So down to the Library I go. The records are on the third floor of the imposing building, which happens to be on the verge of a major reconstruction, with many of its research resources to be stored elsewhere but supposedly available within twenty-four hours. A big controversy over that. Getting into the research room is more complicated than I remembered. You have to get buzzed in, as you would to a gold-buying store on the second floor of a building on West 45th Street, a few blocks north. You can’t take any tote bags or briefcases or backpacks in there. For fear of purloining, it must be. Then you have to fill out a form, stating your purpose, your affiliation (university or publisher or whatever), and so on. The woman who hands me the form is wearing a turquoise sari and seems formidable. She looks at the tote bag I have inadvertently brought in with me and the guard outside must have missed. “You have to go back out,” she says. “Those bags are not allowed.” She is prim about this. Another woman in the small nest of desks and counters arranged in a square in the center of the research room says, “It’s OK, sir. I’ll just store it here in this cubby for you. You don’t have to go back out again.” The sari looks at the other woman with disapproval. I hand over the tote bag. The sari hands me the form, on a clipboard, and a pencil—one of those stubby things that they give you with your miniature-golf scorecard—and I take a ballpoint pen out of my shirt pocket and start filling the form out. The sari, who has looked away, and everyone else go about their business. I have some trouble getting the sari’s attention after I’ve finished—ever since the Tote-Bag-Gate I have felt a little like Ralph Ellison in here—but when I do, and hand her the clipboard, she looks at it as if it were a stool sample and says, “It’s supposed to be in pencil.” I hand her back the pencil, as if it were a peace pipe, and she shakes her head sadly and gets ready to hand it back and give me another blank form. “It’s OK,” the tote-bag forgiver says—she must be the sari’s supervisor. “You don’t have to fill out another form.”
Finally I sit down at one of the computers and a librarian gives me a brief briefing about how the archives are indexed, and I begin to troll and scroll through them. Their extensiveness is overwhelming. I begin to take some notes about the box numbers I’d like to see when the librarian comes back and says that I have to order the boxes I want to see and they will be found and made available in that room a day or two later. This is a relief. I have almost panicked while I looked at the Fiction Department correspondence index for a single year, 1976—my first year as an editor—and then beyond:
2 Adams, Alice
3 Allen, Woody 4 Ashbery, John 5 B–Baz 6 Banks, Russell 7 Barthelme, Donald 8 Baumbach, Jonathan 9 Be–Bez
10 Beattie, Ann 11 Berryman, John 12 Bi–Boz 13 Bishop, Elizabeth 14 Blount, Roy, Jr. 15 Borges, Jorge Luis 16 Boyle, T. Coraghessan 17 Br–Brz 18 Bradbury, Ray 19 Brickman, Marshall
FICTION CORRESPONDENCE, 1952–1980
371
A NEW YORKER RECORDS GUIDE
20 Brinnin, John Malcolm 21 Brodsky, Joseph 22 Bromell, Henry 23 Brown, Rosellen
24 Bu–Bz 25 Buechner, Frederick 26 Busch, Frederick
FICTION CORRESPONDENCE, 1952–1980
885 1 2 Cain, James M.
3 Calisher, Hortense 4 Carruth, Hayden 5 Casey, John 6 Ch–Clz
7 Cheever, John 8 Cheuse, Alan 9 Ciardi, John 10 Co–Coz
