Big news:

Six stories, all of which start within a five-mile radius of 350 5th Avenue, the address of the Empire State Building, the original “Ground Zero.” With this first book of five short stories and one novella, Russell Bittner believes that worlds can be discovered and described in a dewdrop, in a teardrop, in a leaky faucet—and that all that’s required is a good magnifying glass, keen powers of observation, and a feel for how language might be made to form a picture in the reader’s mind. NYC—fugheddaboud Brooklyn—is home to scoundrels and angels, derelicts and daredevils, high flyers, low flyers and every kind of flyer for every kind of service one human being is able to coerce, cheat, beggar or beat out of another. Russell captures that here in the key of C Minor—the key of melancholy.

The novella “Something Special,” which Faraway has been serializing in chapter-long installments throughout August is also now available as a single, complete file, for your reading convenience.  Preview Russell Bittner’s talent in “Something Special,” then click here to purchase the book Stories in the Key of C.  Minor.

Back in New York, and after having alighted from the Lexington Line at the 34^th Street stop on my brisk way to Monday morning work, I stop in at a newsstand and buy a copy each of The National Inquirer, Star and The Globe.  I figure if there’s a story—and if anyone’s going to cover it—one of these three mavericks will.  Grist for the tabloid mill originating anywhere west of the Hudson is not going to find its way into The Post or The Daily News—unless and until, that is, someone discovers that the grist belongs to one of our own.  Then, of course, she’s suddenly one of ours—so it’s big news.  But I know it’s my duty to Angie to make sure that never happens.  It would be a hell-of-a career boost, no doubt, but Angie can’t really use that kind of boost just now.  I suspect, even before opening any of the three papers I now carry folded under my arm, that her rather short-lived career is all played out.

Click here to find out.  Need to catch up?  Click here for previous chapters.

I go immediately to our room in the expectation that a contrite Angie, finally reconciled to her ungratefulness, will be awaiting my arrival—hat in hand, as it were.  I have every intention of extracting whatever price she’s willing to pay, penitence being as much at the pleasure of the aggrieved as it is at the pain of the transgressor.  I have no idea who this young man might be; still less, any concern about his welfare; least of all, a thought about his retribution or damnation.  The only compensation I wish to gain for this whole sordid business is Angie’s complete submission—that she should beg me to deliver her from her misguided need to look anywhere but to me for guidance, inspiration, and yes—transcendence.  I and I alone will be her redeemer, I’m thinking as I open the door—.

There’s no one in the room.  “Angie,” I call, half-expecting to hear a tearful “Yes, Bruce?” from somewhere within, but I hear only the sound of my own voice.

The thing now is to remain calm, think clearly, act decisively, I think to myself as I get undressed and pull back the bed sheets—but not before setting up my alarm clock with its luminous numbers and hands facing my pillow.

I’m solidly asleep long before both hands on my alarm clock reach twelve, and I have no idea how much time has passed when I first hear sounds outside our room, catch a glimmer of light from the hallway as she slips in through the door, then listen to her labored breathing as she waits for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.  I half-open one of my own and note the hour:  3:00 a.m.

Click here to read more.  To catch up, read chapters one, two, and three.

FARAWAY: What are some common themes that appear in your work?

Love.  Loss.  Loneliness.  The three L’s.  There’s no school I know of that teaches us how to acquire, keep or divest ourselves of any of them.

FARAWAY: How did you become interested in or why did you choose these themes?

Experience—the famous school of experience.

FARAWAY: Many of your stories take place in or around New York.  Can you describe using New York as a setting?

I don’t have any special feeling about NYC.  I’m not particularly fond of Manhattan, but it’s where I went to school, it’s where I worked for many years, it’s where I still sometimes play.  My girl still attends the LaGuardia School of Music & Art, and my boy just finished up at Beacon and is now off to Wheaton College in Massachusetts next fall.

Subway Trestle by Russell Bittner

 

Unfortunately, the moment I come up from the subway tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan, I always first hear—and then feel—this great sucking sound, and it’s always going straight for the greatly diminished contents of my wallet.  Manhattan is all about money.  Without great gobs of it, life in Manhattan ain’t much fun.

