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Here Lies Memory: A Pittsburgh Novel
Here Lies Memory explores the place of memory in living, daily, scarred and sacred lives. Two Pittsburgh families struggle to survive trauma and love and loss. A man wills himself to go blind, not to forget, but to remember in new ways. Another man drinks beer after beer until he can no longer drink away what he must face directly. This novel explores what language and photographs do to memory, desire and love, and what gentrification is doing to the souls of families and neighborhoods.
316 pages, Paperback
Published September 10, 2016
About the author
Doug Rice
63 books38 followersDoug Rice is the author of When Love Was, Here Lies Memory, An Erotics of Seeing, Dream Memoirs of a Fabulist, Faraway, So Close, Between Appear and Disappear, The Sacred Book of Silence (translated into the German as Das Heilige Buch der Stille), Blood of Mugwump (translated into the French as Le Sang des Mugwump), Skin Prayer: fragments of abject memory, and A Good CuntBoy is Hard to Find. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies qnd journals including Dirty: Dirty, Avant Pop: Fiction for a Daydream Nation, Alice Redux, Kiss the Sky, Phantoms of Desire, Discourse, Gargoyle, Zyzzyvya, Fiction International, and others. He is the recipient of an Arts Residency at the Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart, Germany) 2010-2012. He teaches Creative Writing and Film Studies. He has a B.A. from Slippery Rock State College, studied for an MA under John Gardner at SUNY-Binghamton, has an MA from Duquesne University and studied for his PhD at the University of Pittsburgh.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 22, 2017
What does one expect when they pick up a book that is subtitled "A Pittsburgh Novel"? I am not entirely sure what I expected myself, though I figured there would be sports and beer because Pittsburgh is sports and beer. Of course there is more to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is a growing city, constantly changing, constantly staying the same. It's one of the few places I have lived over the years where I can say that the more it changes, the more it stays the same, and actually be okay with that. This isn't to say there aren't problems in our city, problems that people like to overlook because it's uncomfortable, problems like gentrification. That, of course, exists everywhere, but it's how the city handles the issue, and how the people themselves handle the issue, that really means anything. And in Pittsburgh, it's almost like if you're not the one being displaced, there's nothing to worry about.
I used to live in Wilkinsburg. Anyone who lives here knows what that means. But anyone who has lived here a long time and knows a bit of the history knows that the way Wilkinsburg is now is not the way it used to be. Downtown Wilkinsburg used to be where people came to do their main shopping. Penn Avenue used to be where it's at. There were actual businesses, the buildings had roofs and windows. It used to be an event to come to Wilkinsburg, a family activity, a big deal.
It's not like that anymore and it hasn't been for quite some time. Most people try to avoid Penn Avenue through Wilkinsburg now. It hasn't been considered "safe" for a long time. There are better neighborhoods to do ones shopping in, actual neighborhoods that have businesses. Sure, there are one or two left on Penn Avenue. But I don't remember seeing anyone really going to any of them. (Gordon Ramsay once did an episode of Kitchen Nightmares in Wilkinsburg at Miss Jean's Southern Cuisine when it used to be on Penn Avenue. It has since moved to Wallace Avenue, not that far away from where it used to be.)
Doug Rice's novel doesn't talk about Wilkinsburg, but the neighborhoods he does talk about are very similar. Old neighborhoods that now have a reputation of one kind or another, the kinds that a lot of people don't visit for the fun of it anymore, but the ones who are born and raised on the streets know every corner of it and they will live and die there. Each neighborhood in Pittsburgh has its own distinct personality, which I love, and Rice captures that beautifully in this book. His characters are real Pittsburgh characters (though I know no one who really has a lot of the deep, philosophical discussions Rice portrays here) who drink beer out of cans and keep a lot of their thoughts and their memories to themselves, who know what it's like to live through a Pittsburgh summer.
Anyone who has lived or does live in Pittsburgh will recognize a lot of statements similar to this. The way people are here is unlike a lot of other places. And, yeah, I know every city and town claims that, but I have lived other places and Pittsburgh is unlike all of them. People talk funny, yes, it's well known that "yinzers" have a way of talking that is unlike anyone else in the US. Non-Pittsburghers like to make fun of it. Pittsburghers like to make fun of it too. It's a language all of its own that has a history of its own and is so deeply ingrained of the culture of the people that it will never go away, guaranteed, love it or leave it. It is, as far as I'm concerned, the only thing truly missing from Rice's novel. The language doesn't come through as much as I would have hoped. He makes up for it, however, in detailing and describing the neighborhoods, the Monongahela River, and the actual feeling of living in Pittsburgh.
