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Book Review: “Breslin: Essential Writings”

Book Review: Breslin: Essential Writings, edited by Dan Barry. The Library of America. 2024. 723 pages. $40.

Review by David Daniel

[This review originally ran on The Arts Fuse website]

The idea of columnists like Breslin as “deadline artists” is apt. The task was coming up with an idea, tracking it down, then giving it a narrative spark, all ahead of a ticking clock as the drop-deadline for the next edition loomed.

In the late 1960s, as his comic crime novel The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight was about to be published, the movie rights already sold, Jimmy Breslin announced that he was giving up the newspaper column he’d been writing 3-4 times weekly for many years, first in the New York Herald Tribune and then the New York Post. He was tired of seeing his “stuff” on the subway floor, he said. It was a good Breslin exit line; but the breakaway didn’t last. Having people’s feet on his “stuff” meant their eyes were on it, too. In those days a large New York City paper could have two million daily readers, and a million more on Sunday. With his name recognition, Breslin helped drive those numbers. After time away for other projects, he joined the staff of the Daily News, where he stayed for many years.

Now, the Library of America has brought out a generous selection of his writing—some 700 pages of Breslin in his various modes, including two book-length works and a wide-ranging assortment of his columns, selected by New York Times editor and columnist Dan Barry.

Widely regarded as the best in the game of telling stories of New Yorkers and others, with an unflinching eye, Breslin was a New York guy in full. Born in Queens in 1928, when he was six his father did a “paternal fade”—stepping out for an errand and gone, smoke. At ten he found his mother holding a pistol to her head. He wrestled it away, and the incident was never spoken of again. In high school he played football, boxed a little, and began his career in journalism as a copyboy.

Fast forward to the heavyset, cigar chomping, F-bombing character out of Damon Runyon he became in the post-war years, for whom writing a newspaper column was a contact sport. With his messy dark hair and tie draped around his neck like a striped snake he was never going be mistaken for Pete Hamill, his suave contemporary and only legitimate challenger to Breslin’s journalistic primacy. He never learned to drive, so his method was to walk around and talk to people, take notes, cogitate, and then write to make deadline, which he never missed. He could be bellicose at times, confrontational, but he was of the belief that a journalist has an obligation to readers and the community, and he possessed an indelible empathy for the common person.

His spectrum was broad, and he had a knack for being on scene for big stories. He was present when Malcolm X was shot; and later Bobby Kennedy. He filed dispatches from wherever history was being made: with people marching fifty miles from Selma to the capitol steps in Montgomery in troubled Alabama; Vietnam; England (when Churchill was in hospital dying); Ireland during the “Troubles”; the Mideast during more troubles. But there was never any doubt about his home turf, and no one felt the city’s pulse more acutely. In columns covering Broadway Joe Namath, the closing of the Stork Club, the hunt for the “Son of Sam” serial killer, the AIDS epidemic, and the railroading of the Central Park Five, he allows the events and people—always the people—to speak for themselves.

The idea of columnists like Breslin—and Hamill, Mike Royko, and others—as “deadline artists” is apt. The task was coming up with an idea, tracking it down, then giving it a narrative spark, all ahead of a ticking clock as the drop-deadline for the next edition loomed. On Dec. 8, 1980, Breslin was home asleep when he got word that John Lennon had been shot. Hustling in from Queens, he sussed that the story might be with the NYPD cops who’d rushed the mortally wounded Lennon to the hospital. Two hours later, his column “Are You John Lennon?” was ready to hit the streets.

In November 1963, in the wake of the JFK assassination, Breslin’s story was about the ER surgeon at Parkland Memorial Hospital who attempted to save the President’s life. A few days later, in D.C. for the funeral, rather than follow the crowd, Breslin wrote about Clifton Pollard, the gravedigger at Arlington National Cemetery who dug JFK’s grave. Titled “It was an Honor” (Pollard’s words when asked about his lonely task), it is one of Breslin’s best known pieces, used in journalism courses to make a point about avoiding the scrum of journalists and finding an angle. Try reading it without tears.

A sequence of columns from spring of 1985, begins innocuously enough: “At the start, it was over nothing, an alleged $10 sale of pot on a street corner in Queens, and now it has turned into a case that could change the system of law enforcement used in this city.” Breslin tells the story of an 18-year-old Black man who is taken off a street corner one night by six white cops, hustled down to a precinct where he is electrically shocked multiple times. After being held incommunicado for hours, he is finally arraigned. His mother, who hasn’t been told a thing, retains a lawyer, the DA gets involved, and the medical examiner identifies the marks on the young man’s body as electrical burns of a kind that would be made with a cattle prod. Breslin is on the story, and his columns exposing the blatant police brutality and concluding with a smackdown of the police commissioner, who stayed suspiciously absent during the events and ensuing uproar, make compulsive reading.

