The Old Bait and Switch

The marquee-highlighted cover of the fall 2008 issue of The Antioch Review drew me eagerly to its headline of "Celebrity Deaths: Stardom, Stardim." Isn't that what celebrity does? Stokes your curiosity on the surface even if not fully engaged on the deeper level? To be honest, though, it felt a bit like "bait-and-switch" with very little of the issue having anything to do with the cover theme.

Daniel Harris's essay "Celebrity Deaths" obviously does center on the issue's theme and does a good job at laying out some of the strange phenomena related to modern celebrity creation and worship. He contends that the over-the-top eulogizing for dead celebs that goes on in online chatrooms, forums, and blogs is clearly not grief. "Each poster takes his turn at the microphone, performing a kind of macabre karaoke in which he attempts to outdo competitors in his impression of heart-broken solemnity." Harris also notes that because we have so little real contact with celebrities, public mourning gives people a faux feeling of intimacy. While there is a common belief that celebrities who burn out early have troubled souls that need to be abated by heavy drinking and drugging, Harris instead purports that the link is rather one of fun and merrymaking as they dance unwittingly towards death by simply enjoying the perks of their fame.

The three other pieces supposedly dealing with the issue's theme discuss the effects of sharing digital media, James Wood's dislike of magical realism in literature, and the life of the lesser-known painter Thomas Eakins. All three pieces have their points to make but, as I said, I just didn't feel they gelled into a consistent issue theme.

The memoir section of the issue highlights two pieces about family trauma. Carolyn Osborn's "The War Victim" recounts the heartbreaking story of her mother's lengthy institutionalization due to schizophrenia. Just after her ninth birthday, Osborn and her brother are told that their mother took ill and was taken to the hospital. Twenty years later she is finally told the truth that her mother attempted to hang herself in the basement and was sent off to a mental institution. Though truth and emotions might be kept under wraps in this extended Southern clan, Osborn and her brother are always cared for by the family and there is a coating of protective love provided in the silences. Osborn's mother is institutionalized for the rest of her life--dying at the age of seventy-two--and it takes several decades for Osborn to piece together the puzzle of her mother's illness and family reactions. It took a second reading for me to wring out the emotions of the writer and the other key players; they slip by at first glance. Her lifetime of family secrets takes its toll on the retelling.

The second memoir piece, by poet Eric Trethewey, is entitled "Connections and Correspondences," but I'm not sure what he is connecting or corresponding about. The self-important voice in the piece is such a turn-off, despite the compelling and wrenching tale of violence and loss it attempts to share. The piece centers on the murder of his ex-wife by her obsessive second ex-husband, but the piece suffers from Trethewey's tendency to name drop and to supply unnecessary details to elevate his perspective in the situation. His own daughter was, of course, greatly affected by the brutal murder of her mother, but her half-brother, Joey, witnessed the death and we don't even learn what has happened to him. It's wonderful to know that his daughter is now a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, but what happened to Joey?

The poetry section has ten authors represented, several to take note of.  Frederick Smock's "Folly Beach" takes you to the magical seaside of a teen boy inspired to sing in the waves alongside the dolphins, not yet aware of an impending loss. "Pro Vita" by Dana Roeser explores the deep connections of scent and memory as she visits her father in a nursing home and implores, "May you never be lonely." And memorable is the 8-line "Violets in a Pewter Vase" by F.D. Reeve.