Archives for October 2016

Rereading the Classics

October 31, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Okay, I admit to not having read many of the classics when I was a kid, and regret even more so bypassing these masterworks for all the decades I’ve been an adult. But there were a number I did read…you remember, all those assigned books we were forced to tackle in school. Among that number was The Old Man and the Sea.

This book, basically a novella, had rested on my bookshelf for years.

One day, it caught my eye and I decided to give it another read. My sole motivation was to see what had made it worthy of winning Hemingway the Nobel Prize.

The beauty and power of Hemingway’s prose, which was lost to me as a teen, now engulfed me with its spot-on magnificence, as Santiago’s character emerged in great depth, all within relatively few pages at the hand of this master.

As a man, I could appreciate the depth of the aged Santiago; and now understood his feelings about the sea, the marlin he caught, the sharks with whom he shared the waters, and I found a personal connection to his life and the lives of others as depicted in the novella.

As a novelist, I was struck to my core by the power and grace of Hemingway’s beautiful and economical use of language.

I knew the book had been wasted on me as a youth.

Since that day, I’ve re-read other classics. A few have left me as indifferent to them now as when they were assigned to me in high school; but many more have revealed themselves to the ” adult” me in ways I could never have imagined back in the day.

Why not pick up one such book yourself, and explore your own growth within its pages?

Let me suggest you begin with re-reading The Old Man and the Sea.

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Getting Away with Murder?

October 25, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

John Hinckley, the man who shot President Reagan, was recently granted a provisional release from Washington’s St. Elizabeth Hospital, where he’d been committed since 1982. He was hospitalized after having been found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity. [NGRI] This “convalescent leave” was granted because he is no longer viewed as a threat. He is under severe restrictions and most remain in psychiatric treatment in order to remain free.

As a forensic psychiatrist, I’ve written about this topic in both my fiction and non-fiction books. A question I’m asked frequently is, “How can someone who has committed a murder be found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity.” Although this plea is rarely used, it is often hyped in the media.

NGRI cases make headlines either because the crimes committed were against famous people or were heinous crimes such as the murders committed by James Holmes, the Aurora, Colorado shooter, who snuck into the midnight screening of The Dark Night Rises and shot innocent people.

Less than one percent of criminal defenses involve NGRI pleas, and of that number, very few are successful. So the actual number of defendants who are found to be “not guilty” because of insanity, is very, very small.

The heart of the NGRI defense involves the concept that the person committing the crime lacked the capacity to differentiate right from wrong by virtue of brain damage, mental retardation, or a mental disorder causing an inability to act within the law’s requirements at the time the crime was committed.

Perhaps the biggest misconception about NGRI pleas is the belief that if found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity, the defendant “got away with murder.”

Not true.

A defendant found NGRI is remanded to a state mental hospital indefinitely. The hospital stay usually exceeds the time which would have been served had the defendant been found guilty and sent to prison!

The acquitee (the term applied to someone deemed NGRI) undergoes treatment in a locked psychiatric facility under the aegis of the state’s Department of Corrections.

Once each year, a review board convenes to decide if the acquitee has been “restored to sanity.” The board is comprised of psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals. Almost always, the board recommends continued confinement with medication.

“Restoration of sanity” is rarely achieved.

In fact, the average stay in a locked mental institution for insanity acquitees is thirty-five years, whereas the prison term for these same crimes would be twenty years.

Had John Hinckley been convicted of the crimes he committed, he would have long ago been released from prison.

A successful NGRI plea doesn’t mean the defendant got away with a thing. In fact, he often pays a higher price for the crime committed.

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‘Escape Clause,’ A Talk with John Sandford

October 18, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. After turning to fiction, he’s written ma

The writer John Sandford (USA) by Beowulf Sheehan, July 9, 2015, New York, New York. Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan

ny bestselling books, including twenty-six Prey novels, the most recent being Extreme Prey. He’s also written four Kidd novels; nine Virgil Flowers novels; three standalone novels, and three YA novels coauthored with his wife, Michele Cook.

