An Evening with James Morrow
By Jeffrey A. Katt
This week, I had the pleasure of meeting James Morrow, one of my all-time favorite authors. I belong to a science fiction book club at a bookstore just around the corner, not one of those annoying, impersonal, gigantic chain stores, but a real neighborhood bookstore. The store arranged to have Mr. Morrow visit and perform a combination reading/signing, but due to some clever and intense lobbying by our book club’s facilitator, the author agreed to sit in on our club’s discussion of his latest book, The Eternal Footman.
The evening started with close to one hundred people anxiously waiting to meet the author. Mr. Morrow's wife watched quietly from the front row. He seemed a little bit overwhelmed by the crowd’s attention at first, but once he started reading from The Eternal Footman, his voice became full and robust. He read one of my favorite scenes from the book, the one in which God’s divine intestines speak telepathically to the main characters, which produced the expected guilt-laden laughs in the appropriate places from the audience.
Then, as an unexpected treat, he read from the first chapter of his next novel, The Last Witchfinder. This was apparently the first time any of this work in progress had been revealed to the public, and the author read to us directly from his personal manuscript.
Mr. Morrow reads with expression and enjoyment, and it was obvious to everyone present that he loves writing. The Last Witchfinder moves us away from the death of God and into new, unexplored territory. It is a historical novel set in the late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries. The author explores the two different parallel worlds that existed simultaneously in our society during this time period—the world of science (or what was then called natural philosophy), and the world of spirits, demons, and witches. Just to make the story more interesting, the father of the story’s protagonist makes his living by hanging witches.
The daughter tries to argue vehemently against the existence of the demonic world and eventually becomes Benjamin Franklin’s much older lover (Franklin is only about eighteen-years-old at the time, and she is roughly forty). They travel together to England to get advice from Sir Isaac Newton. In classic Morrow style, much of the story is actually told from the point of view of Newton’s most well-known work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (published in 1687), or simply the Principia, although the book itself is not too fond of this nickname.
This new story shows classic Morrow satirical humor and is very entertaining. He estimated that the manuscript was somewhere between one-half and two-thirds completed, but was unable to give even an estimated date of publication.
After the reading, Mr. Morrow was asked several questions about his writing. I was not surprised to discover that the author gets much more enjoyment out of the editing process than he does from the initial writing itself. He later told me that it would be difficult to estimate how many drafts he does of each chapter since a great many changes are made "on the fly" using a word processor, but he assured me that it was "a great many." He said that rewriting always takes longer than he expects, but for him the "fun of writing" is in the manipulation of the language, and I think it should be obvious to anyone who has read one of his novels that each individual sentence seems more designed or crafted rather than simply written. I couldn’t help but notice that he made multiple corrections in pencil while he read to us—not only in his new manuscript, but also in an actual hard cover copy of The Eternal Footman--a characteristic of a dedicated writer.
Clearly, Mr. Morrow has a somewhat unique view of organized religion and spirituality that comes through quite clearly in his novels. In a 1997 interview, he said, "It’s no secret that I have no use for churches (including secular churches, like the stock market). I am reverent vis-à-vis the universe. I think you HAVE to be in awe of reality, given how much we now know about the cosmos, and how much we DON’T know (and how little we don’t know we don’t know). I think there’s a million times more majesty in a clear starry sky than in all the revealed wisdom ever committed to sacred texts."
Someone asked him if he gets a large amount of negative mail, especially considering his somewhat unorthodox themes, but he replied that such letters were surprisingly infrequent.
A few fledgling writers asked questions about his writing techniques. He did say that when writing a novel he works from a rough outline, but it isn’t uncommon for twists, turns, or surprises to show up along the way. He also gave us writers a word of advice—as soon as you get a great idea for a story, no matter how clearly it occurs in your mind, write it down! He still mourns over a few great story ideas that "got away" because he didn’t jot them down and couldn’t remember them later. He said that although he considers himself a satirist and dark humorist, he tries to include some affirmation in every book that he writes.
Although he prefers writing novels to all other writing, he does accept other projects from time to time. These have included nonfiction video scripts, book reviews, articles, and radio dramas. He also taught a semester at a local university, but apparently that was not very much to his liking.
For me, however, the best part of the evening was after the book signing was complete, and Mr. Morrow joined our seven-member book club in our discussion of The Eternal Footman. Rarely does a reader get an inside glimpse into the creation of a great novel, and the author openly entertained all questions. When I asked if the Lucido clinic failed, in the end, to cure the existential plague afflicting humanity because it’s treatment was never effective or because its leaders became corrupt, he said that he had left that determination to the reader. Several group members asked about parallels between his books and famous landmark works written by other authors, but in almost every case Mr. Morrow stated that such parallels were either coincidental or subconscious. Some variation of the "How do you come up with this stuff?" question was asked several times, and this was a question that even the author had a great deal of trouble answering. Then we discussed the origins of the cover design.
For an author who is so well respected in the world of science fiction and fantasy, I found James Morrow to be friendly, open, and very approachable. His sense of humor is just as acute in "real life" as it is in his writing. I anxiously look forward to the release of The Last Witchfinder, and hope that Mr. Morrow’s path and my own will cross again someday.