He writes about memory, the way memory plays games with our minds, something I have always been fascinated with myself. You should see my copy of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale - all references to memory (and time) are underlined and highlighted as I focused on those motifs for a paper I wrote my freshman year. I had a professor a little later who talked about photographs and memories within them. The stories the photographs tell us are different than reality, but we look at the photographs and our memories change based on the story we read in the image. Someone looks happy in a photograph, so they must have been happy; we forget that there was sadness immediately before and immediately after the photo was taken. The happiness was faked for the photograph, but that's what is remembered because photographs last almost forever.
Doug Rice gets that. Here is an entire novel about just that, pretty much. It is what memory allows.
I did not expect a novel about Pittsburgh to be written almost like a poem, a love letter to the city. An allowance that this is our city, it's beautiful in its imperfections. We owe it to the city to remember its past, the history, how we are where we are today, to remember that just because we are where we are doesn't mean others are there. Let's not forget the neighbors to our right, or to our left, or on the other side of the busway. This city will continue to change but we don't need to forget our neighbors.
I used to live in Wilkinsburg. Anyone who lives here knows what that means. But anyone who has lived here a long time and knows a bit of the history knows that the way Wilkinsburg is now is not the way it used to be. Downtown Wilkinsburg used to be where people came to do their main shopping. Penn Avenue used to be where it's at. There were actual businesses, the buildings had roofs and windows. It used to be an event to come to Wilkinsburg, a family activity, a big deal.
It's not like that anymore and it hasn't been for quite some time. Most people try to avoid Penn Avenue through Wilkinsburg now. It hasn't been considered "safe" for a long time. There are better neighborhoods to do ones shopping in, actual neighborhoods that have businesses. Sure, there are one or two left on Penn Avenue. But I don't remember seeing anyone really going to any of them. (Gordon Ramsay once did an episode of Kitchen Nightmares in Wilkinsburg at Miss Jean's Southern Cuisine when it used to be on Penn Avenue. It has since moved to Wallace Avenue, not that far away from where it used to be.)
Doug Rice's novel doesn't talk about Wilkinsburg, but the neighborhoods he does talk about are very similar. Old neighborhoods that now have a reputation of one kind or another, the kinds that a lot of people don't visit for the fun of it anymore, but the ones who are born and raised on the streets know every corner of it and they will live and die there. Each neighborhood in Pittsburgh has its own distinct personality, which I love, and Rice captures that beautifully in this book. His characters are real Pittsburgh characters (though I know no one who really has a lot of the deep, philosophical discussions Rice portrays here) who drink beer out of cans and keep a lot of their thoughts and their memories to themselves, who know what it's like to live through a Pittsburgh summer.
Summer in Pittsburgh had a way of hating you, had a way of beating you down, getting into your bones and thoughts. Only the strongest survived the humidity of Pittsburgh summers, until winter came on and brought with it a test of a different sort, to see who was strong enough to make it to summer. All weather in Pittsburgh had an attitude, forced you to submit to it. Dared you to survive.
(p226)
Anyone who has lived or does live in Pittsburgh will recognize a lot of statements similar to this. The way people are here is unlike a lot of other places. And, yeah, I know every city and town claims that, but I have lived other places and Pittsburgh is unlike all of them. People talk funny, yes, it's well known that "yinzers" have a way of talking that is unlike anyone else in the US. Non-Pittsburghers like to make fun of it. Pittsburghers like to make fun of it too. It's a language all of its own that has a history of its own and is so deeply ingrained of the culture of the people that it will never go away, guaranteed, love it or leave it. It is, as far as I'm concerned, the only thing truly missing from Rice's novel. The language doesn't come through as much as I would have hoped. He makes up for it, however, in detailing and describing the neighborhoods, the Monongahela River, and the actual feeling of living in Pittsburgh.
He writes about memory, the way memory plays games with our minds, something I have always been fascinated with myself. You should see my copy of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale - all references to memory (and time) are underlined and highlighted as I focused on those motifs for a paper I wrote my freshman year. I had a professor a little later who talked about photographs and memories within them. The stories the photographs tell us are different than reality, but we look at the photographs and our memories change based on the story we read in the image. Someone looks happy in a photograph, so they must have been happy; we forget that there was sadness immediately before and immediately after the photo was taken. The happiness was faked for the photograph, but that's what is remembered because photographs last almost forever.
Doug Rice gets that. Here is an entire novel about just that, pretty much. It is what memory allows.
