Book Talk: Love and Corn and Whatnot
A look at the world's only book with the title Love and Corn and Whatnot
If what’s going on in my head counts, there’s a lot of excitement and anticipation building around the release of The Smalltown Way. Here’s a brief passage designed to pique your interest and perhaps interest your pique:
The new sales rep from WQWQ in Spalding was young, a communications major only a year out of college, and he’d been warned that Chuck Kelso would be a hard sell. The guy just doesn’t see the value in advertising, the old rep said, so you won’t want to waste a lot of time on him. “Challenge accepted,” said Chad LaSalle. On the last Wednesday in October LaSalle sold some spots to an upscale glass studio and a new tanning location in Greenetown, then parked on the main drag in Colby City and struck out at the hardware store and the Sweetpea Café.
“People from Spalding aren’t going to come down here for lunch,” said Betty Nolan, “and if they did I’d have to hire another cook. My mother is working her fingers to the bone the way it is.”
“Fair enough,” said LaSalle. “What do you know about this Kelso guy at the lumber yard?”
“He loves our banana cream pie.”
“I’ll take a piece to go.”
Chuck Kelso made the young guy for a sales rep as soon as he walked in the door and gave him sixty seconds to make his pitch. LaSalle put the pie and a plastic fork on the counter and Chuck amended the offer: “Or until this slice of pie is gone, whichever comes first.”
LaSalle introduced himself and claimed there was an undeniable correlation between lumber yard customers and sports fans which is why the WQWQ sports spot package was perfect for Colby City Lumber. “You guys carry the Illini?” asked Chuck.
“No, that’s WW-something or other, some station no one listens to. But—we carry the Bears right now and we’ll have the Cubs next baseball season. In fact, for the rest of the football season you can get a spot on the Bears games for next to nothing—and that’ll take you right through the Super Bowl.”
“Do you think I think the Bears are going to get within 50 miles of the Super Bowl?”
“I think you think there’s a lot of Bears fans within 50 miles of our transmission tower.”
“How many of ’em are just going to go to Spalding for lumber?”
“All of them if you don’t advertise on the Bears games. How’s the pie?”
“It’s good. You going to give Betty Nolan half your commission?”
Chuck buys the package and ends up doing the voiceover himself, and while he sees maybe a slight upturn in business he also learns to his dismay that his spots have been running on Mads McRight’s reactionary right-wing radio show. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Today I want to talk to you about Love and Corn and Whatnot, the sequel to Trombone Answers.
A Little History
As mentioned in the April 16 newsletter, Book Talk: Trombone Answers, back in 2003 I started working on what was either going to be a semi-autobiographical trilogy or a semi-autobiographical epic but which turned out to a semi-autobiographical hodgepodge of paragraphs that needed to be put into some sort of coherent form. Like a trilogy or an epic, for instance.
Trombone Answers helped get things in order by focusing on Parker Graham’s six years of junior and senior high. I knew he was going to an all-male college but that his experience was going to have to differ from Doug Larner’s in The Fraternity—so the first half of Love and Corn and Whatnot takes place at Plainsville College in Plainsville, Iowa.
I also knew that Parker didn’t know what to do after college—but in all the hundreds of thousands of words I wrote in that 2003-2010 brain dump, there was nothing that told us how Parker spent the time between Plainsville and his first advertising job. What to do, what to do.
Back in 1990 I had written a little memoir about my last season of detasseling corn, which you might have noticed has been refreshed, updated, and serialized here in this newsletter. I called it The Corn Stalks at Midnight because I amuse myself. The narrative was ripe for fictionalizing, so I made up some new characters, beefed up some real ones, and used this new story as the second part of Love and Corn and Whatnot.
The first part was called Plainsville. The second part was called The Corn Stalks at Midnight because, well, I already explained why. I’m considering taking the 13-part newsletter version of the factual memoir and offering it as a paperback.
The title of which will be The Corn Stalks at Midnight.
The Title
I considered Love and Cornstalks and also Trombone Sequel, which would have sucked. I settled on Love and Corn and Whatnot because Parker Graham and I both say whatnot a lot. (He says it six times in the novel, which is probably six or seven times short of overkill.)
What It’s About
The first half covers Parker’s four years of college, when he writes his first novel, rents a house with a bunch of new friends, has a bit of a falling-out with Joe Finley, dives into a long-distance romance, dives into a short-distance rebound relationship, and gets a surprise visit from Angie Allen. The second half covers a year of unemployment and disappointment and Parker’s ultimate decision to make some money detasseling corn. This section introduces two of my favorite characters, the incredibly laid-back bus crew foreman Slick Jeffcoat and the young detasseler Tim Garbach, who goes by the alias Spats McGee and talks like he’s in a Bowery Boys movie. Like The Fraternity and Trombone Answers, this novel is—say it with me—an episodic character study.
