When Fiction Comes Up Against Reality

For the past few months, I've been doing work that would have to rank at the top of any list of interesting activities for a historical novelist. After writing two books (THE RAGTIME KID and THE RAGTIME FOOL), which featured Sanford Brunson Campbell, the "Original Ragtime Kid of the 1890s" as protagonist, I was lucky enough to obtain three big boxes of items that once belonged to the real-life Kid, who died in 1952.

Imagine my feelings, reading autobiographical manuscripts describing Brun's adventures as an itinerant ragtime pianist during the first decade of the twentieth century, and his efforts during the last decade of his life to revive ragtime music and the reputation of his hero, Scott Joplin. There were also musical compositions unknown to current ragtime enthusiasts, 78rpm recordings of Brun playing his and Joplin's music, personal effects (including his barber's razor strop), business and tax records, and extensive correspondence with prominent musicians, entertainment figures, and politicians.

Brun was known as someone who never let facts get in the way of a good story - no wonder he was such a compelling figure to an historical novelist - and so, some of his written material was contradicted by well-established information. I think what inspired Brun to tell many of his tall tales was the desire to bring Joplin the recognition Brun (rightly) thought his old piano teacher deserved. As my Brun put it in THE RAGTIME FOOL, "Well, the way I told it, that's what Mr. Joplin deserved...That's how it should've been."

Brun did tell some good stories, and told them well. He had a very engaging voice. After five years wandering through the midwest, playing bar-room piano, he decided to go home to Arkansas City, KS, to visit his high-school sweetheart. "While I had been away," Brun wrote, "the local gossips had told her all kinds of stories about me and my ragtime career, the places in which I had played and other poisonous gossip. Some of it was true..."

"I arrived dressed in a loud checkered suit; cloth-top, colored patent leather shoes with pearl buttons, a light-colored hat with a loud hatband around it, and that ever-loving loud silk shirt, together with the loud-patterned necktie, about made my ragtime dress complete. When the natives saw me in that getup, I created quite a sensation.

"I thought my girl would faint when she gave me the once-over, and my mother stood dead in her tracks when she saw my loud clothes. But I was her darling boy and my appearance was soon forgotten by her."

I was pleased and not a little surprised to see how well my fictional Brun fit with his historical profile. But now, what? Some sort of nonfiction book needs to come out of this material, probably with a CD of a ragtime pianist playing Brun's newly-discovered music, as well as transcriptions from Brun's recordings. It'll take some time, especially having to fit the work in as I write my next mystery, and probably the one after that. But it's got to be done. It tickles me that the story of the story-telling man who worked so hard on Scott Joplin's behalf now falls to another story-teller. Gonna be a challenge to sort out what's reality in Brun's accounts, and what's fiction.

My Ragtime Historical-Mystery Trilogy Is Honored

      As am I.
      The Friends of the Crowell Library in San Marino, CA host a yearly One Book/One City Festival, where a particular book is selected, every reader in the city is encouraged to read it, events are planned around the major theme(s) of the book, and the author visits the city and gives a talk. This year's honoree was T. Jefferson Parker, for IRON RIVER.
      Next year, the committee has renamed the Festival OB/OCx3, to select the three books (THE RAGTIME KID, THE KING OF RAGTIME, and THE RAGTIME FOOL) of my trilogy for their community read. During March and April 2011, the library will sponsor programs on music (especially ragtime) and concerts, and I'll talk to the readers on April 28, at 7pm, then sign books. Pretty cool.

Hasn't EVERYONE Heard of Scott Joplin and Maple Leaf Rag?

      Apparently not.
      Early on in my search for background material for my historical mystery, THE RAGTIME KID, I called a local video shop to reserve a copy of SCOTT JOPLIN, the 1977 movie, starring Billy Dee Williams and Art Carney. I told them I'd come in the next day to pick it up.
      First thing next morning, I walked into the store and up to the counter, and interrupted a clerk's daydream by telling him I wanted to pick up the movie they were holding for me. He showed his displeasure by muttering, "Whatsa name?"
      "Scott Joplin."
      If looks really could wither, I'd have been a cornstalk in October. The clerk looked me up, down, and sideways, then growled, "No, man! I don't mean your name. Whatsa name of the movie?"

