The Writing Trade: 2a Year in the Life

In summing up his writing production in 1989, Jerome ( Stone Work ) enumerates one book review, a magazine feature, 15 600-word essays for a runner's calendar, ``some miscellaneous other short bits, and this manuscript.'' Not much in terms in output (nor in payment), he suggests; on the other hand, the year brought high praise for his latest book, ideas for other book proposals and precisely that quality of daily life that he and his wife left magazine editing in Manhattan 20 years earlier to pursue in rural Massachusetts. Neither manual nor diary, these 12 chapters, designated by month, comprise reflections on personal events quotidian and unique--from the daily walk with his dogs on a trail through the woods known as the loop to enduring his wife's month-long absence at a writer's colony. Ruminating occasionally on his publishing history and industry friends, and offering a tip or two for freelancers, Jerome mostly records his interaction with his immmediate world. Often he despairs of his need to treat experience as material but that urge is precisely what gives these good-natured, otherwise unexceptional observations their resonant tone. With a keen eye and inquiring mind, Jerome is a wise and knowing guide through a full turn of seasons, on the loop and at the keyboard. (Jan.)