On March 17, 2006, an unsuspecting group of (mostly) Friends of Frank
received an e-blast from me. It started this way:

“Please pardon the anonymous salutation. This is an eblast.”

That primitive communication now reads like Alexander Graham Bell
shouting “Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you!” into the first
telephone. Look how far we’ve come in just 10 1/2 months.

That first e-blast had just one purpose: to flog my novel To Love
Mercy. It seemed to work, so, over the next six weeks, I sent out
several more purely marketing messages.

But on May 2, I posted a message with the subject line “Everyone should
write a novel.” The ground began to shift beneath my feet.

In the months since, I’ve blogged about writing, sinus attacks,
English majors, Chicago (in general) and Chicago fiction (in particular),
Starbucks, Vienna (not) Kosher Hot Dogs, my new skis, Amazon (three
times), Barnes & Noble (at least twice), and famously (or notoriously),
religion and race. After I was “trashed by freshmen” at my old high
school, the reactions from y’all went on for a full month.

And now the stuff is being broadcast too.

Bill Roth, my friend since high school, has a talk show on KRML (1410
AM), a great jazz station broadcasting from the Eastwood (as in Clint)
Building in heavenly Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. (Pardon the plug.
Bill deserves it. So does Carmel. So, even, does Clint.)

Bill has already broadcast “Don’t go for the coffee” (about how
Starbucks and its imitators have become our new town square). Shortly,
he’ll broadcast two more recent postings (”New skis” and “There were no
Negroes”).

I didn’t start out to be a blogger. Indeed, when my web guru, Brian
Lieberman, suggested turning the e-blasts into a WebLog (or “blog”), I
asked why in the world. Only after he explained it would draw traffic to
our website by making every word in the blog Google-searchable, did I
cave in. (Another reason: My e-blasts are now archived at the “blogspot.”
Read them all at http://tolovemercy.com/frank_joseph_blog/.)

It’s still about the marketing; that’s no secret. The proportion of message
to marketing has risen dramatically; but you all still know that, before I’m
finished, I’m going to try to sell you something.

But it’s about more too. I’m discovering a voice I didn’t know I had. And
now, some of you are suggesting this material is publishable.

For the life of me I can’t figure out how; it’s perishable, it’s parochial, it’s
personal, it’s like … who’d care?

I could be wrong though. I had such thoughts about To Love Mercy
while I was writing it, and now “TLM” is in its second printing.

So … I’m open to suggestions. If you have any ideas on new ways
to wrap this fish, I’d love to hear them.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Ray Van Houtte’s book group invited me to appear last night for
their discussion of To Love Mercy. Much good food was consumed,
fine wine imbibed, and heartfelt conversation shared. I’d love to appear
at your book group too, in person or by speakerphone. Contact me at
301-656-8753 or by e-mail.

In 1952, there were no Negroes in Chicago. At least, you’d have thought not if you read the Chicago Tribune.

The Chicago Sun-Times occasionally editorialized about civil rights issues, always on the “pro” side. But the Sun-Times did not report the incidents that inspired these pro-civil rights editorials, and only rarely published other news involving blacks. So if Sun-Times readers knew Negroes existed, it was mostly by inference.

I have been spending hours in the Library of Congress, reading microfilms of both newspapers to immerse myself in the period that is the setting for the next “Steve and Sass” novel. I don’t mean to sound naive, but … I’m astonished.

You think Fox News is biased? Fox News is Solomon compared to Col. McCormick’s Tribune.

Take Dwight D. Eisenhower. In this period running up to the 1952 elections, when “Ike” still hadn’t declared his candidacy, he was like the Negroes: There was no news of him in the Tribune either (although the Trib ran endless news stories on the doings of Bob Taft, the Trib’s favored candidate for the GOP nomination). What stories the Trib did run about Ike were propaganda pieces masquerading as news, calling Ike a tool of “Wall Street” and “eastern internationalists.”

Simultaneously, the Sun-Times ran a Page One editorial endorsing Ike for President, providing strong evidence that Ike actually did exist.

