The World Is My Home: A Memoir

by James A. Michener

  I walked to work that Monday morning bathed as it were in a mixture of depression and good spirits. I was depressed by the letter that apparently ended my writing career and certainly terminated my attempt to write a follow-up to my first lucky shot; I was a one-book man and that one had accomplished little. But, on the positive side, I was vibrantly alive. I had just passed my forty-first birthday in excellent health. I’d had an exciting weekend playing volleyball against a Harlem team composed of black railway porters who, as one of my teammates wailed after three straight losses, ‘can leap in the air higher than anyone else and stay there longer.’ My own comment had been: ‘They had me picking volleyballs out of my teeth all night long.’ But it had been robust fun and in the second game we had almost won, losing by only 15–13. Furthermore, I was finished with my Navy service and, best of all, I had published a book, modest though it was, and none of my friends could make that boast.

  It was about six long blocks from my quarters on West Twelfth to my office on Tenth Street and Fifth Avenue, and by the time I reached there I was in an up mood: ‘Forget the agent and his letter. I have other work to do,’ and I actually ran up the broad stairs to my editorial office. There I bumped into my boss, Phil Knowlton, the demon geographer from Madison, Wisconsin, who was certainly not in a gay mood: he had lost in his daily commuter-train bridge game and was about to upbraid me for an accumulation of errors in my work.

  It was a testy morning, with Knowlton lambasting me for a wide variety of offenses. He was a classicist who took editing seriously, and his lecture focused on my letters of rejection sent to educators who had submitted manuscripts that were palpably unpublishable: ‘I don’t want to see any cheap humor in these letters, no Mencken touches, no clever lines. Because on the day that this man receives your letter in the morning mail rejecting the manuscript that is as dear to him as his life’s blood, he will be visited by a Macmillan salesman in the afternoon endeavoring to sell him some of our books. Small chance, if your letter has abused his ego.’

  And he showed me a handful of his rejection letters. They gave the impression that he had been practically in tears when he wrote them. Never did he reject this wonderful manuscript; he had fought for it right to the very highest levels, but always despite his pleas some other agency had turned thumbs down—‘the men upstairs’ or ‘the editorial board’ or ‘the experts in the field’ or even ‘my purblind associates.’ By the time I had finished reading the examples of his painful rejections I felt that I was in the presence of a man who was all heart, who actually bled when he had to say no.

  Phil was never a vengeful man; I once termed him a ‘lovable teddy-bear of a growler,’ which was an accurate description of a man who at times did growl but who bore no grudges. We took lunch together at the famous Salmagundi Club patronized by artists whose works adorned the walls, and there we played the traditional dice game of Horse, at which he beat me, and then returned to his office, where he resumed his bashing: ‘Michener, I’ve told you a score of times, the word data is plural,’ and he banged his desk: ‘Data are insufficient. Data do not support. We are still seeking those data that will support.…’ He asked me when I would ever learn, and I said I thought he had made his point, but he would later trap me again with that ridiculous usage. To me the items were singular, and each was data, despite what he said. I doubt that I have ever used datum in my life, and I don’t find anyone else using it, either.

  He then passed on to one of my letters that really grieved him. I had described a scholar who was working on one of our books as ‘the famous geographer Professor Blank,’ and he stormed: ‘You use words cavalierly. Famous geographer indeed! I know every major geographer in the United States and I never heard of your Professor Blank. If I don’t know him, he’s not even well-known, let alone famous.’

  ‘What can I say to make him feel good? He’s sure to see my letter, you know, and I want to keep him happy.’

  Knowlton leaned back, reflected on what he recognized as a real problem: ‘Well, you could say well-regarded, although I don’t know anyone who regards him either well or poorly. Or you might use notable, I’d accept that. How about highly respected?’

  Before I could respond, there came a great knocking at the door. It was then thrust open by Cecil Scott, who shouted the amazing news: ‘Jim, you’ve won the Pulitzer Prize!’

  Soon Knowlton’s office was filled with people and the phone was ringing, for the Pulitzer board had astounded the nation by awarding the coveted prize for 1947 fiction not to a novel, as required by the deed of grant, and certainly not to a work whose locale was the United States, as was also required, but to a loosely strung together collection of stories about remote areas and even more remote people like cannibalistic savages and Tonkinese indentured servants.

  For about fifteen minutes there was bedlam in Phil’s office, with radio stations calling for interviews and literary editors of newspapers and wire services phoning for statements. It was both exhilarating and tremendously bewildering; in those first moments I had no conception of either what it meant then or what it would mean in the future. I was allowed no time to speculate because as soon as the office cleared, Phil resumed his critical review of my work: ‘You must always remember that we’re a publishing company and that if we don’t maintain strict standards in our letters to the public, who will?’ With that he ignored the Pulitzer completely and launched into a tirade against one of his bêtes noires: ‘You simply must stop using the word lady the way you do. Right here you say, “She is one of our best lady writers.” Don’t do that! Don’t ever do that! The word has degenerated. It’s degrading to call a woman a lady. The only proper use of that phrase is in comic phrases like a lady wrestler or pejorative ones like a lady of the night. Words get used up, Michener, or quarantined, and lady has lost its traditional connotations. Use it only for comic relief and then most carefully, and for the love of God, never, never use the old phrase “She was a perfect lady.” Informed readers will laugh at you.’

