My first novel . . . all over again! With a wonderful new cover by artist Rony Dhar.
Dear Reader: If you already purchased and read Price of Passage in its original edition (DX Varos Publishing, 2022), you are exempt from purchasing* this new one. It’s the same book.
Those of you who have not read it are now commanded to go forth and buy a copy of The Price of Passage: From Norway to America, From Slavery to Freedom (Three Towers Press, 2025). You’ll be glad you did.
It’s the gripping story of Anders and Maria, who come to America from Norway in the 1850s, and of Daniel, a young slave they encounter in the midst of his bid for freedom. As historical novels go, it’s first-rate.
There are new dilemmas and conflicts on almost every page. The narrative sheds light on under-reported aspects of America’s experience in the middle of the 19th century. For example, the existence in every southern state of Maroons, free-living communities of escaped slaves; the major role played by immigrants in the armies of the Civil War; the politics of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates; and the prevalence of integrated white/black crews of sailors on U.S. Navy ships before and during the Civil War.
More to the point, it tells the human tale of three hardy pioneers—Anders, Maria, and Daniel—who worked out their destinies in the most turbulent era of our national epic.
The characters are closely drawn from historical reality. The Norwegian characters, Anders and Maria, are based on my great-great-grandparents. Daniel and other African American characters are composites taken from the actual experiences of slaves and free blacks in the 19th century.
Don’t miss it. You can buy it direct from its publisher, Three Towers Press. Or, if you prefer, you can buy it on Amazon. The cost is the same. $18.95.
*Ha! You were wondering when the asterisk would come up, weren’t you? Gentle Reader, evn though you have already read Price of Passage in its earlier edition, I’d appreciate it if you would navigate to its page on Amazon, scroll way down until you see Review this product at the left margin, then click on the “Write a Customer Review” button** and enter your review. It need not be a major research paper, or even a grade school book report. Just a two-word headline and a sentence or two of text, saying what you liked about it, will be enough. Amazon reviews really do help authors sell their books.
**Aha! You were wondering when the double asterisk would come up, weren’t you? Fair Reader, if you already posted a review on the original edition of Price of Passage, I beg you to post it again on the new edition’s Amazon page. Amazon will not carry reviews over from the old page to the new page. If you don’t remember what you posted before, email me, larryfsommers@gmail.com, and I’ll send you a copy.
By the way, if you read Price of Passage in its old edition, it’s perfectly fine for you to review it on the Amazon page for the new edition, because as I mentioned above, it’s the same book.
Thank you for your kind support and understanding.
Bronze bust of John Donne, photographed by Matthew Black. Licensed under CC-BY-SA-2.0
No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were . . . .
John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation 17
When you reach a certain age, you notice how many friends you have lost.
“Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind.”
When someone I know dies, I take it personally. There goes a friend.
It could have been me.
A few weeks ago, Linda Grover Stehura died. Next Saturday I will attend her memorial service. Linda was a cherished friend of long standing. She was kind and intelligent, with a gentle humor.
Linda and friend
Her obituary says: “In June 1967, she graduated cum laude as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society from Knox College in Galesburg, IL, where she majored in English Education. Linda continued her education at UW-Madison earning her Master’s degree in English in 1970. While in Madison, she met her husband, Thomas J. Stehura, and they married in 1971.” (My italics.)
Joelle and I introduced Linda to Tom. Their wedding was held on our lawn, under a huge willow’s canopy, when we lived on Major Avenue on the East Side. We were friends ever since. Linda succumbed swiftly to pancreatic cancer at the tender age of 79.
Charles
Just days ago, AyukEnow Beatrice Diffang announced “the passing into glory of Rev. Charles Sagay, founder and president of Mission of Hope and Mission School of Hope, on January 21st, 2025.” Charles was a big man—quiet, warm, friendly. He, through the institution he founded in a poor corner of Cameroun, schooled hundreds of tribal children who would otherwise have had no education. More than that, he actually brought them into official existence by trooping them to the county seat to get birth certificates, so their government could no longer ignore their existence.
Charles made many trips to the United States—to raise funds for his important mission, yes, but more than that: to be in fellowship with others who shared his hope for the future of the human race. One time he stayed at our house and got the deluxe tour of Madison, Wisconsin. His humility and grace were lessons for us all. The human race can hardly bear to lose such people.
