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Monday, February 2, 2009George Pelecanos, on Second Chances and “The Turnaround”
It’s been a mystery for a while—a mystery to me, anyhow—as to why I respond positively to the crime/cop fiction of George Pelecanos. Sure, he’s local. We’re both from the
College did little to change that, although those years did open a valve to contemporary literature. But I was drawn to the war fiction of Tim O’Brien, the multicultural milieu of Junot Diaz—not the street-level grittiness of police procedurals.
Then, not too long after I graduated from college, I read Richard Price’s “Clockers” and became a huge Price fan. His nuanced portrayals of cops and criminals resonated with me, and the sharp dialogue, though very rough, struck me as authentic. Despite the hardened characters in Price’s novels, they often are striving to find signs of hope. This is, after all, the writer who penned a novel titled “Samaritan,” and whose “Freedomland” spoke specifically of the power of God’s grace.
After reading Price’s novels, I wondered which other writers might mine the same vein of hope amid outward signs of bleakness. I turned to Pelecanos, starting with his series of novels featuring detective Derek Strange, and was quickly impressed. Here was a writer who understood that the police procedurals that were coming to dominate not only the best-seller lists (Patricia Cornwell, et al.) but also network TV (“Law and Order,” “CSI,” and on and on) were too tidy, and more important, too often hopeless.
During a recent appearance in Arlington, Va., Pelecanos labeled TV crime procedurals as “fascistic” for conveying the idea that “if you do something wrong, we’re going to lock you up.” While not dismissing the efforts of law enforcement to bring about necessary justice, Pelecanos coolly states that 50% of the murders in D.C. go unsolved, down from 70% a few years ago. “But the ripples in the community go on forever,” the author said.
It’s those ripples—not the too tidy, false sense of justice that ties up each episode of “Cold Case,” for instance—that interest Pelecanos, who didn’t discover his calling as a writer until around age 30. He developed an ear for authentic dialogue while working as a salesmen of women’s shoes, where he determined that the best sales technique was to stop talking and spend time listening to his customers. His shifts as a bartender in D.C. provided ample opportunity to hear the stories of people who felt disenfranchised or otherwise left behind in life.
Between shifts, he wrote his first novel, “A Firing Offense.” With no agent willing to take him under their wing, the author sent the manuscript to a publisher that demanded he send the manuscript to no other publishing house. A year later, Pelecanos got a call. A low-level employee had picked up the manuscript from a stack of similar submissions, got hooked and alerted the higher-ups to Pelecanos’ budding talent.
The writer found full-time work and settled into a job running Circle Releasing Corp., a D.C.-based film distributor (at which I interned in the late 1980s, just before Pelecanos’ arrival), until 1999, when he made writing his sole vocation. But his experience in film distribution and production would lead to bigger things.
Asked to write for HBO’s police drama, “The Wire,” filmed in
Next up: Another novel, and possibly a filmed adaptation of one of his early novels, “King Suckerman.” The project previously was developed by rapper and businessman Sean “P. Diddy” Combs but fell apart. But following the success of the film “Notorious,” for which Combs served as executive producer, Pelecanos has handed Combs the rights to the project again, in hopes Combs can capitalize on his recent success and relaunch “King Suckerman.” Pelecanos also wants Combs to play the main character in a separate adaptation of one of his novels.
Pelecanos’ latest novel, “The Turnaround,” contains grace and redemption—and a heavy dose of autobiography. Like the novel’s lead character, Pelecanos’ father ran a local restaurant—not a coffee shop, as in the novel, but a small diner on
Although the novel was written well before the most recent election cycle, Pelecanos sees parallels between the country’s current crisis, and the personal crisis that the novel’s protagonist must confront. “‘The Turnaround’ is not so much about politics, but it’s about how we turn this country around,” he said. However, it’s not a political book. “Critics sometimes think they know what I’m about politically, but I sort of reject all that,” he said.
As an example of what sets him apart from the inside-the-Beltway politics that consume so many others in the area, he notes that several scenes in the novel are set at Pelecanos knows a thing or two about failings. He counsels at-risk kids, using stories of his checkered past to point them to a better future. “I tell them I made a lot of mistakes growing up. I alternated between thinking, ‘I’m worthless,” and “I don’t deserve this,’” he said. He eventually got on the right track, and knows other can as well. That experience informs his novels, which, the author contends, are too often mislabeled as “dark.”
