A few of the films had not been known to exist, or existed only as legend, for no copies were known to my have survived. I held such films in my hand. Two out of the three films made in 1916 by Lon Chaney for Red Feather/Universal productions were intact: The Place Beyond the Winds and If My Country Should Call.
This quote is a terrific example of how Allman likes to mingle fact with fiction and history with invention. Interestingly, this short story was published in the magazine Film Comment which is far more well known for essays and analysis than its short stories. The narrator describes going to a one-time boomtown of the Yukon Gold Rush to discover a different kind of gold: a film archive buried beneath a swimming pool which was later turned into an ice-skating rink. Right beneath the title of the story is the caption: New Fiction by Paul Allman. Except that the story the narrator tells is true. There really was a film archive discovered in Dawson City, Alaska. Where does the historical fact end and the power of imagination begin? That turns out to be a fascinating question asked often in the works of this author.
Braggadocians were renowned for giving themselves credit for causing everything but the wind to blow, for which neighboring Bragg City had already staked a claim. After New Madrid, just north of Braggadocio, was hammered by an earthquake in 1811, it was the citizens of Braggadocio who swore they had lassoed their homes to the inland forest, thus preventing the Missouri bootheel from snapping off entirely and getting sucked down the Mississippi like a shingle down a sewer.
Allway’s first non-YA novel is this rousing, episodic, picaresque tall tale of a guy named Otis and the wonderfully bizarre and increasingly strange cast of characters with whom he comes into contact. The tone, mood, atmosphere and feeling of the novel as a whole—as a concept—is captured here. Its ancestors include stories of guys like Pecos Bill and Mike Fink. The thematic scope of mixing fact and fiction is at play throughout, but set in stone right here the first page. If you check to see whether there actually is a town in Missouri with the unlikely name of Braggadocio, you will find it to be true. On the other hand, it was incorporated in 1847 which makes it rather unlikely that it was around for an 1811 earthquake. But that’s the nature of tall tales; partly truth, partly fiction.
If you happen to live near a production company of some kind, you should try walking in the door and offering your soul to the employment office. Someone may have recently quit, retired, or moved on, and you might just be in the right place at the right time. It has happened before. If you are willing to accept a role as a gofer you will have made the all-important breakthrough of getting in the door.
How versatile is Allman? He can mingle fact and fiction within essay or short story. He can write novels for teenagers and for adults. He can also write textbooks on how to get a job in the digital video industry. What is most astonishing about this textbook originally published in the 1980’s and then again in several revised editions is how much of the book is not dated. Yes, of course, there are references bound to produce a smile among older readers or a look of bewilderment among younger ones, but much of the advice is commonsensical and still applicable like the above which is a bit of job-seeking wisdom that has stood in good stead since the days of apprenticeships and is not likely to become outdated any time soon.
