Donald Barthelme
Page 94
Brother Steven born. Accused of plagiarism by a teacher who says his papers are too good for a high-school student. Probably for this reason, also denied the editorship of the school paper, The Eagle.
1948
Wins awards for poetry and short stories but, still angry at losing the editorship, leaves school one afternoon in February and hitchhikes to Mexico City with a friend. Tracked down by angry father and grandfather and brought back to Houston, where he refuses to continue attending St. Thomas. Transfers to Mirabeau B. Lamar High, a public school in the wealthy River Oaks neighborhood, where he again distinguishes himself with his writing. Begins smoking and drinking and going on joyrides in his father’s white Corvette.
1949
Graduates from Lamar and, against father’s objections, joins a small jazz band that tours East Texas. In September enrolls at the University of Houston, where his father is now a professor in the architecture department. Studies journalism and begins writing for the college newspaper, the Daily Cougar.
1951
Though only a sophomore, becomes editor of the Cougar, youngest student ever to hold that post; also begins Sunday drama column for the Houston Post. Argues with father again, leaves home, and with three friends moves into a dilapidated house in a scrappy neighborhood, across from a burger joint.
1952
Marries Marilyn Marrs, a graduate student working on a degree in French literature at Rice, and they move into an apartment in downtown Houston. While still attending classes at the university, works on the night desk at the Post and has regular beat reviewing movies, plays, and concerts.
1953
Drafted into the army and assigned to the 37th Infantry Division, based at Camp Polk in Ohio. After basic training, re-assigned to Fort Lewis, in Tacoma, Washington, and then ordered to Korea, where he arrives on July 27, the day the armistice agreement ending the war is signed. Army wants to send him to baking school, but he wangles a spot in the Public Information Office at Division Headquarters, near the Korean town of Chorwon. Begins writing what he calls “The Great American Novel,” which has since disappeared.
1954
Promoted to corporal. Visits Tokyo, where he hangs out at jazz clubs and visits brothels. Transferred to Seoul, and then, having been put on reserve status (as he remains for the next six years), returns to Houston.
1955
Re-enrolls at the University of Houston and takes up his old arts beat at the Post. Marriage grows distant, partly because of the long separation and his frequent drinking. In a Restoration drama course, meets Herman Gollob, a fellow Texan and Korean War vet, who becomes a lifelong friend and later, an editor at Little, Brown, publishes Barthelme’s first book. Leaves Marrs and with Gollob and two friends rents a run-down Charles Addams-ish house downtown. Becomes protégé of Maurice Natanson, a professor at the university, who instills in him a lasting love of philosophy, Kierkegaard especially.
1956
Hired by the public relations department at the University of Houston and put in charge of Acta Diurna, the faculty newsletter, which he renames Forum and transforms into a full-fledged weekly arts magazine. Seeks out and publishes work of up-and-coming writers such as Norman Mailer, Walker Percy, and William Gass. In October, divorces Marilyn Marrs and a week later marries Helen Moore, a former journalism student at the university, whom he has known for years and who now works at a Houston ad agency. At a newsstand discovers the work of Samuel Beckett, who becomes a transformative influence on his own writing.
1957
Helen suffers series of miscarriages, which leave her and Barthelme bereft. Begins quarreling with the board of Forum, which resists many of his editorial innovations, arguing that he is assuming “too much interest, background, and mental acuteness on the part of Forum’s readers.”
1960
Fed up, he resigns from Forum. Works on fiction and helps Helen design ads for her agency. Joins board of the Contemporary Arts Association, for which he organizes exhibitions, writes catalogue copy, and arranges poetry readings and stagings of innovative theater.
1961
Becomes part-time director of the CAA’s art museum, and in May visits New York City for the first time, to attend a writers’ conference at Wagner College on Staten Island. Meets Lynn Nesbit, a young agent at the Sterling Lord Agency, who agrees to represent him.
1962
Recruited by the art critic Harold Rosenberg to become the managing editor of Location, an avant-garde arts magazine starting up in New York, resigns from the CAA and moves to Manhattan, while Helen remains at her job in Houston. Visits jazz clubs almost nightly, attends art-world parties, becomes passionate moviegoer. Helen takes temporary leave from her job but can’t adjust to New York, and they agree to separate. By now, drinking so much that people have begun to notice.
