Earth as It Is in Heaven

THE BOOK: Earth as It Is in Heaven

PUBLISHED IN: 2016

THE AUTHOR: Karl Elder

THE EDITOR: Rob Pockat, Signe Jorgensen

THE PUBLISHER: Pebblebrook Press

SUMMARY: In dialect quite unlike any other, a xenophobic teenager reveals the story of his destiny begun when he confesses under the spell of his one-room schoolhouse teacher and surrogate mother that he possesses memory of the future. Only a crazy, he fears, would believe what he knows to be true, that he will become the world’s best three-cushion billiard player, despite that he has never seen such a table in his life. For now, he must endure calamity—magnified by an array of wearisome paranormal gifts, including that of a somnambulist who draws in his sleep—in his rural community, where mayhem and miracles abound, moving him into the role of witness and reluctant disciple of a new religion espousing an ecological ethic.

THE BACK STORY:

From an interview conducted by Gina Covelli:

G: As far as process goes, you have all these books that inspired you, how did you put this together. It started back in the 80s when you wrote the first draft.

K: There’s not much that changed from the first draft. Not much at all. [The changes] had to do with making the language consistent afterwards. The storyline itself, very little change from the 80s. I found, completely by accident, the first note I took – what I believe to be the germ of Earth as It Is in Heaven. It’s on the back of a small piece of letterhead from my first job in Missiouri in the late 70s, which probably means I had been kicking the novel around in my head for five or six years before I began it in earnest. I can only remember one change. I added a joke. I thought of it when I was reading a passage to a class one day. For me it’s the funniest line in the whole damn novel. I prefer not to say what that is. But for me, personally, it was, “Why didn’t I think of this earlier!”

G: Was it a story line you mapped out or was it something that came very organically?

K: Organic. The underpinnings of the story involve life experiences that are like little platforms and I jump off of that platform onto another thing. I’ll give you an example. When I was 12 years old, I spent a lot of time in the summer riding my bicycle around town. The town was only 650 people and I know all the streets, and one day I’m about two blocks from my house, and I see a car I’ve never seen before and the car is moving, not parking. And a few minutes later, I see the car again, and it’s still moving. That’s the impetus for the Corvair the narrator sketches [in the novel]. Because there was, in this little town, a bank robbery. So I hear about the bank robbery, and of course I’m like every other kid, I don’t have anything else to do, I go to see what’s going on at the bank. In fact I may have heard the alarm, but I can’t say for sure because with this particular bank, the alarm was known to go off on its own. But I’m standing out there with a bunch of other people outside the bank, and all of a sudden this guy comes out of the bank. He’s wearing a three-piece suit. And he wants to know if anyone’s seen a strange car. He’s the FBI. So they took me into the bank and they had paint samples of cars and he wanted me to pick it out. I picked it out even though I’m somewhat color blind. But back then, there weren’t that many shades of silver. It’s little things like that in my experience. I do know this, though: it was my dream to create a story with a female Christ figure.

WHY THIS TITLE? No other title could serve.

WHY SOMEONE WOULD WANT TO READ IT: The novel defies classification in that it is a blend of genres: a story of initiation, magical realism, mystery, suspense, new age, and character-driven literary fiction.

REVIEW COMMENTS:

“A parable of religious mysticism that’s part love story and part mystery, with a touch of rural hijinks, Karl Elder’s new novel is a welcome addition to the list of titles from one of Wisconsin’s top poets.

“The Jacob and Lucile Fessler Professor of Creative Writing and Poet in Residence at Lakeland College, Elder has received national recognition for his unique and highly skilled achievements in complex poetic forms. His first novel displays the same experimental streak as his poems and shares a similar metaphysical bent.

“Written in first-person narrative, Earth as It Is in Heaven: An Aural Novel chronicles the religious evolution of Charles “Stick” Cousins, as cultivated by the woman who is his teacher and spiritual mentor, Luda Corvus. The revelatory energy and pace of the novel work to make the reader an accomplice/witness to the miracles that gradually accumulate, leading to transformations in Cousins, Corvus, the town, and potentially the reader.

