Men of Letters
By Daniel Crocker and Nathan Graziano
$5 (52 pages) Green Bean Press, 2006
ISBN: 1-891408-35-6
Men of Letters is the third and final installment of Crocker and Graziano's Idiot Trilogy, an ambitious project that began with the chapbook of poetry Idiot Warriors in 2004. Later the same year, they published a chapbook of short stories titled Chickenshits. Each book follows the trials and misadventures of two thinly-veiled fictional characters, Cracker and Natty. Both are primarily small press writers with a couple of failed books under their belts and penchant for the bottle, attempting to live out the myth of the American scribe (without the literary accolades). While they travel to book signings and readings from Maine to Michigan, Cracker and Natty always seem to end up at the same dead end: the bar. Among their quixotic travels, they also manage to find a solid friendship that perseveres even as their own lives spiral out of control.
Men of Letters is a mosaic of micro-fiction and a one-act play that tells the apocolyptic final tale. Cracker and Natty dash through a series of readings in a car driven by Sister Christian during the balmy Michigan summer, preaching the word of Willy's Balls under a barrage of beer and pills. The tale continues as army men hit on their wives while Cracker and Natty rot on a porch. By far, the darkest and most innovative of the three chapbooks, Men of Letters brings the tale of Natty and Cracker to its conclusion with humor and compassion.
