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I write novels -- mostly literary novels with an edge of suspense. All of my work has a particular bent towards history and the deep existential questions: death, love, life and meaning. In this "bookish blog" are posted excerpts: most current is Sinful Folk Unstable, a novel set in 14th century England. I have written the mystery novel Coeur D'Alene Waters, the first in a series set in northern Idaho. My recently published book of poetry (Orchard Press 2009) is posted here along with many of the dramatic works I've written and directed. For my day job in technology, I also write business plans, marketing strategy, branding iniatives and market analysis. My experience as a product leader in social media, data analytics and mobile technology is encapsulated in my business book Beyond Microsoft, a book about software and brand innovation in technology. (Book is excerpted in my blog section Ideas in Motion) I also post here updated commentary and thoughts. Here are a few recent blog posts: updated posting on
An Elegy: Believing Last night, a memorial service for Michael Dorris was held at the New York City public library. Dorris, a prolific writer of prose that carried rare emotional power, committed suicide earlier this year. Yet many of the seats at the memorial service were empty, writes David Streitfield in yesterday's Washington Post. Dorris committed suicide under a cloud of accusations by two of his adopted children. Some people remember where they were when John F. Kennedy was shot. I will always remember where I was, and what I did, when I discovered that Michael Dorris was dead.
I imagine that there was a similar strain last night when Edwards, a friend of Dorris, spoke at the memorial service. After the intervening months, there might be strain for more complicated reasons. Between April and August, more information about rifts in Dorris' marriage to poet and novelist Louise Erdrich, and about his often tumultuous relationship with their children has been exhumed. New York magazine recently released a scathing profile of Dorris, detailing many presumed peccadilloes, including exploitation of his children. Oddly, I feel I know Dorris better than that. I feel I know him in ways that contradict the many half-truths displayed in New York's shoddy post-mortem. This is partially because of his book The Broken Cord. This profoundly honest book describes his life raising adopted son Abel, who was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome. Michael's life with Abel was taxing beyond belief. Alcohol in the womb had given Abel severe behavioral and learning disabilities. "I have watched my husband spend months of his life teaching A[bel] to tie his shoes," wrote Louise Erdrich in the foreword to Broken Cord. Yet when he wrote about it, Dorris gave that life nobility and kindness. Abel later died in an auto accident because he could not remember to look both ways before crossing traffic. Dorris also adopted two other Native American children, Sava and Madeline. And I hunger for the book that might have been written about his life with them. Tentatively, Dorris had titled it Matter of Conscience, yet he never completed the work. It may have been impossible for Dorris to sum up his experience with them. Both Sava and Madeline, who are now suing Dorris' estate for alleged sexual abuse, were early diagnosed with fetal alcohol effect. Fetal alcohol effect is a much subtler and more insidious after-effect of alcoholism, which often manifests itself in a child's adolescent and adult behavior. In these lives, alcohol becomes a chemical with a savagely toxic half-life. Sava and Madeline share a history of instability, of pervasive lies, of violence, of suicide attempts, of aggressive behavior, of inappropriate sexual contact. They share this history with my sister Rochelle, who also happens to be adopted. Rochelle has been diagnosed with fetal alcohol effect. This is the other way I know Michael Dorris. It is the reason I believe him, despite his suicide. The Broken Cord helped my mother feel sane once more, which is the reason she was devastated when I told her of his suicide. Fetal alcohol effect, although arbitrary in its impact, often seems to cleanly excise the moral connection between actions and consequences, between rewards and punishments -- between right and wrong. In 1992, Dorris summed up the experience of many fetal-alcohol affected families by noting that over the past four years his family "hadn't had a single period longer than three consecutive days in all that time when one of our alcohol-impaired children was not in a crisis - health, home, school - that demanded our undivided attention." I know marriages that have snapped under the constant tension of living with fetal-alcohol syndrome children, even after they reach adulthood. My parents have suffered through being told that it is their fault that Rochelle cannot pay attention, that Rochelle cannot refrain from cursing others, that Rochelle steals credit cards, doesn't pay bills, and irrevocably damages other people's houses and cars, and lives. She does not care about consequences. It is more than conceivable that one might commit suicide under the twin pressures of a disintegrating marriage and fetal alcohol-effected children. Over the years, Dorris sacrificed himself for his children. After decades, a writer as insightful as Dorris must have seen the destructive potential of such lives as enormously depressing. In an essay for Hungry Mind, Michael Dorris wrote that life "demands wariness, humility, patience, and the lonely nurturing of a self-image strong enough to stand up to all challengers, whether intentionally malevolent or merely stupid." Whether malevolent, like alcoholism in all its forms, or merely stupid, like New York magazine, it took an incredible weight of indomitable challengers to finally break Dorris. Although it's not necessary to say, I believe in Michael. And I'm looking forward to reading his fourth novel for children, The Window, which will come out in October. According to early reviewers, it is the story of a resilient child who flourishes despite the troubles caused by thoughtless people around him. Perhaps this has always been Michael's last hope for his children.
