The Clarion West Class of 1993 Plus the Perils of NOT Cleaning Out One's Refrigerator

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Two (count ‘em!) shots of the Clarion West Class of 1993.

That class was a Very Important Event in my life, for it was there that I met Ben and there that I met Lucius. The former became my second husband; the latter, my literary mentor.

I’m in the front row clutching my favorite slouchy hat in that first photo. That’s Lucius on the far right in the second row while Ben, in baseball hat and dark glasses, effects a cheeky peek-a-boo out of the right side of the oval sculpture. (In retrospect, I’m thinking Ben may have seen one too many Beatles album covers.)

In the second shot, Ben and I are standing side-by-side, second-and-third to the left in the last row.

Interestingly, we are standing next to a chap named Ian whom I ran into at the Terribly Progressive Science Fiction Convention last spring and whom I did not recognize. I don’t think he recognized me either. But I did get the opportunity to hear him rail against Clarion West! For trying to “silence his voice” by convincing him he was a baaaaad writer!

“Well,” said Ben to whom I described this encounter and who remembered Ian perfectly, “he was a bad writer.”

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Since I didn’t remember Ian, I don’t remember anything he wrote; so I’m unqualified to have an opinion about his prose.

I will say Clarion used – and still uses – a critique process that disavows the use of words like “good” or “bad.”

You sit in a circle. The person being critiqued is not allowed to speak until the critiquing process is through.

Critiques begin with the person to the left of the writer and travel round the circle.

The critiquer begins by pointing out all the things that worked for him or her in the piece being discussed and then moves on to the things that did not work, that left him or her puzzled. The critiquer is also free to provide Helpful Hints – on plot mechanics, on writing techniques – that in the critiquer’s opinion might be able to improve the piece.

When all the critiques have been delivered, the writer is allowed to address them.

The process is extremely rigorous, but it’s also respectful.

I, for one, found this process so amazingly helpful that I’m now trying to set up a writers group founded on similar principles. (Reading this? Live in NYC? Wanna play? PM me!)

Here’s the deal that most wannabe writers don’t get: There’s a real difference between writing as self-expression and writing as communication.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with writing for self-expression.

And there actually are a few writers whose vision or singular understanding of the zeigeist make the struggle to understand their unclear self expressions worth deciphering.

Most of us writers – certainly moi! – don’t fall into that category. And therefore, if we want to be read, it behooves us to learn effective communication techniques.

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I don’t remember whether these photos were taken before or after Ben and I became an item.

Certainly, from the moment we lay eyes upon each other, Ben and I had this uncanny facility for finishing each other’s sentences, expressing each other’s innermost thoughts in first-rate prose.

“You two should really consider going on a Tri-State crime spree together once the workshop is over,” Lucius advised us.

The attraction was not physical. At least, not at the start.

Ben liked punk girls with multiple tattoos and piercings. I liked guys who were either (a) black or (b) looked like Michael Caine or Sean Connery in the opening scenes of The Man Who Would Be King.

But once the attraction became physical, it was very physical. We had an amazing sex life.

###

I still sometimes see Lucius. At a distance, of course. Twinkling at me from the other side of shelved political histories when I show up at the library to tutor Samir. Waving at me from outside the Dollar Store on Poughkeepsie’s Main Street on those (mercifully) few occasions when I’m called upon to navigate that boulevard of broken dreams in my car.

Lucius was a very brilliant writer. Although you certainly wouldn’t know it if you met him casually. He was kind of like what might happen if Joseph Conrad took demonic possession of the soul of the Duck Dynasty patriarch.

In the mid-1990s, Lucius had Big Problems with the IRS, lost all his money. So Ben and I – at this point domestically ensconced and new parents to Robin – decided to help him out. We bought an old RV for him to crash in until he could write a new novel that would clear up his financial problems. Stashed the RV in our backyard: Lucius was a notorious pig, so I certainly didn’t want him in my house.

Alas, the RV for all sorts of reasons turned out not to be a viable option.

Lucius ended up becoming our house guest – for a year and a half!

During that year and a half, he wrote Trujillo and A Handbook of American Prayer as well as a book, Two Trains Running, that purports to be a nonfiction book about riding the rails. It’s complete fiction: Lucius hardly ever left the bedroom we assigned him and certainly never spent time with anyone called Missoula Mike. The freight train riders were pals of Ben’s cousin Bruce Shoe who used to visit us from time to time and would tell us stories about his own adventures. Lucius overheard him and decided this would be a good way to scam money out of Rolling Stone.

Lucius dedicated Two Trains Running to me and Ben.

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After Lucius finally moved out, he and I kept in touch through marathon phone calls that generally took place while we watched episodes of Survivor on our respective TV sets in our respective abodes, him in the Seattle metro area and me in Monterey.

I was vaguely aware that, ummm, yes-s-s-s, Lucius had a crush on me.

This was not as disingenuous on my part as you may be quick to conclude.

I will note here that while I am usually good at picking up other people’s emotional subtexts – that’s what learning hyper-vigilance at your mother’s knee will do for you – it’s very difficult for me to pick up subtext when I am one of its precipitating factors because my default assumption is that every single person I know secretly loathes me.

Even now that I’m tottering on the brink of senescence, every now and then someone will remark to me, Surely you knew back in [your interminable number of years goes here] that I was in love with you.

So yes, Lucius was in love with me.

And no, I was not in love with him.

You may think it was because of his gargantuan size and homeless-person-looking appearance, but no, that wasn’t it. His appearance did not deter romance with many other women far much more accomplished than me! The elegant Alice Turner ran after Lucius for quite a while, and in addition to being a famous editor, Alice was a minor David Foster Wallace girlfriend!

No, I crossed Lucius off the potential romance list because once when I was about to make a road trip with him, I noticed his refrigerator was filled with food.

“Lucius, you’re gonna be gone,” I told him. “All this stuff is gonna rot. Why don’t we clean it out?”

No, no, no! Lucius refused to clean out his refrigerator!

“Hey!” I told him. “You don’t have to lift a finger. I’ll clean it.”

No, no, no! Not only did he refuse to clean out his refrigerator but he got deeply pissed off at me for being so petit bourgeois as to care about such things!

After that, every time I tried to imagine having sex with Lucius, all I could envision was being buried in an avalanche of rotting food.

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Now that Lucius is dead, I keep expecting him to be discovered the way Phil K. Dick was discovered. His Dragon Griaule books would certainly make a great parry to Game of Thrones if Showtime really wanted to take on HBO.

And, of course, there’s a lot more I could write about Lucius, but June and the Hassid are tapping their feet impatiently. (Lucius would like June and the Hassid!)