Internationally renowned author to visit Authors’ Sala
By Carol Lopes

Literary Event
Sena Jeter Naslund
San Miguel Authors’ Sala
Fri, Oct 5, 5–(N)7pm
Posada de San Francisco
Plaza Principal 2, crn Jardín
50 pesos

October’s Authors’ Sala is honored to host a well-known international celebrity, Sena Jeter Naslund. Recipient of the 2000 Harper Lee Award and the Southeastern Library Association Fiction Award, she is editor of The Louisville Review and The Fleur-de-Lis Press. Naslund is the author of the novels Ahab’s Wife, Four Spirits and Sherlock in Love and a collection of stories, The Disobedience of Water.

Ahab’s Wife or The Star-Gazer was selected by Time magazine and by Book Sense as one of the five best novels of 1999; it appeared on the Notable Book lists of The New York Times Book Review and Publishers Weekly and was a Main Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Naslund was born in Birmingham, Alabama, attended Birmingham-Southern College and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Arts Council, and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. Author of five books, her short fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, The Georgia Review, Michigan Quarterly Review and The American Voice.

Naslund celebrated her sixty-fifth birthday at the US Embassy in Paris in June with a reading from her latest book, Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette. Her portrait of Marie Antoinette, like the new Sofia Coppola film, is not unsympathetic. 

Written in the first person, it begins as the 14-year-old Marie Antoinette is leaving her home in Austria for her marriage to the future King of France, and is forced to strip, divesting herself of everything Austrian. “Like everyone, I am born naked,” the book begins.

The following excerpt is from an interview HarperCollins recently conducted with Naslund on the novel.

Sena Jeter Naslund on Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette

Q: What inspired you to write a novel about Marie Antoinette?

A: The story of Marie Antoinette has fascinated and frightened me since I was a child. To me, it was a reverse fairy tale; not a story about a deserving poor girl who became a princess but one about a princess who lost her position and power. I knew that if such a reversal could occur in the life of a queen, then no person was safe. For me, this vulnerability represented the basic human condition. Then the question became for me “How can we face adversity, even death?” I thought I might learn something from imagining the Marie Antoinette story.

Also, the sheer splendor of her world fascinated me, both its beautiful artificiality and its earthy realism. Like Marie Antoinette, I too have loved flowers, music, theater; like her, my family and friends mean more to me than I can say.

Q: Ahab’s Wife was celebrated by scholars and critics as a kind of “feminist corrective.” Is Abundance, with its intimate portrait of one of the most maligned and arguably misunderstood female figures in history, a similar act of revision or reassessment?

A: Yes. I think the historical treatment of Marie Antoinette has been motivated, in part, by the tendency to demonize women. She’s been depicted as a sort of sinful Eve, responsible if not for the fall of humankind then for the fall of the French monarchy. Most people associate her with heartless materialism, with the phrase “Let them eat cake” if they have no bread, but there’s no historical evidence that she ever said such a thing. She displayed many more acts of kindness and compassion throughout her life than I had space to include in the novel.

With Ahab’s Wife, I wanted to create a female fictive character of intelligence and courage, one capable of sustaining an epic quest for meaning that was both physical and metaphysical. When we look at the American literary landscape, we see far too few such creations. With Abundance, I wanted to explore the complexity of a woman who has been included in the historical picture but usually misrepresented.

Q: How does Abundance, set during the French Revolution, relate to your most recent novel Four Spirits, which is set during the civil rights movement? In some ways, they seem worlds apart.

A: In Four Spirits, I wanted to affirm the value of every individual life (including four unknown African-American school girls who were killed). I wanted to say that the same principle applies to the well-known and the privileged, even to a person who occupies a throne—(M)all of us share a basic humanity; we’re born and we die. Every life is precious. Questions about justice and the nature of government arise in both books.

This forum is not to be missed! Be sure to come early to get a good seat.

Additionally, remember to mark your calendars for the upcoming October 26 Anthology Book Launch, Solamente en San Miguel, Writings from the Authors’ Sala of San Miguel de Allende.

The San Miguel Authors’ Sala provides visibility, community and education for writers and readers in both English and Spanish. The Authors’ Sala presents works by writers of novels, poetry, memoirs, short stories and nonfiction, as well as agents and editors. Additionally, it presents readings and workshops for writers and aspiring writers.

Look for books by local authors in a special section in La Tienda in the Biblioteca. For up-to-date information on upcoming events, visit www.authorssalasanmiguel.com. 

For Abundance

“If you read one book about Marie Antoinette, let it be Sena Jeter Naslund’s gripping, gabby and beautifully poignant novel…Naslund’s writing is sumptuous and personal, and she manages to make the most remote of subjects—(M)an 18th-century French queen—(M)relatable to modern times. You know how the story ends. But the journey is so abundant with joy, grief and all those ordinary events that make up our lives, you’ll lose your head reading about it.”

