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"Tales From The Levee" by Martha Miller
by J. Peter Bergman
EDGE Entertainment Contributor
Thursday Nov 10, 2005
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Martha Miller’s collection of stories,
comprising a loosely knit novel, is a dark and sordid
compilation of moments from the lives of the denizens of
Springfield, Illinois Fifth Street Levee between the years of
1965 and 1976. Mostly they are discontented lesbians,
floundering through a rough world of half-fulfilled dreams and
semi-precious relationships. Depressed people with troubled
personal histories, they all want the same things that everyone
wants: someone to love and be content with for as long as
possible.
Yet there are too many obstacles to this potential happiness.
The outside world, for one thing, seems intent on keeping these
people on their toes, always wary, always incapable of
completion. For our “heroine,” the butch nurse, Casey, who runs
away from home to join this dingy world of bars and bikers,
there seems to be no end to the sadness. In one tale, pursued by
her mother, she is forced to face the dishonesty of her own
world when confronted by the “straight” world she has left
behind. In another, in love with a straight waitress, she has to
undertake the challenge of ridding herself of the emotional
wastes that hold her back like the fierce undertow in the river
that flows past the cityscape.
Throughout the book there is the constant threat of demolition.
On the outskirts of this private place, there is the greater
community of Springfield that’s determined to clean up this
street of gay bars, lesbian hangouts, flophouse hotels and
whorehouses. The wrecking ball is rarely more than a building or
two away. It takes down buildings and possibilities at the same
time. It alters, irrevocably, the future for these women and
men.
Miller does a brilliant job of bringing this half-lit area alive
and alight. She shines her flashlight on the faces beneath the
faces. We learn to see into the hearts of Helen and Ella, of
Casey and Smokey, Miss Pauline and Chenille. When death - either
of natural causes or through the murderous hands of a trick
turned evil - walks among this crowd it leaves in its wake the
emotional tenderness most of the inhabitants of the book would
rather not admit to having in their systems. The beauty of her
writing is the simplicity with which both sides of these
characters are drawn.
Each chapter is a free-standing tale, not dependent on the
others for clarity. Each one is a year after the previous story.
We can watch, through these momentary glimpses into the lives of
the principals and their friends and acquaintances, the growth
and decay of the people and their places. The Levee District
crumbles and some of our favorite people fade away, but through
it all there is the hope that Casey and Sonny and Scout and Miss
Pauline will all find some way out of the mess their world has
become.
The opening story, entitled “End of an Era” sets the mood for
what follows. Then, among the highlight tales in this
compilation there are the story of “Lady Verushka’s Lover”, the
legend of “Tinkerbelle’s Shiner” and the honest horrors of
“Levee Murder, Halloween” in 1975. Each of these particular
pieces present moments that are unforgettable, beautifully
written and lovingly presented. Miller, who it seems must have
known these people or their prototypes, gets under the skin of
her characters and makes them real, more so in these four
stories than in some of the others.
Having lived through this era, albeit in New York City where
things were a bit different, every aspect of it rings true.
Miller has captured the era and its people, its language and its
closeted attitudes perfectly. Although mainly concerned with the
lives of a group of Lesbians and their drag-queen friends, the
concepts, morals and ideals of this group are easily extended in
the opposite direction. There is an honest resonance of the
lives of gay men in the same period. I know. I remember.
“Tales From the Levee” by Martha Miller is an excellent choice
for the older gay reader who may well relive some of his or her
own experiences as well as for the younger readers who will
discover for themselves what made their mentors into the people
they are today. It’s a must-have kind of book.
Southern Tier Editions, Harrington Park Press, New York, London,
Oxford. 2005. 168 pages. $16.95 (paperback)
J. Peter Bergman is a journalist and
playwright, living in Berkshire County, MA.
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New
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