Lawrence Vernon, Thursday, March 22, 2007

When Carmen called me one week ago informing me of this launching, and requesting on Rene’s behalf that I make some opening remarks, I deemed it an honor and a pleasure.

Actually, even before the title THANKS FOR CHOOSING LOVE was chosen, I had previously come in contact with the draft of Rene’s effort to write and publish a book, when late last year he sent me a copy and asked that I edit it and provide any necessary advice as to structure, grammar, etc. I understood that Richard Merrill was the de facto editor who had done extensive work on the manuscript, so my comments were consigned mostly to confirming the accuracy of some historical events and authenticity of names and places. Writing style and content I left relatively untouched. What I came away with was that THANKS FOR CHOOSING LOVE is a social discourse, and in the tradition of autobiography, it is better not viewed as a record of what happened, but rather as a continuing interpretation and reinterpretation of Rene’s experience.

Looking at the finished product I see a work essentially infused with the qualities of Rene’s human voice speaking in a cultural dialogue – a cultural dialogue that links his personal voice with a public one. This further reinforced my initial impression that the author has successfully created an autobiography to shape a distinctive social discourse. But lest these opening remarks begin to take on the one of a book review, let me get back on course. However, I would be happy to do a review of the book for publication in the media sometime!

It is not my duty here today to introduce the author, but permit me to say that we are related in the form of first cousins. We have to a great extent literally grown up together in a close family environment, and I have followed his life and career with interest and admiration. I was very pleased, therefore, when Rene revealed to me that he was writing a book about his life experiences, focusing on his chosen career of radio broadcasting. This pleasure was made more so because, as my own chosen career as a librarian and information specialist, I always welcome the publication of yet another book to add to our sparse national library literary output.

So today we are launching THANKS FOR CHOOSING LOVE, and for this effort we must laud the author. We must laud Rene not only for taking on the daunting, time consuming task of giving us a full volume of his memoirs, but doing so when most other people seem reluctant to put down on paper their own story for future generations. Producing an actual autobiography is described in literary circles as “pure gold”. Rene has take time out to have fun (I hope) in conducting a lively conversation with an old friend. The old friend of course is himself and the conversation must have taken on the form of a brainstorming session.

Writing autobiography has been described as a sophisticated form of composing, as the author has to focus on three major things: WHO YOU ARE IN LIFE, WHAT LIFE MEANS TO YOU and WHAT YOUR OUTLOOK ON THE FUTURE IS. In essence then, the author has to hold conversations with himself to reconstruct and to mediate a present identity from the memories that emerge. Adopting these guidelines, and following one of the major rules of writing an autobiography, Rene has used interesting facts to explain as much about himself as he possibly can; and he has given us a lot of information so we can clearly understand what is going on.

It is Maya Angelou who said, in one of her works, that words mean more that what is written on paper because it takes the human voice to infuse words with the shades of deeper meaning. Rene has used this ability to infuse language with qualities of the human voice in his THANKS FOR CHOOSING LOVE. This serves to reinforce the fact it is indeed a cultural dialogue, linking the personal voice with a public one in this autobiographical work.

Rene has joined the distinguished body of biographers of this age, and has taken his place as “a citizen in a crowded city of words.” Readers will become more interested in how the personal nature of reading, along with the intricate relationships between the writer, the reader and the text are constituted by history, society and culture. Along the path of his career in broadcasting, which today is still bright with promise, Rene’s voice and role continue the process along the way toward becoming. He has shown himself and made it very clear what he thought of himself, and continues to think of himself, in relation to that part of the world and those people that touched him.

Rene has succeeded in exploring the implications and connections that existed, and I daresay, continue to exist between himself and the people, places and events that have made up his life. It is said that to write one’s life is to live it twice, and the second living is both spiritual and historical. In finding public words to describe his feelings, Rene’s autobiography can ultimately be described as HEART. After all, he is an expert on the subject of himself. And he is the only one who is. He is the only one who has the correct answer to the questions, and he is the only one who really knows what happened when. It is all in his head. And he had the HEART to put into words.

Through his inner conversations, Rene has shown us how to gain knowledge through reflection. He has listened to himself and created “shades of deeper meaning.” He has truly developed a voice that can be identified as his own through its embodiment in THANKS FOR CHOOSING LOVE, that recreates his world an those voices that inhabit his world. I am certain that the thoughts expressed in this book will constitute social contexts to implicate family, friends, fellow-workers, and all who read his words.

Rene, after reading THANKS FOR CHOOSING LOVE, your readers will come away as new recipients of knowledge, and will be well on the way to be active participants in the textual production of self-knowledge as they speak in voices of their own – as they become caught up in the world we call autobiography.

In closing, let me urge readers of the book to relax and have fun reading it. And to Rene, go out and make more memories!