The Prairie Fire by Larry Sweazy – Selection 4 of #DealMeIn2020

January 29, 2020 at 6:55 pm (Uncategorized)
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The Card: ♥Ace♥ of Hearts.

The Suit: For Deal Me In 2020, ♥♥♥Hearts♥♥♥ is my Suit for Books I picked up at the 2019 Holiday Author Fair a the Indiana History Center. This week’s selection is by one of the authors I met at the fair.

The Author: Larry Sweazy – see his web site page listing his short story output at http://www.larrydsweazy.com/short-stories.html He also had a story in the “Indy Writes Books” anthology that this blog was a proud “first edition sponsor” of a few years back.

The Story: “The Prairie Fire” from the anthology “The Trading Post and Other Frontier Stories.” Four from this anthology are in my Deal Me In 2020 plans. Sweazy was quoted in “Current Publishing” saying that “This story is the first frontier-based short story I’ve published in several years. This anthology features stories by some talented writers and good friends.”

BUT…what is Deal Me In? I’m glad you asked!  Full details may be found here  but generally speaking it’s a reading challenge where participants try to read one short story a week for the year, the reading order being determined by the luck of the draw. See here for the list I’ll be reading in 2020. 

The Prairie Fire

“The burial would occur the next morning as the sun ate away at the darkness. It was The Between Time: when the sun, the moon, and the stars shared the sky with their wonder and knowledge. Naxke’s people believed it was an opening, a spirit path to travel safely.”

I like stories featuring Native Americans and especially so if those characters speak in an authentic way. How would I know what is an “authentic” way? I guess I don’t, so maybe what I mean is they’re speaking how I imagine they would. How I formed that imagination might be hard to track down. Probably from tv and movies, I’d have to admit…

This story begins with an Indian woman, Naxke, anxiously awaiting the return of her husband, Kitha, who was never late to an arranged meeting time with his wife. Her  sister, Seke, comes to comfort her (maybe?) and they speculate on what might have happened. None of the possibilities are good, however, and sure enough, the chief’s son Tu-Co-Han shows up with the news that Kitha is dead (or, as death is described in the story, “Kitha no longer walked in this world”), probably at the hands of a fur trader, Galligan, who has been captured.

Naxke is immediately suspicious of Tu-Co-Han, who is a rival of Kitha’s in regards to who will be the next chief.  That evening after “… night had completely fallen. The sky was full of silver beads on the black cloth of forever,” there is a council among the tribe to decide what to do – a kind of trial if you will – where, at first at least “…no one spoke a word, only the fire had a voice, and it only offered short snaps and pops from green wood.” When reading this passage, I have to tell you that I felt like I was in that wigwam, with the fire warming my feet and crossed legs as the arguments were made.

What will happen regarding the future of the tribe and the fate of Galligan – or Tu-Co-Han – I won’t betray for fear of writing “spoiler alert!” but the story has the feel that it’s not just the fate of the characters in the story at stake but the future course of the tribe’s way of life as the westward expansion of The White Man continues to put pressure on the native inhabitants. If you are interested in this anthology, it may be found at Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Trading-Post-Other-Frontier-Stories/dp/1432845055

I enjoyed the story a lot and in particular some of the language I’ve quoted above.

(Below: I like when the author of a story in an anthology signs the title page of his particular story in the book instead of in the front… 🙂 )

What about you? Have you read any good “Frontier” stories or stories involving Native Americans? What are some of your favorites?

Next up in Deal Me In 2020: Ray Boomhower’s A Woman of the Limberlost (Gene Stratton Porter) from Indiana Originals

♪♫♪♫ Personal Notes:

My prairie memories are from lengthy summer camping trips as a child, tv and movies and a College Ecology class multi-day field trip “in the 80s” where we visited the easternmost original prairie remnant in the United States. We also visited the Ridgetop Hill Preserve near Eureka College in Illinois (also notable as the alma mater of President Ronald Reagan). Then, in 2002, on a trip out West, I stopped in Hays, Kansas at the Fort Hays Historic Site that looked remarkably “Dances With Wolves-y” to me at the time.  Also, in 1978, my family camped one night at Prairie Dog State Park in Kansas. I only remember this because overnight the winds became so violent and strong that we ended up breaking down our pop-up camper and hitting the road at 4 a.m. in fear of it being blown over by the winds!

