2011, Titan

Filed Under: Biography, Nonfiction.

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Towards the end of Fever, author Susan Whitall describes a public feud in the late 60s between soul singer Joe Tex and James Brown regarding Brown’s sobriquet, “Soul Brother No. 1.” Tex argued that title really belonged to Little Willie John, who at the time was serving a sentence for second-degree murder, and openly campaigned against Brown’s using it. Obviously Tex lost, and Brown tossed the phrase atop a pile of bragadacio that also includes “Godfather of Soul,” “Hardest Working Man in Show Business,” and “Mr. Dynamite.”

Fever is a more detailed and nuanced extension of that argument. Whitall, who evidently worked closely with the John family, especially Willie’s sons Kevin and Keith, mounts a campaign to install John in the soul music pantheon, alongside acknowledged greats Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown. He certainly deserves renewed attention—while the other three are staples of oldies radio formats, Willie John’s voice has long been relegated to a kind of cult status, the stuff of record collectors, critics, and nostalgics. The oversight is unaccountable, given how exciting and advanced John’s records are, and how many singers and musicians cite him as a formative influence.

In fact, much of Whitall’s biography of the singer is built around the glowing testimony of his contemporaries, along with friends and family, just about all of who agree that Willie John was a preternaturally gifted singer and showman, a loving son and brother, dedicated father and husband, and a generous, easy going friend. Which isn’t to suggest that Whitall shies away from the less positive aspects of John’s career (his drug use, various affairs, and imprisonment) – but those issues are addressed gingerly, as if dwelling too long on whether cocaine and alleged heroin use might’ve exacerbated his epilepsy, or the effect of his seeing other women on his marriage would hamper the Little Willie John rehabilitation effort. On the one hand I understand the impulse completely—the tabloid-friendly aspects of an artist’s career too easily distort the narrative and draw attention away from their work. But the book suffers a bit from the absence of that perspective.

That said, Whitall makes hay with the paucity of archival information about her subject. Discovered at the age of fifteen, Willie’s career lasted only another fifteen years before he died at age 30, under mysterious circumstances while imprisoned. He recorded nine albums and dozens of singles in that time, but very little of the media that would give us a sense of who Willie was when he wasn’t in a recording booth (television and film appearances, radio interviews, etc.) or personal documents (letters, diaries, etc.) has survived. Whitall apparently made up for that lack with a remarkably thorough brace of interviews, piecing together the “real” Willie from recollections and remembrances. She goes as far a-field as interviewing Art Swanson, the prosecuting attorney for King County who tried Willie for second-degree murder (it turns out he was quite fond of Willie, and has some very specific criticisms of the defending attorney.) Its like biography based on gestalt theory—the subject is largely missing, but the context completes the picture for us.

Whitall’s prose is confident if not florid. She often defers to direct quotes when describing John’s music, but her own descriptions are quite evocative, as when she’s detailing “Fever,” Willie’s most enduring hit:

While the song is in a minor key, the combination of blues and jazz licks gives it an uptown, urbane feel. Willie, the veteran of so many Count Basie gigs, swings effortlessly with his voice, echoed by a bluesy backup chorus. Even the finger-snapping ends up adding to the charm, giving the recording a cool, late-night vibe.

Speaking of “Fever”: I found the book most interesting when it dug into the possible reasons for John’s relative obscurity despite being a major artist of his day, among them Peggy Lee’s well-known cover of that particular tune. The white man (or woman) who steals the blues is a well-worn critical archetype, but that doesn’t make it any less valid. Lee’s “Fever” has a permanent place in our cultural lexicon, advertising shorthand for slinky sexuality and available to sell everything from pudding to coffee filters; John’s original recording is superior, but little heard. But even more than that, the story of “Fever” gives me a more legitimate reason to root for Willie than taking his friends and family’s word for it that he was a nice guy.

In the dedication and acknowledgements page Kevin John, Willie’s oldest son, wrote for the book, he mentions “four wishes regarding [his] father’s musical legacy,” which include induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, wide release of Willie’s music, participating in a book about Willie’s life, and finally seeing that story told in film. He notes that all but the last have been accomplished, and hopes for the fourth. But Fever is so consumed with rounding off the corners of Willie’s life that it makes a poor movie pitch.

