Lenox — Author Carl Vigeland will be speaking at Kimball Farms on Sunday, March 26 at 3:30 p.m.
Vigeland, who is a resident of Amherst, has written more than 16 books during his career. His books cover a wide range of subjects, including “Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life” co-written with Wynton Marsalis, “Letters to a Young Golfer” with Bob Duval, “Dear President Trump: An Open Letter on Greatness,” and his latest book “Symmetry: Early Poems, Late Photographs.” He has written for New York Times Magazine, Playboy, Sports Illustrated, Golf Digest, DoubleTake, and Downbeat Magazine.
“It has always been a preoccupation of mine to explore the phenomenon of performance,” Vigeland told The Berkshire Edge when asked about why he writes on a diverse range of subjects. “Performance, to me, is where music and sports are conjoined in my mind. A lot of the journalism I did before my first book was either about someone who was a musician or an athlete. I think those interests grew out of my childhood.”
Vigeland said that he grew up in a family of musicians, but he also loved sports as a child “much to the consternation of [his] parents.” Vigeland explained, “My father was totally nonplussed that both my brother, who is a musician, and I were fascinated with sports, especially with hockey. That was true of people who are indigenous to Buffalo, New York, because of the long winters we had. Somewhere in the evolution of things, I think I figured out that, not to be pretentious, but just sort of to observe that there is an actual aspect of performance involved in writing.”
Vigeland said that, early on in his career, he wrote news stories and reviews for a local newspaper in Western Massachusetts, which involved constant deadlines. “When it comes to deadlines, whatever you are working on, when it’s time to dance, you have to dance,” he said. “It involved great discipline. But as a writer, I am interested in the mysterious symbiotic connection that you hope to make with your reader.”
Vigeland lived in Conway for many years before he moved to Amherst, and he told The Edge that he loves the western part of the state. “I came up here almost by accident,” he said. “I got married very young, and my wife was a serious student of comparative literature. I was teaching school, partly to support my writing habit because nobody was biting. My plan was to write the great American novel and also save the world. I was intrigued by a program that the University of Massachusetts had, and I ended up becoming a graduate student there, which is what brought us here. We never left. The area is not only beautiful, but it’s also near New York and Boston, where a lot of my work has taken me.”
He added that he is an admirer of Tanglewood, and Great Barrington “has always been one of [his] favorite towns.”
For more information about the event, call 413-637-7000.
