I lunched at my old haunt Raffy’s, where I was greeted like the prodigal son, though I hadn’t been there for years. Steak frites, with the same old house wine. I noted to my dismay that prices had escalated sharply. With cheese and dessert, the bill that would have been a dollar in the good old days now came to a whopping three! After lunch, a quick trip around the corner to see Jérôme Lindon, affable as ever, still dressed in his dark suit and impeccable white shirt and tasteful tie, his speech staccato, a Gallic stream rushing down the mountain, bringing me up to date on Beckett. He then thanked me for being involved in the American publication of Henri Alleg’s Question and filled me in on all the trials—literally—he had been through because of that work: banning, police interrogations, late-night threatening phone calls, even attempts to close him down. He said he wanted to introduce me to his editor, who turned out to be our author Alain Robbe-Grillet, whom I had met in New York the year before. Somehow, Alain had failed to mention his day job—or was it moonlighting?—at Minuit. We had already published two of his novels, Jealousy and In the Labyrinth, which I found both disturbing and remarkable. After a few minutes in his tiny office, Alain suggested we go have a pot at the Deux Magots, where he expounded further on the concept of the nouveau roman, a term foisted on him, he said, and several other young novelists, though he insisted they were all quite different and there really was no “school.” “Critics,” he said, “just love to affix labels to work they don’t like or understand.”
Suddenly I realized it was after five o’clock and I was due back at the Manchons’. “If only I’d known,” Alain said. “Catherine and I would have wanted to come to the concert.” He had an invitation from NYU to come to the States for a semester the following year and planned to accept. Did I think it a good idea? Absolutely, assuming it would not detract from his writing. It wouldn’t, he assured me. “And this Richard Howard,” he asked, “is he good? He seems to translate my books almost before I’m finished, he’s so fast!” I assured him Richard was indeed the best. One of my first jobs at Grove had been to edit Richard’s translation of Jealousy, and I had found it excellent. Further, I assured Alain, where I had a question or quarrel, Richard was always quick to respond or accept. No, believe me, I said, you are well served.
* * *
At seven sharp, Jeanne and Frank and I taxied to the Salle Gaveau, where we rendezvoused with Jeannette’s parents. There was already a milling throng outside, dressed to the nines. This was a big night for her, in her young career, perhaps her biggest. As the lights dimmed, my heart was so loud I was worried I wouldn’t hear the music. Then she arrived onstage, to warm applause, my darling lovely in her long pale pink gown. She looked totally calm. So why wasn’t I? She bowed, thrust her fiddle snug between neck and shoulder, nodded discreetly to her accompanist, Thérèse, and after the first notes I relaxed. She was indeed in command, her magnificent tone rich and pure, the audience spellbound. After the last notes there was a long moment of silence, followed by thunderous applause.
At intermission, a furtive spy, I bent an ear to overhear the comments, which ranged from high praise to absolute wonder. Who is this young woman? Where has she been hiding? In America, I understand. But that tone! The Bach … I bumped into several people I knew, who had no idea I was coming, and I feared word might worm itself backstage, spoiling the surprise, but apparently not. It took four encores before Jeannette made her final bow. Half a dozen bouquets were rendered by—to me—unknowns. I turned and hugged her mother, who hugged Jeanne, who hugged Frank, who hugged me. Giddy, we all made our way backstage, where a small crowd was already forming. I was last in line. Then she saw me, unbelieving. “You were here!” and she rushed into my waiting arms. “Of course, madame. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!” “Why didn’t you warn me? Why didn’t you—” “I’ll explain all that later. And bravo, mon amour.” “But who’s taking care of the kids?” “Catherine, our fille au pair, has everything in hand, don’t worry,” I assured her, but before I could say more, others intruded, postponing my details.
Maxim’s owner, Monsieur Vaudable, had closed down the fabled restaurant at ten o’clock for “a private party.” In my dark blue suit and modest tie, I felt downscale. White roses on every table, champagne flowing, we finally sat down to a near-midnight supper. Maxim’s was where Roszi had solidified her career, for many years the star attraction there. Originally trained as a classical violinist, Jeannette’s mother had evolved into the first Gypsy woman violinist who performed to great success in nightclubs. In the late 1930s, she opened her own nightclub on the Champs-Élysées. Vaudable was one of her oldest and greatest admirers, and here was a chance to show her how much he thought of her.
It was past two o’clock when we finally went to bed, euphoric. I suddenly remembered we had to catch a plane for Spain the next morning.
* * *
Over our early breakfast, I steered Jeannette to the Formentor Prize, where we were heading. After I reminded her of the concept, she wondered how eight or ten publishers, all from different countries, could ever agree on anything. I was on the American jury. It was because of Beckett, I said: Barney badly wants Beckett to win the prize and knows I’ll make a strong case for him. I gave her the rundown on the various juries: for the Italians, Alberto Moravia, Italo Calvino, Elio Vittorini, and a leading Italian literary critic. From Weidenfeld, Mary McCarthy and Iris Murdoch; from Germany, the young but highly regarded poet and novelist Hans Magnus Enzensberger. For our jury, on the West Coast Don Allen had suggested Herbert Gold, who immediately agreed. What about Henry Miller? Invited, Henry politely declined, but promised he would consider serving the following year if his schedule permitted.
