Maybe I was incapable of helping anyone anyhow
November 1, 2023 3:39 AM Subscribe
Everything was going as it had to and therefore as it should. What could I do about it? I got into bed and watched the sleet strike my window, grateful to be inside for a while longer. Then I thought some more about Jesse’s blanket. That way I could add another paragraph to this essay, and maybe earn an extra fifty cents. from Four Men by William T Vollman, about homelessness, alcoholism and the death of his daughter. [Harper’s; ungated]
Goddamn.
posted by PussKillian at 9:19 AM on November 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by PussKillian at 9:19 AM on November 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
Back and forth on this one. On the one hand, a substantive point that is not new and that, from my understanding of his prior journalistic work, he seems to be coming to rather late with the (unfortunately annoying) fervor of the recent convert; on the other, certainly a compelling depiction of the condition in which everywhere your mind lands, it's unbearable to be, and no kinship to be felt with anyone. I guess I wish it was fiction, and not merely out of compassion for the loss at the center of it.
Because I haven't read any of his other journalistic work, I'm not sure whether he's writing like Herman Melville as a stylistic tactic here or whether he always writes this way in his nonfiction, in which case...whew.
Thanks for posting.
posted by praemunire at 12:03 PM on November 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
Because I haven't read any of his other journalistic work, I'm not sure whether he's writing like Herman Melville as a stylistic tactic here or whether he always writes this way in his nonfiction, in which case...whew.
Thanks for posting.
posted by praemunire at 12:03 PM on November 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
Don't believe I've read any other of his writings but the setup for this one is intriguing, as I know the area. If you ever take Amtrak to Reno, you will, too. Downtown has one big classy casino: three, actually, but Circus Circus, the Silver Legacy and the Eldorado all share the same three-block complex, ("The Row") which you can walk to, from the train station. Go the other direction, however, towards the river, and you wind up at the Cal Neva, as the author did, many times; and it's a real step down. I wonder where he was staying, that he had such easy street access... possibly an AirB&B.
posted by Rash at 2:48 PM on November 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Rash at 2:48 PM on November 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
I've read a lot of Vollman, and he has always seemed as much a participant in the underbelly of our world as an observer of it. I've wondered how he manages the time and discipline to research and write doorstops like most of the Seven Dreams. He's never been a fan of abridgement or over-editing from what I've seen, so there is surely more to the story with his publisher than he shared in this essay.
I feel for him though, viewing his entire journalistic career through the lens of his grief and the guilt he feels for being unable to do the undoable. I hope he can find peace, or can even find the will to seek peace. The loss of a child is just the worst.
posted by OHenryPacey at 2:51 PM on November 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
I feel for him though, viewing his entire journalistic career through the lens of his grief and the guilt he feels for being unable to do the undoable. I hope he can find peace, or can even find the will to seek peace. The loss of a child is just the worst.
posted by OHenryPacey at 2:51 PM on November 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
Speaking of that, Tristram Shandy famously wasn't born until volume III of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, so he has precedent.
posted by praemunire at 5:46 PM on November 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by praemunire at 5:46 PM on November 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
It was late dusk, and the temperature was most definitely below freezing. Out I went. Sitting in the doorway, with his beautiful golden-red hair and beard and mustache lending him the part of some ancient Celtic hero and his face sodden with sweat, rain, or tears, a soft-spoken man assured me that he needed nothing and was not afraid. I think he was religious.
The man can write.
It's absolutely beautiful. He's no more writing about sleazy bars and broken men with wet, dirty blankets, this is written in the mirror. Not a fun-house mirror, where what you see is misshapen by twists in the glass, it's a straight piece of glass, the reflection is true, what is misshapen and twisted is him, an accurate image.
My nephew died seven years ago, a bit later November than we are now. Christopher. Alcoholism. 44 years old. That phone call, 8 AM, it was like getting hit by a car. We'd spoken most every night, the last year of his life. He was my favorite family member. We were so much alike; he called me "My brother from my mothers mother." Both of us manic depression. Both of us alcoholic, one of us given the gift of a sober life."Chris, you're going to die. You're dying, truth be told. Grab hold of this, there's a way out."
