“I had been challenged by the words of the young Ôshima Nagisa, who declared ‘I won’t accept something as cinema unless it is founded in an absolutely new story and an absolutely new methodology. We cannot be allowed to imitate ourselves.’ While there are some points in common across each of the three films in the Smiling Milky Way Trilogy, I truly did my utmost to distinguish them at both the level of story and method—to maintain their distinct and unique qualities.” — Katsu Kanai

‘Virtually unknown in the West, radical cinema pioneer Katsu Kanai (b. 1936) remains one of the most vital and inventive filmmakers in the history of Japanese underground film. After studying film at the College of Art, Nihon University, Katsu worked briefly in the film industry, joining a major studio company and freelancing as a commercial cinematographer. In 1968, he formed his own production company, Kanai Katsumaru Production and began the “Smiling Milky Way Trilogy” which would include his three undisputed masterpieces, The Deserted Archipelago, Good-bye and The Kingdom. Featuring members of the Underground Theater and the Avant-garde Performance Group, The Deserted Archipelago depicts Kanai’s surrealistic and delusional and visions of postwar Japan. Mixing grotesque and eerily sexualized imagery with searing anti-establishment commentary in the midst of the charged political atmosphere of 1968, Kanai’s radical experiment had an incredible impact on stunned audiences. For his following work, Good-bye, he filmed in a Korea under martial law, confronting the problem of Japanese colonialism and challenging the history of Japanese ancestry—including his own. Portraying strange people who challenge the god Chronos, The Kingdom raised an important new theme for Kanai: the problem of Time. The scale for this film wildly exceeded the standard, low-budget framework of underground and independent films: Kanai shot on 35mm; traveled to Korea and the Galapagos Islands for his locations; and brought highly sophisticated cinematography skills to his chaotic stream of imagery.

‘While working at a news film production company for many years, Kanai created a series of “visual poems”—Dream Running (1987), Grasshopper’s One-Game Match (1988), and We Can Hear Joe’s Poem (1989)—and in 1991 combined them into one work: The Stormy Times. This and the films that followed—Holy Theater and Super Documentary: The Avant-garde Senjutsu—reflect back upon his own filmmaking and personal history and pay poignant tribute to collaborators such as Motoharu Jonouchi, Atsushi Yamatoya and Jushin Sato who had since passed away. Dedicated to constant and intensive imaginative reinvention, Kanai continues to conjure entirely new, surprising visions with little resemblance to previous works. A thorough re-examination of the world of Katsu Kanai is long overdue.’ –- Go Hirasawa

 

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Stills

 

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Further

Katsu Kanai @ IMDb
UNDER THE UNDERGROUND – THE VISIONARY CINEMA OF KANAI KATSU
Katsu Kanai @ MUBI
Katsu Kanai: The Smiling Milky Way
Katsu Kanai, surréaliste nippon
Katsu kanai @ Letterboxd

 

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Extra

The World Of Katsu Kanai 金井勝の世界 (Trailer)

 

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In Conversation: Kanai Katsu and Tamura Masaki

 

Kanai: When I started out the five major commercial companies were having difficulties and Iwanami took the lead and became really influential in documentary production. They were really dynamic. Cameramen like Kanau Mitsuji and Suzuki Tatsuo generated that dynamism and quite a large number of cameramen really shone. Even in fiction film: Kanau went to Ishihara Productions. It seemed like they had something different from regular feature film cameramen.

Tamura: I think it might be related to Iwanami’s photographic technology or equipment. For example, right at that time, the five major film companies were supposed to be coming out with Cinemascope, but the majority of films were still black and white, they used blimps on their NC Mitchell cameras, and they still used a Japanscope lens which wasslightly lower quality than the lens used at Iwanami.

Kanai: At Daiei they would attach an anamorphic lens in front of the master lens in order to make it into Cinemascope. We filmed with both lens together. I used to do that.

Tamura: Quite an acrobatic technique.

Kanai: Right. At the time lights were, as you mentioned before, large and cumbersome and not very strong. And the film ASA was really low, so we used a 2.8 f-stop on the set. We used a crane, f-stop 2.8, and a 100mm lens. Using the anamorphic and the master lens at the same time was a pretty tough job.

Tamura: Acrobatic.

