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Sara L. Griffith Review

2/24/2015

 
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To Whom It May Concern:

It is with pleasure I write to you of Mr. Robbins’ original compelling book. “These Precious Days”. It has been my honor to be witness to its development and conclusion.

First and foremost, his distinctive expository style grabs one’s attention from the outset. Terse, bare-bones and powerful, his voice rings with the authenticity of native experience combined with seasoned compassion. This is his world sung in the clipped jargon so distinctive to the region, an intimate and outrageous journal of a man stitched to his heritage but standing observer to the wholly unavoidable cycles of his lifetime. The author has stripped his soul to its basic components, allowing the reader to slip insides his skin, peering out through his heart’s eyes.

The No Sweat quotes and comments that lead into each entry are simply marvelous. I laughed. I cried. I shook my head in amazement. His use of family dynamics as background is superlative, richly confided with no apology. Mr. Robbins’ philosophy of life and its mysterious interweaving are encapsulated with such lavish cynicism and wry wit that I savored them like a fine appetizer to the main course. Pithy and acerbic they sway to the genre of poetic essay and social commentary in the infamous style of Mark Twain, yet expose a warm nature and generous spirit unmarred by aberrant events.

His characterizations are superb, particularly the hilarious nicknames that summate these unique personalities with a decisive zing. These are people struggling on the bottom strata of the local social order, belly-crawling at times, but with a ferocious dignity. It is the story of survival at its basest levels, not just a meager getting-by, but outwitting the system using its own indignities and absurdities to mock it, provoke it and occasionally defeat it while living on the wicked edges of morality and legality. His actors are not elaborate analyses; rather they blithely hint at folks whose coping skills are jungle-acquired, whose adaptations are made to bizarre, unforeseeable twists of fate. Each player possess several faceted attributes of the composite complexity of the author, and when taken as a totality produces an intriguing, fully-developed profile of the Eastern Kentucky good-ole-boy persona; a marijuana grower/pigeon breeder/deep-sea diver, law-defying and touchingly poignant, a devoted family man and loyal friend marrow-deep.

Perhaps the standout feature of this novel is its extraordinary dialogue. Mr. Robbins is a master of this deceivingly difficult aspect, with his dialect hot-n-spicy and stropped razor sharp. His ability to convey the symbolic meta-meaning with brutal (often monosyllabic) brevity is beyond remarkable. To say it is evocative is an understatement. With practiced expertise he sets each scene with the somewhat anticlimactic off-handedness of just-another-day-down-home, only to render the reader surprised, and often shocked, at the outcome. The verbal punch is delivered with a visceral banter that says as much between the lines as outright. His ‘Black Hole’ is heart-wrenchingly relevant in scope and one of the finest psychological sketches I have seen in popular print. Their repartee brims with mutual admiration and a terrible, doomed camaraderie.

Mr. Robbins has painted a portrait of a man caught in the web of his times, a victim turned survivor, a player in the eponymous reality show of hand-to-mouth grubbing and a victor who has circumvented conventionality and apparent destiny to become a psychical congregate of paradoxical array. More than just being entertained, I learned from this book and felt immersed in it singular culture, as though I had spent years exploring his world. It has the distinguishing earmarks of a masterpiece – vibrant plot, memorable characters, bucolic setting, with the personal touch of the sensitive diarist. He is an intuitive and imaginative author par excellence.

I give this new work by Mr. Robbins my highest recommendation, both as a licensed therapist and voracious reader. I look forward to seeing future offerings by this exciting new author. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss its merits.

Sincerely, 







Sara L. Griffith, LMFT
Eagle River, Alaska
May 1, 2007


Captain Lance in Nefarious (my uncle)

2/22/2015

 
This is photo I took of Lance and entered in a photo contest. I shot it while he was in his plane flying; the same plane that was used in one of the scenes in "GOLDFINGER."  Lance was married nine times and murdered on his ninth wedding day in a shootout in his front yard. He was a great swimmer, trumpet player, and story teller. He made me swear to put him in NEFARIOUS, I captured him perfectly in the riverboat races.
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The day No Sweat began writing

2/22/2015

 
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Self Portrait & Luis Miguel Dominguin

2/22/2015

 
This is a self portrait sketch done by No Sweat while writing THESE PRECIOUS DAYS.
The next photo is an original  (never seen or published) 11" by 14"  black and white done (autographed and numbered for Will Lang) by Larry Burrows, one of LIFE'S greatest photographers.  This is a photo that Burrows took while escorting and following Ernest Hemingway through Spain as Hemingway was writing his last story for LIFE magazine, "The Dangerous Summer."  This shot is of Luis Miguel Dominguin, arguably the most handsome and bravest of all bullfighters, ever.  Hemingway was confident that the rivalry between Dominguin and Ordonez would lead to one of the two being killed in the ring.


