Bøker av Steven McCann

The world of the theater has had a magical allure for me, ever since that afternoon as an eighteen-year-old wandering around mid-town with several hours of my hands before my bus's departure, I purchased a matinee ticket to see, 'Man of La Mancha.' Although I've spent almost all of my life as a writer creating novels and short fiction, I have always loved seeing live theater and reading the works of O'Neill, Miller, Williams, Lorraine Hansberry, Chekhov, Shaw and Shakespeare, among others. Great theater brings together great writing and all the brilliant effects of the live stage; actors whose voices, gestures, laughter, shouts, and whispers are as close and tangible as those of the people you live with; the genius of costume design, lighting and stage sets that carry you to a completely different realm, using no more space than the area of your living room. The three of mine in this volume, a comedy and two others, mixing comedy with elements of tragedy, make up my second book of plays. Together with the first, they are my contribution to that magical world I love no less than I love the world of great fiction.

In the early pre-dawn on a day in May of 1963 as sunlight glimmered in the offing of Lake Michigan, Chicago awakened to the promise of a fine spring day. Jimmy Flores and Paddy O'Halloran, friends and scholarship track athletes, saw the first glimmers of a world beyond their college graduation, scheduled for later that morning on the Loyola campus several miles behind their rapid footsteps along the Lake Shore Trail. In the next ten years, a period beginning with Eugene 'Bull' Connor unleashing fire hoses and police dogs on demonstrators protesting segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, and ending with the resignation of Richard Nixon, Chicago and America went through enormous turmoil and profound changes. My novel, 'Footsteps at Dawn' interweaves the careers and fortunes of my two heroes during that period with those of Chicago, and by extension, our country. From the floor of the commodities exchange, to an interviewer's desk in a state employment office, to a classroom in an elementary school for immigrant children, to an alderman's seat in the City Council Chamber, to Michigan Avenue amidst violent clashes between police and thousands of anti-war demonstrators during the Democratic Presidential Convention of '68, they venture through their rapidly changing world with intelligence and humanity, experiencing both tragedy and joy as they seek a new dawn.

For all people, life passes through and around us in light and shadow. We enjoy moments of joy and comfort, when no sooner we're faced with upset, disappointment, sometimes even tragedy. The art we create, our music, literature, painting, theatre and the rest, reflects this. Think of Shakespeare, or Rembrandt, or Beethoven, or your favorite lifetime film. Can we appreciate moments of joy, without having known sadness? We see it in nature. The brilliant colors of birth, the dimmer struggles for survival, the darker shades of decay and dying. A bleak winter's day, a rainy afternoon in March, a sunny May morning. I always attempt to capture both light and shadow when I write, in my novels, stories, plays, and in my poems. It's an attempt to show respect, I think, for the human condition.

I've written stories, novellas, novels and plays for decades. Only recently, have I tried my hand at poetry. As an on and off reader of that art, I always turned to the greatest lyric poets, Shakespeare, Keats and Yeats for inspiration, and found myself perplexed by modern poets of free verse, not able to grasp their music, or deeper meaning, except from a rare few. My one hundred poems here are an attempt to express my experience and impressions from life and to do so musically. Although my talents are very modest, I think if you read through this collection, you'll find some rewarding poetry and perhaps a few distant echoes I listened for with great reverence.

The main protagonists of my three plays are united by a determination to risk security and comfort in their search for greater self-expression. Harold Faver, inspired to write poetry again after giving it up decades before in college, vacates a restful grandfatherly retirement in his snug New Hampshire condo for a small apartment in New York City where his has no friends, relatives, or contacts. Audrey Blancherd leaves behind a secure teaching position and a devoted romantic partner to follow her yearning for a vague career in the theatre somewhere at the end of a bus ride. Sue Amsted breaks off an insincere relationship with a young lawyer, while seven months pregnant, hoping to start her own business with little money, or outside support. None of the three is endowed with rare brilliance, or talent. Yet they are heroes in the sense that our world escapes mediocrity and complacency, because millions like them share these same desires.

The word, 'salience,' originally comes from the Latin, 'salio,' meaning to leap, or spring. Gradually, over the centuries, it has taken on its present meaning of, 'particularly noticeable or prominent.' Billy Garth, the hero of my novel that bears this title, experiences colors and sounds taking unusual prominence in his mind and distorting his senses during the last year of high school. Only after a long struggle does he understand that they are symptoms of his illness, schizophrenia. Billy is endowed with strength of body and character, as well as a noble and adventurous spirit. His journey takes him through masonry work in the hot sun, a police arrest, court hearings and stays at both a forensic correctional facility and a state mental hospital. He's joined by a host of characters; some educated, some ignorant, some violent, others non-violent; those fated to endure a lifetime of suffering, and a few, like Billy, chosen to move on, becoming stronger, wiser and self-aware.

