The History of the Ginger Man: An Autobiography

by J. P. Donleavy

  Up we went upon these ancient, musty and stern steps, where many a litigant one felt must have preceded us. And as one would learn, our adversary Maurice Girodias had also climbed. After a brief wait in an outer space, we were ushered by a legal ostiary into an austere office, humanized discreetly by a few photographs of the family sort that one was to become familiar with over the coming years. And seen in other lawyers’ offices, would be the only consoling sight there was, and only to be found in the visages of those near and dear to such legal counselors. But here, now in the offices of Rubinstein and Nash, as a few tentatively friendly words were passed with Norman Shine, there seemed to be a degree of graciousness exhibited by this gentleman behind his desk as he was about to follow his client’s instructions in Paris. First to come were the terms for settlement in regard to the publisher Neville Spearman. Armstrong listening intently but unamused and becoming increasingly so, as he heard the ruthlessly tough terms laid down by Girodias and now dictated, which were not only to severely cut into the prospect of his profit but even to just about leave him without one, plus undermine his due credit as publisher. My terms and sentence of my punishment was to be last, to which a question was raised by Norman Shine and which in the course of answering Mr. Rubinstein used the following words.

  “Of course the terms of Mr. Donleavy’s agreement with Mr. Girodias will be spelled out.”

  These words, when I heard them spoken, seemed entirely reasonable enough. I had always thought and understood that I would remain in a position to be consulted and have my approval required and to consider terms in any matter of negotiation by the Olympia Press concerning the rights affecting The Ginger Man. And one took the words “spelled out” as being a process to effect an exact written agreement which would avoid any misinterpretation. But there was felt in Girodias’s terms a bullying quality which I sensed severely provoked Armstrong’s anger, and he had already spoken of suing Girodias for slander. And indeed I myself felt a growing reluctance to agree and settle. Although lurking still within me was the sense of the reasonable man, but it was progressively getting less and less so. But there seemed now no question that unless a settlement was reached, an injunction would be brought to stop publication and distribution and against booksellers selling the book. Reminding one now that there had been in one of Armstrong’s recent letters a comment with three words underlined.

  “Rubinstein wants to see our edition but under no circumstances can we send him an advance copy which will give him a clue as to our publication date.”

  Norman Shine had the details of settlement written down in notes and remained friendly and confident, suitably disguising the apprehension felt by the author and the anger of Neville Armstrong. We now together got up from our chairs and left these offices dedicated to the practice of law. As the door closed behind us and we were in the hall and had begun to descend the stairs, Shine spoke.

  “Neville, as a matter of interest, how much money is at stake in this and do you think you might make a profit out of this book and if so how much.”

  As we had now reached the front stone steps and there was an appreciable pause and awkwardness and hesitation in Armstrong answering the question, Shine waited patiently. I sensed that Armstrong did not think it appropriate to discuss matters as sensitive as his profit in front of the author, and certainly would want to be discreet in mentioning figures to his solicitor, who would one day soon be billing him. But on the pavement fronting 5/6 Raymond Buildings, Gray’s Inn, his breath steaming out on the cold air, Armstrong, after pausing to calculate a final time, answered Shine.

  “I suppose I might make about two hundred and fifty pounds.”

  “Well, Neville, in that case I think it’s worth spending ten pounds to get counsel’s opinion.”

  At this, a further incurring of expense, Armstrong clearly was in some resistance and asked Norman Shine why he thought it was worth throwing more good money after bad.

  “Because, Neville, there were some words used back there in that meeting we’ve just had and which were used in the discussion concerning Mr. Donleavy’s settlement which bear further looking into. The words are simply, ‘spell out.’ They may mean nothing at all but certainly indicate that Girodias’s rights are not clear-cut as they presently might seem to be in his exchange of letters with Mr. Donleavy. Therefore, I would advise you to get counsel’s opinion.”

  “Norman, this is Friday, publication day is now next week and only a matter of days off. If settlement isn’t reached, Girodias could move to get an injunction and stop the book.”

  “That’s true and it’s a chance you’re taking. But I’ll have the papers brought to counsel this afternoon and ask for an opinion by Monday at the latest.”

  This was a crunch time. But even now, the mood, if not the absolute intention, remained, that both Armstrong and I could refuse settlement. But anyone’s opinion which could change anything to our advantage would be more than welcome. However, I put no hope whatever in any further legal advice. Thinking only that meanwhile, if one could now delay just these further few days, the novel would be published, reviews appearing. Then, if an injunction did come, at least the book would be out, and whatever legal mishmash ensued, at least some of the British public would know that as a writer and author of The Ginger Man, I existed. I now proffered my own two cents and said I would immediately go to Paris and do so without prejudice, and see Girodias and see if a better settlement could be reached. But to me my trip was more so, and more importantly, to borrow more time that I knew we desperately needed. Still, however, if it were possible, I was also concerned to attempt to settle the matter with Girodias. He had agreed with me to the English publication. And I even found myself vaguely thinking that he would one day regret denying it.

