writersnoonereads: Submitted by Craig Conley:No one reads fine...

writersnoonereads:

Submitted by Craig Conley:

No one reads fine artist Rhea Sanders’ guidebook to the fictional Fire Gardens of Maylandia or Sweetwilliam’s Folly (The Tradd Street Press, Charleston, SC, 1980).  The author respectfully dedicates this wryly humorous, meticulously envisioned oddity to “the virus which gave me the fever which gave me the hallucination which gave me the idea for this book.”  The reader of the deadpan guidebook is presumed to be a tourist to the state of Maylandia, in possession of a working knowledge of local attractions, so the mysterious nature of the fantastical fire gardens is revealed in subtle tidbits as the site’s colorful and often controversial history is explored.  We learn that the gardens were conceived in 1720 by the first royal governor, Ferdinand Mayland, “during one of his annual bouts with a local fever.”  The author dryly recounts how the governor persuaded the indigenous Changapod tribe to relinquish their sacred plains of flaming shale at the foot of the mountain they called “He Who Waits”: “Since all objected, all were done away with.  This is indeed a sad episode, but it is well to remember that the Changapods had owned this territory for centuries, and had done nothing with it, whereas Governor Mayland imagined a work of art.  There were in any case only 370 Changapods.”  As the history progresses, we become privy to intimations of “fireworkers” in possession of “the knowledge” — carefully guarded secrets of controlling the shape, movement, and color of fireballs, handed down from father to son over generations.  We learn of figures with oddly Francophilic inclinations, such as the Governor’s London-born wife Marguerite, who “spoke only in French, for reasons which have not come down to us.”  We learn of the possibly addictive tea leaves that grow near the fire gardens and seem to treat the blue skin condition resulting from exposure to the natural gasses.  (“And why should everyone be either black, white, red, or yellow?”)  We learn of several possible murders along the way, all unsolved, including one in 1927 — the winner of a contest to name a new garden to express the spirit of the age.  A certain Billy Jackson’s entry, “Jazz Baby,” earned him a $5,000 check, though he was shot and killed on his way home and the check stolen.  ”We in Maylandia often point to Mr. Jackson’s Jazz Baby Garden when outsiders ask us about the minorities in our midst.  For what could be a more beautiful testimonial to our treatment of minorities than this Garden?”  We learn of tea plantation heiress Angela Longleaf MacDowell, who stood six feet tall and boasted, “No man on earth or beneath the sod has ever kissed the lips of Angela Longleaf MacDowell.”  It was she who envisioned, in a dream, the memorial fire garden for famed local poet Cassius Augustus Robertson (“the story of Robertson’s mysterious death at the age of 99 is too well known to be recounted here”).  Profusely illustrated by the author, The Fire Gardens of Maylandia is a charming, deeply funny, and thought-provoking relic from an alternate reality just a little bit more smoldering than ours.  (Profuse thanks to Hilary Caws-Elwitt for recommending this book.)

—Craig Conley, author of One-Letter Words: A Dictionary (HarperCollins) and Magic Words: A Dictionary (Weiser Books)

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