I am pleased that a new edition of The Black Flower by Howard Bahr has been released. In this time of transition for readers, booksellers, and the physical book, one never knows when a great physical book could fall into the out of print pit. That a publisher knows when a book is great enough to deserve re-release causes much-needed hope and encouragement in me, especially during “these dumbass greedy times” as Barry Hannah once said.
Of course for me The Black Flower represents an excellent and beautifully wrought story, but it also reminds me of a time, a place, and the good man behind the story’s creation. Howard Bahr is a man whom I greatly admire, certainly for his ability with language, but also because of what he has done for me and so many others who have had a desire to be better at the writing craft.
When I first began working at Lemuria in 2008, one of the first writers I met was Howard Bahr, and I was stoked that someone with such a considerable pile of books lived so close by. I was searching for a mentor at the time, someone who would be a guiding light to the process of telling a story. I had no idea what I was doing. I’d become an English major because I knew that I wanted to read great literature, and I met Howard around the time that I was feeling the burn of literary theory. When I asked him, “Do you think about any sort of theory when you are writing?” He responded with kind firmness: “Absolutely not I don’t.” Howard had no reason at all to take an interest in me, but he did out of the goodness of his heart. He took me under his wing, encouraged me, and shared his time with me. Despite his own writing schedule and the students he was already teaching, he carved out time to look at my work. He assured me that all I needed to do was keep reading great literature, and keep “showing up” as he put it, to the word processor daily, even if all you did some nights was “play.”
And so, after a few conversations I decided to work up enough courage to give Howard a piece I’d written. I am ashamed to say that at this time I had not read any of Howard’s work. I am certain that if I had read The Black Flower at the time, with all of its delicate power and heartrending force, that I would have been much, much more hesitant to put the story that I did into his hands: a college campus piece involving an anxietal young student with a crush on a nursing school beauty, topped off with an epigram from Eudora Welty and a redemptive moment involving a sphygmomanometer.
Howard wasn’t impressed. The look on his face alone when he came by the store with the manuscript in hand told me that I was in trouble. He started with that epigram: “An epigram is a mite pretentious for a short story.” I am thankful he did not add: “…especially for a story as awful as this one.” The metaphors were too many and out of place, the syntax was horribly overwritten, and most importantly, not a thing in the world was at stake in the piece. He left me humbled, not discouraged, but completely and totally humbled. He had done what any great teacher and mentor does: he told me the truth. The piece would not cut it, and no piece rendered in the same way with the same methods would ever cut it.
I had to write, and rewrite and rewrite again, and then be satisfied that much of what I did when I showed up to the word processor would ultimately be failure. “You will have enough rejection letters to make a suit,” he once told me. But he didn’t give up on me, he never told me that I just wasn’t going to ever write a single sentence that sang, he never said he didn’t have time for me. He continued taking my work and writing meticulous notes in the margins, and he told me that I was getting better.
It wasn’t until I left for graduate school for creative writing that I finally made time and opened The Black Flower. I was criminally late in doing this. I already knew that my mentor was knowledgeable on the subject of writing. He was generous and kind, but reading his work gave me an entirely new perspective on what he was teaching me. Every sentence sang, every splotch of punctuation did work on the page, and at no point whatsoever did the story fail to keep the stakes high.
It was a novel of the Civil War; thus, there was nothing but life and death, glory and honor, sweetness and light—and all from the very opening paragraph: “Bushrod Carter dreamed of snow, of big round flakes, drifting like sycamore leaves from heaven. The snow settled over trees and fences, over artillery and rumps of horses, over the men moving in column up the narrow road. A snowflake, light and dry as a lace doily, lit on the crown of Bushrod’s hat; when he made to brush it away, he found that it was not snow at all but a hoe cake dripping with molasses. All the snowflakes were turning into hoe cakes the minute they hit the ground. The road and the field were covered in them, but nobody else seemed to notice. The boys went on marching as if nothing had happened.” Right from the start I knew that the man who had been gracious enough to be a mentor and friend to me, was a master.
Some writers don’t have the best sentences, but they can tell a good story that makes the book worth finishing. Other writers have amazing sentences without the greatest story, and you keep reading just to see what they’ll do next with the language. There are others who have neither, but they’re so honest and true that the reader finishes the book based on those qualities alone. The Black Flower contains all of these attributes: a wonderful, gripping, and heartbreaking story told in language eloquent and moving and as explosive as gunpowder. And above all, Howard’s story is true, not in that every detail is factual though I am certain it is close, but because it speaks to those places in the human heart susceptible to love and war, damage and heartbreak, life and death.
Such books only come from the best hearts I am certain, and Howard’s heart is big and generous. Whenever I struggled with whether or not I could write and finish my Master’s, whenever I felt like I was down for the count, I’d write Howard, and he would always write me back a thorough and uplifting exchange, telling me that all I was going through was what every writer went through, that the discouragement and the rejection and the doubt were simply part of the writing life, and that if I would accept those things and keep writing that they would become instruments by which I would learn. And learn I did. I learned from Howard because amongst other things Howard pointed me to the blank page. I am forever grateful.
Indeed, The Black Flower is a great novel. A novel that should be cherished, kept in print, and talked about. Howard once told me to remember that when it came to storytelling, “nobody gives a shit about the writer, but the story.” In some sense, he is absolutely right, but I cannot be objective about The Black Flower. Its re-release calls for me to celebrate the man behind the story, because I do care. I care because he chose to care about me.
Please join us tonight at Lemuria for Howard’s reading from this excellent novel, a novel that I hope is re-released and reprinted again and again, by a teacher I hope others are fortunate enough to call friend. -Ellis
The signing will begin at 5:00 with a reading to follow at 5:30.
The Black Flower by Howard Bahr (Nautical & Aviation Publishing, 2012)
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