179 “I never said any such”: Lillian Hellman to EBW, March 31, 1975.
180 “gentle complacency”: Ralph Ingersoll to EBW, March 17, 1937.
181 “I want to see what it feels like”: EBW to Stanley Hart White, March 13, 1937.
181 “I want time to think about many”: EBW, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, August 7, 1937.
181 “In the main” and “places where my spoor”: EBW to KSW, May 31, 1937.
181 “I don’t think I ever”: KSW to EBW, September 1937.
181 “Enjoyed working in your shop”: EBW to HWR, n.d., 1937.
181 “He just sails around”: WG to EBW, September 1937.
182 “an unholy mess”: EBW to JT, January 8, 1938.
182 “on a theme which engrosses me”: EBW to KSW, May 31, 1937.
182 “listening to the beat”: EBW to JT, January 8, 1938.
182 were among her happiest: Davis, Onward and Upward, p. 128.
182 “My life here is fantastic”: KSW to Ruth McKenney, August 29, 1938.
183 “If you haven’t seduced her,” etc.: Dorothy Lobrano Guth, interview by author, March 10, 2013.
183 Lobrano easily passed: KSW to Gus Lobrano, n.d., ca. 1937.
184 “a tall, diffident man,” etc.: Wechsberg, First Time Around, pp. 159–60.
184 “pure rubbish”: Edmund Wilson, “Kay Boyle and the Saturday Evening Post,” TNY, January 15, 1944.
184 “Miss Boyle had exactly”: Gus Lobrano to HWR, March 22, 1944.
184 “Something must be left”: Gustave Lobrano obituary, New York Journal American, March 2, 1954.
184 “He did not enter lightly”: EBW, “G. S. Lobrano,” TNY, March 10, 1956.
184 organized a children’s Sunday: Guth interview, March 10, 2013; Guth to author, August 15, 2014.
185 So high was the regard of S. J. Perelman: S. J. Perelman, interview by William Cole and George Plimpton, “The Art of Fiction No. 31,” Paris Review, Summer–Fall 1963.
185 “I have been with the NYer”: Gus Lobrano to EBW, September 1938.
185 “catching mackerel”: KSW to Eileen McKenney, August 29, 1938.
185 “Gibbsy”: EBW to WG, n.d., 1934.
185 the three hundred dollars he would earn: Elledge, White: A Biography, p. 211.
185 “spare the reading public”: Ibid., p. 216.
186 “I began to sustain the illusion”: EBW, “Once More to the Lake,” Harper’s, October 1941.
186 “I wish I could believe”: Russell Maloney to EBW and KSW, October 3, 1941.
186 “steadily laying shingles”: EBW, “Clear Days,” Harper’s, December 1938.
186 “I think that ‘One Man’s Meat’ ”: Roger Angell, introduction to EBW, One Man’s Meat (1997 ed.).
187 poignant short stories: WG, “Another Such Victory—,” Harper’s Bazaar, May 1932; WG, “November Afternoon,” Harper’s Bazaar, November 1933.
187 Therefore, in the living room: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, June 29, 2007.
187 “Injun Joe”: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, June 30, 2007.
187 “strangled vines”: WG, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, November 5, 1938.
187 using his hose to squirt: Elizabeth “Tish” Collins, interview by author, June 9, 2007.
188 the subtle maneuverings: WG, “To Sublet, Furnished,” TNY, September 29, 1934.
188 feign sickness at boring: WG, “Be Still, My Heart,” TNY, December 29, 1934.
188 “a perfect example”: WG to EBW, n.d., ca. summer 1940.
188 “a port in the storm” and “He so dramatically”: Alec Wilkinson, interview by John Thorne, “Relationships of Invention,” Atlantic Unbound, May 15, 2002.
188 “One day Wolcott Gibbs asked me”: William Maxwell, interview by John Seabrook, “The Art of Fiction No. 71,” Paris Review, Fall 1982.
