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James Jones and the Handy Writers' Colony
2001, Southern Illinois University Press
In 1943, a twenty-one-year-old psychlogically battered soldier and would-be writer named James Jones went AWOL from his post in Kentucky and returned to his home in Robinson, Illinois, a small town near Terre Haute. Almost immediately he fell under the influence of Lowney Handy, a free-spirited local woman and an aspiring writer herself. The older married woman quickly became Jones' mentor, writing coach, cheerleader, mother superior, literary agent, and (with the tacit approval of her husband), Jones' lover. After securing Jones' release from the Army, Handy took him into her household, beginning a tempestuous relationship that lasted fourteen years. Handy steered Jones' reading, directed him to copy long sections of books she found worthy, critiqued his writing, and drove him to write steadily. With Handy at his side as an unrelenting taskmaster and nursemaid for his fragile ego, Jones sweated out the writing of one unpublished novel and his best known work, From Here to Eternity. Following the blockbuster success of Eternity, Handy and Jones established in 1950 a spartan writing colony in Marshall, Illinois, some thirty miles north of Robinson, where Jones lived and wrote for the next seven years and where a group of aspiring writers came to see if Handy's unconventional methods would work for them. The story of the Handy Writer's Colony is recounted with an insider's perspective in James Jones and the Handy Writers' Colony by George Hendrick, Helen Howe, and Don Sackrider. The authors mine the mostly unpublished material of the Handy Colony Collection archived at University of Illinois, Springfield, plus Hendrick's earlier work, To Reach Eternity: The Letters of James Jones, and contemporaneous articles about the colony as it gained notoriety. But the most compelling insights come from Sackrider's and Howe's personal reminiscences of their times with Jones and Handy: Sackrider was the second writer to come under Handy's tutelage, and Howe and her husband Tinks were long-time friends of Jones and Handy. This co-authorship, unfortunately, also leads to jarring stylistic inconsistencies as the narrative veers awkwardly from flat historical prose to more heightened dramatized scenes with dialogue and color, apparently paraphrased from Sackrider's and Howe's unpublished personal narratives. Still, the story is interesting and accessible even for readers unfamiliar with Jones' life and work. 22 ILLINOIS HERITAGE Early chapters trace the paths of Handy's and Jones' separate lives to their convergence in Robinson. Handy came from an eccentric patrician family in Kentucky to become the rebellious wife of a philandering oil refinery engineer in Robinson, where she bristled against small-town mores. Jones, the son of an alcoholic dentist and widower in Robinson, survived harrowing experiences in the peace-time army and World War II but returned home a nearly broken man. Subsequent chapters detail the tempestuous life inside the Jones-Handy circle before the establishment of the colony proper. The last few chapters take us through the years in the colony itself, focusing on several key figures in the ever-changing group, before and after the fiery end of Jones' relationship with Handy following his marriage to Gloria Mosolino.
The most striking figure in James Jones and. the Handy Writers' Colony is not Jones but Lowney Handy. Even in her day she was controversial, vilified in print by some former students and ridiculed in some literary circles. The authors mount an emphatic defense of her life and methods while acknowleding her shortcomings: "Many of the stories about Lowney emphasize how determined and autocratic she was. They stress her failures and not her successes, her eccentricities and foibles, not her strengths. There are other stories about Lowney at her best: her encouragement of her students, her quiet times with the colonists as she spun out humorous stories, her generosity; her demanding work as an editor. These aspects of Lowney are elusive but important in reaching a balanced understanding of her." The book makes a convincing case that despite Jones' natural talent, he probably would never had attained the success he did without a Lowney Handy in his life. She gave him financial and moral support, fed him Eastern religion and great books, indulged his personal excesses yet provided the discipline and structure to keep him working year after year. The authors point out that from her life and family history came several memorable characters in Jones' fiction, and his relationship with her is fictionalized (unfavorably for Handy ) in his novel Go to the Widow-Maker. Other colonists, particularly Jon Shirota and John Bowers, gave her much credit for their development as writers. So despite her rages and tantrums, her domineering personality and boorish behavior, she seems to have engendered a great loyalty among many close to her. But when the authors report the details of the night Handy threatened Gloria Mosolino with a knife, for instance, it's hard to see her as anything but seriously disturbed. If readers are to admire Handy as photos from the Handy Colony Collection much as the authors do, the book could use more concrete examples of her generous nature. Nevertheless, despite her enormous failings she remains an impressive larger-than-life character. Aside from Jones' spectacular success, any claim for the long-term importance of the Handy Colony in American or even Midwestern literature is harder to defend, though for a small, short-lived enterprise (closing in 1963 with Lowney's death) a respectable number of modestly successful novels were written by colonists, particularly by Tom Chamales, Jere Peacock, and Edwin C. Daly. Most of the colonists seemed to bristle under Handy's strict regimen and increasingly mercurial personality, and few writers stayed long enough to test Handy's methods to the same degree that Jones did. But if James Jones and the Handy Writers' Colony is not the story of a major literary movement, it nonetheless is a thorough and valuable examination of the seminal period of a major American writer's life, and it is a fascinating chapter in the literary history of Illinois, rich with the drama and conflict and complex personalities of the best fiction. Robert Grindy is a professor of English at Decatur's Richland Community College.