      Shortly after THE RAGTIME KID came out, I went on tour through California. At a big-chain bookstore north of Los Angeles, the assistant events manager asked me to tell him "a little" about my book, so he could make an announcement over the store's P.A. system. "Well," I said, "It's a historical mystery, set in Sedalia, Missouri in 1899, when Scott Joplin signed the contract to publish Maple Leaf Rag, the tune that started the ragtime craze in America."
      I was going to say more, but the A.E.M. was ready to roll. "Great. I'll go make the announcement."
      A couple of minutes later, I heard, "Please stop by the table near the checkout counter, and meet Larry Karp, author of THE RAGTIME KID, which tells all about Scott Joplin and his knockout hit, the Make Believe Rag." 
      There's a punch line...two, in fact. In June, 1979, ragtime performer, composer, and historian David Jasen actually did publish a tune he called Make Believe Rag.
      And I could send you to youtube to hear Make Believe Rag, as transcribed for guitar by Tony Ackerman. That's what the caption says. But the tune Ackerman will play for you is Maple Leaf Rag.

Writing Characters From Real Life: Better To Know More Or Less?

      I just finished reading Nothing To Be Frightened Of, an intelligent, witty musing on death and dying, by the British novelist Julian Barnes. To quote noted children's author Peg Kehret, "He is funny and thought-provoking at the same time, and he does it all with such glorious language." The book is also a memoir, featuring stories about the author's family and friends which influenced and inspired his thanatopsis. And especially in the final pages, Barnes brings to the fore some thoughts about the ways and means of fiction writers.
      One of these thoughts is that in basing fictional characters upon real people, an author is wise to not know too much about the source. Barnes tells about a writer-friend who eavesdrops on conversations, but is careful to walk away from the speakers before he's been overexposed, and therefore limited in developing his characters.
      At first, I agreed with Barnes. I've been unable to use people I know as characters in my books, because as a seat-of-the-pants writer whose characters and plots develop during the course of the first draft and beyond, knowing all I do about my friends and acquaintances seriously restricts their fictional development. There are things these people simply will not say or do on a computer screen.  
      For this reason, when I set out to write my history-based ragtime mystery trilogy, I was leery of over-researching people like Scott Joplin; his publisher, John Stark; and Brun Campbell, the Ragtime Kid. But as I went along, I found the more I learned about a particular person in history, the more possibilities opened for characterization and plot. Without having a first-hand take on someone whose life I knew was over, all the information I gleaned from historical documents set itself up as a supporting structure, and the more extended that structure became, the more compatible fiction the character could build upon it as my story developed.
      One post-facto example: Nan Bostick, a ragtime pianist/historian/composer from the San Francisco Bay Area, is the great-niece of Charles N. Daniels, a prolific composer and publisher from the Ragtime Era and beyond. After Nan had read The Ragtime Kid, she told me she'd enjoyed the book, and had loved seeing Uncle Charlie as a character. But I wish you'd talked to me about him, she said. At one point, your Uncle Charlie said, 'Goddamn,' but my Uncle Charlie never, ever, used profanity or blasphemy. And during a heat wave in Sedalia, your Uncle Charlie loosened his tie and opened his shirt collar. My Uncle Charlie wouldn't have done that. He used to drive his wife crazy by going fishing in a properly-set up white shirt and tie, and his best wool suit. 
      Not that I thought my knowledge deficit had done my book mortal harm, but had I known about those quirks, my picture of Uncle Charlie might have been that much more arresting. And beyond that, Uncle Charlie's real-life peculiarities might have made the plot an even richer stew. I have to think, in historical fiction, more background information, used judiciously, is never going to be less.

Don't Jazz Me, Man. It's Ragtime

       I've been delighted at how many people have told me they've enjoyed my three ragtime-based historical mysteries. But churlish as it may be, my stomach tightens when I hear, "I really liked your jazz series."
       Let's clear up a couple of points.
       First, the books comprise a trilogy, not a series. In three parts, they cover the story of popular ragtime music in America, from its birth in 1899, to its death in 1916, to the early stages of its revival in 1951.
       More important, it's ragtime, not jazz. As conceived by Scott Joplin and his publisher, John Stark, popular ragtime, a blend of the syncopated melodies of early Black Americans and the classic regular double beat of the European march, was intended to be a form of classical music, no different from a Schubert song or a waltz by Brahms, and so, was to be played strictly according to the score.  
       Joplin and Stark's caution, "Do not play this piece fast. It is never right to play ragtime fast" became famous, but not everyone agreed. One (possibly apocryphal) story has Charles L. Johnson, a fine composer of midwestern folk ragtime, a more rollicking form, putting Allegro Vivace on a composition, then telling John Stark at a party, "You know what that means? It's Latin for 'Stick it in your ear.'"
       Nor did the hot piano players from the saloons, barrelhouses, and brothels take heed. They competed to see who could play ragtime fastest and with the most impressive embellishments, and gradually, the music evolved into an improvisational form which was first called jass.
       John Stark, no surprise, hated jazz. Not long before the publisher's death in 1927, Paul Whiteman, the self-titled King of Jazz, came to St. Louis with his orchestra to play a concert, and dropped by to issue Stark a personal invitation. But no amount of persuasion succeeded in convincing the old man to come.
       So let's give proper consideration to one of our very greatest American composers, and the publisher without whom we might well never have heard this lovely music. Nothing wrong with jazz, folks, but this is ragtime.