Each publisher got to nominate two candidates for the Big Prize, as we promptly dubbed this wannabe pre-Nobel. So we had begun with a short list of about a dozen, the most prominent of which, at least in our view, were Samuel Beckett and Jorge Luis Borges.
Jeannette and I arrived at Formentor late in the evening. After a nightcap with the other publishers, already there for at least one day at this beautiful five-star resort hotel, we repaired to our room. Waking up early and still in a state of euphoria, I went downstairs and wandered outside under a glowing sun. The steps to the Mediterranean were flanked on both sides by bursts of pink and red geraniums the proverbial riot of color. I rushed back upstairs and pulled Jeannette out of bed; she had to share the beauty and an early-morning swim, the sky above cloudless, cerulean. Magic.
The first day was spent paring down the short list to the two finalists. The perorations supporting each were persuasive and impassioned, but it soon became apparent the prize had a flaw, perhaps not fatal but serious. For both prizes there was a clear division between north and south, the Germanic languages on the one hand and the Romance on the other. With the jury split down the middle, with no apparent give-and-take, I made a strong plea for Beckett’s candidacy, giving Borges his due but suggesting that Beckett was the greatest living writer in English, perhaps in the world, comparing him to Joyce but adding (far out on a limb, I knew) that in my humble opinion he would one day rank not only with but possibly above Joyce for the depth and diversity of his work. By crowning Beckett, I insisted, we’ll send a strong message to the literary world about this prize.
The faces of the Italians, Spanish, and French showed that my words, like those from the other English and American jury members, made little or no impact. The vote—the second round—again ended in a tie. Mixed huddles and confabulations produced no compromise. Finally, reluctantly, the six agreed to disagree: we would split the prize between Beckett and Borges. It was not a happy conclusion, but both were world-class writers, and the choices would still tell the world that this was a serious prize, worthy of attention.
Almost as an afterthought, the Little Prize was awarded to Juan García Hortelano, the Spanish candidate, without dissension and, as it turned out worldwide, without impact.
* * *
Despite the north-south
schism, and the less than glorious inability to decide on a single winner, the overall impression was that the week had been worthwhile for all parties. For Grove, it had hoisted us overnight to a level of international importance, and both Barney and I felt that from now on it would be easier to do business with our foreign colleagues. As for the money, we calculated that the whole affair, including airfare, hotel, meals for seven—ourselves and the American jury—plus our share of the prize money, came to no more than ten thousand dollars. For a company now used to paying that much for a single Henry Miller court case, it struck us as an outright bargain.
40
City of Night
IT WAS DON ALLEN who steered us to John Rechy, from his photograph a handsome, dark-haired, well-muscled young man from L.A., whose first novel, City of Night, would, by its subject alone, Don assured us, bring Grove further fame and glory. We suspected it would bring us further court cases as well, and we were already teeming with fame, much of it ill. But we trusted Don, who had nurtured the manuscript over a very long period of time, from its inception as a short story. Like many Grove works, City of Night had had its start in Evergreen Review, beginning with “Mardi Gras” in issue number 5. Rechy had lived an itinerant life for years, moving from his native El Paso to half a dozen cities in California, to Dallas, to Houston, to New York, and to New Orleans, where he lived for what he termed “an eternity”—several weeks—before returning to El Paso. As Rechy wrote in his introduction to a reissue of City of Night, the day after he left New Orleans, on Ash Wednesday, he wrote a long letter to a friend in Illinois describing his life these past few years “traveling back and forth across the country—carrying all my belongings in an army duffel bag; moving in and out of lives, sometimes glimpsed briefly but always felt intensely” and detailing his memories of the Mardi Gras season just past.
In that Carnival city of old cemeteries and tolling church bells, I slept only when fatigue demanded, carried along by “bennies” and on dissonant waves of voices, music, sad and happy laughter. The sudden quiet of Ash Wednesday, the mourning of Lent, jarred me as if a shout to which I had become accustomed had been throttled. I was awakened by silence, a questioning silence I had to flee.