Krafty
My friend and fellow writer John Kraft passed into eternity a few years back—I don’t recall exactly when. I do know we were in a hotel somewhere on one of our travels, possibly in Ketchikan, when his wife, Dawn Curlee Carlson, announced his death via Facebook. It had been sudden, unexpected. He simply died.
Dawn, and the rest of us, lost a glowing light that day. Self-effacing, John was—except that nobody so blessed with sharp wit and a sardonic take on everyday things could ever fade into the shadows. It was a privilege to know him. Yet another good friend gone too soon.
Tim
Almost eight years ago, Tim Donovan died from a wholly unexpected cerebrovascular event. Tim was a newscaster, television personality, military officer, and public affairs professional. An intelligent, challenging, and complex personality.
I worked under his sometimes exasperating direction in the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs. It took some years to get know Tim, but by the time of his death, he was a friend. He and I had been through a lot together. Tim was only 65.
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Perhaps you will think me cold, Dear Reader, but when I think of Linda or Charles or John or Tim—or many other friends, relatives, and acquaintances lost over the past years—when I think of their swift passing, I am driven back upon the rock of survival. My survival.
They are dead; I am not. Through no special merit, I have endured this long on the face of the earth and still hope to last a while longer.
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When one has been retired for some time, the question of relevance rears its unlovely head.
“Isn’t it true, Mister Wise Guy”—I hear some Celestial Prosecutor say—“isn’t it true that you have spent the past fifteen years living on accumulated wealth . . . unemployed . . . at leisure . . . doing whatever you please, which in your case amounts to writing down the meandering contents of your head and publishing them wherever and whenever you can, broadcasting them to all and sundry, whether anyone is interested or not?
“Is that not so, Mister Wise Guy?
“Can you mention any recent year in which you have made a tangible contribution to the good of humanity?”
You have caught me, Your Honor, just as I am, without one plea.
But here is what is left out of that telling indictment:
The trivial routines of each day—I scale them like a desperate mountaineer.
When I ponder the value of any one of the pursuits in which I spend my being, the only thing that comes to mind is: Well . . . it’s better than being dead.
When I rise in the dark of a November morning, after the dog jumps off my bed, when I have found and sorted the tangled sheets, plumped the pillows, and smoothed the covers still soaked in smells of sleep—what can I say about all this bed-making?
It is an activity preferable to being dead.
When I pull my twin-bladed razor through the slop of lather, careful to shave close but not too close, swabbing off the lingering soap-trails with a hot rag, towelling my new-shorn face, and slapping on the sting of aftershave—what can it be but another activity which, whatever else you may say of it, is preferable to being dead?
Someone named Jim Harrison was quoted in a Facebook meme, to wit: “The difference between poetry and you is you look in the mirror and say, ‘I am getting old,’ but Shakespeare looks in the mirror and says, ‘Devouring Time, blunt thou thy lion’s paws.’”
Of course that’s true.
We know now—thanks to post-Modern physics—that time itself has no existence apart from matter/energy. We only pass through time by living it—by doing things. If we did not do things—if we did not have extension and heat and motion—time would be quite beside the point.
As a Christian, I know that my Redeemer lives. And I trust I shall meet my Redeemer in some unimaginable plane of being, in form I know not what, in circumstance I know not how.
That phrase, incidentally, was not first murmured by a Christian. The locus classicus of “I know my Redeemer lives” is the Book of Job, which we may regard as a work of rhetorical fiction penned centuries before the coming of Jesus and preserved in the Jewish Scriptures. In the book’s 19th chapter, verses 25through 27, Job—an upright man bewilderingly visited by a series of harrowing misfortunes—replies to a scolding by his friend Bildad the Shuhite, saying, in part,
“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!” New Living Translation
Gentle Reader, I don’t know how to plumb the wisdom of Job. You may say rightly that I have really no excuse for even thinking about such matters, let alone sharing my thoughts with the world.
And yet . . . and yet, it is better than being dead. It is something I can do that Linda and Charles and John and Tim no longer can. So I will do it for them.