11 Coetzee, J. M. 12 Collins, Christopher 13 Colwin, Laurie 14 Conroy, Frank 15 Coover, Robert 16 Cotler, Gordon 17–18 Cu-Dez 19 De Andrade, Carlos Drummond 20 DeLillo, Don 21 De Vries, Peter 22 Di–Dz 23 Dickey, James 24 Dillard, R.H.W. 25 Diller, Phyllis 26 Disch, Thomas M. 27 Dixon, Stephen 28 Domini, John 29 Dubus, Andre 30 Dufault, Peter Kane 31 Durrell, Lawrence
886 1 2 Eberhart, Richard
E 3 Elkin, Stanley
C-Caz
372
NEW YORKER RECORDS GUIDE
4 Ellis, H. F. 5–6 F 7 Friedman, Bruce Jay 8 Friel, Brian 9 G-Giz 10 Gallant, Mavis 11 Garcia Marquez, Gabriel 12 Gardner, John 13 Geng, Veronica 14 Gl–Goz 15 Gluck, Louise 16 Gordimer, Nadine 17 Gordon, Mary 18 Gr–Gz 19 Gunn, Thom 20 Gurganus, Allan 21 H-Haz 22 Hale, Nancy 23 Hall, Donald 24 Hampl, Patricia 25 Handke, Peter 26 Hannah, Barry 27 Hazzard, Shirley
FICTION CORRESPONDENCE, 1952–1980
373
887 1 2 Hecht, Anthony
3 Helprin, Mark 4 Hemenway, Robert 5 Ho–Hz 6 Hollander, John 7 Howard, Richard 8 Hughes, Ted 9 I 10 Irving, John 11–12 J 13 Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer 14 Jong, Erica 15 Jordan, Neil 16 Just, Ward 17 Justice, Donald 18 K–Kez 19 Kanin, Garson
NEW YORKER RECORDS GUIDE
20 Keillor, Garrison 21 Ki–Kz 22 Kiely, Benedict 23 Kingston, Maxine Hong 24 Kumin, Maxine
25–26 L-Lem 27 Le Guin, Ursula
FICTION CORRESPONDENCE, 1952–1980
374
888 1 2 Levine, Philip
3 Lewisohn, James 4 L’Heureux, John 5 Lorde, Audre 6 M–Maz
7 MacLeish, Archibald 8 Mamet, David 9 Mansfield, Katherine 10 Mazor, Julian
11 McA–McZ 12 McCarthy, Mary 13 McElroy, Joseph 14 McEwan, Ian 15 Me–Mi 16 Meehan, Thomas 17 Meredith, William 18 Merrill, James 19 Merwin, W. S. 20 Mo-Mop 21 Molinaro, Ursule 22 Mountzoures, H. L. 23–24 Mor–Mz 25 Munro, Alice
889 1 2 Nabokov, Vladimir
N
3 Nordan, Lewis 4 O 5 Oates, Joyce Carol 6 O’Brien, Edna 7 Ozick, Cynthia 8 P–Phz 9 Paley, Grace
NEW YORKER RECORDS GUIDE
10 Percy, Walker 11 Pi–Pz 12 Pinsky, Robert 13 Plumly, Stanley 14 Pound, Ezra
15 Pritchett, V. S. 16 R–Rz 17 Reid, Alistair 18 Rhys, Jean
19 Ri–Roz 20 Roethke, Theodore 21 Ru–Rz 22 Rudman, Mark 23 S–Saz 24 Saroyan, William 25 Sarton, May 26 Sayles, John 27 Sc–Sez 28 Settle, Mary Lee
FICTION CORRESPONDENCE, 1952–1980
375
890 1 2 Shelton, Richard
3 Simpson, Louis 4 Sissman, L. E. 5 Sm-Spz 6 Smiley, Jane
7 St-Stez 8 Stafford, William 9 Steegmuller, Frances 10 Sti–Sz 11 Strand, Mark 12 Sullivan, Frank 13 Swan, Jon 14 Swenson, May 15 T–Toz 16 Taylor, Peter 17 Theroux, Alexander 18 Theroux, Paul 19 Tr–Tz 20 Tullius, F. P. 21 Tyler, Anne 22 U–V
Sh-Slz
NEW YORKER RECORDS GUIDE
23 Updike, John 24 Van Duyn, Mona 25 Vivante, Arturo 26 W–Waz 27 Walcott, Derek 28 Walker, Ted 29 Warner, Sylvia Townsend 30 Warren, Robert Penn
FICTION CORRESPONDENCE, 1952–1980
376
891 1 2 White, Edmund
3 Wideman, John Edgar 4 Wilbur, Richard 5 Wo–Wz 6 Woiwode, Larry
7 Wolff, Tobias 8 Wright, Charles 9 Wright, James 10 X-Y-Z 11 Yevtushenko, Yevgeny
Phyllis Diller?
It’s hard to say what is more daunting here—the vastness of the archives, the enormous literary distinction they represent, or the feudal-seeming cataloguing system. I leave. But not before yet another librarian stops by to visit and shows me how to go online and research the archives at my leisure—and possibly sedated, I’m thinking—and order boxes in advance. These listings are like a glass window behind which the overall magnificence and singularity of the institution of The New Yorker are on full display, and up against which my face is now mashed. It disables the ironic-distance function of my brain: OK—it’s great, no matter all its eccentricities, mistakes, indulgences, superior attitudes masked by modesty. I don’t even hate to admit it, and I feel very lucky to have been part of it.