After years of reductive write-ups, there’s certainly a space for the John’s family and Susan Whitall’s take on Willie’s story, but I hope it isn’t the final word. In the wake of increased attention to his life and music, a more critical look at the subject would be more than welcome. I finished Fever really liking Little Willie John as a person and a musician, but I’m not sure I had much of a choice in the matter.

Recommendations: Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke – Peter Guralnick; James Brown: The Godfather of Soul – James Brown; One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture – Gerald Early

[A review copy was provided.]

Author: Deborah Baker

2011, Graywolf Press

Filed under: Biography, Nonfiction

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Deborah Baker’s The Convert is billed as a biography of Margaret Marcus, an American Jewish woman who became an influential voice in the radicalization of Islam and fueled the modern understanding of Jihad. Baker builds Convert on extensive (but not quite exhaustive) research, primary source material, and interviews with living key players.

Even so, it’s a stretch to suggest that Convert reads like a typical biography. Excluding notes and acknowledgement, the book checks in at a relatively slim 223 pages. Those pages are packed tight with information about Marcus and her new Pakistani environment. But in the end, those pages don’t possess a firm sense of the truth. Nor does it feel like the truth is entirely unknowable. In many ways, the absence of such a conclusion could make a biography feel hasty, as if the writer had simply given up on knowing her subject. In this case, The Convert takes an interesting turn: it becomes a clever and well-written meditation on the relationship between a writer and her subject.

Margaret Marcus was a bit of an oddball. She had a homely appearance, few if any friends, and an oversized obsession with the Arab world. She spent countless hours in the library researching Islam. After reaching the conclusion that her beliefs were more aligned what she had been reading than with her nearly faithless upbringing, she converted to Islam, and changed her name to Maryam Jameelah.

Among the many writers she encountered in the library was Manwala Abul Ala Mawdudi, a strict thinker who believe in Sharia Law. Maryam found commonalities between her notions and Mawdudi’s words, and initiated a correspondence. When she expressed her belief that she couldn’t live happily in the West as a practicing Muslim, Mawdudi invited her into his Pakistani home and adopted her as part of his family.

If the story above piques your interest, The Convert would be worth picking up. But don’t expect an easy read. The book is as much about Deborah Baker’s discovery of Maryam as it is about Maryam’s conversion and life in Pakistan. In a typical biography, the writer starts as an authority on her subject. But Baker begins The Convert as merely an intrigued researcher. As Baker’s research goes on, Maryam’s story become more complicated, and the truth more convoluted.

The emotional crux of The Convert lies in the lifespan of Baker’s infatuation for her subject. That infatuation is sown, buds, blossoms, withers, and dies throughout the course of the book. It is a compliment to Baker that, as readers, we experience that lifespan similarly.

As Baker’s relationship with Maryam unfolds, the book intersperses Maryam’s letters and writings with historical context and narrative analysis from Baker. The strength of Convert lies in that analysis. Take for instance Baker’s description of Maryam’s decision to emigrate:

To achieve something noteworthy and enduring with the few gifts God had provided her was her keenest desire. Only then would God realize that she had not squandered her life, dishonored her limited time on earth by meaningless pursuits or sinful behavior. She planned to give a good account of herself.

Not only is this great analysis of Maryam’s motivation, it foreshadows the discoveries Baker will make about Maryam’s letters.

In many ways, The Convert is not a complete or thorough biography. But I, for one, am glad it isn’t. There’s a lot of power in the ambiguity of Maryam Jameelah’s words. At the same time, there’s a distinct separation between the real Maryam Jameelah and the persona she presented in her writing. That separation was a maddening discovery for the biographer, and as a reader, I have to admit that it was jarring for me as well.

Yet, on numerous occasions since I’ve finished reading The Convert, I’ve found myself thinking about the strange life of Maryam Jameelah. Any admiration I might have had for Maryam is gone, as is most of my curiosity about her. Yet her words, words rooted in a conjured, false self-image, helped lay the foundation for many extremist attacks on the Western world  I’m trying to decide what that means, and how it affects the world we’ve lived in over the last ten years.

The Covnert isn’t the best book I’ve read, but it’s important, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Maryam Jameelah will continue to invade my thoughts often.