“The novel is written in a dialect of Elder’s invention, which could have been a huge distraction. While familiar enough for the average reader to understand, it took me the first twenty pages to adjust to the speech patterns. As an aural novel in which the sound of the language is emphasized, the rhythm of the dialogue is as important as the plot.

“Here one of the locals swears Cousins to secrecy before revealing a secluded beaver dam inhabited by dream-like creatures no one else can see:

“Old Cro-Magnon Man, he stops real sudden-like and he turns to me. He looks me square in the eye. He says, ‘They say you ain’t told a lie in your life, Stick.’

“Well, I sure never heared that. And ifing they was voting—whoever ‘they’ is—I s’pose I’d’ve elected to stay home on account of I never known what the truth is most times.” 

“Elder’s storyline itself seems almost subservient to the evolution of character enlightenment occurring throughout the book, existing at times only to serve the novel’s concept of transcendence.

“Stick” Cousins’ guileless transparency of character ultimately makes him the perfect witness to and innocent collaborator with Luda Corvus’ evolution of self into selfless, and the transformation of their small town’s patch of earth into “earth as it is in heaven.”

“With references to early TV, pocket transistor radios, and a “new” restaurant called McDonald’s, the setting is a small town during the 1950s. Yet it feels like rural 1920s, conjuring 1950s noir novelist Jim Thompson’s tale of dustbowl Oklahoma, Cropper’s Cabin, and the poetic short novels of Richard Brautigan, which are spiritual, surreal, imagistic, whimsical and at times gentle.

“Much of Elder’s poetry is minimalist, stripping the world down to a few objects that symbolize another world behind that which the objects inhabit. It’s a technique Elder handles well in his poems, and he uses it to advantage here in Earth as It Is in Heaven. Like his complex and masterful poems, Karl Elder’s first foray into fiction deserves attention.

Review by Michael Kriesel, Poetry Editor of Rosebud

AUTHOR PROFILE: Karl Elder is Lakeland University’s Fessler Professor of Creative Writing and Poet in Residence. Among his honors are the Christopher Latham Sholes Award from the Council of Wisconsin Writers; a Pushcart Prize; the Chad Walsh, Lorine Niedecker, and Lucien Stryk Awards; and two appearances in The Best American Poetry. His most recent books of poems are Gilgamesh at the Bellagio from The National Poetry Review Award Book Series and a chapbook, The Houdini Monologues. Elder’s short fiction and essays have appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies.

AUTHOR COMMENTS:

From an interview conducted by Gina Covelli:

G: Was it a story line you mapped out or was it something that came very organically?

K: Organic. The underpinnings of the story involve life experiences that are like little platforms and I jump off of that platform onto another thing. I’ll give you an example. When I was 12 years old, I spent a lot of time in the summer riding my bicycle around town. The town was only 650 people and I know all the streets, and one day I’m about two blocks from my house, and I see a car I’ve never seen before and the car is moving, not parking. And a few minutes later, I see the car again, and it’s still moving. That’s the impetus for the Corvair the narrator sketches [in the novel]. Because there was, in this little town, a bank robbery. So I hear about the bank robbery, and of course I’m like every other kid, I don’t have anything else to do, I go to see what’s going on at the bank. In fact I may have heard the alarm, but I can’t say for sure because with this particular bank, the alarm was known to go off on its own. But I’m standing out there with a bunch of other people outside the bank, and all of a sudden this guy comes out of the bank. He’s wearing a three-piece suit. And he wants to know if anyone’s seen a strange car. He’s the FBI. So they took me into the bank and they had paint samples of cars and he wanted me to pick it out. I picked it out even though I’m somewhat color blind. But back then, there weren’t that many shades of silver. It’s little things like that in my experience. I do know this, though: it was my dream to create a story with a female Christ figure.

SAMPLE CHAPTER: https://www.amazon.com/Earth-as-Heaven-Aural-Novel/dp/0692567992/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1540235808&sr=8-2&keywords=karl+elder+earth

LOCAL OUTLETS: Stoneboat and Great Lakes Writers Festival

WHERE ELSE TO BUY IT: Amazon and Pebblebrook Press

PRICE: $12.00

CONTACT THE AUTHOR: elderk@lakeland.edu