Finally, it’s here. I refer not to the Trump second term, however you may feel about that.
No, I’m talking about something of epochal importance: The re-publication of my historical novel, Price of Passage, in a new edition, re-titled The Price of Passage.
The re-emergence of this monumental work, its light hidden under a bushel by the collapse of its original publisher, has been a rocky road indeed.
Some rocks still lie in the path ahead.
How It All Began
I had a gripping Civil War story, which had taken most of five years to write. Its title was Freedom’s Purchase. I did not really like that title, but it was the best I could come up with.
After a lot of folderol, I found a traditional publisher, Dan Willis of DX Varos Publishing, who was willing to take a chance on it. While bringing it to publication, we hit upon a new, improved title: Price of Passage: A Tale of Immigration and Liberation. The title and subtitle echoed themes and plots in my book, which is about Norwegian immigrants and fugitive slaves.
We released Price of Passage on August 23, 2022, with a fabulous launch party at Mystery to Me Bookstore in Madison. Then I began making the rounds of libraries, bookstores, book festivals, and craft shows to sell and sign copies, in person, with real book-buying customers.
Meanwhile, I was working on my next book, a coming-of-age story called Izzy Strikes Gold!
And Then What Happened?
Besides direct sales at public events, we were selling Price of Passage on the internet through Amazon or the publisher’s own website. These sales generated royalty payments, which the publisher owed me on a quarterly basis. But in July 2023, less than a year after the book was published, the royalties ceased.
The publisher, Dan Willis, had died.
This was terrible news: First, because Dan had been a straight shooter in his dealings and a valued partner to me and other authors; second, because it turned out that nobody was up to the job of taking his place, and the DX Varos publishing company soon stopped functioning as a normal publishing company.
Not to bore you with sordid details, Gentle Reader, but Your New Favorite Writer barely managed to get his rights back. It was a close call.
So now it was back to Square One. I was the sole owner of a great literary property but needed a publishing partner to put it back into the market. I was up a creek with no means to propel my craft.
Kira to the Rescue
The hero of this story is Kira Henschel. Kira, who owns and operates HenschelHAUS Publishing of Milwaukee, heard about my plight from a guardian angel, Christine DeSmet. Kira met me over coffee and agreed on the spot to re-publish Price of Passage and also to publish the next book, Izzy Strikes Gold!
Because of logistics, Izzy came out first, in July 2024, from Kira’s Three Towers Press imprint, and it has been well received. Now, Price of Passage is being re-published, also by Three Towers. The release date is next Saturday, February 1. The book is already up on Amazon, where you can lodge a pre-order.
Huzzah! Huzzah!
It’s Always Something
If it isn’t one thing, Fair Reader, it’s another.
The book has a wonderful new cover, designed by Rony Dhar. It also has a slightly new title: The Price of Passage: From Norway to America, From Slavery to Freedom. It’s close to the old title—which would be wonderful if we were pitching horseshoes.
Only we’re not pitching horseshoes, we’re pitching a book. Because the title of the new edition is slightly different from the original title, Amazon won’t carry the book’s 28 positive customer reviews over to the buying page for the new edition. This is a major hindrance, since Amazon customer reviews in the listing greatly influence the buying decisions of new customers.
We need to get new reviews for The Price of Passage, even though the entire content is exactly the same book that already garnered 28 good reviews.
“How Can I Help?”
This one’s kaput.
If you’ve never read the book, Dear Reader, you don’t know what you’ve missed. And now it’s back on the market. Buy it; read it; and when you like it, post a positive review. It’s simple. Just go to The Price of Passage: From Norway to America, From Slavery to Freedom. Scroll way down the listing to where it says, on the left, “Write a Customer Review.” Click on that button and follow Amazon’s instructions.
You don’t have to write a book report. Just a sentence or two about why you liked it will suffice.
Read this one instead.
If you’re one of those who have already read Price of Passage but have not yet left a review, please do so. You can honestly review it at the page shown above for the new edition, even though what you read was the old edition—because the books are the same, word for word. Only the title and cover have changed. But please do leave a review. You’ll be helping a lot.