ILLINOIS HERITAGE 23
Spoon Rivers Masters:
Edgar Lee Masters, A Biography
2001, University of Illinois Press
On March 11, 1950, after the death of
lawyer and writer Edgar Lee Masters, Peoria Star newspaper columnist Gomer Bath posited that a biography of Masters was "needed," and he hoped a "competent and honest writer" would "undertake the job before long." Now, more than fifty years after Bath's words, Herbert K. Russell has written Edgar Lee Masters, A Biography.
The immediate occasion for this biography was the author's interest in Masters and the belief of Masters' son, Hilary, that "it was time." It is the first time full access has been granted to Masters' papers: diaries, letters, and a draft of the unpublished chapters of his autobiography. Masters wrote an autobiography that was published in 1936 (Across Spoon River) but he ended his story in 1917. Russell fills in the gaps.
Masters life stretched long before and long after Spoon River Anthology, his collection of free verse epitaphs or monologues written in 1914-15, which caused a sensation worldwide. In the graveyard of the fictional village of Spoon River, Illinois, its former citizens reveal in very frank and personal terms the lessons of their lives — their joys, sorrows, and regrets. But Spoon River would be the boon and bane of Masters' literary career. It would be his enduring legacy, but one he never lived up to nor accepted in his lifetime.
Russell portrays Masters as the product of the loveless, conflicted home of Hardin Wallace Masters, a lawyer, and his wife Emma Dexter Masters. Born in Kansas, young Masters spent his childhood in Petersburg and later Lewistown, where he passed from boyhood into adolescence and came of age. He went to Chicago to become a writer but made a living practicing law — the profession his father pressed him to pursue. He had success, practicing for a time with Clarence Darrow.
Masters wrote, too, and for his poetry collected mostly rejections — until the Spoon River epitaphs. They made him famous.
Work and women were the focus of Masters' life, the key elements whereby he escaped loneliness, reality and, at times, responsibility.
He married for money and status — which didn't exactly work out - while he continued to have affairs with other women. After a bitter divorce and financial ruin, Masters left Chicago for New York. There would be a second marriage and more women. There would be the rush for much-needed money by printing books that weren't as good as Spoon River. Masters ended up ill and spent the last years of his life dependent on the care of his second wife.
Russell reveals a lonely man who didn't learn from his mistakes, either in his writing or in his relationships, but painfully kept repeating them. Masters was divided, unfocused, undisciplined, strong willed, and impatient. He doesn't seem to have many redeeming qualities other than honesty. In his autobiography, Masters wrote that he thought of himself "as a man dominated by a towering will and a selfish passion."
ILLINOIS HERITAGE 24
This biography reaffirms the image of Masters
as a man who lived in a past that was gone and who became cantankerous because of it. However, there is a picture in the book of Masters at the age of four and he looks pretty cantankerous then, too. Russell uses Masters' autobiography in telling his story and exposes the poet's "several fictions," starting with an incorrect birth date in the first line: 1869 instead of 1868, which made Masters a year younger. In his Introduction, Russell refers to a 1910-1911 publication to which Masters first supplied the incorrect information, but also refers to later dates. First, the incorrect birth date first appeared in 1899 in an Illinois Democratic Party publication.)
A few errors are carried over from Masters' autobiography.
Masters confused John Armstrong with his brother William "Duff" Armstrong and is incorrectly referred to by Russell.
A legal case Masters referred to that enhanced his father's reputation as a criminal lawyer, the "Ferris" case — the correct spelling is Farris - involved three trials from 1888-1890, not 1887 as given by Masters and Russell. (His father was involved in a case in 1887 that Masters used in Spoon River Anthology, but it did not go to trial.)
Edgar Lee Masters
In Lewistown, the editor of the News, a hero to Masters and a friend of his father's was Lute Breeden, not Breedon.
In Petersburg, his boyhood friend's sister was not Emily but Emma Eugenia Marbold.
But in the total scope of this book, these errors are minor.
In this critical study, Russell shows the personal, literary, and philosophical influences on Masters and discusses his theories about Masters' perspectives and behaviors, citing many references. (Russell crossed much of the United States to bring them altogether.) And he has a good grip on a large amount of material.
Russell also attempts to set the record straight, to strip away the thinly veiled disguises and inaccuracies in Masters' own biographical writing, as well as in previous accounts written about him. It also feels, to a certain degree, like an accounting, almost a judgment day for Masters and people in his life. Russell describes relationships and characteristics to support his , but there is so much ground to cover that some solid, relevant conclusions are not always developed. Masters' correspondence with his mother and written reflections to Alice Davis Tibbetts late in his life offer insight into his life and times and flaws.
