Monroe Anderson

Novel blog: Sweetspeare's Sirens

 
 

    Shortly after I bought my first PC, I started my novel about the first wave of African American journalists to go into mainstream media in Chicago in the early 1970s. That was back in late 1985. I finished my novel six years ago, then spent a good year trying to find an agent to represent it and me. 

It was the most belittling and discouraging professional exercise I've ever experienced. I systematically sent letters out to dozens of literary agents. Frequently form letters were what I got in return, perfunctorily encouraging me--after they expressed no interest. 

In a dozen instances or so I got letters asking to see the first three chapters. All but three of those interested agents sent personalized letters gently rejecting my labor of love. The rejection letters from the other three came after I'd sent the complete novel.

In every case, those who read it told me that the novel was well-written and that the characters were well-developed and interesting. Then came the but... One was bothered because the novel has a number of flashbacks. Another liked it but basically said it was too long. The third didn't really say why not.

I thought I understood their hesitations back then. I think I understand them even more today. 

My novel, originally entitled The Corliss Column or A Generic Suicide Note, is 119,000 words or about 500 pages long. Too much book for a first novel. It is also not a commercial effort. It's not a mystery novel or a how-to book. No mainstream celebrity, I've not been trashed in the pages of the National Enquirer nor has my private life been teased in a promotion for Access Hollywood. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck haven't the foggiest idea who I am. Neither does Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.

There are a couple of other reasons why an agent might not find me and my novel a top prospect. I'm no thirty-something so they are unlikely to get three or four decades of steady income off my production. After many false starts, I didn't really get serious about completing my first work of fiction until I had turned 50 and came to the realization that if I didn't do something soon I could end up on my deathbed speaking in short breaths about the novel I was going to write.

When I finished the novel five years after a concerted, disciplined effort, what I had in hand was a story about my protagonist, Pierce Trotter, and other black journalists' efforts to overcome hidebound, institutional racism in the news media--a pre-existing condition that is the book publishing industry suffers from as well.

Today, of course, it's a new game; sort of. While the law of last-hired, first-fired is still in effect, resulting in an disproportionate number of minorities losing jobs in the cut-backs, both the mainstream media and the book publishing industries are on life-support: Therefore the embedded racism rampant through both industries will go with them.

And while my novel, newly-named Sweetspeare's Sirens, a Tell-All Memoir by Pierce Trotter, is historical faction, I choose to look forward not back. I've decided to use the new media to publish my novel about the old media.

Beginning tomorrow, I'm going publish my book 140 characters at a time on Twitter. My tweets will show up on my other social media outlet, Facebook. Once 500-900 words have passed through Twitter and Facebook, they'll appear on MonroeAnderson3.0, a contemporary expression of the name on my birth certificate Monroe Anderson III, the new blog I've created exclusively for Sweetspeare's Sirens. Nearly finally, the novel post will appear in longer-form on my Facebook page until somewhere, someday it materializes as a hardcopy book.

Meanwhile, I'll be cutting the length of the novel by 40,000 words or so as I shoot it out into cyberspace. 

A warning: Since Sweetspeare's Sirens is set in the '70s and '80s, there's lots of sex, drugs and Rhythm & Blues. There is also some raw language.

My latest venture into social media may also morph into performance art. We'll see as my experiment evolves.

I hope you'll follow me on this electronic journey. It should be some trip.

This was cross-posted on MonroeAnderson3.0.

Gary, Indiana's greatest? I write. You decide.

 

Big Mike started it.

I was at home, sitting in my library, MacBook Pro on my lap, HD flat broadcasting my daily dose of MSNBC cable, counting the most recent hypocrisies of our nation's Republican leaders on both my hands and feet when I got a call from my friend, Benny Jay.

"I think you should check out our blog. I had nothing to do with it."

So, I go to The Third City website and what do I see? Something silly. 

Big Mike is claiming that Milo is Gary, Indiana's greatest writer. And I thought the Third City guys were my friends. I'd come to admiringly think of them as the Three Musketeers, taking on day-to-day issues that other bloggers found too low rent and trivial to tackle, sort of the Seinfeld's of the internet.

Obviously, I was wrong. As it turns out, the Three Musketeers are not so much one for all and all for one as they are only one, Benny Jay, with the other two, Big Mike and Milo, jointly amounting to the Three Stooges. 

Benny Jay is a good friend. He read my unpublished, 500-page great epic novel, Sweetspeare's Sirens: The Tell-All Memoir by Pierce Trotter. Ben also read all 12 or whatever of Milo's unpublished novel attempts. Did I mention that Benny Jay is a very good friend to Milo?

Anyway, I went to The Third City website, only to read this:

My apologies to Monroe Anderson, but Milo Samardzija is Gary, Indiana’s greatest writer.