189 “was always able to fix up”: JT, Years with Ross, p. 129.
189 “permitting the suit”: WG, “Boo, Beau!” TNY, November 8, 1930.
189 whose eponymous scribe: WG, “Edward Damper,” TNY, November 26, 1932.
189 “You’re damn right there is”: WG,“To a Little Girl at Christmas,” TNY, December 24, 1949.
190 “The city of Grand Revenant”: WG, “Shad Ampersand,” TNY, October 27, 1945.
190 “during a period of considerable stress”: WG, “Future Conditional,” TNY, May 8, 1937.
190 “This play is a masterpiece”: WG,“Shakespeare, Here’s Your Hat,” TNY, January 13, 1940.
190 “The parodies are, I guess”: WG, Season and Other Pleasures, p. x.
191 “His friends call him Buzz,” etc.: WG, “Up from Amherst,” TNY, April 3, 1937.
191 “whimsical evaluation”: Meredith, So Far, So Good, p. 8.
191 “surprisingly gentle”: Hoopes, Ingersoll: A Biography, p. 258.
191 “in general he has an air”: WG, “A Very Active Type Man,” TNY, May 9, 1942.
191 “Backward go the sentences”: Meredith, So Far, So Good, p. 179.
192 “So help me God,” etc.: Ralph Ingersoll to WG, April 28, 1942.
192 “I think I was offended”: Ingersoll to WG, n.d.
192 “to make the jurors feel they”: WG and John Bainbridge, “St. George and the Dragnet,” TNY, May 25, 1940.
193 Suspecting that the Democrats: Kinney, Thurber Life and Times, pp. 373–74.
193 “a beautiful operation”: Westbrook Pegler, “Fair Enough,” New York World Telegram, June 17, 1940.
193 “We spent an hour in the library”: WG, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, April 29, 1939.
194 “entirely on one note”: WG, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, July 1, 1939.
194 perverse pride: WG to KSW, n.d., 1939.
194 “I asked Gibbs”: Jonathan Schwartz to author, September 27, 2013.
195 “[They] will now think continuously”: WG, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, September 9, 1939.
195 “The trouble with Gibbs’ stuff”: HWR to EBW, n.d., 1931.
195 “We all try very hard”: WG to EBW, n.d., ca. summer 1940.
195 “a member of the rabble,” etc.: WG, “In Defense of Captain Queeq,” TNY, January 30, 1954.
195 stabbed Harold Guinzberg: WG, “King Spider,” TNY, April 3, 1943.
196 “I want you to be a little”: WG, “Ring Out, Wild Bells,” TNY, April 4, 1936.
196 “Gibbs wrote a perfect opening scene” and “was the only publishable thing”: StCM, “On Wolcott Gibbs,” New York Herald Tribune, September 24, 1950.
196 “virtuous brakeman,” etc.: WG, Sarasota Special. Tony Gibbs provided the manuscript along with accompanying notes, correspondence, and outline.
197 “just the bunk”: Richard B. Gehman, “The Great Dissenter,” Theatre Arts, March 1949.
197 “It did not get uproarious”: John P. Shanley, “Art Carney Finishes Season in Comedy,” New York Times, May 7, 1960.
CHAPTER 8: “A SILLY OCCUPATION FOR A GROWN MAN”
198 “There is nothing”: Louis Sobol, “Rhapsody in Boo,” Hearst’s International Combined with Cosmopolitan, February 1945.
199 “in the manner”: Wolcott Gibbs obitiuary, New York Herald Tribune, August 17, 1958.
199 “standards so high”: Nat Benson, “The Critics,” Saturday Night: The Canadian Illustrated Weekly 62, no. 45 (July 12, 1947), p. 23.
199 “The Man with Blond Hair,” etc.: The reviews ran, respectively, in TNY November 15, 1941; September 12, 1942; September 22, 1945; November 8, 1939; and May 22, 1937.