Below: Prairie Dog State Park and its rather desolate campground.

prairie_dog

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Ridgetop Hill Nature Preserve in Illinois. Site of an overnight field trip in the Ancient (personal) History of this blogger!

ridgetop hill prairie

 

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A Voyage Against War (May Wright Sewell and the Ford Peace Ship) by Ray Boomhower – selection 3 of #DealMeIn2020

January 19, 2020 at 5:15 pm (Uncategorized)
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The Card: ♥Nine♥ of Hearts.

The Suit: For Deal Me In 2020, ♥♥♥Hearts♥♥♥ is my Suit for Books I picked up at the 2019 Holiday Author Fair a the Indiana History Center. This suit is also the only suit where I have  some short non-fiction pieces (4 of them). This is one of them.

The Author: Ray Boomhower – a prolific author of books about all things Indiana, particularly history and biographies. I’ve read several of his books in the past, biographies of Gus Grissom, General Lew Wallace, and Ernie Pyle.

The Story: “A Voyage Against War (May Wright Sewall and the Ford Peace Ship)” from Boomhower’s book “Indiana Originals,” which contains essays about 40 luminaries of the Hoosier state. For Deal Me In 2020, I picked four of the stories that were about famous Indiana Women.

What is Deal Me In? I’m glad you asked!  Full details may be found here  but generally speaking it’s a reading challenge where participants try to read one short story a week for the year, the reading order being determined by the luck of the draw. See here for the list I’ll be reading in 2020.

A Voyage Against War (May Wright Sewall and the Ford Peace Ship)

 “I was particularly interested in the university students,” she said, “who, although it was their holiday week, called in great numbers. I was amazed by both the intelligence,and by the lively interest in serious subjects of these young people, whom I was mentally comparing with my young countrymen and countrywomen of student age to the distinct advantage of the latter.”

I like it when my Deal Me In reading leads me to learning new things. Last week, it was the discovery of Russian Mathematician, Sophia Kovalevsky. This week, I learned about the “Ford Peace Ship” (I don’t recall knowing about it before, unless it was one of those cases of hearing about something in passing and not remembering). Organized by automaker Henry Ford and including roughly 60 delegates he invited, the Peace Ship (the Scandinavian-American Line’s “S.S. Oscar II” pictured at left) was an effort to strengthen the dialogue for peace and help move Europe – embroiled in war between the Allied powers and the Central powers – toward ending World War I (which the U.S. hadn’t even entered by the time the voyage took place). When reading about this event, I admit my first thought was, “Well, that’s certainly a naive enterprise!” and you can imagine that many of their contemporaries saw the voyage as a waste of time (see also, for example, the political cartoons at the bottom of this post).

The voyage first stopped in Oslo, but spent considerable time in Stockholm, where they had apparently a busy schedule, and later the Netherlands.  I’m not sure if the voyage can be counted a success in tangible measures, but Wright Sewall and others disagreed, saying “To have advanced its (peace’s) arrival by one hour is adequate compensation for the the cost in money, time and sacrifices of the the Expedition if multiplied a thousandfold.” I think their best success probably was in “initiating dialog” and so forth, which regrettably often moves change forward more slowly than other factors.

What about you? Had you heard of this episode of early 20th Century U.S. History? If YOU could dispatch a ship on a Peace Voyage today, for what destination would you set its course? It just occurred to me that perhaps young climate activist Greta Thunberg’s recent voyage is a kind of a modern day Peace Voyage. What do you think?

Deal Me In Coincidence of the Week? This week marked my home state of Indiana’s 100th Anniversary of Women (finally!) gaining the right to vote – another cause which May Wright Sewall was deeply involved in.

Next week for Deal Me In 2020 – Larry Sweazy’s “The Prairie Fire”

Below: The subject of this essay also helped found the Indianapolis Propylaeum, about a 30-minute walk from Deal Me In Headquarters. (I was going to walk over there today and take a picture, but with sub-zero wind chills this morning, I found a google image instead 🙂 )

During my internet ‘research’ for this post, I also stumbled upon this puzzle, which I now want. 🙂 (Suffrage puzzle sold by Uncommon Goods.) 