Anyway, in view of this overwhelming display, I switch my research focus to my own papers. To call them “papers” is like calling a dog’s breakfast crème brûlée. I go back up to the country, where my crème brûlée is moldering, but start using the Library’s online search capability so I can order at least a few randomly representative boxes for later on, if I dare to go back. I look through “my” years—1969 through 1984. Guess whose name I look for first in the index. Now guess whose name is nowhere to be found. But it’s probably in there somewhere. Because I worked with some of the writers named—Mavis Gallant, Harry Montzoures, V. S. Pritch
ett, Peter De Vries, Alice Adams, Frank Conroy, Ted Walker, Sylvia Townsend Warner—and because files like “Me–Mz” may well contain the odd note to or from me, or a galley or legal query or payment note I might have passed along.
But it all still seems like too much. So I go offline, and in between dog walks (and, as always these days, awaiting my next follow-up thoracic CT scan, which will show whether the radiation therapy last winter has worked or whether I’ll be fucked sooner rather than later), I root around in the files and folders I took with me when I left the magazine and have continued to collect ever since. They are Lilliputian to the Library’s Gulliverian, but still too plenteous, and also disorganized.
In the scrum of these documents, I find nostalgia, occasional straight-setting, re-inflammation, and amusement—or all four:
A piece by the novelist and short-story writer Andre Dubus—whom I edited at The New Yorker—in the November 1977 issue of Boston magazine. It’s about publishing short fiction in magazines and quarterlies in general and, climactically, in The New Yorker. About, at its most emotional moment, the magazine’s often opulent advertising: “What angers me is seeing art juxtaposed with advertisements for things that have no use at all except to decorate the body, to turn people into Christmas trees, to turn their vision away from where art is trying to take them.” Later in the piece, he says, of his current New Yorker editor, who is almost certainly me, “The man at The New Yorker loves commas more than Henry James did, but he never inserted one without asking my permission.”
A note from Helen Wolff—a well-known and highly respected editor, especially of books in translation, at the publishing house Farrar, Straus & Giroux—that included a complaint from Max Frisch, the internationally acclaimed Swiss writer whose novella Man in the Holocene appeared in The New Yorker. It came out well enough to move Frisch to say, in a quiet note later on, that it looked better in the magazine than it did in the book. But before that, when the text was first set into New Yorker galleys, Frisch told us, through Mrs. Wolff, “I have only one worry. The New Yorker takes it on itself to insert or eliminate spacing in the text. I have to insist, as a non-negotiable condition, that my text be printed with exactly the same spacing as in the German edition. The reason why: because I tried to make the reader visualize, by the typographical arrangements, the thought leaps of the protagonist, and his memory lapses. Please tell all concerned that this is of the utmost importance to me.”
A note from Harold Brodkey from 1988. I think it is a condolence letter about my father’s death. The timing is right, but it’s hard to tell: “Dear Dan, I believe that the way we are conceived as organisms—the long journey from that to here—insures that life not seem very real, so that we are always on the edge of heroism or madness—men, I mean—and our parents and then our wives and children point out to us how to live, or, rather, they keep some chant or mechanism going more or less of life is real. And then one of them dies. So it wasn’t so real, and isn’t, but then again, it is. I wish I could defend my notion that ordinary writing lies about things fatal to us and for us when life happens, and the opposite. But I can’t defend it. My arguments in favor of life are all on the page, in that other language. One day, soon, if you want, we can talk. At the moment, I’m busy being a public fool, someone whose opinions I wouldn’t believe if I wasn’t me. —HB”
The first manuscript page of that 1976 New Yorker book review by the renowned psychoanalyst Robert Coles—bedecked with my original editing, in pencil.
An “opinion” on a story titled “Patterns,” by Tama Janowitz. Shawn’s pencil scrawl at the bottom says, “Miss Cravens from Shawn: Sorry, but I liked this far less than the rest of you did, and I don’t find it funny. The paragraph on p. 5 that Menaker found virtuoso comic writing I find intolerably broad.”
Eight or nine handwritten letters from Alice Munro, one of them about “The Albanian Virgin,” which was the centerpiece of The New Yorker’s first Fiction Issue:
Dan—
I’ve made a few extra changes + condensed the man-talk, also did a bit more, as you suggested, to “characterize” Lottar. Hope you can read all this mess. I’d really like to see it when all the changes are made. Call me if there’s anything I’ve done that you wonder about.
—A
Isn’t this a dandy for the checkers?
Albania!
Montenegro!
Joe Hill!
Perkin Warbeck!
Munro, one of the two greatest English-language short-story writers of our time (the other is William Trevor), matched and sometimes out-bowed an editor’s deferential posture with a deferential approach of her own:
“Do you think ‘Around the Horn’ might work as a title? It’s not quite accurate, but neither is ‘Dorrie.’”