Nevertheless, this is a valuable book and the most thorough work done on Masters to date. But the best portrait for my money remains Spoon River Anthology itself, into which Masters poured so much of himself and the people he knew.
Who knows what newspaper columnist Bath would have thought of this biography. (Bath, who died in 1960,once described Masters as a "chronic dissenter.") Chances are, he'd be happy to see that his call for a Masters' biography has finally been answered.
Linda Tosch teaches English and writing at Pekin High School.
ILLINOIS HERITAGE 25
Not your average bedtime story
By Marian Calabro 1999,
The history of the Donner Party isn't bedtime reading material for most children. The true story of the unfortunate emigrants who, while on their way to California in the fall of 1846, were snowed up for months in the Sierra Nevadas and resorted to cannibalism to
stay alive, is one of the greatest tragedies of the western migration. And yet, because the story involved so many children, most of whom survived the ordeal, the Donner story is one of the more compelling pioneer narratives for young readers, although only a handful of writers and publishers have dared to print it.
Patty Reed's Doll: The Story of the Donner Party (Rachel K. Laurgaard, 1956, Caxton Printers) made the story more digestible by avoiding the subject of cannibalism altogether, focusing instead on young survivor Patty Reed's journey from Springfield, Illinois, with her parents, James Frazier and Margaret Reed, alongside the George and Jacob Donner families. Patty Reed's tiny wooden doll, which made the ill-fated trip unscathed, now sits in a display case in Sutler's Fort State Historic Site in California.
David Lavender's Snowbound: The Tragic Story of the Donner Party (Holiday House, New York: 1996), offered a little more sustenance but was stingy with the details, such as the numerous first-person accounts of the survivors.
Now Marian Calabro, a New Jerseyite with a passion for American history and biography, serves up the Donner tale, keeping most of the grisly details intact. In The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party, Calabro and her editors have done a marvelous job assembling this handsome, informative book, weaving together excellent maps, dozens of historic photographs, pioneer letters, and contemporary accounts to tell a grim tale of human bravery and endurance against unimaginable odds.
Calabro relies on solid history for the most part, using primary source documents as well as the most recent scholarship to flesh out the facts. To her credit she's even made the trek to Truckee for a Donner Party reunion and sought ought historians such as Kristin Johnson (Unfortunate Emigrants, 1998) to avoid the snares of Donner Party folklore, of which there is much. The result is a clean, very readable and informative text that doesn't skimp on detail or gloss over the horrors of the encampment, and explores the strength of character that helped these doomed travelers endure. Here's a passage:
By Christmas, Jacob Donner and three of his teamsters were dead. The cut on George Donner's hand had gotten infected and the infection was eating its way up his arm.
However, the families of the Donner brothers did share what little they had, and it made a difference. Jacob's widow, Betsy, and George's wife, Tamsen, were coping well. And their twelve children and stepchildren seemed content, with the girls putting snow into cups and pretending to have tea parties....
As matters got worse, the Donners were reduced to gnawing on ox bones "burned brown" and eating "some of the few mice that came in camp." Tamsen, a gifted teacher, turned to the Bible for storytelling and consolation. Eliza (Donner) said: "While knitting and sewing [my mother] held us children spellbound with wondrous tales of Joseph in Egypt, of Daniel in the lion's den... and of the Master who took young children in His arms and blessed them."
This is heroic stuff. Calabro begins her narrative with a roster, as did original Donner Party chronicler Charles McGlashan in 1879, listing the original thirty-two Springfield travelers, led by James Frazier Reed — not George Donner — who headed west to find cheap land in California. She then introduces the travelers who joined the party later at Independence, Missouri, and still later along the Hastings Cutoff, the unexplored, unproven alternate route through the Sierras that was their downfall.
Calabro ends with a chronology and roster of the dead, followed by an extensive bibliography, which includes kids books on the subject, films, and a websites for further exploration.
While it is easy to praise Perilous Journey, it is not without faults. Calabro, for whatever reason, overzealously squeezed a Donner connection to Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. It is true that all parties resided in or near Springfield, Illinois, in April 1846, but there is no evidence to hint that the families were friendly. No letters or journal, either from the Lincolns, Donners, or Reeds, suggests that any Lincoln came to say goodbye to the emigrants. Nevertheless, Calabro includes that dubious suggestion, along with the Lincolns' photos — a White House portrait in the case of Mary — even though Abraham was in Washington, D.C. serving a term in Congress when the Donner wagons rolled west.
Regardless, this is a remarkable book, refreshing in its honest portrait of pioneer endurance and sacrifice in the face of unyielding hardship and human frailty. Kids will eat it up.
--William Furry
26 ILLINOIS HERITAGE
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