Below: Henry Ford. Unfortunately, poor health led him to turn around and come home just after the peace ship reached Europe. 

If I investigate this event in history further, it may be via reading the book below:

Political cartoonists had a field day with the voyage, seeing what they believed to be an easy target for ridicule.

 

 

 

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Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro – Selection 2 of #DealMeIn2020

January 12, 2020 at 5:00 pm (Uncategorized)
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The Card: ♦King♦ of Diamonds. (image from Pinterest)

The Suit: For Deal Me In 2020, ♦♦♦Diamonds♦♦♦ is my Suit for “Favorite Female Authors,” and I’m reading from three collections – Margaret Atwood’s “Dancing Girls,” Daphne Du Maurier’s “The Birds and Other Stories,” and Alice Munro’s “Too Much Happiness”

The Author: Alice Munro (one of the world’s most acclaimed short story writers). I’ve blogged about a few stories of hers before, some as part of prior years’ Deal Me In: “Amundsen“, “Some Women“, “Axis“, and “Menesetung.” I liked all of them but Axis may have been my favorite. Picture from nobelprize.org. Yeah, she won one of those for literature. 🙂

The Story: “Too Much Happiness” from her short story collection of the same name. I own a kindle version, er, “license” of this book. I had originally intended to read 4 novella-length “short stories” for Deal Me In this year, assigning them to the nines in my short story deck (‘it’s “Nine for Novella” this week at Deal Me In’ blah blah blah) , but in the end I only included two.

What is Deal Me In? I’m glad you asked!  Full details may be found here  but generally speaking it’s a reading challenge where participants try to read one short story a week for the year, the reading order being determined by the luck of the draw. See here for the list I’ll be reading in 2020.

Too Much Happiness

“Always remember that when a man goes out of the room, he leaves everything in it behind,” her friend Marie Mendelson has told her. “When a woman goes out she carries everything that happened in the room along with her.”

Witty quotations like the above point out that there may be, of course, differences between men and women in the way they view the world or think or act. But, where there shouldn’t be differences is in regards to the amount of opportunity available to either sex. This nearly novella length story led me down a rabbit hole of discovery, learning about “the most famous woman scientist before the 20th century,” Sophia Kovalevskaya (pictured below), who struggled against the prejudices of her time, yet achieved much in her too-short life.

I’ve been a fan of Alice Munro for a long time and haven’t read a bad story by her yet. I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t heard of Sophia Kovalevsky before this year (See the Wikipedia page about Kovalevskaya at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofya_Kovalevskaya). I also wish I had known the historical background for story before I started reading, since by hopping around and using flashbacks I was left a little confused. What still shone through, however,  was the story of an exceptional woman who, through her determination, began to blaze a trail that many others would follow – and are still following today (Even now, I am often reading or hearing about the under-representation of women in the STEM fields). Her resolve in the face of the obstacles of her time should be inspiring to all, women and men.

Another quotation from the story which I found interesting was the following (and my kindle tells me it has been highlighted by a great many of the book’s readers):

“She was learning, quite late, what many people around her appeared to have known since childhood – that life can be perfectly satisfying without major achievements. It could be brimful of occupations which did not weary you to the bone. Acquiring what you needed for a comfortably furnished life, and then to take on a social and public life of entertainment, would keep you from even being bored or idle, and would make you feel at the end of the day that you had done exactly what pleased everybody. There need be no agonizing.

For my part, however, I almost feel that those born with a special talent cannot find solace in this approach, since that very talent almost demands of them that they “see it through.” I think that Sophia is driven in this way.

Here’s a copy of Munro’s acknowledgements page about this story, screenshotted from my kindle app. I always enjoy reading about the genesis of stories…

munro

I couldn’t find this story available online anywhere, but if you’re a Munro fan, the book is worth picking up. I was also inspired by this reading to update my donation via amazon.smile for 2020 to the Association of Women in Mathematics. Why not do the same? See this link to point you where to go https://awm-math.org/

What about you? Had you heard of this woman before? (Be honest)  This week’s “Deal Me In Coincidence?” (almost) – Kovalevsky’s birthday is January 15th. Just missed it by a few days. 🙂

Next up for Deal Me In 2020: Ray Boomhower’s “A Voyage Against War (May Wright Sweall and the Ford Peace Ship)”

You know when you’ve made it onto a Soviet stamp, you’re a pretty big deal in the C.C.C.P!

