City, I think that Hallberg does a good job of capturing the bleakness and anarchy that pervaded the town in those days--the sense that everything was collapsing and no one really knew what would arise in its place.

There are weaknesses: at times the language is overly ornate and flowery; one important character, a sinister, manipulative plutocrat, is a stereotype out of bad movies and worse television. And while GRH clearly did a prodigious amount of research, he didn't have to put it all up on the page (a couple do not simply have a TV in their apartment, they have a "Magnavox"). But these are small quibbles compared to my overall enjoyment of the book.

One other thing: CITY ON FIRE is almost 900 pages long. Assuming Hallberg did more than one draft--and taking the aforementioned research into account--I can only imagine how long this entire project took him to complete. Not to mention that according to the dust jacket, he has a wife and children; I can't help wondering, how in the hell did they get by financially during all that time--grants? Trust funds? Selling blood? (I know, I know--terribly mundane questions to ask of a Creative Artist, but hey, folks, the food doesn't magically appear on the table.)

09/19/2017

R.I.P. J.P. Donleavy, a truly singular man and writer. I still have a battered copy of THE GINGER MAN on my shelf. I can quote one scene -- where an Irish priest writes an insulting letter to an immigrant relative who has asked him for money ("You are a disgrace to the American people") -- from memory.

Read his works if you can find them. They're not comforting, they're not p.c., but they're a hell of a lot of fun.

09/06/2017

So tomorrow I go back to my day job. Really not looking forward to it. A necessary -- I wouldn't say "evil" as it is for a good cause, I get along with my bosses and co-workers, even the commute is fairly easy. But it's not what I want to do.

It's a dilemma that faces every writer who is not blessed with inherited wealth or early success. I've been dealing with it for most of my adult life, since I first chose a writing career. It has never gotten any easier to resolve.

Well, actually, there are two ways: stop writing, or get published. And I can't stop -- yes, I say "can't," not "won't." Not to sound overly melodramatic, but it's not a choice for me. I cannot conceive of not writing, any more than I can imagine what, if anything, lies beyond the universe.

So onward we push.

08/21/2017

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE reports that Claire Messud, best-selling literary novelist (and wife and mother), is "currently in the midst of a home renovation that will give her an office with a door that closes - a luxury she has never had."

So I guess I shouldn't complain about the frequent interruptions from my family. It really is all about grabbing the time and the space whenever you can, and making the best possible use of them.

08/07/2017

Went to MoMA yesterday to see the exhibits on Robert Rauschenberg and Frank Lloyd Wright. The sheer volume of work created by both men in the course of their lifetimes is amazing. Sure, it helped that they were able to focus full-time on creativity -- my impression is that neither of them had to teach or take a crappy job to pay the bills -- but still. They never let a good idea go to waste, never were afraid to strike out in new directions, never obsessed over whether people "got" what they were doing; no, they just put their heads down and did it. Inspiring.

07/11/2017

The novel takes place in the year following 9-11, when paranoia and conspiracy-mongering rule the day (sound familiar?) It's a thriller but also, in a way, an anti-thriller -- the protagonist may have uncovered a dark, high-level conspiracy, yet it's equally possible that he's wrong.

In this book, I'm endeavoring to say something about polarization, fanaticism, and the political uses of fear. Oh, and there's also a good deal of humor. No kidding.

I'm about a third of the way through. Aiming for close to 400 pp. My longest work yet, and the first under the new pen name. We shall see.

07/01/2017

With my two young distractions off to camp for 7 weeks, this is the time to buckle down and get creative. Some of us go to writer's retreats for the summer; some of us (those who have regular jobs other than teaching) must create our own space.

I'm working on a new novel -- won't be finished this summer or even this calendar year -- but I hope to make significant progress. More to come.

10/20/2016

Why the name change? In the tradition of Sam Clemens, Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, and Anita Raja, as a way to declare my identity as a writer, separate from other aspects of my life. Plus my initials make a neat acronym.