His season in the sun
Dow Mossman wrote 'The Stones of Summer' 31 years ago, but his book tour has just begun
CAMBRIDGE -- Puffing a cigar, novelist Dow Mossman sits for an hour by the Charles River, talking about his long exile from the literary scene and his serendipitous rediscovery. "I don't think I've caught up with the reality of it yet," he says. "It's pretty unreal."
Mossman is 60. His only novel, "The Stones of Summer," was published in 1972 and then went out of print forever, or so he thought. Thirty-one years passed as he lived quietly in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But now "The Stones of Summer" is in bookstores nationwide, republished by Barnes & Noble booksellers. Close to 100,000 copies are in print, and Mossman is touring the country, reading and signing books before large audiences.
It is an almost unreal story. Thirty years ago, Mossman was an intense graduate student at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, grappling with his sprawling autobiographical tale of childhood, youth, family, and the state of Iowa. After years of struggle, he finished the novel, and it was published in hard-cover by Bobbs-Merrill. Despite a positive review in The New York Times Book Review and a brief paperback life, it sank from sight, and so did Mossman's literary dreams.
Filmmaker Mark Moskowitz had begun reading "The Stones of Summer" when he was 18 but had not finished it. At age 45, he picked up his tattered copy again and read it, enjoyed it, and wondered what had happened to the author. His semi-obsessive search for Mossman was the subject of his acclaimed independent film, "Stone Reader," released last winter. In the movie, Moskowitz searches for months, all over the country, and finally locates the novelist, still living in the Cedar Rapids house he grew up in.
That might have been The End, except for Stephen Riggio, vice chairman and chief executive officer of Barnes & Noble booksellers.
Riggio saw "Stone Reader" in New York and was so taken with the Mossman story that he invested $200,000 to distribute the film and paid Mossman $100,000 for the rights to republish the novel under Barnes & Noble's own imprint. He arranged for copies of the film to be sent to Barnes & Noble stores, which he says fired up the managers' enthusiasm for the book. The book came out in October, distributed not only to Barnes & Noble stores but to independent stores as well. Full-page ads appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and other papers in cities where Mossman was to appear on his tour.
It's a unique triangle. Barnes & Noble's financial contribution and Mossman's tour have sustained interest in the film (although Moskowitz says, via e-mail,"I'm still catching up to zero, but expect over time to come out alive.") Barnes & Noble exclusively is selling a special one-disc DVD version of "Stone Reader" for $17.95, along with the novel. (In February, a triple-DVD version, with much added material, will be generally available.) The film, in turn, won several awards and got great reviews, which created buzz in advance of Mossman's tour and bolstered Barnes & Noble's marketing of his book.
A special case
Barnes & Noble has been a publisher for years, mostly of how-to books, coffee-table books, and paperback editions of classic authors. But "The Stones of Summer" is its first hard-cover literary novel. Since the retailer is the publisher, it can hold the price low ($19.95) and capture the bulk of the retail business.
While some publishing analysts wonder whether this is an opening salvo in Barnes & Noble's attempt to take more control of publishing, Riggio calls it a special case.
"This book stood apart," he says in a telephone interview. "We plan to continue to publish out-of-print books, and because of our success with `Stones of Summer,' we are getting many submissions, mostly from our store managers. But I don't think the magic of the movie and the book together is something we can repeat." So far, he says, the book "is doing very well."
Publishers are loath to say anything negative about their biggest retail customer getting into the publishing act, but they're not worried. Macy's has its own line of shirts, but it will never put Ralph Lauren out of business.
However, some independent bookstores are a bit miffed at putting a Barnes & Noble book on their shelves. Most of those interviewed say they have shrugged and ordered a few copies.
"You grin and bear it," says Sanj Kharbanda, manager of WordsWorth Books in Cambridge.
"Do we like it? No," says Frank Kramer, owner of Harvard Book Store, "but it wouldn't be in our interest not to carry it."
Dana Brigham, co-owner of Brookline Booksmith and Wellesley Booksmith, says, "It is awkward. If we buy it, we are shopping at our competitor." Her solution? "In Wellesley," she says, "we have some on the shelf, but we put a store sticker over the Barnes & Noble name."
None of this matters to Mossman.
"The point of my story is, `Don't say never,' " he says. "It's banal but true. I was 25 years beyond imagining that this would ever come back. But it came back."
`It's like sculpture'
He grew up in Cedar Rapids, went first to Coe College, then finished his bachelor's degree at the University of Iowa. While still in his teens, he wanted to be a novelist. By the time he went to the prestigious Writers' Workshop, he says, "I was totally driven. . . . My idea of writing a novel is, you get the biggest pile of clay you can and start carving. It's like sculpture." Some readers have found the result to be a challenging read. The book is long -- 586 pages -- poetical, and relatively plotless.
Like many writers "totally driven" to write a first novel, he couldn't write another. He was married and living in New York, and in 1978 he and his wife (they were divorced eight years ago) moved back to Cedar Rapids to start a family. Mossman got a job as a shop welder. He kept that job for 20 years, shaping, forging, and fabricating heavy equipment. "I loved welding," he says, until the work became more of a mindless assembly line. Before that happened, he was truly building things: "stainless-steel scale systems, bucket elevators, all kinds of conveyers."
He dabbled at writing but published nothing, and turned increasingly to reading. After 1975 he began to read more nonfiction, especially social history, though he was steeped in such classic authors as Shakespeare, Balzac, and Conrad.
"He was extremely literary," says mystery novelist Ed Gorman of Cedar Rapids, one of Mossman's close friends for 40 years. "If somebody said to him, `Do you watch this TV show?' No. `Ever read any popular novels?' No. He only wanted to read first-rate art. Over the years, I introduced him to such writers as Charles Bukowski, John Fante, and Graham Greene. In turn, he introduced me to writers such as Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Giacomo Casanova, and Emile Zola. He's the brightest guy I've ever known and certainly the most talented."
In the early 1980s his sons were born -- Finn and Asa, now 24 and 22 -- but his relationship with them suffered when his marriage broke up. "I was hoping this whole thing might help out," he says. "So far it hasn't happened. I've heard my younger son's a better writer than I ever hoped to be. I was happy to hear that. I hope it's true." His father died in 1996, and after that, Mossman says, he began to write again -- a memoir of his father, also an autobiographical piece he calls "The Crank," and a collection of short poems. He's now "semi-retired," with some income from renting several houses he inherited from his father. "I know how to live on nothing," he says. "If I've got a place to sleep and something to eat, and my motorcycle is running, I'm happy." Now, of course, he has his book advance.
He flew to New York to begin his tour -- his first flight in 30 years -- but since then has been traveling by car, to Philadelphia, Bethesda, Md., then Boston. After returning home, he was to go to Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Colorado, all by car. And where he's going, there are strangers who know his name. In Bethesda, he was shocked to hear that a professor had taught "The Stones of Summer" in a graduate seminar.
"I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me," Mossman says. "It's a happy tale. I was frustrated for a lot of years, but I was reading. Writer's block doesn't mean you're trading your brain in. I was in the game, in my own way."
David Mehegan can be reached at mehegan@globe.com.
