I started this blog almost a month ago in the hope of making a modest contribution to the online literary conversation by posting thoughts, observations, news and links from the left side, the workers' side, of the class divide that marks the arts along with every other part of society. I named the blog Read Red, reflecting my fancy that perhaps others who are passionate about both reading and the class struggle might find their way here and find something of interest or even of use. It's been fun so far, modest though it is and will continue to be. Now seems a good moment to take a breath and say a bit more about the blog, and me, and red reading.
I am a Marxist but I'm not a Marxist academic. I'm more of the in the streets marching against oppression and exploitation variety, the organize the class and fight for socialism variety. Not the quote Foucault and work toward tenure type. Anyone who stops by here looking for highly refined literary analysis is bound to be disappointed. What will be on offer, as best I can manage it, is class-conscious book talk.
That's the starting point.
What books are out there that speak to the lives of workers and oppressed people? What books are out there that claim to but don't? What stories demand to be told? Who will tell them?
Who's getting published and who isn't? Who even gets to write and who doesn't? How does working-class literature find its way to print? Why does it not? Which books from other countries get translated into English and published here, and which don't? Is there any route for us to find our way to the class-struggle stories that are being written in this country and around the world?
This is, obviously, to be continued. For now I'll close with a bit more fleshing out of my bio. I feel conflicted about it -- it feels icky, creepily self-serving on the one hand, but on the other hand it seems like I ought to explain myself a bit, tell who the hell I am if I'm asking strangers to read what I have to say -- so here goes.
I was born in Detroit and raised across 8 Mile Road in Oak Park. I lived in Ann Arbor, first going to school, then working as a city bus driver, during which time I was on strike twice. I've lived in New York since 1982, and for most of that time I've worked as a university secretary (on strike once) except for a stretch when I was a full-time political organizer and writer. I've been an activist in the labor movement, against racism and imperialist war, for women's and LGBT liberation, my whole adult life. A writer? That's a newer identity. I started writing fiction about 10 years ago. At this point I've written one novel and am at work on a second, along with short stories and poetry. I have been trying for some time to get my first novel published, so far without success, which may or may not have to do with its political content, about which I may or may not blog in more detail at some point.
Reading is as central to my life, my personality, my character even, as any item in that little biographical sketch. Reading is a constant. It is nutrition. It is breath. Ask me who I am and my answer will include the words "communist" and "worker" and "lesbian" -- but it will also include the word "reader."
A red reader's life is a landscape of peaks and valleys. It's a quest. Lots of getting your hopes up and lots of disappointments. Settling for a standard of good enough, searching for the rarity of breathtaking honesty and beauty. As soon as I have another chance I'll list some examples to illustrate the ups and downs of a red reading life.
