Cast of Characters

by Thomas Vinciguerra

  226 three short stories about it: Mosher’s stories—“Beachcombers,” “Built upon the Sand,” and “Out in the Sun”—ran in TNY on May 27, June 24, and September 16, 1939.

  226 “party animals and old-fashioned families”: Elizabeth Hawes, “Castles in the Sand,” New York Times Magazine, July 11, 1993.

  226 “Most people these days”: WG, Season in the Sun, p. 23.

  226 “I am a child of the sun”: WG to Nancy Hale, n.d., ca. fall 1933.

  227 “It could do three miles”: WG, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, January 22, 1949.

  227 “she told him solemnly”: Smith, Life and Legend of Fowler, p. 201.

  227 “stuffy or Victorian,” etc.: Manley, Long Island Discovery, pp. 203–5.

  228 “Everyone’s absolutely”: Adler, House Is a Home, pp. 351–52.

  228 “my caravansary”: Goldie Hawkins, “How a Piano Affects Star,” New York Journal-American, June 8, 1955.

  228 “demon”: WG, “Just Some Little Thing,” TNY, October 16, 1943.

  228 “a man with a face like Punch”: WG, “Mr. Jermyn’s Lovely Night,” TNY, November 10, 1943.

  229 Following a major hurricane: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, July 1, 2007.

  229 “an island booby hatch,” etc.: Smith, Life and Legend of Fowler, p. 201.

  229 “They are a very strange people”: WG, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, June 3, 1939.

  229 “At one point—there were”: Arthur Gelb, interview by author, December 1, 2007.

  230 “It’s the children, darling”: The Addams cartoon ran in TNY, August 30, 1947.

  230 “My then-wife”: Charles Addams on Dick Cavett Show, March 29, 1978.

  230 With simultaneous awe: Gelb, City Room, p. 195.

  230 “Every time he passed”: Alfred Bester, “My Affair with Science Fiction” in Aldriss and Harrison, eds., Hell’s Cartographers, p. 63.

  230 an obese Liebling: Susan Cookson, interview by author, May 27, 2009.

  230 “He would say something”: David Behrman, interview by author, December 21, 2008.

  230 “I especially remember him”: Cookson to author, June 24, 2010.

  231 “He started getting mean”: Tony Stern, interview by author, June 13, 2009.

  231 hot grapefruit: Betty Rollin, interview by author, September 13, 2007.

  231 “smaller than a grain of rice”: Joanna Simon, interview by author, September 14, 2007.

  231 arranged for a cherry picker: Isabel Konecky, interview by author, September 14, 2007.

  231 Born in Brooklyn, etc.: Walt Brevig, “Fire Island Loses One of Its Old Friends,” Newsday, n.d., probably October 9, 1964.

  231 He joined the Coast Guard: Gibbs interview, July 1, 2007.

  232 “he had an almost” and “He was good,” etc.: Ibid.

  232 “He had one ”: WG, “Love, Love, Love,” TNY, July 20, 1946.

  233 a droll, meandering sketch: WG, “Song at Twilight,” TNY, July 6, 1946.

  233 little boy who is rebuked: WG, “The Foreign Population,” TNY, August 17, 1946.

  233 a woman’s moccasins: WG, “Crusoe’s Footprint,” TNY, September 14, 1946.

  233 out-and-out comedy: WG, “Cat on the Roof,” TNY, August 24, 1946.

  233 “extremely disreputable” and “What happened”: WG to S. N. Behrman, n.d., 1946.

  233 solid wooden railing: David Behrman, interview by author, December 21, 2008.

  233 “We ourself would like”: WG, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, June 15, 1940.

  233 In contrast to his dapper: Tony Gibbs interview, July 1, 2007.

  234 “A man with an impressive”: WG, “In Defense of Dermathermy,” Hearst’s International Combined with Cosmopolitan, July 1949.