If Only a Dream: Chapter 42

2/22/2015

 
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
     IF ONLY IN A DREAM is chapter 42 in my first novel, THESE PRECIOUS DAYS. I spent 4 years on TPD almost 25 years ago. I went well over 100 rewrites with the work. After it was completed and rejected all over NY, I little by little resigned to put it away.  In a way I surrendered to the world. I lost myself.  I went through a long spell in my life where I gave up writing. Two years ago the affliction snuck back. I'll never quit again. What's anything worth if it is easy. I lost sight of my youthful dreams. But they are back.  In force. I will never quit again. I have to have meaning.  I have to leave something.  I am now into my fourth rewrite with TPD since lifting it from the ashes of 25 years ago. My hopes are to have it back into Robert Loomis' hands at Random House before the end of this year. TPD was originally 1,400 pages. I am chiseling it to 400 pages.  Using all my instincts.  What's important is that I tell the truth. TPD was Guy Davenport's favorite work of mine.  Lindy Yeager's, too.  Lindy was such a special friend for me. I think we both knew he was going to commit suicide. In the 17 years before he took shot himself in the head, he gave me so much. Instilled the importance art.  Showed me what it was to be honest. Gave me his time and his secrets. After his wife had killed herself she had all but killed him.  One evening before Christmas I went to the VA hospital and fetched him. He was being monitored for lithium. After graduating from West Point and being one of the top pilots in SAC his wife had committed suicide.  Shortly thereafter, he was diagnosed with manic depression. His baby sons were taken from him by his mother-in-law.  He was happy that I came for him.  He had no one. That night, I read him my Christmas story, IF ONLY IN A DREAM. He kept his back to me by his fireplace as I read.  When I was done he turned. His eyes had tears. He said the work was beautiful.  Such was praise from Caesar. And remains so.
No Sweat

CHAPTER 42
"My mother was the most beautiful woman in the world and I was blind."
                                                                                                             NS

IF ONLY IN A DREAM
December 25,  1982

     Santa had on his t-shirt during this seventy degree record warm Christmas.  He sat with Sensi watching Wide Eyes tear at packages.  Santa sat quiet blinking his eyes, absorbing tears, smiling, trying not to destroy the moment.

     Wide Eyes had gotten a Smurf sleeping bag, television, aquarium, rock tumbler, art-deco set, auto harp, dolls, games, books, candy and clothes.  With each gift she had hugged Sensi, kissing, smiling in excitement.
     Wide Eyes was thrilled knowing Santa had consumed her cookies and milk.  Our home lingered with his fresh absence.  A cherishable linger where we tried to cling to something we could not keep.
     Wide Eyes was a day before her fourth birthday.  At a time where she cried at the death of a flower, the thought of growing old, hunting a grouse, a doll being mistreated, or a melting snowman.
     As the day moved I caught a sparrow in my pigeon loft.  It had been eating my expensive mixtures of feed.  Wide Eyes carefully watched.  "What should I do with him?"  I asked her.  "Should I kill him?" "Let him go, daddy.  So he can fly and sing."
     I handed the bird into her moist hands.  The sparrow's heart was nearly bursting.  Wide Eyes released the bird.  Her face glowed. 
     As we returned to the loft I noted a baby racing homer having died during the night.  Wide Eyes' attention concentrated on the lifeless figure, stiff and saurian with skin and forming pinfeathers.  Sorrow was in her brilliant eyes.  "We will bury the baby," I said.  As we finished patting the ground I looked to see a tear.
     "Daddy, will the baby pigeon ever live again?  If we dig it up later, will it be alive?"
     "No.  Death is forever.  When we buried this baby we can never again expect to see it.  Everything alive eventually dies.  Let's be happy.  You and I are alive.  Your mother and I love you.  We will always love you.  You have given us life.  You are my angel.  Be happy you live in Aopehh.  There's many places worse.  Sweetheart, we have a lot more pigeons.  Death is a part of having them.  I am happy you are sad over the bird.  Be afraid, it's alright.  Oh Wide Eyes, you are precious."
     That afternoon we drove two miles to the modern house on Main Street.  The Cadillac and Lincoln were parked in the driveway.  Knocking at the side door I found it unlocked.  The house was empty.  Then I saw mother.  She was lying on the fake leopard couch next to the paneled wall and slate bar.  Raising her bloated body upright she wiped mucous from her mouth trying to make a sentence.  Her botched platinum-blond hair and unfocusing gray eyes then sunk back into the mohair.  I looked for dad and True.  Both were gone.  The rooms were so familiarly quiet.  That same quiet from my childhood.  The house had that same stench of alcoholism.  A smell of no love.
     Coming back to mom I stood close at her side. A slight smile appeared over her face.  Her little boy was near.  The house was grey.  All the drapes were pulled.  I felt of gloom.  I sensed death.  Emptiness entered into my heart.  Oh mom, you dear fool. You hurt wretch.  You kindred spirit.  I would tell you I love you.  Say it a million times.  But I cannot.  I couldn't cry.  I could only ache.
     "Daddy," asked Wide Eyes,  entering the door.  "Are we going in?"
     "No, baby.  Your grandmother isn't well."

