Fare Forward: Letters from David Markson

by David Markson

  87 Her book, originally Ceci n’est pas une tragédie: L’ecriture de David Markson (ENS Editions) that would be published in the States as This Is Not a Tragedy (Dalkey Archive Press, 2011).

  88 One that, he’d told me, he wanted to be structurally and stylistically different from the last four books.

  July 26 ’06

  Simso—Love—

  What sort of dummy includes an extra blank sheet in a letter?89

  No, it is not Joanna Scott.90 She once worked in my ex-wife/ agent’s91 office, and wrote me a lovely (more than lovely) letter re my work more recently, & I finally got around to reading her, which is why I asked your reaction (mine=great prose)—but the one who says she is “besotted” with me is someone else (also good). What is this madness, regarding someone who is exactly (let me calculate), yes, one year, four months, & 25 days short of his 80th birthday! Women are mad (deliciously so, but mad).

  Another Country Heard From92—great—except if it is all Japan—then, NO. Too real, precise, etc.

  I’m glad things seem good—i.e., that your time is your own. There is nothing wrong in using much of it to just sit and stare. And daydream. (Or, even, to recall America from afar.)

  Forgive the scrawl, eh? Again, the humidity is dense enough to swim through. Forgive the prose also, as bad as “the sea that continues endlessly widely.” Worse. It is 4:00 p.m. and I am lately half-asleep at this hour. (Even only five years ago I would have revised/rewritten this.)

  Yes, the last book all signed, etc. Title: The Last Novel. But not scheduled until next spring—probably late spring. I did say my two old private eye things (in one volume) will be out in November, no? Not sure I’m happy re same.

  Hey, end of fancy page.

  Much love, & to Corey—

  D.

  89 David’s letter is written on that “blank sheet”—it came from a typical Japanese letter set, which contains paper, envelopes and stickers, all in a matching cute design. On this one is the phrase: “I want the heart and the strength which became clear like this beautiful sea that continues endlessly widely,” along with a picture of a smiling cloud saying: “Hello!!”

  90 I was guessing who the “attractive middle-aged good novelist” he’d mentioned as having a crush on him was.

  91 Elaine Markson.

  92 A title I was contemplating for my second book, which would ultimately be called Stranger.

  Aug 9 ’06

  Simsy—

  Carole Maso I used to know a little, some years back. She’s gay. Indeed, last I knew, she and her partner had a baby.

  Joy Williams, very attractive, I met once. She is (was?) married to the ex-Esquire fiction editor Rust Hills. I think they live in Key West.

  Lynne Tillman I never met, never read.

  Mona Simpson, likewise.

  Christine Schutt—never even heard of.

  I’ll tell you the truth. It’s Emily Brontë.

  Lissen, the whole thing is absurd. I’ve not seen you enough to have probably mentioned same, but A., I have prostate cancer, and B., the treatment for same blocks testosterone—meaning I ain’t got no sex life! (Whether I’d have one at 78 in any case is beside the point.) But all I can do about this besotted lass is sigh wearily and daydream of the past. I am inordinately fond of—indeed, cherish—my editor, too, who is in fact younger than the novelist, recently divorced, now in New York. And tomorrow or the next day a 22-year-old kid, working on my books, is due to stop by. And there’s Sims, nagging me for a name—when I’m debating which monastery to enter.

  I don’t know what became of the Japanese edition.93 I was sent my few bucks long ago. Usually books eventually arrive. Though it’s all sort of meaningless when I can’t make sense of them anyhow. I remember tossing out several never-opened Norwegian copies of something, the last time I sold books. They are probably still on some bottom shelf at the Strand.94

  I was joking about Emily Brontë. It’s really Stevie Smith (she did write one novel, no? I delight in her verse.)

  In fact it’s Jean Rhys. Grace Paley. Angela Carter. Colette.

  Greenwich Village streetcorner anecdote for you, circa early 1990s:

  Grace Paley: David, how are you? Tell me what’s new?

  D. Markson: Hi, Grace. Nothing, really. Though in fact I do have a volume of poems coming out.

  Grace Paley: That’s what we’d all rather do, isn’t it?