  That wild and wonderful day—fired at dawn, elevated at sunset—ended with Phil taking me to the WOR radio station, where I had my first-ever literary interview: ‘Why do you suppose the Pulitzer committee chose your unusual book?’ to which I could only respond: ‘I really don’t know. It’s sort of miraculous.’

  It was far more miraculous than I could have known, for years later at a gala dinner in Washington, a newsman interested in books whispered: ‘You know that woman over there? She’s the one who got you your Pulitzer Prize. Said she’d like to meet you.’

  In this way I met the redoubtable Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Teddy, and now the delightful doyenne of Washington political society. When she saw the newsman approaching with me at his side she cried: ‘You must be Michener. Come sit with me,’ and when I did she said with obvious pleasure: ‘Well, you’ve certainly done well with that prize we gave you.’ Then she told me how that exciting affair back in 1948 had chanced to happen: ‘My dear and trusted friend Arthur Krock of the Times was chairman of either the entire Pulitzer committee or the literary wing, and I always followed closely the deliberations, for this was a prize not to be wasted. When I heard the name of the book they were planning to designate I protested: “That’s a nothing work. No vitality!” and Arthur asked: “Do you know something better?” and I snapped: “I certainly do,” and insisted that all the members of the committee read your little book, which I considered very good indeed. When they finished, they agreed with me, and you received the prize, most deservedly, I must say.’ Grasping my two hands, she said: ‘I’m proud of the fact, Michener, that you didn’t let us down. It was daring of Krock and his team to give you that award, but that’s how awards should be given. To people at the start of their careers, not at the end. But it takes courage to do that. How can we be sure who will be a producer and who not? Thank you for legitimizing our gamble.’

  I said earlier that moving the publication of my book from 1946 to 1947 was of crucial importance to
my career as a writer, and this was the reason: The Pulitzer is awarded each spring to the book judged best from the preceding calendar year, and had mine been published as planned there was no chance it could have won, because in the 1946 judging it would have been in competition with Robert Penn Warren’s superb All the King’s Men, which swept the field. And had it been delayed into the 1948 voting it would have missed again, for that was the year of James Gould Cozzens’s magisterial Guard of Honor. Accidentally my book stumbled into the 1947 judging, the only year in which it had a chance of winning, and it found that haven by pure luck.

  This is an appropriate point at which to consider the role of luck in the development of a professional career. I have had such good fortune in mine that it’s frightening, and this good fortune reaches back to my earliest childhood, for if it was sad in many respects it was also illuminated by flashes of purest luck. Suppose I had not received the wonderful gift of carbon paper that enabled me to visualize the printing and dissemination of ideas? Suppose our small town had not opened the library when it did, so that I could grab the books I needed? And suppose my first novel had been published in 1946 as scheduled, rather than in 1947, when Alice Longworth would have a chance to serve as my guardian angel? And suppose in my three airplane accidents there had not been such capable pilots at the controls and trained rescuers near at hand?

  Luck plays such an overpowering role in some lives that the thoughtful person must ask: ‘Why have I been cursed with bad luck while another is blessed with so much good luck?’ Believe me, the fortunate person who receives the favorable breaks also wonders about his favored situation. In my case I have no explanation. I was hardworking; I had a tough character; I was a good student; and I acknowledged the leadership of my superiors. But no amount of hard work or high standard of behavior could have brought the many good things that happened to me; pure chance dictated most of them. The only generalization I can offer is that in an irrational world if a prudent course has been followed, you make yourself eligible to capitalize on luck if it happens to strike. If you have not made yourself eligible, you may never be aware that luck is at hand. By all this I mean: learn typing, master math, learn to draft a convincing letter, broaden the mind, and do not evade challenges. Making oneself eligible to seize the breaks if and when they come is the only sensible strategy I know. Be prepared to make full use of any stroke of luck, and even if it never comes, the preparation in itself will be a worthy effort.

  Long before the Pulitzer Prize was awarded I donated to the library at the University of Pennsylvania a unique book, the only one of its kind in existence, a trial printing of Tales of the South Pacific bearing the copyright and publishing date of 1946. Had it appeared publicly with that date, all would have been lost, for it would have been eclipsed by All the King’s Men. Appearing in 1947 made all the difference. If Penn, which I once attended, still has that precious copy, I hope the relevant passages of this chapter will be copied and attached to the book, for it played a vital role in my life.

  James Gould Cozzens was a grouchy, impossible-to-love man who lived not far from me on the other side of the Delaware River. He kept to himself, seemed to hate everyone and despised other writers. His masterwork, The Just and the Unjust, whose setting is the Doylestown Court House, is an intricate account of how rural justice is administered, wonderfully told with vivid characters, and I was not alone in believing that if Cozzens could continue such work he would be sure to win the Nobel Prize.