Escape Clause, finds Virgil Flowers involved in a case that begins at the Minnesota Zoo. Two rare Amur tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities think they’ve been stolen for their body parts which are prized in traditional Chinese medicine. People will take extreme measures to get them, and Virgil Flowers must race the clock in an effort to locate and save the tigers. But he must also deal with a string of murders that appears to be connected to the missing tigers.

How did the idea of missing tigers and their body parts come to you?

We have a lot of National Geographic magazines at home and I suppose the germ of an idea came from them. My wife has some books on alternative medicine, and think it ended up as a diffuse melding from those two sources.

Virgil Flowers is a fascinating character. Will you give us a brief description?

He’s a smart man who’s not all that comfortable with his role in law enforcement. He’s a tall guy with long blond hair. He was a baseball player in college and graduated with a degree in ecological science. He also writes occasional magazine articles on outdoor topics.

How has he evolved to the point where he is in Escape Clause?

He used to chase a lot of women, but for the last couple of books, he has had a permanent girlfriend…which may be a mistake [Laughter]. He hasn’t been terribly successful with women. He’s been married and divorced three times and none of those marriages lasted more than a year or so. He still maintains good relationships with his ex-wives, but he’s had chronic problems with women. I don’t know what’s going to happen with this relationship with his current girlfriend.

Why did you say his having a permanent girlfriend may be a mistake?

Because I have a lot of female readers and many of them have come up to me at readings and have expressed their dissatisfaction with that fact. [Laughter]. The problem with Virgil is he likes women—not in a predatory way—he enjoys their company, but he’s also sexually attracted to them, and then…Virgil falls in love.

I think women readers like that he doesn’t take women for granted. It all seems kind of odd, even to me [More laughter].

I couldn’t help but notice that Escape Clause has significant elements of humor. Tell us about that.

When I was a newspaper reporter, I heard the funniest stories from cops. Many cops have good senses of humor. You almost have to have that to do the job. Some very weird and funny things happen on the street. Virgil has a sense of humor and I try working that into the books. Many of the things that happen in the books are more stupid than just plain funny. If you work with cops for a long time, you realize that a lot of the people they come in contact with are really dumb. And they do really dumb stuff, repeatedly. Many times it leads to tragedy, but some of these stories are really a complex mixture of comedy and tragedy.

Do you plot the elements of a story in advance or let the plot evolve as you write?

The plot pretty much evolves on its own. When I’ve tried to outline ahead of time, it hasn’t worked for me. It makes the pace of the book way too fast. I prefer a kind of cinema verite quality to the novel, which comes from struggling with the novel’s direction—you know, hitting a bunch of dead-ends because detectives are trying to figure out a complicated situation.

When I outline a plot, things get solved really quickly. The books are around a hundred-thousand words long, and around the seventy-five-thousand-word point, I tend to outline so I can rush up to the climax.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned about writing?

I’m learning about writing all the time. Every time I write a book it feels like I’m doing it for the first time. I think the most important lesson for first-time writers is the value of persistence. I have little tricks to keep me going—I write down how many words I write every day. I do that because it tells me I’m making progress and I’ll get to the end of this project if I just persist. You can get lost in the middle of a long book, but if you know it’s progressing, it makes the writing a little bit easier. I think some novice writers sit and stare at a screen. What I find helpful is to lie down on a couch, eat an ice cream cone and just think about what I’m trying to do. [Laughter]

Don’t spend all your time trying to write…take a breather and just think about your story for a while.

From what you’ve said it sounds like you feel each book is its own arduous journey.

It is. Each book is a struggle. There have been times when I’ve been writing and I’m halfway through a book and I stop short because I say to myself, ‘This just doesn’t feel right.’ And I think a lot of other authors have had the same experience. Writing a novel isn’t something that happens on a straight line. You go back and look at what you did; and then you change things. Then you go forward a bit more, then back, then forward again.

What’s coming next from John Sandford?