Most prescient is “Trump: The Master of the Steal,” a column from June 1990. By that point Trump was already facing tax scams and making every effort to be news. The jukes and fakes that later became his faux Time magazine covers and “leaked” teasers about his wealth are fully formed. Breslin, with a streetcorner nose for stink, IDs The Donald as a publicity vamp taken up by an all-too-compliant media. Per Breslin, he survives by “Corum’s Law” (Bill Corum was a Hearst sportswriter who eventually became head of the Kentucky Derby by convincing Louisville businessmen that the folks attending the horserace expected to lose: “a sucker had to get screwed.”) This law runs every Trump venture, though “instead of horseplayers, the suckers who must get screwed are a combination of news reporters and financial people.” The column concludes that all Trump has to do is stick to the rules on which his old man raised him: “Never use your own money. Steal a good idea and say it’s your own. Do anything to get publicity. Remember that everybody can be bought.” (Italics Breslin’s).

Breslin was unswayed by public opinion; if anything, he helped shape it. In contrast with the current media landscape wherein too often news seems meant to stoke (or stroke) partisans, he operated on the idea that one of the moorings of democracy is a free press, and the old apothegm that newspapers should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. If he saw injustice, even if enacted by friends or people he admired, he called it out. A blue-collar Irish Catholic, his withering take on vainglory and corruption in the New York Archdiocese hit like a grenade. When citizens began to mythologize subway vigilante Bernard Goetz as a hero, Breslin offered made a Jonathan Swiftian proposal to elect Goetz mayor.

Given the traumas of his childhood, and later the deaths of his first wife and two grown daughters, he was no stranger to loss. He understood woundedness. Politically a Democrat, he appealed to people of any stripe because his work was bedded in the common experience. During the AIDs epidemic, when its sufferers were marginalized as “other,” Breslin put names and human faces to the patients and their families, humanizing them, breaking down the convenient “blame the victims” narrative.

One of the recurring words in his columns is “yesterday”—literally “the day before,” which is how fresh the writing is, immediacy rising from it like the smell and smudge of ink off the newsprint. If Breslin brought heart and spine to his columns, he brought humor too, often ironic. Describing Tip O’Neill, who emerges heroic in one of the book-length pieces in the volume, How the Good Guys Finally Won on the dismantling of Nixon after Watergate: “At six-foot-two, and weighing anywhere from two hundred sixty-two pounds to two hundred eighty-two pounds, with a great nose, Tip is not trim enough, nor does he have the outward elegance to cause people to use Latinate words in describing him.” In another context, Rudy Giuliani is “a small man looking for a balcony.” And Breslin often turns the humor on himself. Writing as he faces brain surgery: “I stared at the ceiling and kept seeing the faces of people I absolutely despise. I had promised the priest that I most certainly would stop my habit of slandering and backbiting …. But now here was all this temptation up on the ceiling. I said ‘Oh, lord, if you just let me call one of these people the name he deserves to be called, I will come out and build you a church.’” In 1986, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary.

Recently, the Library of America hosted a webinar with Dan Barry, editor of the current volume, along with journalists Mike Barnicle and Mike Lupica. Young men when they first knew the older Breslin, they talked about the inspiration he brought. As Barnicle, Boston’s closest journalist-kin to Breslin, put it, “There was Jimmy Breslin and everyone else.” Of his approach to finding entry to a story, all agreed that by standing at the edge you’ll pick up more, because the center will be crowded with everyone else.

The LOA volume has a detailed timeline of Breslin’s life, and informative jacket flap copy, and a limited index. It would benefit from a foreword to give context, particularly to readers who were too young to know Breslin, but that information is readily available elsewhere. Or forget elsewhere and get all you need from the source, the way Breslin did.

~*~

Long ago David Daniel was a columnist for the campus newspaper at the University of Maine, Orono. Drafted in 1969, he served as a military journalist. Later he wrote about books and jazz for the Patriot Ledger.

“Annual demonstration of faith”

“Annual demonstration of faith” – (PIP #25)

By Louise Peloquin

      For 71 years, L’Etoile shone out of Lowell’s Little Canada to offer its readership local, regional, and international coverage of a wide variety of news items. Deemed just as newsworthy as scoops from abroad, community events were regularly featured. The newspaper team knew how much readers delighted in narratives on neighborhood personalites.

