Arts&Entertainment Wadnaaday. April 21,1993
Vicarious showman
‘Shy’ professor uses humor, fanciful sense in writing
By Mark Baldridge
Senior Editor _
Gerald Shapiro is a shy person — just ask
him and he’ll tell you so.
And then he’ll tell you an animated story
about how shy he 'is, throwing in different
voices and characters, until you die laughing.
“Writing is a shy person’s way to show off.
It’s vicarious showmanship. I like vicarious
everything,” he said.
In his work as a writer, and as a creative
writing teacher in UNL’s English department,
he relies heavily on humor—and a sense of the
fanciful.
“I think the tradition I come from, as a writer
and as a person, partakes of the fanciful,” he
said.
But, shy person that he is, — or claims to be
— he hesitated to put himself in a context with
writers he admires. Finally, he decided his
tradition was the “the literary tradition of the
European Jews.”
“What happens is that, when you’re young,
if you’re going to be a writer,” he said, “it’s as
if there’s a parade of writers in the street —
you’re reading them — you’re in the stands —
and one or two of them motion to you to come
down and join them.”
Raised as a Jew in Kansas City, Mo., which
he compared to being raised Buddhist in Lin
coln, Shapiro found being a Jew had a profound
effect on his work.
“I had a very long ‘literary apprenticeship,’”
he said, “Finally, I realized what it was I wanted
to write aoout.
“After that, everything was inevitable.”
His recent collection of stories, “From Hun
ger/’ illustrates his major themes: Jewishness,
family and morality.
“I’m a moralist,” he admitted, “All of my
stories l think of as moral tales.
“They ask the question: How, in light of the
world we’re living in — that actively rewards
the boorish and mean — can you be a good
person?
“The answer to that is, you doit by fils dnd
starts.”
Writing, too, can sometimes come in fits
and starts for Shapiro.
“The longest distance in the world is the one
from your brain to your (writing) hand, I think,”
he said.
A big part of writing is just “trying to make
the words on the page mean what you meant,”
he added.
“A lot of what I do is writing a story in my
head over and over — kind of putting it to
gether,” he said, “I look at it from every angle
‘til I don’t know what’s real and what’s made
up." . . ,
“All my stories are autobiographical, in that
they’re linked to what I know about what it is
to be a human being,” he said, “but in the end,
the reality of the story outweighs its true or
made-up parts.”
About the difficulties.of writing, he quotes
Eudora Welty: “Every story I write teaches me
to write it, but not how to write the next one.”
And the difficulties of leaching can be al
most as great.
Shapiro has his master of fine arts-degree
from the University of Massachusetts, but he
• Robin Trimarchi/DN
Gerald Shapiro in his office in Andrews Hall, with his new book, “From
Hunger.”
suspects future writing teachers will need to go
all the way for a Ph.D. before they’ll look
appealing to universities.
“It’s the same all over,” he said, “not just
here. Schools are culling back.
“I know of teachers who’ve taken an 8
percent salary cut in each of the last two years.”
“What do I owe you for teaching here?” he
said, imitating the teacher of the future —
forgetting, for a moment, to be shy.
But Shapiro seems secure at Nebraska. He’s
married to Judith Slater, who also leaches
creative writing at the university. The two
share a split appointment and just recently
received notice of tenure.
This seems to suit Shapiro. He said, “I think
I have the best job in the United States.”
Lively writing
fills professor’s
first collection
University of Nebraska-Lincoln English
professor Gerald Shapiro’s short fiction has
been published in such magazines as “The
Kenyon Review,” “Quarterly West” and
“The Gettysburg Review.”
This year Shapiro’s first collection of
short stories, “From Hunger,” was published
by the University of Missouri Press.
The title story from the collection is a
nice little tale of a man named Altshuler and
his Uncle Phil, who is apparently trying to
eat himself to death.
The story is much more than that how
ever, and it makes the reader wonder what
the characters arc really hungry for after all.
It’s very funny in an ironic kind of way.
The second story is “The Marine Mam
mal Guy.” It’s hilarious.