  On December 3, 1956, and four days left to publication, I embarked at Dover and landed in France at Calais after one of the roughest crossings in the history of the Channel. Passengers even screaming in anguish as they upchucked again and again over the rails into the mountainously thrashing gray sea. I saw one Oriental gentleman so distressed that he seemed to be pleading for someone to come end his misery by shooting him, even demonstrating how it should be done, by putting his pointing finger up to the side of his head. Unlike my voyage on the Franconia, I astonishingly in my gloom took not a whit’s notice of the pitching and rolling ship, strolling through the agonized passengers, and even chewing down an apple. Making port two hours late, I went onward by train to Gare St.-Lazare, arriving there and almost thinking I might encounter on the station Gainor’s friend and blind dog still wandering around trying to find their way to Gare d’Austerlitz. Which station Gainor had reminded was named after Napoleon’s greatest battle.

  Lugging my single black leather bag, I took the Métro second-class and got off at rue du Bac. I found what was an inexpensive hotel and stayed in a first-floor front room near the corner of rue Jacob and rue Bonaparte. I chose badly for the night ahead. If the cars did not roar by, then they crashed. Arguments ensued and came more crashes. I stayed awake till nearly dawn, in what I was to adjudge was the noisiest if not the most dangerous spot in all of Paris. Which made the carrefour de Buci seem like an oasis of silence inside the tomb of a pharaoh’s pyramid.

  Next morning, bleary-eyed and weary, I duly took my petit déjeuner, splashed cold water on my face, stepped out on the street and headed eastward along rue Jacob to cross to rue de Buci and navigate its carrefour, and then heavy-footed down rue Dauphine to turn left into rue de Nesle. There was little to prepare or shield one for the further utter grimness one would encounter at this address of number 8. Could it ever be thought in such pain, that one ever wrote for glory, or for money or for fame. And upon this day of December 4 in the year 1956, I would sink into an abysmal, desperate state of depression.

  Out of which I

  Deeply sincerely

  Thought I might

  Never

  Get

  42

  I MADE MY WAY under the
stone arch of number 8 and into its courtyard and up the steps to the big gray doors at the top. My mind battered by traffic noise through the previous night was growing crystal clear by the second. Inside there was an air of bustle and business and Girodias seemed to have expanded further into the interior of this floor of offices, inhabiting yet another and more distant room with a large window overlooking this cour de maison. I had not too long to wait to be shown in. And to find an unfriendly grimness upon Girodias’s face, as one might have expected.

  My longtime favorite fish cartoon, which I frequently sent to friends and submitted to THE NEW YORKER the year during my stay in America in 1951 but which was rejected with the note that the magazine had something similar in the works.

  Perfunctory greeting made, and following informing him that his terms were unacceptable and that I had come to see if an agreement could be reached in settlement, it did not take additional time to discover that Girodias considered my visit a distinct and verifying sign of weakness. Growing heated, he said that he was not compromising in any way and that I should prevail upon Spearman Ltd. and Armstrong to accept the terms he had laid down or face the consequences. As to my own position, he referred me back to his solicitors in London and to their terms that had been dictated, and then added,

  “I think we should be realistic.”

  “Very well, in that case I will see you in court.”

  I was astonished at my reaction, delaying not a second to rise from my sitting position. From behind his desk, Girodias, ashen-faced in anger, got slightly up out of his seat as if to stand, but more as if he were reaching for the telephone. But the telephone was already easily in reach, and Girodias leaning forward put his two hands on his desk and sat back down. I was already at the door, and now on my way out. Almost disbelieving my own words sentencing myself to death. But in so doing I was absolutely willing so to do. And one thing was for sure, if ever I needed to know. Was that I would stand there in battle fighting as I died.

  I walked down those steps of 8 rue de Nesle and out of that courtyard back onto these narrow Paris streets. I knew exactly at that moment that Girodias was telephoning London to instruct to issue an injunction. All one could see was dismal disaster. My own fate no longer on my mind. But the overwhelming thought of what would be the possible and greater nightmare fate of my wife and two innocent young children. Whose futures would now be destroyed by the destruction and demise of their father. Who was to be put in a different kind of battle. Not of physical courage but one not less courageous. Fought with money that could buy words. That would be writ by legal hands and would accumulate in documents stacked mountainously high. And played as cards to win a pot of gold. That was, as no one could have known then, to grow and grow increasingly large.

  As I proceeded up rue Dauphine, such was the terrible grimness of my thoughts that I realized that I had to find some distraction to keep me out of my rapidly deepening abyss and get me through the desperate hours remaining until I again boarded the train the next day at Gare St.-Lazare to return to London. Sayle and Marx had long left Paris. There was now no one whom I knew I might see and with whom I might talk. It was still only the morning. And a long, long way to go through the day. Then I suddenly thought of the only other single person I knew who might still be in Paris. Sylvia Sayers. I hadn’t her phone number but remembered the appearance of the street in Montparnasse where behind a door in a long brick wall she lived with her husband in part of a large house which sat in an idyllic garden. I knew the number was 8, the same as that of the Olympia Press and that the street was near a hospital and an observatory that could be seen at the end of a long vista from the Luxembourg Gardens. I also knew that I could somehow find my way there by dead reckoning and recognizing the passing atmospheres of the boulevards and simply heading in the direction southwest, as one might do to Porte d’Orléans on the Métro. But such was my urgency that I took a taxi.