Lit Life in Seattle i'm a little tired of it. I am fortunate enough to find myself in a City of Writers (according to a Seattle Weekly cover story four years ago). Yet instead of any kind of insightful literary coverage in the local media, I'm continually treated to the kind of pablum we used to do in my high school rag. Imagine, if you will, a committee meeting at which two ideas are proposed: the brilliant chance to contribute to public discourse about the arts, and possibly even shape that discourse. And in the other corner, John Marshall, P.I. Reporter without a distinguishing voice, who proposes a bland little survey of local writers, with a few snazzy cover shots of current books. But while one fulfills both the letter and the spirit of what "engaging in public discourse" really means, the other doesn't. It fails at the spirit entirely. It fails abysmally. Guess which one the P.I. Editorial Committee picked? For a moment, pretend with me that the other choice had been made. William Kittredge or David Guterson were asked to choose their books, and tell us why. What fascinating insight could have been had! Why does Guterson like a Christianized classic of Asian-American lit. like Nisei Daughter? Why didn't he include John Okada's No-No Boy, which seems to have more in common with Guterson's own work? Why is Mary Clearman Blew important to Kittredge? (Blew, although well-known for her Northwestern fascination, appears on no one else's personal list.) What if Whidbey recluse Pete Dexter had emerged to tell us what novels he read while writing last year's bestselling The Paperboy, and why? On Monday morning, instead, the public received an excuse for literary coverage. The article came as a nicely sanitized list, with no tie-breakers. It seems books are subject to majority vote, which renders them equal to any other mass commodity. Appro priately enough, on the third page, the headline reads Many vote Kesey's work the champion; the surveyed voters could just as well have been surveying Chevrolets or sports gear. The effect is further emphasized by commentary which is devoid of any intellectual enterprise. "The list does include its share of surprises," one expects will be followed by no one expected the Chevy truck to attract this much attention. The effect is to imply that literary preferences do not matter beyond the quirks of individual taste. If the choice of what we read doesn't matter, why do some burn books? Why are writers in prison in China? Why is intellectual property something Microsoft is willing to fight holy war over? (I'm beating a dead horse, I fear, and will shortly began ranting Robert-Pirsig-like about "Quality" and "Meaning.") Jonathan Raban, author of Bad Land, seemed to be the only writer surveyed who got the joke. His P.I. "list" contained, without any additional commentary, both The United States Coast Guard Pilot Survey, Volume 7 and Mary McCarthy's Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (the most un-Northwestern book I can imagine). Perhaps Raban, who lives in Seattle, actually reads the P.I. and realizes what they might do with such a survey. Or rather, what they wouldn't do. Unfortunately, the Post Intelligencer is not the only culprit. They are simply the latest example of the laziness of Seattle media in covering or thinking about books, writing, or literature. A few examples may prove a point so obvious it needs no evidence: Microsoft's Seattle version of Sidewalk.com takes every controversial edge that might exist in an artist, a writer, or a reading, and rounds them off to a santized sphere, suitable for swallowing for minds without teeth. The Seattle Weekly, in its Voice-inspired rush to be as hip as The Stranger is suddenly throwing profanity around, in ways that never would have been tolerated in David Brewster's day. This lends an air of urgency to reviews that continue to trot out the same old axioms about literature and contemporary books. The edgy or controversial parts of reviews and interviews aren't published (But appear here on Hot Ink instead.) Public Radio "flagship" station KUOW (I use NPR's reference) includes the moribund Book Notes as part of its morning "Weekday" program. On KUOW, incredible authors -- William Stafford, for example -- is asked questions by Marcie Sillman like Why did you write this poem? There are no questions that imply some sort of difficult struggle on the interviewer's behalf, or the writer's. No sense that perhaps there might have been other ways to write Stafford's "The Southern Cross," and that perhaps we are an audience that demands to think. The tendency detailed above also spreads its contagion to coverage of the arts in general. A friend who used to review books for the Times told the story of an eminent theater critic (I will relate no names) who was recruited to Seattle. He began to review theatrical performances, in a critical way, as theater critics will. Some of these reviews weren't nice. There was a reaction to the criticism. Objections, even. In other places, this natural dialogue is called the life of the mind. Emerald City Editors, however, felt compelled to suggest a slight diminuation of tone. Over the years this dumbing-down has continued, so that now it is impossible to tell thi s critic's pieces apart from any of the other blandishment-filled articles that regularly fill the Times's pages. There's very little in theater coverage anymore that presumes a thinking audience. Instead, there is the very real assumption in Northwest mainstream media that we don't like to think. And you know what? This presumption of intellectual languor irritates me. It enrages me. I want to read something worth reading, worth thinking about . I'm mostly still reading publications from other cities for anything more than mind candy. But I want to eat where I live. Give me something to chew on. Please.
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![[Time Photo of Michael Dorris]](http://www.hotink.com/images/authors/michael.jpg)
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