     Sensi stood looking from the door. 
     We left.
     There had been nothing of Christmas at that house.  One set of elk antlers had tiny colored lights taped to them.  All the other antlers were bare.  There was no tree.  Nothing.  Just mom on that couch.
     Several hours had passed when the phone rang.
     "No Sweat, have you seen your mother the past two weeks?"
     "I saw her a few hours ago."
     "She's been falling down drunk all week.  She's driving me crazy.  Between her and True, I'm going broke.  I'm going to have to sell my house.  True hasn't been around in over a month.  She's out doped up with some goddamn piece of shit.  I can't give a bunch of bastards a couple a hundred a day to baby sit a drunk and a whore.  It wouldn't do any good anyway.  She's a goddamn fool.  You wouldn't believe.  I know you know.  But you only know half of it.  I've nailed our bedroom door shut so she wouldn't sneak off from me in the night to get a drink.  I've tied her leg to mine at night.  It doesn't do any good.  She's got pills and booze hid all over the fucking house.  She hides vodka in Scope bottles.  She's got bottles hid in hutches, dried flower arrangements, under the sink, in the bathroom, in True's closet.  Last time she was here, True found a quart of vodka in her dance chest, empty.  Empty bottles are in every spot you can imagine.  She takes valiums and unicons by the handfuls.  You just don't know.  The goddamn drunk is going to fall from the steps or OD.  I'll get blamed for murder sure as Hell.  She says she's gonna get in AA.  Well whoopee.  Fuck.  Everything is great.  Fuck.  I wish she'd just go back on that religious kick.  Get back with that goddamn family of hers.  They don't give a shit about her. Never have. I drug her ass over to her mother's.  You know what that damn old woman said?  She said, 'There ain't nothing wrong with her.'  I want you to come here.  I want to show you how goddamn much your mom has drunk since Tuesday.  I don't know how many pills.  She drank two cases of my imported Liebfraumilch.  She drank two cases of warm Budweiser.  Come out here.  You won't believe it.  How many years do you think she's been drunk?  Do you remember when you were thirteen years old and kept marking 'X's' each day on the calendar your mom was drunk?  What did you mark?  Eighty-nine of ninety days.  Well, she'd been a drunk many years before you started noticing.  I've done everything to get her to stop but she won't.  We'll go to bed cold sober and two hours later I'll hear something.  And she'll be stone dead drunk.  I'll look at her and say, 'You're drunk.' And she'll say she's not had a drop.  She swears she doesn't drink.  I've grabbed her hand while it was full of pills and she'll swear there are no pills.  That I am making it all up.  Last month I sat a half gallon of Fitzgerald on the bar and said 'Hell!  Drink to your goddamn heart's content!'  Are you gonna come out?"   
     "We are fixing to eat dinner.  Then we'll stop by.  Sensi made a prune cake.  We'll bring you some dinner.  I wanted you all to eat dinner with us, but...
     Later, we returned to a house as dark inside as it was out.  When I first knocked no one came.  But just as we were leaving dad opened the door.
     A small light over the stove of the spacious chrome kitchen reflected a quiet man looking out toward the glass doors facing across Main Street to the gaily lit brick home of my grandmother.  Without turning on the lights I knew mother rested on that couch.  Tonight, her 'Robert Mitchum'  was by himself.  It was the last place on earth where he wanted to be.
     Merry Christmas.
     Turning on the light, the coyote's face on the wall rug glared in anger. 
     The moose stared at the elk.  Dad entered his den where mom lay.
     "What would you do with that?  What am I going to do?  How would you like to go to bed with her?"
     It was then that my sister appeared wearing one of dad's deer hide vests and jeans.  She kissed everyone.  "I'm OK.  I haven't been shooting up."  Her arms were bruised and her hands swollen.  She was a youthful degree from mom. We all knew it.
     Dad put his large palms to his forehead.  "My God!" he said.  Then he stared at me in disgust.  "Can you believe this?  Am I the only sane son of a bitch in the world.”
     True rolled back her eyes, exhaling cigarette smoke.  "I've heard all your shit before," she said, walking to the door.  "I ain’t listening to it tonight."  She left for the driveway.  A car waited.  A car always waited.


