Don't Quit The Day Job:
Will the real John Treadwell Nichols stand up, please?
By Marshall J. Cook
As part of my never-ending research into writers and their day jobs (which I happily perform without a whimper of complaint for you, dear reader), I went Googling for information on novelist John Nichols, author of The Milagro Beanfield War and other fine novels.
Within seconds, I’d found a novelist, a diplomat, a cricketer, a couple of journalists, a professor of North American languages, a member of an indie rock band, a US Representative, an aviator, a former mayor, and most perplexing of all, John Treadwell Nichols, ichthyologist.
Oh, if only they were all the SAME John Nichols! What a magnificent column I’d have!
Alas, those are all different fellows named John Nichols, including a fine political writer with the Capital Times here in Madison, Wisconsin. That’s the great thing about Google, huh? You can find everything on it! Of course, that’s also the awful thing about Google. You can find everything on it—and most of what you find isn’t what you want. You have to separate the real goods from the bogus.
Our John Nichols, novelist, was born in 1940 in Berkeley, California and was at various times a blues singer in New York, a dishwasher in Connecticut, and a firefighter in Arizona. There’s no record that he ever played cricket or toured with a band, but he did travel through Central America before settling in New Mexico. He served his apprenticeship writing unpublished novels and had a modest success with The Sterile Cuckoo, published in 1965.
But he truly found his métier when he undertook to write a novel based on a struggle over water-rights unfolding in Taos.
Nichols says he “blamed out The Milagro Beanfield War in a last-ditch effort to save what was by then an almost non-existent literary career." Bingo. It was published in 1974 to critical acclaim and good sales, and Robert Redford made it into a movie.
His dishwashing days behind him, Nichols followed that success with The Magic Journey (1978) and The Nirvana Blues (1981), forming a trilogy about history, race, and the land in fictional Chamisaville County, New Mexico.
In Beanfield, Joe Mondragon touches off the war of the book’s title when he decides to water his diseased father’s beanfield by illegally tapping into the state’s water supply. Small farmers and sheepmen rally to Joe’s cause in the eternal battle of the have-nots against the haves. It’s a great read and has had an impact on our culture. It also established Nichols as a novelist.
He might have been (but wasn’t) referring to himself in Nirvana Blues when he wrote, "Each person leaves a legacy, a single, small piece of herself, which makes richer each individual life and the collective life of humanity as a whole.”
That kind of faith must have sustained him as he washed all those dishes in Connecticut, and it should sustain you as you labor to support yourself while the world takes its sweet time discovering the brilliance of your writing. Put in your apprentice work, find your themes, and develop your voice, and while you do all that—be sure to keep the day job.
Coming soon:
Our First Annual Snoozie Awards, bestowed on the Most Boring Day Jobs any writer has ever had!
Are you worthy of a Snoozie? Email mcook@dcs.wisc.edu to place your name and job in nomination.