Similar reads: This is really unlike anything I have ever read, but the historical aspects made me think a little (for a nanosecond) about Steve Coll’s books. I haven’t read the book, but the movie Cobb leads me to believe that Al Stump’s biography of the same name contains a similarly tumultious relationship between writer and subject. For a more traditional Biography try Berg’s Max Perkins, Editor of Genius.

Author: Bob Mould

2011 Little, Brown

Filed under: Memoir

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If you aren’t familiar with Bob Mould, listen to Hüsker Dü’s cover of The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High”—the breathtaking speed, anger, and emotional muscularity of that performance will give you a good idea of the cultural shorthand that’s been attached to Mould’s name since the mid 80s. Not that he didn’t earn his reputation for peevishness and volatility honestly—he admits as much in this autobiography (note the subtitle: The Trail of Rage and Melody).

Mould and co-writer Michael Azerrad clearly haven’t set out to dispel the image of Mould as a temperamental rocker, but they do argue that the black-and-white image—a 21-year-old wailing his anger and frustration, throttling his guitar as he fronts a legendary post-punk band—that’s just one slide in the carousel. The Bob Mould of See A Little Light is candid and self-effacing, and eager to come to terms with his every incarnation. In fact, Light has more in common with Mould’s songwriting, which is often aggressive but just as likely to be tender and vulnerable.

The book’s principle arc concerns Mould’s sexuality, particularly his transition from a closeted gay man in the sometimes socially non-progressive indie music scene to a very public and very active member of the gay community who also happens to be a musician. And while sexuality isn’t the lens through which every chapter of Mould’s life is addressed, he does continually return to the question of whether being a bit closed off and sometimes militantly private affected the way he behaved as a member of Hüsker Dü, or his reaction to friend and manager David Savoy’s suicide, or even the success of his second band, Sugar. So it makes sense that the reading becomes far breezier about three quarters of the way through, when, following his public outing in a Spin Magazine interview and the dissolution of a long-term relationship, Mould chooses to enter fully into the gay community and begins leading a happier, more productive life. His narrative voice becomes lighter, and he tells more stories but with less detail, as if the years since that transition are pleasant enough that extra scrutiny or investigation doesn’t feel as necessary. That isn’t to say that the last few chapters aren’t still interesting, but just that the stakes feel lower, more like a genial conversation than a drive toward the end of a story.

But Mould hasn’t sanded off all of his corners and become just another elder of the indie world, and his cutting intellect is nowhere more evident than in his matter-of-fact assessment of the discord within and dissolution of Hüsker Dü. The acrimony that ended that band is well documented by music writers and historians elsewhere (including co-author Michael Azerrad’s excellent Our Band Could Be Your Life) so the details of the break-up aren’t new. Still, it’s exciting in a voyeuristic way to read Mould’s take on the conversation in drummer Grant Hart’s kitchen that ended the band, to find that twenty-three years later his contempt and disappointment haven’t abated, even if he’s matured beyond active participation in a feud.

Maybe it reflects poorly on me as a reader and a fan that I responded better to the sections where Mould revisits those beds of emotional quicksand than the pleasant denoument, but I think it also speaks to the nature of autobiography and memoir. We know that Bob Mould turns out okay in the end, not only because his foreward says so, but because he’s written the book in the first place, so any dramatic tension is replaced by a desire to see just how low the lows got.

That said, I do think Mould succeeds in creating a multifaceted narrative voice in See A Little Light, moving between introspection and exposition with ease, never straying too far into the twin pitfalls of overly frothy humor and melodrama. I particularly enjoyed the chapter detailing his brief stint with the creative team behind World Championship Wrestling, a career detour that only seems odd if you don’t also know that Mould’s wrestling fandom dates back to his childhood. He doesn’t narrate those sections any differently than he does, say, the passages on recording Copper Blue or touring with Hüsker Dü; the light bits get a touch of humor, and the serious bits are analyzed and plumbed for meaning.

It’s that evenness of approach that sells Mould’s thesis—if disproportionate space were given over to the Hüsker Dü years, or his solo work, it would be harder to buy the idea that all of his various identities are important—but it also leaves the reading a little flat, particularly when delving into the creative process. Mould does discuss his songwriting and reveals some of the stories and experiences that inform specific songs, but much of the discussion of writing feels too vague. Maybe preserving some of the mystery of the creative process is good, but it feels like an oversight, particularly juxtaposed with the dozens of pages dedicated to various tours that start to feel a bit redundant.

