TETON AUTHOR'S BOOK ALREADY EYED FOR A MOVIE

Sandlin Returns, Sparkling, With Boomers Getting Old

By Todd Wilkinson, 1-24-07

There’s no getting around it:  We’re all going to die.

Yes, despite the forever-young defiance of we in the Baby Boom generation—and of our parents who raised us through the 60s, 70s, and 80s on Captain Kangaroo, Father Knows Best and Gunsmoke—we’re all going to join Janis, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Lennon, Harrison, Jimi and others (who have I missed) at the great Woodstock in the sky.

Or, if you prefer an ethereal soundtrack of Country-Western, then maybe your version of the hereafter involves two-stepping at a hoedown featuring Gram Parsons, Patsy, Hank Williams, and Elvis.

Before we go, though—before we acknowledge that the shocking physical appearance of aging rock-n-roll stars like Keith Richards is, to younger generations, a reflection of what WE are becoming in their eyes—we’re going to continue to fight the idea of growing old, boogying right on through our 50th class reunions.

We’re still going to dance—no one can stop us in spite of our kids rolling their eyes— if only we can still hear the music.

This, more or less, is the philosophical rumination behind Jackson Hole novelist Tim Sandlin’s new work, “Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty.”

In Hollywood, where there already are plans to turn it into a movie, it’s being compared to a blend of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest meets The Alamo and Cocoon. The Hendrix title alone—a device that Sandlin uses as a pill for deeper reflection—represents a comeback of the writer’s renowned and whacky comic voice that has given him a cult reputation within the American literary scene, joining others like his friends Larry McMurtry, John Nichols and Carl Hiassen.

Once a copy editor at the Jackson Hole News (and a restaurant dishwasher before that), Sandlin, an Oklahoman and rapidly approaching senior citizen, doesn’t fit any groupie mold but in the U.S. there is a loyal base of fans that call themselves “Sandlinistas” and include an impressive bunch of people, among them other authors, famous actors, grunge musicians, and, as Sandlin likes to confess, prison inmates. (In a nod to his friend, the actress, he writes in Drew Barrymore becoming governor of California).

“Hendrix” is laden with Sandlin’s distinctively eccentric and coarse take on the human condition but it also causes readers to pause. If there’s anything that makes Boomers nervous, it’s the forced pause associated with pondering the last beautiful sunset after feasting only on a diet of sunrises.

Before saying anything else here, it should be noted that there’s a lot of Jackson Hole influence in this book, though the setting is far away from the Tetons or the fictional Grovont where Sandlin based his characters in previous works—some of which wound up as big screen films.

In the same valley where Shane was filmed, Sandlin turned to levity in his Grovont Trilogy and the musings of the working underclass, some of them living in trailer homes, to tell stories which often brought into sharp focus the quiet lives of desperation that many in the real Jackson Hole lead compared to the trophy home owners who merely arrive to play there a few days each year.  “Skipped Parts” was a New York Times notable book.

Now Sandlin himself feeling profoundly existential.  Watch out.  In Hendrix, picture the year 2023.  The setting: A retirement facility outside San Francisco cleverly called “Mission Pescadero.” We accompany our senior citizen hero, Guy Fontaine, as he watches his fellow senescent, Viagra-taking hippies raging against the machine of their institutional handlers.  It doesn’t matter how much money you made:  No one gets out alive.

With this work, Sandlin has come down from his own mountain following a sabbatical as a screenwriter, a time when he got married and had a daughter late.  During that same time, he allowed the curly brunette locks on his crown to turn gray.  No “Just For Men” for him.

In the author’s note at the beginning, he writes:  “The only thing I know for certain is that this book will be true, someday.  Librarians of America will move it from fiction to nonfiction.”

What’s critical to know is that Sandlin went to a local nursing home in the Tetons to spend time with his own father, Red, who was diagnosed with dementia.  He watched the blur overtaking his dad happen to the point that all they knew and shared together became irrelevant.  How do you stand at the side of someone you love when they can’t understand why?

If there’s a Zen koan related to all of this, it’s the author’s and his characters’ epiphany that somewhere along the way, everyone, even Boomers, even old Jackson Hole ski bums, even former dishwashers from the Lame Duck Restaurant, have to grow up and ponder the end. 

For Boomers, our road to finding dignity has, in many ways, already been paved by our parents’ generation and we, in turn, are the highway maintenance crew for Xers, Echo Boomers and those youngsters charging forth hard though our tracks.
“I used to think fear of embarrassment made us do what we do.  Early on, writing the book, I assumed fear of losing control of our bodies and lives was the dominant directive,” Sandlin observes about his impetus in “Hendrix.” “That is important, yes, but after a month in the ‘living center,’ I changed my assumptions.  Old people are afraid of having their wants and needs TRIVIALIZED.  They are terrified of not mattering.  And, above all else, they hate being humored.”

That’s indeed a wake up call for a writer who has built his career and reputation on humor always being a salve for pain.

There’s a nice interview with Sandlin reachable by clicking here that brings us up to date on the course of his writing career, highlighting the projects on his horizon, and the reason for his own enlightenment.  You can also visit Sandlin’s website.

In an interview with Clayton Moore, Sandlin mentions one of his favorite modern writers: “Flannery O’Connor said for humor to be any good, it has to be about life and death.” “Hendrix” has plenty of both and in between offers Boomers the best of reasons to stop and pause.

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