Finally, if you already did read the book and already did leave a review, please go to the page shown above and leave a review again under the new edition. It can be a brand new review, or you can use the same words you did before. If you don’t remember what you wrote before, email me at larryfsommers@gmail.com, and I’ll send you the text of your previous review.
By the way: Reviews may be posted on or after February 1, 2025—a week from Saturday—but not before then.
The literary world embraces your willing, cooperative spirit. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart, you wonderful person.
And just like that, Dear Reader, here we are in 2025!
Valerie
My friend Valerie Biel has just spent 2024 focusing her efforts as a writer and marketing guru on one word: MOXIE. She verbed a quirky noun and, by her own admission, “moxied the heck out of 2024.” And it seems to have worked out well for her.
This year her byword will be TANGIBLE. We’ll have to check back in January 2026 to see whether this new focus yielded any results that were real . . . concrete . . . touchable.
Reluctant though I be to jump on anybody’s bandwagon, even a good friend’s, I hereby announce (Ta-DA!!) the Larry F. Sommers Word of the Year for 2025:
PANEL.
This word has a good start, for already, 2025 has given me two and one half paneling opportunities.
Merriam-Webster tells us that “panel” comes from Middle English panel, panele, pannel, meaning a piece of cloth. From an expanse of fabric it has come to mean a similar expanse of wood or other rigid material, as used in constructing houses, cars, etc. And since “a piece of cloth” may be a piece of parchment, used as writing paper, on which lists can be made, we get the idea of a jury panel—a list of jurors. And thus, by extension, almost any group of people gathered to inquire, consider, or discuss topics.
It is in this latter sense that I have recently been, and hope further to be, impaneled.
Panels were a standard feature of radio game shows, and then television game shows like What’s My Line? and I’ve Got a Secret, in the days of my misspent youth.
The original panel of What’s My Line? in 1952. Public Domain.
Little did I dream that panels would become an important part of literary gatherings, book festivals, and publishing industry conferences. Who would have thought that Your New Favorite Writer—in the increasingly late part of middle age—would ever become that prized and valued thing:
A PANELIST.
(We used to have a saying for this kind of surprise: “Six months ago I couldn’t even spell ‘panelist.’ Now I are one!”)
Yes, it’s true. At six pm Central Standard Time on January 14—just eleven hours after this item is posted online—I will panelize by the medium of Zoom on “The Art of Marketing Your Book.”
Why not click in on tonight’s Zoom panel so that you can achieve a like state of bewilderment? By the way, there will be four other panelists. Some of them may be able to tell you how to market your book. It’s worth a shot, right?
But my whole point is, I’ve been a Literary Lion for nine years now, and this is the first time someone has asked me to be on a panel. My ignorance must have reached the take-off point.
Likewise, I’ll be an author-panelist at the Faith Forward Writers Retreat April 24-26 at Sparrows Nest at the Abbey, Sparta, Wisconsin. That one’s an in-person event. I don’t have a lot of info yet, but when I do, I’ll pass it along. For sure you’ll want to be there.
Wow, that’s two panels booked, and it’s still the first half of January. My paneling career is on the upsurge.
Yes, I know I said two and a half panels. That’s because the third one is not in the bag yet. Thus far, it’s merely proposed. But if that panel is accepted and booked—I’m on it. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know if it happens.
What’s the point of all these panels?
Well, they’re meant to give aspiring writers some grounds for reflection, perhaps even hope, about the writing life, chances of publication, and possible ways to sell books. It’s that simple.
For Your New Favorite Writer personally, it’s a path to wider recognition—which, in turn, leads to a more satisfying journey, more opportunities for publication, and greater book sales.
Ah, so.
At least that is the theory.
So my leading theory at the moment is: BE A PANELIST.
It takes a lot of MOXIE. I’m waiting with bated breath to see if it yields anything TANGIBLE.
It always seems perfectly clear to me what we’re doing here. But it may have been a while since I spelled it out in plain English, so I can’t blame you if you’re confused.
My friend Dan Blank advises writers to make sure we have our Key Messages honed. I think he means there ought to be some central tendency to what we write—that with which we ultimately are most concerned.
You may have noticed that this blog is titled “Reflections.” By this I mean these essays are not mere recitations of fact. Whatever the content may be, I have thought about it, at least a little bit, and now present to you my particular perspective on it. So these are truly reflections of my thought processes.
