It has been over a month since Curt Johnson’s book, SALUD, Selected Writings, was published. Recently I mentioned that the mission of Cross+Roads Press since the beginning (1994) remains pretty much the same today: to help serious writers of record publish their first book--and occasionally extend a hand to veteran small press writers who may have lapsed into silence and/or obscurity.

Curt Johnson, in his late seventies, a Midwestern icon of little magazine and small press publishing for over thirty years, was a rescue project.

Some of our personal history can be found in the “Afterword” I wrote which appears at the end of SALUD. But since the successful publication and reception of the book, thus far, I thought I would add a few more words for those who supported this endeavor, for writers and other small press publishers who might learn from Johnson’s struggles, for readers who may be uncertain or upset by the book’s contents: the illustrations of the female body; the violence within some of his characters; the variety of writing forms; the ideas, politics, tone of his writing…including, in some fictional and factional incidents, a certain attitude toward women at times, bordering on misogyny—which Johnson compellingly addresses in the “Afterword.”

I was also aware that if you read Curt Johnson carefully, he would tell you things you may not know--but need to know, man or woman.

I thought it interesting, and perhaps predictable, that of the many responses concerning SALUD I have received thus far, only two came from women. One who knows some of the author’s work and december’s publishing history: “This could be the most important small press book in 40 years…” And another who knows him only from this book and came away slightly smitten— loving him for who he is and what he writes: “…read LACE and a BOBBIT last night ......great novella. What an interesting guy this is......would love to have met him at some time in my life…The piece on Raymond Carver was great too.”

I know only one of these two women—but appreciate both for their responses, for getting Johnson and the book.

One thing worth considering about the man and the book is honesty. As he states in the excerpt from his memoir, LITTLE by LITTLE or HOW I WON THE WAR, printed in SALUD:

“I am a misogynist, that’s true. I have struggled to overcome this, but I can’t. Beyond the family of my youth, I have had five long-lasting relationships with women in my life. (The nicest person I’ve ever known was my third wife.) And at least half a dozen rewarding friendships with other women. I’ve been drawn to women who were strikingly independent individuals, yet they always seemed to me to need my help. They didn’t, really, and when the relationships ended it was usually me at most fault. And I still mistrust, patronize, and subtly disparage women. I find this strange, considering how much I loved and admired my Grandmother Goring.”

I have heard from almost twenty men on SALUD to date (some of them writers), all of them aware of his skill and insight as a writer/publisher. Many of them identifying one way or another with Johnson’s personal plight, with characters in his fiction or ideas found in his nonfiction.

This, then, is my reward. A small press publisher’s payoff. I helped an important writer get his message out there at a time in his life when he needed it. I pleased at least a good bunch of readers—as far as I can tell. Maybe more than I will ever know, given the long-life and networking of small press publications. So my financial gamble seems well worth the investment. Eventually I will sell out of SALUD. Hopefully make enough money to pay the printing and publishing costs. To accomplish that alone in the small press world is to almost akin to a bestseller. Could I hope for more? Yes. More attention for Johnson’s sake. Some interest from other, bigger publishers on his behalf. A little national attention would also be nice. Maybe a little recognition for Cross+Roads Press as well.

While I’m on the subject of the publisher’s payoff, I would add that things, unspoken, sometimes transpire between writer and publisher that are almost impossible to describe There were a number of such instances with SALUD, but the one that stays closest to my heart is the trip I made down to Johnson’s small house in Illinois upon the publication of SALUD, bearing boxes of his books to sign for the special signed and numbered patron edition.

It was a Sunday afternoon. A long drive from my place and I would be turning right around and heading back in a little over an hour. He was waiting at the front door as I pulled up. He was looking better, still unsteady, but healthier than the last time I saw him. And as I ripped opened the first box on his kitchen table, handed him a copy of the book---well, that was ‘a moment’.

He looked at the attractive black and red cover, studied his self-portrait centered in white upon the cover-page, slowly opened the book to his lifetime of selected works spread across 200 plus pages…and said, over and over again, whispering in a rough, smoker’s voice, almost ancient: ”Thank you, Norbert. Thank you, thank you…It’s beautiful, beautiful…” Then his old eyes began to well-up…and
I knew why it all mattered. Why we do these things. How we win when we seem to lose.

A few years ago, when I first considered doing this book (and Curt was discouraging me, advising me to print someone new rather than a has-been) I received a package in the mail from him one day. In it was a paperback book he wanted me to have. I was reminded of other friends (especially writers) who reach a certain stage in life when they begin breaking up their personal libraries. They sense their time is coming to an end, and they want to give the right book to the right person. I find myself doing this lately—which concerns me a little.

Curt had passed his copy of Peter Matthiessen’s, THE SNOW LEOPARD on to me. He sensed I had probably read it at an earlier time in my life (I had), and it was probably worth re-reading (it was). Matthiessen’s search for the almost mythical snow leopard in the Himalayans is, of course, a man’s search for himself, for the spirit within. It’s a pilgrimage that may end in finding something you were not even searching for.

This Curt Johnson story could end here except that I received a post card from him the other day, with a painting of Diego Rivera, Creation: Woman (1922) on one side .On the back he writes that he recently heard from a publisher who wants to print (reprint, in hardcover) his fine early novel, THE MORNING LIGHT—excerpted in SALUD.

“I think we saw the Snow Leopard,” he says. “I did, anyway.
Salud,
Curt”