LeonardChang.com - Dispatches excerpt

A note from Leonard Chang:

"Aren't beginnings so important? They establish the mood, the tone, the authority of the viewpoint, and they have to, in my opinion, engage the reader on some level--whether it's through language, character, voice, plot--in order to have that right 'angle of approach' to enter the novel. I often tell students that getting that beginning right is as important as a space shuttle trying to enter the earth's atmosphere: too steep of an approach and you'll burn up; too shallow, and you'll bounce off; you need to get the perfect angle, which differs with each writer, each novel, but every writer needs to do countless rewrites and revisions to find it. Did I find the correct angle of approach for my novel? Who knows. I certainly tried. It took me almost six months to feel remotely confident to move forward after this beginning..."

An excerpt from Dispatches from the Cold:

[from Chapter One]

Everything I learned about Farrel Gorden I learned from reading his letters, and although I knew reading someone else's mail was illegal, the letters that came to my apartment that year I was living in Marnole, Long Island, that year I lost my job, and my money was running out, and in my naive way I thought that my life was ending at the young age of twenty-nine, the letters helped distract me from my problems, helped me become concerned about something, anything other than myself.

I was living in an old apartment on Sunrise Highway, about two hundred feet from the Long Island Railroad tracks, the hourly rumbling and shaking of the earth first driving me mad, but then becoming a punctual, rhythmic reminder of movement, of life. The rent for this apartment was cheap, since I was in an old building right in front of a busy, noisy highway and railroad, and directly below my studio was Lucky's, a three-tabled, six-stooled bar where it seemed only Led Zeppelin and The Charlie Daniel's Band pulsed and whined through the jukebox and through my floor. The trains shaking by every hour, the cars honking and speeding by my window, the high-pitched screeching of Heaven and Hell--I learned to like it there, eventually.

Recently laid off from my high school teaching job, I was living off my savings until summer school came around and I knew I would have a three-month teaching job at the community college extension, a job I had set up long before I knew I was about to be let go, but I was too depressed to look for another job--too depressed to do anything, really--so I stayed in bed until the mail came at around one, read newspapers, watched my portable black and white television set, and stared out the window, hypnotized by the cars driving by in the brown and grey slush.

I am sure that Farrel Gorden, the letter writer, during this time could have stared at less mundane things. Semi-rural New Hampshire in January: sun blinding white snow, soft green pines, the smells of burning firewood, and cold, Canadian air. Maybe four-wheel drives or cars with chains churned down unplowed roads. I had never been to Yanack, New Hampshire, but from his letters I pictured his house, his street, his town. So much of his life was vivid to me, and even now after all this time I can still imagine Gorden's full, reddish brown hair, his freshly-shaven face with small acne scars near his sideburns, and his white shirt and blue tie he wore to work every day. I can still imagine him lowering the hunting rifle slowly, the long, black barrel coming to rest on warm, perspiring skin, pressing lightly, indenting, aiming.

The day the first letter arrived, I thought nothing of it. It was addressed to a Ms. Mona Gorden, and this former tenant received advertisements or bills here often, which I either threw out or left on the counter beneath the mailboxes, and the mailman, the landlord, or someone would usually take them away. In a business envelope with the return address of "Jakeson's Sporting Goods", Mona Gorden's name and my address were handwritten neatly on the front in small block letters, and this particular letter seemed important, though now I am not sure why I thought so, but I brought it upstairs with me, making a mental note to write "Return to Sender--No Forwarding Address" on the front and drop it in the mailbox on the corner. I was normally not this considerate, but I had always had bad luck with the Post Office--lost mail, incorrect postage--so I thought I would give the sender a break. I threw the envelope on my kitchen counter, along with other "To Do" items; I still had to fill out a few job applications, write my adoptive mother in Chicago, and read the Kendal-Marnole School District Newsletter, which I knew would have more news about budget cuts and lay-offs.

I did not know at the time that Mona Gorden was dead, and that Farrel Gorden was her brother, and this letter was the beginning of a long, strange, one-way correspondence to the buried. All I knew was that the letter happened to be some mis-directed mail, and I had other things to think about.

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