You may have noticed this blog is subtitled “Seeking fresh meanings from our common past.” By that I mean to suggest that I want to find out what we can learn from our history that may give us fresh outlooks in our present lives.
Everything grows out of something, Dear Reader. Nothing comes from nothing. To know where we have been, I submit, is to know our culture; and to know our culture is to know something big about ourselves.
When I first set up this website, almost six years ago, I tried to summarize these Key Messages, and the mission—if you will—of this blog by setting up a separate page titled “History—Who Cares?”
Recently I revised that little self-revelatory essay, deleted the special page it was on, and transferred it to the tab marked “Author,” which you can find at the head of this page. You could click on over there to read it, but just for this week I will save you the trouble and post the same essay below:
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The Past? Who Cares?
I care, that’s who.
My name is Larry F. Sommers.
The Sanburn cabin.
My people are from Knoxville, a small town in Illinois. Two of my uncles died flying bombers to defeat the Axis Powers in the 1940s.
When my Grandma’s house was torn down in 1963, workers found under the siding boards a square-hewn timber cabin built by storekeeper John G. Sanburn in 1832. This cabin was restored to its frontier appearance and can be seen today on the Public Square in Knoxville.
The Streator Public Library
I lived in Streator, Illinois, birthplace of astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered the planet Pluto . . . and of author Clarence Mulford, who created the cowboy character Hopalong Cassidy. As a boy I haunted the Streator Public Library—a lovely classical building donated by Andrew Carnegie—where I read science fiction by Lester Del Rey, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke.
I was twelve in 1957 when Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, was launched. I mourned because the Russians had done what Americans were supposed to do.
Hamilton
I attended high school in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Our history teacher, Leo Gebhardt, was on a first-name basis with the Founding Fathers: “. . . and just then,” he would say, “when our new country needed its credit stabilized, who should come along? Your friend and mine . . . Alexander Hamilton.”
I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, and the Vietnam War. I have seen how such events can live on as skywritten myths, having a shaky attachment to facts.
In middle age, I became a Christian, coming into line with a 2,000-year tradition of saints, sinners, scholars, artists, musicians, and freedom fighters.
Our lives—ALL our lives—are part of history, and history is a part of our lives. That’s why I write.
T.S. Eliot wrote:
We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.
I want to go where we’ve been before, yet see it with fresh eyes. Why not come along?
Ebenezer Scrooge in mortal apprehension, portrayed by George C. Scott. Fair use.
Why do we tingle when sleigh bells jingle? Why do we light up with joy when we see a tree lit up with colored bulbs? Why do we smile when Santa says, “Rudolph with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”
Why do we cringe when old Scrooge says “Bah! Humbug!”, and why do our eyes water when a new Scrooge brings a turkey to the Cratchitts?
Natalie Wood pulls Edmund Gwynn’s beard. Fair use.
What makes us tune in yet again to see Kris Kringle put on a Santa suit and treat Macy’s shoppers like real people?
Why do we hold our breath when Judy Garland sings to her kid sister, Margaret O’Brien, hoping against hope that her little Christmas will be merry after all?
What is it in us that appreciates apprentice angel Clarence’s appreciation of George Bailey’s character, even when George himself can’t see it?
Clarence and George. Public Domain.
Why do writers of books, movies, and songs always come back to Christmas? The Old Reliable. The fountain of innumerable waterworks.
Is Christmas, then, the last refuge of a scoundrel? Is it just a humbug—or is there some redeeming merit in it, after all?
Yes, Virginia
I think we love Christmas because we were made for a better life—a life we have lost sight of—and Christmas helps us see it again.
Adoration of the Shepherds. Dutch, Mathias Stomer, ca. 1650. Public Domain.
Christmas is when we commemorate God’s act of bringing love to the world, fixing up the broken toys we have made of our lives so they can work the way they were meant to.
This was such a big thought in the days of the Roman Empire that it took over a whole continent, resonating through two thousand years, echoing still today in our music, our drama, our popular entertainments—and in our humbler gatherings around the family fireside.
We know life can be better, and it doesn’t hurt once a year to be reminded of it, in powerful ways. In ways that resonate with our culture and our past experiences.
