This quote from Neil Young, discussing his run of albums from Time Fades Away through to Tonight’s The Night, is just a simple fact of life. Get away from the average person and go hang out with the ones whom you look down upon. Not only can they teach you a thing or two about life
People like Mather Schneider.
A former taxi driver turned exterminator; Schneider has been writing for three decades and has many books to his name and he retains a steadfast individualistic outlook which has ruffled more than a few feathers online (predictably). And thank fuck for this as we need straight talking writers.
In a recent interview, Schneider described himself as such:
I’ve always been kind of a loser. That’s just the way it is. I guess traditional wisdom would say if I did anything different along the way I could never have met my wife and would be a completely different person. I don’t hate myself. I don’t think I’m great or anything, but I’m ok with where I am and what I’ve done. The university system now is now even worse than when I tried it, and it was bad then, especially if you wanted to be a writer. The groupthink is horrifying to me. What was I going to be, a teacher? Right!
And this attitude permeates throughout the stories in Port Awful.
Listed as a short story collection, Schneider has compiled an engaging, pointed and humourous read where the various narrators operate as taxi drivers, janitors, porters and photo developers who enjoy alcohol a little too much for their own good but, crucially, all of them are recognisable people. Ordinary working-class types, some with a devotion to Henry Miller.
Schneider’s writing style is direct but occasionally tinged with humour and pathos. Take the following segment as an example. After visiting the dentist for the first time in nearly 30 years (also, he notes, the same time since the narrator had a girlfriend), he ends the session with a crush on the dentist and describes his current situation as this:
I get in my cab, start the engine, think about what a beautiful blue sky it is. I tilt the rearview mirror towards me, smile again. My whole mouth is bloody as a slaughterhouse floor, gauze still in my jaw, lips swollen like an over-age boxer, eyes kind of loopy and watery from the smart just now beginning to seep through.
I can’t help but find this image both sad and humourous at the same time.
While it doesn’t reinvent the genre, it is an honest book with no frills attached. The characters aren’t necessarily desperate, but they have accepted their place and simply try to survive without going mad. A quiet sadness creeps in every now and then, reminding us that the American Dream is completely out of reach for some.
Long may artists continue heading for the ditch.
Mather Schneider, 2024, Port Awful. Anxiety Press. ISBN-13: 979-8340240415.
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
I think the reluctance to ruffle feathers is the result of groupthink pulling writers to its centre of gravity which smothers creativity. The evangelicals scream sinner at those who refused to be pulled down, the Woke Stasi scream fascist or transphobe, while the far right neanderthals scream traitor or cultural Marxist. Plague on all their houses (and churches). Writers need to put the rocket booster on and be even more vigorous in their resistance to the pull of that stifling gravity. They should not allow themselves to be suffocated by the dullness of sameness.
ReplyDeleteAM,
DeleteVery true. Mainstream publishing has been affected by this malaise, hence why the underground is thriving at the moment.