Brooklyn is another story.  If I had to pick one place in these United States to raise a family (the caveat being that this statement does not apply to all sections of this borough), it would be Brooklyn.  Three of my stories have a Brooklyn setting.  A fourth takes place at a midpoint between Manhattan and Brooklyn—namely, “Waltzing Matilda.”  “The Poet & the President” takes place in Manhattan, albeit involves a fictional Brooklyn resident.  Only my novella, “Something Special,” has no mention of Brooklyn whatsoever.  It starts and ends in Manhattan, though takes place principally in Yosemite National Park.

Brooklyn is small town writ large.  It has something of everything—and maybe more of it than anyplace else—including an enormous desire and energy to get off it and move into Manhattan.  It probably also has more aspiring artists (both fine and con) than any other place in the known universe.  Writers here are more plentiful—and cutthroat—than gangsters.

But as a place for kids, it just doesn’t get any better.  We all wear our 718 (area code) T-shirts with a kind of “Up yours!” pride—although the underlying sentiment is more of “I’d really rather be up yours than up mine.”

FARAWAY: Out of all of the stories in this collection, In the Animal Kingdom seems the most personal, the most laden with emotion.  It deals with a son grappling with his parents’ separation.  Was this a personal theme for you?

You’ve “outed” me, Daniel.  “In the Animal Kingdom” is—with a heady dose of imagination—virtually autobiographical.

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday—largely, I think, because it’s about family reunions.  I grew up in a large family (the fifth of six children), and people were always drifting off to college.  However, Thanksgiving always brought them back—and least for a dinner.

When I realized I’d lost my own newer family and that I’d never have the privilege of a reunion with them again, I wrote this story.  It was a purgative of sorts.  It remains just that.

Garden in Winter by Russell Bittner

FARAWAY: Can you describe how writing a novella differs from the process of writing a short story or novel?

It’s longer.  Other than that, I don’t see any difference.  A novella is not an excuse to get slipshod with language any more than a poem is.  The last thing you as a writer want is to lose your reader’s attention.  Do that, and you might as well go fishing.  (Fishing, at least, has a better chance of putting something on the table.)

FARAWAY: What advice would you give to our readers about getting published?

Make friends with Daniel Sawyer—or with someone like him.  Publishing is a risky business.  There are, happily (for writers), a number of people in it who aren’t in it for the money.  If they all were, most of what passes for “literary fiction” would never get published—or if it did, only after a writer’s death.

There’s a great line in the script of “Shakespeare in Love,” and I firmly believe Tom Stoppard was having a private little giggle when he wrote it.  The producer of “Romeo and Juliet” says at one point in answer to the question “Who’s he?” (with an accusatory finger pointing directly at Shakespeare):  “Oh, he’s nobody.  He’s the writer.”

The fact of the matter is just that.  The writer is nobody…until he’s somebody—and those somebodies are rarer than water skies on ducks’ feet.

FARAWAY: We have gone about publishing Stories in a way that differs radically from traditional publication.  It is technically self-published.  What are your thoughts on the moniker “self-publication”?

It’s like kissing your sister.  I’m quite fond of my sisters—well, at least of one of them—but kissing her is not my idea of a Saturday night spectacle.

Do I really think anyone gives a hoot about a collection of short stories by an unknown writer?  No.  Everything I’ve ever heard or read speaks against it.  But here we are—and there’s no turning off the spigot. 

FARAWAY: In my opinion self-publication represents a large part of the future of publication.  With the decline of printed newspapers and the popularity of blogs and websites that offer do-it-yourself services, more people than ever will be able to publish their work, although they might not be able to secure the audience that a traditional publisher could get for their work.  What do you think of this trend?

For both our sakes, Daniel, I hope you’re right.  I’ll certainly do my bit to move this book even though the idea of self-promotion would be preferable only to having my teeth drilled without benefit of Novocain. 

FARAWAY: What are your thoughts on the process that we have gone through to make Stories available to the public?

I couldn’t be more grateful.  You, personally, have done far more than I could ever have expected or even desired of a publisher.  Do I wish you were independently wealthy and could be both publisher and benefactor?  Of course.  But wishes are born in heaven, lived on earth, die in hell.  I’ll be quite content to see these stories between two covers and out of my notebooks—where, but for a few publications here and there—they might otherwise have died.