So by all means let’s enjoy our Tom-and-Jerrys, roast our chestnuts on an open fire, and shake our collective fingers at the Grinch.
But let’s never forget that a better life can be ours the other 364 days as well. That however gloomy things may seem at the moment, however much Despair may seem to reign over our affairs, there is a Greater Power at work behind the scenes.
It’s a Wonderful Life. Public Domain.
Call it what you will. I call it God. I call it Love. And I trust it will prevail.
There really are miracles, even on 34th Street. Someday soon we all will be together. It really is a wonderful life.
How do you like the cover? Send me a comment and let me know.
The new edition of my American historical epic, The Price of Passage. Publication date: Early 2025.
The original edition had a “conceptual” cover showing a railroad track and a chain (to represent slavery) bursting in two. Conceptually, you see, it’s a book about journeys that end in liberation.
But they are journeys of three specific characters: Norwegian immigrants Anders and Maria, and the runaway slave Daniel.
The new cover, by Rony, shows prospecive buyers who this book is about, and the rural setting in which it occurs. We wanted to give readers a clue to what kind of story they would be reading. Hope you like it.
You can be born in Amherst, live in Amherst, and die in Amherst. You can go to your grave unheralded.
And then some interfering busybody will publish your poems, and you’ll be famous. Even rich, though only in absentia because by that time, you’ll be . . . elsewhere.
Dear Reader, I am no Emily Dickinson. I find it necessary to promote my own writings while I am still here.
Not that it will make me famous or rich. But I would like somebody to read what I have written.
This is especially true of a little book called Izzy Strikes Gold!, published in July 2024. My second novel. The one nearest my heart.
If you wish to dismiss it, you may call it a middle-grade novel, because that means only pre-teen children should read it.
But here’s a news flash: I wrote it for everybody.
Izzy Mahler is a bright and inquisitive lad, age twelve, the class shrimp in a small Midwestern town. Not everything is going well in his life, but he’s accumulating friends—one by one, almost without being aware of it. And he has private knowledge of a hoard of shiny metal. That could be gold, and gold could help.
The story is set in the Sometimes-But-Not-Always Fabulous Fifties, which lends it a certain charm for those who remember the era, or a sense of wonder for those who have never been there. The kids who inhabit the Fifties are just like kids now—only in a gentler world.
Izzy Strikes Gold! is a charming, sometimes sad, but always honest look at growing up in America, then or now.
It is what we used to call a coming-of-age story.
Did I mention it builds to a Christmastime climax?
This story is too good to be restricted to middle-schoolers. You can read it too.
Izzy Strikes Gold! is a book for anyone who was ever twelve years old, or ever will be. You can read it with your grandchildren.
Do you recall my blessing you, a couple of weeks ago, with about 1,300 words on podcasting and its relevance to the practice of struggling authorship?
Tom Bodett. I don’t think he looks like he sounds. What do you think? Image from Brattleboro Community TV, licensed under CC BY 3.0.
Maybe not enough was said.
In that post I mentioned that podcasters are the Arthur Godfreys of today. I could have gone on to call them latter-day Tom Bodetts, as well. But for once, I exercised restraint. (Please count that in my favor, come the Final Tabulation.)
Ben Patterson, Motel 6 ad for Roswell, New Mexico. Fair use.
You may or may not know Tom Bodett as the guy from Motel 6 who says “we’ll leave the light on for ya.” The motel chain’s ad agency hired him because somebody heard his voice on NPR and thought he sounded like a guy who would stay at Motel 6. You know, a regular joe.
First edition cover of The Body Snatchers, illustrated by John McDermott. Fair use.
But I digress. What I was going to say is that podcasting makes me think of pod people, as in, you know, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Actually, the locus classicus of the species was just The Body Snatchers, a 1955 book by Jack Finney (one of Your New Favorite Writer’s favorite writers, by the way). When they made it into a movie in 1956, they added “Invasion of.”
Kevin McCarthy prods a pod in the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Fair use.