Kanai: With the Mitchell, it’s not single lens reflex, so the cameraman can’t see. Whether it’s in focus is something you deal with at the rushes (laughs). Iwanami’s technique had more to do with sensibility than technology. People at the five majors were stuck in the established way of feature film production. This isn’t very nice but, they weren’t very flexible (laughs).

Tamura: They’re still like that (laughs). Using a telephoto lens with a Mitchell is pretty difficult. Iwanami used an Arriflex with a single lens reflex, so it was pretty easy.

Kanai: With documentaries, if you don’t blaze your own trail as you go along, things just don’t work. Many cameramen are pretty flexible in this way. I think it’s a question of a new sensibility rather than of technology. If the people before you create a new vision, it’s only natural that those who follow will naturally incorporate it. I think what opened things up was Suzuki Tatsuo’s camera on Silence Has No Wings (“Tobenai chinmoku”). It was the apex of the new sensibility of the cameraman. Up to that point I had been doing camera work too, but when I saw that film I thought about quitting. When I thought about chasing after butterflies in a thicket without stirring an inch, I realized that my body just wasn’t built for that. When I returned home that New Year’s and I watched the Bolshoi Circus on TV, I thought guys with that kind of body could have a cameraman’s sense, could become a cameraman and follow those butterflies. My body’s really stiff so I thought I’d better quit and become a director instead (laughs).

Tamura: At the time I thought that Mitchells were special: at Iwanami, we would go and borrow a Mitchell if we ever needed to shoot something like a synchro scene. For a Cinemascope camera, we altered an Eyemo. The excellent lens that I mentioned before was a Japanese Kowa Prominar made for America. That’s what we used at Iwanami: unlike the separate units that you used, ours came in one piece.

Kanai: When they’re all in one piece, they’re heavy and the balance gets thrown off.

Tamura: Heavy and large.

Kanai: When you do a hand-held shot, the front goes like this and the center of gravity is completely different.

Tamura: The Cinemascope camera for hand-held shots had a large lens which is kind of like an adapter, but since the Eyemo is small, if you support the lens then it’s actually quite stable. There were people at Iwanami who took these things into consideration when remodeling the cameras.

Kanai: The success of documentaries is not completely based on the dictum that “Necessity is the mother of invention,” but it is true that, depending on things like where one shoots, one does have to keep inventing ways to shoot or create equipment adaptable to the situation in order to shoot it well. In this way, documentary cameramen are quite different from cameramen who work in commercial film companies.

Tamura: That’s probably true. Come to think of it, this is probably obvious, but the puppets we used for animation were about 15 to 20 centimeters tall: their bones and joints, the sets, the furniture and utensils inside of the rooms in their houses, the scenery – everything had to be made by hand. All by only a couple of people. When all of that was nearly finished, the professionals would come and join in, and filming would begin. That was how it was. So I did all sorts of things like painting and working with wood and metal. I’ve always liked to do these sorts of things, so it was really interesting.

Kanai: After that kind of research, you built a machine to do experiments with fog currents. What was the fog called?

Tamura: In Furuyashikimura, it’s called shirominami or “white south.” Furuyashikimura is a mountain village and cold air always comes over the mountain at the beginning of the summer. It always comes over the same mountain to the south.

Kanai: It was really interesting the way you used dry ice for the experiments. Also, you know I was born as a farmer and raised rice since I was little, so I was surprised at the eroticism of the fertilization scene that was filmed with a microscope. The time we went there, Ogawa said that if it was filmed indoors it wouldn’t be natural. He said it would be filmed in the rice paddies. You used quite a bit of frame-by-frame photography in the rice paddies, I imagine.

Tamura: Talk about the mountain and charcoal making was really interesting but as soon as we entered a long discussion, talk about the past would inevitably reveal discontent about the present. It was because all the young and middle-aged people lived in the city.

Kanai: If you’re going to create a dramatic scene, it needs something more, anything, even the style of someone from north Japan would do. Trying to do everything from old books just turns out unpolished. If you’re going to do that, you might as well shoot it unrefined from the start. It’s a really great idea to use actors but that part needs a little work. It’s tiresome to watch. It’s really too bad that Ogawa’s last work just doesn’t come together.

