The WELL: inkwell.vue.253: Jordan Fisher Smith - "Nature Noir"

#69: Bob Akka (akka) Mon 1 May 06 19:55

Mon, 01 May 2006 19:55:00 PDT

<scribbled by akka Tue 10 Feb 09 11:59> [Read entire topic]

#68: Bob Akka (akka) Sat 11 Mar 06 20:01

Sat, 11 Mar 2006 20:01:00 PST

<scribbled by akka Tue 10 Feb 09 11:59> [Read entire topic]

#67: Jordan Fisher Smith (jordan-f-smith) Fri 9 Sep 05 16:58

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 16:58:00 PDT

Steve:

Yes! I do remember the black and white film they showed us in school of the Ambrose Bierce story "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." It would be decades before I actually read the story, but the film left a lasting impression on me. And I'm certain, in the way you bring these things to art and writing, that this impression was in me when I titled the chapter. Yankee Jims Bridge seemed so forbidding when I first went there.

It's perceptive of you to notice that the condemnation of the landscape in some way gave people license to not only be brutal to the land, but also to each other. There is little a human being comes in contact with in a lifetime as substantial as the landscape itself; and if the landscape now becomes ephemeral, than what can be presumed to be real and lasting? And what difference does it make what you do there; it will all be underwater.

Dear Redheaded Mischief: That .357 Magnum lost from the car swept away by the flooding American never turned up in my jurisdiction, and I am unaware whether it was used in a crime. But I had a lot of practice over the years tracing guns back through their wayward lives and there was one that will always haunt me (and this isn't in the book.

It was a throwaway .380 automatic (by throwaway I mean it was a Saturday night special), a small, pocket-concealable kind--that was found deep in the the North Fork canyon, where it had been thrown off the Foresthill Bridge--no doubt by somebody who had just done something awful with it and was closer to that bridge than they were to the ocean. I traced it to its last registered owner who said he had sold it but couldn't remember to whom; that story wasn't all that great to hear but there was nothing to hang on the guy. I ran an APB (all points bulletin) to law enforcement agencies all over the West) looking for a John Doe or Jane Doe in some morgue or cold case file with a .380-sized hole in them. I had an analyst at the Department of Justice print out a spec sheet on every unsolved gun homicide in northern California and western Nevada and went through these cases looking for .380 holes or .380 slugs. Nothing.

When I retired and handed over the keys to the evidence lockers to a new ranger that case still weighed heavily on me. And the gun sat in its little bag with the evidence tag on it. I walked away from it and will never know what it had done.

People don't throw guns off a 730-foot high bridge into a rugged canyon for nothing.

Jordan Fisher Smith [Read entire topic]

#66: errant thoughts of redheaded mischief (izzie) Fri 9 Sep 05 16:34

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 16:34:00 PDT

but wait! it's Friday! my work week is over! i'm here now! no fair.

Jordan, i spent way to much time in a river yesterday, and again thought of you. Just wanted you to know that As Weak As Water is my favorite chapter in Nature Noir. Today.

One of my wilderness ranger pals at work started reading the book, and couldn't do it. Said it was too much like reading about work, and that he'd try picking it up when he was off season. I think that's a very good sign - your writing is real enough that someone living it day to day couldn't deal with that much more Real Life.

I have one more burning question from one of your stories. Did Mr. Morehouse's ruger Single-Six .357 ever show up in a crime, after coming missing in the flood in I think 1986? [Read entire topic]

#65: Gail Williams (gail) Fri 9 Sep 05 13:30

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 13:30:00 PDT

Yes, this has been terrific, despite the timing during the great natural/pollution dsiaster of the young century in our continent, which sure distracted my attention some. Wonderful food for thought. [Read entire topic]

#64: Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (cdb) Fri 9 Sep 05 12:09

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 12:09:00 PDT

The past two weeks have just flown by! I want to thank Jordan Fisher Smith for providing such rich material for this conversation, and to also thank <izzie> for her excellent moderating. Though our virtual spotlight has moved to a new author, this topic will remain open and available for additional conversation if you're able to continue, Jordan. We'd love to have you stick around. [Read entire topic]

#63: Steve Bjerklie (stevebj) Fri 9 Sep 05 10:14

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 10:14:00 PDT

No, Jordan, you were right. "Occurrence at Yankee Jim's Bridge" is a key chapter in the book for the reasons you cite above. It deepens one of the central, if subtle, themes of "Nature Noir," which is how people relate to landscape and how landscape relates to them. Imposing a dam on a wilderness is a kind of violence; it is important, then, to discuss as well local violence.

(You know, in my memory I have us watching the fine film version of "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" in the same freshman English class back at Tam High, or maybe it was at Edna Maguire.)

Reading "Nature Noir," I couldn't help but wonder whether the characters you describe who are out there in Auburn trashing the wilderness and each other in various ways felt somehow, in some way, sanctioned to do so by the threat of a dam in the canyon. It's like when some people see a lot of trash along the road, they think nothing of adding a little more of their own but probably wouldn't litter a pristine roadside. In the urban environment, numerous studies have been shown how a blighted cityscape impacts the mental state of those who must or choose to live in it. [Read entire topic]

#62: Jordan Fisher Smith (jordan-f-smith) Thu 8 Sep 05 20:09

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 20:09:00 PDT

What actually comes to mind is a story that came as close to not getting in the book as you can get, and was then included with much controversy.

The story in "Occurrence at Yankee Jims Bridge" of the two miners and that woman they got mixed up with, and her boyfriend is admittedly a tale of great and repeated misfortune, but it is one that for me is important to the book. Part of the darkness hanging over that part of the world is that of the Gold Rush and this story is about men who lust after gold (and women that get mixed up with them). Anyway, my editor hated that story. I wanted it. And so we went around and around about it.

Part of the magic of a book is the marriage of writer to editor, and the conversation between the two that becomes the book.

I'm curious...I'd like to hear from any reader: was my editor right about the Yankee Jims Chapter? Should it have been left out?

Do tell.

Jordan Fisher Smith [Read entire topic]

#61: Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (cdb) Thu 8 Sep 05 10:37

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 10:37:00 PDT

> there were a lot of good things to put in that book and some > didn't make the cut.

Jordan, I'd love it if you'd talk about one or more of the stories that didn't make it into the book. Do you have a particular favorite that you'd really hoped to include? [Read entire topic]

#60: Autumn Storhaug (autumn) Thu 8 Sep 05 06:46

Thu, 08 Sep 2005 06:46:00 PDT

Thanks for the great suggestions, Jordan. [Read entire topic]