–USA Today


“Naslund commands historical details to portray the world’s most extravagant palace in all its dazzling splendor and inane ceremony.”

–Washington Post


For Ahab’s Wife

“Line up the literary prizes. Rendered in language both lush and luminous, Ahab’s Wife is sustenance for the mind and soul.”

–Wally Lamb, author of I Know This Much Is True



“Beautifully written. Lyrical...alluring and wise.”

–Los Angeles Times

Ten new nonfiction arrivals at the Biblioteca

New books have been hitting the shelves at an unprecedented rate over the past weeks as the backlog is cleared through cataloging with the Abysis computer system. The “New Arrivals” shelf is in the English room, across from the reference desk.

We selected the following books by the time-honored “this looks interesting” criterion. Hundreds more fill the shelf for those with different tastes. The catalog number at the end of each entry will help your search. 

Alliance of Enemies by Agostino von Hazell and Sigrid MacRae traces the history of the Nazi Abwehr and the American OSS, forerunner of the CIA. Spies in Istanbul and Lisbon, American business and the Third Reich, plots to kill Hitler, and attempts to end the war are covered primarily over a 12-year period, 1933-45 (940.5485).

The Averaged American by Sarah Igo tells the story of how opinion polls, interviews, sex surveys, community studies and consumer research transformed the way Americans think of themselves (301.072).

The Occupation of Iraq, written by Ali Allawi, senior adviser to the Iraqi Prime Minister, describes what really led the US to invade and why events failed to unfold as planned (956.7044).

A Shameful Act by Turkish historian Taner Akcam is the first history of the slaughter in 1915 of one million Armenians by the Ottoman powers (956.6201).

Power, Faith, and Fantasy by Michael Oren is the first comprehensive history of America’s involvement in the Middle East from George Washington to George W. Bush (327.73056).

Invading Mexico by Joseph Wheelan covers America’s continental dream and the Mexican War of 1846-48, which yielded 500,000 square miles of new US territory (LAS 973.62).

Tales from the Torrid Zone covers a lifetime of travel between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn by Alexander Frater, one of today’s most celebrated travel writers (910.913). 

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is Barbara Kingsolver’s passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet (641.0973)

The House that George Built is a portrait by Wilfrid Sheed of the Golden Age of American popular music (782.42164).

The Last Forest is an analysis of the Amazon in the age of globalization, by attorney Mark London and US News and World Report editor Brian Kelly (333.7).

Kerouac pop quiz

Kerouac tribute
50th Anniversary of On the Road
Tue Oct 2, 6:30-8pm
Reading, followed by a pilgrimage to La Cucaracha
Sala Quetzal
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25

Email answers to letters@atencionsanmiguel.org  and put “Kerouac quiz” in the subject line. First prize is a bottle of tequila to the reader who emails us earliest with all 10 correct. The next nine top scorers also will be recognized in the next issue’s winners’ list.

1. How many choruses are in Kerouac’s poem, Mexico City Blues? a. 424 b. 242 c. 365

2. Who is the real-life model for Camille in On the Road?

a. Carolyn Cassady

b. Joan Haverty

c. Edie Parker

3. What American clothing company used Kerouac in a 1993 ad campaign? a. L.L. Bean b. Levi Strauss c. Gap

4. Which was Kerouac’s favorite bar in San Miguel?

a. El Gato Negro

b. Pancho and Lefty’s

c. La Cucaracha

5. What was Kerouac’s mother, Gabrielle, fondly known as? a. Gabby b. Memere c. Pooh Bear

6. What sport did Kerouac excel at in high school?

a. hockey

b. track

c. football 

7. How many feet long was the original scroll of On the Road?

a. 120 feet

b. 40 feet

c. 100 feet

8. What brand-new 1949 car does Cassady buy for a road trip?

a. Hudson Hornet

b. Chevy Nomad

c. Packard Clipper

9. In 1987, which Australian band had an album track titled, “The House That Jack Kerouac Built”?

a. The Bad Seeds

b. The Go-Betweens

c. The Cockroaches

10. What was the real name of the Mexican prostitute Kerouac fell in love with, honored in the book, Tristessa?

a. Maria

b. Esperanza

c. Lupita

Kerouac’s On the Road for a half-century
By Kennedy Poyser

On the Road turns 50 this month. For its importance to the Beat Generation and sixties counterculture, it is comparable to Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, the testament of the “Lost Generation” of the twenties.

