In My Mother's Love of Great Writing, A Call to Action

I woke up this morning thinking about a line in one of my mother's letters in which she describes the writing of one of her favorites, John Gardner. She was reflecting on him the day after his death in a motorcycle accident. "You must read at least one of his books, just to find out what beautiful writing is. When I read something by him -- whether paragraphs, pages, or chapters, it's like a person who knows and loves music listening to beautiful music. Heavenly!"

I don't remember how this line made me feel when I received that letter back in September of 1982; I'd imagine it gave me a mixture of encouragement and fear. At age 19, I was expert in the writing of cliches. My mother must have read my stuff the way a piano teacher listens to a child starting lessons, or a monkey banging on the keys.

My writing began to improve when I worked with Tobias Wolff at Syracuse. Not coincidentally, this was around the same time that I was introduced to Sherwood Anderson, James Joyce, Chekhov, Cheever, Tolstoy and Raymond Carver -- all masters of fiction and the short story -- not to mention my teacher himself.

At that time Toby had not yet reached the level of fame he now enjoys. He was well known in literary circles, having published a celebrated short story collection called In the Garden of the North American Martyrs, his first. I believe his second book, a novella called The Barracks Thief had just been published around the time I first worked with Toby in 1981 or '82.

I don't mean to disparage or diminish the work of my high school English teachers, because I had some good ones -- Bob Button, my journalism teacher at Grosse Pointe South High, who taught me to write concisely and was the first to publish my work in the award-winning school newspaper, The Tower, Mary O'Donnell, Ugo Toppo, and Renee Landau at Harrison High, who all pushed me to do better. But Toby's insistence on making my characters believable and my writing original is what ultimately made me want to be a writer.

My mother's letter reminds me, of course, that she was my first, and arguably most significant, writing teacher. Being a voracious reader, she instilled in me, early on, the importance of reading. Her letters have brought back into stark focus that writing is something I both love and strive to do well.

I know I've told myself over these last few months not to write about writing, but I feel the need to express my intention of creating a work of fiction that is symphonic. I'd like it to be a piece that is worthy of my mother as a reader with an ear for the music of great writing.