  Markson household anecdote for you, circa whenever she used to spend a week with us, while a client of Elaine’s:

  Angela Carter never bathed!

  Lissen, OK, finally, I’ll tell you. It’s Anaïs Nin.

  Love again—

  D.

  93 Of Wittgenstein’s Mistress.

  94 The Strand Bookstore, a treasured NYC institution, opened in 1927, the year of David’s birth. Located at 12th Street and Broadway, it was one of David’s favorite haunts. He sold many books there through the years, and when he died, his library ended up there. One of his fans, Tyler Malone, started a tumblr called “Reading Markson Reading” after David’s death. He posts the marginalia found in David’s books that Malone and others have retrieved from the Strand.

  Sept 5 ’06

  Simsy, my love—

  Okay, I’ll tell you. It’s Hillary. She’s told Bill, and understanding the depths of her passion he’s willing to step aside. And of course she’ll forgo a run for the presidency.

  But don’t tell a soul.

  What the hell is a “young adult novel”?95 Don’t waste your writing time on trivia, dammit.

  Says David—whose two old private eye books will be reissued in a couple of months.

  Meantime I love, love, love, your “poet” business card.96 I would show it to everybody—if I ever saw anybody, any longer. Even had to cancel lunch with my editor, Trish Hoard (of Shoemaker and…) last week, because of awrful arthritis. I’ll bet I haven’t ever gotten around to mentioning my arthritis—just one more of the 97658 subdivisions of the “sick” in “old, tired, sick, etc.”

  I wish I had some news. Basically just going nuts, trying to concoct a new novel different from what I’ve been doing, getting nowhere—which is to say, doing nothing. Forcing myself to read some of the allegedly “great” novels I’ve let go past in recent years—Saramago, Sebald, etc., and being bored by all of same. Though Joanna Scott does do loverly prose.

  It’s not Hillary. It’s Beyoncé. Who is Beyoncé?

  Re that cartoon I sent97—I passed it around a writing class or two—telling them that if they did write, they should be careful whom they marry.

  Anyway. Forgive the draggy lack of energy. Not just old, tired, sick, it’s old, tired sick, DULL.

  But I do send much love—

  David

  95 I must have told him I was thinking about writing a young adult novel while in Japan.

  96 The Japan-US Friendship Commission issued me a box of meishi, business cards with English on one side and Japanese on the other, to use during the duration of the fellowship. They read: “Laura Sims, Poet,” and listed my Tokyo address. I’d sent one to David.

  97 From The New Yorker, it shows a man and woman on a porch; he’s seated at a typewriter and she’s handing him a sandwich, and saying, “I’ve got an idea for a story: Gus and Ethel live on Long Island, on the North Shore. He works sixteen hours a day writing fiction. Ethel never goes out, never does anything except fix Gus sandwiches, and in the end she becomes a nympho-lesbo-killer-whore. Here’s your sandwich.”

  Oct 5 ’06

  Simso—

  Okay, I’ll finally tell you the absolute, categorical, unadulterated truth. It’s Ellen DeGeneres. She’s not gay. She’s been faking that, so it won’t spoil her image when she’s seen ducking in and out of my building.

  Speaking of in & out of my building, Edie Falco lived here for years, and I had no idea who she was, never having seen The Sopranos. (Or maybe it was before The Sopranos.)

  Forgive the cruddy paper, by the way. (Though at
least there ain’t no cutesy little pink animals on it!)

  Meantime there is NOTHING doing here, still. Awaiting copy-edited ms on the new novel. Lunch with Ann Beattie, dinner with Kurt Vonnegut (and two other chums) being my only recent “literary” activities. Also with my editor and publisher, and my novelist girlfriend (OK, it’s not DeGeneres). And she ain’t my girlfriend anyhow—though it’s nice to have felt a little playfully flirty for a bit, considering all my sexless, energyless ancient debilities. Bright, nice woman.

  Still struggling to find something to react to when I read, dammit. About five total Anne Carsons now, and I’m about to quit—an occasional (no, a rare) glittering passage does not a genius make. And all that surface intellectuality is just that, surface.98 That long Ammons Garbage I have tried to get into twice—and cannot believe how it won a National Book Award—via intimidation maybe, a little like Carson in that respect. A Barry Hannah amused me, but wound up with a shrug. A Tabucchi,99 a grunt. But ignore all this, it’s me and my worn-down head, not the books. Or as my once-Playboy- centerfold-writer-ex-girlfriend recently said, “David, maybe we’ve just read enough novels.”

