by Mark Dery
Gorey’s own preference, of course, was that he be seen not as a type—a gay artist or even an artist—but as an individual. “What I’m trying to say,” he told Solod, “is that I’m a person before I am anything else.”36 His response reads, in historical hindsight, as a rebuke to identity politics. He goes on to question the ghettoization of female poets in feminist anthologies and the personal-is-political stance of his museum-curator friend, a “very militant” gay man who held that “his creative life and his homosexuality were one and the same,” a position Gorey regarded as “hogwash, dear, hogwash!”
From our historical vantage point, when the cultural battle lines are drawn over issues related to racial, religious, sexual, and gender identity (all complicated by the question of class), Gorey’s remarks seem blithely entitled. Rolling an incredulous eye at the idea of “a big anthology of…say, women poets,” he underscores the patent preposterousness of identity politics (as he sees it) by pointing out, “You’re not going to find an anthology of heterosexual male poets, or anything like that!”37 Which misses the point entirely, of course. You’re not going to find an anthology titled Heterosexual Male Poets because there’s no need: the vast majority of poetry anthologies consist largely if not exclusively of poetry written by heterosexual males. Gorey seems to be wearing the blinkers of white male privilege. Likewise, he betrays a curious blind spot when it comes to the ways in which the personal is inescapably political if you’re gay, an obliviousness that seems especially odd when we recall that he lived in New York in the ’70s, when, as Edmund White has written, “we gay guys wore whistles around our necks so we could summon help from other gay men when we were attacked on the streets.”38 Peter Wolff recalls the time he and Ted were strolling along Fifth Avenue, Ted in a mink coat, “and somebody said ‘Faggot!’ right to his face.” Gorey feigned incomprehension, asking Wolff what the man had said. “He had to’ve heard it,” says Wolff, “but he chose not to.”
Yet it’s also possible that Gorey was ahead of his time, and not just his but ours as well. Was the radical doubter—who questioned not just who he was but whether he was—raising a skeptical eyebrow about this whole business of constructing identity, not to mention a collective identity, around sexuality? In like fashion, was he questioning the underlying assumptions of what it means to be gay? If you’re a bundle of stereotypical tastes and behaviors—“flamboyant” dress, swooping vocal tones, balletomania, an inordinate fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan and Golden Girls—but chaste as a vestal, can you really be said to be gay? “A lot of people would say that I wasn’t [gay] because I never do anything about it,” Gorey observed.39
Then, too, he didn’t self-define as gay, and isn’t the right to define oneself a cornerstone assumption of identity politics? Connect the dots of Gorey’s responses to the are-you-gay question and they add up to asexuality, which is, in a way, very Taoist of him. In a world built on philosophical binaries, bisexuality is threatening enough, as White points out. Bisexuals, he contends, “keep a low profile, not because they’re ashamed but because everyone distrusts and fears them. Tribes have only two ways of treating interstitial members; they either make them into gods or banish them.”40 Asexuality is beyond interstitial; it steps outside the sexual continuum altogether. Asexuals are the Bartlebys of human sexual response; like the protagonist of Melville’s novel, they simply “prefer not to.”
In his classic coming-out memoir, City Boy, White, an early standard-bearer for the notion of a gay literature, reflects on how he came to regard it, and even the essentialist definition of a gay identity, with an ambivalent eye. He cites the French philosopher Michel Foucault, who was gay but “very much against identity politics and ‘the culture of avowal,’ by which he meant a culture that thought every individual had a secret, that that secret was sexual, and that by confessing it one had come to terms with one’s essence.” Gorey would have agreed. An open secret yet irresolvably mysterious even so, his sexuality was an essential part of who he was and the art he made but hardly the essence of who he was.