200 “God, he’s brilliant”: Kramer, Ross and New Yorker, p. 164.
200 “as deft”: WG, “Resurrection Man,” TNY, November 15, 1941.
200 “I don’t think”: WG, “Bouquets, Brickbats, and Obituaries,” TNY, January 8, 1949.
200 “the quality of his work”: WG, “Well Worth Waiting For,” TNY, February 19, 1949.
200 “Critics in New York”: Shaw, Assassin, pp. xix–xx.
201 “godawful, sentimental”: Tish Dace, “Henry Hew
es: ‘Always Right Is No Excuse,’ ” in Jenkins, ed., Under the Copper Beech, pp. 59–60.
201 “I’ve always felt”: Arthur Gelb, “Critic in the Spotlight,” New York Times, October 15, 1950.
201 “detaching herself suddenly,” etc.: WG, “Little Nemo and the Cardboard Lion,” TNY, May 25, 1935.
202 “one of the most insanely complicated”: WG, “Robert Benchley: In Memoriam,” New York Times, December 16, 1945.
202 “Once, shortly after Robert”: Benchley, Benchley: A Biography, p. 197.
202 “obviously better,” etc.: Benchley to HWR, October 30, 1938.
202 And so it was that Gibbs: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, June 30, 2007.
202 “I had not the foggiest notion”: Ibid.
203 “[T]here are seldom any cabs,” etc.: WG, “Stuff and Nonsense, Mr. C.,” New York Herald Tribune, May 20, 1951.
204 “Lanchstr get face stuck”: WG, “What Every Boy Should Know,” TNY, March 29, 1941.
205 “What are all these people”: Ari Hogenboom, interview by author, June 23, 2006.
205 “There was said to be”: WG, “Strange But Wonderful,” TNY, November 11, 1944.
205 “massacre”: WG, “Such a Pretty Face,” TNY, December 1, 1945.
205 “He was always right”: Frank Modell, interview by author, July 22, 2006.
205 “unique and indispensable”: Vernon Young, “New Books in Review,” Yale Review, June 1956.
205 “sick critical viewpoint”: Charles Cooke to HWR, February 21, 1947.
205 “You don’t suck me”: HWR to Cooke, March 18, 1947.
205 “I read the Gibbs review”: Dashiell Hammett to Lillian Hellman, May 16, 1944.
206 “Dear Mr. Gibbs”: Dalton Trumbo to WG, April 11, 1949.
206 “I’d avoid it”: WG, “Dolls Aren’t Enough,” TNY, May 26, 1951.
206 “the most stupid thing”: James B. Allen et al. to Raoul Fleischmann, May 24, 1951.
206 “egregious”: Eric Bentley, “The ‘Old Vic,’ the Old Critics and the New Generation,” View, Fall 1946.
206 “The fact that Gibbs”: Raymond Chandler to Charles Morton, June 14, 1946.
207 “Dear Sir”: Kunkel, Genius in Disguise, pp. 389–90.
207 “I have no idea”: WG, “Triple-Threat Man,” TNY, January 4, 1958.
207 “Mr. Gibbs, why”: Scott Simon, “Mel Brooks Blazes Wacky Trail,” National Public Radio, May 24, 2008.
207 “When youth and beauty”: Collier, Fancies and Goodnights, p. 394.
207 “Every now and then”: Joel Raphaelson, “Off the Cuff,” Harvard Crimson, October 1, 1948.
207 “We decided to call Gibbs”: Silverman, Michener and Me, p. 42.
207 “continual carping”: James Reilly to HWR, December 17, 1948.
208 “Mr. Reilly’s is funniest”: HWR to WG, WS, and Botsford, December 22, 1948.
208 the producer, Jed Harris: “Today’s Fight Card: Gibbs vs. Harris,” Billboard, November 2, 1946.
208 “On the whole”: WG, “Out of the Library,” TNY, October 26, 1946.