I did not expect a novel about Pittsburgh to be written almost like a poem, a love letter to the city. An allowance that this is our city, it's beautiful in its imperfections. We owe it to the city to remember its past, the history, how we are where we are today, to remember that just because we are where we are doesn't mean others are there. Let's not forget the neighbors to our right, or to our left, or on the other side of the busway. This city will continue to change but we don't need to forget our neighbors.
June 27, 2017
This book is like an old fashioned fairy tale. At least that's how my mind framed it, understood it. The kind where the characters live in a world where there are ghosts, figments of memory, haunted by change and loss. There are street prophets, and old men that will themselves blind. There are entire paragraphs on the subject of beer. It's a tale that is about the city its placed in as it is about the characters that inhabit it. The names of streets and places are frequent. The memories that haunt the places of old, the places that are in danger of being erased.
There is a rhythm and tone to the sentences. It's a book that can easily be read aloud, be heard. The language is beautiful, the imagery appropriate, a weight to them as if all the memories of the city are holding them down. I felt a chill down my spine at the sight of the old, specter haunted rivers.
I haven't read a text about a particular city this good, this engaging in a long time.
There is a rhythm and tone to the sentences. It's a book that can easily be read aloud, be heard. The language is beautiful, the imagery appropriate, a weight to them as if all the memories of the city are holding them down. I felt a chill down my spine at the sight of the old, specter haunted rivers.
I haven't read a text about a particular city this good, this engaging in a long time.
November 2, 2016
Nothing is Nothing
Fifteen years ago I was a student in Professor Doug Rice’s film class. I remember being floored when he questioned the idea of memory. It’s validity, it’s purpose. Never before had I considered that what I know, what I have experienced, might somehow be compromised by illusory perceptions for which I hold my personal narrative accountable.
Safe to say that since Rice’s class I’ve been considering the idea of memory. Wondering if, in fact, it’s more like a swift breeze through consciousness than something with staying power. More like a comfort-inducing novelty, a ruse that helps me make sense of my life.
Rice’s philosophy seems to go deeper. He continues this exploration of memory, often obsessively, in mediums beyond the classroom. From readings, lectures, and blogs, to haunting photography and interactive creative collaborations, Rice presents his views (his art), to a world poised to eschew it. And the best part of all—this distracted audience doesn’t stop him. Not one bit. In fact, it seems to fuel his thirst for authenticity. For a meaningful life worth living.
In his blog posts, The Failure of Failure, he writes:
“So we need to love the joy of our process of seeing and thinking our way into the world. Because if we deeply love this process, then there is always a reward, a joy of seeing, in each failure, but if we only do it in order for it to be recognized, if our joy is dependent upon the acknowledgment and acceptance of others…”
In his newest novel, Here Lies Memory, consciousness is questioned and braided with an inquiry into the effects of visual consumption. Parallel stories give voice to two disparate characters who Rice tasks with delivering thoughtful insights and nuggets of goddamn good advice. Plus, there’s an undertow beneath the prose. Elements that make it tough for readers to look away.
The prose is written purposefully slower than characters might naturally speak. Lines celebrate the written word, a mundane moment in time, and often explain a concept only to reexplain it, thus ensuring it is given witness. Plus, the often banal imagery is fucking poetic. Cinematic even.
“She placed the dishrag on the kitchen counter. It fell to the floor. She looked down at it, but left it there.”
“Goats can stand still for what seems like hours, staring at you, without judgment. Not a dog. A dog jumps at you, humps your leg. Barking. Panting. Dogs have no sense of boundaries. No patience. While a dog is doing all that, the goat is standing still. Indifferent. It’s why we keep dogs as pets and not goats. Dogs distract us.”
The main characters, Elgin and Fred, are beautifully constructed but terrifying to consider. Elgin wills himself blind and thus sees with more clarity, Fred drinks an abundance of hopeful beers to release the pain of having lost a son, failed a marriage, questioned his sexuality, and erased a decades-old narrative of self.
Elgin said to his grandson, Johnny, “When you bite into that apple, you’re biting into sunshine, you’re biting into rain. You’re swallowing dirt and roots. Some man or woman pulled that apple off a tree. You’re eating their touch. When you bite into that apple, you remember this; you’re biting into God. And you think on that. You’re eating a little bit of God’s imagination with each bite. You got to cherish that apple. You don’t know when it’s not going to be here anymore.”
And during on of Fred and Jim’s escapist forays to Fred’s front porch, “Jim shoved both his hands into his pockets. He seemed to fear what they might do, worried they might shake Fred by his shoulders to wake him out of whatever dream he had entered, or maybe his hands would try to comfort Fred more than words could ever do, make Fred feel that everything was going to be all right, that it was just a matter of time. Jim had a sudden fear that he might do something with those hands of his that no man in Pittsburgh should ever do with another man, could ever do with another man; at least not do and and still be a man in Pittsburgh.”
