Sacramento Bee, CA
June 23 2005

Books: An ‘Essential’ first
By Dixie Reid — Bee Staff Writer

William Saroyan left Fresno in 1928, but it never left his thoughts.
He mined his memories of the Central Valley town for his writings,
although the folks back home didn’t always like his portrayal of
them.
Saroyan, who in 1940 won – and refused to accept – a Pulitzer Prize
for his play “The Time of Your Life,” is the subject of the first
volume in the Essential Collection, a series of titles from
Berkeley’s Heyday Books showcasing internationally known California
writers.

“I think Saroyan is essential now because there’s something about the
simple joy of his view of humanity that has gotten lost but is still
true,” said William E. Justice, who edited and wrote the introduction
to “Essential Saroyan” (Heyday Books and Santa Clara University, 208
pages, $11.95 paperback).

“As our culture gets more fractured and chaotic, and we become more
isolated, the commonness of his vision of what people really are like
speaks to a lonely and estranged current population,” Justice said.

For the book, Justice chose excerpts from Saroyan’s writings,
including “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze,” “Radio Play”
and “The Human Comedy.”

“Time has treated William Saroyan poorly,” said Justice, who is 25.
“People who are in charge of saying what should be preserved feel
that he has had his day, and almost anyone under (age) 35 has never
heard of him. Those I’ve shown his work take to it immediately and
are baffled as to why they’ve never heard of him.

“So there’s a tremendous new audience that would eat up the work if
they found it.”

Justice also is working on a vast Saroyan omnibus, to be published in
2008, the 100th anniversary of Saroyan’s birth.

Saroyan, who was of Armenian heritage, returned to Fresno in his
later years and died there in 1981, at age 72.

“The Valley has kept his memory alive,” Justice said, “and the
Armenians are tireless supporters of his work. He lives on in the
community he wrote about, but the rest of the country doesn’t pay him
any attention. Many of his books are out of print, so the Essential
Collection is nice, taking something from the best of his works you
can’t find in stores anymore.”

Future editions of the Essential Collection will feature John Muir
and Mary Austin.

“It’s not just redoing ‘Daring Young Man’ or ‘Human Comedy,’ ” Heyday
Books founder and publisher Malcolm Margolin said of launching the
Essential series with Saroyan. “It’s throwing out something that
lures someone to look at the best of Saroyan, to let someone like
William Justice write an introduction that redefines him, to get him
into bookstores once again.”

– Dixie Reid