Favorite Passages
Well, since I just mentioned Spats McGee, here’s the scene where Parker meets him on the first day of detasseling:
The employment office in Kenniston was technically the unemployment office, one of two in Colby County. The building itself was decorated inside and out in a dozen shades of brown, presumably to tamp down the hopes and dreams of those who came to file a claim or put their name in for whatever jobs were available.
Collinswood found it easier to let the county office handle the applications for detasseling. Anyone with previous experience got the call, but first-timers were selected according to when their applications came to the top of the list. You don’t know who’s going to be a good detasseler till you get him in the field.
I arrived at 6:20 on Saturday morning and the place was already buzzing: Kids jammed in the office signing papers, kids spilling out onto the sidewalk and into the street, kids standing in a circle smoking, kids playing grab-ass. Lots and lots of grab-ass. It was a churning roiling madhouse of high school humanity, boys in AC/DC t-shirts and camouflage bandanas, girls in short shorts and tube tops. There were four buses for boys, three for girls, three crews per bus, twelve kids per crew—so downtown Kenniston was vibrating with the laughs and shrieks and general loudness of more than 200 high schoolers. I scanned the crowd and didn’t see Slick yet, so I squeezed inside the building and was amazed at the resourcefulness of the kids who had found a way to play grab-ass in such tight quarters. I heard a lot of shits and fucks—ah, the freedom of being away from the parents—but the best thing I overheard was some kid talking like a tough guy in a 1930s movie about juvenile delinquents: “So I says to this mug, I says ‘Hey, wise guy, keep your mitts off my dame, see?’” Impressive, I thought—some crew was going to be blessed or cursed with the class clown. I wedged my way to the front of the counter and picked up my crew roster and timecards, and this time the kid aimed his impression at me: “Look at this mug butting his way to the front of the line. Why, for two cents I’d give him what-for.” I turned around and saw a scrawny young man with a goofy smile. I shot him what I thought might be a semi-threatening grown-up look, and he picked right up on it. “Oh, hey, Father O’Brien. Didn’t see you there. Lovely morning, is it not?”
“It’s not bad. What’s your name?”
“Gee, Fadda, don’t you recognize me? Spats McGee, from the Bowery.”
“Oh, of course—Spats McGee. You know I had a roommate in college acted like a caveman for four years. But just to make sure Collinswood is paying the right person, your real name is what?”
The kid actually blushed. “Tim,” he said in a regular high school freshman voice. “Tim Garbach.”
I looked at my roster and was glad to see him on it. “Welcome to my crew, Spats. See you on the bus.”
Here’s a scene from early in the Plainsville section when Parker makes an attempt to join a fledgling jazz ensemble and finds it much different than what he was used to in high school:
On the way to my 11:20 class I stopped by the music department bulletin board and noticed a handwritten poster:
MUSICIANS WANTED FOR NEW JAZZ ENSEMBLE “STEP ON THE BEES”
CLASSROOM 2, CHAPEL BASEMENT
FIRST PRACTICE OCTOBER 11, 6:30 PM
NEED BRASS, SAX, VIBES
At six that evening I lubed up the slide and nailed a virtuoso version of the B-flat concert scale to show Doc I actually knew how to play trombone, then headed over to the chapel to riff with some other groovy jazz cats. There were six other groovy jazz cats in Classroom 2 when I got there, and none of them had put up the poster. “What’s up with ‘Step on the Bees’?” asked the guy with the trumpet.
“I assumed it was a reference to flatting the 7th,” said the guy plugging in his bass. I wished I’d thought of that.
“It’s meant to evoke a sense of going somewhere you might not have wanted to go,” came a voice from the doorway. Jansen Brock walked in with his massive intellect and a stack of pocket folders. “Sorry I’m late. To be honest, 6:30 is a little early for jazz but I didn’t want to take time away from my novel in progress. You—tall fellow—we do already have a bass player.
“How do you have a bass player if this is the first practice?”
“The bass player is one of the co-founders of the group but has not yet arrived. I should have said we didn’t need a bass player on the poster. Oh wait, I did.”
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah, sorry to have wasted your time. Everyone else, grab a stand and I’ll pass out some charts.”
