There’s a starkness to Joe Andoe’s Jubilee City: A Memoir at Full Speed. This starkness, and that is really the only way to describe it, runs through every part of the book. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the cover of the hardback edition, released by William Morrow in the summer of 2007. Other than a photo of the author and the title (displayed in a rainbow of colors, excluding green), what stands out most is the vast amount of white space. I was reminded of the Coen Brothers’ Fargo, the giant statue of Paul Bunyan (also in plaid) standing out against a snow-covered landscape. In the photo, Mr. Andoe holds cigarette to his mouth, his hair appears greasy and if the image were scratch-and-sniff, the smell provided might be that of an old body shop. In fact, Mr. Andoe looks much more like an auto mechanic than an acclaimed artist. I can’t believe that’s unintentional.
Aside from the cover, the first thing I noticed upon picking up the book is that it’s about an inch taller than the average hardcover. This gives the book a slimming effect, but it’s merely an optical illusion, like an overweight person being advised to wear more vertical stripes. I’m not sure why the publisher chose to alter the size of the book. But I remember hearing years ago that taller people were more likely to get better jobs. Perhaps this same line of thinking would extend to book sales as well. The discerning reader might not be fooled, but the layman might pass by the bookshelf and say, “Hey, that’s a tall book. It must be good if it’s that tall.” Just a theory.
Jubilee City is the story of Joe Andoe, born in 1955 in Tulsa. But unlike the traditional memoir, with an arcing story and narrative structure, this book is all over the place. The only thing I can compare it to is Bob Dylan’s Chronicles. One does get the sense of a life story, but not through a straight line. It’s more of a mosaic. Each piece has no specific impact on its own, but the end result, perhaps by accident, is greater than the sum of its parts. The dates, characters and details are presented in short vignettes, some a few pages in length, others just two or three paragraphs. Growing up in a tough East Tulsa neighborhood, hanging with thieves, hoodlums and future convicts, the life of a respected artist was not the expected life path for Joe Andoe. But after studying art at OU, Andoe moved to the pre-Guilianni wildlife of New York City in the early 1980′s. His style of art, sampled in the book in fittingly stark (that word again) black and white images, was a welcome contrast to the work of Schnabel, Basquiat, Haring and others of that time. His images of Midwestern iconography are unsettling in that David Lynchian way, meaning that you don’t even know why they’re unsettling. They just are. Fans of Larry Clark’s photography and Charles Bukowski’s wart-and-all prose, will find much to love in the pages of this book. I’m not sure if I actually like this book. But I love the fact that the guy who wrote it is from Oklahoma.
One of the last things to catch my eye was the back inside flap of the dust jacket. It features a more recent picture of Andoe, this time in black and white. He is wearing sunglasses and looking directly at the camera. I think. Honestly, I was taken aback. The photo looks just like the late actor Ron Silver in the 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle, Timecop. But maybe that’s just me. The other piece of compelling information on the flap is this: “Jacket design by Joe Andoe.” It was upon reading these five words that I realized the starkness was always the intention. It’s a rare thing for an author to design his/her book jackets. John Updike was well-known for having passionate opinions about his, but Joe Andoe isn’t John Updike. Unfortunately, the paperback of the book wasn’t so lucky. The photo remains, but the beautiful simplicity of that white background is ruined by the inclusion of partly-cloudy blue sky. Joe Andoe’s paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars. His prints can be as much as a used car. So if you can’t afford either, and who can in this economy, for less that a tank of gas you can own the hardcover version of Jubilee City. After all, the jacket is a work of art, and you can’t read a painting on the toilet.
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