And Communists. Holy cats. It’s easy to forget, but fear of Communism suffused everything in those days (much as fear of terrorism suffuses everything these days). Every time Sens. Jenner, Mundt or Hickenlooper (let alone McCarthy) breathed, it was news in the Tribune. The Sun-Times wasn’t immune either. The following paragraph appeared on P. 1 of the Sun-Times for Saturday, March 1, 1952:

“The Korea truce talks took on their gloomiest aspect in months Saturday when Communist negotiators insisted on Russia as a neutral nation to guard any armistice. Red propagandists [my emphasis], meanwhile, howled for renewed war.”

But back to Negroes, as they were quaintly known then.

In 15 or 20 hours of scanning through the microfilms, I saw only two photographs of blacks in the news pages of either paper. Both ran in the Sun-Times. One was of a black soldier killed in Korea. The other was an elderly black woman who had submitted a winning religion piece to a Sun-Times contest. She was rewarded with $20, publication of her piece, and her picture in the paper.

I would say I’m shocked, shocked, but … I participated in this sort of journalism myself. Ten years later.

At City News Bureau of Chicago, my first job out of college, the following practices were in place during 1962-64:

â–ª Deaths of ordinary black citizens were not news, by definition. When we City News kids phoned in a “coroner case,” the Desk’s first question would be: black or white? If the answer was black, the Desk’s response was: “Cheap it out.” (Some individuals who manned the Desk didn’t use the word “Negro” or “colored” or “black.” They used a fanciful code word instead: “Is it ‘blue’?”)
â–ª In every story where the subject was black, he or she was described thus: ‘John Jones, 42, a Negro …’ The newspapers never printed stories this way, of course. Our descriptions were merely a helpful guide, enabling the Trib and the Sun-Times to determine whether or not a particular story was ‘news’ — based on the skin color of its subjects.

This situation was occurring while Chicago’s black population was nearly doubling — from 282,244 in 1940 to 509,512 in 1950, according to a University of Chicago analysis of Census data published in the Sun-Times (about the only such story I encountered in either paper). In other words, in 1950, about one-sixth of Chicago’s population was black.

Truth is, in 1952, there were three different Chicagos: The isolationist, head-in-the-sand white Chicago of the Tribune; the lip-service mushy-liberal white Chicago of the Sun-Times; and the black Chicago of The Defender, about which possibly more next time. (I’d talk about The Defender this time only I haven’t yet gotten to those microfilms. But in researching To Love Mercy, I spent many hours poring through the 1948 Defender, and I am here to tell you: If white Chicagoans were living in different worlds, black Chicagoans were living on a different planet.)

Ralph Ellison wrote a famed novel about blacks in America during this period. The title was Invisible Man. Ralph wasn’t kidding.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Yes, you heard it right: The next “Steve and Sass” novel. Michele Rubin of Writers House, my new literary agent, thinks she can sell a major publisher the “Chicago Trilogy” — To Do Justice, To Love Mercy and To Walk Humbly. I’m psyched. The ideas for To Walk Humbly (or possibly To Walk Humbly with Thy God) are tumbling out.

I have an agent.

Her name is Michele Rubin. She is one of 15 senior agents with Writers House (Writers House also has three junior agents).

Writers House is located in a classic townhouse off Union Square in New York City. Please go ogle it at www.writershouse.com.

My agent Michele (may I call you Michele?) represents the literary estate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. … a few other authors … and me.

One of my agent Michele’s specialties is persuading major publishers to re-publish books already published successfully by small/independent publishers like Mid-Atlantic Highlands, my publisher.

I haven’t yet met my agent Michele (known henceforth as MAM). With the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday, she has been super-busy this week. But we had our first, brief, phone conversation today. She had to put me on hold twice — “I’m sorry, it’s the King family … again.”

MAM is talking about a three-book deal. To Love Mercy, To Do Justice, To Walk Humbly. The Chicago Trilogy. As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up.

So … MAM says she’s going to shop To Love Mercy around, emphasizing its appeal to young-adult readers. That’s fine with me. I did not write To Love Mercy for teen-agers, but its themes and language clearly are in tune with the times for high-school English classes. It is in fact being taught in Multicultural Literature classes at Wheeling (IL) High School, and my understanding is that several other Illinois high schools are considering it too. Also, it has been nominated for the Abraham Lincoln Young Readers Award shortlist.