Tamura: And as a result, it became his last film. At that time Ogawa was limited.

Kanai: For that reason Furuyashikimura . . .

Tamura: Yeah, we heard a lot of stories in Furuyashikimura, too. We thought about getting the villagers to perform in the film, but only afterwards. In Magino Village, people from the village do appear.

Kanai: As an idea, it’s really interesting. The problem is the content and how you film it.

Tamura: On top of that we got real actors to play the roles.

Kanai: No, I think that’s fine. It just needs to be shot with a lot more appeal.

 

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Katsu Kanai’s 7 films

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The Deserted Archipelago (1969)
‘Winner of the Grand Prix at Nyon International Film Festival and selected for Tony Rayns’ “Eiga: 25 Years of Japanese Cinema” programme at Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1984, Katsu Kanai’s debut The Desert Archipelago is the first of the Smiling Milky Way Trilogy and a landmark in experimental narrative cinema. A young man reaches adolescence and escapes the nunnery where he survived a tortured upbringing. Whilst on the run he encounters strange deities including over-sized newborns played by performance artists Zerojigen and his doppelganger which his wounded back has given birth to.’ — Close-Up Cinema

Excerpt

Excerpt

 

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Good-Bye (1971)
‘The first postwar Japanese film to be shot in South Korea, Katsu Kanai continues his Smiling Milky Way Trilogy with Good-Bye, an exploration of Japan-Korean relations and the roots of the Japanese bloodline. “The film uses surrealism and oneiric imagery as well as the disruptive effects of the performance as happening both to fantasize and to subject to ethnographic scrutiny Japan’s fraught relation to Korea”.’ –- Ryan Cook

Trailer

Watch the entirety here

 

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The Kingdom (1973)
‘Most directors would be setting themselves up for failure had their debut been something as vivid, unique and otherworldly as The Deserted Archipelago. Still, Katsu Kanai shows his imagination truly is that wicked, both crafting poetic and serious pieces while withstanding the weight of such a surreal and profound creative spirit. I think the film description on most of the sites do it close to no justice, and almost misdirtect the point of the film. Sure, it is also about that, but what is tackled here is bigger, something that is as gargantuant as the concept of time itself – or perhaps time’s godhead. Kanai tackles the grand scope of dissecting time, poetry and evolution (both scientific and social terms) with his own approach, an approach even mentioned in the film: one who masters the micro will master the macro. As ambitious as his films are, there can be a profoundness expressed even through small gestures, perhaps a bit trivial and at times joyously inexpert film-making. Even if Kanai were in any way handicapped with low-budgets and fairly quick ways to cinematically portray. that would not be a vice for his truly bizzare yet powerful vision. Whether it’s the images or the plots that are odd, his surrealism is at art’s peak.’ — Miha Konrad

Watch the entirety here

 

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Dream Running (1987)
‘Kanai is a wild and unrestrained, arch visionary, an iconoclast/iconographer, in whose works classic and contemporary art, pop and high culture from his own world and the West mix it up with gusto – Arrabalesque excesses meet up with the focused physicality of Butoh, political issues are articulated in the gaudy vernacular of Manga. The title of one of his most beautiful films says it all: YUME HASHIRU (DREAM RUNNING).’ –- OBERHAUSEN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL

 

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Toki ga fubuku (1991)
‘Three short films of his threaded together in shape of a haiku. Dedicated to the memory of Jonouchi Motoharu, with documentary segments between the shorts detailing their friendship, his influence on his work, his death and funeral. Full of heart and creativity.’ — momoe_nakanishi

Excerpt

 

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Holy Theater (1998)
‘It’s said that people die twice. The first death is a physical one and the second, true death comes when there is no one to remember that person. Katsu Kanai filming animals in his garden and reflecting on the deceased cast members who worked on his film The Kingdom (1973). A soothing contemplation on life that leaves room for Kanai’s childlike sense of humor. Life is a theater, and we are all actors.’ — DungeonSkramz

 

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Super Documentary: The Avant-Garde Senjutsu (2003)
‘As we age, a lot of our bodily functions grow worse for wear, but lurking within me was another being, Katsumaru, who really doesn’t want to live his life as if it were a mere supplement to more youthful days… Super Documentary: The Avant-Garde Senjutsu won a prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.’ — MUBI

