It’s the title of one of Joyce Carol Oates’ most famous short stories. It’s also my question for anyone who might read this blog post:
Where are you going, where have you been?
We may think we know where we’re going, but events often turn out differently than expected, and our destination may not be the one we’d planned on. Where we’ve been, however, can be spoken of with a degree of certainty. We can look back and see where we’ve come from, survey our geographical and our artistic progress. We can pause for a moment on the journey and ask ourselves: Who are the artists who’ve shaped us — who’ve had a formative and lasting effect on our lives and our work?
I’d cite three crucial influences: Ellery Queen, the Marx Brothers, and the Beatles. All of them opened up doors. All of them led to other discoveries. All of them continue to have an effect on what I do and how I go about it. And all of them came into my ken when I was on the cusp of adolescence, when both our inner and outer worlds are in flux and changing daily. I’ve had great artistic passions as a grown-up, without a doubt, but these early encounters remind me of a line from one of Billy Bragg’s songs: “I’m more impressionable when my cement is wet.” They got to me early and they’ll be with me late.
The 1975-76 Ellery Queen television series featured the boyish, lanky Jim Hutton as Dannay and Lee’s eponymous sleuth. The appropriately bird-like David Wayne played Inspector Queen, Ellery’s father. The series led me to the novels and short stories that chronicle EQ’s crime-fighting exploits. From Ellery it was a short step to Christie and Chandler and Ellin and Blake and all the other marvelous writers I’ve studied, argued about, loved. Dannay and Lee’s influence on my own work is undeniable. My continuing fascination with EQ is witnessed by Blood Relations: The Selected Letters of Ellery Queen, 1947-1950 and my adaptation of Calamity Town, which premieres at the Vertigo Theater in Calgary early next year.
If Ellery Queen is the quintessence of rationality, the Marx Brothers stand for rationality’s complete and utter demolition. They are the supreme farceurs of the 20th century, in my opinion, and delightfully disconcerting. I mean, look at them: one is a flea-bitten Lothario in greasepaint mustache and waggling eyebrows; one sports a curly fright wig and an expression that veers alarmingly from the innocent to the concupiscent, all without a word being said; and the third is a sly, doe-eyed faux-Italian with a pointed cap and a penchant for an easy hustle and a bit of piano playing. (I’m leaving out Zeppo, the good-looking straight man, but he was always left out, anyway.) These wild men overturn conventions and undermine language in a surreal black-and-white world. Marvelous in and of themselves, they introduced me to their friends and collaborators: Harold Ross and The New Yorker crowd and the theater and film worlds of the 1920s and 30s, as well as inoculating me with a germ called “Manhattan.”
The Beatles…Well, what can one say that hasn’t been said before? Above all, they are sovereigns of the heart. I think of Kafka’s well-known description of what a book should be: “the axe for the frozen sea within us.” The Beatles’ music melted the frozen sea inside this listener; I’d argue it did the same for the rest of the world. Their work makes us more human, more capable of deep feeling, more open to experience and change. It’s a testament to the art of collaboration and to the value of hard work and belief in oneself. Their songs are, as a certain German composer once phrased it, an die Freude — an ode to joy. We continue to listen to them because their joy and ours are indissolubly wedded.
I’ve read a lot of mysteries since then, seen a lot of films and heard a lot of music. I’ve traveled many miles, geographically and artistically, since Ellery and Groucho and Harpo and Chico (and sometimes Zeppo) and John and Paul and George and Ringo shook my world to bits. Older if not necessarily wiser, I retain my enthusiasm for these artists. I wouldn’t be who I am today without them. I’m grateful to them, and for the many avenues of inquiry and exploration they’ve led me through.
So let me ask you:
Where have you been? Who are the artists who helped shape you, helped make you the writer you are today? I’d love to know.
Joseph Goodrich is the author of South of Sunset: Nine Plays and “Incident on Clinton Street,” which appears in the January/February 2016 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.