My Life on the Mississippi, or Why I am Not Mark Twain.

by Richard Pike Bissell

A reading copy - illustrated.

Genres: Nonfiction

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Richard Pike Bissell (June 27, 1913-May 4, 1977) was an author of short stories and novels, playwright, business executive and riverboat pilot/master. He was best known for his river books, and for his novel 7½ Cents, based on his experience in the garment industry, which he helped convert into Pajama Game, one of the most popular Broadway musical comedies of the 1950's and made into a movie musical. He wrote a book about the experience called Say, Darling, which chronicled the ins and outs of a broadway musical production; this book was also turned into a musical of the same name.

Bissell was born and died in Dubuque, Iowa. The scion of a wealthy family he graduated from Harvard University, about which he wrote You Can Always Tell a Harvard Man. After college Bissell had a brief adventure in the Venezuelan oil fields and then signed on as a seaman on an American Export Lines freighter. In 1938 he married Marian Van Patten Grilk and returned to Dubuque, where they lived on a houseboat on the Mississippi River. Bissell became a vice president in the H. B. Glover Company, a clothing manufacturer. Turned down when he tried to enlist in the Navy during World War II, Bissell worked on towboats on the Ohio, Mississippi, Illinois, Tennessee, and Monongahela rivers. Returning to Dubuque and Glover's after the war, he published articles on his riverboat experiences in such prestigious national magazines as Atlantic Monthly, Collier's, and Esquire.

In 1950 Bissell published his first novel, A Stretch on the River, a largely autobiographical story whose nonstop dialogue portrayed the excitement, humor, and independence of a hard-working steamboat crew on the upper Mississippi. It was published to significant critical acclaim; several commentators compared Bissell to Twain. Both flattered and embarrassed by the frequent comparisons to Twain, Bissell addressed the issue with self-deprecating humor in 1973 with the publication of My Life on the Mississippi, or Why I Am Not Mark Twain.

I learned three-quarters of what I know about writing from reading Richard Bissell, God bless him.
—-Elmore Leonard

Reviews

[Dane]

Justified author Elmore Leonard says when he wants to read a funny book he reads Richard Bissell

[Roger King · Rating 5 out of 5]

My six favorite authors: Richard Pike Bissell, John McPhee, Elmore Leonard, Chester Himes, Ryszard Kapuściński, and of course Samuel Clemens. Bissell and Clemens were both raised on the Upper Mississippi (Bissell a little more upper and a lot later), worked on the River, wrote droll, witty books about the River, moved to Connecticut, and travelled around the world. Only Bissell returned to the River, Clemens did not get back past Elmira NY, but that is where the comparison ends. Clemens entered riverboats as a cub pilot, successfully piloting passenger steamerboats (never hit anything but was always nervous about it), then headed West at the onset of Civil War, wrote about the Frog, and the rest is history. Bissell started as a deck hand and worked his way up “through the hawser” to pilot industrial tug boats on the Mississippi, Ohio, Monongahela, Tennessee, and Illinois Rivers.

Bissell’s first book A Stretch on the River about his experiences working on riverboats had the critics comparing him to Mark Twain. Twenty years of that derivative appellation and several books later, Bissell sets the record straight in My life on the Mississippi: Or, Why I am not Mark Twain,—skewering Clemens as Clemens skewered James Fennimore Cooper and the Mormons (see Roughing It), among many others. Some readers do not get the joke, but what goes around comes around!

So this is a very entertaining autobiography about working on the River on boat decks (vs the Ivory Tower of a pilot house), living on the River in houseboats (vs an idiosyncratic house in Hartford CT or Italian-style mansion in Redding CT), and many references to first person accounts by his elders: A Rafting on the Mississip’, Four Months in a Sneak-Box, Old Times On The Upper Mississippi: The Recollections Of A Steamboat Pilot From 1854 To 1863, The log of the Betsy Ann & Way's recent reflections: Reflections written in 1966-67 for Ohio River Magazines, Pilotin' Comes Natural, and of course Life on the Mississippi.

I just added a summer houseboat trip from St Paul down to Dubuque to my bucket list, going to check off many of the land and river marks Bissell navigated around.

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read.

[Rosemary Forester · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read.