by Ann Beattie
1992: Many health problems, also diagnosed with lung cancer
1993: Dies at age 81 in Park Ridge, New Jersey; buried in Yorba
Linda, California, Richard Nixon Birthplace and Museum
Notes
The Lady in the Green Dress
Hard questions on Vietnam: Joe McGinniss, The Selling of the President 1968 (New York: Trident Press, 1969), p. 111.
Stories as Preemptive Strikes
In this chapter and throughout the book, I am indebted to Julie Nixon Eisenhower’s Pat Nixon: The Untold Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986). Subsequent references will be to PN.
RN talking to pictures: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), p. 395.
Late-night phone calls by Nixon: Jonathan Schell, The Time of Illusion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975), p. 51.
“fragmentation”: Ibid., p. 6.
Plan to get prostitutes to yacht: Ibid., pp. 205–206.
Mrs. Nixon after mother’s funeral: PN, p. 27.
Raymond Carver, “Are These Actual Miles?” (formerly “What Is It?”), in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? (New York: McGraw-Hill Paperback, 1987), pp. 210–211.
The Faux Pas
“funny shows”: McGinniss, Selling of the President 1968, epigraph.
Mrs. Nixon answered Wilkinson/Paul Keyes questions: Ibid., p. 157.
Mrs. Nixon, Without Lorgnette
Based on Anton Chekhov, “The Lady with the Little Dog,” in Stories, tr. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Bantam, 2000), pp. 361–376.
“And it seemed”: Ibid., p. 376.
“In his appearance”: Ibid., p. 362.
“Why did she love him so?”: Ibid., p. 375.
“felt compassion”: Ibid., p. 375.
Chekhov’s letter to his brother: “To A. P. Chekhov, Moscow, May 10, 1886,” in Letters of Anton Chekhov, ed. Avrahm Yarmdinsky (New York: Viking Press, 1973), p. 37.
“How?”: Chekhov, “The Lady with the Little Dog,” p. 375.
Approximately Twenty Milk Shakes
Suggested by reading John C. Lungren and John C. Lungren Jr., Healing Richard Nixon (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003), p. 68.
Friendly, Faithful, Fair
Cold stadium: PN, p. 125.
Shoes in a bag: PN, p. 133.
Gift of bowl: PN, pp. 187–188.
Ernest Hemingway, “Cat in the Rain,” in The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966), pp. 165–170.
“Time will say nothing”: W. H. Auden, “If I Could Tell You,” in Selected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York: Vintage, 1970), p. 69.
“I love you”: PN, p. 423.
Gatsby refutes: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925), p. 110.
“Yes, but”: PN, p. 457.
“never get any credit”: PN, p. 456.
Delmore Schwartz, “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” in In Dreams Begin Responsibilities (New York: New Directions, 1978), p. 6.
The Quirky Moments of Mrs. Nixon’s Life
Johnsons with dogs: PN, p. 250.
Queen at Balmoral: PN, p. 222.
Mrs. Nixon’s Junior Year Play
A. A. Milne, The Romantic Age (1922; repr., New York: Samuel French).
Dialogue from The Romantic Age: act 2, p. 40.
Mrs. Nixon Plays Elaine Bumpsted
Martin Flavin, Broken Dishes (1930; repr., New York: Samuel French).
Review in the Evening World: Back cover, Broken Dishes.
RN’s lists: PN, p. 152.
Mrs. Nixon Gives a Gift
“I have always wanted”: PN, p. 82.
Guy de Maupassant, “The Necklace,” in The Best Short Stories, Guy de Maupassant (Ware, Hertfordshire, England: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1997), pp. 111–118.
Nixon’s growing self-awareness: Lungren, Healing Richard Nixon, p. 38.
Caracas, Venezuela, 1958
Spit: PN, p. 174.
Commended by Eisenhower: Ibid., p. 175.
“At first the spit”: Ibid., p. 174.
Mrs. Nixon’s letters to her family: Ibid., p. 38.
“The girl turned”: Ibid., p. 174.
Don Hughes: Ibid., p. 175.
“Muerte a Nixon”: Ibid., p. 173.