Watch the entirety here

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Tomk, Hi, Tom! I think ‘Rumble Fish’ is her best. Her prose is at its tightest and most lyrical and a little “off” in it. I’m good, how are you, pal? ** T. J., Hey, T. J.! I guess that makes sense that they’d show ‘The Outsiders’ in school. I was too old by then. ‘Tex’ the movie isn’t so hot, and it’s her least good novel. ‘Don’t Box Me In’ is sung by Stan Ridgway of the great, extremely undervalued band Wall of Voodoo. Yeah, great soundtrack. I remember at that time thinking, wait, this is by the drummer of the fucking Police? Thanks a lot, man. ** _Black_Acrylic, And I, as an American, never read or had even heard of Adrian Mole until I moved out of the country. Strange. ** Misanthrope, ‘Rumble Fish’ is her best. Back when I was developing my novel ‘Closer’, I wanted to find a way to splinter my voice into different seeming voices that all also seemed like mine for that novel’s chapters, so I did an experiment where I took a bunch of existing texts and cut them up and then revised them until they had my voice but also still had the quality of the texts I’d cut up, and one of them was from ‘Rumble Fish’, so I owe it a debt. We’re not hot here yet, but they’re saying by the weekend … urgh. Great about the Callum stuff. 100% in favor. ** CAUTIVOS, Hi. Well, yeah, I don’t think Hinton is in a league with Salinger at all, but for a YA novel, ‘RF’ is pretty stylish. I don’t know the term ‘appropriate for a bachelor’, but I like it! ** David Ehrenstein, I definitely agree with you. ** Tosh Berman, Ha ha, my pleasure, Tosh! ** Dominik, Hi!!! It’s good, it’s a cool read, it is. Well, yes, I think I can say what I eat probably has a more appealing visual quality than what you described, or at least most of the time. I would watch Love’s ‘Scared and Hot’ film just based on the title alone so fast it would make your head spin, as they say. Or my head, for sure. I’m doing the famous tour of the Paris sewers today, so love transforming the tissues inside my nostrils into flower petals, G. ** Bill, Hi. Well, ‘should’ is such an ugly word, but you … could. Awesome, I’ll watch the video post-haste. Thanks! Oh, fantastic about the gig! Dying to be there. As always, please make sure it’s recorded in some form, if possible. Everyone, If you’re in San Francisco or Oakland or Berkeley or anything around there, the great Bill Hsu will be performing live on this coming Friday in the Moss Sound Series in Oakland, and I highly, highly recommend you get yourself there (and then tell me all about it, please). The info. Break everyone’s legs! ** Nick Toti, Very cool, thanks, Nick! Everyone, Here’s the superb filmmaker, etc. Nick Toti with a fun gift for y’all: ‘Today’s post references Richard Linklater’s film series in Austin that Rumble Fish screened at in 2014. I attended a lot of those screenings and helped film some of Linklater’s intros and post-screening discussions. Here’s the one from Rumble Fish, if anyone is interested.’ ** portishead, Hi. Portishead on my humble blog, wow! Ha ha. I can say that ‘hopelessly graphic’ slaves, at least with a twist of offbeat lyricism, do take the cake. All the love residing in me is jetting right back laser targeted in your direction! ** Linkvaom88bet, Thanks. I think you might be spam — apologies if not — but thanks! ** Right. I don’t think Katsu Kanai’s films are very well known. Correct me if I’m wrong. I thought you might be interested to know about them. That’s today’s blog’s gamble. See you tomorrow.

 

‘How does an author become an author? For S E Hinton, the choice was easy — she wrote her first book when she couldn’t find anything that she wanted to read. She reached that point when she was only 17 years old, and the result was “The Outsiders.” Now, 10 years later, Ms Hinton has just published her third novel, “Rumble Fish.”

‘Like her other books, it’s a story about and for teenagers — not the well-behaved, clean-cut kids who get into “jams,” but delinquents, kids in trouble, the hoods and greasers who are usually thought to be outside the world of books, either as readers or subjects. “When I finished all the horse books and didn’t want to read about the prom, I wrote ‘The Outsiders’,” said Ms Hinton, who was in St. Louis recently. “I would have read boys’ books, if there had been any.