1963
Becomes romantically involved with Nesbit, who sells one of his stories to Harper’s Bazaar. Moves into rent-controlled apartment on West 11th Street near Sixth Avenue, which will become his permanent New York address. Sells first story to The New Yorker, “L’Lapse,” a parody of Antonioni movies, and begins long friendship with Roger Angell, one of the fiction editors there, who champions his work against the objections of several colleagues. Wins a crucial admirer in William Shawn, the editor-in-chief, and in midsummer signs agreement giving the magazine first look at everything he writes.
1964
Location folds after just two issues. Turns to writing full-time, and in April publishes first book, the story collection Come Back, Dr. Caligari, which is warmly reviewed for the most part and sells out its modest advance. At Christmastime travels to Denmark, where he visits Kierkegaard’s grave and meets and falls in love with Birgit Egelund-Peterson, daughter of a science professor. Writes Helen and suggests divorce.
1965
Meets new downstairs neighbors at West 11th Street, Kirkpatrick Sale, a writer, and wife Faith, a book editor, and begins long friendship. Travels with Birgit in Europe and then splits time between rented flat in Copenhagen and a small farm owned by her family. In October, returns to New York with Birgit, now pregnant. Daughter Anne born November 4.
1966
Wins Guggenheim Fellowship.
1967
The New Yorker devotes most of its February 18 issue to “Snow White,” a novel by Barthelme that is a retelling of the Grimm brothers’ fairy tale with some Disney thrown in. Published in book form a month later, it becomes an unlikely best seller and one of the most talked-about novels of the year. Has brief affair with Grace Paley, a Greenwich Village neighbor. Drinking more than ever.
1968
Splits time between New York and Denmark as marriage begins to unravel, in part because Birgit is in the early stages of Huntington’s disease, suffering memory lapses and unpredictable bouts of sadness or anger. Nor does his drinking help. Publishes collection Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts.
1970
Beset by money problems, taking on most of the child care, nevertheless publishes City Life, one of his strongest collections, in which many of the pieces are collages of a sort, illustrated by engravings cut from old books. It’s chosen as an alternate Book of the Month Club selection, an honor that Barthelme at first tries to decline.
1971
Birgit hospitalized for a drug overdose, and after recovering she and Barthelme separate. Publishes a children’s book, The Slightly Irregular Fire Engine, or the Hithering, Thithering Djinn, which wins the National Book Award for children’s literature.
1972
Birgit moves back to Denmark, leaving Anne with Barthelme. Begins affair with Marianne Frisch, wife of the Swiss novelist Max Frisch. Also has affair with Karen Kennerly, a writer and, later, executive director of PEN, who at the time is dating Miles Davis. Publishes Sadness, a more personal collection, with fewer collage elements. Receives Zabel Award
for achievement in writing from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Becomes romantically involved with Marion Knox, a reporter-researcher at Time magazine, whom he meets while shopping at the Jefferson Market. Teaches writing at SUNY Buffalo. With Mark Mirsky, starts Fiction magazine, a tabloid devoted to experimental writing.
1973
Divorces Birgit Egelund-Peterson. Teaches writing at Boston University.
1974
Publishes collection Guilty Pleasures. Becomes visiting distinguished professor at City College of New York.
1975
Publishes The Dead Father, a novel in extended dialogue form, about a son trying to dispose of a giant, monumental parent. It’s chosen by The New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of the year.
1976
Publishes Amateurs, fourth book in four years. Considered by some a lesser effort than Sadness and City Life, nevertheless receives generally warm reviews.
1978
Marries Marion Knox and the couple honeymoons in Barcelona.
1979
Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Publishes collection Great Days, in which many of the stories are dialogues, stripped of the usual Barthelmesque flourishes. Does six-week stint filling in for Pauline Kael as The New Yorker’s film critic.
1980
Publishes Sixty Stories, an anthology of what he considers his best published work, which is enthusiastically received.
