Neglected Author: Don Robertson

One of my very favorite fictional characters is a boy named Morris Bird III. His life is chronicled in three books by Don Robertson: The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread (1965), The Sum And Total Of Now (1966) and The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened (1970). Each novel takes place around a key event in Cleveland's history, which is where Morris Bird III and his family live.

In The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread, the year is 1944, and Morris Bird III (Robertson always refers to him by his sweet and goofy full name) is nine years old, and full of the usual angst life in the 4th grade seems to bring, although he is the greatest kickball player at his school. One day, he decides to cut school to go visit his old buddy from the second grade, Stanley Chaloupka, who moved to East Cleveland sometime back.

Morris Bird III plans the long journey (on foot) carefully. Armed with supplies (including a jar of peanut butter than will come in handy in ways he never could have envisioned) and his red wagon (ditto) he and his slightly bratty six-year-old sister, Sandra (who has blackmailed him into taking her along at the last moment) head for Chaloupka's home in East Cleveland. Unbeknownst to him, or anyone else, his arrival time and destination coincide with the East Ohio Gas explosion, in which over 100 people were killed and much of that section of the city had to be rebuilt.

Morris Bird III wants to see Chaloupka again and play with his elaborate toy train set, but this is also a heroic quest for him. Morris Bird III wants to prove to himself once and for all that he is not a sissy. By the end of The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread, he is not only NOT a sissy, he is a hero.

In The Sum And Total Of Now, it's four years later. 1948. Morris Bird III is now thirteen years old. He's in love with his classmate, Julie Sutton and mortified by his suddenly spotty complexion. The Cleveland Indians are poised to win the American League championship and will go on to win the World Series that year.

The person Morris Bird III loves best in the world, his grandmother, is dying of cancer. Morris Bird III spends most of the novel miserably listening to his mother (who he memorably compares to Fred C. Dobbs, the Humphrey Bogart character in Treasure Of The Sierra Madre) and her siblings haggle at the tops of their voices night after night over who will get what furniture while the grandmother lies upstairs, dying. Morris is called upon to make an unfair choice, and in a related incident, makes one of his own.

Robertson's writing style is definitely from the school of naturalism, which becomes apparent as the reader gets a full blow-by-blow account of an Indians game that Morris Bird III attends with his friend's father.

The Korean War is the backdrop for the final novel in the trilogy, The Greatest Thing That Almost Happened. Morris Bird III is 17 years old and a basketball player at his high school, where he is a senior. His big dream is to have sex with his now-girlfriend, Julie Sutton. Shortly before Christmas, 1952, Morris Bird III will face the greatest challenge of his life.

Not only did Robertson seem to remember so well what it was like to be all these ages, the books are chock-full of information about life in 1944, 1948, and 1952. It's like being in a time machine. He also wrote humor and sadness with equal craftsmanship.

I'm not very good at math, so it took a while (30+ years!) for me to realize that Morris Bird III was born the same year as my father, 1935. I'm sure that partially explains my strong affection for this character.

All three books in the trilogy are wonderful, but if you read just one, that should be The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread. I would put this novel up against To Kill A Mockingbird or The Catcher In The Rye as a contender for "Greatest Coming-Of-Age Novel". (Actually, I'm going to go back and add it to my book meme as soon as I finish writing this sentence.)

Since most of Don Robertson's books are out-of-print, the Morris Bird III trilogy is a little expensive, especially The Sum And Total Of Now. Your best bet is your local library and probably inter-library loan.

Don Robertson (1929-1999) wrote many other novels including A Flag Full Of Stars (1964), Paradise Falls (1968) Praise The Human Season (1974) Victoria At Nine (1979) and Prisoners Of Twilight (1988). Stephen King counts Robertson as one of his influences, and in the 1980s, published Robertson's novel, The Ideal, Genuine Man, with an effusive introduction of praise.

In 1966, Don Robertson won the Cleveland Arts Prize for Literature. In 1991, Robertson received The Mark Twain Award from The Society For The Study Of Midwestern Literature. In spite of this acclaim, today he's largely unknown. He doesn't even have a page on Wikipedia, which I found surprising, because he had a long career, sold many copies of his novels and wasn't just a flash in the pan. Even more shocking, although he was a resident of Cleveland most of his life, he doesn't seem to be remembered in his own hometown! I eagerly asked a librarian who has worked in Cleveland for many years about him, and she said: "Who?"

Sigh. Eventually, good authors get rediscovered. It happened to Dawn Powell, another writer from Ohio. But I'm feeling impatient. I can't wait around for twenty years for some PhD. literary snot to do a dissertation on Don Robertson and beam with pride like he or she's the only one who ever heard of Robertson while all the book critics tie themselves into knots with delight over fresh literary treasure. I want Don Robertson to be rediscovered NOW. Un-neglected NOW. The sooner his books are back in print, the better. It's time. No, scratch that. It's past time.