“I reject the description of my books as ‘dark,’” he said. “I never leave the impression on the reader that there’s no light at the end.” Indeed, the ending “The Turnaround” is suffused with reconciliation and a positive outlook on the future—something all too rare in the crime/mystery genre.
“When people say life is short, I don’t believe that,” the author says. “I think life is long.” And that means there’s always time for a turnaround.
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Monday, December 8, 2008The Washington Area Film Critics Go With ‘Slumdog Millionaire’
The Washington Area Film Critics Association has selected the best film and best performances of 2008. The group, of which I’m a privileged member, gave its top prize to director Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” which I reviewed favorably for Crosswalk earlier this fall. But it didn't get my vote. As much as I liked and admired “Slumdog,” it wasn’t my choice among the nominees, nor did I list it among my list of five titles that I submitted for the WAFCA nominations.
Below, I’ve listed the official winners of the awards, which were announced this morning. Below that list is the full list of WAFCA nominees from which we selected the winners. And below that is the list of films I submitted as possible nominees. As one of more than 40 critics who submitted nominations, it's no surprise that a few of my favorites didn’t make the cut. But many did. I’m delighted with the list of official nominees, and with the final results.
Best Film: Slumdog Millionaire/Fox Searchlight
Best Director: Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Actor: Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)
Best Actress: Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Best Supporting Actress: Rosemarie DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married)
Best Original Screenplay: Jenny Lumet (Rachel Getting Married)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Animated: Wall∙E/Disney&Pixar
Best Documentary: Man on Wire/Magnolia Pictures
Best Foreign Film: Let the Right One In/Magnolia Pictures and Magnet Releasing
Best Ensemble: Doubt/Miramax
Best Breakthrough: Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button/ParamountOfficial WAFCA Nominees (My Votes are Marked Alongside My Choices)
BEST FILM:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL•E
BEST ACTOR:
Clint Eastwood, Gran
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
BEST ACTRESS:
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet,
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon,
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
BEST DIRECTOR :
Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant, Milk
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Gran Torino
Milk
Rachel Getting Married
The Visitor
The Wrestler
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
Slumdog Millionaire
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE:
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
WALL•E
Waltz with Bashir
BEST DOCUMENTARY:
Encounters at the End of the World
IOUSA
Man on Wire
Religulous
Standard Operating Procedure
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
The Class
A Christmas Tale
Gomorrah
I've Loved You So Long
Let the Right One In
BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE:
Burn After Reading
The Dark Knight
Doubt
Milk
Rachel Getting Married
BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE:
Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
Viola Davis, Doubt
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Russell Brand, Forgetting Sarah Marshall
BEST ART DIRECTION:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Slumdog MillionaireMy List of Nominated Films and Performances
Best Film
Wall-E
The Wrestler
The Fall
Changeling
In
Best Director
Andrew Stanton, Wall-E
Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler
The Wachowski Brothers, Speed Racer
Tarsem, The Fall
Steven Soderbergh, Che
Best Actor
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Colin Farrell, In
Josh Brolin, W
Benicio Del Toro, Che
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Best Actress
Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Uma Thurman, The Life Before Her Eyes
Best Supporting Actor
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
John Malkovich, Changeling
Mark Strong, Body of Lies
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Best Supporting Actress
Rosemarie DeWitt, Rachel Getting Married
Catinca Untaru, The Fall
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Evan Rachel Wood, The Wrestler
Debra Winger, Rachel Getting Married
Best Foreign Film
The Flight of the Red Balloon
Let the Right One In
A Christmas Tale
Timecrimes
Best Documentary
Man on Wire
Best Screenplay, Original
Rachel Getting Married, Jenny Lumet
Changeling, J. Michael Straczynski
The Wrestler, Robert Siegel
In
Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller and Justin Theroux
Best Screenplay, Adapted
Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
Emil Stern, The Life Before Her Eyes
Jonathan and Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Animated Feature
Wall-E
Best Breakthrough Performance
Catinca Untaru, The Fall
Best Ensemble
Rachel Getting Married
The Wrestler
In
Frost/Nixon
Best Art Direction
James Murakami, Changeling
Michael Corenblith, Frost/Nixon
Timothy Grimes, The Wrestler
Ford Wheeler, Rachel Getting Married
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Wednesday, November 5, 2008When Songs Are Prayers
It’s not often that a mainstream song expresses the spiritual longings of my heart, but driving into work today, I popped in a CD I’d heard a few times and was moved in a new way by the lyrics to one of its songs. The singer who performs the song brings no fancy production or hip technique to it, other than a tremendous voice that never fails to amaze me. As I listened, it became a prayer, expressing my thoughts a day after my candidate in the presidential election lost, and we entered into an era with new threats here at home, and continued threat from without.
