Me n' Meredith Willson

[madrobins]

I just finished reading But He Doesn't Know the Territory, Meredith Willson's memoir of writing The Music Man. Willson is pretty much Winthrop Paroo all growed up--relentlessly, charmingly, adorably Iowan, both sentimental and observant about the town he grew up in, and the business he came to work in. He doesn't say anything mean about anyone, although if you read between the lines you can get a notion of who he enjoyed working with and who he didn't. Part of what's remarkable about the story is how long it took to write the book--five or six years. The little boy who became Winthrop, Marian-the-librarian's little brother with the terrible lisp and one of my favorite lines in musical theatre ("Oh, thister! Ithn't thith the motht scrumpt-u-outh tholid gold thing you ever thaw?") started out to be a kid with Cerebral Palsy--what they used to call spastic. And up until the previews the opening number--the one with the traveling salesmen on the train--had a full orchestral accompaniment. Marian, by the way, is based on Willson's mother, who wanted everyone in town to share her love for things like art and literature. I love this stuff.

But the big thing that comes through, both in the memoir and in the movie (which I really think I have to read this weekend) is Meredith Willson's love for his home town. Last night as I was falling asleep, I groggily realized that The Music Man is to Meredith Willson as The Stone War is to me: a story about loving his home town. Of course, he didn't have to blow up half of Iowa and mutate citizens into bloodthirsty monsters. How many of us do this, I wonder: use our work to try to convey something a place and time we love?