"Drawing Rooms Are Always Tidy"

When Edith Wharton was a little girl, she used to entertain herself with a game she called “making up.” Long before she had learned to read, little Edith Newbold Jones would hold an open book and walk around the house pretending to read aloud, at the top of her voice, a stream of invented stories about her relatives and other people. According to Wharton’s memoir, A Backward Glance, all this obsessive pacing and shouting had a nearly erotic aspect, which made her parents anxious. Apparently her mother attempted a few times to write down her shouted stories, but they went by too quickly. The family's concern grew larger when Edith asked her mother to provide entertainment for children who had been invited over to the Jones household to play, because she was too preoccupied with her "making up" to stop and spend time with them.

By the time she was ten, Edith was spending hours of each day writing -- not only stories but also poems and dramas in blank verse. Her first novel was begun at age eleven. The opening sentences were: "Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Brown," said Mrs. Tompkins. "If only I had known you were going to call, I would have tidied up the drawing room."

In A Backward Glance, Wharton described “timorously” showing the start of her novel to her mother. How did Mrs. Jones respond to her talented child's efforts? “Never shall I forget the sudden drop of my creative frenzy when she returned it with the icy comment, ‘Drawing rooms are always tidy.’”

Edith Wharton lived in Paris for the latter part of her life, while continuing to "make up" one brilliant novel after another about the denizens of New York and their drawing rooms, tidy and untidy. For many years she lived on the Rue de Varenne, in a building I often pass by when I am in Paris, just off the Rue du Bac, and it is always a thrill to imagine her walking these same streets, buying a baguette at the nearby bakery, or lingering over coffee at the cafe on the corner.  A plaque on the outside of the building describes her as “the first writer of the United States to settle in France out of love of the country and its literature.”  Perhaps this was one of her reasons for leaving New York.

Cruel Hoax, Someone's Idea of a Performance Piece, or Simply Spam?

In my email today there was an "invitation" about which there have been warnings issued in recent weeks. The peculiarly-worded email reads as follows:

***********

"Respected Katharine Weber,

I am Prof. Mark Kennedy from King’s College Campus Here in London UK.
We want you to be our guest Speaker at this Year King’s college Seminar which will take place here in UK. We are writing to invite and confirm your booking to be our guest Speaker at this year’s event.

King’s College Campus.

The Venue as follows:
VENUE: King’s College campus in Strand
London, United Kingdom
POST CODE:WC2R 2LS
Expected audience: 850 people
Duration of speech per speaker: 1 Hour
Name of Organization: King’s College Campus.
Topic: ”Mystery of Life and Death”
Date:30th May 2012

We came across your profile on http://www.pw.org// and we say it’s up to standard and we will be very glad to have such an outstanding personality in our midst for these overwhelming gathering. Arrangements to welcome you here will be discussed as soon as you honor our invitation. If you have any more publicity material, please do not hesitate to contact us.

A formal Letter of invitation and Contract agreement would be sent to you as soon as you honor our Invitation. We are taking care of your travel and Hotel Accommodation expenses including your Speaking Fee. If you will be available for our event, include your speaking fees in your email so it can be included in your CONTRACT AGREEMENT.

Stay Blessed
Prof. Mark Kennedy
King’s College Campus.

Tel: + 44 702 408 2535"

**************
I am puzzled about the intention of the author of this email. Is it designed as a cruel hoax to smack authors for their egos? Is there some point when one's credit card details would be required? Is it someone's Joe Orton-esque idea of a literary performance piece?

When I was writing True Confections, in an early draft I included a Nigerian hoax email as a plot element. My wise editor, John Glusman, persuaded me to take it out, and I am glad I did. It's all far too "familiar" at this point.

A WRITER’S FIVE STAGES OF GRIEF AT AWP

(*AWP is the annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs)

1.Denial — "I feel fine here.” “I am an equal among equals."

Denial is usually only a temporary defense. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of other writers having drinks together, other writers with better publishing deals, and other writers who always get much more attention from NPR.

2.Anger — "Why not me? I’m way better than she is!” “My last book should have had that front page review they gave his mediocre collection!” “Why didn’t they invite me to be on that panel?” "Why didn't anyone invite me to that party?" “Why didn’t they give me that award?” “Why didn’t they choose my piece for that anthology?” “It’s all who you know and logrolling!" “They only nominate gay men!” “They only nominate women of color!”