I’m seventy-two now. I’m thinking ahead about three years. I’m working on a new Lucas Davenport book. The thing is, for the last three years, I’ve written three books a year which has been really intense. Now that I’m back to the two-book a year schedule, things have kind of loosened up a bit. I’ve gotten back into the habit where for a few hours a day, I’m able to read for enjoyment.

You mentioned your age. Are you thinking about retiring?

I don’t know if I’ll ever retire. They’ll probably carry me off the job. But I’ve got some other interests I’d like to indulge. I’d like to drop back to a book a year, so I could have time to do other things.

Congratulations on writing Escape Clause, another book in a series about which Shelf Awareness said, “The biggest joys of this series are Flowers himself, the eccentric supporting characters, and the humorous dialogue.”

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Re-Reading the Classics

October 16, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Okay, I admit to regretting all the classics I never read as a kid, or even as an adult. There were many I did read, but was “forced” to as a school kid. One of them was “The Old Man and the Sea.” As I kid, I thought it was an “okay” story, and I sort of enjoyed the film with Spencer Tracy, too.

But I recently re-read the novel and realized something had changed within myself. I could actually feel and understand the depth of Santiago, the old man, and understood his feelings about the sea, the marlin he caught, about the sharks, and about his life and the lives of others, as these things are depicted in the novel

And, I could truly appreciate the power and beauty of Hemingway’s prose in this novel. His descriptions are magnificent, and Santiago’s character emerges in great depth, and the meaning of his struggle with the sea, too; all of it comes out in relatively few pages at the hand of a master.

I guess it pays to re-visit some of the classics that were thrust upon us in school, but with the perspective we now have. It was an awakening for me–a realization of the power of time and maturity and how they impact on one’s perceptions.

A fine read it is–“the Old Man and the Sea”–even if you read it long ago when you were a different person.

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Dianne Harman Asked me to Say Why I wrote “Bedlam’s Door”

October 3, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

A Man Who Writes of Madnessand Hope!

Several years ago I read a book by Mark Rubinstein, which I think was Mad Dog Justice, and was so taken by his writing that I believe I’ve since read every book written by him. Mark is a superb author, but what I find so interesting about him is that he has the ability to write brilliantly in a number of different genres.

His newest book, Bedlam’s Door, illustrates that ability perfectly. Mark is a psychiatrist and in this book be shares his psychological experiences with the reader (and yes, the names have been changed!). This is a non-fiction book, but absolutely riveting. After I read it, I asked him if he would write a post about how he came to write this book. Believe me, this book is well worth your time and money!

Why I wrote Bedlam’s Door: True Tales of Madness & Hope

After writing six works of fiction, what made we write a non-fiction book based on my experiences as a psychiatrist?

I’ve always loved stories.

As a kid, I fell in love with Aesop’s Fables, Hans Christian Anderson’s stories, the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, and the Greek and Roman myths. It barely mattered whether the stories told about soldiers, heroes, villains, or described desperately conflicted people facing momentous obstacles. Looking back on the books I adored, I realize that aside from being entertaining, they conveyed elemental truths about humanity.

Love of stories was an important reason in my choosing to become a psychiatrist. Early in my medical school education and then during my residency, I realized that while many people may be diagnosed as having the same psychiatric condition, one-hundred different people will have one-hundred different pathways to the same disorder. Psychiatry has a remarkable human dimension, and at the heart of each story lie powerful emotion and choice—and above all, conflict.

When I became involved with forensic psychiatry—the intersection of psychiatry and the law—I became privy to some of the most extraordinary stories I’d ever encountered. Some were so bizarre, that if written as novels, they would strain credulity.

Why would a man of Hungarian descent run down a street ranting “I’m King of the Puerto Ricans.”?

Why would a psychiatrically hospitalized young woman sneak a razor blade on to the ward, give it to another patient, and direct her in slitting her wrists?

Why would a woman present herself to surgeons for a dozen operations when nothing is physically wrong with her?