  234 he went out daily with Richard Adler: Adler, You Gotta Have Art, p. 65.

  234 “had locked himself”: Gelb, City Room, p. 195.

  CHAPTER 10: “ALWAYS POISON”

  235 “Every drink was an adventure”: Waugh, Year to Remember, p. 21.

  235 one hundred thousand speakeasies: Peretti, Nightclub City, p. 11.

  235 a memorable portrait: Niven Busch, “Speakeasy Nights,” TNY, May 7, 1927.

  235 “to spend the afternoon”: WG, “Ah, Youth!” North Hempstead Record, January 12, 1927.

  236 “The liquor . . . is not very good”: WG, “Another Speakeasy Night,” TNY, January 5, 1929.

  236 “You went out”: Lois Long, “That Was New York—and Those Were Tables for Two,” TNY, February 17, 1940.

  236 “Preciousness almost engulfed us”: Angell, Let Me Finish, p. 161.

  236 “And then I thought”: HWR to Frank Sullivan, October 19, 1933.

  237 “He once said to me ‘Eighty’ ”: JT to WG, n.d., ca. spring 1936.

  237 “Everyone seemed to drink”: Susan Shapiro, “A Librarian with Great Stories in Her Files,” Newsday, March 3, 1992.

  237 “I never could figure out”: Kinney, Thurber Life and Times, p. 544.

  237 “He ordered a martini”: Walter Bernstein, interview by author, December 15, 2012.

  237 “Bat’s mo”: Amelia Hard, interview by author, February 10, 2013.

  237 “A man can do”: EBW to Gerald Nachman, March 15, 1980.

  238 a devotee of the English language: Kinney, Thurber Life and Times, p. 668.

  238 its food was often terrible: Gill, Here at New Yorker, p. 309.

  238 “a long narrow shoebox of a space”: Ibid., p. 304.

  238 In one often-retold story: Bruccoli, O’Hara Concern, p. 172.

  239 “some of the best arguments”: Charles McCabe, “Saloon Arguifiers: Beer to Birchard,” Toledo Blade, April 30, 1983.

  240 “prepared to talk and sing until dawn”: Kinney, Thurber Life and Times, p. 668.

  240 “when the presses rolled”: Information about Bleeck’s came from Zinsser, Writing About Your Life, p. 44; Kluger, Paper: Life and Death, pp. 264–68; Maney to StCM, August 9, 1963; Maney, “Life Goes to Bleeck’s,” Life, November 26, 1945; Midgley, How Many Words, pp. 40–48; Nunnally Johnson to Gene Fowler, March 17, 1955; “The Place Downstairs,” Time, May 3, 1963; Westbrook Pegler column, “The Hangout,” May 5, 1958; Bellows, Last Editor, p. 124; Joel Sayre Papers, interview, December 19, 1973, in NYPL; JT to EBW, January 20, 1938; and John Bleeck obituary, New York Herald Tribune, April 24, 1963.

  240 However, a patron: Bernstein, Thurber: A Biography, p. 240.

  244 when Packard was cat sitting: Amelia Hard, interview by author, February 10, 2013.

  244 once, when his steak slipped: Duncan Kinkead, interview by author, June 3, 2007.

  244 “Hey, Wolcott!”: Wilson, Gazing into My 8-Ball, p. 40.

  244 “Their talk was keen”: Bernstein, Inside Out, pp. 132–33.

  245 “embraced the flower,” etc.: Richard Maney to StCM, August 9, 1963.

  245 the charismatic writer had a habit: Edward Newhouse, interview by Christina Carver Pratt, January 9, 1997.

  245 “an ugly drunk”: Lawrenson, Stranger at Party, pp. 84–85.

  245 a suicide: Botsford, Life of Privilege, Mostly, p. 173.

  246 “a hell of a way for booze to treat me”: MacShane, Life of O’Hara, p. 158.