Here Lies Memory provokes intuition. A reflex causing the reader to look inward. This novel is not mindless entertainment. No forbearance from reality. If anything, Rice’s novel highlights what’s most real. Makes people reconsider their own lives.
“It’s what I feel happening, belief erasing belief. There’s nothing there. No faith. Nothing. And hope? I want hope, wish for it, do whatever I can to keep it in me, but the nights get shorter, and the dawn comes like it never left, and the dawn forgets to bring light with it, so the morning stays dark.”
And then there’s Pittsburgh. Know it as a city or not, like its history, it’s sports teams, its weather, its geography or not, readers are granted an access known only to locals. It’s tough to not walk away with an affinity for Clemente, the Pirates, cultural misogyny, cans (not bottles) of beer, the Monongahela River (not “the Mon”), and the Birmingham Bridge connecting uptown with the South Side.
“Beer is never a choice in such heat; beer is a need. Pittsburgh heat demanded of a man that he drink beer. A man was not a man in Pittsburgh in late summer unless he held a beer in his hand. Not caressing it. Men don’t caress a beer bottle. Men drink beer.”
Sometimes Rice uses metaphor to offer a nutshell version of a tired city. And somehow makes outsiders nostalgic.
“They usually simply took her around the corner to Dream Alley. Sometimes up Federal Street to the top of Perry Hilltop, where the view of the Golden Triangle was “majestic.” A man once said that to her. He told her to get out of the car and “take a look at this view.” She brushed off her skirt and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then joined the man looking down at the city.”
Rice universalizes the trivial to vibrate the web of humanity. Reminds us of our childhood crush on Marcia Brady, our deep love for White Castle coffee.
“Then he started writing long, eloquent, delirious love letters, insanely erotic letters, to Marcia Brady, the actual character, not the actress. Not that Maureen McCormick, Bob never wrote to her. Maureen McCormick was nobody; she was just a shadow of Marcia Brady, a stand-in for the real thing.”
“We’re in the White Castle on Cedar Avenue,” Fred whispered. “This is coffee. Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh. Debra is sleeping at home. Lucas is only as safe as the stories we tell.” Fred thought simple words spoken aloud becoming reality.
Coffee is coffee. Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh. Memory is memory. Not worth loading anything with more than it is.
Last week, as I walked into a café with Here Lies Memory under my arm, I overheard the patron in front of me, a middle aged white guy, make a comment to his wife about the title.
“It should be here Lays, not here Lies,” he said quietly.
She turned around, half-smiled at me, then grabbed a quick glance at the book before turning back around.
“Maybe Lies has nothing to do with laying down,” she whispered to him. “Maybe someone’s telling a lie. Like memory, maybe is, you know, like not telling the truth.”
“Seriously?” he said. “Give me a break.”
They ordered two cappuccinos. Payed with a credit card. Her hair was in a bun. That’s all I remember.
Fifteen years ago I was a student in Professor Doug Rice’s film class. I remember being floored when he questioned the idea of memory. It’s validity, it’s purpose. Never before had I considered that what I know, what I have experienced, might somehow be compromised by illusory perceptions for which I hold my personal narrative accountable.
Safe to say that since Rice’s class I’ve been considering the idea of memory. Wondering if, in fact, it’s more like a swift breeze through consciousness than something with staying power. More like a comfort-inducing novelty, a ruse that helps me make sense of my life.
Rice’s philosophy seems to go deeper. He continues this exploration of memory, often obsessively, in mediums beyond the classroom. From readings, lectures, and blogs, to haunting photography and interactive creative collaborations, Rice presents his views (his art), to a world poised to eschew it. And the best part of all—this distracted audience doesn’t stop him. Not one bit. In fact, it seems to fuel his thirst for authenticity. For a meaningful life worth living.
In his blog posts, The Failure of Failure, he writes:
“So we need to love the joy of our process of seeing and thinking our way into the world. Because if we deeply love this process, then there is always a reward, a joy of seeing, in each failure, but if we only do it in order for it to be recognized, if our joy is dependent upon the acknowledgment and acceptance of others…”
In his newest novel, Here Lies Memory, consciousness is questioned and braided with an inquiry into the effects of visual consumption. Parallel stories give voice to two disparate characters who Rice tasks with delivering thoughtful insights and nuggets of goddamn good advice. Plus, there’s an undertow beneath the prose. Elements that make it tough for readers to look away.
