Les Edgerton on Writing: THE BEST BOOK I'VE EVER READ

Les Edgerton on Writing: THE BEST BOOK I'VE EVER READ: Hi folks, This is the best book I've ever read. REVIEW FIRST BORN OF AN ASS William Joyce I’ve never written a review like this...

Now This is what I call.......

This is what I call book collection.






.

MONEY

With the permission of William Joyce




                                                                        MONEY

Money is the last line
of defense
before we hit hatred.
With money we can
still pretend
there is hope.
On Friday we can
still dance
to shitty music
after someone has handed us
our shitty money
for a weeks work
of producing shit.

God bless money !
Our children are coached
to kiss its ass.
And our children
fall asleep
before they are 20.

The hills and valleys too
dream of money
and are scooped into subdivisions
to cradle our childrens' children.
And when the trees are planted
they dream also of money
growing in the fifty feet
of emptiness
between them and the next sapling.

Everywhere in every country
it is money, money, money, money.
Don't you dare ask
anyone to sing a good song.
Money strangles throats
and the airwaves;
there is no real voice
from Nova Scotia to Patagonia.

To break the bondage of money
parents put their children in a car.
They go to Mt. Rushmore
where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
is singing, "Hallelujah, hallelujah
oh money, more money, hallelujah,"
and Washington winks at Lincoln
and Lincoln winks at Roosevelt,
and Jefferson smiles
at having hidden his Black concubine
in the attic,
while the deer in the bush
weep
at the horror of it all.

                                   
With the permission of William Joyce





                                                     My Career With the N.Y. Times


When the balding professor waved
the N.Y. Times at our class
and said, " All the news
that's fit to print, "
I said to myself,
"I'll write all the news
that's not fit to print."


I did and was rejected
everywhere till Oakes came along.
Oakes' real name was "Ochs"
and he was about to inherit
several millions of N.Y. Times' money.
He was  assistant
to a famous publisher
and had arrived
at a state of rebellion
through reading.


Oakes hated everywhere
he'd ever been
including Paris and New Orleans
but thought the talking turds
in my novel were just the thing
to shake up the publishing industry.


He arranged for the famous publisher
to buy my novel
but the famous publisher drank a lot
and forgotten he'd sold
his famous press to an oil heiress.
So, he sent Oakes and my novel
to an old buddy publisher
from their Paris days.


The old buddy didn't like Oakes
nor the talking turds
in my novel.
Oakes smelled the end coming,
and with access
to the family newspaper,
gave an interview
in which he said
publishers were no different
than shoe salesmen.


Bye bye Oakes, bye bye
my novel.
So I headed south
to Mexico with a grand
Oakes lent me
to write more news
that was unfit to print.


I promptly caught hepatitis
but when Oakes telephoned
I told him I had used
his grand to buy dancing girls.
And when I arrived a year later
at Dulles International
Oakes had a collection agent
waiting for me.


For years collection agents
telephoned but didn't believe me
when I told them
their client had been paid
with talking turds.
When my novel finally appeared
The N.Y. Times reviewer,
a Jesuit priest, said,
"This novel never should have been published."
while Oakes applauded
from his penthouse
knowing one more rebel
had been squashed.

Guillermo O 'Joyce or William Joyce as he is sometimes known is a Poet, Novelist, Short story writer,

Critic and Essayist. His work is brimming with passion, courage, humour, anger and creativity. 

He puts forward a lethal concoction of freedom and fun mixing the ludicrous with the real in a universe

as playful as it is a killer.

"Slow down" Guillermo says, get into the groove, feel the rhythm of your own body and just play.

Loosen up and listen to Nature or music. Laugh at the absurdity of the Mob and give yourself a 

chance to create a place for yourself in the world.Nobody else is going to do it for you even if they

did care. Fight if you have to,don't be soft, but never be too hard, energy my friend, energy.

I came across Guillermo through the utterly magnificent 'Miller, Bukowski and their enemies' 2nd Edition.

A book of critical essays as explosive as they are essential.

The first time I read it I was blown away. The second time I got even more out of it. 

I came across essays on Miller and Bukowski that I think are definitive, but I also got 

introductions to Authors I'd never heard of and advice I never imagined I needed. 

I jumped on these new leads with a vengeance because I always read.

I started with Bohumil Hrabel's 'Too loud a Solitude', then Richard Yates 'Eleven kinds of Loneliness' on to

Albert Cossory, B. Traven, Jean Giono. I was in a new world. Irving Stettner put me over the edge.

I returned to Miller like a long lost friend and saw with better informed eyes the reason he was still in

my head talking away five minutes after I had put his book down.

I was shocked at how good Dick Gregory's biography was, and so at last I went looking for Guillermo's 

other works....

I found out he wrote as William Joyce and had a novel 'First Born of an Ass'.

A stupendous read about 'Gorm' who transforms his body (And life) through weightlifting and

an obsession with his own feces, all the while showing up the killing machine at the heart of US

steel towns of the 1950's. Our hero creating his own world because he has to, while leading us through

a ludicrous but wholly realistic journey to the epicentre of american values.

I read 'The Recorder of Births and Deaths’ A collection of short stories which only impressed me

even more. Funny and thought provoking while looking at the shadows in life that follow us all.

The point was that one man and one book had changed how, what and why I read, had made my life

more enjoyable and funnier, not to mention more my own. I wrote an email to an address I found

just to say a well deserved thank you while expecting no reply or acknowledgement.

A day or two later William replied and we have kept up contact ever since.

I read his poetry, got some of his back story, and gratefully learned that he is still writing.

He is currently working on a memoir of his time in Cuba which is as daring and provocative 

as one would expect from a human being so committed to freedom and joy.

I gained a friend and made contact with a truly unique and gifted human being.

A wise, talented, supportive person who has so far been disgracefully ignored and consciously

hindered by an industry that cannot face itself or its ongoing legacy of failure to be fit for purpose.

We have fallen into a vacuum of conceit where technique is somehow more valued than talent,

luck plays more importance than ever and the 'Market' has forgotten its basis for existence.

The invisible hand swats rather than helps.




Guillermo must be read to keep us all sane.

So this blog is about his writing and my thoughts on it as well as the words of other

Joyce enthusiasts on the subject.

Please feel free to contribute or write to William himself at  guillermojoyce@gmail.com