The original typewritten manuscript scroll for On the Road sold at a Christie’s auction in 2001 for $2.2 million, a sum probably greater than the lifetime earnings of all the Beat writers put together. Kerouac typed it nonstop in three weeks on a taped-together roll of paper. His 100-wpm typing speed and Benzedrine supplements made him impatient about changing individual paper sheets.

He is responsible for the phrase Beat (“beatific”) Generation, for the title of Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl and for inadvertently renaming William S. Burrough’s Naked Lunch (he misread “Naked Lust” during another furious typing session with Burroughs in Tangier, Morocco). 

Local urban lore is that Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and William S. Burroughs drank beer at La Cucaracha, back when the cantina faced the Jardín in the space now occupied by Banamex. 

Neal Cassady met his end on the railroad tracks southbound to Celaya. A story variant is that, fueled by pulque, Seconals and amphetamines, he proposed to count the railroad ties with his nose. Before you scoff, remember he was found halfway there, so he must have counted 64,928 ties, at least according to a Ken Kesey short story in which Cassady mumbles the count as his last words before dying. Actually, he passed out on a cold, rainy night in a T-shirt and jeans. Found in a coma by the track and brought to the closest hospital, he died a few hours later at age 41.

Neal Cassady is the model for Dean Moriarty in On the Road and is immortalized as “Speed Limit,” the driver of Ken Kesey’s psychedelic school bus “Further” in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Cassady is one of those rare individuals whose existence changed the culture of a nation, and yet the real genius behind the Beat movement in literature never published a book during his life. His free-flowing letter writing style inspired the young Kerouac to invent his notion of “spontaneous prose.” 

Other books set in Mexico

Tristessa is a short novel set in Mexico City, based on his relationship with a Mexican prostitute. He describes Tristessa’s morphine addiction and poverty, balanced with innocence and beauty. Kerouac attempts to communicate his Buddhist beliefs become entangled as a metaphor in the unfamiliar culture and language.

Desolation Angels, written around the time On the Road was at the publisher, is one of Kerouac’s most autobiographical novels, and makes up part of his Duluoz Legend. The opening section is taken from the journal he kept when he was a fire lookout on Desolation Peak in the Cascades of Washington, and reflects his increasing disenchantment with Buddhism. Two sections are further subdivided, focusing on a specific location, such as a Mexican road trip. References in popular culture include a 1979 Bad Company album, Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row,” an Austin-based country band, and even a card in the game Magic. 

Mexico City Blues, a poem published in 1959, is consistent with how a musician would play jazz. Kerouac successfully uses his methods for creating spontaneous works.

Kerouac’s works by publication date:

The Town and the City, 1950

On the Road, 1957

The Dharma Bums, 1958 

The Subterraneans, 1958

The Floating World, 1959

Mexico City Blues, 1959

Maggie Cassidy, 1959

Doctor Sax, 1959

The Scripture of the Golden Eternity, 1960

Lonesome Traveller, 1960

Tristessa, 1960

Pull my Daisy, 1961

Book of Dreams, 1961

Big Sur, 1962

Visions of Gerard, 1963

Desolation Angels, 1965

Satori in Paris, 1966

Vanity of Duloutz, 1968

Pic, 1971

Scattered Poems, 1971

Visions of Cody, 1972

Heaven, 1977

Some of the Dharma, 1997 

Orpheus Emerged, 2000 (digital format) 

Windblown World: The Journals of Jack Kerouac, 1947-1954, 2004 

Still unpublished is And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, written with William Burroughs in the forties. 

Bilingual poetry reading

Poetry reading
“Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”
Fri, Oct 5, 5pm
Academia Hispanoamericana
Mesones 4
50 pesos

Three years ago, Carlos Pascual gave a series of readings about Latin American and Spanish poetry at the Academia Hispanoamericana. The readings were a successful experiment which brought the work of Spanish and Latin American poets—(M)Machado, Neruda, Borges, Sabines—(M) to English-speaking audiences in San Miguel.

Pascual first read the poems in their original language to permit the audience to enjoy their sounds before reading their translation into English. He followed with commentary on the poetics and glimpses into the cultures that bred them. He finished with a second reading of each poem in Spanish. Rather than being stiffly academic, Pascual’s lectures and readings were filled with anecdotes and referrals to the local culture.

The Academia Hispanoamericana now presents the second round of Pascual’s poetry readings as well as a series of his lectures on Mexican culture. On October 5, Pascual will read “Llanto por Ignacio Sanchez Mejias” (“Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias”), a poem that Federico García Lorca wrote at the death of his bullfighter friend. This is the first reading of an astounding series of poems about death written in the Spanish language in the twentieth century. 

On October 19, he will lecture on two of the greatest deities of the Mexican pre-Columbian pantheon—(M)Quetzalcóatl and Tezcatlipoca.