The prose is written purposefully slower than characters might naturally speak. Lines celebrate the written word, a mundane moment in time, and often explain a concept only to reexplain it, thus ensuring it is given witness. Plus, the often banal imagery is fucking poetic. Cinematic even.
“She placed the dishrag on the kitchen counter. It fell to the floor. She looked down at it, but left it there.”
“Goats can stand still for what seems like hours, staring at you, without judgment. Not a dog. A dog jumps at you, humps your leg. Barking. Panting. Dogs have no sense of boundaries. No patience. While a dog is doing all that, the goat is standing still. Indifferent. It’s why we keep dogs as pets and not goats. Dogs distract us.”
The main characters, Elgin and Fred, are beautifully constructed but terrifying to consider. Elgin wills himself blind and thus sees with more clarity, Fred drinks an abundance of hopeful beers to release the pain of having lost a son, failed a marriage, questioned his sexuality, and erased a decades-old narrative of self.
Elgin said to his grandson, Johnny, “When you bite into that apple, you’re biting into sunshine, you’re biting into rain. You’re swallowing dirt and roots. Some man or woman pulled that apple off a tree. You’re eating their touch. When you bite into that apple, you remember this; you’re biting into God. And you think on that. You’re eating a little bit of God’s imagination with each bite. You got to cherish that apple. You don’t know when it’s not going to be here anymore.”
And during on of Fred and Jim’s escapist forays to Fred’s front porch, “Jim shoved both his hands into his pockets. He seemed to fear what they might do, worried they might shake Fred by his shoulders to wake him out of whatever dream he had entered, or maybe his hands would try to comfort Fred more than words could ever do, make Fred feel that everything was going to be all right, that it was just a matter of time. Jim had a sudden fear that he might do something with those hands of his that no man in Pittsburgh should ever do with another man, could ever do with another man; at least not do and and still be a man in Pittsburgh.”
Here Lies Memory provokes intuition. A reflex causing the reader to look inward. This novel is not mindless entertainment. No forbearance from reality. If anything, Rice’s novel highlights what’s most real. Makes people reconsider their own lives.
“It’s what I feel happening, belief erasing belief. There’s nothing there. No faith. Nothing. And hope? I want hope, wish for it, do whatever I can to keep it in me, but the nights get shorter, and the dawn comes like it never left, and the dawn forgets to bring light with it, so the morning stays dark.”
And then there’s Pittsburgh. Know it as a city or not, like its history, it’s sports teams, its weather, its geography or not, readers are granted an access known only to locals. It’s tough to not walk away with an affinity for Clemente, the Pirates, cultural misogyny, cans (not bottles) of beer, the Monongahela River (not “the Mon”), and the Birmingham Bridge connecting uptown with the South Side.
“Beer is never a choice in such heat; beer is a need. Pittsburgh heat demanded of a man that he drink beer. A man was not a man in Pittsburgh in late summer unless he held a beer in his hand. Not caressing it. Men don’t caress a beer bottle. Men drink beer.”
Sometimes Rice uses metaphor to offer a nutshell version of a tired city. And somehow makes outsiders nostalgic.
“They usually simply took her around the corner to Dream Alley. Sometimes up Federal Street to the top of Perry Hilltop, where the view of the Golden Triangle was “majestic.” A man once said that to her. He told her to get out of the car and “take a look at this view.” She brushed off her skirt and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then joined the man looking down at the city.”
Rice universalizes the trivial to vibrate the web of humanity. Reminds us of our childhood crush on Marcia Brady, our deep love for White Castle coffee.
“Then he started writing long, eloquent, delirious love letters, insanely erotic letters, to Marcia Brady, the actual character, not the actress. Not that Maureen McCormick, Bob never wrote to her. Maureen McCormick was nobody; she was just a shadow of Marcia Brady, a stand-in for the real thing.”
“We’re in the White Castle on Cedar Avenue,” Fred whispered. “This is coffee. Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh. Debra is sleeping at home. Lucas is only as safe as the stories we tell.” Fred thought simple words spoken aloud becoming reality.
Coffee is coffee. Pittsburgh is Pittsburgh. Memory is memory. Not worth loading anything with more than it is.
Last week, as I walked into a café with Here Lies Memory under my arm, I overheard the patron in front of me, a middle aged white guy, make a comment to his wife about the title.
“It should be here Lays, not here Lies,” he said quietly.
She turned around, half-smiled at me, then grabbed a quick glance at the book before turning back around.
“Maybe Lies has nothing to do with laying down,” she whispered to him. “Maybe someone’s telling a lie. Like memory, maybe is, you know, like not telling the truth.”