208 Congressman Emanuel Celler: Billboard, February 18, 1950.
208 “It was quite exciting”: Linda Kramer, interview by author, December 11, 2005.
208 “a completely enchanting performance”: WG, “With Thanks,” TNY, April 10, 1943.
208 “I want to congratulate you”: de Mille, Dance to the Piper, p. 333.
208 “I put on a one-woman”: Bankhead, Tallulah: Autobiography, pp. 234–35.
209 Mike Todd once commissioned: “Sign Men Love Art in a Great Big Way,” New York Times, March 29, 1949.
209 “First Nighters”: Atkin and Adler, Interiors Book of Restaurants, pp. 116–17.
209 “[F]rom time to time”: WG to John Mason Brown, August 30, 1946.
209 “pretty bleak and strange”: WG to Catherine Brown, December 5, 1942.
209 “the best parodist,” etc.: Stevens, Speak for Yourself, p. 243.
210 “Mr. Nathan can be”: Nathan, Theatre Book of the Year, 1950–1951, p. 47.
210 “George Jean Nathan probably will”: Russel Crouse, “Arsenic and Old Lace,” Life, April 3, 1944.
210 “Burton’s Anatomy of Rascoe”: WG, “Don’t Look Now, But I Think They’re Gone,” TNY, October 9, 1943.
210 “I’m sure Mr. Rascoe”: WG to John Mason Brown, December 5, 1942.
210 “the New Yorker’s tired young man,” etc.: Burton Rascoe, “In Which the Critic Comments on a Critic,” New York World-Telegram, April 5, 1943.
210 “I have done many terrible things”: Max. J. Herzberg and the staff of the Thomas Y. Crowell Co., The Reader’s Encyclopedia of American Literature (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co. (1962 ed.), pp. 383–84.
211 “The curtain goes up”: WG, “The Jukes Family Revisited,” TNY, April 9, 1949.
211 “correct and literate”: WG, “My Neck Is Out,” TNY, April 13, 1946.
211 “While having an altogether”: Kronenberger, No Whippings, p. 91.
212 “worst play in nearly”: Ward Morehouse, “Talking of the Theater—,” New York Sun, March 12, 1946.
212 “the worst play I have seen”: “Café Brawl,” Time, March 11, 1946.
212 “group of men”: Advertisement in New York Times, March 1, 1946.
212 “I’d say offhand”: Time, March 11, 1946.
212 A rather more serious incident: Sam Zolotow, “4 Critics Quit Circle; Feud Seen as Cause;” “Rascoe Quits Circle; Asked its Dissolution;” “Kaufman to Direct Rose’s New Revue,” New York Times, October 12 and 13, 1943, and February 14, 1944; and Ward Morehouse, “Drama Critics Circle Doomed—Good Riddance,” New York Sun, October 12, 1943.
213 “Aside from his immediate relatives”: Russell Maloney, “These Things Are Fated,” TNY, April 7, 1945.
213 a dozen or so specific queries: Packard’s casuals were “A Casket of Amontillado” and “A Hogshead of Soup,” TNY, July 17, 1948, and April 30, 1949.
213 “Many farmers in recent years”: StCM, “The Mare’s Nest,” TNY, November 1, 1941.
213 “sporty, cosmopolitan”: WG, untitled “First Treatment,” ca. 1943.
213 “I can sum up”: Israel, Kilgallen, p. 154.
214 “I am Professor Tweedy,” etc.: WG, “The Diamond Gardenia,” TNY, November 20–27, 1937.
214 “a pretty toy”: WG, “One with Ninevah,” TNY, March 24, 1956.
214 “probably the most disastrous”: Sheldon, Other Side of Me, pp. 147–48.
214 “not of good taste”: WG, “Catnap with Kollmar,” TNY, May 27, 1944.
215 “a fiend in human form”: Lucius Beebe, “This New York” column, New York Herald Tribune, October 10, 1942.