My favorite chapter of Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life deals with Hüsker Dü, but it always felt unfinished—Azerrad ends the chapter just after the band signed to Warner Brothers and then imploded, but abandons narratives about the individual band members, particularly Mould and his sexuality, that made the chapter more interesting and relatable than those covering other bands. See A Little Light takes that thread and follows it backwards and forwards, showing where it frays, becomes knotted, loops back around on itself, and eventually binds with others.

Similar reads: Our Band Could Be Your Life, by Michael Azerrad; Deflowered, by Jon Ginoli; Rip It Up and Start Again by Simon Reynolds

[A review copy was provided.]

Author: Wilfred Santiago

2011, Fantagraphics Books

Filed under: Graphic Novel, Nonfiction, Biography

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My father loved baseball. When I was young, he told me stories of his favorite players as if they were superheroes. He held none in higher esteem than Roberto Clemente. As a result, I believed Roberto Clemente had superpowers. I believed he floated through the outfield and flew between the base paths. I believed the ball exploded off of his bat and that he had a cannon for an arm.

In the years since, I have read as much about Clemente as possible. And while each article or book reinforced my belief that Clemente was both an incredible ballplayer and incredible human being, none of them seemed to satisfy the childhood fascination I had for him. I should have known, given the superhero aspects of the image in my head, that I needed a comic book. With his graphic novel, 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente, Wilfred Santiago delivered exactly what I’ve been waiting for.

Take, for instance, one of the book’s first pages:

The way his feet barely touch the ground, the way the ball blasts from his arm, the eyes on his fingers, this finally is the Roberto Clemente I imagined as a child.

21 will tell you the same stories as any other good Clemente biography. It covers his underprivileged childhood and caring family in Puerto Rico. It shows his natural prowess for the game of baseball, how he was the player scouts have in mind when they say a guy has “five tools.”

The book shows the anomalies of Clemente’s life, too, anomalies that added to his superhuman mystique. It shows how fans hated him for the seemingly cocky answers he gave in press conferences, yet consistently voted him their favorite Pirate. The narrative is bookended by the story of Clemente’s 3000th hit, baseball’s magic number, which came on a double in the final at-bat of Clemente’s career. It shows how he was a hero off the field as well, an ever-caring humanitarian who died when his plane crashed while taking relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.

Yet, if you know nothing about Roberto Clemente, I wouldn’t recommend picking up this book by itself. While the art does a fantastic job of telling most of the story, too much is subtly implied. I wonder, had I not known of Clemente’s somewhat tumultuous relationship with the media and fans, whether this book alone would’ve satisfied me. Perhaps long-time readers of graphic novels can infer the full story just from the artwork, but for traditional book readers looking for the whole Clemente story, I’d suggest reading 21 along with David Maraniss’s biography, Clemente.

This book’s contribution to the Clemente oeuvre is clearly in the artwork, and not just the superhero aspect of it. The brownish-green hue captures the agrarian nature of Clemente’s Puerto Rican childhood. Black and gold do the same for industrial Pittsburgh. And throughout the whole book is a sepia background, as if the pages are soaked in nostalgia.

I guarantee this book will be on my shelf for a long time, and that occasionally I will pick it up just to get lost in the artwork. Then one day, when I have children who are of reading age, I will put it on their bookshelf, hoping they will eventually ask me about it so that I can tell them stories about a superhero named Roberto.

Similar reads: Clemente, by David Marniss; The Team That Changed Baseball, by Bruce Markusen. For other excellent nonfiction graphic novels, check out Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.

The campaign is organized for the second time by Eco-Libris, a green company working to make reading more sustainable. We invite you to join the discussion on "green" books and support books printed in an eco-friendly manner! A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.]

Author: Holger Jorgensen and Jean Lester

2008, Ester Republic Press

Filed Under: Nonfiction, Biography, Short-Run

Holger Jorgensen is apparently a known name in Alaska. He is half-white, half-Native (Eskimo), and over his career accumulated–by his own estimate–about 35,000 hours in a variety of planes. Which is a lot. Alaska as Jorgy describes it was a bit of a frontier, with long stretches of tundra and wilderness connecting villages and small mines. This book is full of anecdotes told by the venerable pilot, and they combine to create an interesting depiction of Alaska’s development during the 20th century.

