Shelf life

Notable books to put on locally made furniture

by Sally Cragin

Illustration by Lennie Peterson

Any editor will tell you that writing short is more difficult than writing long. Today we think of American writers like Henry James or Edith Wharton as the authors of grand, many-leaved novels, but both of them were accomplished at short fiction and essay writing. In a compressed work, a serious writer must convey a mood or the flavor of a situation in very few words and keep the reader's interest on a sentence-by-sentences, rather than page-by-page, basis. Emily Hiestand and Nat Segaloff take unlikely topics and create memorable entertainment presented in brief episodes.

For Cambridge writer Hiestand, no vista is too small and no neighborhood event too unworthy for her discerning eye. In her new collection, Angela, the Upside-down Girl (Beacon Press), Hiestand writes about the familiar and intriguing, from community gardens to gospel church services to customized cars to a Haitian grocery store. This charming essay collection might be categorized as "creative non-fiction," as Hiestand blends the biographical with the topical. In the title story, she recounts her experiences as a freshly minted art major from Tennessee who, with her girlfriends, rents an apartment in Winthrop, upstairs from a Combat Zone stripper named Angela. It was Angela who "issued me an invitation, the first formal social invitation I would receive in New England," writes Hiestand. The proposal was, of course, to see the dancer perform at her club. "I saw that we were a novelty mix of mascot and country mice, that we were bits of paint on Angela's palette that night, adding to her star, and I felt confused and glad." The country mice duly arrive, and though there is little doubt about what they will see (remember the title of the story!!), "how this would actually occur was a source less of erotic tease than of sheer logistical drama and suspense."

In the end, Angela ends up charming Hiestand and her friends, as well as maintainin an air of mystery. The author's affectionate respect for Angela also applies to her other subjects, like Joe Bain, the proprietor of Parnel's Convenient Store, American & Tropical Foods, the main character of "Store." He "will laugh easily but there is always a flinty alloy available to his sweet nature." Bain is a good man, curious about his customers, and willing to let Hiestand practice her French. He's also a sharp businessman, and his stock (lottery tickets, sugarcane, newspapers) reflects the disparate interests of his Haitian and non-Haitian clientele.

The real reason why Hiestand has chosen to profile Bain emerges later in the story: "My neighbor would be in Haiti still, a prominent homme d'affaires and dispenser of justice, the kind of man the Haitians call un notable, had not a handful of the Tonton Macoutes, the thugs of Papa Doc Duvalier's US-backed regime, paid a call." It took Hiestand five years before Bain entrusted her with the story of his escape, and then the details of his early difficult years in the US.

The relaying of small yet sterling interactions of day-to-day life is Hiestand's strength. She crafts portraits of these regular folks, depicting their heroism, as well as their charisma. Hiestand also includes short memoirs of her girlhood, which blend in with her East Coast themes -- family and church, community and landscape. For Hiestand, her enthusiasm for place and people intoxicates.

SCREENWRITER and former Cantabridgian Nat Segaloff has paired up with non-fiction publishing house Adams Media to pen The Everything Trivia Book, a droll and amusing compendium of pop-culture artifacts. You'll find the best light-bulb jokes here, the weirdest Hollywood ghost stories (Ozzie and Harriet's real-life house is still haunted by Ozzie, who was sort of a ghost even when he was living), "stuff you learned in school but forgot," aphorisms and advertising, and science, law, and even Biblical ephemera. (Can you name the 10 plagues of Egypt?*)

This is from his essay on celebrity: "What generally defines a celebrity today is sex. Perhaps it always did, but it's tough to sense the allure of, say, Lillian Russell through the hindsight of history. Nobody is a star who doesn't want to be, and nobody isn't a star who should have been." (This chapter also includes a quiz on celebrity deaths: How did Joe McCarthy go?*)

The Everything Trivia Book is first rate -- and offers multiple browsing opportunities, where you'll find, well, everything from why supermarkets have the dairy/meat section in the back*** to a list of "answer songs" (songs issued in the wake of a hit single and designed to capitalize on the former's success). Even a list of offbeat museums, including the Barbie Hall of Fame, in Palo Alto, and the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, in Minneapolis. Segaloff, a former film critic, also includes a number of interviews with folks in the industry and tributes to irresistible arcana such as the Bell Science Films, which originally aired under the supervision of, get this, Frank Capra. Who knew? This is why The Everything Trivia Book is a welcome addition to our reference library.

WRITER SUSAN DION has published a helpful and diverting how-to book titled Write Now: Maintaining a Creative Spirit While Homebound and Ill. She provides a number of good-hearted yet provocative writing assignments that can be used by patient or caregiver. This samizdat has a list of exercises and examples to get the creative juices flowing, even while the writer might be fatigued or discouraged. Dion suggests exercises such as "All the reasons I'm annoyed by . . . sugar doughnuts or telephone answering machines with cute messages."

I've used some of Dion's ideas while teaching writing at area libraries and at the Fitchburg Art Museum (they work perfectly fine for healthy folks, too), and I can recommend them to teachers and health-care professionals. Dion is encouraging while maintaining a realistic viewpoint about the efficacy of self-therapy, and she has a warm and gentle tone to her advice. Dion's work is grant-supported, so all you need do is send $1.21 in stamps and a 6x9" envelope for your copy to: Write Now, 432 Ives Avenue, Carneys Point, New Jersey 08069.

CONGRATULATIONS to Antipodes Furniture of Fitchburg, and owner Brett Kincaid, who are carrying on a grand tradition of local design inventions. In the 19th century, Iver Johnson devised a gun with a safety lock, and Benjamin Franklin Brown invented a machine to make brown paper bags. Last year, Kincaid designed an innovative shelving system called "Flip," which he sold to Crate & Barrel. Flip now appears on the inside cover of the company's summer catalogue. Kincaid's creation is a 70-inch-tall wooden V-shape shelf that can be paired with another Flip turned upside down (the two together make for a very stylish N shape).

"I experimented with the form for years," says Kincaid, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, who is now based in the old Anwelt Shoe factory in Cleghorn. He began his career designing furniture for specific folks. "All the things we design are for our home or friends." Before the Crate & Barrel contract, the largest number of items his company could produce might be a thousand and were carried in two-dozen stores nationwide. The Crate & Barrel deal is exciting and definitely marks a turning point in the four-year-old company. "It's a big deal, but it's a bigger contact for us," he explains. Still, Flip won't be a one-shot. "We'll be doing another line for them -- home office and kids' stuff," says Kincaid.

Answers to Everything Trivia

(*) Suicide

(**) Liver failure

(***) "Meat and dairy are located at the back of the supermarket because they are staples. In getting to them, the customer must pass everything else."

Sally Cragin thinks books and shelves go together like coffee and doughnuts.

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