Oltre il fiume

by J. R. Moehringer

Overview

Mary Lee è fatta di cerchi. Il suo corpo è tondo, la sua faccia è tonda, il suo fiume è tondo. Nella vita di Mary Lee tutto è tondo, perché è solo alla fine di qualcosa - un secolo, una storia, una frase - che ne comprendi veramente l'inizio. Mary Lee sta sulla riva del fiume di Gee's Bend e aspetta. Spera che il traghetto non arrivi, ma se arriverà, ci salirà. Tremerà perché non sa nuotare e non riesce a dimenticare le molte volte in cui ha attraversato questo brutto fiume marrone solo per trovare ancor più bruttezza sull'altra riva. Ma la paura non ha mai vinto contro Mary Lee, e non c'è fiume che possa fermarla. Anche se questa mattina il suo pensiero giusto le dice che qualcosa è in arrivo, qualcosa di grosso. Forse un traghetto. Forse la morte. Forse la fine del suo santuario sul fiume, l'unica casa che abbia mai conosciuto. Sembra tutto sempre lo stesso qui a Gee's Bend, in Alabama. Qui la guerra civile è arrivata e se n'è andata, ma gli schiavi sono rimasti, e i loro figli, e i loro nipoti, e i pronipoti, e così via, fino a oggi. Qui si sono fatti conquistatori. Sono sopravvissuti ai padroni, si sono ripresi le piantagioni e ne hanno ricavato di che vivere in splendido isolamento: una grande famiglia unita dagli stessi pochi nomi e dallo stesso pugno di leggende. In parte è il fiume stesso a isolarli, in parte è una questione di personalità. Ma sono soprattutto i bianchi ad aver fatto il possibile per tenerli separati, più segregati di una colonia di lebbrosi. E adesso, all'improvviso, vogliono portare a Gee's Bend un traghetto nuovo fiammante. Come Dio, il fiume è qualsiasi cosa ne dica chi lo ama o chi lo teme: selvaggio e calmo, crudele e gentile. Si muore molte volte nel corso di una vita, e Mary Lee sa che ogni morte è un'illusione.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788858512333
Publisher:	EDIZIONI PIEMME
Publication date:	10/21/2014
Sold by:	EDIZIONI PIEMME - EBKS
Format:	eBook
File size:	775 KB
Language:	Italian

About the Author

J. R. Moehringer has an old-fashioned flair for infusing potentially hard-boiled subject matter with humanity and pathos. This gift was first evident in "Resurrecting the Champ," an article which originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times Magazine. The article detailed Moehringer's attempts to track down former boxing champ "Battlin'" Bob Satterfield. However, percolating just beneath the surface of this "where-are-they-now" sports story was an issue much closer to Moehringer's heart: the gnawing need to locate the father that abandoned him as a boy. The resulting story not only became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, but it also gained the attention and accolades of everyone from Chris Jones of Esquire to Katie Couric of The Today Show.

With the publication of Moehringer's first book, it is clear that his journey remains ongoing. The Tender Bar is a memoir that finds Moehringer digging deeper into his own past with yet another decidedly masculine backdrop, the local tavern. Moehringer writes about Dickens Bar in Manhasset, Long Island, with a rhapsodic affection that conjures a setting more akin to a family living room than a haven for drunken carousing and televised ball games. He portrays the various barflies as colorful fountains of homespun wisdom, reserving a special fondness for Steve, the owner of Dickens who provided a sanctuary for the drunks in Moehringer's neighborhood. In fact, in the wake of the meltdown at Three-Mile Island in 1979, several patrons even called Steve to find out if they could use the airtight basement of Dickens as a makeshift fallout shelter.

Moehringer found his own sanctuary at Dickens at a young age, long before he could even utilize the pub for its intended purpose. Instead, he found a home where the various rummies served as stand-ins for his absent father, who is merely a phantom-like presence in the book. He speaks of his disc jockey dad as a disembodied voice over the radio, and young Moehringer spent many hours with a radio pressed against his ear in a futile attempt to connect with the father that left him. However, at Dickens, Moehringer found a group of men who welcomed the boy into their world and supplied him with their own brand of woozy fathering. Colorful characters with names like Colt and Joey D. (not to mention Moehringer's own Uncle Charlie) guided him through his young life, functioning as the various components of the male role model he so desperately needed.

As Moehringer grew older and faced challenges that he never dreamed of as a boy, Dickens would continue to serve its chief function for him as a refuge with a built-in ramshackle family. The Tender Bar is no mere sugar-coated tale of drunks with hearts-of-gold, though, and the sweetness is often underlined with the bitter realities of both bar life and modern life. The story's climax set on September 11th, 2001, plants the fantasy world at Dickens firmly and tragically back into Earth.

The complexity and pure readability of The Tender Bar certainly has not escaped critics, whom are already hailing this memoir as "funny, vivid, and clever" (The Washington Post) and recognizing that "listening to Moehringer's soothing voice is like basking in the glow of a barroom storyteller-not the one who shouts to be heard over the din, but the one whose story is good enough to make everyone keep it down." (Publisher's Weekly).

Moehringer has assuredly survived the ups and downs of his unconventional upbringing, winning the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 2000, and continuing to work as a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. With the highly praised publication of The Tender Bar he may very well find himself playing a role for his own readers not unlike that of his boozy benefactors back at Dickens: a storyteller with a gift for making the world seem a little less lonely.

Hometown:

Denver, Colorado

Date of Birth:

December 7, 1964

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

B.A., Yale College, 1986

Website:

http://www.thetenderbar.com