Racing in Place: Collages, Fragments, Postcards, Ruins

by Michael Martone

Is it truth or fiction? Memoir or essay? Narrative or associative? To a writer like Michael Martone, questions like these are high praise. Martone’s studied disregard of form and his unruffled embrace of the prospect that nothing--no story, no life--is ever quite finished have yielded some of today’s most splendidly unconventional writing. Add to that an utter weakness for pop Americana and what Louise Erdrich has called a “deep affection for the ordinary,” and you have one of the few writers who could pull off something like Racing in Place. Up the steps of the Washington Monument, down the home stretch at the Indy Speedway, and across the parking lot of the Moon Winx Lodge in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Martone chases, and is chased by, memories--and memories of memories. He writes about his grandfather’s job as a meter reader, those seventies-era hotels with atrium lobbies and open glass elevators, and the legendary temper of basketball coach Bob Knight.Martone, as Peter Turchi has said, looks “under stones the rest of us leave unturned.” So, what is he really up to when he dwells on the make of Malcolm X’s eyeglasses or the runner-up names for Snow White’s seven dwarfs? In “My Mother Invents a Tradition,” Martone tells how his mom, as the dean of girls at a brand-new high school in Fort Wayne, Indiana, “constructed a nostalgic past out of nothing.” Sitting at their dining room table, she came up with everything from the school colors (orange and brown) to the yearbook title (Bear Tracks). Look, and then look again, Martone is saying. “You never know. I never know.”

Genres: Essays

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 25, 2008

About the author

Michael A. Martone is a professor at the creative writing program at the University of Alabama, and is the author of several books. His most recent work, titled Michael Martone and originally written as a series of contributor's notes for various publications, is an investigation of form and autobiography.

A former student of John Barth, Martone's work is critically regarded as powerful and funny. Making use of Whitman's catalogues and Ginsberg's lists, the events, moments and places in Martone's landscapes — fiction or otherwise — often take the same Mobius-like turns of the threads found the works of his mentor, Barth.

Reviews

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

For my class on the lyric essay, instead of just reading the assigned sections in books, I prefer to read the whole thing and really get a sense of the writer. In some cases, this has been wonderful (Eliot Weinberger's An Elemental Thing); in some cases, it's been perilously close to a waste of time (Ander Monson's Neck Deep).

So I started from the beginning with this one, read two essays and was completely underwhelmed. The writing wasn't artful and the content wasn't compelling enough to make up for it. But my teacher hadn't recommended either of those, so I skipped ahead to ones she had. I read two more and found them equally dull and self-indulgent and decided to stop.

Maybe it's not fair for me to rate a book having only read some of its essays, but I think it's telling that this is the first book for the class that I found so elementary that I wasn't interested in reading it all the way through

[Gabriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael's obvious pleasure at and enthusiasm for things that are usually overlooked or taken as given is infectious. Although I first took this to be a more or less heterogenous collection of short essays, it gradually dawned on me that the title was more than a clever pun; this is a book about place (Fort Wayne, obviously, being at the top of the list), and about really and truly exploring the places that we inhabit. Somehow, with every essay, I was reminded of my own home town, of the peculiar viewpoint of my childhood: close to the ground, unafraid of the "why?" and unaware of the boundaries that adulthood sets up between us and our places. This book was, for me, an invitation to revisit that particularly pleasurable point (or place) of view.

[Schuyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Michael Martone. I like what he tries to do. Sometimes he fails, but he tries. He tasks risks. Sometimes he can get a little "writerly", a little to "flowerly" with his sentences. But again, he's taking the risk. And I can respect that.

This book is pretty much what it says it is: fragments, collages, ruins and postcards. And a fun drinking game is to chug a beer every time Martone mentions that he grew up in Fort Wayne.

Quotes:

"Despite the confusion about its location, people agree that the Midwest is a good place to be from. It is as if we keep the region purposely vague in order to include as many as people as natives. 'I am from the Midwest': that coin is worth collecting." pg. 97

[John Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. I avoided this book. One night, I slept with this book under my pillow, hoping it would worm into my dreams. These essays are some of the clearest prose I've ever read, yet they remain beguiling, just out of reach. I often feel, reading fragment to fragment, that I'm being led to a precipice, and--what do I want from these pieces? A push over the edge? A kiss? To be taken immediately home? I suspect that's rather the point. To be shown something so clearly it disorients and leaves you feeling a little spun round. Martone's a master landscape painter, but that's not enough. He paints in unicorns, and UFOs, and messages in gaudy letters, and it's with both pleasure and consternation we spot these fantasies as they cross our pretty landscapes.

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love creative nonfiction as much as the next gal, but it took me forever to finish this. I think Martone would have benefited from having a great editor to make him cut this in half. There seemed to be a lack of discipline in the writing, like, "I just described this in three different ways and I like all three of them so I'll keep all of them." Less is usually more. Plus, random and loose associations can bring something to an essay, but a whole essay, let alone a whole book, based on random and loose associations gets tedious after a while. It just lacked something.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was really good, though it felt like a group of essays written for different aims over a span of years (which I think is accurate) instead of a more unified book. Some of the essays were better than others-- the essay on Bobby Knight, surprising since I don't much care about sports, was amazing. The one about elevators and tall buildings, less so.

It's a solid collection, and it packs many of the things I like about Martone's work. But it also flags, a little, from the sense that it's not going anywhere in particular.

[Madison Langston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Martone's piece "View of My Glasses" gives me a sort of giddy satisfaction in knowing that I also own this pair of glasses. And after reading I now feel compelled to watch movies that feature characters wearing these glasses so I too can say, "nice glasses" to the person next to me.

[Gerry LaFemina · Rating 4 out of 5]

With Martone's trademark wry observations, self-effacing humor, and graceful prose styling driving these fragmented essays, Racing in Place is a delightful read, best savored over the course of several days.

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven’t read very many books of short stories. So this book felt very random. It was I retesting how he would pick a topic and then delve into it from different perspectives. Eyeglasses, Bobby Knight, Indy 500. 7 Dwarfs.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book of memoir collages. Creative, experimental, invested with his marvelous wit and sense of place.

[John Mcdonough · Rating 3 out of 5]

'City Light and Power: Views of My Grandfather Walking' 'Fore' 'What I Want to Tell: A Sequence of Rooms' 'Still Life of Sidelines with Bob'

[Christi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some day I want to be able to see the world around me with the detail and flexibility of thought with which Michael Martone sees it.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely. Fun. Read it.