Andrew Marvell: “To His Coy Mistress,” in A Collection of English Poems 1660–1800, ed. Ronald S. Crane (New York: Harper & Row, 1932), p. 41.
The Writer’s Sky
Keanu Reeves: “The Vulture Pages,” New York, October 18, 2010, p. 115.
Frank Conroy, “Midair,” in Midair (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), p. 7.
Katherine Anne Porter, “Virginia Woolf,” in The Collected Essays and Occasional Writings of Katherine Anne Porter (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970), p. 71.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-up (1945; repr., New York: New Directions, 1962), p. 208.
The Letter
“Dearest Heart”: PN, p. 68.
Mrs. Nixon Reads “The Young Nixon”
“The Young Nixon,” Life, November 6, 1970, pp. 54–66.
Serving Mrs. Nixon First
Thomas Mallon, Yours Ever: People and Their Letters (New York: Pantheon, 2009), pp. 120–121.
Letters and Lies
“elaborate hidden machine”: Schell, Time of Illusion, p. 70.
F. Scott Fitzgerald letter: Dear Scott/Dear Max, ed. John Kuehl and Jackson Bryer (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), p. 156.
Ann Beattie, “Desire,” in The Burning House (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), p. 158.
My Anticipated Mail
Chandler P. Worley letter: PN, p. 80.
Merely Players
retakes: PN, p. 46.
drunk: Ibid.
RN as scriptwriter: Schell, Time of Illusion, p. 227.
Mrs. Nixon Lies, and Plays Hostess
News of Eisenhower’s heart attack: Richard Nixon, Six Crises (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962), p. 133.
“The Heart Attack”: Ibid., p. 131.
Meeting the press: Ibid., p. 144.
“constitutional crises”: Ibid., p. 181.
Prophetic Moments
Princess Diana: Geoffrey Levy and Richard Kay, “Yesterday Was Diana’s 49th Birthday, and Her Sisters Wonder: What Would Her Life Be Like Now?” Mail Online, last modified July 2, 2010, www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1291382/Yesterday-Dianas-49th-birthday-sisters-wonder-What-life-like-now.html.
Helene Drown: PN, p. 115.
I Didn’t Meet Her
David Kirby, “Skinny-Dipping with Pat Nixon,” in Pushcart Prize XXXII, ed. Bill Henderson (Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 2008), pp. 259–261.
Flannery O’Connor, “Writing Short Stories,” in Mystery and Manners, ed. Sally and Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969), pp. 96–97.
The Writer’s Feet Beneath the Curtain
Edward Loomis, “A Kansas Girl,” in Vedettes (Denver: Alan Swallow), p. 111–112.
George Garrett, “An Evening Performance,” in An Evening Performance (New York: Doubleday, 1985), p. 12.
leaving the hospital after her stroke: Elizabeth Simpson Smith, Five First Ladies (New York: Walker Publishing Company, 1986), p. 93.
Joan Didion, “Why I Write,” in The Writer on Her Work, ed. Janet Sternburg (New York: W.W. Norton, 1982), p. 20.
Gish Jen, “Duncan in China,” in Who’s Irish? (New York: Vintage Books, 1999), p. 87.
Mrs. Nixon meets Ms. Crowley: Crowley, Nixon in Winter, pp. 363–364.
Mamie Eisenhower Is Included in Tricia’s Wedding Plans
Tricia’s apron: From the archive of Howell Conant, administered by Bob Adelman, based on HC’s color photo of apron.
“For Tricia and Ed It’s No Secret,” Life, January 22, 1971, pp. 19–23.
Mrs. Nixon Does Not Bend to Pressure
Suggested by PN, p. 317.
Mrs. Nixon Hears a Name She Doesn’t Care For
Sugge
sted by PN, p. 184.
The President, Co-owner, with Mrs. Nixon, of Irish Setter King Timahoe
“Holy Grail”: Albert Goldman, Elvis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981), p. 460.
“big ones”: Ibid., p. 466.
Mrs. Nixon Reads The Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie (1945; repr., New York: New Directions, 1999).
“gentleman caller”: Ibid., p. 5.
“I don’t daydream”: Smith, Five First Ladies, p. 73.
