‘45 Was a Very Amazing Year for This Poet and Author

“The Brave Wild Coast: A Year With Henry Miller,” by Judson Crews, edited by Jefferson P. Selth (Dumont Press), re-creates 1945 for the author, whose poetry in later years would make him a cult hero of many college campuses and an important contributor to small press editions.

At this point, nearing the end of World War II, he has thumbed and hiked his way to Big Sur, where he hopes to find himself and his inner poetry by association with the Big Name--Henry Miller. Miller and his third wife, Lepska, are there in precarious residence along with an assortment of admirers. Miller’s “Tropics” are banned in America at this time, and everyone’s efforts are bent on keeping the man fed and clothed.

Crews watches in frustrated amazement as the group piles into cars with threadbare tires and goes into town for highly perishable fresh food, hauls it up to the headquarters and in a few days tosses the rotting goods over the mountainside. Most of all, there is the thought of sex, of sexual partners past and future. It is believed by the others that Miller, the author of sex, sex, and more sex will bring about all this erotic bliss.

With photographic verbal clarity, Crews captures the various characters scrabbling on the edge of the brave wild coast. The young Crews does not really like many of the people, and what he cannot forgive in himself is that he doesn’t like Miller much. He so admires his work, but Miller is distant, selfish and, in one hilarious episode, very concerned about losing his false teeth at the height of a romantic event.

As a last masochistic deed, Crews submitted a book draft for Miller to critique; Miller disliked “Why Ask the Angry Gods?” (never published), and in a 10-page letter to Crews explained why he quit after a few pages--”You’re more like a smothered volcano. You’re afraid . . . of what might happen if you began erupting (I would be too if I were you). . . .”

The original 1,500 pages recalling 1945 is sensitively edited by Selth to 294 pages. This is an important edition for any reader wanting to understand the early postwar situation for the literary creators of the period.

SYLVIA WOODBURNE

Fresno

*

So-called writers like John Grisham and Tom Clancy should sit at the feet of Joe R. Lansdale. I don’t read much fiction because it rarely keeps me turning the pages. The dialogue also is most often dull and there is little characterization or wit. On top of that I like metaphorical writing.

Then I discovered Lansdale’s adventure / mystery “The Two-Bear Mambo” (Mysterious Press) on the paperback rack. It met all of my requirements.

I’ve never been so entertained by any book, and I know I have never before had the characters from a book stick in my mind. I liked this guy’s style so much I have hunted in used-book stores for everything else this prolific writer has written. An example of his talent is an earlier book in the horror genre, “The Drive-In.” I have never had any interest in this type of writing before or since, but I couldn’t put that one down.

“The Two-Bear Mambo” is, I think, the best of Lansdale’s Hap Collins, Leonard Pine series. The others are “The Savage Season,” “Mucho Mojo” and his latest, out now, “Bad Chili.” Along with pace, characterization, plot and witty, funny dialogue, the novels also are profane. But that’s just another thing to like about this writer from east Texas who is more talented than other richer, more well-known writers.

BRUCE DILLASHAW

La Verne

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* Next Week: Kevin Baxter on books for children and young adults.