“He didn’t want it to become the sole center of his life,” says Peter Anastos. “I think that’s what happened in my generation, starting in the ’60s and ’70s. People let their homosexuality become the absolute center of their lives and there was nothing else. I’ve known a lot of [gay] guys Ted’s age and…they just see it in a whole different way. Being gay is not the center of their lives.…Ted never struck me as closeted; he just was who he was.” Guy Trebay, a fashion writer for the New York Times and a keen-eyed observer of culture, sums it up neatly: “Whether his mysterious lifelong retreat was a flight from sex or a simple desire to be a solitary cat-loving, raccoon-coat-wearing Firbankian geek…I respect the decision to hold the line. Why queer him? He was far queerer than queer.”41
* * *
At the June 5, 2000, memorial party at Strawberry Hill, the actress Julie Harris read The Osbick Bird, Gorey’s story about a gawky bird, half toucan, half flamingo, that swoops down out of the blue one day to land on Emblus Fingby’s derby. The two become bosom friends, joining in lute-flute duets and playing games of double solitaire so frenzied that the cards get “battered past repair,” after which “they would not speak / to one another for a week.” An interspecies romance, it’s unnatural, admittedly, though apparently platonic. But then, given the human condition—we’re born alone, we die alone, we’re as isolated by language as we are knitted together by it—isn’t every romantic relationship unnatural? Gorey, who never quite got the hang of romance, seemed to think so.
When Fingby dies, his constant companion is by his side, devoted to the last. Or so it seems.
He was interred; the bird alone
Was left to sit upon his stone.
But after several months, one day
It changed its mind and flew away.
It’s classic Gorey: the ineffable inscrutability of things; the sublime pointlessness of life; “the of it all.” People love us, and then they don’t. You get emotionally involved with someone, and “whole stretches of your life go kerplunk.” You may “look like a real person” but really you’re masked by “a fake persona.” You might telegraph the most obvious social signals of queerness, but really be “neither one thing nor the other particularly,” a pose that may, of course, be yet another “fake persona” behind the face you show the world, like the selves within selves in a Russian nesting doll. Or not. “To catch and keep the public’s gaze / One must have lots of little ways,” Gorey slyly reminds us in The Awdrey-Gore Legacy.
“The true artist is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself,” said Oscar Wilde.42 Whatever else he was, Gorey was incomparably, unimprovably himself, a model of uncompromising (yet unaffected) originality. Dick Cavett gave voice to the thoughts of countless fans who, having fallen for Gorey’s work, ended up equally smitten with the man behind it. “I have to tell you that I have total admiration for your work,” confessed Cavett near the end of their interview, “and I think, also, for your lifestyle—that dreadful phrase. The idea that you live exactly as you want to. You do, apparently, a very satisfying kind of work. I find it just marvelous to look at, but I can imagine that it must be wonderful to do.…And I’m talking, also, about the fact that if you want to go to the ballet 50 nights in a row, you do; if your work isn’t ready by the time the publisher wants it to be, apparently this doesn’t get you terribly upset. [O]f the thousands and thousands of kinds of lives there are to lead, most people opt for one or two of the best-known ones. And you have done exactly, as I see it, what you want to do.”43
Not only that, but “working quite perversely to please himself,” as Edmund Wilson so memorably put it, he created “a whole little world,” a black-and-white wonderland so transportingly Goreyesque that many who encounter it wish they could live in it, taking tea with “Mr C(lavius) F(rederick) Earbrass” at his country manor, riding the Willowdale Handcar, wandering the haunted halls of the West Wing, discovering
at last just what it was Gerald did to Elsie with that saucepan, maybe even hazarding the horrors of Sir Egbert’s unspeakable sofa, with its nine legs and seven arms, and, in the end, solving the mystery of the portentous Black Doll. “My background in anthropology really was appropriate,” says Chris Seufert, reflecting on the experience of filming Gorey for his documentary. “My sense, shooting him, was that he was indeed the last of a disappearing race. That’s the sense you got with Edward—he was the last member of some race, maybe an alien race. But the thing with Edward was, there was no race. It was only ever Edward. He was the most one-of-a-kind person you’d ever meet.”44
A line from The Utter Zoo comes floating back:
About the Zote what can be said?
There was just one, and now it’s dead.
Bust of Charles Dickens peering from the window of the “hidden room” at Strawberry Lane the week after Gorey’s death. (Photograph by Christopher Seufert)
a What those two catchphrases reveal about Gorey and his art is the stuff of dissertations.
Acknowledgments
To my unsinkably optimistic agent, Andrew Stuart of the Stuart Agency, who first believed in this book; to Little, Brown’s former executive editor Michael Sand, who bought it; and to Sand’s successor, Michael Szczerban, who did battle with the Leviathan, slashing it down to readable size with just the right mixture of sensitivity and steely resolve, must go pride of place. Thank you, gentlemen, for your faith in Gorey and his Boswell. (Michael Szczerban was ably assisted by Nicky Guerreiro, who attended to all the little—but all-important—details.) Barbara Clark’s impeccable copyedit, fastidiously grammatical yet thoughtful on questions of style, saved me from dangling participles and other crimes too monstrous to mention.
I owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to Skee Morton and Eleanor Garvey, who were unstintingly generous with their memories (and memorabilia) of their cousin, and to Ken Morton, who vouched for my bona fides with Gorey’s inner circle, scanned photos by the boatload, answered my endless questions with equanimity, and served as a reliably sane and perspicacious sounding board throughout the writing of this book.
To Rick Jones, executive director of the Edward Gorey House, I’m deeply indebted as well: Rick’s unfailing attentiveness to my unending questions, his willingness to open the Gorey House for my private perusal, and his many other kindnesses, large and small, were enormously helpful. (Gregory Hischak, who came aboard as the museum’s curator when I was putting the finishing touches on this book, was a gracious guide to all things Gorey, too.)
Christopher Seufert, the Cape Cod photographer and filmmaker whose documentary The Last Days of Edward Gorey (Mooncusser Films) sketches an intimate portrait of the man in his Yarmouth Port days, was lavishly kind in hosting private screenings of that work in progress; providing transcripts of his interviews with Gorey, Gorey’s Cape Cod circle, and Gorey aficionados such as Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket); sharing hard-to-find recordings of Gorey appearances on radio and TV; and, more generally, extending Yankee hospitality.
Elizabeth Tamny’s incomparable skills as a researcher, along with her newshound’s knowledge of Chicago history, especially machine politics, proved invaluable, as did her Chicago Reader article on Gorey’s childhood.
Gorey’s friends from his Harvard and Cambridge days—Alison Lurie, Freddy English, and Larry Osgood—submitted to lengthy interviews (and a farrago of follow-up questions, in Osgood’s case) with good-humored forbearance. Their intimate impressions of Ted, still vivid after all these years, enriched my understanding of him considerably. Peter Neumeyer, whose Floating Worlds reveals a side of the man unknown to even his closest friends, offered searching reflections on their brief but intense, bordering on telepathic, collaboration. His answers to my questions, together with his book, deepened my understanding of Gorey’s inner life profoundly.
Robert Bock, Eric Edwards, Vincent Myette, Joe Richards, Cathy Smith, Genie Stevens, and Jamie Wolf—stalwart troupers, all, of the Aubergine Company and Le Théâtricule Stoïque—took me into their confidence, but Jane MacDonald, Jill Erickson, and Carol Verburg deserve special mention for the revealing light they shed on Gorey the playwright and Gorey the director.
Kevin Shortsleeve’s collegial generosity in sharing his unpublished interview with Maurice Sendak permitted me to tell, for the first time, the story of Sendak’s high regard for Gorey’s talent and his poignant sense of their kinship as gay men. I’m grateful, too, to Lynn Caponera and the Maurice Sendak Foundation for approving my use of excerpts from Professor Shortsleeve’s remarkable conversation with Sendak. Maureen O’Hara was wonderfully generous, as well, in her willingness to grant permission to quote from her brother Frank’s poem “For Edward Gorey.”
Ailina Rose, dance historian and founder of the Ailina Dance Archives, shared generously of her encyclopedic knowledge of ballet in general and the New York City Ballet in particular. Her excavation, from the buried history of pre-Balanchine ballet in America, of the first ballet Gorey attended was a eureka moment.
It should go without saying that a book this long, written over the course of seven years, is in some sense a collective effort, involving the proverbial cast of thousands. I’m truly grateful to everyone who lent a hand. (Roll credits.)
