Novel's production notes

I've been meaning to do this for the record for some time. Some background/production notes on my recent novel, Sodom, Gomorrah & Jones

• CJ Watches the News, p9. These sections follow the Newsreel sections in Dos Passos' USA trilogy. The obvious purpose, putting action in the context of the times. In this case, the horrific news of a typical day in the world, and CJ's challenge to live in such a world.
• Routine, 13. CJ's book, You Get the History You Deserve, echoes the curtain line, my favorite curtain line, of my one-act play The Stuff:  "What the people expect, they deserve. What they deserve, they get. Always." The play was written in 1975. In other words, this theme has been in my work for a very long time.
• CJ's Poems, 15. The decision to use poems came late. This section begins the series and is the only poem I do not take from my book In My Old Age. This novel borrows more from previous work than anything I've written, which reinforces my sense of its being a final statement, a swan song.
• Books, 16. This chapter sets up the "CJ's Heavy Reading" series, which I borrow from a technique Norman O. Brown uses in Love's Body, incorporating "my authors" into the body of the narrative itself. I consider this one of the more important techniques in the novel, without which its intellectual context diminishes. But also I suspect it is something that turns off many readers. Fine. Who needs such readers?
• A Long Friendship, 19. The folk song here, "MIssissippi Hippy," is a song I wrote and performed often in the late 1960s. Perhaps this is the oldest work I steal for the novel.
• CJ and the Shrink, 23. Perhaps the most important chapter in the "first act" of the narrative. The main theme becomes explicit here: "Why aren't you upset?" CJ cries. The most sensitive among us are declared insane.
• The Trunk, 28. Sets up an important plot point that thrusts CJ into a new life. Here, it's set up as if other issues were at stake, which are, but are not as important as the surprise to follow (although to those familiar with my work, it may not be surprising at all).
• Chateau de Mort, 1986, 34. This, of course, is the very hyperdama I wrote for the Pittock Mansion, the commission that began my obsession with the form. It neatly fits into the wife's interest in the new physics, the edgy theatrical interests of CJ's good friend, Matt. An important link -- and of course, the intro of Jasa, so important later.
• A New Eros, 40. Moving the sex theme forward, for its later twist.
• A Cartoon, 2003, 55. You can find this very cartoon in the right column of this blog. Been there for a long time.
• The Old Masters, 1963, 64. This scene happened to me but with a teacher, not a colleague. I was going to a community college after the army, before transferring to UCLA.
• Summer Solstice, 1962, 72. An actual party I attended but about five years after this date.
• A Song, 87. This is one of the poems in my book.
• Man on the Moon, 1969, 96. Based on an actual conversation when I was in grad school.
• Mike Cummings, 1969, 102. Based on a student I helped as a TA in grad school.
• Zero-sum Universe, 142. Readers of this blog are familiar with this theory.
• Nostalgia, 1990, 160. Like CJ, I wept at the Baez song. Nothing is sadder than lost innocence.
• Letter from a Former Student, 199. An actual email I received from a former student. Mind-boggling.

I'm sure there're more sources to document but these are some main echoes from my past work and life that appear in the novel. My work comes from whole cloth.