Truckin' with Sam by Gutkind Lee;Gutkind Sam; & Sam Gutkind

Author:Gutkind, Lee;Gutkind, Sam; & Sam Gutkind [Gutkind]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3407123
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2010-08-24T00:00:00+00:00

The Red Bike

THE WRITERS’ CONFERENCE here in Alaska collects an eclectic mix of attendees, some of whom don’t necessarily intend to be writers or know what a writer’s life is all about. “I’m curious about writing,” Martha told me. “I’ve lived a lot of life. I have something to say to people.”

“That’s what writing is all about,” I tell her, “communicating to readers, making an impact.”

It’s the last night of the conference, the night before our halibut fishing trip, and the keynote conference speaker, Maxine Hong Kingston, is talking about peace. She is not talking about peace in the way writers need peace and quiet in order to write something significant. She is talking about peace on earth and goodwill to men. Peace in the world. Peace in our time. She sneers at the New York Times for taking her to task for giving her last book a maudlin happy ending. “What’s wrong with happy endings?” she wants to know. “ We should all write books with happy endings.” Not if you want it to seem real, I think.

“What did you think of the story she told?” Michele, whose boyfriend was the logger and activist, asked me.

“It was haunting and memorable, although I’m not certain it rings true.”

“It may well be true,” says Martha, “but it doesn’t sound right.”

“Something about her delivery,” says Kathy. “Flat. There’s no eye contact.”

Maxine Hong Kingston’s father has died and she goes to the funeral. Then she drives home and, as she gets closer to her home, the smoke and the pandemonium caused by an onrushing forest fire becomes more evident, and she begins to understand that her home may not be there any more. Her world might be on the edge of extinction. She parks her car, somehow manages to evade the fire and law enforcement authorities and makes her way on foot back to her house, which, she comes to realize, is no longer there. It is gone. Charred ash. Burned to the bone. All of her possessions are gone, including the manuscript for her next book, The Fourth Book of Peace.

She doesn’t say how she feels at this moment about the loss of her book—or for that matter about the loss of her father. Her presentation is oddly passive and ambivalent, as if it has happened to someone else, and she is reporting the story, as if she is a newscaster on TV.

I don’t know how long Maxine Hong Kingston stood staring at the charred remains of her house, but then she suddenly saw a man on a red bicycle. He stopped to chat for a while, about what, we don’t know. She doesn’t tell us. What has happened regarding the fire, no doubt, and how they feel, was our best guess, the obvious assumption. Eventually the man on the red bicycle offers her a ride. So she jumps on the handlebars of the red bike and the man peddles her back to her car.

Maxine Hong Kingston is short and slight, with long and strikingly dramatic silver hair.

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