‘“Rumble Fish” is the story of two brothers, Rusty-James and the Motorcycle Boy. Rusty-James isn’t very bright, but he longs for the day when he will be just like his elder brother — intelligent and cool, a respected hood. It doesn’t work out that way, but the story is exciting, easy to follow, and very sad. Like Ms Hinton’s other books, it’s told from a boy’s point of view — Rusty-James is the narrator.

‘“That’s the view I feel most comfortable with,” said the author, whose soft voice is accented with a Southwestern twang. “When I was in high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, there was no Women’s Lib. The girls stayed in the bathroom, ratting their hair and outlining their eyes in black. That’s interesting for about one minute.” She couldn’t get interested in makeup, but she was interested in the high school social structure — she thought it was “just the stupidest thing in the world.”

‘“The socies wore wheat jeans and got drunk and beat each other up and everybody thought they were cool,” she explained. “The greasers wore blue jeans and black jackets, and got drunk and beat each other up, and everybody thought they were scum.” Ms Hinton had friends in both groups, but never felt that she fit into either one. That didn’t bother her.

‘“Some kids are terrified that they won’t fit in, but I wasn’t,” she recalled. “I’ve always been kind of a loner. I wasn’t popular or unpopular. Of course, some people would look at me strangely. I wasn’t an advanced kid in any way, but I was always in A-track classes, and that classifies you. One time I pulled into a popular drive-in in a car lull of greasers, and some people looked at me. I know I was thought of as eccentric.”

‘Her family thought she was a little unusual, too. Her parents encouraged her enjoyment of reading, but didn’t take her interest in writing quite so seriously. She taught herself to type when she was 12 years old, planning even then to be a writer. While she was working on “The Outsiders,” her family didn’t pay much attention. “I was just weird Susie, up there typing,” she said with a laugh.

‘After she finished the novel, she showed it to a children’s writer, who was the mother of one of her friends. The woman took the book to another children’s author, who put Ms Hinton in touch with a literary agent. One day after school, a call came to tell her that her book had been accepted for publication. “I just went nuts!” she said. “I was alone at home and didn’t have anybody to tell. I ran around in circles and picked up the cat.” The cat, incidentally, was named Rusty-James.

‘Ms Hinton was sent to New York on a publicity trip for the book. Her mother said that she was too young to go to New York alone, so her younger sister went with her. It was exciting, Ms Hinton said, but added that she was so inexperienced that she couldn’t tell “if it were a big deal or not.”

‘However, her early success also had drawbacks. “I got a terrific case of first novel block,” she said. “I couldn’t stand to write anymore. I felt that people were watching me all the time. ‘Is it a fluke?’ I got to the point where I couldn’t use a typewriter even to write a letter. I didn’t know if I could do it again. The only thing I wrote for four years was a short story version of ‘Rumble Fish.’”

‘Ms Hinton finds time to write when she is not working in her husband’s shoe store in Tulsa. They live outside of the city, in a house on a tract large enough for her to keep a horse, fulfilling an old ambition. Ms Hinton considers books for teenagers her forte, and has evidence to back up her claim — her first two books have sold about 3,500,000 copies, often in paperback editions that schools use. Ms S E Hinton hopes that through her books, teenagers who don’t usually enjoy reading will develop a taste for it.“Some boys think reading is sissy,” Ms Hinton said. “That’s one reason I have all my heroes read.”’ — Judy J. Newmark

 

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Further

S.E. Hinton Site
S.E. Hinton @ Twitter
S.E. Hinton @ instagram
S.E. Hinton @ goodreads
10 Things I Learned: Rumble Fish
An Overview of Rumble Fish by S. E. Hinton
”If I Could Think of Somewhere to Go”
Page to Screen: Rumble Fish
RUMBLE FISH is a Great Reminder of the Genius of Coppola
Cover to Credits: RUMBLE FISH
Buy ‘Rumble Fish’

 

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Extras

S.E. Hinton Biography

Hinton, Susan Eloise “S.E.”

Interview with S.E. Hinton

 

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The film

‘Francis Ford Coppola became a major admirer of Hinton and her works. His first Hinton adaptation was THE OUTSIDERS (1983). Much like the book, it was a medium-sized hit that continued to exert its influence over several decades. For many, it is one of the definitive movies and perceptive movies about the teenage years.