Rechy never sent that letter, and a week later found it crumpled in a pocket. He decided to rework his strong memories of the New Orleans moment as a short story entitled “Mardi Gras” and sent it to Evergreen. Don Allen read it, liked it, and wrote to Rechy in El Paso saying it was under consideration for publication in the magazine and asking whether perchance it was part of a novel. It wasn’t—Rechy had never envisioned writing a novel. John relates that he still had no intention of writing a novel, but he did keep on sending stories to Evergreen, which faithfully published them, starting with the summer issue of 1958, six months before I arrived. But publication of new authors in Evergreen, at which agents and publishers were now beginning to look more closely, was a double-edged razor: other publishers began to take note of this serious young author, and at least two made him a concrete offer. John, deciding that he wanted to be published only by Grove, wrote to Don informing him of the outside offers. After a hasty editorial meeting, we knew our feelings were, as they say, mutual, and Don was dispatched to John with a contract and a check for the advance in hand. That settled, John still found it impossible to focus, to write a full-length novel, preferring, he admits, reimmersion in his “streetworld.” Finally, encouraged by a close friend who can be seen at least in part as Jeremy in the book, John went home to El Paso and began to write every day, as if in a fever, on a rented Underwood typewriter. Each evening John, who was half Mexican, would translate “appropriate” passages into Spanish and read them aloud to his mother, who had no English. She listened carefully and, when he finished, would compliment him on the fine work he was writing. Finally, four years after he had written the letter post–New Orleans, the novel was finished and sent off. Don did a light edit, for the manuscript seemed especially fine and taut, and we cataloged it. Given the title, it was suggested our jacket be a mysterious night shot of a city street. Nothing Kuhlman came up with seemed right, so I toted my 35-millimeter camera, which had seen better days, up to Forty-second Street and, roving the street from Sixth Avenue west, began taking pictures, two or three dozen in all. A couple days later, when they were developed, I brought them into the office and showed them around. Yes, they captured the spirit of the novel: dark city scene, furtive shadows. Sold. Just in time for the catalog.
When John received the galley proofs, however, everything looked “different.” The manuscript had seemed fine to him, but when it was typeset, all he could see were errors: wrong words, awkward sentences, clunky paragraphs. He began to correct, at first lightly, then more and more rigorously. He was supposed to return proofs two weeks after receiving them, and when they failed to appear, his answer was “I’m making some slight revisions.” Another two weeks, a month. The book would have to be postponed. In San Francisco, Don was put on the case and reported back that, apparently, the revisions were more severe than John had first indicated. Damn! Finally they came to Don: in the text, in the margins, on newly typewritten pages, John had virtually rewritten the book.
Don called to say that he had checked each change carefully, even meticulously, ready to stet anything arbitrary, and found that John’s changes were invariably an improvement. I suppose, he said, we’ll have to reset from scratch. Don’s “hmmm” was nicely ambiguous, but when the galleys arrived, we did reset completely. John, chagrined and not wanting his relationship with Grove to suffer from the start, wrote saying he’d be happy to pay for the changes out of his royalties, as the contract called for. A gesture we politely declined.
Even before it appeared in late spring 1963, City of Night went onto the New York Times bestseller list, at number 8. One of the first reviews, also prepublication, was from the august New York Review of Books, which lambasted it. The New Republic was equally negative, but the outrage of both may have helped rather than hindered, for the book quickly moved up on several bestseller lists and remained there for several months. A scandal, to be sure! When will those Grove Press perverts learn to draw the line? As if Chatterley and the Tropics weren’t enough, now Naked Lunch and City of Night!
Forsooth and gadzooks!
41
Film
IN 1963, given the growing success of several Grove playwrights—Beckett, Harold Pinter, Ionesco, Genet, Brendan Behan (yes, dear Brendan was back in my life!)—a TV production company, Four Star, approached Grove with an intriguing idea: Why not commission four of your wonderful authors to write TV screenplays? And, by the way, here’s eighty thousand dollars to play with. The first person approached was Jean Genet, who firmly said no. But Beckett, Pinter, Ionesco, Marguerite Duras, and Robbe-Grillet—all of whom had recently turned to writing film scripts—said yes. The first one who did was Beckett himself, who sent in a short, complex, but brilliant work that, predictably, he entitled Film.
Barney was in sixth heaven; the thought of edging his way back into film delighted him. What’s more, Beckett had responded positively to our invitation to come to America to supervise, or at least be present at, the filming, which was scheduled for the summer of 1964. Everyone agreed on the director, Alan Schneider, who had worked over the last several years with Beckett, starting with his direction of Waiting for Godot. It was a one-person film, and the obvious first choice was Charlie Chaplin, whose early films Beckett admired greatly. When queried, the Chaplin office responded that Mr. Chaplin did not read scripts. Zero Mostel, another candidate, was not available, nor was Beckett’s friend and favorite performer, the Irish actor Jack MacGowran, committed to another film. So the actor chosen, well beyond his best years, was Buster Keaton, whose silent films Beckett had also admired as a young man. At Beckett’s behest, Barney and Alan had sought him out in Canada, where he was doing a commercial, and signed him up, and he was due to arrive shortly in New York just prior to shooting. Whether he had read the script
or not is uncertain; if he had, it is doubtful he understood it: it was a disturbingly simple plot involving two aspects of the same protagonist, one the perceiver, the other the perceived, the former probing insistently, the latter trying desperately to hide.
The Tender Hour of Twilight Page 39
