QUILLBLOG

Wondering about one-hit wonders

In an article on PopMatters.com, Jennifer Makowsky praises Mark Moskowitz’s 2002 documentary The Stone Reader for illuminating the formative role that books play in many people’s lives.

Moskowitz heads out on an exhaustive search to find out whatever happened to Dow Mossmon, the author of the 1972 novel The Stones of Summer. Moskowitz became obsessed with the book when he read it as a teenager. He was equally captivated with discovering the reasons why Mossmon never wrote another thing afterward.
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The film is not merely about an elusive tome or a missing writer. It’s a testament to the love of all literature – an ode to those who read it and to those who write it. In an interview with Indiewire, Moskowitz says, “I realized. . . that the film wasn’t about finding Mossman, the film was about how much fun I was having talking about books with people, it didn’t matter if I find [sic] him or not.”

At the end of the film, Frank Conroy (Director of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop) reminds us, “There are some pleasures that simply never run out and books are one of them. . . In every way from simply diverting yourself from life you enter worlds that you couldn’t possibly enter in any other way. You feel the pressure of another human soul on the other side of the book. . . When I read Dickens, the old man may as well be sitting right next to me. That’s how close he is. I feel him. He’s right there. He’s with me.”

If the article makes you not only want to see the documentary but also read the book that inspired it, you are in luck. Makowsky reports that the book is now back in print, thanks to Moskowitz and his film.

This Quillblogger foresees lightbulbs switching on in the minds of many an author whose masterpieces languish on backlists or have been allowed to go out of print: “That’s what I need – an obsessed filmmaker.”

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