  Then again, in your honor, I did buy a Penguin Bashō haiku collection. Now that’s the stuff for me—eight or ten words at a clip, the entire volume done with in fifteen minutes, hallelujah!

  End of page, more than I anticipated. I think I’ll consider it a day’s work. No, it’s Thursday, make it a week’s.

  Hope you’re both OK, still happy there, etc. With much love—David

  98 I’m a huge Anne Carson fan, and vehemently disagree.

  99 Antonio Tabucchi, Italian writer, 1943-2012.

  Oct 5 ’06

  Simsy, my sweet—

  A P.S. Correction to this a.m.’s letter. It occurs to me that when I referred to my ex-girlfriend-former-Playboy-centerfold-also-a-writer, you might have thought she’s the one I’ve been talking about of late. No, this is another. Was a Playboy centerfold when I met her—probably twenty years before yourself saw the light of day. The only centerfold who ever had a short story of her own in the same issue. All these years later, and she lives only about three blocks away here in the Village. Amazing. You turn old and pot-bellied and senile and you’re still in touch with some who a half-century ago were heartbreakingly young and beautiful.

  Love again—

  D.

  Nov 17 ’06

  Simsy my love—

  I owe you. But as always, no hay nada aqui. I uncopyedited my copyedited ms of The Last Novel, then proofed the proofs. I get wholly confused re what’s what with the two-in-one Epitaphs coming out before that. I just had to apologize to that lovely lady French critic for a minor annoying screw-up (mine), and began my letter by saying, “On December 20 I will turn 79. I forget things!” Friends, acquaintances, keep dying (would you believe two memorial services yesterday?) (I went to neither.) (And have long since told my kids—none for me, pls.) Were you aware of the death of Richard Gilman100 over there—that is, aware that it occurred over there? Another friend (to a small degree).

  Yes, no, I am still incapable of reading. Except for Alice Denham’s Sleeping With Bad Boys, especially all the porno parts featuring David Markson. (Book just now out; she being the ex-Playboy centerfold I’d mentioned. Review in this coming Sunday’s Times refers to “the novelist David Markson (‘stud lover boy’).” (I kid you not—my step into literary Valhalla.)

  Have you heard from Rebecca Wolff101 re your pomes (as old Aiken102 used to spell it)? Don’t know her, but I seem to receive a freebee of the periodical now and then. You didn’t say where you hoped to land a teaching job; any nibbles?

  How odd is it that I know these guys (well, knew, in Dick Gilman’s case) with Japanese wives? Pete Hamill & a writer name of Josh Greenfeld being the other two.

  But, hey, that reminds me—if you have the odd moment, check to see if a translated Wittgenstein’s Mistress is in print over there, can you?103 It’s a year and a half ago that I received my few dollars, but I’ve never seen a book. (I’m not sure why I care; for all I’ll know when I do see it, it could be a copy of The Sorrows of Werther.) Then again, I could ask the agent’s office. If I remember.

  Nada mas. My kitchen sink drips. The super fixes it. It drips anew. This comprising the major events in my existence of late.

  I will assume you guys are OK. What would happen if I dialed your Madison #? Wait, let me. I just did. It rang & rang. Then, as if an answering machine had been on (but sans message), it said, “Memory full.” Is it still yours? Did I ask about this before? On Dec. 20 I will turn 79. I forget things!

  But with love—David

  100 Richard Gilman, a leading drama and literary critic, 1923-2006. He died in Kusatsu, Japan.

  101 Editor of Fence Books, who was reading my second manuscript at the time.

  102 Conrad Aiken, American novelist and poet, 1889-1973.

  103 I tried, but failed to find one.

  May 21 ’07104

  Simser—

  I was amused by that line you changed,105 which now asks if I sit staring into space on the subway, “lovesick.”106

  You’ll get a chuckle in turn when I ask Eric107 to change the line that follows, from me smacking you upside the head to giving you a whack on the tuchas!