Charles Gargiulo’s exhilarating, Legends of Little Canada, brings back to life a world gone by where local figures fashioned young lives. His book also gives us a peek into the status of Saint Jean-Baptiste church in the neighborhood. (1)

For the French-Canadian community, the church was not only a place of worship and religious ceremonies but it was also an institution of education for all ages, from the parish school to adult, life-coach-style counseling, mirroring its all-pervasive role in “the old country” – Québec. The church was also a venue for social gatherings from charitable organization meetings to musical and theatrical performances to kermesses and bingo tournaments.

Consequently, it was vital for L’Etoile to cover church events. In addition, as a service to the community, the newspaper gratuitously published many Franco-American parish bulletins. Naturally, this move met potential readers’ expectations, making the effort a win-win for both the paper and its public.

The celebration of Easter, or Resurrection Sunday, falls on March 31st this year. Here is an 80-year-old excerpt covering another “annual demonstration of faith.”

L’Etoile – January 4, 1944

The Name of Jesus is the only name to which humankind should attach itself for salvation

Such was the message from Father Breault, o.m.i., to the city’s Franco-American leaguers during Sunday’s celebration of the Holy Name at Saint Jeanne D’Arc.

     Jesus Christ is the Divine Son of the Most High who has given Him a Name above all names. That is what Reverend Father Alphonse Breault, o.m.i, missionary of the Hudson, N.H. Oblate Mission, demonstrated, with Gospel texts, at the annual demonstration of faith of the Franco-American leaguers of the Sacred Heart on the feast of the Holy Name on Sunday afternoon at Saint Jeanne D’Arc church.

     About 1000 leaguers from the city’s various Franco-American parishes met for this solemn and imposing ceremony and filled the whole nave of the vast church.

     In the sanctuary were Reverend Fathers Louis-G. Bouchard, o.m.i., Joseph Denis, o.m.i., Lucien Brassard, om.i. (2), Narcisse Contour, o.m.i., Albert Beausoleil, o.m.i., Lionel Labrie, o.m.i., Victor Alexandre, o.m.i., Paul Marceau, o.m.i., Donat Morissette, o.m.i., Pastor Arthur O. Mercier and Abbots Émile Herault and René James….(3) 

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  1. The book review link: https://richardhowe.com/2023/09/28/legends-of-little-canada-book-review/
  2. Father Lucien Brassard was named director of Saint Joseph Cemetery, 96 Riverneck Road Chelmsford in 1928. For 41 years, he spearheaded its development and modernization. Saint Joseph Cemetery was founded in 1894 by France-born Father André-Marie Garin, a familiar figure to Lowellians who can view his statue situated on the right of former Saint Jean-Baptiste church. For an overview of the cemetery’s history, consult the link:  

https://francolowellma.wordpress.com/paroisse-saint-jean-baptiste/cimetiere-st-joseph-history-of-st-joseph-cemetery/

3. Translation by Louise Peloquin.

Books: non-fiction, early spring reviews by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney offers what could be an eye-opening look at how to talk to “the other.” It’s about much more than when every day becomes Thanksgiving Day and seemingly reasonable people turn out to be crazy Uncle Harry. McRaney shares what he has learned from people experimenting with different ways of talking to people, including “deep canvassing.” That requires resisting the temptation to debate (debates have winners and losers and so harden positions), establishing rapport, exploring how people come to their conclusions even more than what those conclusions are.  McRaney’s book goes deep into the neuroscience of how brains process information, assimilate new facts, resist or accommodate to new ideas. He goes into studies by social scientists of how membership in groups or tribes influences our willingness to open our minds, the comfort of bias confirmation, how we use facts selectively to rationalize our opinions, how group attitudes may change over time.

As one who has spent decades in advocacy journalism, predicated on the idea that all we have to do is present the facts and, bingo, others will see the light, this book is unsettling and revelatory. What is the best way to talk to those who, to us, are so “wrong?” To what extent have we given up on trying to communicate? Is it easier living in our bubble? Probably, but McRaney’s book is a must read for those who are exhausted from the polarization and think that, however difficult, it’s worth looking for another way out.

In True Face by Jonna Mendez is a fascinating memoir by a woman with a spirit of adventure, intellectual curiosity, and desire for international travel, who satisfies all those needs by becoming an operative in the CIA. It was a time when the Agency employed women only in a secretarial capacity, and then just in the lowest paying jobs providing support for their husbands. It was the guys who were deemed to be highly skilled operatives with upwardly mobile career opportunities. From her start as a 21-year-old in the typist pool, Mendez learned to navigate an intensely misogynistic work environment.

