I.Asimov: A Memoir

by Isaac Asimov

  The syndicated column was another matter. That had to be tied in to some news item, so I could never be more than a week ahead of deadline. I was forced to write a letter explaining that until I could get out of the hospital, I would not be able to do my column, and I hoped that after three years of never having missed a deadline, they could give me some sick leave.

  “Of course,” they said, and proceeded to fill the space of the four columns that I eventually missed by reprinting ones I had written earlier in the game. That was very kind of them, for it meant that the regular readers of the column would not forget my existence. I promptly wrote another letter saying that I did not expect to be paid for rerun articles, since I had done no work in that connection.

  But they must have consulted Doubleday, for back came the answer at once: “Don’t be silly, Isaac.” They paid me in full.

  I had to cancel three talks altogether and—a particular embarrassment—I was late in putting together the data on my income tax for the first time in my life. My accountants had to ask for extensions, but I felt I had a reasonable excuse.

  I might say that Janet was a ministering angel throughout, by the way, coming in every day, spending most of the nights with me, bringing in the mail and anything else I needed, always bright and cheerful. She endured my bouts of bad temper and soothed my spirits.

  Robyn came in periodically to spell Janet and let her go home for a peaceful nap. I also received visits from Jennifer. I did my best to discourage visits because I felt it was a shame to disrupt people’s schedules simply so that they might visit an old slugabed. However, Stan and Ruth visited, as did Don Laventhall, my lawyer, and Robert Warnick, my broker, and other friends as well. Marty Greenberg visited me twice and called me every evening.

  And, of course, I had doctors coming in at all hours—Paul Esserman, Peter Pasternack, Jerry Lowenstein, and a raft of others. Nurses came in to take my blood pressure and feed me pills and set up the antibiotic drip. Service people came in to swab the floors and bring the meals and change the water. The place was a madhouse of activity, none of which I particularly welcomed (except the food).

  There was nothing I could do while I was being dripped with antibiotics but watch television. I was forced to watch programs that, in my right mind, I wouldn’t have allowed in the same house with me, or in the same city, if I could manage that. Yet I watched them with avidity, for it made the dripping time pass tiiat would otherwise have lingered unbearably.

  But it wasn’t all loss, for January 26, 1990, was the day in the hospital when Janet told me I’d better start the third volume of my autobiography.

  I had to smile. She followed a line of wild optimism all through my illness, trying to convince me that I would live forever if I only put my mind to it. That remark, however, made it seem that she felt I had to race the last bit of my life to write the book. I didn’t say anything about that; I knew it would upset her, but I did say:

  “It’s only twelve years since the end of my previous autobiography and since then my life has grown even duller if that is possible. The only thing I would have to say would be that I wrote this, and then I wrote that; that I gave a talk here, and then a talk there. About the only breaks would be my triple bypass and my current illness, and that would make depressing reading.”

  She said, “Don’t give a day-by-day account. Be subjective. Give your thoughts.”

  I said, “It’s still only twelve years.”

  She said, “Start from the beginning. Cover your whole life in a retrospective, but don’t go into unending details. Give the general sweeps and your reactions to it. After all, many people never read the first two volumes, and even if they did, if you tell it all in a different way, they’ll be interested.”

  I didn’t really believe any of this. I am not a deep philosopher and I can’t make myself believe people are dying to hear my thoughts. However, I know that I have a pleasant writing style and can keep people reading, whatever I write. And I also had the sensation that I was racing death. And, as ever and always, I wanted to please Janet.

  So I started the book immediately and within a matter of a few pages it had grabbed me. (I am my own favorite subject, as everyone who reads me knows.) I had 105 pages done when I was called back into the hospital for the second siege, and I abandoned the book regretfully and wondered if I would ever finish it.

  When I went to the hospital, I took with me, as a matter of course, a bunch of writing pads and several pens just in case time hung heavy on my hands. And of course it did—instantly.

  So I began scribbling on the pads. In a few days, I had finished a new Black Widower story, “The Haunted Cabin,” and was deeply into an Azazel story. (“The Haunted Cabin” contains an incident that did indeed take place during my first hospitalization. I have since sold it to EQMM.)

  On February 9, Janet found me scribbling when she came in and asked what I was writing. I told her. Janet said, “Why are you doing that? Why aren’t you writing your autobiography?” I said, “I need the first two volumes and my diaries to get everything into the right chronological order.”

  She said, “I told you that you don’t need strict chronological order. Just write about incidents as they come into your mind under various headings, and when it is time to prepare final copy, you can always rearrange them to suit yourself.”

  She was, of course, quite right. I was writing topic by topic, and not day by day, and I could shuffle the topics any way I wished. I worked happily all day, except when I was being dripped or when I had to attend to visitors—whether doctors, nurses, servers, family, or friends. When Janet didn’t spend the night with me, I woke up at 5 A.M. (my usual arousal time), turned on the light, and began to write rapidly. There would be three hours before breakfast and that was the best part of the day, with the only interruptions being to have my blood pressure taken, my blood drawn, and my pills handed me (plus Paul’s visit).