Benny Jay’s been leaning on Monroe for months now, trying to get him to become part of this Third City outfit. Between you and me, if Monroe does cave in and sign on, he’ll be Gary, Indiana’s greatest writer. Like I say, let’s keep this on the QT — there’s no need for us to ruffle Milo’s feathers. He has his moods, if you know what I mean.

Because there isn't an egotistical bone in my body, I was all set to let it go. I mean, I know how I roll and how I've rolled  as a writer while nobody knows whether Milo is still on training wheels or a tricycle when it comes to using words to move readers' hearts and minds. But while I was in my "be read and let be read" frame of mine,  my friend and fellow Garyite, Milo,  went all Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels on me by writing on The Third City blog:

Let me set the record straight. Monroe Anderson is a barely literate, no-talent hack. As a writer, he is in the same league as Benny Jay and Big Mike, which is to say they are all bush leaguers. I doubt Monroe is even from Gary. He probably grew up in Muncie or Fort Wayne, or some backwater in southern Indiana. He just says he’s from Gary to improve his social standing.

After receiving tens of thousands of man-up emails from the Monroe Anderson is Gary's Greatest Writer International Fan Club, I had to reply to Big Mike and Milo. If you want to read my letter to the editor, posted by Benny Jay on The Third City website, click here. 

If not, I understand, The Third City assertion that I'm not Gary's greatest is so third rate that it may not be worth your precious time as an intelligent reader who all too well knows what's what, who's who and why Gary, Indiana is so damn proud of me--and is wondering who is this Milo and why is he making this lame-brained, Sarah Palin-like claim?

Studs Terkel on OJ Simpson, Coming of Age and Common Ground

 

Studs Terkel and I never were running buddies. We drank together once in 1980 in a hotel bar in Manhattan where we both were attending a national writer's conference. It wasn't a long drinking session. After one round, he apologetically left me for a young blond who hung on his every word better than I could ever hope to do. 

We weren't running buddies after that either. We weren't even "let's do lunch" friends. We'd nod and cordially chat on chance meetings.

But I was an admirer big time of the oral historian. I'd read a couple of his books, caught his radio show from time to time. Even checked him out on the big screen in Eight Men Out. And he knew who I was. He'd read the investigative series I'd worked on at the Chicago Tribune. He'd watched me discuss Harold Washington and the Chicago mayor's race on WTTW-TV's Chicago Week in Review. He'd seen me conduct press conferences as Mayor Eugene Sawyer's press secretary.

So, the day he showed up for a taping on my TV talk show, Common Ground, Studs caught me off guard with an in-my-face grumble.

"Why would they book me on a show that airs at 5:30 on Sunday morning?" Terkel asked the book tour driver who had delivered him to my CBS studio set.

The legendary Chicagoan had been booked to discuss his latest book, Coming of Age. Although I'd only been the executive producer and host of the show for four years, it had been around since the late '60s, born out of racial tensions following the murder of Martin Luther King.

It was understandable that a publishing company would book Studs on the show during a promotion tour. It was a natural. In the short time I'd hosted the show, I'd interviewed Rosa Parks. Carol Mosley Braun was my guest the Sunday before she went on to win the primary election that would lead to her being the first black woman and second black in the U.S. Senate post Reconstruction.

The driver didn't answer Studs' question and right after he'd posed it, my illustrious guest wanted to take it back. "You're cool with me, Monroe. It's just that...."

I nodded. I understood. Depending on who my general manager was and what new program director he happened to be listening to, my show was all over the weekend schedule. During the eight years I hosted Common Ground, the show was in 13 different times slots. My best and my loyal fan couldn't even keep up with its schedule.

"When does your show come on?" she'd ask after the latest time change.

"Mom, it's on at 1 a.m. Sunday," I said, after one of those schedule changes.

Her favorite time had been when it was on at 10:30 a.m. Sunday mornings--sort of. That's when she usually went to church. It was a tough choice but I almost always won out.

This all came back to me recently when I discovered that Studs had donated a video copy of the show we'd done together to Media Burn. Sara Chapman at the independent video archive was good enough to break the show into two 10 minute segments and upload it to YouTube.

Although Studs was on my set to promote his book, there was a major news event we couldn't ignore. We taped right after OJ Simpson had gotten away with murder in the Trial of the Century. So we spent the first half of the show talking about The Juice. In the second half Studs got around to promoting his book. Once the taping was over, he was gave me a hardcover copy of Coming of Age, autographing it with this inscription above his signature: "To Monroe--A delight to be with you--as always, Peace."

Of course, he had commandeered the show.  I wasn't the least bit surprised, he was the veteran host. I was the print journalist playing a talk show host on TV. And, I'm so grateful that all those viewers who weren't up at 5:30 a.m. on that October 1995 Sunday morning can check out my interview with the iconic Chicagoan should they wish.