An architect who writes? What’s up with that?
Peter Green’s journal of little victories and defeats, funny encounters and random thoughts for his family and friends.
–St. Louis, January, 2006 (gg newswire)
Welcome to the greenskills grapevine, a web log that is part of our new look for 2006. I figure with half a million people blogging around the world, perhaps one more can sneak in without doing too much additional harm. Unfortunately, I haven’t read enough of those efforts, so I am more than likely to repeat all of their mistakes. Bear with me here while I report our little victories and defeats, funny encounters, random thoughts and a journal of my progress toward that elusive goal we all chase, self actualization. And how fitting that my first jottings in the grapevine should happen to be about greengrocers.
Last week we went shopping in St. Louis’s historic Soulard market, founded in the 1830s (or even before–it’s claimed by some to be the first public market west of the Mississippi) and still thriving in a full square block of venerable steel-framed, open-air sheds built in 1929. We walked up and down the aisles, which were bursting even in winter with oranges from California, tangerines from Florida, purple, red and green grapes from Chile, bins overflowing with lettuce, okra, beans, onions, peppers and cucumbers in all shades of green and yellow bananas from the tropics, tended by rough looking men and sharp eyed women, whose temperaments ranged from surly to sweet. Since we had arrived at the early opening hour, we had the place to ourselves and the vendors had time to be particularly attentive and talkative. Fully loaded with all we could carry for less than thirty dollars, we spotted a stand on our way out that had a good deal on apples: three pounds for two dollars. I picked out an assortment of various kinds, put them in a bag and gave them back to a skinny man with a weathered face and bowed stature to be weighed.
“Hey you’re good, that’s three pounds exactly,” he pointed out.
“Maybe you should hire me,” I offered.
“Fifty cents an hour and all you can eat.” He looked up hopefully and then glanced wryly at my wife and added, “But he’s not worth it.”
What is an architect and planner doing writing anyway? And he writes books also, you say. It’s a long story, starting with parents, a housewife and an ex-Marine, who were both writers and publicists, a grandfather who was a construction contractor and me, a person that just loves to tell stories. My choice of architecture was a matter of interest and aptitude, but it also had something to do with finding a “practical” way to earn a living. And for a long career I have designed buildings, planned development sites and promoted my firm, all activities that I still enjoy. My favorite among these, however, was always describing the projects and getting people excited about hiring our team. This resulted in millions of words cascading from my computer screen over the years. That’s a lot of writing practice when you think about it. Then, after a nostalgic trip to Annisquam, the scene of my sixth summer in 1945, I was aware that there was a story worth telling (see my Foreword ). When I stepped down a year and a half ago from my day job (temporarily, as it now seems), I had time to peruse some 400 letters that my dad had written home during World War II, some funny stories he wrote about his personal war with the Marine Corps and a script Mom wrote for Dad’s surprise “This Is Your Life” 48th birthday party. Then over the next year, the story, which I had only begun in fits and starts, poured out and became my nonfiction family memoir, Dad’s War with the United States Marines.
The rest is the history that I’m here to tell you, if only in little bits and pieces. Once the writing was done, it was merely necessary to find an agent and a publisher. In case you haven’t checked lately, unless you’re the next Tom Clancy literary agents don’t even want to hear about you, much less answer your e-mails and faxes. That’s often because–despite your book’s readbility and potentially wide appeal–they can’t have a bidding war over your next great American novel with the five or six big publishers that remain unacquired and unconsolidated in the English-speaking world. Most of those charming little presses like Borzoi Books and Doubleday, Doran & Co. have been snapped up by the great leviathans that today rule the commercial book world.
But just as I was about to give up all hope, Roger Hayes, the published writer of a Viet Nam war story (On Point, St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 2001), whom I met through my military clients in St. Louis, said, “Forget everything you’ve been told: just approach the publishers directly.” My search then began in earnest, and I discovered that, as small to medium-sized publishers were acquired on the demand side, even smaller firms were being created or still existed on the supply side. After a renewed Internet search and a new flurry of inquiries and submittals, on a day last May one of my e-mails brought an answer. I met Jim and Lynne Rock of the Seaboard Press, an imprint of an established publishing house, one of those boutiques that still do exist. The tender loving care that they invested in the publication of my work, especially their fascination with my father’s hand drawn sketches sent home in his letters for me, his six-year-old son, was far in excess of what I might possibly have coaxed out of Simon & Shuster, even if they had beat down the door to publish it. I was on my way.
As the fall publication date neared, I put on my publicity hat and let the local press know that my dad had played a special role in the war’s history. On August 14, 2005 Harry Levins of the Post-Dispatch broke the story, on the 60th anniversary of V-J Day, that it was my father who scooped the news of the Japanese surrender to the world (See News and Reviews page) from his outpost at Armed Forces radio station WXLI on Guam. Other media attention was soon to follow: John Pertzborn interviewed me on KTVI Channel 2. From there, I dashed over to a downtown hotel, where Charlie Brennan was broadcasting a Veterans’ Day program on KMOX radio and raising money to provide phone cards for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He devoted the entire morning to interviews appropriate to the day’s celebration, including one with me about my book. In our lively exchange, Charlie couldn’t get over the fact that during the war we used to save bacon grease and other meat drippings in Mason jars and take them to the butcher. We were told that the government could turn them into explosives for our troops, although I still have no idea how they did that. (If you know, please post a comment.) That same day I held two other presentations and book signings in St. Louis and the book’s sales campaign was underway.
This, then, is a brief explanation of and apology for an architect who attempts to write books. You, dear reader, can be the judge of how well I am doing. It has been a fulfilling and a wonderful diversion, although I miss my friends back in the office. Now I am busy getting back to my consulting world, assembling teams for new projects, designing projects and visiting construction sites. Maybe I’ll see you back in a business meeting one of these days.
And my next book? I can’t decide whether to write a science fiction story about a future flood in St. Louis or to continue on my family series: my mother has a story as interesting as my dad’s. Well, it took thirty years for the first one to bubble up to the surface. Time will tell.
Till next time,