Experience taught me that all patients’ stories funneled down to the basic elements of human functioning—how people think, feel and behave. It became clear that nearly all mental illness—no matter how seemingly bizarre—could be understood when attention was paid.

I realized mental illness posed challenges to patients, their families, and the people charged with their care. Our country is in the midst of a pressing crises to improve mental health care delivery. I also felt it was important to describe the life-altering advances being made in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of psychiatric conditions.

Of all medical specialties, psychiatry explores people’s lives. Each case is a mini-biography revealing the circumstances and conflicts leading to symptoms. Above all, psychiatry has a human dimension, where each patient has a unique story, but at the same time, taps into a shared commonality.

Whether a story concerns a prison inmate, carpenter, homemaker, police officer, short-order cook, student, or private investigator, a story of conflict and struggle emerges.

Most of all, I wrote Bedlam’s Door to depict the humor, sadness, nobility, poignancy, and richness of our shared human experience.

Mark Rubinstein, M.D.

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‘The Nix,’ A Conversation with Nathan Hill

October 2, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Nathan Hill’s stories have appeared in various literary journals and he has won or been nominated for many prestigious prizes. He is an Associate Professor of English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he has taught creative writing and literature courses He has worked as a newspaper and magazine journalist, and holds a BA in English and Journalism from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

The Nix, his sprawling, multi-tiered debut novel, is ostensibly about a young English professor and failed writer, Samuel Anderson, who undertakes reconstructing the life of his mother who abandoned him when he was 11 years old.

But from the realm of disturbed family dynamics, to youthful friendship and romantic obsession; to the radical Sixties, to Norwegian ghosts, politics, video gaming, academia; to the Vietnam and Iraq wars; to secrets and lies, and to many other things, the novel is about much, much more. It examines the idea “the things you love the most will one day hurt you the worst.”

I understand between research and writing The Nix, it was ten years in the making. Tell us how it came to be what it is now.

I was doing some very poor work during the first couple of years writing it. I started the novel in 2004 as a young man straight out of an MFA program. I wanted to write something that would give me the kind of career I’d imagined for myself. I was writing crap. When you write to impress agents and editors, you’ll write bad prose. My writing didn’t have any personal human truths. I was rejected everywhere, as I should have been.

I floundered for a couple of years. I was doing research but was also trying to figure out what kind of book I wanted to write. I moved from New York and took a teaching job in Florida, having dropped out of the whole publishing query letter-writing scene. I was teaching and playing a lot of video games, and was sort of mentally marinating for a long time.

I then thought I’d missed my chance at being published, so I decided to take that anxiety about ‘blowing it’ and put it into the book. I included some experiences I was having teaching as well as with video games. When I decided to tell a true human story, the writing took off. I had to tear down my preconceived notions about what a successful writer should be and simply became the writer I needed to be.

It’s difficult to pick out my favorite sections of the novel, there were so many, but I absolutely loved the interplay between Samuel and his student, Laura Pottsdam. I know you spent years in academia, so tell us what Laura epitomizes.

When I was teaching, there were a lot of Laura Pottsdams in my classes. She’s an amalgam of some students I dealt with. While most college students are hard-working and want to learn, there’s a number of students who will plagiarize, cheat and not feel badly about it. They won’t do the reading, and have trouble paying attention to anything besides their phone, and will ask about the utility of what they’re learning. ‘Why do I need to know Hamlet in real life?’… questions like that.

Frequently, that attitude, combined with a sense of entitlement since they’re paying tuition and feel they deserve to get a great job, is reinforced by parents who will provide a last measure of self-defense when the students get into trouble. Just Google the term plagiarism epidemic and you’ll know exactly what I’m describing.

As often happens, when I write and spend enough time with a character, I began to ask myself questions about Laura, which in turn made me realize something was going on with my students that made them fundamentally different from the way I was in college. I realize the world has changed—drastically. My students grew up during the Great Recession. Teachers and parents tell them it’s a competitive marketplace, not only here, but worldwide. Corporations won’t look out for them. Students now are enormously anxious about getting a job and moving out of their parents’ homes. The assumptions I could make sixteen years ago—about finding a job and living independently—no longer hold.