When my novel, 'Pathways' begins, we find our heroine, Angie Turner, employed full-time at a Bargain Store in her hometown of Paterson, New Jersey and attending the local community college. Angie is the best employee at work, the best student at her college and the stalwart support to her friends and wayward parents, a White mother and a Black father, although she rarely departs from her modest demeanor, despite her obvious exceptional abilities. Angie meets a recent Pakistani immigrant, falls in love, becomes pregnant and loses the father of her child when immigration officers remove him from the country, because of a flaw in his visa application. The daughter Angie gives birth to is stricken with a rare congenital neurological disorder, but neither this devastating setback, nor the difficulty of raising and supporting a disabled child as a single parent can prevent Angie from succeeding brilliantly through college, law school, and eventually, a career as a New York attorney.

'A Bridge to Eternity' and 'Centuries Old and New' both have as their starting point a work place in the modern American business world. The first is set in the posh headquarters of a large corporation, the second in a small Eastside restaurant. My heroes, Jonah Bellamy, the middle-aged assistant CEO, and Christoff Angelis, a teenager pedaling deliveries to midtown high rises with the dream of having his own restaurant, are equally honorable men. But whereas Jonah's decency and well-meaning are betrayed by the dark politics of billionaire trustees, Christoff's nobility is ultimately rewarded. Jonah is left to navigate the colder elements of our society, bereft of employment, family or friends, except for his loyal secretary, his old college roommate, and a good Samaritan he meets by chance. Yet Christoff, holding onto his dream and his joy of preparing food for others, finds love and companionship. The enduring devotion of his Greek mother adds a decisive ingredient to help him triumph over the pitfalls of starting a business and the vicissitudes of life.

'A Bus Ride Through the Night' is an adventurous journey from boyhood to early manhood through the experience of Tom MacIntyre, high school actor and discus thrower, stockroom worker, suit salesman, Off-Broadway and Broadway actor. A tall rangy, sensitive and outgoing young man, Tom finds a home for his dreams in New York City, only a bus ride from his mother's home in suburbia, yet a far greater distance in time and maturity filled with the self-discovery of his own weaknesses as well as his enduring strengths. Tom makes a lengthy stopover at the former New York department store, B. Altman's. Doris Fiene, the older woman with whom he shares an apartment and deeply formative years, is a truly gifted artist fated to be born at a time when the world can't appreciate her gifts and fated to fall in love with Tom, before he's drawn away by his own gifts. Tom's journey doesn't reach a final destination. Rather, it is a journey of the spirit that will last forever.

Bonnie's story begins at the commencement of her eighth-grade school year in 1961. But in so many ways, hers is a story of American youths during any time in our history, when young people struggle against the cruelty of their own peers, the difficulty of rapid sexual and physical growth and the even greater difficulty of holding onto ideals, while surmounting the hypocrisy of their elders. Bonnie is uprooted from her Bronx home at thirteen, taken from her violin instructor and from a city with enormous cultural advantages for any boy or girl with bus fare to Carnegie Hall or the Met Museum. She finds herself isolated in a new split-level, a new school, and new clothes, bereft of any connection to the art and culture that she loves. She loses her mother from an auto accident, but makes one good friend in a budding writer who with her beloved father, a disabled city fireman, helps her overcome a teenage rape, raise a child from that pregnancy, and find a path toward life-sustaining self-expression.

Running is a part of our consciousness and subconsciousness all through life. We run as children chasing kites and ice-cream trucks, and run away from irate parents. We run as teenagers in our sports. We run as adults to stay in shape, and as elderly people, we run after toddlers that suddenly escape our protection. We run in nightmares. We run in happy dreams for the exuberance of pure freedom. We run to catch subways, buses and planes. We run to meet our lovers. Our clocks run fast, or slow, and we run late, or early. My running stories capture some of the ways we run. A kindergartener chases his mother for an entire mile, so he can walk her to the grocery store. A high school track athlete runs to win the heart of a classmate. A college coed wakes up late for her final exam and runs frantically across campus to preserve her grade point. Another young woman runs to escape a rapist. An elderly man watches joggers sweep by on a country road from his seat in a wheelchair, holding in his heart all the wonderful miles he once ran himself.

My novel begins one snowy evening in cold snowy Buffalo on a typical American street where a light from the topmost room of an otherwise ordinary home shines into the wintry night with a rare golden glimmer and the miracle of invincible youth. From the garret room in this house young Elan Duclair shares with the silent falling snowflakes a voice destined to carry him from his untutored singing in a church choir and a high school rock band onto the grandest of the world's opera stages in only a few short years. He journeys through the world of early 1960's New York, making his way past older temptresses, despotic bosses, unreliable landlords, months of city cab driving, waitering, catering, and dishwashing, selling on Wall Street and a graveyard shift in an ice cream factory where the ten degrees Nordic temperature temporarily damages his vocal cords. Inspired by the pure brilliance of his musical gift, an array of opera coaches and mentors offer friendly guidance and a beautiful young musician offers her heart.