This week marks the second anniversary of the passing of one of the great young talents in American letters: the New York publisher Elizabeth Maguire, who died of ovarian cancer April 8, 2006, at the age of 47.
In the world of literature, online or hard cover, it’s the authors who get most of the glory. Whenever a new work of fiction, or biting blog or undercover investigation of government/corporate folly creates a stir, the owner of the byline will make the rounds on the talk show circuit or book tour. But behind every great author is a muse with a fat red pencil (or computer mouse) in hand and Strunk and White committed to memory. Behind every great author is a nudge, and a passionate lover of words and books, a companion in the author’s mind’s eye—one who can nurture beauty and cadence, and intellectual discipline.
Liz was such a conjurer. Her alchemy with the works of Richard Brookheiser, Henry Louis Gates, Michael Novak and Michael Eric Dyson, to name just a few, produced a small library of books notable for their affinity to both sides of the political spectrum and, more importantly, for their call to justice and continuing investigation of our modern “green shoots of culture.”
Liz knew that, in the words of a popular song, you can’t have a dream and cut it to fit. Creativity for creativity’s sake, or in pursuit of mere innovation without a firm handle on the gear shift, leads to mush—artistically and practically. Liz steered a steady but righteous course for her authors and their readers worldwide.
It was said that Maguire was the quintessential New Yorker—an Irish-Italian girl from the Bronx who loved martinis, the publishing business, and her partner, Karen. So, one might ask: why should San Jose’s citizens remember her?
One answer is that her work exemplifies how innovation can come from just one individual and impact an entire country. Isn’t this what Silicon Valley applauds? A second answer, for me, is that she reminds me of a man I never knew: Leonard McKay. Reading Leonard’s histories, I came to know and understand better why San Jose is San Jose—why its unique community could produce invention and innovation and how a guy like Andrew P. Hill could use a new technology called photography to invent a new style of environmental advocacy.
Andrew P. Hill was an audacious man and Leonard McKay allowed us to renew our hope in his audacity. On the right coast, Liz also instilled in those who knew her and in those who read the works of the authors whom she loved and represented, the audacity of hope, way before the current election season coined that phrase into a mere slogan.
When I was a college freshman, Liz had a way of convincing this working class kid from Arizona to build sets for a main stage production of John Dos Passos’s “USA” (notwithstanding the fact I hadn’t a clue that “main stage” was not a cowboy’s choice for traveling or that Dos Passos was from Illinois, not Mexico). I suspect she cast similar spells on her authors, most notably in the area of African-American studies. The impact of their scholarship and work, and the powerful voices of writers such as Gates, Dyson and Cornel West are now being played out in the body politic as we witness the public colloquy between Obama and Clinton. McCain is on the sidelines, and will be unless he also joins Liz’ invitation to her community of literary scribes to examine the shoots of culture and exhort a path toward justice.
So here’s to Leonard McKay, whose histories are sorely missed even by newcomers who never knew him, and to Liz Maguire and her adventuresome editorial choices. They did not know each other but their choice of subject matter—Leonard’s innovative pioneers, Liz’s selection of unusual choristers like Brookheiser and Dyson, Gates and Novak—predicted not only the cadence of our contemporary debates, but the lyric to which they have always been anchored. Perhaps November will reveal the next chapter of their discourse.
Marcela Davison Aviles is the President and CEO of the Mexican Heritage Corporation and Executive Producer San Jose International Mariachi Festival. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Marcela,
Unlike You,Jack and many others, who are well read, I take my lifes leasons from the very nature of life. Since a child, I wondered the vast orchards and hedge rows of this perfect valley. My Father was a man who could make the harvest bountiful by his methods of nurturing the vines, fruit trees, and vast fields of row crops. He could make water run up and over burms. He understood capilary action and knew why and how to achieve this phenomemum.
I was blessed by him to follow in his foot steps. I roamed every creek and river of our valley. Climbed every summit on either side of our valley’s crests. There are volumes upon volumes of chronicals all permantetly stored in my memory of this life and Valley.
There are symponies never heard that originated in the Deep Forests of our coastal redwood forest to the west. Many yet unwrittened.
Leonard Mckay was the keeper of the present past. He captured the sprit, that we would not loose touch with our sence of being.
Leonard and I felt the tug of shareing our sprit with those that failed to venture out into the unknown.
I have been blessed with being a board member of Sempervirens Fund for the past 20 years. Hardly seems possible! I only woke up to that fact weeks ago as I updated my bio. There is no place on earth like our Coastal Redwood Forests. As a child I had a special tree that I shared my secret thouhts and ideas with. This tree is still there for me. It was the only permanence for me in my family’s farm working life.
The Aztecs knew the value of their forests and elevated the gardians of the forest to high priesthood. Perhaps we that whisper to the trees are blessed to live forever in the 2000 + year old giants that remain uncut. So it is with my profession as a founder of alloys in bronze, that I achive permanence to my life. My father used water , while I use liquid bronze to achive my creative goals.
Like Leonard, we looked for a place where we could satisfy our need for life, order and safety in something of permanance. With in my universe there are hundreds of synphonies and volumes of thought yet unchronicaled.
I invite you to journey into our deep forests of our coastal redwoods and find a friend perhaps 300 years old, and whisper your secrets and asperarions too. Sit there for a time and listen to the music of the water, birds and insects all around you. Marvel at the mathmatics of nature, and take nothing but your new found sence of life back with you.
Thank You for this inspration of thoughts to share this day. A Tree Whisperer.
The Village Black Smith
The Village Black Smith is a poet of rare quality and his friend, Leonard, would be proud of this post. It’s a fine one. TMcE