Today’s students feel they need to excel in everything, so some of them cheat. Once I understood that, Laura Pottsdam became a more sympathetic character for me.

The Nix has a kaleidoscopically sweeping quality, zooming from 1968 to 2011, then back to 1944, and is told from multiple points of view. How did you manage to organize this wonderful sprawl?

My first draft was one-thousand and two pages long. [Laughter] I chipped away about four-hundred pages. It was so long because I gave myself permission to go down whatever rabbit hole or cul-de sac I imagined. I figured I might as well entertain myself in the writing of this book.

If I don’t ask you about one chapter, I’d be remiss. The Nix has a ten-page chapter that’s one-sentence long. Tell us about that.

I started writing that chapter as depicting the day Pwnage—the video game guru—would stop playing video games. Then, I started listing all the reasons he couldn’t stop playing. I read the rough draft to my wife who asked ‘Is this all one sentence?” It struck me that maybe it should be one sentence. I wanted to capture how time could slip away when you’re so engaged in something. Pwnage was feeling claustrophobic and anxious. At that point, the video game was the only thing giving his life meaning and substance. I wanted to textually replicate his anxiety in the reader.

Critics have likened The Nix to works by John Irving, Jonathan Franzen, Michael Chabon, Donna Tartt, Thomas Pynchon, among others. How does that make you feel?

[Laughter] Obviously, it makes me feel wonderful. How could I not feel great about it?

Does it make you feel burdened by expectations about whatever comes next?

I’m looking forward to getting back to the material for my second book. After all the attention this book is getting, I still have to go back and face a blank page. That blank page doesn’t give a damn what the New York Times said about me.

Yes, it’s gratifying people are saying such nice things about the book, but when I go back and start working again, I have to forget about the praise.

The Nix contains reflections on the misguided literary ambitions of a young man who wants to write for the prestige and social recognition it will get him. Will you talk about that?

Samuel wants to write because he thinks it’s going to make people like him. In college, I tried using my writing to impress women, and it’s shocking how poorly that worked. [Laughter] I tell my creative writing students to write because you need to. There should be something about the activity itself that’s valuable. Writing for recognition, ego, or praise guarantees you’ll write poor stuff.

In some ways, I think writing a novel should be like planting and tending a garden. People don’t keep a garden to get famous. A garden isn’t a failure if thousands of people don’t look at it. A gardener loves gardening because it brings a measure of joy. The writing of this book brought me a great deal of joy. If there’s humor in the book it’s because I think a pre-requisite for setting a scene is it must delight me in some way. I feel it’s a healthier way of writing than the way I approached it as a young man. Being published, I think, should be viewed as a side-effect of the writing.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned about writing?

I once handed in a story in a creative writing class. The teacher looked at it and said, ‘You can do this, but you’re going to die soon, so you might as well write something that really matters.’ That was good advice. I think of that incident when I’m writing.

You’re hosting a dinner party and can invite any five people, real or fictional, living or dead. Who would they be?

That’s a cool question. I’d stick with writers and set up a literary salon. I’d invite Virginia Woolf, Donald Barthelme, David Foster Wallace, James Baldwin, and Gertrude Stein. I would just cook and listen. Now that would be a fun party!

What’s coming next from Nathan Hill?

I’m working on a new novel. I have a premise and characters. I don’t as yet have a plot, but that will come. I’ll be writing about the things that interest me. Right now that happens to be marriage, authenticity, gentrification, and the nineties. We’ll see what that turns into. [Laughter]

Congratulations on penning The Nix, a soulful, hilarious, profoundly penetrating novel so brilliantly written, it took me on a head-spinning ride across a fantastic literary landscape.

Mark Rubinstein’s latest book is Bedlam’s Door: True Tales of Madness and Hope, a medical/psychiatric memoir.

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