  I gave at best garbled instructions street by street as we passed identifying landmarks. Then, as we turned off the boulevard and proceeded a little way down this side street and almost by a miracle on this otherwise nearly deserted thoroughfare, there was the strange door. Upon which I would now thump the knocker and ring the bell. And I waited. And waited. Fully five minutes and no answer. Reluctant now even to let myself walk away in this unfamiliar territory and have my despair and grim foreboding turn me into dust and the meekest breeze blow me away out of existence. But having now nearly waited ten minutes and knowing the sound at least of my knocks must have been heard across the walled garden inside, I knew no one must be home and I turned away into my fate.

  I walked now up the street and back toward the boulevard to retrace my way back to the Latin Quarter. But thirty or forty yards away, something made me stop and look back. A man’s head was peeking out the door and was surveying up and down the roadway. I turned round and retraced my steps. But this gentleman, whoever he was, had already closed and locked the door. I banged and knocked. The seconds went by. Then the sound of a latch being undone and the door opening. A man stood there in a robe over his nightwear. In French, I inquired after the Sayerses, and this gentleman replied in perfect English. I then vaguely remembered Sylvia referring to this person as being of the legal profession.

  “Ah, Monsieur and Madame Sayers have moved. They are gone some many weeks now.”

  “Do you have their address to where they have moved.”

  “Ah, I am absolutely sure I have. But you must come in a moment while I attend to finding it.”

  The garden door closing behind us, we crossed on a path under the fruit trees which led up to a pair of French doors. As my friend opened one of these to enter a room, its windows shuttered, he switched on the light. And my heart sank at the sight. The walls covered with bookcases and books from floor to ceiling. Upon every shelf were stacked volumes of every size in every tiny conceivable space. His large desk was a sea of papers. Documents, files, notebooks and albums. Piles of paper with their edges curled over the edge of the desk. Every single nook and cranny seemed occupied by beribboned files, half-open books, newspapers, magazines, drawings and maps.

  “Ah, monsieur, please, do step in. It will of course take me a moment. I know the address is somewhere here.’’

  There was hardly any room to step into, but one did find a space directly ahead inside the door. The ceiling light was weakly beaming down. He switched on a desk lamp and more light helpfully was radiated out from under a green glass shade. And I watched this kindly gentleman still in his pajamas under his bathrobe and shuffling in his bedroom slippers, tentatively flick up a few pages on a few stacks here and there. But there was one thing that was becoming quickly and absolutely certain. I knew that in the several years it would take and that I did not now have at my disposal, that there was not the remotest ghost of a chance of this obviously scholarly and most accommodating gentleman ever finding Sylvia and her husband Michael’s address without the assistance of every archivist at the Sorbonne. How would he, for a start, ever know which stack to look in. There being at least a hundred or more in nooks and crannies from floor to ceiling, never mind the uncharted surface of his desk.

  But courtesy must be reciprocated by even greater courtesy. I stood my ground, my appreciative smile locked on my face. The minutes went by. I watched as a frown would appear on monsieur’s face as he would abandon one stack of papers and repair to another stack. And then dig systematically downward through the parchments, dockets, forms, and documents. As he would begin at another pile, I began to silently count, as deeper down he went, one two three, and all the way to forty-six. Suddenly stopping, he would frown again and now move to yet another piece of furnishing, this time a lectern holding its towering weight of paper stacks. Monsieur continuing the careful lifting up of scratch pads, albums and diaries. I caught brief sight of a partly buried desk calendar useful to count the passing days.

  “Forgive me, monsieur, I shall only be these few more moments. Please do step a littl
e more inside out of the chill. I just know, I am absolutely certain that I have this address somewhere.”

  I was now feeling like the terrible imposition I was on this kindly gentleman’s life. But I moved forward over the doorjamb and stood in some minimal further floor space, where I was just able to position myself between two stacks of literary and legal journals. And there was one thing I was sure of, that the Sayerses’ address would simply have to wait to abide until another time that I might be in Paris. But that in facing this incredible sight of this gentleman’s study, down this strangely lonely street of this city, and entering this world hidden away in the scholarly existence of this man’s life, it was essential now to show one’s appreciation and gracefully withdraw. And the one thing I knew I could do with some brilliance was to be damn polite to those deserving it.

  “Monsieur, please don’t bother further. If the address is for the moment not easily readily available, it is of no serious consequence whatever. I have already inconvenienced you enough. I shall be able to telephone a friend who may have it.”

  “Oh, it is no trouble, I assure you. In any event I shall require it myself soon, and it may as well be unearthed now as well as later.”