My challenge is to not descend into anger and bitterness. Instead, as the song says, I will ask the Lord for “a heart full of tender mercy / And arms I will open wide.” I’ll ask Him to “give me words full of loving kindness / And hands ready to hold up a light.”
The events of the coming years are sure to bring peaks and valleys, but for today, this song is my prayer. If you’re so inclined, you can pray it with me. (I’m leaving out the name of the artist, because I want the song, not the singer, to receive your full attention. But if you’d like to know the name of the performer, e-mail me at crosswalkchristian@earthlink.net.)
For These Times
In these times in which we live
Where the worst of what we live
Is laid out for all the world on the front page
And the sound of someone's heartbreak
Is a soundbite at the news break
With a close shot of the tears rollin' down their face
Blessed be the child who turns a loving eye
And stops to pray
For these times in which we live
In these most uncertain hours
Where the balance of power
Is a fight that is fought every day
And freedom is a word
Some cry out and some whisper
And some are just too quick to give away
Blessed be the one who stands by the one
On the battle line
For these times in which we live
Well give me a heart full of tender mercy
And arms I will open wide
For these times in which we live
Seems like the only answer is
Givin' up on findin' one at all
And we hide behind unsure
Pull the blinds and lock the doors
And hang a pleasant picture on the wall
Blessed is the believer who knows love is our redeemer
And the only breath of life
For these times in which we live
Well give me a heart full of tender mercy
And arms I will open wide
Yeah give me words full of loving kindness
And hands ready to hold up a light
For these times in which we live
For these times in which we live -
Monday, September 29, 2008My Child Was Baptized, not ‘Christened’ or Merely ‘Dedicated’
Last Sunday my son Silas, just short of his 3-month birthday, was baptized. This is a blessed event, but sadly, it can be divisive. Not all Christians believe in infant baptism. They’re convinced that only professing Christians should be baptized. This issue is, of course, one of the big dividers between Baptists and Presbyterians or other denominations that embrace the tradition of infant baptism.
I have my reasons for embracing infant baptism, and don’t want to use this blog post to lay out all of my views. Suffice to say that baptism is a sacrament—it’s something that first and foremost God is doing—a sign and seal of the Covenant of Grace. God’s promise is made to believers and their children, and children of believers have a right to the sign and to the outward privileges of the church under the Gospel, no less than the children of Abraham had in the time of the Old Testament (the Covenant of Grace in substance being the same).
I could go on but won’t. What I will do, however, is ask that, if you ever wish to acknowledge a child’s baptism, you acknowledge what it is, a baptism, and not what you might prefer to call it—perhaps a “christening,” or a “dedication.” That’s the language of people who don’t accept infant baptism. Those of us who embrace baptism don’t refer to the sacrament by any term other than “baptism.” When our children come to age of discretion, they are expected to make public profession of their faith, but they are not to be rebaptized.
Do we, as parents of the baptized infant, dedicate our children to God during the baptism ceremony? Yes, we do. The pastor asks, “Do you now unreservedly dedicate your child to God, and promise, in humble reliance upon divine grace, that you will endeavor to set before him a godly example, that you will pray with and for him, that you will teach him the doctrines of our holy religion, and that you will strive, by all the means of God’s appointment, to bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?” “We do,” we respond. Therefore, “dedication” isn’t an entirely wrong way to refer to what we’re doing. Yet it’s only part of what happens in baptism, and should never to be used to describe the whole of the sacrament.
So it’s a little disheartening when loved ones who have different convictions congratulate us on our child’s “christening” or “dedication.” Sometimes the mistakes are well-intentioned, but sometimes the well wishes are uttered by those who know better but won’t acknowledge the beliefs of the baptized child’s parents. Such incidents put a damper on what otherwise is a great celebration.