For further information about James Morrow you can visit his web site at http://www.sff.net/people/jim.morrow
Reviews of Some of James Morrow's work
The Eternal Footman
by James Morrow
(Copyright © 1999; Harcourt Brace & Company; 359 pages)
Reviewed by Jeffrey A. Katt
Very, Very Highly Recommended
No one tells a story quite like James Morrow, and The Eternal Footman certainly won’t disappoint his fans. Written in Morrow’s flawlessly constructed prose, and laced with humor drier than the Mojave desert, the author takes us into a world so fantastic that it borders on outlandish—yet at the same time it is disturbingly familiar.
It’s the turn of the millennium and God is dead, his gigantic corpse floating in the Atlantic Ocean. An attempt is made to tow God’s body to an iceberg for storage, but the cadaver splits open, its organs flying into the air and disintegrating. Its grinning skull snaps off its holy neck and ends up in geosynchronous orbit over New York City. An existential plague then spreads throughout humanity as people suddenly become aware of death, and as each person meets his or her own satanic twin he or she becomes terminally ill. A war breaks out between Jews and anti-Semites, which reaches its climax on a New Jersey golf course. Martin Luther and Erasmus have several posthumous debates. Dr. Adrian Lucido develops a polytheistic religion that serves as a treatment for the plague, but when this great undertaking is found to be only temporarily effective he turns to an alternate plan—euthanasia.
In the end, humanity is rescued by a school teacher whose arduous journey is aided by a noble actor, a couple of ship captains, a world renowned sculptor, and God’s intestines, which give the teacher some strange and cryptic advice.
Morrow’s work is always entertaining, and The Eternal Footman is one of my favorites. Through satire, he forces the reader to examine the origins of his or her own beliefs, bringing up not only new and original philosophical debates, but also questions that are older than time itself. I give The Eternal Footman my highest possible recommendation.
Only Begotten Daughter
by James Morrow
(Copyright © 1990; William Morrow and Company; 312 pages)
Reviewed by Jeffrey A. Katt
Strongly Recommended
Only Begotten Daughter is probably my favorite novel by James Morrow, but that just might be because it was his first novel that I ever read. Devilishly clever and brilliantly constructed, it represents an excellent introduction to Morrow’s work. The dry, satirical humor that is carefully inserted throughout the story has become one of the author’s trademarks. This book also has received the World Fantasy Award. Only Begotten Daughter is simply great stuff.
The novel is about God’s daughter, Julie Katz, born in more contemporary times than her famous brother. Julie was created from a single sperm donation. Her human father, Murray, is very concerned that his daughter has as normal a life as possible, and he encourages Julie to avoid any similarities in her life to that of Jesus. He does allow her to perform the occasional miracle, but she must be subtle. For example, he only allows her to walk under water. Eventually, her desire to anonymously perform miracles results in "long-distance" intervention as an advice columnist for a supermarket newspaper.
She later becomes quite introspective, and spends some time with Jesus in Hell, helping the tormented souls there. Throughout the story she wishes for contact with her mother in order to help her answer the many questions which have plagued her life, but God is strangely silent.
One thing about Morrow—no one can accuse him of not writing original material. The book is funny, entertaining, philosophical, and deadly serious. As it says on the dust jacket, "This a novel that has something to offend everyone!" I strongly recommend this book.
This Is The Way The World Ends
by James Morrow
(Copyright © 1986; Harcourt Brace & Company; 319 pages)
Reviewed by Jeffrey A. Katt
Highly Recommended
Written in 1986, for many readers This Is The Way The World Ends was the novel that first brought James Morrow to their attention. The book received wide critical acclaim, is extremely original, and even Arthur C. Clark is quoted on the cover as saying that this "is the only book in the last ten years that I’ve read twice…a remarkable achievement."
The story takes place about ten years in the future (1995). George Paxton, a perfectly normal tombstone carver, ends up being one of the few survivors of worldwide thermonuclear war. It seems that once the scopas suit is invented, an article of clothing that is eventually worn by all Americans for protection against radiation, the balance of power between nations "tilts" and leads to full-scale war. Of course, it is only after the war that it becomes apparent that the scopas suits are completely useless.
Miraculously, George survives, but just prior to the attack he is tricked into signing a statement declaring that he shares complicity in the escalating nuclear arms race. After the war and his rescue, he ends up having to face the consequences of his crimes, and is prosecuted by a race of "blackbloods"—people who would have been born and had lives to live if the war had never happened.
Even though it was written just before the end of the cold war, This Is The Way The World Ends is still a great read today. A study of human folly in all its glory, you’d be hard-pressed to find something more entertaining. Highly recommended.
About the author/reviewer, Jeffrey A. Katt
Jeffrey A. Katt lives with his wife in Southeastern Wisconsin. In his limited free time he enjoys a glass of fine vintage port, listening to classical or jazz music, cultivating native Wisconsin wildflowers, and writing articles, fiction, and poetry. After almost three decades of contemplating becoming a writer, Jeff wrote his first short story in April of 1999, and since then his work has appeared in Black Petals, Redsine, The Door to Worlds Imagined, Anotherealm, Mindmares, The Inditer, Blood Coven, In Buddha’s Temple, Millennium Science Fiction & Fantasy, At The Brink of Madness, Zombie Horrors!, Pablo Lennis, Bloody Muse, The Roswell Literary Review, Quicker, and Pillow Screams, among others. He also serves as Assistant Editor for Sinister Element, an electronic magazine of dark fiction, and hopes to find the time in the near future to begin his first novel.
