Wordy Birds

Worthy

Original airdate: May 28, 2010

Miriam sat her glass down on the table with a thud.

“You the one from school still scratching yo’ head ‘bout why people act this and that way.” She pointed at the side of her head. “What I know ain’t in no book of facts. What I know is what is… sure as clay red. My knowledge from life, common damn sense.” She pointed at Ayanna. “All you
know’s some tumblin’ clouds of ideas nobody can touch. You full of facts but dumb ‘bout knowin’ yo’ people and yo’self.”

Miriam got up, snatched her pitcher of sweet tea and went into the kitchen.

- from Worthy

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Richmond Noir

Original airdate: February 5, 2010

An anthology of all-new noir stories set in Richmond neighborhoods, edited by Blossom, Castleberry and De Haven. With a forward by Tom Robbins.

Features stories by: Dean King, Laura Browder, Howard Owen, Yazmina Beverly, Tom De Haven, X.C. Atkins, Meagan J. Saunders, Anne Thomas Soffee, Clint McCown, Conrad Ashley Persons, Clay McLeod Chapman, Pir Rothenberg, David L. Robbins, Hermine Pinson, and Dennis Danvers.

From the introduction…

“In The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, Henry Miller tosses off a hard-bitten assessment of the City on the James: ‘I would rather die in Richmond somehow,’ he writes, ‘though God knows Richmond has little enough to offer.’ As editors, we like the dying part, and might point out that in its long history, Richmond, Virginia has offered up many of the disparate elements crucial to meaty noir. The city was born amid deception, conspiracy, and violence…”

Tom De Haven is the author of seventeen books, including Freaks’ Amour, Sunburn Lake, It’s Superman! and the Derby Dugan trilogy of novels. Andrew Blossom is the founding editor of Makeout Creek. Brian Castleberry is a playwright, novelist, and music critic. –from www.akashicbooks.com

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A Fortunate Age

Original airdate: December 4, 2009

“But this group, our group, wanted nothing to do with money, the whiff of which had, they thought, spoiled their brash bourgeois parents and aunts and uncles, all of whom were, inevitably, doctors or lawyers or businessmen or sometimes teachers, and none of whom had read Sentimental Education or could identify the term “deconstruction” or made regular visits to the theater, except, perhaps, to see musicals or Neil Simon comedies. They — the adults — were too corrupted, too swayed and jaded by the difficulties and practicalities of adulthood, by the banal labyrinths of health insurance and Roth IRAs, by the relative safety of Volvo versus Saab versus Subaru, or flat Scottish cashmere versus the newer, softer, fluffier — but possibly less durable — stuff, imported from Nepal, that Neiman’s is carrying lately.”

- from A Fortunate Age

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The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation Vol 1 & 2

Original airdate: October 16, 2009

“The men who raised me were lords of matter, and in the dim chambers I watched as they traced the spinning of bodies celestial in vast, iron courses, and bid sparks to dance upon their hands; they read the bodies of fish as if each dying trout or shad was a fresh Biblical Testament, the wet and twitching volume of a new-born Pentateuch. They burned holes in the air, wrote poems of love, sucked the venom from sores, painted landscapes of gloom, and made metal sing; they dissected fire like newts.”

- from The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I

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Breaking Spirit Bridge

Original airdate: March 20, 2009

“Breaking Spirit Bridge” opens with a vicious scene of its heroine being admitted into the psychiatric ward of a mental hospital. Piper, the lead character, was delusional and saw the waiting room filled with celebrities and perverts. Her mind shuttered in and out of reality and she couldn’t distinguish between the truth and the snakes sliding out of the air-conditioner vent.

The writing is fragmented and frightening and vividly recreates what it could feel like to be in the mind of someone suffering a psychotic break. Piper was in the grip of a manic phase of undiagnosed bipolar disorder, replete with hallucinations and delusions of grandeur. The location and events that led to her admittance to the hospital magnified her condition and twisted and turned the pages of Ruth Perkinson’s book.

My guest on the show today, Ruth Perkinson, reveals that she is also bipolar. Her descriptions in “Breaking Spirit Bridge” read so true because her book was “about 60%” autobiographical. I find it fantastic (that her book was autobiographical, not that she is bipolar) because the world seems to be filled with con-artist writers who claim that their over-reaching story arcs are honest-to-God, unedited translations of reality. In Ruth’s case, her story was true and she cloaked it in fiction.

On this edition of Wordy Birds, Ruth is very candid about her disorder and the mind-melting mania of bipolar disorder.  She’s also very funny and an excellent writer.

Thank you for tuning in. 

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