Finney’s book was a sweet little story of spores or seeds or something that drift in from outer space, ripen into duplicate human beings inside large pods, and systematically replace the actual people they have emulated. Pretty soon the protagonist catches on, and then it’s a race to prevent all of Mill Valley, California, being replaced by a colony of soulless avatars. Once the premise is developed, Finney pretty much leaves off any pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo and just tells the thrills and spills of the human resistance movement fighting off the invaders. The book has been criticized for its want of Heinleinian (Asimovian? Clarkeian?) authenticity, but once Jack Finney starts spinning a yarn, it’s hard not to get tangled in its web . . . or pod, or whatever.
Which brought to mind the fact that podcasting is one of those arcane disciplines that rely on the development of modern, computer-based technology in order to have any basis at all. That’s only one of the things that makes it daunting to yours truly—a Twenty-first Century Man with the technical know-how of the Tooth Fairy.
I am firmly convinced, for example, that when my telephone dims its screen to 90 percent darkness without my commanding it to do so, it is exercising a purblind, autonomous, malicious will of its own.
A Rube Goldberg machine: “Professor Butts and the Self-Operating Napkin (1931). Soup spoon (A) is raised to mouth, pulling string (B) and thereby jerking ladle (C), which throws cracker (D) past toucan (E). Toucan jumps after cracker and perch (F) tilts, upsetting seeds (G) into pail (H). Extra weight in pail pulls cord (I), which opens and ignites lighter (J), setting off skyrocket (K), which causes sickle (L) to cut string (M), allowing pendulum with attached napkin to swing back and forth, thereby wiping chin.” Public Domain.
And yet, Jack Finney stands as a shining example. A man with only a general liberal arts background, and some experience in the advertising business, he made a good living—as well as contributing to American mid-century culture—by writing stories that often fell under the science fiction rubric. He pulled it off by never letting pesky scientific details get in the way of a good story. His Time and Again stands as one of the great time-travel novels despite its resolute refusal to offer even a Rube Goldberg-style explanation of how time travel was supposed to have worked. He just massaged his protagonist’s psyche until he found himself in the 1890s.
Some chutzpah.
This is enough to give a techno-klutz renewed hope. If Jack Finney can do science fiction, surely Larry F. Sommers can wiggle cyberspace enough to snag a few guest shots on literary podcasts.
Stay tuned for further developments, but don’t stop the presses. Yet.
You’ve been sweating over something for weeks or months, and all of a sudden you see it from a new angle. One thought breaks in and lights up a bevy of questions, the answers to which bounce off one another in ways you never suspected. It can be profound when that happens.
It doesn’t happen to me much. But yesterday morning, it did.
I’d been thinking about podcasting. I don’t mean I had considered doing a podcast. In fact, I don’t even know what “doing” is, where podcasts are concerned. Rather, what I mean is, I’ve been pondering the whole subject of podcasting.
It’s a bugaboo for writers. We are told to become a guest on somebody’s podcast, because podcasts are the best avenue to increased book sales. You must pitch podcasters with . . . well, with whatever it is you do, or what you have to contribute to the conversation, or . . . something.
Did I mention, Dear Reader, I was born in the twentieth century? The year 1945, to be precise. Almost eighty years ago. So what do I know from podcasting?
Tens of millions of people make podcasts and listen to podcasts, often with great regularity and brand loyalty. According to Pew Research—which, as you know, researches every social trend worth researching—large portions of a podcast’s audience will buy something, read something, or take an action because they heard it on their favorite podcast.
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Gutenberg. Public Domain.
But I don’t understand why someone would listen to podcasts in the first place. I am mostly a printed word guy. To me, Gutenberg invented the latest reliable technology. I watch very little TV, listen to very little radio, and take in nearly zero podcasts.
Those things seem like giant time-wasters to me. You have to wait for someone to speak, or in the case of video, to act, before you can learn that which you could already have grasped by skimming a line or two of prose. And it’s inconvenient, sometimes even impossible, to go back and re-check something that was said a while back. Why would a person want to do this?
“Yes, but—” I hear you cry. “But you can ingest a podcast while doing something else—driving or jogging or washing dishes.”
Maybe you can, but I am no multi-tasker. I have to pay attention to every single thing. I guess they call that a one-track mind. It leaves me no way to pay attention to something else.