The main character, Schanzer, has been
making his living writing promotional ma
terial for an aquatic theme park in New
Jersey. He’s offered a job at the San Fran
cisco Zoo, writing promo material for their
Ape House.
Schanzer leaves New Jersey and his
fianede to accept the job. He keeps telling
her sheshould stay in New Jersey a few more
weeks before she moves out with him —
because he’s sleeping with a co-worker.
The co-worker dumps him, however, and
when Schanzer calls his fiancdc, he discov
ers she’s fallen in love with her boss. To top
it all off, he also loses his job and becomes
nomeiess. i laugnca inrougn inc enure story
— I thought it was that funny.
In “Levidow,” an old man has the power
to heal people, but only when he has sex with
them. He gives a deaf girl her hearing and an
ugly woman her beauty. He travels around
with a younger version of himself and talks
to God. It’s a good story, but a strange one.
Shapiro’s stories explore a number of
situations, but several themes run through
them ail. Loss, of both love and faith, seems
to play predominately through each of his
stories. The Jewish community also plays a
part in almost every story, most notably in
fThe Community Seder.
The stories in this book, though quite
serious, are written in a way that allows the
humor of the situation to come through.
His crisp and lively writing makes “From
Hunger” a nice collection.
After you sell back your useless text
books, go and buy this one. It’s well worth
it.
— William J. Harms
UNL graduate makes sci-n debut
.
“Iapetus”
William S. Kirby
Ace Science Fiction
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
graduate William S. Kirby makes his
science fiction debut with “Iapetus,”
billed as “A chilling future thriller in
the tradition of Neuromancer,” a
“cyber-shock thriller.”
Jefferson Kayolo is a down-on
his-luck gumshoe in 2196. He is en
listed by a drop-dead associate of the
Solar System’s wealthiest man, to
locate the cause of the abnormally
high infant mortality rate on his pri
vate colony on Rhea, moon of Saturn.
Kayoto’s employer suspects a link
with a “leper” colony of telepalhs on
Iapetus, another moon. So, Kayoto
and his companion book passage on a
slow freighter to Saturn, and spend
most of the voyage ducking assassins
and each other.
Of course, few things in life (and
novels) are quite so simple. Kayoto
winds up on Iapetus, among the
telepaths, and discovers the true story
behind their existence and exile. The
dizzying series of plot turns and twists
(almost too many to keep track of)
come to an end in a surprise ending.
It is perhaps unfair to call the book
“cyber-” anything; in mood and lone
it is comparable to a sci-fi detective
story, such as Larry Niven’s Gil
Hamilton stories.
These days, though, dubbing any
thing “cybeipunk”and comparing the
author to William Gibson is a market
ing strategy designed to add a few
thousand more copies in sales.
The author of Iapetus, William S.
Kirby, is a 1986 graduate of the UNL
teacher’s college. He studied chemi
cal engineering as well, and moved to
Denver with his girlfriend, a physi
cist. Kirby spent most of his early
years in Kearney, where his father
taught English at Kearney State.
The idea for Iapetus came to Kirby
while at work one day. “I haled my
job, the idea came to me, and I started
writing.”
->
Kirby has since turned to writing
full time with the sale of his First
novel, and has a second, a fantasy
work, in progress. But don’t get the
idea he’s living easy.
“People assume I have it easy sit
ting down at a computer all day and
just writing. It’s not true. I don’t like
it,” he said.
Constant effort every day, he said,
is key to success as a writer.
The second major part of success is
reading, he said, “You have to know
your genre, and reading is the only
way to pick that up.”
Kirby reads science fiction exten
sively, and counts Kurt Vonnegut,
William Gibson and Dan Simmons
(“Fall of Hyperion”) as his spiritual
mentors. Because of his reading, Kilby
never found the need to enroll in
creative writing courses during his
UNL days.
Finally.aftcr one has actually com
pleted a manuscript, Kirby advised
getting an agent. Even with all this, he
admits to being extraordinarily lucky
in selling a first novel with relatively
little effort.
Kirby will be in Lincoln, signing
copies of “Iapctus,” at Lee Booksell
ers in the East Park Mall, on Saturday,
April 24, beginning at 1 p.m.
— Sam KepfieU