Sellick Hart is a former welder who wrote
formulaic romance novels for a paycheck on the side. A kindly dean at the local
community college hired him to teach creative writing after reading a newspaper
profile on the author. Hart, who’s accustomed to wielding a torch under bridges
in freezing cold weather, appreciates the good fortune of bumbling into his
academic gig. He also realizes its inherent contradiction: his students are in
school to further themselves, to get out of bad jobs and bad situations, “to
not be” whatever they are any more. Judging them on the short stories they
write—often based on their own lives—won’t get them hired. There’s nothing to
do but present ideas the best he can, and offer encouragement.
As Hart teaches, he nurses a flirtation with a bartender at his local bar who
doubles as his student. He maintains a relationship with his mom, hangs out
with an ex-NFL player friend who has just gotten out of jail, and pecks away at
a novel. Not a romance novel written under an assumed name, but a literary
novel about people like himself and the students he teaches. Hart says “the
places where most Americans work are the least likely to appear in novels” and
yearns to honestly portray those Americans whose voices are underrepresented.
In the midst of this, a student uses a handgun to kill himself in one of Hart’s
classes.
Dave Newman’s writing on class issues is never self-congratulatory, and never
feels forced. I get the sense that he’s writing what he knows, like Sellick
Hart. And it’s not just class that Newman writes about, either: watching Hart
sink into the depths of depression following the classroom suicide is a stark
treatise on the realities of depression, repressed trauma, and self-delusion.
All of this is delivered in an imminently readable style. His prose is unfussy but
scattered throughout are great lines, gems which made me put the book down and
catch my breath; no shit.
East Pittsburgh Downlow is the second
of Newman’s books I’ve read (the excellent Two
Small Birds was the first). I teach at a community college, so it’s no
surprise that the ideas of students attending “to not be” resonates with me.
But the weary sympathy in his particular brand of realism offers a sense of hope
in the face of struggle even to those outside of the academic racket. Dave
Newman’s work has a huge heart and is worth seeking out. –Michael T. Fournier
(J. New Books, jnewbooks.com)