Last night I had a fine time at Terry Malley’s St. Patrick’s Day party; there was a nice group there. I arrived early and got to talk with Margaret and her daughter Jennifer, who are still as sweet as ever.
Terry’s wife Kathy is a big shot at Warner Communications, and they seem to have good life: a large house in Park Slope, with an enormous collection of books; many friends; money and time to travel, especially to Ireland.
Terry is the kind of academic I would like to be: caring, oblivious to all the bullshit, eclectic in his interests, funny, and very intelligent. If I were a drinking man, I’d want him for a drinking companion.
Ken Bernard arrived with his wife and their son Judd; Dr. Small arrived with some woman (he’s been married three times already); and there were a couple of adjuncts, like Alan Brafman, whose poetry book Terry has published under his own imprint.
Tina and Al Orsini — married three weeks and looking incredibly happy — arrived late; I especially enjoyed seeing them, as they have a pleasant style. We talked about Europe and the racket that is academia. I wonder where Tina and Al will be able to go with their doctorates. They love literature so, and I guess they’re not thinking about the job market now but about Yeats and Shelley and their comprehensive exams.
There was talk of Hal Jaffee, who’s having a book published with the Fiction Collective. Earlier in the week I saw him teaching at BC, and Bill Browne (who went to LIU and knows Terry and Ken) told me that Jaffee gave up tenure at LIU to become a full-time writer. Ken said that was an incredibly stupid thing to do, and it’s difficult for me to disagree.
I want to write stories called “I Brake for Delmore Schwartz” and “Substantial Penalties for Early Withdrawal” but can’t seem to psych myself up for them, mostly because I want to get paid for writing the stories.
I always scorned Dr. Johnson’s line, “Only a blockhead wrote for anything but money,” but now, I don’t know. Am I selling out? Going “Hollywood”?
The Times Magazine today featured a cover story on John Gardner and his wholesale attack on the “immorality” of his fellow novelists. I think Gardner’s a boring gasbag who manages to miss all the fun and delight in fiction.
To me, Gardner’s own novels are tedious, and I’ve never been able to get through one of them. Of course, Fiction Collective novels are pretty bleak going, too.
Deanna said she found my stories funny. Of course, she especially liked the ones that feature my family, the ones that my parents are embarrassed over. I sold a copy to Jerry today, and Dad said, “It’s a good thing we’re moving.”
Jerry sent a real estate agent over, and late today the agent brought a couple by to see the house. Mom and Dad are asking $68,000 and have no idea whether they’ll get it. They really need to move to Florida as soon as possible now that Dad’s got a job there.
I answered a couple of want ads in today’s Times, so it looks like I’m going to stay in the city instead of go for my doctorate in Albany. Josh thinks I should because I’m making contacts here and doing well.
Crad Kilodney wrote me that he’s having very bad luck selling World Under Anaesthesia on the streets of Toronto.
He sent his review of my book to the Toronto Globe and Mail, but he doesn’t really expect them to review it.
Crad says that even if it does manage to appear, Macmillan of Canada, who don’t represent any major U.S. trade houses, will probably screw up the distribution so badly that there will be no books available in stores.
“As I wrote to Tom,” Crad wrote, about his street bookselling adventures and about mankind in general, “it’s the grand parade of witless human meat.”
He also sent me a hysterically funny piece, one of the best things he’s written: “The True Story of My Dentist, Dr. Mark Litvack.” I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. Maybe it should be a TV series: Mark Litvack, Toronto Dentist.
Today People magazine called Taplinger to ask for a photo to accompany their review of my book. Wes said the photo may not appear but apparently the review will.
“Under ‘Picks and Pans’?” I asked Wesley.
“I think it’s gonna be a ‘pick,’” he said.
I guess they wouldn’t ask for my photo if they were going to pan it. This is unbelievable. I did write the woman at People who called Wes, but I never thought it would amount to anything.
