Authors Embrace The Drama Of New Haven Characters

“My book wouldn’t exist without my dad, so doing a reading with him is only fair, only fitting,” said Natalie Beach. She read from her memoir-in-essays, Adult Drama, Thursday night at RJ Julia bookstore in Madison. Her father, Randall Beach, joined her, reading from his collection of profiles, Connecticut Characters: Profiles of Rascals and Renegades. The father-daughter duo presented their work to a crowd of dedicated New Haveners in an event that celebrated community, culture, and family — both born and made.

RJ Julia served as a fitting setting for the reading, as both Beaches have frequented the bookstore for as long as Natalie can remember. ​“I got almost all of my midnight Harry Potters here,” recalled Natalie. ​“The history of my reading life is being at this store.”

Natalie and Randall also credit New Haven itself as both the launching pad and the inspiration for their writing. Connecticut Characters is a love letter to the city, comprising 40 years’ worth of Randall’s New Haven Register columns, in which he sought to capture the lives of a variety of people who either lived in or passed through New Haven. 

“It’s a great mix of people, wonderful characters walking around downtown who had their own way of looking at things,” said Randall. By writing his column, he ​“brought them out of the shadows” and shone a spotlight on stories that might otherwise have passed untold.

“New Haven is one of the most diverse places on the planet,” said Natalie. ​“It has a lot of contradictions — town and gown, wealth inequality … it’s great as a writer to live in those contradictions.”

The Beaches opened their reading by asking each other questions. Randall wanted to know how Natalie had developed her voice as a writer. ​“Look who raised me! Both you and mom,” Natalie laughed. ​“I grew up in a writing household where an argument could be won with who had the best one-liner.” She also credited her writing teacher at Educational Center for the Arts, Caroline Rosenstone, with shaping her into the writer that she has become. Rosenstone passed away in early June. Together with Natalie’s family, she features in the dedication of Adult Drama.

People who knew and loved New Haven packed the reading room. Natalie felt that part of the appeal of doing a reading with her father lay in combining their demographics. ​“My book is about coming of age and being a millennial … my dad’s readers are older,” she said. The Beaches packed their conversation with local buzzwords and name-dropping that the attendees recognized. Throughout the reading, as the Beaches mentioned various people, audience members revealed themselves as their friends, cousins, or ex-girlfriends. In an unplanned and often unexpected twist, the people in the room found themselves more tightly knit than they knew.

Randall read one of his profiles, a 2003 piece entitled ​“Ding! Ding! Ding! Here Comes the Retired Insurance Executive!” about Joe ​“Papa Joe” Barbato, and his career switch to selling Good Humor ice cream. Barbato and his golden retriever Belle became beloved fixtures to adults and children — anyone with a sweet tooth.

“Belle, now 10, sits in the truck above a sign that says: ​‘Hi, my name is Belle. Try the toasted almond. It’s delicious,’” read Randall.

“That was always my favorite flavor,” murmured someone in the audience.

“Mine too!” added someone else.

Randall’s writing allowed him to cultivate a firm friendship with many of his subjects, Barbato included. Natalie wanted to know if he had made any enemies through his work. Randall recalled a business that he had reviewed in which he had described one of the owners as grouchy, only to discover that he had inadvertently made him more so. 

“I made the mistake of walking into his store a few days later, and he practically assaulted me,” Randall laughed. He described a recent encounter with the same man, enacting the parts for the audience’s amusement.

“‘Are you still writing for the Register?’” Randall said, mimicking the owner’s scowl.

“No.”

“‘Good!’” He dropped the character, and the audience chuckled.

Natalie read an excerpt from her essay, ​“How May I Help You?” that details her time working as a shop girl in Los Angeles. Adult Drama spans years of Natalie’s life, from growing up in New Haven, to living in Los Angeles under the shadow of Dodger Stadium (both Beaches are passionate Yankees fans). In the essay, Natalie described how working as a shop girl trained her for life. She recalled the death of her boss, Joel, and the strange experience of selling mourning cards for his funeral to people from his own store. 

“If you had been there that night, in the room that Joel and Rosanna built together, you would have understood what it means to quietly ask a stranger, ​‘How can I help you?’ and then actually be able to do it,” she read.

An audience member asked the pair about essays or profiles that they wished they could have included, but didn’t. Randall described frustrating experiences with editors who said that Connecticut Characters ran too long, leading him to cut 30 profiles, trimming the book from its original 101 sections to 71. 

“For me, a lot of killed darlings,” agreed Natalie. She talked about how an essay on the self-esteem dangers of low-rise jeans led her down a rabbit hole on the history of pants. It would have been ​“like a 50,000 word essay,” she said, and so, it had to go.

At the end of the reading, an audience member asked a final, vital question: ​“Living under the shadow of Dodger Stadium, could you have prevented Aaron Judge’s injury?”

“Oh, I wish!” said Natalie Beach.