  By the time I was ready to leave the hospital I had written over 250 long pages in reasonably small printing. Not only did this keep me from going mad but it actually put me into a jovial and good-natured mood.

  About the only thing I found irritating was that everyone who caught me writing would ask me what I was doing, and when I explained, they would invariably try to sell me on the notion of a laptop computer. I would tell them (and by the tenth person I was getting peevish about it) that I liked scribbling by hand, but I don’t know that anyone could bring himself or herself to believe me.

  Once I got out of the hospital, I continued to work hard on the autobiography. If it is a race with death, then it seems I am winning, for I expect to finish the book today, May 28, 1990, just four months after starting it. I’ll have to go over it for some finishing touches, but I hope to have it in to Doubleday in a week or two.

  It’s a little longer than Doubleday asked for (well, 50 percent longer), but it will all fit into one volume and I shall do my best to keep it from being cut more than cosmetically.

  New Life

  It’s not really a new life I have returned to, for I am doing my best to make it as much like my old life as possible. But it’s new in that it is considerably modified, and for the worse, I suppose. I am a septuagenarian now, with a leaky heart valve and imperfect kidneys.

  I still can’t walk very far or very brisldy without having to stop to catch my breath, and I do get tired more easily than I like. Nevertheless, it is life and I’m getting along.

  In addition to this book, I’ve kept up with my various columns. I’ve gone over the manuscripts I left hanging when I grew ill. I’ve returned to making my weekly rounds to the publishers, and the Dutch Treat Club gave me a strong round of applause when I walked in on March 6, 1990, to take over my emcee chores once again. (Every Tuesday that I was in the hospital was sunny. On March 6, of course, it snowed.)

  Later in the month, I put together a new collection of F&SF essays to be called The Secret of the Universe. Janet and I have been going to the theater more often th
an before,

  if anything, and I particularly enjoyed revivals of Sheridan’s The Rivals and Gay’s The Bexar’s Opera.

  On April 6, 1990, I gave my first talk out of town since before my illness. It was at William Patterson College in Wayne, New Jersey, and it went very well. On May 2,1 was responded to even more enthusiastically by a standing-room-only crowd at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

  I attended a meeting of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society on April 20, and I wrote a new science fiction story, “Kid Brother,” and sold it to IASFM.

  On May 7, I presided over the annual banquet of the Dutch Treat Club, with Victor Borge as the honoree. It was the best I had ever been at and the members were delighted. The next day I attended the eleventh annual Hugh Downs dinner.

  On May 15, I gave a talk on Gilbert and Sullivan at the Players Club, introducing five numbers, and on May 18, I finally went to a Trap Door Spiders meeting for the first time in half a year.

  Yes, I am carrying on in this new life exactly as I had in the old. I am as busy as ever and I do all the things I always did (except eat freely), but I don’t fool myself into thinking this is permanent. The shades of night are still there on the near horizon.

  On May 10, 1990, Red Dembner, who published my quiz books, and whom I had made a member of the Dutch Treat Club, phoned me to inquire after my health. His publishing duties kept him away from the club except at infrequent intervals, and he had not seen me in some time.

  I assured him I was doing reasonably well, and he said, “I’m so glad. I have a warm spot in my heart for you, Isaac. Let’s have lunch together.”

  I said, “Absolutely, but I know you have a tight schedule. Pick a day that is convenient to you, Red, then call me back and we’ll have lunch.”

  The day never came. On May 14, Red died of a heart attack. It came without warning, and without premonitory symptoms as far as I know. He was sixty-nine years old.

  My turn will come too, eventually, but I have had a good life and I have accomplished all I wanted to, and more than I had a right to expect I would.

  So I am ready.

  But not too ready. On May 26, 1990,1 introduced Corliss Lamont,

  the grand old man of humanism, at a luncheon. He is eighty-eight and physically frail, but he stood on his feet for forty-five minutes and delivered an excellent impromptu speech. Clearly, he was in full mental vigor.

  So I shall hope.

  EPILOGUE

  Janet Asimov

  One of the deepest desires of a human being is to be known and understood. Hamlet instructs Horatio to tell his story. A child asks to be told a story and is most thrilled when the one he hears has a character like himself in it.

  Isaac says in this autobiography that I told him to write it, but the fact remains that he wanted to do so, to share his life with his readers in a way that he did not in the first two autobiographies, which are more detailed, more exactly chronological, and not introspective.

  In May 1990, Isaac ended this autobiography with hope, although he knew that he didn’t have long to live. He hoped for several more years, but his heart and kidney failure worsened and he died on April 6, 1992.

  Isaac wanted this autobiography published right away, so that he could see the book before he died, but this was not done. He also told me that he wanted the book arranged the way it is, in “scenes” written down as they came up in his memory.

  After Isaac’s death, I took on the job of editing the completed manuscript. The publisher wanted it severely shortened but I think the book should be left much the way Isaac wanted it.

  The manuscript ends in May 1990 and reads as if Isaac believed the reader would soon be reading it. I have written this epilogue to give Isaac’s readers a brief account of what happened afterward.

