A man with a difficult past, Steven Lansky, without a wife, after a divorce that could not help any, tells of his schizophrenia. Humorous and pathetic, poignantly real, he understands how mental health insurance saved him, and childlike art became his passion. Steven invites criticism, using the Gita to identify with, as the warrior Arjuna takes on a personal significance, while consuming pressure, from a hallucinogenic nightmare in a House of the Rising Sun epic self-determinate haze. Bicycling, and sailing, rescues him. Tormented by relationships, brotherly love, even by bloody memories of an unfortunate incident, and then an accidental spell, in a far-off city, from New Orleans, to Boston, to Memphis and the North Country, whatever the setting, the lush, overwhelming calm, pervades a taut emotive narration. Lovers, women, give heartfelt adoration, but not enough to satisfy. This Bildungsroman moves through conscious memory, as it progresses visually, in a paradigm parallel to Irving Stone's biography of Vincent van Gogh, whose art Lansky's resembles. His nom de plume, or sobriquet, Jack Acid precedes him, like the famed immortal charioteer Krishna. Torrid sex, and various characterizations, inhibit his telling the story straight. The story, dictated to a muse elevates artifice to art.
Paul Thanas is the grandson of Louis Hiram Lansky, a credit manager of Compo Shoe Manufacturer in Boston, Massachusetts, from Staviche, Ukraine, and Ethel Solar Lansky, a housewife and mother of two. His other grandfather, Vacilios Asthanasiadis was married to Smaragda, both of Thessaloniki, though Vacilios originally came from Constantinople, now Istanbul. Vacilios owned and ran The Manhattan, a working-class Greek restaurant on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, California, now the location of a used car lot. Paul's father said a hamburger cost thirty cents and came with two sides at The Manhattan. Paul's mother is another story.
Illustrator:
Steven Paul Lansky was raised by a loving family in Cincinnati, Ohio. He grew up sailing and bicycling and was unaware of how he would become an artist, harmonica player, and world traveler. First diagnosed with schizophrenia after his freshman year at Harvard, where he had been admitted at age 17, Lansky found art in psychiatric hospitals. He discovered his alcoholism in psychiatric treatment with the help of a generous writer with whom he apprenticed in his late 20s. By then, he had regional notoriety for his urban poetry. At 30, he began a career working with people with mental health conditions, at first as a vocational rehabilitation supervisor and later as a field-worker. During this time, he hosted a weekly radio show on a local NPR affiliate where he shared spoken word and music. In his early 40s, he earned an MA from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in creative writing. Since then, he has taught writing, traveled, and published six books, including the audio novel "Jack Acid," available on Spotify and Apple Music. As he was retiring, he earned an MFA from the low-residency creative writing program at the University of Tampa.
