Like any fiction writer worth his salt or pepper, Robin Hemley has a healthy disrespect for some of our most cherished institutions, whether cultural, academic or religious. That’s evident from his short story “The 19th Jew,” which treats both Notre Dame and Isaac Bashevis Singer with equal irreverence.
Coupled with his writing skills, Hemley’s nothing-sacred attitude brought him the $5,000 first prize in this year’s Nelson Algren Awards for Short Fiction. “Shocked and delighted” was the author’s reaction to the news that he was the big winner in the literary sweepstakes, sponsored annually by the Tribune since 1986.
“I love writing stories more than anything else,” said Hemley, a former Chicagoan who now lives and teaches in Bellingham, Wash. “But it’s so hard to get any recognition unless you win a major prize. This is definitely one.”
Irreverence also paid off generously for Matthew Iribarne of San Francisco, whose gently humorous portrait of a disenfranchised Catholic priest, “Make Them Laugh,” was one of the three $1,000 runners-up. The other two were Julia Glass of New York for her story “Pacific Time” and Sandra Gould Ford of Pittsburgh for “Sweetness.”
Glass’ prize was a victory for persistence as well as talent. She was a runner-up in 1993 for her story “My Sister’s Scar,” and has entered the contest every year since, though she failed to finish in the money again until now.
The four winning stories were chosen from some 1,500 entries by three judges: George Plimpton, author (“Paper Lion”) and editor of the Paris Review; Rosellen Brown, poet and novelist (“Before and After”); and novelist Richard Russo (“Nobody’s Fool”).
A Chicagoan at heart
Like Glass, Hemley had entered the Algren contest before, receiving encouragement for his stories but no prizes. He submitted his first story in 1982, the year the contest was started at Chicago magazine to honor the memory of the author of “The Man With the Golden Arm,” “The Neon Wilderness” and other books set in the saloons and gambling dens of Chicago’s Near Northwest Side. When the magazine abandoned the competition after four years, it was resurrected by the Tribune.
Though he has taught at Western Washington University in Bellingham since 1994, the 38-year-old Hemley said he still identifies with Chicago, where he lived from 1982 through ’86, teaching part time at the School of the Art Institute and writing free-lance articles.
Despite his early rejection in the Algren contest, Hemley, who has a master’s degree from the University of Iowa Writers School, kept producing fiction, publishing a novel, “The Last Studebaker,” and three collections of stories, “All You Can Eat,” “The Big Ear” and “The Mouse Town.”
Hemley was born in New York to a literary family. His father, Cecil, founded the Noonday Press and was later director of the Ohio State University Press. After his father’s death in 1966, Hemley settled in South Bend with his mother, Elaine, who taught English at Indiana University.
It was his youthful proximity to the University of Notre Dame that gave Hemley the setting–and the mischievous inspiration–for “The 19th Jew.” The main character, a renowned novelist frequently mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize, finds herself caught up in a comedy of academic politics and ill manners when she accepts a creative writing sinecure at Notre Dame.
Disclaiming any malice aforethought, Hemley said academia in general, and not Notre Dame, was the target of his wickedly accurate satire. “A lot of wonderful people teach at Notre Dame, but like any academic institution, there’s always going to be some maneuvering. Notre Dame seemed like the perfect place for the story.”
His characterization of Singer as an unpleasant and ungrateful womanizer is not so exaggerated, Hemley said. That impression comes from the experiences of his parents, who were translators and editors for the revered Singer. “I don’t think I’m making any revelations,” he said. “He was a bit of a lech.”
Iribarne’s human priest
Iribarne’s portayal of a befuddled and dissolute priest in “Make Them Laugh” won’t come as a scandalous revelation, either. Rather than a priestly stereotype, Iribane’s Father Harry is all too human–after drinking seven glasses of whiskey and crashing into the back of a police car he’s exiled from a comfortable, “well-moneyed” parish to one that’s financially destitute.
The incident was based on one that happened in his hometown of Sacramento, Calif., said Iribarne, 31, a onetime altar boy whose father was a Catholic school principal. “Being a priest is an especially lonely profession. It’s easy to cast stones, but I wanted to humanize the priest and his situation . . . to put some humor in the story.”
“Make Them Laugh” was Iribarne’s first submission to the Algren contest. A graduate student in creative writing at San Francisco State University, he has published work in a department chapbook, but the prize story will be his first to reach a large audience when it appears in a special edition of Tribune Books on Sept. 29, along with the three other winners.
Humans and animals
Comedy, human and otherwise, is a distinctive feature of Glass’ prizewinner, “Pacific Time.” The heroine is a New Hampshire veterinarian who makes house calls, while also assuming the duties of a shaman and priest as she treats a garrulous Amazon parrot suffering from separation anxiety and “purple-rinsed poodles on ayurvedic diets.” All the while, the vet has a bad case of romantic disaffection.
Calling herself “too squeamish” to be a veterinarian, the 40-year-old Glass is a professional writer, freelancing out of New York and specializing in stories about pets. For two years in the late ’80s, she was the monthly “Animal Love” columnist for Glamor magazine.
“Pacific Time” originated with a magazine assignment, for which she spent a day with a veterinary “behaviorist,” making house calls to attend disturbed pets. “There’s definitely a comic aspect to immersing yourself in animal behavior, because people project an amazing amount of their own motivations and emotions into the animals they live with. Inadvertently, that can be humorous, but it’s also very sad.”
Glass, a native of Boston who has a degree in painting from Yale, expects the second Algren award to stimulate her story production. “The way in which I was wined and dined and given formal recognition moved me a lot,” she said about the awards ceremony three years ago. “I came home just full of new energy.”
More good news
For Ford, the Algren award comes as a second jolt of energy. Just before learning she’d won a prize for her story, “Sweetness,” Ford, who has a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh, sold her first novel, “Popcorn,” to Crown for publication late in 1997.
Even though she has a book contract and has had five other stories published in literary magazines, Ford said the Algren prize represents a crucial validation of her abilities as a fiction writer. “You grow up with the idea that you need to get a real job. It looks as if writing may be my real job. At least I’m going to make a leap of faith.”
Before deciding to make that leap, Ford, 47, tried a variety of other real jobs, including office work in a steel mill. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, she’s also a textile artist, a photographer and a founder of Shooting Star Productions, a non-profit organization that promotes black cultural achievements.
Her prizewinning story, “Sweetness,” follows 34-year-old Babette on a journey from the Pittsburgh area to Missississpi, where she picks up a Thunderbird left to her by a great aunt. Unable to drive, she’s chauffeured home by Boll Weevil, claiming his affections as well as the vintage auto.
“I felt strongly about that particular story,” said Ford. “There are so many stories out there that show black men struggling in a demoralizing context. I wanted to create a love story with a black male who would overcome through quiet strength.”
Gould and the three other winners of Algren prizes will be honored at the Tribune’s annual awards dinner Sept. 25. The ceremony will also recognize the recipients of the Heartland Prizes for fiction and non-fiction books, to be announced next month.