1981
In need of money, accepts one-year appointment to teach creative writing at the University of Houston. Begins living half of the year there and half in New York.
1982
Daughter Katherine born January 13. Awarded tenure at the University of Houston and made head of the creative writing department, where he quickly establishes himself as a beloved and influential teacher and an energetic and inspiring administrator.
1983
In New York, where he still returns every summer, convenes what comes to be known as the Postmodern Dinner. The guest list includes Thomas Pynchon (who fails to show up), John Barth, William Gaddis, Robert Coover, John Hawkes, Kurt Vonnegut, Walter Abish, and Susan Sontag. Publishes Overnight to Many Distant Cities, story collection interlarded with short interchapters.
1984
Birgit Egelund-Peterson commits suicide in Copenhagen.
1986
Helps organize 48th International PEN Conference in New York, which ends in acrimony all around. Publishes Paradise, a novel about a divorced architect who finds himself sleeping with three lingerie models. Gets mixed response, and even Barthelme himself is ambivalent about it.
1987
Publishes Forty Stories, another anthology of previously published work, and, in collaboration with the artist Seymour Chwast, Sam’s Bar, an illustrated book of made-up bar conversations.
1988
Hospitalized for throat cancer, undergoes surgery and radiation. Gives up drinking and smoking. Receives Rea Award for the Short Story.
1989
Awarded fellowship by the American Academy in Rome, finishes draft of The King, a novel that will be published posthumously. In early June is hospitalized again with a recurrence of throat cancer; drifts in and out of lucidity. Slips into a coma and dies on June 23.
Note on the Texts
This volume prints the texts of seven complete short story collections by Donald Barthelme published from 1964 to 1983, along with twenty-three stories first published in book form in Barthelme’s retrospective collections Sixty Stories (1981) and Forty Stories and four additional stories that were uncollected during Barthelme’s lifetime.
Barthelme took great care in preparing his story collections, which extended even to the selection of cover art. The ordering and presentation of the stories in these volumes were not haphazard or casual and express his authorial intentions for each collection. For this reason, although Barthelme later revised some of the stories after their first book publication, the texts printed here are uniformly those of the first American book publications, printed as they appeared in these volumes. The list below provides publication information for each of the story collections organized by first book publication, listing for each story its prior periodical publication and subsequent inclusion, where applicable, in Sixty Stories (abbreviated “SS”) or Forty Stories (abbreviated “FS”).
Come Back, Dr. Caligari (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1964).
Florence Green Is 81. Harper’s Bazaar, April 1963, pp. 130–31, 200, 209, 217.
The Piano Player. The New Yorker, August 31, 1963, p. 24.
Hiding Man. As “The Hiding Man,” First Person 1 (Spring–Summer 1961): 65–75.
Will You Tell Me? Arts and Literature 1 (1964): 68–76.
For I’m the Boy Whose Only Joy Is Loving You. As “For I’m the Boy,” Location 1 (Summer 1964): 91–93.
The Big Broadcast of 1938. New World Writing 20 (1962): 108–20.
The Viennese Opera Ball. Contact 10 (June 1962): 42–44.
Me and Miss Mandible. As “The Darling Little Duckling at School”: Contact 7 (February 1961): 17–28.
Marie, Marie, Hold On Tight. The New Yorker, October 12, 1963, pp. 49–51.
Up, Aloft in the Air.
Margins. The New Yorker, February 22, 1964, pp. 33–34.
The Joker’s Greatest Triumph.
To London and Rome. Genesis West 2 (Fall 1963): 35–38.
A Shower of Gold. The New Yorker, December 28, 1963, pp. 33–37.
Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1968)
The Indian Uprising. The New Yorker, March 6, 1965, pp. 34–37. SS.
The Balloon. The New Yorker, April 16, 1966, pp. 46–48.
This Newspaper Here. The New Yorker, February 12, 1966, pp. 28–29.
Robert Kennedy Saved from Drowning. New American Writing 3 (April 1968): 107–116. SS.
Report. The New Yorker, June 10, 1967, pp. 34–35. SS.
The Dolt. The New Yorker, November 11, 1967, pp. 56–58.