My publisher Patrick (known henceforth as MPP) is the party who pulled this off. Patrick has a prior relationship with Writers House. He sent them To Love Mercy and Michele (oops, MAM) loved it.

I had approached agents and publishers myself about re-publication and had the door slammed politely in my face. But Patrick pulled it off. Incredible. Patrick, I am forever in your debt. A round of applause, please, for Patrick.

Most authors get an agent, then get published. Me, I’m doing it the other way around.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. In a book group? Consider To Love Mercy as your next selection. I’ll make myself available, either in person or by phone. Call me at 301-656-8753, or contact me via email at frank@tolovemercy.com.

In a triumph of optimism over rheumatism, I bought new skis.

My son Sam and I were skiing at Stowe when I demo’d these beauties, a pair of K2 Apache X’s, and fell in love with them.

They were around $800 so I didn’t even consider buying them while still in Vermont. But I couldn’t get them off my mind. That’s how love is.

On the Internet, I found a pair for half price. Place in Long Island. Might have been called Hot Skis Inc.

Bought ‘em without bindings to save even more. Ripped the perfectly good Rossi bindings off my perfectly shitty Rossi skis and put them on the new pair. Colors even matched. But after my local store, Ski Rip Off Inc., mounted the Rossi bindings, I’d cost myself about what I’d saved — and didn’t even have the K2 bindings designed for the K2 skis. I felt the black despair that occurs when you have the date with the girl of your dreams, and afterwards spot the spinach stuck between your teeth.

But when I finally got out on the slopes, the skis performed flawlessly. They really are a wonderful pair of skis.

I bought them three seasons ago but I’ve skied on them only about five days. Two seasons ago I hurt myself and didn’t ski at all. Last season I went to Tahoe before Christmas with my daughter Shawn and my grandson Kai and it rained almost every day. Damn the rain, I’m skiing, said I, and sure enough there was snow above 8,000 feet. But powder it was not.

Now my “new” skis are to be put to the test at last. Sam and I are headed for the Wasatch Mountains tomorrow afternoon for six glorious days. Alta. Snowbird. Solitude. Brighton. We’re gonna ski ‘em all.

What is a man doing on skis who has, while skiing, broken an arm, dislocated a shoulder, cracked a rib and torn his right medial meniscus? Who as a child was always picked last for baseball — and fought over? (”You gotta take him. We took him last time.”) Who, playing tennis one time with Mr. Macho a/k/a Dick Foster, caught his ankle jumping over the net, landed on his hand and broke his arm? (A fortuitous event that led indirectly to marriage with his one and only wife Carol. Tell ya about that one some other time.) Who broke his wrist in 13 places falling off a horse, and acquired a titanium screw permanently in his left hand falling off a bike? Who’s had back surgery not once but twice — at C4-C5 (neck) and L5-L6 (lumbar spine)?

Skiing, that’s what.

Despite my tragic — no, make that pathetic — early history, I’ve become a late-in-life athlete, sorta. I work out. I stay active. I’ve been playing tennis almost daily these unseasonably-warm past two weeks. At nearly 67, my tennis game is the best it’s ever been. I may never become an expert skier, but thousands of dollars in lessons have at least made me a perfectly passable intermediate.

Sure I’m old. Sure I hurt. So what’s with the skiing already?

Well, I could go on about the views only skiers see … the sharp delight of a lungful of the cleanest cold air left in America … the ache-all-over pain/pleasure that follows a day of stretching joints and tendons to the breaking … the chance to buddy up yet again with my Sammy-Boy. All part of it, to be sure, but not the essence.

What it is, really, is the beating of the system. The defiance of the odds. The going out one more time, dammit, and coming back alive.

Otherwise, it’d be mere tennis.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. I’ll be on The Book Report on Wednesday, Jan. 10, around 8:30 a.m. Central Time. The show is produced by Windows A Bookshop in Monroe LA. To listen on the Internet, visit www.thebookreport.net/listen.php. If you’re near Monroe, listen live on KMLB, 1440 AM. Also heard on KLCN, 910 AM in Blytheville AR.