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WORK TITLE: I Remember Caramoor
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://stevenkeymeyers.com/
CITY:
STATE: IN
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Grand Junction, CO.
EDUCATION:Graduated from City College of New York and Columbia University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Novelist.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Steven Key Meyers writes contemporary fiction and is the author of several books. He was born on a farm near Grand Junction, Colorado, and graduated from City College of New York and Columbia University. He now lives in rural Indiana. In Meyers’ 2015 My Mad Russian: Three Tales, he collects three novellas about drug-dealing, murder, adultery, arson, tax evasion, and kidnapping. The stories are about an eccentric Russian inventor in 1933, a twenty-first century Mexican immigrant working as a male prostitute for an Iranian exile, and a college dropout working for and being seduced by her father’s business associate. Commenting on the varied and engrossing collection, a Kirkus Reviews contributor said: “Meyers is a masterly communicator of place, whether it be Manhattan of the 1930s or Los Angeles of the 2000s. Most impressively, he’s able to lock into the language and attitudes of each time and location.”
Junkie, Indiana and I Remember Caramoor
Meyers 2016 tragedy, Junkie, Indiana, explores the opioid epidemic through the eyes of Paul, a paralyzed man born to a heroin addicted mother, and his two young cousins, Jordan and Adam, who are amoral junkies beating homeless man and raping a girl. With the book’s onslaught of depravity and hopelessness, “There’s virtually no plot, however, which mirrors the purposeless meandering of the characters but will likely bore readers. Worse, there’s no joy,” according to a Kirkus Reviews Online writer.
Meyers published his memoir, I Remember Caramoor, in 2017. He recounts his teenage years in the early 1970s as an underbutler at the Caramoor estate in New York’s Westchester County, owned by the wealthy Walter and Lucie Rosen, and called an American Downton Abbey. Among the maids, valets, and gardeners, Meyers dusted artifacts, served tea, and waited on guests during the numerous garden parties, music festivals, and house tours. “Neither a strong narrative nor strong emotions ever arise over the course of the author’s reminiscences. Instead, the account mirrors a leisurely walk through Caramoor’s house and property,” said a writer in Kirkus Reviews.
Another’s Fool
Meyers’ 2017 novella, Another’s Fool, is set in Cold War era 1953 with Bruce Harnes, a classical music manager hired to host a summer music festival at rich widow Dora Berlin’s Westchester County mansion. Dora’s affair with the Russian inventor from Meyers’ My Mad Russian has piqued the interest of the FBI, which blackmails Harnes into spying on Dora. But after Harnes hires Russian defector, musician, and Harnes own ex-lover, David Spegall, he is dismayed when David becomes romantically involved with Dora. “The book is a strange enough brew of elements and authorial choices to leave a distinctive impression. An intriguing but uneven Red Scare tale,” noted a Kirkus Reviews Online contributor.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2015, review of My Mad Russian; September 15, 2017, review of I Remember Caramoor.
ONLINE
Kirkus Reviews Online, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/ (June 8, 2016), review of Junkie, Indiana; (December 19, 2017), review of Another’s Fool.
Steven Key Meyers was born on a farm near Grand Junction, Colorado, raised in various Midwestern and Eastern locales, earned degrees at New York's City College--a terrific school!--and Columbia University, and now lives in rural Indiana.
Steven Key Meyers was born on a farm on the western slope of Colorado and currently lives in Rancid, Indiana. His new novel Another's Fool shares some settings and characters with My Mad Russian, both derived from the subject of his memoir I Remember Caramoor. He is at work on a new novel, Family Romance, and expects to publish another, The Last Posse (.pdf excerpt), in 2018.