Mendez got her first break when her skills at photography led to overseas assignments, finally enabling her to work undercover. She worked harder than many of the men did, availing herself of every chance to learn new skills, especially designing and implementing brilliant, technically sophisticated disguises. She helped to turn “assets,” extract them from danger when compromised, and apply her skills to a range of other espionage activities. Eventually, she became Chief of the CIA’s Office of Technical Services.

In deference to Agency protocol and security considerations, Mendez changes some of the people’s names and refers to overseas postings in broad terms (e.g., southeast Asia) rather than specific countries. This is a fascinating peek inside the administrative apparatus of our premier intelligence operation.  Clearly, this book will resonate for women clawing up the ladder in any male-dominated culture, especially those whose work culture still smacks of the 1970’s and 1980’s.

American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden by Katie Rogers will be of interest to general readers and news junkies alike. Rogers, a NY Times White House reporter covering the Trump and Biden administrations, starts with an overview of traditional First Ladies, who they were and how their official roles were defined. Moving from Hillary Clinton to Michelle Obama, Melania Trump and Jill Clinton, Rogers explores their roots, their interests and levels of engagement, their values and how each left an imprint on our expectations of First Ladies. She even devotes a chapter to the nation’s First Gentleman, Doug Emhoff, as he travels the country in support of Vice President Kamala Harris.

When covering Hillary’s novel path of heading a major health care task force, Rogers lays bare the difficulties of shaping an unprecedented role. Under the glare of klieg lights, Hillary faced highly publicized policy failure to press obsession with her foibles, flaws, seeming stoicism and thinly veiled anger during her husband’s sexual transgressions. By contrast, Michele Obama quietly stepped away from her high-powered career but may have found her true self as First Lady by carving out initiatives to fight obesity and introduce healthy eating into school systems.  Rogers writes of Melania Trump’s “whatever” attitude toward politics, her apparent comfort in being an outsider (except when step-daughter Ivanka usurped “First Lady” roles) and her setting up a “swag room” in the White House to dispense Trump trinkets to MAGA supporters.

Rogers spent a majority of the book on Jill Clinton, from her family life as a protected daughter, to a college co-ed, her first husband, and her entrance – at the age of 23 – into the Biden family, where she assumed responsibility for becoming mom to Senator Joe Biden’s two sons, who had lost their mommy and sister in a tragic car crash. She has three primary commitments: family, education and her teaching job (the first time ever in the White House that a First Lady continued her career) , and supporting and protecting her husband.

First Lady Biden is ferocious about all.  Typically, she does not weigh in on policy deliberations (her push for making two years of community college free fell flat on its face) but sits in on virtually every decision about staffing – her own and her husband’s.  She is the praetorian guard of Biden’s inner circle as well and is a clear-eyed critic when a key staff person errs.  She is fully on board with his bid for a second term and rabidly committed that the Biden administration “finish the job.”

There are no big reveals for anyone who follows the news. Many if not most of the stories are known, but they are woven together to create the perceived reality of whatever administration Rogers is covering.  While written is a largely spare reportorial style, she still manages to provide background, context and, intermittently, add color to round out the scene. All in all, it’s a not-indispensable but a decent read.

Lowell Politics newsletter: March 24, 2024

A small spurt of drama arose at an otherwise straightforward Lowell City Council meeting Tuesday night. It came from something that wasn’t even on the agenda, the status of the Lupoli Companies project in the Hamilton Canal District.

About 90 minutes into the 105-minute meeting, Councilor John Descoteaux spoke up and made a motion to suspend the rules. Another Councilor quickly seconded it. Descoteaux began to speak but Mayor Rourke (understandably) interrupted to ask what it was about.

Descoteaux answered, “to inquire into the Lupoli project and the report we’re supposed to get at the end of February.”

Turning to Assistant City Manager/DPD Director Yovanni Baez-Rose, Descoteaux asked “where are we at with the Lupoli Companies and the lack of activity over the past nine months?”

Assistant CM Baez-Rose replied, “We met with the Lupoli Companies and told them to be prepared to be invited in for an Economic Development Subcommittee. So we’re waiting for that to be scheduled.”

Silence. The camera stayed on Descoteaux who eventually asked, “And who’s on that subcommittee?”

[According to the city’s website, the Economic/Downtown Development Subcommittee is chaired by Councilor Wayne Jenness with Councilors Vesna Nuon and John Leahy as members.]

More silence, although Descoteaux then looked to his left, as if someone off camera had said something. Presumably that was Councilor Jenness who sits two seats to that side, but the microphone didn’t pick up who spoke or what was said.