“Seriously?” he said. “Give me a break.”
They ordered two cappuccinos. Payed with a credit card. Her hair was in a bun. That’s all I remember.
May 29, 2019
I love Pittsburgh and I wanted to love this but it just plods on and on and on and I just had to stop. If anyone wants to tell me if they ever find out what happened to the missing boy, I’d appreciate it.
April 13, 2018
Yeesh.
May 18, 2025
emotionally provoking prose. would like to finish some day but, dnf.
August 5, 2022
Long form art in any medium seems to be losing the battle of immediacy and a novel that demands its reader to devote oneself to be silent and exist has the odds stacked against it. With Rice’s novel Here Lies Memory (Black Scat Books, 316 pages), those who allow themselves to simply be will find a haunting beauty in the lives of the characters, in their pasts and within each carefully chosen word.
The first of an in-progress trilogy about his hometown of Pittsburgh, Here Lies Memory marks a departure for the often avant garde Rice towards a linear, traditional narrative structure though the characters are anything but traditional. Doug Rice studied under John Gardner and it seems the meticulous understanding of character Gardner used has found its place in Doug Rice’s novel. It is within these characters that the sanctity of memory is displayed and this can only be achieved if the writer truly knows and empathizes the very soul of the characters. Here Lies Memory focuses on a mix of multi-racial, multigenerational characters who remain stagnant and, for some, paralyzed by trauma and memory.
The novel begins with Fred and Debra, a married couple burdened with the nightmare of their young son, Lucas, vanishing. We, as readers, enter into their marriage after this loss. A marriage where the two exist within the same house, silent, sometimes intimate as if by chance, while Debra clings to hope of finding Lucas while Fred drinks beer as if to engage in communion. Each stuck in stasis as the pain of memory wedges between them.
The other primary narrative shows us Elgin, an African-American Vietnam veteran who willfully choose to go blind rather than fight to maintain his sight. Aside from the war, he has encountered his own personal loss of losing his Vietnamese wife and daughter and all that remains is his grandson Johnny. In Elgin, memory and time exist simultaneously and the narrative exists in a way that the present and future cannot be unless memory inhabits them. For Johnny, he’s young and looks forward but seems to receive the generational curse of memory from his lineage.
All of these characters and the ancillary figures who enter into the narrative do little in terms of action. Fred and Debra often are phantoms in their own home in the shadow of the children’s bicycle in the front yard and Elgin simply sits, lost in the jungle or memories of his wife and daughter. Yet, this lack of motion and movement is what forces the reader to come in to Elgin and Fred and Debra’s memories and absorb the wandering, the thirst for movement, for touch, for anything other than memory and the salt it sprinkles into wounds. By the end of the novel, the reader feels as if these characters were friends, neighbors or even family rather than fiction.
Where these characters wander is the unspoken character of Pittsburgh. A living, breathing city whose very buildings and streets and roads are imbued with a hardened history and sanctity that Rice makes the reader feel with each sensory detail. The city is not the setting, but a character who embodies the struggles of its characters, burdened with its own trauma (the loss of Roberto Clemente) and memory.
The beauty and the struggle of this novel lies in the craft. The authenticity of the characters, their histories and their pain along with the city of Pittsburgh can feel overwhelming. Without much movement, the novel can suck us into this stasis where we feel paralyzed in a way, assuming the burdens of loss and memory that are not our own. The very sentences cause us to read and feel each word which can be emotionally exhausting. Yet, can this be a fault of the work or have we simply become numb to stagnancy to allow ourselves to feel so profoundly?
Here Lies Memory is a challenging novel to read in all the right ways. From craft to character, Rice brings the reader into his characters’ memories in deeply effect ways and forces us to question the pain of certain memories as a bad thing. After all, as Debra’s brother, Bob, says, “Pain is part of it. Makes you remember that you are not the only one who knows pain.” Pain, beauty, memory form a symbiotic relationship and to shirk our very pasts, regardless of a the hurt, is a form of suicide. After all, “the most direct, most intimate form of suicide is the loss of memory.”
Review originally appeared in The Dactyl Review
The first of an in-progress trilogy about his hometown of Pittsburgh, Here Lies Memory marks a departure for the often avant garde Rice towards a linear, traditional narrative structure though the characters are anything but traditional. Doug Rice studied under John Gardner and it seems the meticulous understanding of character Gardner used has found its place in Doug Rice’s novel. It is within these characters that the sanctity of memory is displayed and this can only be achieved if the writer truly knows and empathizes the very soul of the characters. Here Lies Memory focuses on a mix of multi-racial, multigenerational characters who remain stagnant and, for some, paralyzed by trauma and memory.