Green-Wood Cemetery by Russell Bittner

I put on my hiking boots, get some advice and a map from Meredith at the front desk, and set out into the woods.  The path—an old carriage road—is quite clearly marked for most of the way.  Lack of observation or adequate light might get you easily lost—at which point there’s no telling where you’d end up—but the trail is a well-trodden one, and a bit of attention to others’ boot-prints leaves you in little doubt about your destination.  Well over an hour later, I see a sign telling me I’m still .7 mile away from the lake, and I realize this hike represents something more than a comfy Sunday stroll.  I may have to embellish a tad with Angie—not exactly a sportswoman from what I’ve seen—but the end will most assuredly justify the means.

My first view of water is no less stupefying than my first sight of the Redwoods and Sequoias as we entered the park.  And yet, my sighting of what I believe to be the lake is in error; the spot I want is still a quarter of a mile off.  I move on—and in the meanwhile, gaze occasionally up at what my map tells me are Mt. Watkins, Ahwiyah Point and Half Dome.  The names have all the poetry of lentil soup, but the view can’t be denied.  I wonder only how it is that Christian missionaries didn’t immediately throw down their crosses and go native when they first stood where I’m now standing.

Click here to keep reading.

FARAWAY: Describe your writing process.  Where and when do you write best?

At night.  Because my job often requires that I rise early in the morning to answer e-mails or telephone calls (the entire world, literally, is my market for the satellite services we provide), I try to reserve my late-evening hours to my key-stroking.  By the way—and for whatever it’s worth—I rarely write long-hand any longer.

FARAWAY: Who are some of your favorite authors?  To what extent do you feel influenced by other writers?

My favorite book of all time is Call It Sleep.  However, I’m frankly less enamored of Henry Roth’s other works.

Among more contemporary writers, I suppose T. C. Boyle would have to be at the top of the list—though more for his short stories than for his novels.  Among novelists, I think William Boyd’s Any Human Heart is the best novel I’ve read in the past decade.  And, in non-fiction, I’d have to give the #1 spot to Bill Bryson.

I read as much non-fiction as fiction or poetry these days, and a lot of it is every bit as frightening as the most macabre piece of imaginative writing I’ve ever read.  Bryson’s book A Short History of Nearly Everything is the only book I will not allow my children to read.  (To put things in perspective, I gave my son the illustrated Kama Sutra when he turned sixteen.  His mother promptly took it away.  Prudery is not the issue; a desire to shield my children from the utter precariousness—not to say absurdity—of life on this planet is.)

 FARAWAY: What advice would you give to young writers about the craft of writing?

The same they give anyone trying to get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.  (However, my lawyer-lover also recently educated me on what may well be a well-known fact except to me up until she explained it—viz., any schmuck can rent Carnegie Hall for a night.)

FARAWAY: You mentioned writing in multiple languages, and I’ve noticed that in the stories in this collection, you have a meticulous eye for word choice and phrasing.  How important is that–language, word choice–over and above the plot of the story?  And how has working in other languages shaped your work?

Brooklyn Bridge by Russell Bittner

You’re very kind, Daniel.  I don’t deserve your praise – not by a long shot.

My sweetie (I hesitate to call her my “fiancée,” because we’re not engaged, and I can’t exactly call her my “girlfriend,” since we’re both too old) rants at me all the time for being too “writerly.”  (She also rants at me for not writing something more commercial, but that’s quite beside the point.)  Her idea of a writer is Henry James.  My idea of a fate worse than boiling in hot oil while waiting at the check-out counter of Duane Reade or on hold with Verizon’s Customer Service is reading any further ten pages of Henry James.  I’d rather buzzards pecked my eyes out and voles gnawed my fingertips off so that I could never again be dragged into reading or feeling the prose of Henry James.

That said, I think language is everything – and I’m sure James did, too.  It’s just that we don’t speak the same language.  You’ve heard, no doubt, George Bernard Shaw’s quip about “two countries separated by a common language”?  If James and I were contemporaries and engaged in a battle of words, we’d still be firing at each other under bubbles at the bottom of the sea.

Yes, I agree with my sweetie:  namely, that everything should serve plot.  Words without plot are a bit like masturbation – whether in prose or in poetry – and better kept between the sheets or between the covers of a diary (hold the hanky).  But plot – or “action,” as I’m fond of reminding her – is not literature.  If plot/action were what defined literature, things like monologues and reveries would have no purpose and no purchase.  But they do.  Yes, by God, they do!  Hallo, Hamlet?

