Malcolm Campbell, writer and reviewer, at http://www.campbelleditorial.com/advice.html has composed a splended review of The i Tetralogy, saying that”The unrelenting power of Freese’s writing skills calls to mind the gritty horror and hopelessness of Erich Maria Remarque’s World War I novel All Quiet on the Western Front and the grim insanity of Dalton Trumbo’s story about a wounded soldier in Johnny Got His Gun.” Read the rest if you will. So, since 2005 “i” has become a sleeper, so sound asleep that it is rarely prodded to wake up. I am sitting on what Campbell calls a “masterpiece.” Indeed, a conundrum for me. I have the idiotic belief that the worth of the book will emerge. America tells me that the purpose of a book is secondary, that the writing of it is not as essential as the hoopla before you market it. I see. I see only too well. It is either too late for me to change or I choose not to change. In any case I stand firm. I write for me, not you, dear reader, and if you like the book or even admire it we can chat. The rest is persiflage. I have learned the worth of my book from myself. Others and close friends have expressed their admiration for what I have achieved. What else do I need? Well, I need money and lots of it; I need to have significant royalties — wouldn’t that be nice; I need recognition; I need to be on TV; I need access to Palin’s crotch in search of caribou stays in her corset; I need fame. What I really need is to puke!
Of late I’ve compiled short stories from here and there, cannibalizing longer works for what might be salvageable. I “maggot” my works. In so doing I have encouraged myself to write short stories about the Holocaust, once again. They all need dramatic revision but as a writer it is self-supporting to have a folder build up for what might make another book of short stories. The tentative title is: Tales of the Holocaust and Other Fun Stories. My humor comes from the devil’s anus. It is more than ghetto humor; it is humor that is noxious, reeking fumes and taking no prisoners. (See the short story in Down to a Sunless Sea titled “Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father Was a Nazi.”) I hope to come in about 130 to 150 pages. While that is fermenting, Sojourner, a quest novel of intention and meaning has been edited and will be re-edited again and then off to the publisher. What I am doing in my late sixties is returning to old efforts that I could not get to because family and living and earning were the priorities. And now I stave off mental death by going into the “resurrection” business. If it is junk, out it goes; but I am taken with some of my efforts and I use the expertise I have now, the training wheels taken off years ago, to improve the writing and the themes I wish to engage the reader with. Doubts, of course, always come with these recent efforts, but I go ahead anyway. As my sands flow through the hourglass, I am in a “rush” to complete some efforts — and what are these, reader? I’d like to see several novels on the shelf, perhaps two books of short stories, a book of essays, so that my children and their children’s children know that I came this way — that I loved very deeply one woman in my life (how fortunate!) and lost her; that I had suffered too much in my time; that as a secular Jew I was honored by my cultural heritage; that I never forgot who I was nor denied my Jewishness; that I did not waffle in life, that I took a stand, sometimes being in error; that I wrote my heart out to understand me and that my progeny should get that clear in their minds — write for you, always write for you, for in that is great understanding in life. Play the guitar, fife the flute, paint the oil, not so much for others , although that can be thrilling, but for the understanding, profound understanding, one learns about one’s self — that the artist is never poor.
I am writing from Arizona, the land of McCain, skin cancer, terrific one note weather, and my feelings and thoughts bring me back to the East Coast. I miss the stimulation, the rabid talk, the ornariness, the food (!), the inclement weather, the snow and rain, rude taxis, umbrellas, subways, carvel, pastrami on rye, the smells of fall, the fabulous looking women crossing the avenues, MOMA, Bloomingdale’s, SAKs, walking down Fifth Avenue during the Christmas Season, looking at the window displays that they take a year to prepare for. I miss life. What I have here in Arizona is a variant of life and for many this is sufficient. I am city-bred and I cannot let go of it. I may very well return . . . I may very well return. Don’t bury me on the high prairie — just bury me in a mountainous drift pushed to the side of the street by a snow plow. And with that, reader, I say adieu.
