Writing California

I attended a fascinating conference over the weekend, one that was stimulating and depressing at the same time. It was the California Studies Association conference at Berkeley City College, put together by a group of writers and academics interested California politics, culture, art, ecology, and social movements.

There were many incredible panels, including one on immigration and the border, one on the Port of Oakland, and one on how California will be affected by global warming. And Jackie Goldberg, a former state assemblywoman, gave a rousing and scary speech about the state of education. You can hear it here.

But my favorite panel, of course, had to do with books. It was called Writing California, and it examined the work of four distinguished authors: John Steinbeck, Carey McWilliams, Wallace Stegner, and Mike Davis.

Rick Wartzman, a BusinessWeek columnist and former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, talked about his upcoming book Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, which will be released in September. The Grapes of Wrath is set in Bakersfield, and the town reacted badly when the book was released in 1939. Wartzman’s narrative nonfiction account explores a week where the Board of Supervisors banned the book and locals burned it. The heroine is a librarian who defends the book’s publication. The book is also an exploration of race relations in California at the time.

Phillip Fradkin, the author of a new biography about Wallace Stegner, talked about the writer and teacher. Peter Richardson, the author of a biography about the writer Carey McWilliams, talked about he was “one of the most important writers of whom we have never heard.” Richardson said McWilliams was one of the most versatile public intellectuals of the 20^th century, who was alternately called “liar,” “dupe,” and “doe-faced Typhoid Mary of the left.” (The latter came from Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.) He wrote about race relations in California before it was topical, and released a book Factories in the Field, about those in the agricultural industry, just two months after the publication of Grapes of Wrath.

UC Berkeley Professor Richard Walker discussed the works of Mike Davis, a prolific writer who came to great public attention with the publication of City of Quartz. It was wonderful to hear Walker’s explanation of Davis’ scholarship. Like most of the other authors discussed on the panel, Davis is a combination of investigator, academic, and activist. He has Irish working class roots, has always felt like something of an outsider, and writes convincingly about an astonishing range of subjects, from the rise of the car bomb, to the urban slums of the world, to the reason why we should let Malibu burn.

What stood about these authors is that they all wrote elegantly and prolifically about California, yet they all left the state in the latter part of their careers. It was true then (and is still true now) that real fame and glory are anointed back East, and these writers sought greater recognition by traveling to the country’s intellectual center. (Stegner didn’t actually leave California, but he did have his ashes spread over his farm in Vermont, a nod, according to Fradkin, to East Coast values that venerated history, allowed its landscape to recover, and held constant a core set of values.)

“Maybe there is no such thing as a California writer,” said Fradkin. “Either they die an unnoticed death by the Eastern literati or they go back East.”

Wallace Stegner

Philip Fradkin’s new biography of Wallace Stegner has just been released, both to acclaim and criticism. Fradkin is speaking Thursday night at the Mechanic’s Institute and I am hoping to attend.

I have read and enjoyed many of Stegner’s books. While Angle of Repose won the Pulitzer Prize, my favorite was always Crossing to Safety, about the friendship of two couples who are very different in temperament and upbringing.

And since I went to Stanford, I knew about the prestigious Stegner writing fellowship program that has helped along the careers of many illustrious writers, including Ken Kesey, Edward Abbey. Robert Stone, Raymond Carver, Larry McMurtry, and Vikram Seth, among many others.

Imagine my surprise, then, when my mother recently attended a lecture on Stegner and later informed me that he has been accused of plagiarism. Apparently Angle of Repose is based on the letters and unpublished memoir of Mary Hallock Foote, who moved to California in the 19th century. Entire pages were lifted almost verbatim from Foote’s work.

These accusations of plagiarism aren’t well known, despite the fact that Stegner is considered one of the West’s greatest writers. The author and playwright Sands Hall created a play about the controversy, called Fair Use, and other biographers have discussed the plagiarism, but Fradkin's book places the issue front and center. It's a complex question because Stegner apparently had permission to use Hallock's material. He acknowledged her contribution in Angle of Repose, but didn't reveal the extent to which he relied on her writings.

In an editorial published in the Los Angeles Times, Fradkin wrote:

“The book evolved in the following manner. After hearing Stegner lecture in 1954, a graduate student asked if he thought that Foote would be a proper subject for his dissertation. She would, Stegner said. Her letters and manuscripts were obtained from a relative of Foote's in Nevada City, Calif., and brought to the Stanford University library. The student failed to produce anything, and by mutual consent, Stegner took over the subject in 1967.

Foote had died in 1938, and her closest relatives were her grandchildren. Stegner dealt solely with one, Janet Micoleau, who he had met in Nevada City through mutual friends. When she thought it necessary, Micoleau contacted two sisters for concurrence in her dealings with Stegner.

Stegner assured Micoleau in 1967 that the book would contain no recognizable characters and "no quotations direct from the letters." Was this all right with her? She replied that the family would "be delighted to have the MHF materials used as background." Stegner thanked Micoleau for her "blanket approval."

He wasn't sure at first if the book would be a novel or a biography. He settled on a fictional account because "she just wasn't a big enough figure for a biography to be a big book."

Stegner's concept of the book kept evolving. He then told Micoleau he wanted to mix fact with fiction. He was bending the characters "so you may not recognize your ancestors when I get through with them."

At most, Stegner assured her, he was using only selected paragraphs from the letters and memoir. (Actually, the borrowed passages would be considerably longer.) Would she read a draft of the manuscript? "I'm having to throw in a domestic tragedy of an entirely fictional nature," Stegner warned.

Micoleau declined. She was busy, and a 600-page manuscript was a lot to read. "I'm sure all concerned are content to trust your judgment," she wrote Stegner. "We all wish you well with the undertaking and have no desire to censor or interfere with it in any way."

The subject will surely come up this weekend, when Fradkin and others put on a weekend long conference on Stegner at Pt. Reyes in Marin County.

New Tabloid-Sized San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

The new tabloid-sized San Francisco Chronicle Book Review arrived on my doorstep today, and I must pronounce it a success.

The Chronicle’s editors reduced the size of the section to save printing costs, but it has the unintended consequence of making the review feel more intimate and cohesive. Editor Oscar Villalon has taken the opportunity to introduce some fun, bright features to the review, like a literary cartoon drawn by Lisa Brown, a children’s book author and the wife of Daniel Handler, and a section called “Blurbs.” In the February 24^th edition, the Blurb section asks writers Anne Lamott and Jack Bouleware to name the best book that features San Francisco.

There is also a new section named “Lit Pics” where the editors recommend previously reviewed titles. In another addition, kids reflect on the best books they have read recently. There are still literary listings but they get a pick-me-up with a column named "In Town" which highlights some author talks. The Chronicle’s best-seller lists are also there.

Of course, it would be great if the book review got an extra two pages. There are four major reviews in the section and five shorter reviews of books for young readers. That’s around the same number of reviews that have been appearing in the old broadsheet format. It’s hard to imagine that adding a few more pages would cost a lot, but apparently it does.

Last note: The cover reviews are of Philip Fradkin’s new biography, Wallace Stegner and the American West and Irving Yalom’s book Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death. Both books were praised.