Lindy Yeager

2/21/2015

 
This is my closest friend that I had for 17 years, Lindy Yeager, my next door neighbor, West Pointer and SAC Bomber pilot and avid reader. This is Lindy when he was getting married. His wife committed suicide and eventually Lindy committed suicide, too. Lindy is "BLACK HOLE" in my first novel, THESE PRECIOUS DAYS.
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Lindy Yeager ( "Black Hole, TPD), leading cheer for the cadets atop the table in the mess hall at West Point prior the Army-Navy fottball game
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Hello 49ER !

2/21/2015

 
by
E. Lowell  " NO SWEAT" / "Robbie"  Robbins, Jr. 

     Back in the 70's when I was writing for THE IRVINE TIMES-HERALD in Irvine, Kentucky, I heard about a man that lived out in the country that had a little grocery store on the Winchester Road. His name was Shirley King and he had been on the PT boat with John Kennedy during World War Two. 
      Having grown up in the 50's and 60's it was impossible not to know who John Kennedy was. And my grandfather, DaddyMack, was the owner of our town's one picture show.  I had seen PT 109 three times and doing something like that almost made me an expert on the Kennedys. 
     I grabbed my camera and some film that our poor newspaper afforded and jumped into my van and headed down through Main Street out past my high school and out along a curvy road leading off into into a late summer of goldenrod and goldfinches. The sun-and-shadows messed with my soul as I passed through the countryside until I came to a stretch where I spotted a grey, wooden building owning corrugated sheets of rust around its base, faded signs on its side and out front,  "KING'S GROCERY."   Entering, I found myself in the den of dim-lit wooden shelves loaded down in canned goods and on the floor stacked against the counters, burlap commodities that my beloved Estill County occasionally bought. Occasionally, as there were those nefarious mid-nights when begotten outposts such as this were delicious palaces to rob.  
     Back off in the store, in a corner behind the counters, a man in coveralls and a worn farmer's cap was messing around, acting like he was paying me little notice.  A minute passed and then the man spoke, asking if I needed anything. I told him that I was a writer and that I wanted to do a story on Shirley King and what he had done with John Kennedy.
     The man said that he was Shirley King and then grabbed a chunk of quiet. You could see I had hit on something that took a hold on him. His stare went straight out the door to a world of long ago.
     Shirley walked back from behind the counter. Though he was dressed like some farmer just in from fixing fences, I sensed that there was more to him that a barn full of tobacco or a cow that lost her calf. I saw William Holden. Having grown up in a small apartment over the top DaddyMack's theater, I identified people by the way movie stars looked and acted. For me, Shirley King was a lonely William Holden.  
     "Kennedy was younger than any of us. We called him Uncle Jack. He might have went 120 pounds. We weren't on the 109. Ours was 59."
     "59?"
     "Yeah, it came after the 109. We called her 49. Joked it would be 1949 before the war was over. PT stood for patrol torpedo. Motor patrol torpedo boats. They were suppose to get in close to torpedo ships. But it didn't take long before the Navy found out that PT boats were useless. They'd get blown up before they could do anything. Our boat was one of the few that ever torpedoed a ship. Unfortunately, ours. The Capella. It was an accident on a training run off Narragansett Bay."
      "What was Kennedy like?"   
      "I liked him. Allowed he loved to hear me talk.  Late in '43 we had our torpedo tubes removed and mounted machine guns in their place. The boys liked me because I was from Kentucky and kept a still on the boat. The Navy had this stuff called Pink Lady that was used to propel torpedoes. They put that pink stuff in it to keep us from drinking it. After '43 we never had any torpedoes. Kennedy knew that. But Uncle Jack kept right on requisitioning.. I'd run it through my still and what came out would make you slap your grandma. Made a smooth drink mixed with pineapple juice. Some liked it with coconut but I preferred it like Uncle Jack did --- straight. After we'd lower the flag in the eve it was Pink Lady time."   
     "Did he ever talk about the 109?"      
     "Said if he hadn't swam in college he'd-a never been able to save one guy. Some of our crew had been with him on 109. Kennedy's back hurt all the time. Allowed he'd had trouble with it before 109. After what happened never helped any. We'd go up in and around these little islands and he'd never let us go any place where we couldn't fast turn around. I guess 109 made him like that."
      "What did you ever do on 59?"
      "We saved forty marines one night. You should have seen them. Their boat had sunk just off shore. God knows what would have happened if we hadn't come along. The island was loaded with Japs. I pulled one in and he kissed me. Got 'em all on our boat and after we got 'em out of trouble we ran out of gas. Luckily, another PT Boat threw us a line and towed us back to Lambu Lambu. One of 'em died in Kennedy's bunk."
      "I heard you saw Kennedy in Kentucky?"
      "Yeah, during the presidential campaign. Kennedy came through Louisville. Spotted my sign: 'HELLO  49ER!'   He had the motorcade stop. Sent two secret service men over to fetch me. When I came up to him he grinned and asked if I had any Pink Lady.  I told him I might if I looked right hard. He bust out laughing and got me to ride with him."
       "Did you have it?"
       "I'll never tell."
        And Shirley King never did. 

