GREAT COINCIDENCES
Prolific and versatile author Steven Savile
has gone quite Dickens in his novel, Parallel Lines (2017 Titan Books), depending on more than several coincidences to tell a neat and compelling story of both despicable and desperate wrongdoing. But like Dickens, Saville does not use what in the real world might seem improbable coincidences just to move the plot forward, but rather as a metaphorical demonstration that in life, unlike in geometry, parallel lines sometimes do meet. As Dickens’s friend and biographer John Foster put it, “The world, he (Dickens) would say, was so much smaller than we thought; we were all so connected by fate without knowing it; people supposed to be far apart were so constantly elbowing each other…” And this is essentially what Savile portrays in his story of the strangest bank robbery imaginable that goes weirdly awry connecting the lives—and deaths—of several disparate characters in contemporary Chicago.
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| Steven Savile |
As befitting its title, there is no one protagonist in Parallel Lines, but rather an ensemble of characters that Savile moves from one to another, jumping into their interior points-of-view, telling the stories of their individual pasts and current moments. There may be something revolutionary about that in the current academic-literary world of MFAs in Creative Writing and writing workshops where the simple-minded rule of “Show, don’t tell,” has become as important as if it was the eleventh commandment of Moses that just didn’t fit on the second tablet but otherwise would have been there. Not that Savile doesn’t show you some fine action containing some sharp dialog, but the key to this novel is what he tells you about his characters. For what Savile understands is that it’s not whether you show or tell but when you show and when you tell and, more important, how you show and how you tell. When Savile tells you about his characters you not only walk in their shoes, you put on their full wardrobe to a fine fit. Savile is a consummate storyteller (if he had wanted to be a storyshower, he probably would have gone into film and TV) who is in command of his craft both intellectually and, I’m assuming, intuitively.
But, Steven (meaning me, not Savile) what’s the plot? Well, given that it’s a story about parallel lines that do connect, you can imagine that the plot is intricate with interweavings and any summary of it could only do it injustice. Suffice it to say, it is a compelling story, smoothly written, and unrelenting in its forward motion. But it is also a story of people, their trials, their tribulations, their plans, their pains, and the choices they make—not always wise ones—which are often forced upon them by the greater society they live in.
You can find Parallel Lines by Steven Savile
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GREAT CONVERSATIONS
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| Peter Anthony Holder |
Holder Overnight was a popular late-nite radio show in Montreal for twenty-years in which Peter Anthony Holder interviewed, or rather conversed with, a host of celebrities that he hosted as if they were honored guests in his living room. For Peter never was, and still isn’t (he currently hosts the syndicated radio show, The Stuph File), a “gotcha!” broadcaster. Peter genuinely likes people. Although he can and often does report on the sillier actions of our species, he is basically a fan of us, and especially the us who have brought him pleasure in popular entertainment. Peter has gathered some of those conversations into Great Conversations: My Interviews with Two Men on the Moon and a Galaxy of Stars (2017 BearManor media), and it has certainly brought me pleasure.
I’ve known Peter since 1990 when I attended the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal with famed Warner Bros Looney Tunes animation director Chuck Jones. Every year Peter would time his vacation from his radio show to allow him to work for the festival hosting shows and doing video reports, and he asked to interview me that year for some video project on the festival. I think he only asked me because he liked the white suit I was wearing, thinking it would look good on camera. In subsequent years I produced shows for the festival and I got to know Peter rather well. Later, when my novels started to be published, I was pleased to have guested on his show several times plugging my books.
But I’m not in Peter’s book. Well, I am, but only in a brief mention that, although brief, does, I must say, add a certain intellectual depth and philosophical gravatas to the tome.
But seriously, folks..., as that great classic and silly comedian Milton Berle might have said.
Berle, who may have killed vaudeville, but who certainly midwifed the birth of American television, is not interviewed in the book. But chapter fifteen, “The Milton Berle Bet,” relates an incident Peter eyewitnessed at one of the Just for Laughs festivals. It beautifully shows what a wonderfully professional and damn fine talent Berle actually was. And just why Peter admires such great entertainers.
Those that Peter did have great conversations with and who are in the book include Ed Asner, Karl Malden. Steve Allen, Bob Denver, Christopher Plummer, George Takei, and even Thurl Ravenscroft, who you might know as the original voice of Tony the Tiger, but who also, more importantly, sang “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” in Chuck Jones’s now classic animated TV special based on the famous Dr. Seuss book. Peter also talked to the Holy Trio! of Burt Ward, Yvonne Craig, and Julie Newmar from the 1960s Batman TV show; Shirley Eaton, forever a golden girl in the minds of many men my age for her short but memorable role in Goldfinger; and the absolutely charming Carol Channing and the absolutely funny Phyllis Diller.
Also included in the book are interviews with moon walkers Alan Bean and Harrison Schmitt. Yes, not from the world of entertainment, but if you had a chance to converse with men who had gone to the moon, what would you do?
In another non-interview chapter, “A Tale of Two Celebrities - Lynn Johnston and Ivan Reitman” (the chapter in which I am briefly mentioned, I will briefly mention again), Peter tells another story from Just for Laughs that shows the kindness and generosity of one celebrity in contrast to the lack of same from the other—or, at least, from the other’s “people.” I won’t reveal who was who except to say that the kind one does not produce and direct movies and the other one did not write and draw a comic strip.
Despite, as I’ve mentioned, Peter did not play “gotcha” when he interviewed these celebrities, that does not mean he did not “get” them. He has an intuitive feel for what makes each subject unique as an entertainer and often as a person, and a talent for letting them reveal that in conversation. Which makes for a pleasant, informative, and nostalgic book.
You can find Great Conversations: My Interviews with Two Men on the Moon and a Galaxy of Stars
on Amazon HERE.
And you can check out all my books
on the MY BOOKS page on this blog.