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Monday, September 22, 2008Amy Sullivan’s Democratic Take on the ‘God Gap’
Are Democrats closing the “God gap”—the advantage that the GOP has had with religious voters in recent election cycles? One could argue that the gap was the difference that put George W. Bush into office twice in the very narrowly contested presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.Amy Sullivan, a religion reporter for Time magazine, suggests that the Democrats’ apathy toward people of faith has cost them badly at the ballot box, and she’s got the evidence to prove it. Sullivan spoke on the issue during one of the first events of this year’s Fall for the Book, a weeklong book festival held in and around Fairfax, Va. Sullivan drew from her recently published book, The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats Are Closing the God Gap” in painting a picture of a political revival among traditional Democrats.
Sullivan is refreshingly open about her own upbringing and how it informs her view of the relationship between faith and politics. Raised in a Midwestern home where a portrait of Jesus hung alongside a portrait of Bobby Kennedy, Sullivan accepted as gospel that the Democrats were the party of the poor and downtrodden, but when she came east and entered the political arena (she worked for Sen. Tom Daschle), she learned that her colleagues viewed anyone who claimed to be evangelical (Sullivan, raised a Baptist, did) as secretly conservative.
During her talk, Sullivan offered a four-point explanation of what constitutes an evangelical:
1. They believe in the idea of spiritual conversion.
2. They stress the importance of the Bible as opposed to church teaching.
3. They have a personal relationship with God.
4. They see it as an imperative to share their faith.
“Note that there is no requirement to vote Republican,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan then offered a brief history of how evangelicals became an important voting bloc, tracing their emergence as a political force to the Watergate scandal, which she said was not a failure of policy, but a moral and ethical failure. Just as important as the rise of evangelicals was the reaction of liberals. They stopped talking about their faith because they didn’t want to be thought of as conservatives, Sullivan contended. Democrats also “started to talk about issues, not values,” to their detriment at the ballot box.
This tactic of ignoring or hiding from religious voters hurt Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for president in 1988, who rejected all offers to speak to Catholics for fear that abortion would haunt any outreach effort to that large group of voters. In 2004, the John Kerry campaign hired just one person to handle religious outreach, and found itself overwhelmed when reporters began to dog the campaign over the issue of whether or not Kerry, a pro-choice Catholic, would be able to take communion. (Sullivan said this became known to reporters who followed Kerry’s campaign as “the wafer watch.”)
Just as bungled was how the campaign handled the issue of John Edwards’ faith. The vice-presidential nominee carried with him a well-worn leatherbound copy of Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life” but the campaign made sure voters remained unaware of that. Meanwhile, when the chairman of the Democratic party met
A third story involves a family of pro-life Democrats who traveled to a Kerry rally with handmade signs reading “Pro Life for Kerry.” When the campaign saw the signs, they asked that the family not display them.
It wasn’t until 9 days before the election that Kerry gave a speech on faith and values, but fearing a possible negative reaction among Catholics, the Kerry campaign had the candidate give the speech at a Jewish senior center.
As the 2008 presidential election campaign drew near, Democrats recognized an “unlevel praying field” and took action, Sullivan says. The party’s outreach to Catholic Democrats has already paid off in
Evangelicals are changing, too. Rick Warren has helped push evangelicals to expand the issues that they care about most deeply, adding global poverty and AIDS to issues such as gay marriage and abortion. The result, according to Sullivan, has been a “seachange” especially among younger evangelicals, who Sullivan says view John McCain as tied to the politics of the past.
McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate addressed the concerns of many evangelical voters, but Sullivan remains skeptical that the choice of Palin will lead to victory, citing a Newsweek poll that puts McCain’s support at the same level after his choice of Palin as it was for the two months preceding that choice.
But Sullivan admits that she’s been wrong—very wrong—in some of her past political predictions.
Conservative Christian readers may see Sullivan as one more example of mainstream media bias that favors liberal candidates, but the shift Sullivan chronicles in her book is very real. Younger evangelicals are moving away from “the old politics” and are embracing ideas that may make them less likely to vote as part of predicable bloc in the future. This movement has been evident in multiple polls, although one recent poll puts John McCain’s support among evangelicals just shy of where George W. Bush’s support was at the same time four years ago.
Politics aside, Sullivan said that it’s been an interesting 18 months since she began working for Time. Pestered by certain coworkers to join them for lunch, Sullivan has discovered that they, too, are Christians but that they are too fearful to talk about their faith in the workplace. “They come out of the closet to me,” Sullivan says with a smile. “I feel like I should start a support group.”
