FENTON JOHNSON

by Rebecca Clark

Fenton Johnson was always the portal between two worlds. During an interview with his mother, Nancy Johnson Head (who remarried after the death of her first husband) said that as a young child Johnson would sit in a corner of the room watching the guests all the while writing in a note pad the stories that were being told. It was this early childhood hobby that has made Johnson able to write books for men and women, because this hobby was formed by hearing the stories of both.

Johnson was born, October 25, 1953, into a family of eight children that is typical of the town of New Haven located in central Kentucky. Johnson's father, Patrick Dean "P.D." who died of cancer in 1984, was a Catholic living in Nelson County who worked at Seagram's Distillery. His mother, Nancy, was a Protestant from the neighboring county of Larue and had been educated at Transylvania College in Lexington. The younger Johnson was a meshing of these two worlds.

Johnson's early education was strictly Catholic. After the closing of the private boy's school, Saint Joseph's Preparatory in 1968, he transferred to the public Larue County High School. "I wanted all my kids in one school," said Head. Before Johnson graduated in 1971, there were three siblings attending the public school.

After winning a scholarship provided to children of Seagram's employees, Johnson chose Stanford University in California, "because it was as far away from Kentucky as you could get and still be in the continental U.S.," said Johnson during an interview with the Lexington Herald Leader.

After earning a bachelor's degree in 1975, and spending two years as an aide to U.S. Rep. Romano Mazzoli, D-Louisville, Johnson moved to San Francisco. During the 1980s, Johnson's career began to become more in focus. He attended the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop and held a Wallace Stegnor Fellowship at Stanford and later began to teach creative writing at San Francisco University where he continues to teach.

In San Francisco, the Kentucky native could finally become himself. He used his rural roots with his city lifestyle to continue his writing and to publicly announce his homosexuality. In 1987, he met Larry Rose, the man he fell in love with. Johnson and Rose lived together for four years until Rose's death from AIDS in 1990.

Johnson's first book, Crossing The River was published in 1989. His second book, scissors, paper, rock was published in 1993. His books are the meshing of the two worlds Johnson knows best. They are both the combinations of down-home values and decisions brought about by the complexities of city life.

Kentucky author, Wendell Berry has been one of Johnson's heroes (Head). Berry's influence is most obvious in scissors, paper, rock. The book's style is reminiscent of Berry's The Memory of Old Jack. As in Old Jack, scissors, paper, rock, tells the story of a family struggling with the past while having to accept the change the future brings. Both books jump from one character's memories to another, sometimes leaving the reader confused as to exactly which family member is speaking and what year it is. Some of the characters are also parallel. In the former, it is Old Jack himself and in the latter, Tom Hardin; who are both old and dying. There is also the strong female role who bridges the past and the future. In Old Jack, Jack knows the value of women, best personified by the pregnant Hannah. Although Jack is a traditionalist, he realizes that the continuation of the human race depends upon women. Man is the farmer that can only sow the seed, yet it is woman, or Mother Earth, who nourishes and brings forth the bounty. Secretly, Tom Hardin understands this also. In one chapter dealing with the death of their son, Clark, killed in Vietnam, Tom Hardin admits to himself that his wife, Rose Ella, is stronger than he is, "She is big enough to do this, he thought, of the two of us she is the stronger" (Johnson 70). With this private knowledge concerning his wife, he rebels against it by courting Miss Camilla, the spinster schoolteacher. She rejects his overtures. He retaliates by telling her she has wasted her life by not marrying and having children. Secretly, Tom Hardin knows this woman is stronger than he is also.

In both books, the protagonist has to make an important decision that will affect his life. In Old Jack, Andy, Old Jack's grand-nephew, chooses to leave the farm in order to go to the city for a college education. In scissors, paper, rock, Raphale, Tom Hardin's youngest child, writes "Conscientious Objector" on his draft board exam, something that Johnson does also (K-2). Raphael is released from his impending duties and travels to San Francisco for his education. It can be presumed that Andy returns to the farm for occasional visits. Raphael returns also, but it is to die of AIDS. Once again in Johnson's life, his two worlds are meshed together. Although Johnson is HIV-negative, according to Head, three young men from New Haven, Kentucky have died from AIDS.

As with most novels written by a local author, readers try to speculate how autobiographical the book is. Head said, that, Johnson takes bits and pieces from different people and instances in his life to create one character. Johnson's intelligence and knowledge of both rural and city living is displayed in his articulate yet easily read writings. If the reader is from a rural setting similar to the locations in Johnson's book, he or she should be able to gather an understanding of the different people that make this world the interesting and exciting place that it is. Perhaps with Johnson's help, all could learn and better understand these two worlds.

Head, Nancy J. Phone interview, November 17, 1994.

The Lexington Herald Leader. June 20, 1993.

Johnson, Fenton. scissors, paper, rock. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

by Rebecca Clark

Crossing the River. New York: Carol, 1989.

scissors, paper, rock. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

"How I Spent My Summer Vacation." The New York Times Magazine. Oct. 1, 1989: 22+.

"High in the Hollows." The New York Times Magazine. Dec. 17, 1989: 30+.

"California Dreaming." The New York Times Magazine. May 13, 1990: 24+.

"Aftershock in San Francisco." The New York Times Magazine. June 17, 1990: 30-34.

"Catholic in the South: Confessions of a Convert's Son." The Virginia Quarterly Review. Summer 1990: 503-13.

"The Limitless Heart." The New York Times Magazine. June 23, 1991: 10+.

"Safe Sex." Mother Jones. Sept./Oct. 1990: 47-49.

"In the Fields of King Coal." The New York Times Magazine. November 22, 1992: 30-32.

"Lucky Fellow." The New York Times Magazine. May 9, 1993: 18+.