James Alan McPherson (1943–2016)

Railroad is a curious collection of articles, short histories and biographies, poems, songs, first person accounts, fiction and facts about various facets of railroading (slang, explanation of signals and their meaning, bridges, etc.) whose overarching theme is perhaps best described as melancholy.

The short histories cover such things as the evolution of the idea of steam powered transport starting with the 1641 efforts of the Frenchman Solomon de Caus, the underground railroad in the United States, the wild financial exploits of Drew, Vanderbilt, Fisk, and Gould, and the labor strife of blacks and whites in the U.S. in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

The biographies provide a glimpse into the lives of Casey Jones, Kate Shelly, and Thomas Edison among others. The first-person accounts cover some of the “roads less taken”. There’s a sketch of life in a hobo camp (Charles Chrysler), a reflection on a life with a father who was a boiler maker (Otto Salassi), what it was like working in the dining cars ( Joe Monroe) and others.

The fiction runs the gamut from the grim to the almost unintelligible and this reviewer did not find any of it particularly interesting. The same is true for a lot of the cited poetry.

Overall I don’t begrudge the time spent reading but it is not a book I am likely to revisit.

(Text Length – 185 pages. Includes numerous pictures, illustrations, maps, etc.) (Book Dimensions inches LxWxH – 8.5 x .625 x 10.875).… (mais)

When I saw that the Pulitzer prize winning author James Alan McPherson was currently teaching at the school I may attend in the fall (the University of Iowa), I decided it was time I got around to reading Elbow Room. It had been on the to-be-read shelf for years, mostly because it's a collection of short stories - and I'm not generally a huge fan of short stories.

I can't really say that there was a particular story in this collection that stood out to me, or that I found particularly interesting or well written. There also wasn't a story that I felt was poorly written, or that lost my interest while i was reading it.

In the end, I was entertained enough while reading the stories but they did not leave a lasting impression on me. This is my typical experience with short stories.… (mais)

1652 Elbow Room: Stories by James Alan McPherson (read 8 Aug 1981) (Pulitzer Fiction prize in 1978) This book contains 12 short stories, and I have read it because I read all Pulitzer fiction winners. I was bored or bothered by everything in this book. All stories are about black people, and while they sound authentic I fail to see much sense in them or why one should read them. Many stories have no seeming point in the literal way I seek a point in a short story. I also object to the obscenities and know that they only detract from the work. I think it is a shame that crap like this can win a Pulitzer Prize.
… (mais)