“I’ve added a few sentences here and there, just opening things out a little where I thought necessary. Do you think that OK?”
“I’ve done [this revision] in the handwriting + proofs way. Does anybody else do that? Please excuse—”
And she was always a complete delight to work with:
Funny: “The apartment is so clean. I go around picking up bits of lint off the carpet. A good contrast to Clinton, where we live in an old house with a fair amount of debris + the occasional squirrel in the attic, rat in the cellar. I bought white dishes and red place mats + now it’s kind of elderly yuppiedom. But mountains, Douglas firs, etc.”
Flirty: At a BEA (BookExpo America) meeting in Chicago, she said to me, “My daughter thinks you’re handsome.”
Tables-turning, in the kind of comforting praise that usually flows from editor to writer: “P.S. You really are a great help and comfort to me.”
There are hundreds of other letters and notes and galleys and high-school report cards and college papers and pay stubs and journal entries and my M.A. thesis (on Catch-22—a kind of valedictory nose-thumbing at graduate school) and opinion sheets and memos from The New Yorker and Random House and HarperCollins and then Random House again. To say nothing of thousands of computer-archived emails and family photographs and documents and letters from my childhood, including notes written by my mother to her mother when she was a freshman at Bryn Mawr. They lie around on the desk, are jammed into flash drives, cover the raised platform in the maid’s room of my apartment where my son’s mattress used to be, sit on the kitchen-renovation-leftover Corfam slab spanning two two-drawer filing cabinets in the back bedroom in the country, shut away in those filing cabinets, boxed and shoved into closets, packed chaotically into three drawers of an old chest, along with backgammon boards and antique letter-dice games and their small leather canisters and poker-chip caddies and music boxes and Scrabble tiles so ancient that someone had to resort to a black marker to restore their legibility, maybe in particular for my purblind spinster-schoolteacher cousin Sophie Menaker, who, well into her eighties, would try to secrete two or three of her superfluousity of vowels back into the tile bag and steal what she hoped were X, Q, J, or Z replacements, with my uncle Enge yelling, “I saw that, Sophie—put them back!,” yelling because Sophie was nearly deaf, and she would reply, “What?,” in response to which my uncle would mutter, “She heard me,” three discarded TV remotes, a four-by-eight-inch autograph book called “Golden Floral Album,” decorated with slightly raised images of three gold, orange, and brown pansies on a dark-brown background, and once the property of Lulu George, of Lunenberg, Massachusetts, containing the exquisite flower- illustrations-punctuated Palmer-method inscriptions of what one assumes were Ms. George’s classmates and friends, and which include, for example, the following:
Friend Lulu, Lulu,
When you are bending o’er the tub
Think of me before you rub.
If the water is too hot,
Cool it and forget me not.
Carrie Linville
September 29, 1886
And:
Your Friend,
Fred W. Osgood
Lunenberg Mass.
May 6, 18
90.
The floral autograph book looks like something Alice Munro would use as the starting point for one of her stories. She might take one of the names or inscriptions and use it as a prop in or the centerpiece of a narrative that would, as always with her work, dramatize the emotional anarchy that dwells in the human heart and so often bests our reason. Coincidentally, before I run across this ancient keepsake book, I have written to Munro for permission to use the quotes from her letters. And, more coincidentally yet, I get an email from Lisa Dickler Awano, who is more or less Munro’s Boswell. She sends me a link to a piece she has written for the New Haven Review called “Kindling the Creative Fire: Two Versions of Alice Munro’s ‘Wood.’” I edited “Wood” when it appeared in The New Yorker, in 1980. It’s about a man named Roy, a craftsman who likes to go out into the forest in Ontario and chop down trees that loggers have left behind. He uses the wood for the work he does. Both versions concern, centrally, an accident that Roy has which almost costs him his life. But the second version, which Munro published in a recent collection, Too Much Happiness, presents subtle variations in details and psychology, and Awano does a masterly job of analyzing these revisions and showing how both versions involve themes and symbols that pervade all of this author’s work. And at one critical point, Awano says, Munro has said that she aims to “get as close as [she] can” in her writing to “what [she] see[s] as reality—the shifting complex reality of human experience.” Whenever the protagonist or reader lands on what seems a conclusive point of view in a Munro story, it is soon challenged by an equal and opposite perspective. Characters confound their own, each other’s, and the reader’s expectations, setting up psychological complications and narrative tensions that feel authentic.
My Mistake Page 20