Mostly he caught me on my bike ride, I let it go to voicemail, get to my favorite bench -- "The Sunset Bench" -- dump my bike and my pack and sprawl on that bench, call him back, watching the sun set over the river as we talked -- it really is a beautiful place -- and I'd, tell him the dirtiest joke I know of, and he told me one, and I'm sprawled and sweating and we're talking it out. I gave him everything I know to give, plus some more, too.
Alcoholism doesn't give a fuck. It'll take you when it can. I'm supposed to know better. I *do* know better. But it's never going to happen in your family. Denial -- Don't Even Notice I Am Lying.
It's broken my oldest sister. Always she was reading a book, always on the move -- you should see some of the glass work she did, stained glass, gorgeous things. Now -- no books. No movies. She sits in the light of a beautiful room. Broken.
Thanks for posting this. Beautiful writing, a subject he knows from the inside out.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:01 PM on November 1, 2023 [17 favorites]
The man can write.
It's absolutely beautiful. He's no more writing about sleazy bars and broken men with wet, dirty blankets, this is written in the mirror. Not a fun-house mirror, where what you see is misshapen by twists in the glass, it's a straight piece of glass, the reflection is true, what is misshapen and twisted is him, an accurate image.
My nephew died seven years ago, a bit later November than we are now. Christopher. Alcoholism. 44 years old. That phone call, 8 AM, it was like getting hit by a car. We'd spoken most every night, the last year of his life. He was my favorite family member. We were so much alike; he called me "My brother from my mothers mother." Both of us manic depression. Both of us alcoholic, one of us given the gift of a sober life."Chris, you're going to die. You're dying, truth be told. Grab hold of this, there's a way out."
Mostly he caught me on my bike ride, I let it go to voicemail, get to my favorite bench -- "The Sunset Bench" -- dump my bike and my pack and sprawl on that bench, call him back, watching the sun set over the river as we talked -- it really is a beautiful place -- and I'd, tell him the dirtiest joke I know of, and he told me one, and I'm sprawled and sweating and we're talking it out. I gave him everything I know to give, plus some more, too.
Alcoholism doesn't give a fuck. It'll take you when it can. I'm supposed to know better. I *do* know better. But it's never going to happen in your family. Denial -- Don't Even Notice I Am Lying.
It's broken my oldest sister. Always she was reading a book, always on the move -- you should see some of the glass work she did, stained glass, gorgeous things. Now -- no books. No movies. She sits in the light of a beautiful room. Broken.
Thanks for posting this. Beautiful writing, a subject he knows from the inside out.
posted by dancestoblue at 9:01 PM on November 1, 2023 [17 favorites]
At first I didn't like this. The prose danced around; he couldn't get out of his own way to tell the story without little jabs or asides. Then I came to realize that the style showed a man who couldn't live with himself, couldn't sit still with everything that was happening -- had to distance. I really felt it.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:57 AM on November 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 6:57 AM on November 2, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yeah, the way he writes was off-putting to me at first as well. Eventually it stopped bothering me as I got sucked in. I haven't been to Reno in 20+ years, but he described it so accurately I could almost smell it.
Hard to make it through that without having to dry my eyes a few times.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 8:33 AM on November 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Hard to make it through that without having to dry my eyes a few times.
posted by SystematicAbuse at 8:33 AM on November 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
the style showed a man who couldn't live with himself, couldn't sit still with everything that was happening
Exactly.
posted by praemunire at 10:43 AM on November 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Exactly.
posted by praemunire at 10:43 AM on November 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
This 2018 profile of Vollmann (with whom I'm not really familiar) is good.
posted by neuron at 11:10 AM on November 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by neuron at 11:10 AM on November 4, 2023 [1 favorite]
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