‘During the shoot of THE OUTSIDERS, Coppola and Hinton, who was on set as the film’s technical adviser, began writing a script for an adaptation of “Rumble Fish.” The idea was to make it as a low budget art film on many of the same locations with some of the same actors. Coppola stated that it was his “reward” for completing the difficult OUTSIDERS shoot. The resulting film is quite different from anything Hollywood could have expected. It is shockingly avant-garde in its black and white cinematography, sparse scene-blocking, and use of symbolic and elliptical storytelling techniques.

‘Today RUMBLE FISH is not an especially well known film, but it is highly prized and loved by those who have seen it. In 2014, Richard Linklater programmed the film for an AFS series and many of those who saw it for the first time hailed it as a masterpiece.’ — Austin Film Society

Trailer

S.E Hinton in Rumble Fish

Excerpt

 

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Interview
from The AV Club

 

Hadn’t you just flunked a writing class when you started writing The Outsiders?

S.E. HINTON: Well, I was flunking a writing class while I was writing it. It was like The Outsiders ate my homework. But it was creative writing. I had wonderful English teachers. I hate that this is the most well-known anecdote about a teacher, because I had great English teachers who were very encouraging. But all I can think of is this woman who counted off for spelling, which publishers don’t. I said in an interview not too long ago, the interviewer said, “Weren’t you just devastated?” I said, “No, I was sitting there, thinking, ‘Woman, you’re gonna feel like such an idiot.’”

She probably did. You were growing up in Oklahoma, and watching these social groups. Why tell the story from the perspective of a young teenage boy, as a teenage girl?

SH: Well, I grew up with only boys. I was a tomboy. I couldn’t find anything in the female culture to identify with. What girls got to do was stand in the john, outline their eyes in black, and do their hair and brag about their boyfriend’s car. I didn’t want that. I wanted my own damn car. Even today, my men friends outnumber my women friends. So I think maybe my mind—I’m not saying I have a masculine mind, because god knows my husband does, and I have no idea how that works—but it’s just that I don’t find a lot of female characters as interesting. And, it’s the easiest voice for me.

Another thing is, I figured, if I wrote this and said a girl was doing this stuff, which I was doing, nobody would believe it. It was very easy for me to switch over to the persona of a boy, and I’ve written from a male point of view ever since, just because it’s easy and I’m lazy.

So these characters were based on actual boys that you knew and were hanging out with?

SH: Loosely based. I couldn’t say, “This is who such-and-such is based on,” because I fictionalized everybody, mixed up their looks and personalities and so forth. But yeah, I knew the situation, being in a greaser neighborhood and hanging out with guy friends like that. It kills me when people say it’s a gang book. It’s not a gang book. I have no idea how organized gangs work, but I’m very aware of the social class warfare that was going on in my school.

And you were growing up on the greaser side.

SH: Yep. Then, when I went to high school, I got put in, nowadays what would be called AP classes. They called them college track in those days. So I was in a different group of kids when I was in high school. So I got to see both sides. I refused to identify with either one of them. I’ve always been an observer. There’s people who do things and people who watch, and I’m a watcher. I was very well aware of what was going on.

I went to a huge high school, baby boomer. The senior class that I graduated with was 1,000 kids. That was the smallest class in the school. The bell rings and this mass of humanity, you have to try to find your way through to get to your next class. But you couldn’t have a lot of friends. You got there, and you decided what group you were in, or somebody decided what group you were in for you, and then you didn’t have any friends outside of the group. And I was watching these people obey all these rules—nobody said, “Where do these rules come from? Why do we have to do this? Why can’t we have friends in any group we want to?” And I just thought the whole damn thing was stupid. So I just was watching it.

Your writing is so atmospheric. It really puts you in a place. After you finished The Outsiders, how did you get it published as an unknown high school student?

SH: Well, I’ve been writing since grade school, so I’d actually been practicing for eight years. I wrote constantly. The Outsiders was the third book I’d written. It was just the first one I’d ever tried to get published. But I just did it for myself. There wasn’t anything being written realistically for teens in those days: “Mary Jane goes to the prom.” I wanted to read it, and I always told kids that tell me they want to be writers, “If you don’t want to write it bad enough, so you yourself can read it, you’re not a writer.” It wasn’t like I sat down at 16 and thought I could write a book. I’d been writing for a long time. I just had closets and drawers of all my other stuff.