  246 never took another drink: Ibid., pp. 158–59, and Farr, O’Hara, pp. 216–17.

  246 “I think he wrote better”: Davis, Onward and Upward, p. 233.

  246 “There is no such thing”: Nan Robertson, “Life Without Katharine: E. B. White and His Sense of Loss,” New York Times, April 8, 1980.

  246 “He actually did fall”: Edith Iglauer Daly to author, May 25, 2007.

  247 “He faded into the couch”: Susan Cookson, interview by author, May 27, 2009.

  247 “At a party Gibbs”: Cort, Sin of Henry Luce, p. 59.

  247 to nearly immolate himself: Beebe, Snoot If You Must, p. 268.

  247 “Occasionally he would burn”: Tony Gibbs, interview by author, July 1, 2007.

  247 “Most of the time I lie”: WG to Nancy Hale, February 10, 1931.


  247 “[t]he gift of repartee”: WG, “A Man May Be Down”, TNY, September 23, 1933.

  247 “Gibbs would quite often come”: Tish Dace, “Henry Hewes: ‘Always Right Is No Excuse,’ ” in Jenkins, ed., Under the Copper Beech, pp. 59–60.

  247 “I’d say, ‘Oh my God’ ”: Jane Hewes, interview by author, May 28, 2007.

  248 “he had to be carried” and “He can’t possibly”: Gottfried, Arthur Miller, p. 219.

  248 ON BEHALF OF A NUMBER: League of New York Theatres to HWR, November 27, 1946.

  248 “I concur in your opinion”: HWR to Richard Rodgers, December 10, 1946.

  248 “wanted to depose and eat”: HWR to Russel Crouse and Howard Lindsay, January 8, 1947.

  248 “Serious critics should treat”: Lillian Hellman to WG, December 30, 1946.

  249 “Why don’t that dame”: Richard Maney to StCM, August 9, 1963.

  249 “was seen being held up”: Cheryl Crawford to HWR, May 22, 1951.

  249 “The cat has a headache”: Linda Hall, interview by author, January 21, 2012.

  249 “On Fire Island”: Gibbs interview, July 1, 2007.

  250 Elinor Gibbs and . . . Hazel: Edie Lieber, interview by author, September 8, 1997.

  250 “He looked old and shriveled”: Bel Kaufman, interviews by author, March 13 and 21, 2012.

  250 “Alcohol is one”: StCM, private journal, ca. 1954, in Box 130 of New Yorker Records, NYPL.

  250 “John McCarten, our old”: Susan Shapiro, “A Librarian with Great Stories in Her Files,” Newsday, March 3, 1992.

  251 Ross went to Riggs: HWR to Horace K. Richardson, February 8, 1940.

  251 ARRIVED AT THE MINES: WG to Elinor Gibbs, telegram, May 31, 1934.

  251 “I have had a talk with McKelway”: HWR to Richardson, February 8, 1940.

  251 $800 for two months: StCM, notes, n.d., 1940.

  251 This figure did not: StCM to Ik Shuman, ca. March 1940.

  252 “Thurber shouting and waving bottles”: Daise Terry to KSW, January 1941.

  252 “I’m not going to any god-damn”: WG, “Eden, With Serpents”, TNY, April 20, 1935.

  252 “It’s nice here,” “The food is excellent” and “not strict or rigorous”: JT to Ann Honeycutt, three undated letters, spring of 1935.

  253 “So nice not to wake up” and all WG’s subsequent observations about Foord’s: WG to Elinor Gibbs, hand- and typewritten letters in the mid- and late 1930s, courtesy Tony Gibbs.

  253 “Among his sources of satisfaction”: Horace K. Richardson to HWR, March 25, 1940.

  254 “Ross just made one bench”: StCM to HWR, February 22 (1940?).

  254 “I have just been hosed and pummeled”: WG to Ann Honeycutt, ca. March 1935.

  255 “His ideas about what was best”: Carol Hazlehurst, interview by author, February 5, 2012.