The novel begins with Fred and Debra, a married couple burdened with the nightmare of their young son, Lucas, vanishing. We, as readers, enter into their marriage after this loss. A marriage where the two exist within the same house, silent, sometimes intimate as if by chance, while Debra clings to hope of finding Lucas while Fred drinks beer as if to engage in communion. Each stuck in stasis as the pain of memory wedges between them.
The other primary narrative shows us Elgin, an African-American Vietnam veteran who willfully choose to go blind rather than fight to maintain his sight. Aside from the war, he has encountered his own personal loss of losing his Vietnamese wife and daughter and all that remains is his grandson Johnny. In Elgin, memory and time exist simultaneously and the narrative exists in a way that the present and future cannot be unless memory inhabits them. For Johnny, he’s young and looks forward but seems to receive the generational curse of memory from his lineage.
All of these characters and the ancillary figures who enter into the narrative do little in terms of action. Fred and Debra often are phantoms in their own home in the shadow of the children’s bicycle in the front yard and Elgin simply sits, lost in the jungle or memories of his wife and daughter. Yet, this lack of motion and movement is what forces the reader to come in to Elgin and Fred and Debra’s memories and absorb the wandering, the thirst for movement, for touch, for anything other than memory and the salt it sprinkles into wounds. By the end of the novel, the reader feels as if these characters were friends, neighbors or even family rather than fiction.
Where these characters wander is the unspoken character of Pittsburgh. A living, breathing city whose very buildings and streets and roads are imbued with a hardened history and sanctity that Rice makes the reader feel with each sensory detail. The city is not the setting, but a character who embodies the struggles of its characters, burdened with its own trauma (the loss of Roberto Clemente) and memory.
The beauty and the struggle of this novel lies in the craft. The authenticity of the characters, their histories and their pain along with the city of Pittsburgh can feel overwhelming. Without much movement, the novel can suck us into this stasis where we feel paralyzed in a way, assuming the burdens of loss and memory that are not our own. The very sentences cause us to read and feel each word which can be emotionally exhausting. Yet, can this be a fault of the work or have we simply become numb to stagnancy to allow ourselves to feel so profoundly?
Here Lies Memory is a challenging novel to read in all the right ways. From craft to character, Rice brings the reader into his characters’ memories in deeply effect ways and forces us to question the pain of certain memories as a bad thing. After all, as Debra’s brother, Bob, says, “Pain is part of it. Makes you remember that you are not the only one who knows pain.” Pain, beauty, memory form a symbiotic relationship and to shirk our very pasts, regardless of a the hurt, is a form of suicide. After all, “the most direct, most intimate form of suicide is the loss of memory.”
Review originally appeared in The Dactyl Review
February 1, 2017
Perhaps it is worth noting, in the first place, that trailers for the forthcoming 'Fences' film have become difficult to avoid in the past week or two. It is also truly the case that all the way through my own reading of Doug Rice’s Here Lies Memory, August Wilson’s ‘Pittsburgh Cycle’ was . . . well, sorta on my mind quite a bit (and this was well before I was made aware that a film version of the play was in the works).
The point of making that observation is quite simple, quite straightforward. Rice’s novel embraces, in an unusually unabashed fashion, the ties that bind us (some portion of us, at any rate) to place. In this instance, that place happens to be, from front cover to back, Pittsburgh, PA. And lest there be any doubt, the “bind” I just typed is meant to convey every bit of the pained resonance as the “lies” Rice himself has dropped smack in the middle of his novel’s title.
Absolutely remarkably (for me), Rice’s geographical commitment does not condemn his tale to the ash-pit of reactionary narrative. (One doesn’t have time, does one? But think for just a moment of all the shite that’s been said & written about “the South” & its chroniclers.) Indeed, more than one of us must react to the very idea of a geographically-committed writer in the same manner as we respond to the phrase “one-man show”--that is to say, with spine-icing revulsion. But Rice does something quite different with the city in question. It becomes the locus of philosophical meditations about any number of things (first among them being the act of remembering), and in the process becomes (I’m sorry about this Eliotic allusion, Mr. Rice, but it’s meant as a genuine compliment) “unreal.” Make no mistake: Rice’s Pittsburgh can be depended upon to deliver actual facts--actual facts about how Pittsburgh once was, and (indirectly, for the most part) how Pittsburgh no longer is what it once was. I can personally attest to the accuracy of Rice’s recollections: the streets upon which Elgin & Johnny & Clarence & so many others carry out their lives (but mainly their memories, frankly) were & are actual streets. WAMO, for example, was once an AM thing (a thing quite a few suburban white kids listened to, if you must know). But this “landscape” is quite a complicated entity, and registers in this novel more as backdrop for Rice’s endlessly diverting ruminations than it does as a “snapshot in time.” (Please take careful note, at the same time, of the photos framing the entire narrative.)