Meyers, Steven Key: My Mad Russian
Kirkus Reviews. (May 1, 2015):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2015 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Meyers, Steven Key MY MAD RUSSIAN (Adult None) $15.95 ISBN: 978-1-63490-240-3
Meyers (Wedding on Big Bone Hill, 2014, etc.) offers a collection of three novellas concerning romance and wealth. The first, titular tale begins in 1933. In it, a wealthy banker named Max Berlin and his private investigator are concerned about the fact that Soviet agents have kidnapped Berlin's tenant--an eccentric Russian inventor on the cusp of launching a lucrative new technology. This scene leads into Berlin's account of the changes in art and society in the 1910s, '20s, and '30s; his marriage to the independent-minded Dora; and her infatuation with the mad Russian scientist. In Big Luck, set in the first decade of the current century, Mexican immigrant Ricardo is reluctant to seek American citizenship due to his occupation as a live-in catamite for a wealthy Iranian exile. When Ricardo's lover breaks off the arrangement, he must find a new way to support himself, and he's lured into a scheme to hide an acquaintance's lottery winnings as tax-deductible gambling losses. In Sidestep, a college dropout goes to work for a wealthy friend of her father's in an Ohio college town that the friend's family has dominated for generations. She quickly falls into her new benefactor's bed, but rumors about his wealth, and his sexual history, begin to concern her. Meyers is a masterly communicator of place, whether it be Manhattan of the 1930s or Los Angeles of the 2000s. Most impressively, he's able to lock into the language and attitudes of each time and location. For example, Berlin narrates in the stodgy, judgmental declarations of a man of his class and generation: "The process of waking up to life is painful, and one our civilization feels it best to postpone, and which children themselves are happy to push off as long as they can." The breadth of geography and history that Meyers covers keeps the collection varied and engrossing, and he has a knack for splashing a story with just enough mystery to keep readers plowing ahead. These novellas make an impression, and the only way to recover from one is to dive into the next. A trilogy of dense, exciting novellas about American love and greed in different eras.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Meyers, Steven Key: My Mad Russian." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2015. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A411368890/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=9b5566d0. Accessed 18 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A411368890
Meyers, Steven Key: I REMEMBER CARAMOOR
Kirkus Reviews. (Sept. 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Meyers, Steven Key I REMEMBER CARAMOOR Booklocker (Adult None) $15.95 6, 19 ISBN: 978-1-63492-416-0
Meyers (My Mad Russian, 2015, etc.) tells of his time as a servant at a historic mansion in this memoir. In 1970, 17-year-old Meyers began working as an underbutler at the Caramoor estate near Katonah, New York. Built by the theremin soloist Lucie Bigelow Rosen and her lawyer/banker husband, Walter Tower Rosen, the mansion was a hodgepodge of European high culture populated by a colorful assortment of butlers, maids, gardeners, valets, and their families. The Rosens were deceased by this point; Caramoor was the seat of their Foundation for the Arts and the home of its executive director, Michael Sweeley. Meyers spent his days dusting artifacts and bringing Sweeley his tea, setting it "on the bureau beside his big oaken 16th-century bed, opposite the mantelpiece bearing bronze John Harvard bookends and an inscribed photograph of Gina Bachauer." In his free time, Meyers had access to the estate's 100 acres of wooded paths, its extensive library, and some of its art, which he was allowed to hang in the cottage he inhabited on the grounds. The annual Caramoor Summer Music Festival brought musicians, whom Meyers had to discipline when they tried to misuse antique furniture. Meyers was able to meet celebrated artists and performers like Julius Rudel, Maureen Forrester, Andrea Velis, and New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller. When the house opened as a museum, Meyers gave tours to visitors, pointing out unique features and collections. Meyers' prose, ornate and slightly mannered, befits the memoir's formal and anachronistic setting: "The Rosens' taste was very good, but didn't seem to extend past about 1800. I expect that both consciously rebelled against the Victoriana they were raised amidst, but from there their tastes went backwards, not forwards." This is a slim volume, which works in its favor. Neither a strong narrative nor strong emotions ever arise over the course of the author's reminiscences. Instead, the account mirrors a leisurely walk through Caramoor's house and property, with Meyers pausing to acknowledge a particular room or object, a ritual associated with a certain hour of the day, or a person and some brief anecdote associated with him or her. What the book lacks in narrative momentum, it makes up for in the way it successfully summons not just a place, but the energy of that place. This is a work dedicated to an earlier era, during which time the author was employed at an estate dedicated to an even earlier era. It isn't nostalgia that characterizes Meyers' words so much as appreciation for a tiny enclave dedicated to finery away from the larger conflicts and trends of the modern world. To read this book is to escape briefly into a mindset where high tea and fine art are all one needs to forget one's problems. Meyers' brief time at Caramoor, and the shortness of this work, are a testament to the unfortunate fleetingness of such sentiment. A slim, ornate, leisurely memoir of the author's time at Caramoor.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Meyers, Steven Key: I REMEMBER CARAMOOR." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A504217504/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=36882a87. Accessed 18 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A504217504
ANOTHER’S FOOL
by Steven Key Meyers
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KIRKUS REVIEW
A man attempts to throw a music festival while informing for the FBI in this novella.