Jorgy’s tales are interesting, especially if you’re into planes. I’m not really, but I found a lot to like, especially when he details the difference between different plane models, and how he handled them differently in the cockpit.  Some of the stories touch on historical and cultural relevance. I found the stories of his boyhood as a half-native living with a native mother to be some of the best parts in the book. Well, except for this story about a flight full of reindeer, which is the craziest thing I’ve read in a while (the quote’s a bit long, but trust me, it’s worth it):

All of a sudden at about 2,500 feet, a couple of hooves appeared on the pedestal, knocking the mixtures and throttle and props all out of sync. We’ve got a four-legged visitor…So right away Warren grabbed his .357 magnum handgun that he had there. I said, “No, you can’t use that. We can’t do any shooting in here, we might shoot a fuel line, an oil line, or a hydraulic line. We can’t do that.” I had my hunting knife with me and I handed it to him and told him he was going to have to slit the animal’s throat. He gave me a kind of sorry look and said, “I can’t do that” I said, “You better if you want to stay alive. There are six or seven right behind this one and if they start coming in here you start slitting throats.” Right away he decided he would rather live than die, so he slit the throat of the reindeer and hot blood shot all over. Now we/ve got blood all up in the cockpit freezing into the instrument panel, blood all over me,blood all over him. He did a good job on slitting the reindeer’s throat, it dropped right to the floor after shooting two gallons of blood all over…It is not often reindeer are hauled on airplanes and when we landed at Goose Bay on the north shore of Cook Inlet, lo and behold here is Channel 2 TV station with all of their cameras waiting to get on board. I said, “We can’t let them on board. We’ve got a dead reindeer up here and we’ve got blood all over everything.”

Unfortunately, the book has little  structure, and less background. Lester takes the anecdotes dictated to her and sorts them by subject (Fire at Galbraith Lake, Working for the State, UFOs) rather than following any chronology.  Time flits about too much here, and thus it’s hard to piece a timeline together. At times, this allows some things to be skipped over without nearly enough attention. The most glaring example? Jorgy tells us that he sometimes went on three-day benders, and his alcoholism was severe and lasted took ten years of his life. That seems like a pretty big deal for a book about a pilot, but it only gets two pages and a few off-handed mentions. In evading sore subjects, this becomes less a biography than it is a rap session or extended interview.

On that note, I wish this book had told me what the hell makes Jorgy so legendary in the first place. He’s from Alaska; he put a lot of hours into flying; he oversaw several different eras of aviation in Alaska. But he drops a lot of names in the book, and some would seem to have had similar accomplishments. Is it because he’s half-native that he’s deserving of a book and they aren’t? Racism is touched upon in here, but I was never led to believe it was very grave, mainly because it never proved an impediment to Jorgy. So the occasion for the book is unclear. Jorgy dictated the chapters through interviews, and it makes sense that he doesn’t contextualize himself, as he seems rather humble, but Lester could certainly have done a better job setting the stage for the biography. Each chapter does have an epigraph or prologue somewhat relevant to the topic at hand, but they all lean toward character testimonials, and rarely–if ever–present any facts about what he did worth remembering.

I should note, there are pictures included in this text, which is laid out in an attractive way to accommodate them and the occasional footnote. It’s not the most economical typesetting though, so while it’s good they used recycled paper to bind this, a lot of space (and paper) is wasted. There are a few too many family photos, but most of the pictures offer some relation to whatever topic is being discussed, like, say a DC-3. The settings and backgrounds were my favorite part, because the sparse Alaskan wilderness is unlike anything else I’ve seen.

Jorgy is an enjoyable book, and it’s perfect for Alaskan schoolchildren, and anyone into aviation history or trivia. It’s not really a pick-up-and-read-at-Borders affair, but if you are the type to pick up a book like this, you won’t be wasting your time.

Similar Reads: Max Perkins, Editor of Genius (Berg)

1993, Viking Penguin

Filed Under: Literary, Biography, Nonfiction

When a friend of mine gave me an English translation of the autobiography of Reinaldo Arenas, Before Nights Falls, he insisted that the book was an effortless and riveting read–which was precisely the case. I finished reading the book as early as I could despite a couple of deadlines in my office and my one-year-old son going berserk.