  Isaac’s 1990 diary records May 30 as the day he finished typing the final copy of the autobiography. He writes, “It is now all ready to

  hand in, 125 days after I started it. Not many can write 235,000 words in that time, while doing other things as well.”

  The next day we went to Washington, D.C., for a luncheon at the Soviet Embassy. The trip made Isaac feel, for a while, that he was back from illness and part of life again. He was particularly happy about meeting Gorbachev because the ending of the cold war gave hope to the world. Isaac strongly believed all peoples should work together for the common good of humanity.

  In the rest of 1990: Isaac gave a talk on Gilbert and Sullivan for Mohonk’s music week. In addition to his keynote speech at his last Rensselaerville Institute “Asimov Seminar,” he sang and explained all the verses of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” There were other meetings, conventions, and speeches, and he even signed books at the outdoor book fair on Fifth Avenue.

  In spite of increasing weakness, he wrote every day. He was pleased to discover at the end of 1990 that it had been his best year financially.

  He worried about various medical problems—his own and those of his daughter and his brother. For the first time he mentioned his depression and worsening health in his diary, with considerable bitterness. Outwardly, he tried not to depress anyone else, making jokes and being his usual lovable self.

  On January 2,1991, he wrote in his diary, “I made it. I’m 71 today .. . I got a birthday greeting in the ‘Garfield’ cartoon . . . which probably gave me more exposure than I’ve ever had before!” Then: “Robyn came and we went to Shun Lee for Pelting duck and venison. It was great.”

  Also in January 1991, he began work on Asimov Laughs Again, which lifted his spirits. On April 5, almost exactly a year before he died, he finished the book with a concluding page in which he said that he and I have stayed deeply in love for thirty-two years.

  The page ends with: “I’m afraid that my life has just about run its course and I don’t really expect to live much longer. However, our love remains and I have no complaints.

  “In my life, I have had Janet and I have had my daughter, Robyn, and my son, David; I have had a large number of good friends; I have had my writing and the fame and fortune it has brought me; and no matter what happens to me now, it’s been a good life, and I am satisfied with it.

  “So please don’t worry about me, or feel bad. Instead I only hope that this book has brought you a few laughs.”

  After he finished and turned in Asimov Laughs Again to HarperCollins, he became more withdrawn. The handwriting in his diary deteriorates, and there are fewer, shorter entries. But he went on working as much as possible.

  When typing was difficult, he dictated to me, especially his last piece for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It was a poignant “Farewell—Farewell” to all his “Gentle Readers.” In it he said, “It has always been my ambition to die in harness with my head face down on a keyboard and my nose caught between two of the keys, but that’s not the way it worked out.”

  There continued to be some happy times, and he still enjoyed being president of Dutch Treat, introducing speakers like Mayor Dinkins. We even went to Mohonk once more. Almost the last diary entry is on August 3, 1991, when he said, “I started an editorial for Asimov’s. It will be a double length on Foundation.”

  I will not go into any details about Isaac’s last months, which were filled with hospitalizations and physical deterioration. Nor will I describe details of his deathbed, except to say that he did not suffer pain —terminal kidney failure brings about a kind of apathy, and eventually peace.

  Robyn and I were there when he died, holding his hands and telling him we loved him. His last complete sentence was: “I love you too.”

  I want to retell something I told Harlan Ellison about an incident from Isaac’s last week at home. Isaac couldn’t talk much, and was asleep most of the time, but once he woke up looking terribly anxious.

  He said to me, “I want ... I want . . .”

  “What is it, Isaac?” I asked.

  “I want ... I want . . .”

  “What do you want, darling?”

  It see
med to burst out of him. “I want—Isaac Asimov!”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s you.”

  Then he said wonderingly, and with triumph, “I AM Isaac Asimov!” I said, “And Isaac Asimov can rest now.” Isaac smiled happily, said “Okay,” and fell asleep again. Even near the end, his sense of humor was still there. As I said in

  the memorial service, Robyn, Stan, his wife Ruth, and I were all in Isaac’s hospital room the day before he died. I said to him, “Isaac, you’re the best there is.”

  Isaac smiled and shrugged. Then, with a mischievous lift of his eyebrows, he nodded yes, and we all laughed.

  Isaac was genuinely proud and happy about his accomplishments. After he died, I came across a piece of paper upon which he’d written in ink (perhaps after he first got sick):

  Over a space of 40 years, I sold an item every ten days on the average.

  Over the space of the second 20 years, I sold an item every six days on the average.

  Over a space of 40 years, I published an average of 1,000 words a day.

  Over the space of the second 20 years, I published an average of 1,700 words a day.

  Writing what he wanted to write was an act of joy for him, during which he relaxed and forgot his troubles. He grumbled about having to write so many novels in the last few years, but even those helped. Forward the Foundation was hard on him, because in killing Hari Seldon he was also killing himself, yet he transcended the anguish.

  He told me what the end of Forward the Foundation was going to be—that as Hari Seldon dies, the equations of the future swirl around him and he knows he is looking into the future that he himself has discovered and helped to bring about.