  We met often in various corners of Doylestown, and especially in the courthouse, where he liked to listen in on trials and pick up ideas for his writing, but he affected not to see me, or to know me if he did see me. We never spoke as far as I can remember, but once when his drinking friend Bob Brugger tried to introduce us, he did grunt. This did not disturb me; I dismissed his coolness as his style, and in several interviews with Philadelphia newspapers I pointed out that one of the truly fine writers of our time lived just a few miles down the road. One writer asked me three times: ‘What name did you say?’ And when his article appeared it said that ‘Michener has a high regard for the writing of James Gould’s cousin, who lives across the river in Lambertville,’ and I thought: What the hell. Let Cozzens fight his own battles. After that I referred to him less frequently.

  To complete the Pulitzer story, two mornings after the announcement my bell rang again and it was another special delivery from my former agent. This time he extended warm congratulations and with marked generosity expressed a hope that if I did continue my writing I might meet with further success, but he did not indicate in any way that he had changed his earlier opinion that as a possible author I was a dead duck.

  · · ·

  The fourth person who played a major role in the early days of my writing career was Kenneth McKenna, the former Hollywood actor and the sophisticated head of the literary department at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in charge of acquiring plays and novels for the studio. He was a handsome young man with a gift for words who was more than capable as an actor, but he found greater pleasure in uncovering good screenplay material. He told me later that even a cursory reading of my book had alerted him to its dramatic possibilities, which I certainly had not detected, and he strongly recommended that Metro buy it. But the big brass looked at the book, which was physically ugly, saw it only as a collection of loosely bound yarns and told McKenna: ‘No dramatic possibilities whatever. No story line,’ and he had to admit that for the movies that assessment was valid.

  But he had a half-brother in the New York theater, the gifted stage designer Jo Mielziner, who had already dressed such hits as Winterset, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Death of a Salesman. He was a formidable artist. One night he told me: ‘My brother in Hollywood phoned me and said: “Jo, grab a copy of this book Tales of the South Pacific by some G.I. named Michener. It has wonderful possibilities. The studio turned thumbs down, but I believe it would work on Broadway.” I followed his advice, read your book and saw immediately what he meant.’

  ‘What did you do next?’

  ‘I took it to Dick Rodgers and told him it was a natural for him and Oscar and I’d volunteer to do the sets.’

  When Rodgers read the book he phoned Oscar Hammerstein, who fell in love with the wild and colorful stories. There then ensued an amusing contretemps during which Hammerstein launched a series of frantic telephone calls trying to locate me so that a deal could be made for my book. He failed to reach me, which was remarkable, for I had then moved to Harvey Avenue in Doylestown and he lived on a farm at the east end of that town, less than a mile away. We had never met, two fellows from the same town who now needed each other.

  In the meantime he and Rodgers had allied themselves with two other outstanding talents, Josh Logan, the director, and Leland Hayward, the charismatic producer, and on a snowy afternoon in March 1948 Hayward tracked me down in my office at Macmillan with a secret proposition: ‘I think your book has dramatic possibilities, and I want to purchase all theatrical rights. Five hundred dollars, and you keep it all.’

  Since I needed the money, the offer was tempting, but my rough childhood and jobs I had held in my teens that involved large sums had taught me a good deal about financing, and after a few minutes’ reflection I told Hayward: ‘I would always want to take risks with anything I did. Never an outright sale. Only royalties.’

  ‘You’re a smart fellow, Michener. You’ll hear from us.’ I have not told this story before, and in later years when Hayward and I became friends we never referred to the fact that he had tried to slip behind his partners’ backs and pick up all the rights to what turned out to be a bonanza.

  Rodgers and Hammerstein treated me better. In exploratory sessions with them they kept telling me how marvelous my book was, partly I think to keep up their own courage, but after they had buttered me up in ways I positively enjoyed, their longtime and shrewd financial manager would take me aside and poor-mouth me: ‘You know, Michener, your book has no story line. It has no dramatic imp
act. We couldn’t possibly pay you what we did Lynn Riggs for his Green Grow the Lilacs, which Oklahoma! was based on. That was a real play. It had structure.’

  The comparison between Riggs and Michener was significant, for I had learned that Riggs had received a royalty of 1.5 percent, whereas I was being offered only 1 percent. Lest this figure seem appallingly low, I should mention that the ordinary musical budgeted only 10 percent of gross for original source, theatrical book, lyrics and music combined. Thus my 1 percent of gross was really 10 percent of the total artistic budget and on a hit show that could amount to real income. Of course, Riggs’s 1.5 percent on a smash hit like Oklahoma! was a fortune, and continues to this day. I accepted my 1 percent and never had regrets.

  It was a privilege to watch Rodgers and Hammerstein work. Dick, the music master, was the genius in things pertaining to what happened on the stage; he had an uncanny sense of what would work, what was needed to lift a scene or when to either cut it sharply or kill it altogether. He was deathly afraid of having the show run too long: ‘Curtain down at eleven-ten so they can catch the trains home, you have a hit. Curtain down at eleven-twenty, they miss their trains, a flop.’