Beg, Borrow, Steal…A Writer’s Life…Michael Greenberg

I used to buy Other Press in my old job, and I remember being presented Hurry Down Sunshine, and thinking, “this isn’t going to sell, and what is this cover?” I was dead wrong. The book sold like hot cakes, got some great ink, and went on to be a great seller for Michael Greenberg. I was excited when I saw the incredible cover (not the one pictured here) and the original title in the Other Press catalog for Greenberg’s follow up to Hurry Down Sunshine called Black Suit, Worn Once $45. Does a book title have to be so literal like Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writers Life…? Which is what it was changed to. How about Me Talk Pretty One Day? That’s a good title, right? That book sells better than gasoline, and certainly can be compared to Mr. Greenberg’s collection of essays in Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writers Life on sale 9-8-09.

Personally this isn’t the kind of stuff I read. I’m a fiction junkie, of the contemporary breed, and since I live a non-fiction life, it doesn’t make sense to read more reality. To warn you right away, ‘Afterlife’ is not going to make it to the finished edition of Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writers Life. Why? I don’t know. Which is all the more reason for me to talk about it. Greenberg does more in these three pages than most books in the first hundred. This is a story (perfect for one trip to the bathroom) about his obsession with junk, and his father’s mini-landfill of sorts. He reflects on collecting scrap as a kid, and how he inherits his fathers scrapyard. But things don’t turn out as he’s planned and that might be the moral to the story. Meanwhile we hear (do I need to provide a link to this guy?) Don Delillo meditate on garbage, and Greenberg’s fascination with the Fresh Kills garbage dump on Staten Island (which I drive past twice a day). Of course Fresh Kills is famous for being the spot where the debris from The World Trade Center was sorted out, and has since lingered in my mind because the name is brutally cosmic…why would you sift through the remains of The World Trade Center at a place with a name like that?

For some odd reason lately I’ve been thinking about Paul Schrader’s amazing Light Sleeper. I thought specifically about the garbage strike in Manhattan that plays in the background of the storyline. I imagined how horrendous that must have been, Greenberg reflects on this historic New York moment as well, and in this story (that you’ll never read) he hints at the idea of garbage being an unseen force in our lives, even when it piles up around us, we don’t see it because we know it has to go somewhere…without us.

In the superbly acute ‘Cardiac Arrest’ Greenberg retells the story of his eighty-two year young mother’s cardiac arrest, and her vivid and rapid recovery. Again, these pages are too few, the details perfect, and the tone of this narrative is searingly real. All this leaves you wanting more. When Greenberg arrives at the hospital he greets his siblings with great joy, and notices his mother is no worse for wear. Her husband Marvin clings at the bed and Greenberg tells us that his mother and Marvin are flying towards the end of their lives, having ripped the rear view mirror off, eating cheeseburgers and drinking martinis. (I suspect my own grandparents are easily more reckless, and my grandfather still drives a car at 97). This isn’t the best part, it’s close, but when we hear about Mom’s cleaning lady, and how Marvin hates her, it’s a magical moment. It’s these kinds of insular details to a person’s life that makes them come alive on the page, and even harder for the reader to forget.

If you aren’t convinced to run out and buy this book right now, let me help you out the door and down the street. ‘Lobster Shift’ tells the story of Greenberg’s friend Clarence who is obsessed with trains. Clarence has just called to tell Mr. Greenberg that he’s gotten a job as a motorman on the New York City Subway. Clarence invites the author to a subway ride on Christmas day, as good a time as any to see what it’s like from the motorman’s seat. We’re treated to a blistering sequence of descriptions, walking the rails as passing northbound trains going to New England that lift you off the ground, and the snippets you see from passing apartment windows on the raised outdoor line in Pelham Park. These moments are so affecting that it’s hard not to be jealous of Mr. Greenberg’s power as writer. Clarence is a simple man, and we don’t hear anything intellectual coming from these pages, except when the blackout is described, the one that set the city on its ass in August…Clarence was in his first week as a motorman, and his description of working on the train that day at the height of rush hour is jawdropping.

-JR

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