  

On the Road Again

   What with my being on the road to publicize The Ragtime Fool, and having to post this week's blog from my Sidekick device, Marjorie May Campbell agreed to wait one more week to finish telling us about her fool husband. Not that she was happy about it, but as she said, after all those years trying to deal with Brun, a person learns to make do.
   The first event on the trip was Monday evening at The Avid Reader in Sacramento, where ragtimers Tom Brier, and Bub and Petra Sullivan came by to hear how I came to write the ragtime trilogy. Then, last night at San Mateo's M is for Mystery, Camille Minichino, a physicist who, as Margaret Grace, writes mysteries set in the world of miniatures,and I had a lively discussion about how we write, why we write what we write, and doing and not doing research. The audience included ragtimers Washboard Kitty Wilson, and Phil and Darwyn (who commented that she'd read Mrs. Campbell's remarks on this blog, which prompted Marjorie May to say she was glad SOMEONE listens to her).
   Now I'm on the way to L.A. I'll go to Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego Thursday, and the L.A. Times Festival of Books Saturday, to sign in the LA Sisters in Crime Booth, the Mysterious Galaxy Booth, and the L.A. Mystery Bookstore Booth. And do a little research in between.  More on that later.

--Larry

THE APRIL RAGTIME FOOL

      Happy April Fool's Day, the official release date for The Ragtime Fool, the concluding book in my ragtime historical-mystery trilogy.

      Calculated publicity stunt? No. Until recently, Poisoned Pen Press released books near the end of the month. When I finished writing The Ragtime Fool last May, which projected to an April publication date, I assumed the book would come out in late April.

     Where'd that title come from? In 1951, Brun Campbell, the real-life Ragtime Kid, was old and sick, and questioning what he'd done with his life. His wife seems to have had no doubts; she thought her husband was a fool for having devoted his existence to Scott Joplin and ragtime, the Devil's music.  

      But late in writing the story, I wondered whether Joplin's Journal might be a better title, since my fictional Brun's hope for validation centered upon recovering a diary his mentor had written many years before. But my editor pointed out that as the final volume of a trilogy, coming after The Ragtime Kid and The King of Ragtime, The Ragtime Fool was right on, and should stay. Feeling just a little foolish, I agreed.

      I built my story around an event which I believe was the first public honoring of Scott Joplin and his music, a 1951 ceremony in Sedalia, MO, at the Hubbard (Black) High School. The racially-mixed audience listened to speeches and music, and applauded the presentation of a plaque proclaiming Joplin's accomplishments, which was to be hung on a wall in the school. To make the fictional antecedents fit a proper time line to the real-life ceremony, I had the story begin on April 2. But in the second draft, I realized I'd omitted a critical scene, and to remedy that, I needed to push Page One back to April 1. I resisted the change, because April 1, 1951 was a Sunday, and in 1951, in Missouri, Sunday was a day of rest, when nothing much happened. But I finally saw a way around that problem, and the plot of The Ragtime Fool began to unfold on April 1.

     For ragtime enthusiasts, April 1 is The Day the Music Died. On April 1, 1917, Scott Joplin, ravaged by syphilis, and exhausted by years of fruitless attempts to get his opera, Treemonisha, into performance, died on a psychiatric ward in Manhattan State Hospital. Old Brun Campbell refers to that sad day in Chapter 2 of The Ragtime Fool.

      In addition, some jazz authorities list April 1, 1917 as the date Victor Records released the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's “Livery Stable Blues,” the first recorded example of the music then called jass. Ragtime then stretched out beside its most illustrious composer, not to stir for a quarter-century, when music historians and musical performers began to breathe new life into the corpse.  

      Until about a month ago, these coincidences never caught my attention. But as I looked through Poisoned Pen Press's spring catalog, and noticed the date for The Ragtime Fool, a chain of associations cascaded through my mind: April 1...April Fool's Day...The Ragtime Fool...the day Scott Joplin and his music died...the day a bunch of damn-fool diehard Klansmen set a plot into motion to blow up Hubbard High School, with its integrated audience gathered to honor a great Black composer.

      I'm glad I didn't think along these lines sooner. If I had, I'd have tied myself in knots, trying to avoid having people think I was trying to pull off a cheesy publicity stunt.  

      Now, all I can do is eat a little crow with my cheese.

      While you're wondering whether to marvel at the way the stars have aligned for this book, or condemn me for over-the-top disingenuousness, click here:                                                      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tx1jky1D1A , and enjoy “The April Fool Rag,” composed by Jean Schwartz, in 1911. I don't know the precise date of publication, but I could make a good guess.

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