Councilor Descoteaux (to Asst CM Baez-Rose): “When did you speak with Mr. Lupoli on this? Because I’m sure Councilor Jenness would have set up a meeting by now.”

Another silence, longer and more awkward than the first.

Mayor Rourke interjected, asking Councilor Descoteaux: “Do you want to make a motion to send this to the Economic Affairs Subcommittee?”

Councilor Descoteaux: “I think that would be the way to go. So we could get an update.”

Mayor Rourke: “Motion by Councilor Descoteaux to refer this to the Economic Affairs Subcommittee, seconded by Councilor Jenness. All those in favor. So moved.”

There was something odd about this exchange, but we’ll have to wait for the subcommittee meeting to find out what’s going on. If you want to watch the exchange described above, it begins at 1:29 of the YouTube recording of the Council meeting.

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We’ll also have to wait a while to get more information on the future of the Lowell Senior Center. As I’ve written about previously, the agreement between the city and the owner of the property was executed 20 years ago. It provided that after 20 years, the building would be turned over to the city at no cost.

But a motion on Tuesday’s agenda suggests it’s not that simple. Jointly filed by Councilors Vesna Nuon and Erik Gitschier, the motion requested the City Manager “work with City Barns LLC [the owner of the property] to negotiate terms regarding transfer of ownership or a continuation of the lease for the Senior Center. Include in negotiations improvements to schedule maintenance of the building, maintaining the land, upgrading walkways and lots as part of any potential successor lease agreement or before transfer of ownership; updates of negotiations to be provided to Council in Executive Session.”

The Council voted to take up this matter in executive session next week.

As City Council motions go, this one was unusually detailed and specific, so I’m guessing there’s a lot more going on than the public knows about. The executive session means we’ll have to wait longer to learn more.

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The Smith Baker Center otherwise dominated discussion at Tuesday’s Council meeting. Councilor Paul Yem placed a motion on the agenda asking that the City Manager “have the appropriate department provide a structural engineer report on the Smith Baker Center to the Council.”

Several members of the public spoke in favor of the motion and Councilors engaged in lengthy discussions on the potential cost of such a study, the length of time it might take, and the feasibility of housing on the site, either in a refurbished building or in new construction after demolition.

Because of uncertainty over the cost and timing of a comprehensive structural report, Councilors voted for a substitute motion by Councilor Erik Gitschier that asked the City Manager to provide that information to Councilors as soon as possible, and deferred the decision on whether to go forward with such a report until cost and timing information was received.

Assuming the cost and timing are reasonable, Councilors seemed inclined to obtain a report of this type. Council Kim Scott may have expressed the prevailing sentiment when she said that while she wasn’t optimistic about the fate of the building, “once it’s gone, it’s gone” and given the importance of historic preservation in Lowell, it was worth making one more effort to find a way to salvage the building.

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A disheartening element of this Smith Baker discussion was the close-mindedness some Councilors displayed about the potential for housing on the Smith Baker site, either in a renovated structure or in new construction. Why so negative? Because “there’s no parking.”

The surest way to improve the quality of life of the average Lowell resident is to create more housing which in turn would make housing more affordable. The shortage of housing has driven rents to heights that create enormous financial stress on individuals and families. This adds to housing churn and homelessness with negative consequences extending to health and education.

One way to create more housing is to allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs), but the Council has already rejected that.

Another approach is to convert unused or underused downtown office buildings into housing. That’s not easy to do, and the high cost of conversion from office to residential has in the past led developers to create “luxury” units with above-market prices.

There are ways for city government to make such conversions easier and more affordable. Equally important is adopting policies and programs that make living in downtown Lowell more attractive. Those efforts require much more than just making it easier to get a building permit. They require a comprehensive strategy, something that’s been very elusive for recent City Councils given their reactionary approach to governance. Some things that could help might include: are the parking garages that already exist well run, safe, and accessible? Is it easy and convenient to get from downtown to the Gallagher Terminal? If a quart of milk is needed, can I get it without retrieving my car from the parking garage?

Today, more cities than ever are facing this same challenge. Places like Boston that had thriving downtown office sectors before the pandemic face an existential crisis in the post-pandemic world as more and more white-collar businesses realized they can make do with far less super-expensive downtown office space. These big cities are racing to convert office buildings to residences which in turn means much of the momentum in urban planning is now focused on office conversions. Is Lowell embracing this societal trend and all the attention and funding that it brings? No, we’re not interested because “there’s no parking.” It’s a very close-minded approach.

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