Al Vogel (public affairs office, US Army Dugway Proving Ground, Utah); Alex Gortman; Alexander Theroux; Amy Taubin; Andy Kaplan (archives director, Francis W. Parker School, Chicago); Ann Beneduce; Anna Sui; Annabelle Schierman; Anthony Schierman; Antonia Stephens (Sturgis Library, Barnstable, Massachusetts); Arlene Croce; Bambi Everson (and her husband, Frank Coleman); Barney Rosset (and his wife, Astrid Myers-Rosset); Belinda Cash (Nyack Library reference desk); Ben Muse; Beth Kleber (School of Visual Arts archives); Betty Caldwell; Carolyn Tennant; Charlie Shibuk; Chris Garvey; Christi and Tom Waybright (Woodland Cemetery, Ironton, Ohio); Christina Davis (curator, Woodberry Poetry Room, Harvard University); Cindy Zedalis; Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket); Daniel Levans; David A. Brogno, MD, FACC; David Hough; Dennis Rosa; Dev Stern; Diana Klemin; Dianna Braginton-Smith; Donald Hall; Dore Sheppard, PhD, LCSW (whose psychotherapeutic insights and wry wit saw me through more than a few dark nights of the soul); Ed Pinsent; Ed Woelfle; Edmund White; Edward Villella; Eileen McMahon; Eugene Fedorenko; Faith Elliott; Florence Parry Heide; Genie Stevens; Glen Emil (Goreyography.com); Greg Matthews (special collections librarian, Holland and Terrell Libraries, Washington State University); Guy Trebay; Haskell Wexler; Helen Pond; Howard and Ron Mandelbaum; Irwin Terry (Goreyana.blogspot.com); J. W. Mark; Jan Brandt; Jane Siegel (Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University); Janet Morgan; Janet Perlman; Janey Tannenbaum; Jason Epstein; Jean Lyons Keely; Jillana; John Ashbery; John Solowiej; John Wulp; Johnny Ryan; Joseph Stanton (University of Hawaii); Joyce Lamar (née Reark); Judith Cressy; Julius Lewis; Justin Katz (the Edwardian Ball); Kathleen Sullivan (Nyack Library reference desk); Keith Luf (WGBH archives); Kevin McDermott; Kevin Miserocchi (executive director, Tee and Charles Addams Foundation); Laura Romeyn; Lynn Pecktal; Margaret Heilbrun; Maria Calegari; Mark Romanek; Martyn Jacques; Mary Joella Cunnane (archivist, Sisters of Mercy West Midwest Community); Maura Power; Mel Schierman; Michael Goldstein; Michael Vernon; Neil Gaiman; Normand Roger; Patricia Albers; Patricia McBride; Patrick Dillon; Patrick Leary (Wilmette History Museum); Paul Richard; Peter Anastos; Peter Sellars; Peter Wolff; Rachel Quist (cultural resources management officer, US Army Dugway Proving Ground, Utah); Rhoda Levine; Richard Wilbur; Robert Bruegmann (distinguished professor emeritus of art history, architecture, urban planning, University of Illinois at Chicago); Robert McCormick Adams; Rosaria Sinisi; Ross Milloy; Roy Bartolomei; Steve Silberman; Steven Heller; Ted Drozdowski; Tom Berman (Nyack Library reference desk); Tom Zalesak; Tomi Ungerer (and his wife, Yvonne Ungerer); Tony Williams; Tony Yanick; Uta Frith; Victoria Chess; Warren MacKenzie; William Garvey; Yvonne “Kiki” Reynolds (and her son Gregory Reynolds).
Lastly, to Thea Dery, who gamely endured seven years’ wort
h of anecdotes, allusions, and dinner-table disquisitions on the man, goes special commendation. In a very real sense, she grew up with Gorey.
A Note on Sources
Every assertion of fact in these pages is, to the best of my knowledge, true. There are no composite characters, imagined internal monologues, or conjectural fictions intended to give the reader a God’s-eye view of things experienced by Gorey alone. Though I’ve opted not to cite the sources of mere matters of fact in hopes of sparing the reader a wearying trek through a bramble patch of footnotes, every who, what, where, and when in this book is based on credible sources.
For example, my account of Gorey’s childhood—where he lived, where he went to school, and so forth—relies on public records accessible through Ancestry.com; extensive research in local archives on my behalf by the Chicago-based journalist Elizabeth Tamny; interviews with Gorey’s cousins Skee Morton, Eleanor Garvey, and William Garvey as well as Francis W. Parker schoolmates such as Robert McCormick Adams, Jean Lyons Keely, Barney Rosset, and Haskell Wexler; hours spent wading through student newspapers and yearbooks from Gorey’s time at Parker; anecdotes and observations gleaned from Joan Mitchell: Lady Painter, Patricia Albers’s superb biography of Gorey’s friend and Parker classmate; Helen Gorey’s reminiscences in her letters to Ted (included in the Edward Gorey Collection at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin); and Gorey’s boyhood diaries as well as his recollections in interviews.