Below: A serene final resting place for a brilliant mind…

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The Actress by Agatha Christie – Selection 1 of #DealMeIn2020

January 5, 2020 at 10:30 am (Uncategorized)
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The Card: ♠Five♠ of Spades (image found on Pinterest) 

The Suit: For Deal Me In 2020, ♠♠♠Spades♠♠♠ is my Suit for “darker” stories.  Loosely defined this year as Science Fiction, Mysteries, and those from an Alfred Hitchcock anthology.

The Author: Agatha Christie (you may have heard of her 🙂). I actually haven’t read THAT much by her. One of my book clubs read her classic mystery “And Then There Were None” (a.k.a. Ten Little Indians, which was how a paperback version I read when I was a school kid was titled), and I also blogged about a good short story of hers titled “The Red Signal.” I also remember once Christie was an answer to a “trivia night” question at a local pub I frequent. Something about ‘the English language author who has sold the most books of all time” (I didn’t fact check afterward, but I guess that wouldn’t surprise me.) Photo of a young Agatha found at Wikipedia)

The Story: “The Actress” from her short story collection “The Harlequin Tea Set and other Stories” which I own a kindle version of.

What is Deal Me In? I’m glad you asked!  Full details may be found here  but generally speaking it’s a reading challenge where participants try to read one short story a week for the year, the reading order being determined by the luck of the draw. See here for the list I’ll be reading in 2020.

The Actress

“Her faint, derisive smile was answer enough. Beneath her self-control, though he did not guess it, was the impatience of the keen brain watching a slower brain laboriously cover the ground it had already traversed in a flash.”

I am not necessarily a believer in “luck” or coincidences, but I freely admit to being an entertained observer of their seeming manifestations. Part of the appeal to me of the Deal Me In challenge is the luck of the draw – i.e., why did I draw this particular card for this particular week? (I know the true answer is random chance, but I like to speculate otherwise). Though I thoroughly enjoyed this week’s story, it’s certainly not as deep or thought-provoking as many on my 2020 roster will hopefully be. Yet, I thought it was a perfect story to get me “warmed up” for a new year of Deal Me In. It has the qualities which I’ve admired in other Agatha Christie stories – a tidy, compact rendering with nothing superfluous and everything in its place. I suppose an acclaimed writer of mysteries would find such a style helpful.

This story was first published under a different title – “A Trap for the Unwary” in The Novel Magazine in 1923. I’m not sure when or why its name was changed – perhaps before its inclusion in other collections. Whatever the reason, though, I applaud the change, as the protagonist gets the main billing, which she richly deserves…

Olga Stormer is a stage actress in the process of making a name for herself. We join her in this story as she is “adding yet another triumph to her list of successes as “Cora,” in The Avenging Angel.” Not much of a story yet, though, right? What if I told you Olga Stormer is not her real name (that name would be the plain-sounding “Nancy Taylor”), but that’s still not quite a story, right? I mean many performers take stage names, and one must admit that “Olga Stormer” fires the imagination a little more than “Nancy Taylor.” BUT this character didn’t change her name for her career, she changed it when she went on the run after an incident in her past. A pretty serious incident, actually. When she was a “half-starved little gutter waif,” she says, she “shot a man, a beast of a man who deserved to be shot. The circumstances under which I killed him were such that no jury on earth would have convicted me.” When it happened though, she was “only a frightened kid” and thus ran and has been fleeing her past ever since.

We join the story as a man from her past intrudes upon her present, threatening to reveal her sordid history to her “public” thus ruining her if he is not paid. She discusses how to deal with the threat with her manager (the quotation above is from her interaction with him) and the solution that she comes up with is worth an Academy Award. In which category I’m not sure as it seems she’d be eligible for several. Olga’s execution of her “defense strategy” was clean and seamless and, thus, also entertaining.

What about YOU? Are you an Agatha Christie fan? Are there other short stories of hers that you would recommend? What about mysteries in general? What is your favorite short story mystery?

Next week on #DealMeIn2020: Alice Munro’s “Too Much Happiness”

 

 

 

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