Once in the second stage, self-pity and rage can cause the writer to contemplate posting counterfeit positive reviews of his own books or toy with creating a sock puppet Twitter account to stalk and snipe at all his writer frenemies.

3.Bargaining — "I'll do anything for a PEN award." "I will spend my entire next advance for a great publicist if I can find a genius who can make it all happen..."

The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay the death of the next book. Usually, the negotiation for extended shelf life is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. Psychologically, the individual is saying, "I understand my books will die, but if I could just do something to buy more time..."

4.Depression — "I'm so marginalized, why bother to do readings or speak on panels anyway?” “I will never go to another conference.”

During the fourth stage, the writer begins to understand all too well the realities of writing, publishing, the academic rat race, and the interlocking sociopolitical structures of the tiny kingdoms that make up the literary world. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time crying and grieving. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up a writer who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.

5.Acceptance of the Need for Perpetual Denial — "It's going to be okay." “People will always buy books and even though publishing is changing, I know success lies ahead.” “My next book will be my breakout book, I can feel it!” “I have a perfect idea for a panel for next year’s AWP.”

In this last stage, the writer begins to drink more heavily and/or make more frequent appointments with the therapist.

A Nonstandard Staircase

I have drifted away at times from the original purpose of this Staircase Writing web journal. Here is a very literal return to the concept of Staircase Writing -- the staircase in the cottage we call Tim's House (in West Cork), which I painted in homage to the colorful village streetscapes common to this part of Ireland.

As I embark on my new novel and leave 2011 behind, it's a good moment to reflect on the notion of "l'esprit d'escalier," staircase wit, but instead of dwelling on the wise and witty things I wish I had said, or done, or, for that matter, the things I wish other people had said or done, it's a good moment to gather intentions to get my work done in the weeks and months ahead. Out with the old, in with the new. It's a transitional moment for me in a number of ways, and it's time to stop looking back and start looking ahead.

(If there is anything of an elegiac tone here, it is not about this blog, and there will be fresh posts in the new year.)

Tomato Paste in My Lunchbox

My mother put tomato paste in my lunchbox by mistake. I was in third grade. As I reached into my red lunchbox for my can of what was supposed to be pineapple juice, I put up my hand so the roving lunch lady could come to me and punch those two triangular holes in my juice can, with the can opener she wore on a string around her neck. As she bore down on me, I saw to my horror that the oddly heavy can in my hand, identical in dimensions to the juice cans of the era, was in fact a can of tomato paste.

I yanked my hand down and bent over my lunchbox, thrusting the erroneous cylinder of tomato paste deep into the wrappings of my peanut butter sandwich, hoping nobody had glimpsed this embarrassing artifact of my mother's fogginess. The lunch lady crossly demanded, "Who had a hand up here? There was a hand up?" I kept my head down in anxious contemplation of my pleated skirt until she gave up and stomped away.

Sometimes my sandwiches were on bread that was blue with mold, or were made with irridescent ham. I was used to pretending to eat those sandwiches. The tomato paste was worse. I felt let down in some new way.

That was nearly fifty years ago.

How I wish certain experiences around the publication of my newest book did not make me think of that can of tomato paste, and the shame of feeling that all the other kids have nice lunches while I have to pretend to have a nice lunch and hope that nobody notices the difference.

The Culminating, Superb "Miss Gandy"

Last night I saw the new, nearly perversely static Clint Eastwood-directed movie, J. Edgar. Sitting through this bizarre film (awards for makeup and costumes, for sure), it was hard not to think about my father's FBI records, some 800 pages on Sidney Kaufman gathered over nearly forty years, especially given that Helen Gandy and Clyde Tolson were the two supporting characters in the film. Here is some of what I wrote about them in The Memory Of All That:

"There is a marvelous rubber-stamped list of names of FBI personnel to whom copies of the Kaufman documents were circulated. This was their work; this is what they got up every day to do — process this Confidential, Classified, Secret, and Top Secret information about my father. I like to imagine them, sitting at their desks, typewriters clacking and phones ringing in the background, like a newsroom. There is much to do, fresh reports on the Subject: Sidney Kaufman to pore over, there is new information gathered by SA [redacted] or reported by “[redacted], an informant who has in the past furnished us with reliable information” (or even better, information provided by the occasional “[redacted], an informant who has in the past furnished us with reliable and unreliable information”). Presumably there were reports written about these reports. Individuals must have been assigned to analyze and come to conclusions about the information that had been so painstakingly compiled about the Subject: Sidney Kaufman. Meetings must have occurred, decisions must have been made about further interviews with informants reliable and unreliable, and all those pretext phone calls must have been scripted and scheduled. And all of the reports were typed up, copied, circulated, and filed with all the other accumulated Sidney Kaufman information.