  Hey, hope all is well. Nothing new here. (Well, that award.108) Reviews very slow in coming in on the new book, but several due soon.

  Love to you both—

  D.

  104 I’m not sure why there’s been such a long break in our correspondence, though once I came back from Japan, we began speaking on the phone more often.

  105 He’s referring to a line from the interview, included in this volume, we were doing for Rain Taxi. David took the questions I gave him and basically scripted the whole thing, right down to my interjections.

  106 I was teasing him about his novelist girlfriend.

  107 Eric Lorberer, editor of Rain Taxi.

  108 He’s talking about winning the American Academy of Arts & Letters Award in Literature for “exceptional accomplishment.”

  Aug 5 ’07

  Dear Simsy—

  Thank you for all the cows.109 There is now cow flop all over my rug!

  Yes, depressed re Brooklyn.110 Severely. But a lovely letter from Palleau, telling me her husband says it was doomed from the start—since Brooklyn wasn’t young enough!

  Yes (again), thinking about a next book—but, dammit, collecting these cursed notes again111—which (see our interview) I swore I’d not do! Ah, well, keeps me occupied, at least. “Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.”

  Some guy who’d wanted to do an interview, and whom I put off, commented on the Rain Taxi issue. I told him, “Laura Sims is prettier than you are.”

  Hey—love to you both—

  Ever—

  David

  109 I think I’d sent him a postcard with a picture of cows on it. It’s a safe bet, considering I was back in the Midwest.

  110 He and his novelist girlfriend, whom he’d code-named “Brooklyn,” had broken things off.

  111 He couldn’t seem to escape his old composition method.

  Sept 29 ’07

  Laura, lass—

  November 5th, that 92nd St. thing is. But why in hell would you punish any good friend by making him/her go?112 A., I’m only one of two readers—Will Self is the other one. B., Ann Beattie is flying up to introduce me, and surely ought to take some of my time. C., with no scenes, events, active moments in my work, I’ll surely need at least a 5 min. preface explaining whatinhell the book is all about, and how it works, etc., etc., if what I read makes any sense at all—earlier references to things that now repeat, and so on. Which means your chums will get about a page and a half of Markson for their $18 tickets!

  Spare them.

  With love—

  David

  112 I’d asked him for the details of his 92nd Street Y reading (his first reading ever, he said) so I could tell friends in New Yor
k to go.

  Feb 3 ’08

  Hey—Simsy—

  Writing this for your return out there.113 How great to have seen you. And I’m excited as hell that you’ll be here in the fall.114 (Or, as you suspect, in Brooklyn.)

  But, dammit, I owe you a lunch. I started to pay, and you made us split it, and I never thought about my two wines as opposed to your single lovely pale iced tea. Next time on me.

  Next time, also, shut me up once in a while, will you? Three hours after I got home all I could still hear was the sound of my own voice.

  Incidentally, on the reverse here, now that’s the girl of my dreams.115 Brooklyn who?

  Hey—love to you both—

  David

  113 He means my return to Madison—I’d gone to New York for a reading. Again I’m not sure why there’s such a long break here between cards, but it could again be because we were talking on the phone more frequently.

  114 We’d just learned we’d be moving back to New York, for teaching jobs.

  115 He’d uncharacteristically sent me a picture postcard, that iconic close-up shot of a beautiful, green-eyed Afghan girl, taken by Steve McCurry in 1985.

  June 9 ’08

  Symsy—

  Blessings on your furry little head for the essay!116 And no need to send one. My buddy Carolyn Kuebler, managing editor up there, has me on their freebee subscription list. (She was with Rain Taxi before.) So long as you spelled my name right, what can be bad?117

  Meantime, lots of medical nuisances here, hospital time (brief), etc. Gawd, I hate being 80! Latest prognosis, fair.

  Hey, I’ll see you in August. Everything will be better in NY than in Cheese-Land!

  Love—

  D.

  116 I’d finally finished and published an essay on David’s work. It appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of the New England Review and is reprinted in this volume (page 97).

  117 He hadn’t seen it yet, obviously, and I was nervous for him to read it, knowing he was easily angered by mistakes (as he perceived them) people made when writing about him.

  Aug 28 ’08