The Police Band. The New Yorker, August 22, 1964, p. 28.
Edward and Pia. The New Yorker, September 25, 1965, pp. 46–49.
A Few Moments of Sleeping and Waking. The New Yorker, August 5, 1967, pp. 24–26. FS.
Can We Talk. Art and Literature 5 (Summer 1965): 148–50.
Game. The New Yorker, July 31, 1965, pp. 29–30.
Alice. The Paris Review (Summer 1968): 25–31. SS.
A Picture History of the War. The New Yorker, June 20, 1964, pp. 28–31.
The President. The New Yorker, September 5, 1964, pp. 26–27.
See the Moon? The New Yorker, March 12, 1966, pp. 46–50.
City Life (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970)
Views of My Father Weeping. The New Yorker, December 6, 1969, pp. 56–60. SS.
Paraguay. The New Yorker, September 6, 1969, pp. 32–34. SS.
The Falling Dog. The New Yorker, August 3, 1968, pp. 28–29. SS.
At the Tolstoy Museum. The New Yorker, May 24, 1968, pp. 28–29. SS.
The Policemen’s Ball. The New Yorker, June 8, 1968, p. 31. SS.
The Glass Mountain. SS.
The Explanation. The New Yorker, May 4, 1968, pp. 44–46. SS.
Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel. The New Yorker, October 12, 1968, pp. 53–55. SS.
The Phantom of the Opera’s Friend. The New Yorker, February 7, 1970, pp. 26–27.
Sentence. The New Yorker, March 7, 1970, pp. 34–36.
Bone Bubbles. As “Mouth,” The Paris Review 48 (Fall 1969): 189–202.
On Angels. The New Yorker, August 9, 1969, p. 29. SS.
Brain Damage. The New Yorker, February 21, 1970, pp. 42–43.
City Life. First published in two parts in The New Yor
ker, January 18, 1969, pp. 31–32, and The New Yorker, June 2, 1969, pp. 32–37. SS.
Sadness (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972)
Critique de la Vie Quotidienne. The New Yorker, July 17, 1971, pp. 26–29. SS.
Träumerei. SS.
The Genius. The New Yorker, February 20, 1971, pp. 38–40. FS.
Perpetua. The New Yorker, February 26, 1972, pp. 30–31. FS.
A City of Churches. The New Yorker, April 22, 1972, pp. 38–39.
The Party. The New Yorker, June 3, 1972, pp. 30–31. SS.
Engineer-Private Paul Klee Misplaces an Aircraft Between Milbertshofen and Cambrai, March 1916. The New Yorker, April 3, 1971, pp. 33–34 FS.
A Film. The New Yorker. Published precursors to this story include a “Notes and Comments” piece in The New Yorker, June 13, 1970; “A Film,” The New Yorker, September 26, 1970; and “Flying to America,” The New Yorker, December 4, 1971. FS, as “The Film.”
The Sandman. The Atlantic, September 1972, pp. 62–65. SS.
Departures. The New Yorker, October 9, 1971, pp. 42–44. FS.
Subpoena. The New Yorker, May 29, 1971, p. 33.
The Catechist. The New Yorker. November 13, 1971, pp. 49–51. FS.
The Flight of Pigeons from the Palace. As “The Show,” The New Yorker, August 8, 1970, pp. 26–29. FS.
The Rise of Capitalism. The New Yorker, December 12, 1970, pp. 45–47. SS.
The Temptation of St. Anthony. The New Yorker, June 3, 1972, pp. 34–36. FS.
Daumier. The New Yorker, April 1, 1972, pp. 31–36. SS.
Amateurs (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976)
Our Work and Why We Do It. The New Yorker, May 5, 1973, pp. 39–41. SS.
The Wound. The New Yorker, October 15, 1973, pp. 36–37. FS.
110 West Sixty-first Street. The New Yorker, September 24, 1973, pp. 33–34. FS.
Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby. The New Yorker, May 26, 1973, pp. 39–40. FS.
The School. The New Yorker, June 17, 1974, p. 28. SS.
The Great Hug. The Atlantic, June 1975, pp. 44–45. SS.