215 “the most prosperous gnome,” etc.: WG, “The Customer Is Always Wrong,” TNY, October 11, 1941.
215 “spout Elizabathenisms”: Jack Gould, “R. Maney, Man and Legend,” New York Times, February 3, 1941.
215 “Press agentry is no business”: Richard Maney obituary, New York Times, July 2, 1968.
216 “You actor, you!”: Wilson, Gazing into My 8-Ball, p. 40.
216 “All female stars”: WG, “The Customer Is Always Wrong,” TNY, October 11, 1941.
216 “My most hair-raising moment”: Richard Maney, “About the Guest Expert,” New York Times, September 17, 1944.
216 “a perfectionist, a stickler,” etc.: Richard Maney, “Notes and Comment on Wolcott Gibbs,” New York Times, August 24, 1958.
CHAPTER 9: “I AM A CHILD OF THE SUN”
217 when the likes of Edmund Wilson: Frank, Louise Bogan, p. 143.
217 “O those wonderful summer”: Louise Bogan to “Diomedes-Heathcliff” (Morton Dauwen Zabel), July 29, 1939.
218 “When we all trooped”: Midgley, How Many Words Do You Want?, p. 46.
218 “virtually none of the manic”: Kunkel, Genius in Disguise, p. 227.
218 “I’m going to Colorado”: HWR to KSW, n.d., 1939 or 1940.
218 “Hollywood got some of them”: WG,
“Big Nemo,” TNY, April 1, 1939.
219 “I carry dry shavings”: EBW to Charles G. Muller, January 18, 1940.
219 “The missus”: EBW to WG, n.d., 1934.
219 The Whites had to contend: Davis, Onward and Upward, p. 128.
220 “Maine suddenly seems too remote”: EBW to Harry Lyford, December 28, 1941.
221 “another one of those Adventures”: EBW to Eugene Saxton, January 28, 1942.
221 “should surprise nobody,” etc.: EBW and KSW, Subtreasury of American Humor, pp. xvi–xviii.
221 “[G]et right after it”: Davis, Onward and Upward, p. 139.
221 “our finest essayist”: Irwin Edman, New York Herald Tribune, June 14, 1942.
221 “Everybody thinks it is” and “The O’Hara omission”: WG to EBW and KSW, n.d., 1941.
222 “I am an older man”: JT to EBW, September 1938.
222 “the intermittent fall”: JT to Herman and Dorothy Miller, September 22, 1931.
222 “He could feel”: Bernstein, Thurber: A Biography, p. 268.
222 “worn and a little depressed”: JT to EBW, September 1938.
222 “It is nice to be back”: JT to EBW, October 1938.
222 “[H]e cannot go out alone”: Helen Thurber to Ronald and Jane Williams, July 1941.
223 “A blind man benefits”: Maurice Dolbier, “A Sunday Afternoon with Mr. Thurber,” New York Herald Tribune Book Review, November 2, 1957.
223 the hapless husband escapes: JT, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” TNY, March 18, 1939.
224 “In your way you are just”: Bernstein, Thurber: A Biography, p. 312.
224 “As much as anything else”: Gibbs, More in Sorrow, pp. ix–x.
224 For such a physically slight man: WG, response to Fireside Theatre questionnaire, 1950.
224 “As you will note”: WG to Alec Waugh, June 6, 1950.
224 “He kept on rooting”: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, June 30, 2007.
225 “he sleep-walked” and “really seedy, smelly pigpen”: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, June 29, 2007.
225 “next to a man”: Kronenberger, No Whippings, pp. 282–83.
225 “There is still a hollow place”: WG to Nancy Hale, ca. 1932.
226 a place he had occasionally: Phoebe Frackman, interview by author, August 1, 2007.
226 “stretched out like a basking”: Fowler, Second Handshake, p. 29.
Cast of Characters Page 42