I’ll continue this “review” in a future post. I was 17-years old when 'The Deer Hunter' was released, and watched the movie with two of my brothers in the old Warner Theater down on Fifth. Viewers walked out in complete silence, much as they should after a High Mass. They & we were numb.
Rices’s novel makes me revisit that profound moment in a new light.
The point of making that observation is quite simple, quite straightforward. Rice’s novel embraces, in an unusually unabashed fashion, the ties that bind us (some portion of us, at any rate) to place. In this instance, that place happens to be, from front cover to back, Pittsburgh, PA. And lest there be any doubt, the “bind” I just typed is meant to convey every bit of the pained resonance as the “lies” Rice himself has dropped smack in the middle of his novel’s title.
Absolutely remarkably (for me), Rice’s geographical commitment does not condemn his tale to the ash-pit of reactionary narrative. (One doesn’t have time, does one? But think for just a moment of all the shite that’s been said & written about “the South” & its chroniclers.) Indeed, more than one of us must react to the very idea of a geographically-committed writer in the same manner as we respond to the phrase “one-man show”--that is to say, with spine-icing revulsion. But Rice does something quite different with the city in question. It becomes the locus of philosophical meditations about any number of things (first among them being the act of remembering), and in the process becomes (I’m sorry about this Eliotic allusion, Mr. Rice, but it’s meant as a genuine compliment) “unreal.” Make no mistake: Rice’s Pittsburgh can be depended upon to deliver actual facts--actual facts about how Pittsburgh once was, and (indirectly, for the most part) how Pittsburgh no longer is what it once was. I can personally attest to the accuracy of Rice’s recollections: the streets upon which Elgin & Johnny & Clarence & so many others carry out their lives (but mainly their memories, frankly) were & are actual streets. WAMO, for example, was once an AM thing (a thing quite a few suburban white kids listened to, if you must know). But this “landscape” is quite a complicated entity, and registers in this novel more as backdrop for Rice’s endlessly diverting ruminations than it does as a “snapshot in time.” (Please take careful note, at the same time, of the photos framing the entire narrative.)
I’ll continue this “review” in a future post. I was 17-years old when 'The Deer Hunter' was released, and watched the movie with two of my brothers in the old Warner Theater down on Fifth. Viewers walked out in complete silence, much as they should after a High Mass. They & we were numb.
Rices’s novel makes me revisit that profound moment in a new light.
February 17, 2017
While I have always been, and continue to be, intrigued by the concept of memory, it is Doug Rice's exploration of 'seeing' that most caught my attention in this novel. Doug Rice once told me that if I want to learn something new about the world, to go sit in front of a tree and watch it grow. This idea, to actually invest time to slow down, to observe, to meditate on the journey that an apple takes to come into your kitchen, what enters your body through not only your mouth, but through your seeing, touching, listening...this is the foundation of Here Lies Memory, for me, where memory is our ability--our curse and our blessing--to re-experience it all over and over again with new perspective, experience, and wisdom. Like taking old pictures and setting them into new frames.
"Maybe God should have made it that all men be born blind, so a man have to learn how to see, same way a man got to learn how to eat...Imagine a world where a man got to learn to sit and listen to a woman's voice to guide him out of his blindness. Create a world so that listening to a woman makes a man want to be near her. Make a man long to touch a woman's soul, because he listens to her stories...Imagine a world where seeing comes to a man slow, real slow. A man can't even see a woman until her storytelling makes her become visible to him. Until then, any woman is invisible. Imagine a world where seeing starts out unfocused, then a woman's voice focuses his seeing. A woman coaxing a man's seeing out of him."
"Maybe God should have made it that all men be born blind, so a man have to learn how to see, same way a man got to learn how to eat...Imagine a world where a man got to learn to sit and listen to a woman's voice to guide him out of his blindness. Create a world so that listening to a woman makes a man want to be near her. Make a man long to touch a woman's soul, because he listens to her stories...Imagine a world where seeing comes to a man slow, real slow. A man can't even see a woman until her storytelling makes her become visible to him. Until then, any woman is invisible. Imagine a world where seeing starts out unfocused, then a woman's voice focuses his seeing. A woman coaxing a man's seeing out of him."
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