Legend on screen, “Ha!”: Glass Menagerie, p. 86.
“If you don’t run”: PN, p. 234.
“Où sont les neiges d’antan”: Glass Menagerie, p. 27.
“You modern young people”: Ibid., p. 110.
A Home Movie Is Made About Mrs. Nixon in China
Suggested by reading Richard Wilson, ed., The President’s Trip to China (New York: Bantam, 1972), p. 22.
Cathedrals
“misleading phrases”: Schell, Time of Illusion, p. 340.
Raymond Carver, “Cathedral,” in The Best American Short Stories of the Eighties, ed. Shannon Ravenel (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990), pp. 136–137.
Frescoes: Ibid., p. 137.
Host’s religion: Ibid., p. 139
“It’s really something”: Ibid., p. 141.
RN’s writing about Mrs. Nixon: PN, p. 414.
“It looks like”: Stan Carter, “Hangchow,” in The President’s Trip to China, ed. Richard Wilson (New York: Bantam, 1972), p. 129.
What Did Mrs. Nixon Think of Mr. Nixon?
Alexander Woollcott and George S. Kaufman, The Dark Tower (New York: Samuel French, 1934).
Piano playing: PN, p. 25.
Engagement ring: PN, p. 68.
“shock”: Flannery O’Connor, “Writing Short Stories,” in Mystery and Manners, p. 100.
The Nixons as Paper Dolls
Tom Tierney, Richard M. Nixon and His Family (New York: Dover Publications, 1992).
“I’m gonna buy a paper doll”: Johnny S. Black, “Paper Doll,” 1915 (recorded by the Mills Brothers).
Rashomon
“He’ll never get any credit”: PN, p. 456.
Mulling over Watergate: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), pp. 48–49.
Rashomon dialogue: information (apparently untrue) from Internet.
David Eisenhower Has Some Ideas
“My father first lit the fire”: PN, p. 400.
Mimi: Ibid., p. 237.
Holiday Inn: Ibid., p. 236.
The Death of Ivan Ilych
Leo N. Tolstoy, “The Death of Ivan Ilych,” in Nine Modern Classics, ed. Sylvan Barnet, Morton Berman, and William Burto (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), p. 71.
“The Dead” in New Jersey, 1990
Halloween at the Nixons’: Suggested by Monica Crowley, Nixon in Winter (New York: Random House, 1998), p. 365.
James Joyce, “The Dead,” in Dubliners (1914; repr., New York: Signet Classics, 1991), p. 183.
“Well, Mister President”: Crowley, Nixon in Winter, p. 365.
Raymond Carver, “Fires,” in Fires (UK: Harvill, 1994), p. 29–30.
Mrs. Nixon Sits Attentively
Mrs. Nixon’s thoughts suggested by the photograph, President’s Trip to China, p. 22.
Mrs. Nixon Explains
Here, and in the following short examples, I consulted Lewis Turco, The Book of Literary Terms (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1999), in the nonfiction category.
Mrs. Nixon Reacts to RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
“During our trips”: Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), p. 538.
My Back Porch in Maine
Donald Barthelme, “Not-Knowing,” in Not-Knowing, ed. Kim Herzinger (New York: Random House, 1997), p. 18.
Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1981), p. 186.
Louise Glück, “The Idea of Courage,” in Proofs and Theories (Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1994), pp. 26–27.
Donald Barthelme: “On the Level of Desire,” in Not-Knowing, p. 191.
David Halberstam’s opinion: Lungren and Lungren, Healing Richard Nixon, p. 164.
Mrs. Nixon’s Thoughts, Late-Night Walk, San Clemente
“Miss Pat”: PN, p. 58.
“titian-colored” hair: PN, p. 55.
Aunt Neva: Ibid., p. 67.
“Star Light, Star Bright” really is by “Anonymous.”
About the Author
Ann Beattie has been included in four O. Henry Award collections and in John Updike’s The Best American Short Stories of the Century. In 2000, she received the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story form. In 2005, she received the Rea Award for the Short Story and in 2011 was given the Mary McCarthy Award from Bard College. She and her husband, Lincoln Perry, live in Key West, Florida, and Charlottesville, Virginia, where she is Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia.
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