Dinner with John Lovett

2/21/2015

 
This past summer I had dinner with John Lovett ( the movie star; 3 Amigos, etc) at The Lexington Green in Lexington, Ky.  This is a photo that Chesteen took of us as I was conversing with him about my 2 novels which he now has, etc. John referred me to Jerry Bruckheimer which never got my novels--but his wife did. 
 
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Wendy Goldman Rohm

2/21/2015

 
Hi again. I just read the first few pages and I wanted to tell you your writing is wonderful. I will go through the entire manuscript in the next few days. I'm pleasantly surprised as unsolicited submissions, as you might imagine, are mostly dross.

More soon...


Best,
Wendy
 
Wendy Goldman Rohm
Literary Agent

Edward W. Woolery, Ph.D. Review

2/20/2015

 
Unlike his first novel, NEFARIOUS, or the more recent collected short stories, BLACK BLUEGRASS, Earl Lowell “Robbie” Robbins Jr. pens THESE PRECIOUS DAYS (TPD) as the noirish two-year diary of an eastern Kentucky writer’s (NO SWEAT) existential observations during a period of his waning youth. Like most significant writers of the American South, bleakness is pervasive throughout the work, even down to the pseudonyms given to those that haunt the primary social strata of his realm (e.g., Black Hole, mentor, Dark Star, best friend, Black Widow, beautiful temptress, etc.). The more luminous names given to his beloved (e.g., Sensi, Bright Eyes, True, etc.) are themselves shadowed by their juxtaposition to the troubled and often tragic family dynamic.

Set in the hills of eastern Kentucky, the town of Aoephh is spatially, temporally, and culturally isolated; however, the author selects events from his adventurous experiences to demonstrate that it perfectly represents the human condition in all places and in all time. In many respects Aoephh’s isolation allows Robbins to probe deeper into reality and truth than those typical self-aggrandizing reflections made from the safety of the cosmopolitan salons and cafes. During this 2-year period of time, 1981 to 1983, No Sweat (NS) begins to confront his past, present, and future through the struggles of his mentor, Black Hole (BH).  BH is a West Point graduate who changed services to become a Cold War B-52 pilot, and finally Air Force Academy professor and intellectual who lived in what Eliot called the “shadow” that separates the idea and reality. Ultimately, human pain and darkness feed BH’s demons to demise. NS’s struggle, although never explicitly admitted, appears to be with the same demon attractions. Like BH, NS leaves Aoephh at every chance and had the physical and mental resources to stay away, but always returned. No one escapes Aoephh or life, but for death. 

Although Robbins’ has undoubtedly been influenced by many of the great writers, he has crafted a writing style that is unique. He keeps the dialog short and focused, but manages to accurately capture the local dialect without distraction. His wordsmith distills and concentrates the essence of the characters and their circumstance. The senses are completely captured in a grand impressionistic manner, and the reader is led through the entire bandwidth of emotion, whether it is the outrageous comedy of a moonshine purchase in the mountains or the haunting sorrow of his mother’s illness. Whatever the emotion, TPD is an implicit and explicit reminder of the pain-of-living each of us endure, but to our detriment bury within the chaos and insanity of daily affairs. Robbins’ challenges the reader to examine the fragile restraints on their inner demons, and provides a short respite through this well-crafted diary to breathe the pheromones and boldly walk in their tender shadow.


Edward W. Woolery, Ph.D.
Engineering Seismology and Geophysics
University of Kentucky
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
101 Slone Research Building
Lexington, KY  40506-0053

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