That’s not absolute, Gentle Reader. I can, for example, talk with someone while driving a car. I won’t run over any pedestrians, but I’m almost certain to miss my turn-off.
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So why do I need to pay attention to podcasting at all? Because podcasters are powerful influencers. The folks who subscribe and listen to podcasts become attached to the voices they hear repeatedly. They invest great authority in their pronouncements. That’s what makes podcasting a valuable vehicle for promoting a book.
Still, I—antedeluvian creature I am—bridle at the idea of pursuing podcast appearances. It is unseemly. It is very now. Therefore I hate it.
But I was mulling over the authority listeners invest in the podcaster, and suddenly—Fair Reader, you might recognize that this is where you came in—A LIGHT BULB WENT ON above my head, just like we used to see in the funny papers.
When I was a boy, in the 1950s, there was a man in whom listeners invested great authority. So much authority, in fact, that you could buy time from him at an expensive rate . . . but if you paid, oh, ten times that rate, the great man himself would deliver your message, in his own voice.
His name was Arthur Godfrey.
Arthur Godfrey at a CBS microphone in 1938. Public Domain.
He was a creation of radio, and by his own audacity, he became king of the medium. While recovering from a near-fatal car crash in 1931, Godfrey spent a lot of time listening to and analyzing commercial radio broadcasts. He noted, according to Wikipedia, “that the stiff, formal style then used by announcers could not connect with the average radio listener. The announcers spoke in stentorian tones, as if giving a formal speech to a crowd and not communicating on a personal level. Godfrey vowed that when he returned to the airwaves, he would affect a relaxed, informal style as if he were talking to just one person.”
That’s just what he did. Jim Ramsburg says: “In their 1963 book, It Sounds Impossible, former CBS executives Sam Slate and Joe Cook describe Godfrey’s return. ‘. . . Listeners heard for the first time the casual, unhurried speech . . . the ruminating, hesitant pace . . . the purring growl that has since opened the doors to millions of American homes.’ ”
Godfrey’s informality extended even to adlibbing and joking while delivering on-air commercial scripts that sponsors had paid good money for. Godfrey sometimes appeared to be mocking the very product he was selling. But sales zoomed, and canny sponsors realized that having your commercial butchered by “the Old Redhead” was better than having it read meticulously by an ordinary announcer.
He hit his stride on April 30, 1945, when CBS gave him a half-hour coast-to-coast slot at 9:15 a.m., Monday through Friday, under the title Arthur Godfrey Time. Eventually it expanded to ninety minutes.
The Old Redhead delivered long, unscripted monologues; interviewed celebrities; introduced and sometimes interrupted or joined in with musical selections by his own in-house orchestra and regular vocalists. It was all spontaneous and informal.
He got beyond the scripted sound of commercials by inserting adlibbed comments. I recall his reading a commercial for Bufferin that was filled with Madison Avenue catch-phrases. He stopped ten seconds in, paused, and said, “So forth and so on. To tell you the truth, folks, I don’t know what’s in this stuff, but I’ve used it myself and it works.”
He was the ultimate pitchman because it never seemed he was pitching—he was simply commenting, in a folksy, down-to-earth way, on the passing scene. According to Ramsburg, he realized that radio was a personal medium and he spoke directly to the individual listener.
People listened to Arthur Godfrey every day. They knew him, they trusted him, and they were loyal.
Aren’t these the same reasons podcasters are said to be so influential?
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So when the light bulb went off over my head, it said: “Podcasters are the Arthur Godfreys of today.” Even an old wreck like me can understand that.
Few podcasters enjoy as big an audience as Godfrey commanded. That’s just as well, because anyone whose book is not yet on the New York Times Best Sellers list is unlikely to get a foot in the door of those giant podcasts.
The media scene today is fragmented. Many podcasters have only a few followers, or a few hundred, or a few thousand. That’s where I ought to start.
And the first thing to do is to pick a few likely candidates and listen to their podcasts. When pitching somebody, it never hurts to know what they’re all about.
You can help me, Dear Reader. Do you subscribe, or listen regularly, to any podcasts that seem related to the theme of this blog—“Seeking new meanings in our common past”? If so, drop me a line at larryfsommers@gmail.com, or just add a comment to this post.