By the late sixties, the rubber-stamped copy list had been streamlined to simple names, but I must admit to a preference for the more traditional earlier iterations, when each name is given the honorific “Mr.” and then there is the culminating, superb “Miss Gandy.” This list of names reads:
Mr. Tolson
Mr. Boardman
Mr. Nichols
Mr. Belmont
Mr. Harbo
Mr. Mohr
Mr. Parsons
Mr. Rosen
Mr. Tamm
Mr. Sizoo
Mr. Winterrowd
Tele. Room
Mr. Holloman
Miss Gandy

I really love this list, which changes only slightly through the years of documentation of Sidney Kaufman’s activities. It is a sequence of names rich in possibility, yet, seeing it repeat throughout the pages of these files, it becomes reliable and familiar, like a wallpaper pattern or a melody. The names, when seen again and again, start to have a delightful rhythm and inevitability that invite memorization, like the presidents of the United States, or Latin declensions.

The roster of FBI employees who were copied on the steady flow of classified information about Sidney Kaufman over all those years is intriguing. Clyde Tolson was Associate Director of the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover’s sidekick. Lou Nichols and Alan H. Belmont were Assistant Directors. John P. Mohr was head of five FBI divisions; he was the number three man after Tolson in FBI hierarchy. Alex P. Rosen was the FBI supervisor on the John Dillinger case and on the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. Joseph A. Sizoo was in the Domestic Intelligence Division. E.A. Tamm was an Associate FBI Director. Frank C. Holloman was s supervisor in the FBI Headquarters in the Crime Records Section, the Fugitive Desk, Plant Survey Section, Special Intelligence Section, Informant Section, and the Records Division.

“Miss Gandy” was Helen W. Gandy, J. Edgar Hoover’s ferocious and devoted executive assistant for fifty-four years. It is known that over a period of months following his death in 1972, she destroyed tens of thousands of pages of his “personal” files thought to contains the fruits of illegal wiretaps and a vast array of incriminating information about numerous public figures and government officials and their family members, as well as detailed reports from the spies Hoover maintained in every White House administration. Her devotion to the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover was that of a nun’s devotion to the Church and the Pope. Their relationship was decidedly odd; Hoover never once called her by her first name. Her mother was painted by Thomas Eakins.

J. Edgar Hoover is not on this list, because just about every document in my father’s files is a memo to The Director. The FBI surveillance of Sidney Kaufman that began in 1936 and apparently ended in 1972 is almost identical to the span of Hoover’s FBI Directorship."

Forest for the Trees

Not being able to see the forest for the trees is a truism we all know. But until last week's devastating storm swept through Connecticut, leaving some 20 inches of snow, tens of thousands of damaged trees, and downed power lines all over, I hadn't thought very much about the phrase in a literal sense.

Our house is in a heavily wooded spot, and we had terrible damage here. The oaks and maples were still in full leaf, which is why they were so susceptible to damage, as the leaves were like sails in the high winds, and they also held the snow and ice, which would have slipped through bare trees with less impact.

In my five days of dark and cold (and no water either, because we are on a well that requires electricity to run the pump), even as I began to deal with the aftermath, arranging for the downed trees to be cut up and cleared, identifying the broken trees with dangerous hangers (which need expensive attention, thus the need to triage -- tree-age -- and only do the work on the trees near the house, leaving the trees on our wooded hillside as they are, though some of them are so damaged they will probably come down through the winter), I realized I have spent years not seeing the trees for the forest. Only at a moment like this, as these massive oaks and maples are tilted and strewn and broken in jarring new ways, do I really see each tree.

My only source of warmth, the roaring fires I built each evening in our fireplaces (it's an 18th century house with four fireplaces that throw heat nicely), were made with the cut, dried, and stacked logs of wood from other trees we have lost through the years. I depended most of all on chunks of oak to burn steadily through those cold nights.

I couldn't work during the power failure. I really depend on electricity. These days, people have taken to calling books "physical books" to distinguish them from e-books (the way an ordinary clock is now an analog clock as opposed to a digitial one), but for a long while they have also been called "dead tree books," too. I am sure there is a useful metaphorical lesson in here somewhere.