One day I was talking to a friend at school, and she said, “My mom writes children’s books,” and I said, “Oh, I write!” She said, “Oh really, let my mom read it,” which she did, and she gave it to a friend of hers, who was also a published writer, but she had an agent, and she said, “Here’s my agent, send it to them.” I had no idea what was the difference between an agent and an editor. I had a name and an address. So I did send it to her. Marilyn Marlow of Curtis Brown did call me my senior year and said, “I’ve sold it to Viking. It was the second publisher that saw it, and it’s going to come out in a year.” Of course, I was just dumbfounded, and of course, excited. I got a contract on graduation day, which just blew graduation out of the water.

Of course, the funny thing is, four years later, I got my contracts for That Was Then, This Is Now, the second book. I got those on my wedding day. I looked at the contracts and went, “Eh, this is nothing. I’m getting married!” I stayed with Marilyn Marlow as my agent until about 12, 15 years ago. I’m still with Curtis Brown. I know I’m supposed to have starved with rejection slips all over, but it didn’t happen that way. It went real fast for me.

 

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Book

S. E. Hinton Rumble Fish
Delacorte

‘Rusty-James is the number one tough guy among the junior high kids who hang out and shoot pool at Benny’s. He’s proud of his reputation, but what he wants most of all is to be just like his older brother, the Motorcycle Boy. Whenever Rusty-James gets in over his head, the Motorcycle Boy has always been there to bail him out. Then one day Rusty-James’ world comes apart, and the Motorcycle boy isn’t around to pick up the pieces. What now?

‘Like Hinton’s groundbreaking classic The Outsiders, Rumble Fish was adapted into a movie by Francis Ford Coppola and remains as relevant as ever in its exploration of sibling relationships, the importance of role models, and the courage to think independently.’ — Delacorte

Excerpt

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Misanthrope, Oh, yeah, the Mark Dennison novel, get on that, big up. I’ve had guns held to my head twice when I was younger. Not hot. Well, you are in the US, so you getting shot is highly more likely than anything paranormal fucking with you, so stay bulletproof. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Ha ha, I fear I probably eat something very like what you unpleasantly unwrapped every day. Amazing what one can get used to. That is a lovely sentence, yes. The only reason I didn’t pull it out as the post’s title is because Facebook would have flagged the post and who needs that aggravation. But yes! Love making a porn film called ‘Rumble Butt’ (it’s amazing what horrible titles porn gets away with), and giving you Struggling_fashion_student too, of course, G. ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, I used to love watching the Amazing Randi on Johnny Carson and all those shows. Man, we need the likes him now really badly. ** _Black_Acrylic, Maybe your dad could have swayed me on asparagus, but I’m not betting a fortune on it. ** Bill, Hm, I wonder if Brian Evenson quietly pores over the slave posts each month look for premises. Wouldn’t shock me. I remember that band! Or I mean I remember its name! ** CAUTIVOS, Hi. Well, the slave posts definitely aren’t for everybody, that’s for sure. ** l@rst, Thanks for the link, man! Very cool about Samuel Robertson Illustrated Old Testament, I need to get that. I have it in pdf form, but I can’t imagine that’s at all sufficient. ** Hopelessly Graphic, Ha ha, did you choose that screen name especially for the hopelessly graphic slaves? Hm, well, the only time in my life when I was in therapy was in the early 90s for about a year and a half because I hit rock bottom. It helped a lot, but I was really bad emotional and psychological shape at the time. Otherwise I’ve always just soldiered on using my powers of objectivity and pragmatism and logic to get through the dark passages, and that’s worked fine for me. But I am a pretty logical type person, and that helps me a lot. So, I don’t know. If you’re mostly okay and upbeat, maybe not? But if you’re suffering and feeling impaired re: your life and writing and stuff to the point where your own powers of analysis aren’t sufficient, it does seem to help? I don’t know if that answer helps. Big hug back to you, my buddy. ** Okay. I’m spotlighting S.E. Hinton’s super good YA novel today. Ever read it? It’s a goodie. See you tomorrow.