New York, 1953. Two days after surviving his first police raid on a gay club, music manager Bruce Harnes is sent by his boss to Westchester County to the home of wealthy widow Dora Berlin. Berlin asks young Bruce to put on a summer festival on the grounds of her estate, something that he sees as an exciting niche project to help make a place for himself in the music world: “A music festival outdoors on a great estate! So much to do! Dates; artists; programs; publicity. Parking! My God, chairs! My God, what if it rained?” It appears to be a dream come true until the FBI turns up, armed with Bruce’s sexual orientation as leverage. Because of Berlin’s long-standing ties to certain Russians (she had a relationship with a prominent Russian inventor that only ended via the intervention of Stalin), the bureau demands that Bruce serve as a confidential informer, keeping tabs on Berlin and passing intelligence to his FBI handlers. Now Bruce must organize a festival (with his ex-lover as the music director, no less) while navigating the world of amateur espionage with his benefactor on one side and the FBI on the other. Meyers (I Remember Caramoor, 2017, etc.) writes in a confident and stylish prose, evoking the setting and time period with concision: “There’s glamour to New York’s early winter dusk, the city’s nerves and energies throbbing as people stride onto the pavements eager to get on with it.” Despite the rather absurd premise (this is not a comedic work), the author’s general disinterest in genre conventions should suck readers in—if only to find out where this is going. Some of the players (the FBI agents, in particular) are quite flat, and the ending comes quickly. Several characters and events would have benefited from a little more fleshing out. Even so, the book is a strange enough brew of elements and authorial choices to leave a distinctive impression.
An intriguing but uneven Red Scare tale.
Pub Date: Nov. 20th, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63492-732-1
Page count: 87pp
Publisher: Booklocker
Program: Kirkus Indie
Review Posted Online: Dec. 19th, 2017
Junkie, Indiana
by Steven Key Meyers
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A sepulchral novel about a family legacy of drugs, crime, and hopelessness.
Paul Stocker’s mother is a heroin addict, and he was born on the street, already addled by ceaseless cravings for the drug. He was also born physically debilitated—unable to walk or speak and permanently confined to a wheelchair with limited use of his arms. Paul’s cousins, Jordan and Adam, are also junkies and spend their days either languorously high or frenetically looking for money to pay for their next fixes. Paul, the narrator of this nihilistic tale, distinguishes Adam’s cynicism from Jordan’s tender boyishness, but both are essentially amoral, too addled by their addictions to make room for empathy or principles in their lives. They both cycle in and out of jail for all manner of petty larceny—sometimes in cahoots with their mothers—and each is prepared to snitch on the other. Paul dispassionately describes the depravity, detailing Adam and Jordan’s robbery and beating of an old man as if it’s the most quotidian act. Paul is capable of experiencing horror, though, so he loses himself in reading—a cerebral refuge from the squalor. When Jordan gleefully rapes a young girl in front of him, Paul reflexively chooses to “make fives,” a version of counting sheep that allows him some needed distraction. Overall, Paul is less a protagonist than a narrative medium—a passive witness to human degradation and sometimes a participant, tagging along to a burglary and other mayhem. Debut author Meyers has a knack for depicting the gruesome depths of human existence, which seems even uglier because it unfurls so listlessly. He also ably describes Chuterville, the former boomtown that serves as the stage for this salaciousness; once bankrolled by J.P. Morgan, it’s now little more than a market for the drug trade—“to all intents and purposes, a narcopolis.” There’s virtually no plot, however, which mirrors the purposeless meandering of the characters but will likely bore readers. Worse, there’s no joy, and that relentless deprivation makes this short novel an exhausting read.
A novel that skillfully captures the gloominess of drug addiction but leaves little space for even a glimmer of hope.
Publisher: Booklocker
Program: Kirkus Indie
Review Posted Online: June 8th, 2016