The bass player unplugged his bass and his amp and let it be known to all the groovy jazz cats in the vicinity that this was bullshit and that the guy with the folders was an asshole. Step on the Bees was off to a great start. Jansen Brock was unfazed, even when the superfluous bass player stopped in the doorway and made the universal jackoff sign at him. I moved my stand next to the trumpet player as Jansen rolled the electric piano up and the real bass player strolled in and said he’d heard from a guy in the hall that this was where a colossal bunch of asswipe posers was gathering. Laughter from Brock, muted chuckles from the rest of us. “That guy probably thinks Lawrence Welk is jazz,” said Brock. He proceeded to pass out the folders and noted that we’d be playing a lot of Davis, Coltrane, Oliver Nelson, maybe some Blakey, maybe some Monk. “Any Glenn Miller?” I asked.
“Funny,” said Brock.
So no Glenn Miller, I gathered. And when I opened the folder I noticed that the charts were not the neatly-printed high school jazz band music I was used to but rather photocopies of photocopies of staff paper with cramped measures and notes that looked like they might have been scribbled down in a hurry by Miles Davis himself. “Let’s start with ‘Freddie Freeloader,’” said Brock, and without actually waiting for any of us to find that song among the dozens in the folder, counted us off at a tempo that seemed to indicate he was double-parked outside. When I found the song I was happy to see that in this particular arrangement the trombone part started with 32 measures of rest. I had, however, neglected to count the rests while searching for the music. It didn’t matter—Brock waved us off when the trumpet player didn’t come in and pointed out that the trumpet part was oh, a little bit important in a Miles Davis tune.
“You started before I found the music.”
“Or you didn’t find the music till after I started. You know what? Let’s find an easier chart. ‘Muscatine Shakedown,’ that’s one of mine, should be close to the top. Big trombone in this one—can you handle it, guy from my English class?”
“You can always trust a trombonist,” I said.
“That hasn’t been my experience, but oh well.”
And finally here’s the scene where Parker meets and falls hopelessly in love with Holly Christopher:
Papa Joe’s was virtually empty except for a biker couple in the booth by the door. The aroma of warm spices and garlic welcomed me and a sign invited me to seat myself. I sat in a corner booth under dim red lamplight. A man’s voice, gruff in the kitchen: “Customers! Move it!”
A girl popped through the swinging doors, looked to her left, and winked at me. “No customers out here, Dad.”
“I know I heard someone come in.”
“I think you’re hearing things.”
And then Papa Joe himself looked out from over the doors. I pressed myself into the back wall to prove the girl right; Papa Joe grunted and returned to his work. The girl came out, gave me a menu and a glass of water, and said “Dad, were you going to let this guy just sit out here?”
“You’re fired.”
“Good.” The girl sat across from me and explained that it had been a busy night. “It just let up,” she said. “We’re punchy and playing tricks on each other.”
“Nice trick,” I said. “That’s your dad?”
“Yes it is. I’m the Papa Joe’s heiress. Someday this will all be mine.”
“Excellent. How’s the gazpacho?”
I didn’t know where that came from. Gazpacho? I’d never eaten gazpacho in my life and only barely knew what it was. The girl narrowed her eyebrows and cocked her head, and the most amazing dimple formed in her cheek. “I already guessed you were a college boy, but that confirmed it. The question is, what year? Can I take a guess?”
“I’ll give you four guesses.”
“You’re definitely not a sophomore.”
“I definitely am.”
“Can’t be. The gazpacho joke is too subtle for anyone younger than a junior.”
“I could show you my ID.”
She tightened her lips and made a funny growling noise. “I believe you, but I usually never miss. So do you want gazpacho for real?”
“Do you actually serve gazpacho?”
“No.”
“Good, cause I don’t like it.”
“Tough, cause that’s what you’re getting.”
“You just said you don’t serve it.”
“Not yet,” she said, “but when I own this joint I’m turning it into Holly’s House of Gazpacho.”
“I’ll be your first customer. But for now I want a half stromboli and a Coke.”
“Chips?”
“Yes, please. Chocolate.”
“You got it.” She got up, banged through the swinging doors, and banged back out with her hand extended. “Holly Christopher.”
“Parker Graham.”
“Nice to meet you, Parker Graham.”
She disappeared into the kitchen again and I sat there thinking that every nerve in my body was on fire.
What Readers Think
To date this has been my only novel to be reviewed by an actual publication. Little Village, a monthly magazine out of Iowa City, had this to say:
Unfortunately, with the fourth novel I began to hear less and less about what readers think. Love and Corn and Whatnot was published in 2019 and has a grand total of two five-star ratings and one review. The review is pretty nice, though:
I’m a big fan of this author, and have enjoyed every book so far. Just finished this one, and the ending leaves me hoping we get to follow along on Parker Graham’s next adventure.
Yeah, not a whole lot of feedback on this one. So, tell you what I’m gonna do: For 20 clams I’ll send you a copy of Trombone Answers and Love and Corn and Whatnot. Shipping and handling is included and this offer is good in perpetuity unless postage rates go completely nuts.