The book is eminently readable and Arenas pins down the reader right from the word go. “The End.” This is how the book starts. He was sure in 1987 that he would die very soon but managed to survive although he had no medical insurance. He had to finish his Pentagonia and his memoirs before the night of death fell upon him.

Arenas’s father had abandoned his mother after only three months of marriage, something fairly common in Cuba in that era. He grew up in abject poverty, eating dirt and learning to hate his father. One day when he was six, he saw some boys of the neighborhood jumping in the river. The next day he masturbated for the first time. Life in the country was close to nature and therefore close to sexuality. Hens, goats, sows, mares, dogs, and even trees were used to satisfy his huge and eccentric sexual appetite during his boyhood. But the first time he went to a whore he was unable to have an erection. According to his own careful estimate, Arenas had fucked 5000 men by 1968.

Arenas tells us about Fulgencio Batista, who came to power in 1952, and how under him the Cuban economy deteriorated. His grandfather, whose testicles he admired, sold his farm and shifted to a small house. The features of Arenas’s writing which strike me the most are his wit, his sense of humor, and the self-deprecating irony.

BNF busts the myths associated with Fidel Castro’s “revolution.” Arenas had joined the rebels at the age of fourteen. In December of 1958, Batista left Cuba to the surprise of the rebels and even Castro. According to Arenas, Castro won the battle which was never fought. Soon after Castro took over, homosexuality was banned in Cuba. Arenas was sixteen at that time and had been given a scholarship by Castro’s government to study in a polytechnic institute which was, in fact, a communist indoctrination center. Interestingly, it was mandatory in the school to do a certain number of climbs of Sierra Maestra, the place where Castro hid until Batista had fled, in order to get qualified. Six to qualify as an agricultural accountant and twenty-five as a diplomat. One ruthless dictatorship had been replaced by another. Castro forced the young Cubans to work in sugar-cane fields with the aim of producing 10 million tons of sugar. No one was allowed to leave the fields and if someone left to meet family on the weekends, he would be awarded 20 or 30 years of imprisonment.

Arenas started writing in 1963 and his first short story was able to impress the jury of a competition held in his school. Soon after he was transferred to the National Library where was able to read and write. But the corruption and nepotism of Castro’s communist regime removed the honest founder-director of the library, Maria Teresa, and all the books on ‘ideological diversionism’ and on homosexuality disappeared. Although Arenas was not able to publish any novels he won quite a few literary awards thanks to the influence of one of his lovers, Rafael Arnes.

Arenas’s world is one that is subversively homosexual, at least this is how it appears from his narrative. Many Cuban poets and writers including Virgilio Pinera and Lezema Lima were also gay. These intellectuals were not only marginalized for their homosexuality but also for their integrity against succumbing to the communist regime. Castro’s government destroyed writers “in two ways: by persecuting them or by showering them with official favors.”

Arenas smuggled his novels out of Cuba with the help of foreign friends who had them translated and published in France. The Ill-Fated Peregrinations of Fray Servando was very successful in France and shared first prize as the best foreign novel with One Hundred Years of Solitude by Garcia Marquez (whom he disliked for his association with Castro). In 1969, State Security started harassing him. They wanted to know how he was able to smuggle his manuscripts out of Cuba. He tried to defect through the US naval base in Guantanamo, but made a mistake of informing one of his friends about his adventure. His friend informed the police and he was arrested. He fled from the jail and tried to leave the country by swimming but again failed. Even his attempts to commit suicide failed. He was once again arrested from a park where he was busy reading Illiad. He was released in 1976 after confessing he was a counterrevolutionary and denouncing all his earlier works. That way he lost perhaps his greatest companion, his pride.

Arenas was finally able to leave Cuba in 1980 during the Mariel boatlift by tampering his name on his passport. (Remember the start of the 1983 movie Scarface?) He lived for some time in Florida and taught Cuban poetry in the International University of Florida. On 31 December, 1980, he moved to New York. He committed suicide ten years later. The publishers who had made millions out of his books refused to pay him a single penny.

BNF is all about being absolutely free and honest. Such samples of irreverence, iconoclasm, cynicism, and liberty are very rare.

Similar reads: Arenas’s Pentagonia is considered to be a secret history of Cuba after Castro’s revolution and includes five novels which have been translated into English. Singing from the Well, Palace of White Skunks, Farewell to the Sea, The Color of Summer, and The Assault.