Now, I’m not saying that my sweetie is an action-girl only.  The action in Henry James is slower than any chess game I’ve ever played – and yet, she thinks James walks on a cushion of air two inches above the surface of the water.  But I’m rambling.  It must be the contagion of James.

Throwing myself head over heels (over a period of ten years) into other languages and cultures may or may not have influenced how I write.  I frankly have no idea. I know that when I came back to the U. S., I had to wage an uphill battle.  My spoken language was a kind of mid-Atlantic, where I should’ve better left it.  To sink.  My written language was stilted, to say the least, the result (perhaps) of having immersed myself in the minutiae of grammars, syntaxes, etymologies and sexy little accents.  It was thrilling at the time – a bit like hand-to-hand combat, no doubt – but better left behind in my very minor theater of war and not dragged back home.

I owe my present job, in part, to the fact that I can still speak some of those languages.  I use them from time to time in my writing when I think it serves a point.  I wrote a whole novella from the POV of a young Parisian girl.  Needless to say, there’s a lot of French in it.  I wrote a short story a few years back from the POV of an older woman who was something of a linguist.  She used her languages to compose scurrilous Valentine’s Day ditties to herself.  The story wound up among the “Best of the Web” for that year.  It didn’t go any further.  My novel has dialogue in eleven languages, only because the heroine is a polyglot.  My novel sits on my shelf and talks, if at all, to itself.

So there you have it.  I frequently see other people, in a piece they’ve written, using a foreign word or phrase here or there – and the word or phrase is just wrong.  I once sent a kind word to a world-class writer with whom I occasionally communicate by e-mail that his use of “¡Buena suerte!” was wrong – that the Spanish for “Good luck!” is “¡Suerte!” – nada más.  He wrote back to thank me in a tone that sounded distinctly like “Fuck off.”

Two weeks later, I’m sitting in a Spanish pizzeria (sic), and I hear behind me from a Spanish-language newscaster “¡Buena suerte!”  What can I tell you, Daniel.  I give up.

I write a lot of poetry – another no-pay sideshow.  In some of it, I use foreign words if they seem to fit, and if I don’t think I’m going to lose my reader if he or she doesn’t know the language.  But it’s always a crapshoot.

FARAWAY: You are also a photographer and a poet.  Do these different mediums inform each other and are there commonalities in what you hope to express and how you express yourself?

I really don’t think there are any commonalities – but maybe that’s just me.  For the longest time, I hated cameras and wouldn’t even think of buying one.  I had this hidebound belief that if a thing was worth capturing, it was worth capturing with the mind’s eye and with the mind’s eye only – that one had to take the time to look at something and study it.

All of that changed when my kids came along.  (No, on second thought, it actually all changed when my in-laws gave us a camera for our honeymoon.  My wife and I went to Venice, and I shot a whole roll of film – most of it of her.  One of us opened the camera at the wrong moment and exposed the film.  We lost it all.)  When my kids came along, things began to move rather quickly.  I was lucky:  I had a couple of rather photogenic kids.  They made excellent subjects, and my life at that point allowed us to include some exceptional backgrounds:  columns in Rome; towers in Paris; parks and statues in Oslo; bridges in Somerset.  I still have them all – somewhere.

Empire by Early Evening Light by Russell Bittner

We came back to New York and moved to Brooklyn.  I had Prospect Park – and my own gardens (a habit I’d discovered in England).  My kids remained good subjects throughout the years, and I’d recruit them for something that would end up on the annual family (long since dissolved) Christmas card.  This year may well be the last, as my boy goes off to college in the fall.

But the habit had taken hold.  I’d long since begun to look for things I thought might be visually interesting – at least to me.  To this day, I look.

Since I shoot only on film and can’t imagine converting to digital, I limit myself to a small periphery.  I can’t afford the costs of development or of traveling much beyond Brooklyn – or at least beyond the route of the MTA.

My photography – much like my prose – is circumscribed by circumstances.  I look for a picture (or a story) in a dewdrop, in a teardrop, in a leaky faucet.

Riverside Park by Russell Bittner