If for any reason the People review doesn’t appear, I don’t want to be devastated. This is getting scary. I may actually get the thing I’ve wished for: isn’t that supposed to be the worst thing that can happen? But I’ve got to focus on the little realities of my life or I’ll go mad.
The University of Miami’s English Department chairman wrote to say he’s interested in me for the vacancy next spring; this was before I wrote Dean Jerry Katz, Irv Littman’s close friend. They asked to see my book, so I sent it on down to them.
Star-Web Paper #7 arrived today, about four years after “Notes on the Type” and “Mark the Public Notices” were accepted. It was nice to see the latter story in print, however; I wrote Tom Fisher and told him I gave him an acknowledgement in Hitler.
Last evening George Drury Smith of Beyond Baroque phoned from Venice, California. They were typesetting their new issue and discovered they’d lost my contract and the statement I’d written about my two stories.
I told George I’d get them out to him right away, and I also mentioned my good L.A. Times review; he was impressed. (I’ve discovered it never hurts to blow your own horn — most of the time, anyway.)
My Bulletin Board ad appeared in the Village Voice today (I wonder if anyone will see it) along with a scathing review of the latest Fiction Collective books and venom about the Collective itself, which James Woollcott dismissed as “an academic vanity press.”
Now that I’m on the other side, I can’t help seeing the Fiction Collective differently, and I can’t help feeling superior to them. I want as wide an audience as possible now — and I’ve got a feeling my work is going to be, if not less experimental, more accessible.
I’d love for Baumbach to come across the review in People. But it may not appear, and it doesn’t make me a better writer if it does appear.
Today’s mail was encouraging, perhaps because there was so much of it. I got an invitation to a Fiction Collective party celebrating the publication of books by Baumbach, Major and Sukenick. But it’s tomorrow at 4 PM, when I’m supposed to meet Marcus.
I really would like to make it up with Jon Baumbach by now. My resentment toward him is gone, and I don’t need his enmity.
Vin Scelsa, the WNEW-FM disk jockey, wrote me, saying he’d enjoyed Hitler — but I don’t think he’s going to review the book, as he didn’t say he would.
East Carolina University wants writing samples; they seem to be fairly interested in me. I finally got a response to a want ad I answered, but the employer, a literary agent, said I should “stick to writing and selling your own books — you’re so good at it.”
I got my Citicard in the mail faster than I anticipated; I have to get it validated and then I can use the Citibank centers anytime.
The Voice of America wrote me a letter which acknowledged my participation in their Forum series, American Writing Today. Thanks to Richard Kostelanetz, I’ll be part of a symposium on “The Short Story” and get a $100 honorarium.
They also need a photo (God, I’ve got to get some photos made up) and a bio sketch, as a transcript of the interview will be published in a book.
Richard also sent me a copy of his update on The End of Intelligent Writing: Essentials and Appendix, which I spent this afternoon reading.
In the book, he quoted the letter I sent him after I first read The End, saying it “first made me upset, then angry, then ready to take action.” I was identified as “a fictioneer, born in 1951, writing in 1976.” Richard’s the only one who’s put me in a book index — twice.
But the best letter I got today came from Lola Szladits. I quote at length:
The older I get, the less I want to leave with no trace, and it is for traces like yours that I keep looking for some immortality. Thanks a million and do not despair, dear friend, because if I do know one thing for certain, I know that the book is going to survive. If I did not, I could not carry on the way I do.
One has to have that conviction or else everything else we do or have done falls to dust. That cannot and is not going to happen. We are, no need to tell you of all people, in an extraordinarily mad world, except that the oncoming century may be worse — so rejoice you are in this one and not the next, if there’s going be one . . .
One hits one’s level sooner or later, and let’s face it, you did accomplish something already and will continue. I am not writing for sake of pep talk, although you may need it, but I would never lie and not to you.
I am not certain, either, how much comfort I can give others since I too am comfortless, but then how else can a sensitive person walk through life? At least when my time comes — and yours — we can say one thing in full knowledge: that we did not have a dull time and that it was well spent...
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