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Review of “Portraits Along the Way”
Portraits Along the Way: 1976-2024 by Paul Marion.
Reviewed by Richard Howe
For more than a dozen years I’ve been leading tours of historic Lowell Cemetery. If it’s not raining, we average 80 to 100 people on each tour with many return visitors. Although Lowell Cemetery is a beautiful place, I think the attraction for all these tour-goers is the stories of the people buried there. Hearing the stories of others propels us through the range of human emotions and leaves us feeling fulfilled.
Paul Marion must feel similarly because throughout his 40-year career as a writer he has repeatedly composed stories about people. Many have appeared on this website; others in journals and magazines; still others in the personal notebooks he has kept throughout his life.
Now, to our good fortune, Paul has compiled more than 50 of these sketches in a new book called Portraits Along the Way: 1976-2024, which was published by Loom Press just last week. Drawing on his powers of quiet observation and the unique perches he has occupied throughout his adult life, Paul has captured portraits of Lowell luminaries like Kerouac, Tsongas, and Mogan along with cultural heroes like Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Stephen King, Patti Smith, and Louise Gluck.
Because I’m close in age to Paul, I feel a strong connection to such generational touchstones as Tony Conigliaro, the Big Bad Bruins, the Boston Celtics, NASA Astronauts, and Dalton Jones, who, unless you lived through the Cardiac Kids 1967 baseball season, is someone you’ve never heard of.
Paul also pays homage to family, especially his parents and other ancestors, in prose that surpasses any immigrant story you might experience at Lowell National Historical Park.
So please check out Portraits Along the Way. It’s available for purchase online from Loom Press.
Also, on Saturday, October 12, 2024, at 11am at the Pollard Memorial Library, Paul will talk about the book as part of the Lowell Celebrates Kerouac fall festival.
For several decades Paul Marion has been a prolific commentator on life and people in the Merrimack Valley and far beyond. He has a jeweler’s eye and writes with all the expansive, tender, and illuminating sensibilities of the poet. “Portraits Along the Way” is a terrific culling of the best of his prose work.
Thanks to Dick and Dave for their kind comments about my new book. I hope some of the readers of this blog will track it down and maybe share their responses to the writing in this space.
Birds of a feather.
My initial sighting of Paul Marion was at the 1993 UMass Lowell Writers’ Conference, where I met with David Daniel who critiqued my first novel, “Whatever It Takes.” Andre Dubus III was also available for individual fiction critiques. The conference featured Tobias Wolf, and my LHS classmate, Elinor Lippman, who said she liked the premise and title of my novel.
Paul was sharing a panel with Fiona McCrae, Executive Editor at Faber and Faber, who discovered Jodi Picoult. Back then Paul had already been the founder and editor of the Loom Press for fifteen years. As an entrepreneur I was impressed with the LP name and thought this young guy was a visionary for historical Lowell and its literary archives. What an understatement.
Timing is everything. I retired in Florida and don’t get back to Lowell often enough. Eight months ago, I booked a foliage trip to visit my daughter in Hudson, NH and organized a reunion in Chelmsford with my former engineering group at Digital Equipment Corp.
Two weeks ago, I registered with the Pollard Library to attend the Kerouac Book Talk featuring Paul Marion. I hope to procure a signed copy of “Portraits Along the Way.” With luck, I’ll also run into his three amigos: Dick H, Dave D, and Steve O.
As ever, Ed DeJesus proves he’s Lowell’s current reigning Memory Babe.
Poet Paul’s latest book and memoir is a true treasure! Even if the reader has never met nor heard of some of Paul Marion’s Portraits, he makes you feel you know them now, including the Rich and Famous! My very personal connection was the “Poets’ Lab” chapter, where Paul so clearly captured the individual essence of my late husband, Tom. And what a treat to read about some of the fabulous folks I worked with or knew in Lowell, like Patrick Mogan.
The book takes us on a saunter through the last fifty years of memorable individuals from various fields as seen from the point of view of a keen-eyed poet and chronicler. Recently, I was reading his recollections of attending readings by Gary Snyder and the influence on him of Snyder’s poems and essays. Marion writes, “His advice about putting a stake down and getting involved in the community of your choice reinforced my instinctive feeling that local engagement is essential.” This is advice that we, particularly in the Merrimack Valley, are fortunate that Paul Marion took to heart.