  255 “Drinking did kill him in the end”: EBW to Gerald Nachman, March 15, 1980.

  255 “Gibbs hasn’t had a drink”: HWR to KSW, August 24, 1937.

  255 “Gibbs hasn’t had any jitters”: HWR to EBW, September 1938.

  255 “[H]ere is a nervous”: WG to S. N. Behrman, February 26, 1948.

  256 “They challenge each other”: Page, ed., Diaries of Dawn Powell, p. 209.

  CHAPTER 11: “FLYING HIGH AND FAST”

  257 “War came to us”: WG, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, December 13, 1941.

  258 “Internationally, there is no question,” etc.: HWR to EBW, May 1941.

  259 “depressed and shaken”: Bernstein, Thurber: A Biography, pp. 318–21.

  260 “It is a fearsome picture”: EBW, “Thurber’s Decline of the West,” Scribner’s, January 1940.

  260 “The fascist ideal”: EBW, “The Wave of the Future,” Harper’s, December 1940.

  261 “My wife was getting”: EBW, “Intimations,” Harper’s, December 1941.

  261 “The Japs got me”: HWR to WG, December 9, 1941.

  261 “the day before the bombers flew”: Russell Maloney and Philip Hamburger, “S-s-s-s-s!,” TNY, December 13, 1941.

  262 “We’re sure that a lot,” etc.: All contents ran in TNY, December 20, 1941.

  263 “The clear sky pricked”: WG, “Some of the Nicest Guys You Ever Saw,” TNY, January 3, 1942.

  263 “by telling McKelway”: Sokolov, Wayward Reporter, p. 126.

  264 “By now there were perceptible”: A. J. Liebling, “A Reporter at Large: Paris Postscript—II,” TNY, August 10, 1940.

  264 “Liebling treated war as if”: Sokolov, Wayward Reporter, p. 152.

  264 “Then on Xmas Eve”: A. J. Liebling to WS, December 31, 1944.

  265 “John was naturally brave”: A. J. Liebling, “John Lardner,” TNY, April 2, 1960.

  265 URGENT GET THIS: Liebling to WS, telegram, October 21, 1944.

  266 “a remarkably able”: WG, “David Lardner,” TNY, October 28, 1944.

  266 “more bloodless”: JT to Gus Lobrano, July 10, 1951.

  266 A dozen years after Lardner’s: JT to WS, July 31, 1956.

  266 more than thirty writers: Conflict (New Yorker internal newsletter), May 21, 1943.

  266 “I don’t know what will become”: HWR to EBW, June 25, 1942.

  266 “The office is quite literally”: Russell Maloney in Conflict, January 18, 1943.

  266 His death followed a tumultuous year: Maloney to EBW and KSW, September 12, 1942.

  266 “I always had the feeling”: HWR to KSW, September 1942.

  266 “I don’t remember ever being”: WG to JT, “Monday,” n.d., summer of 1957 or 1958.

  266 “witty, perceptive”: WG, “John Mosher,” TNY, September 12, 1942.

  266 “I wouldn’t be surprised if he”: WG to Charles Jackson, November 26, 1945.

  267 “sober, tactful”: HWR to director of naval officer procurement, November 12, 1942.

  267 “I’ll bet you’re the only”: Dorothy Lobrano Guth, interview by author, March 10, 2013.

  267 “I am still shaking down”: Rogers E. M. Whitaker to WS, 1944.

  268 “He considered that I was”: StCM to JT, April 2, 1958.

  268 “Pvt. Ross please note”: StCM to WS, July 14, 1943.

  268 Arthur Kober mistook: Kober to Gus Lobrano, August 31, 1944.

  268 “If you were a great big”: StCM, untitled, 1919, courtesy Christina Carver Pratt.

  269 McKelway saw duty: StCM, “A Reporter with the B-29s,” TNY, June 9, 16, 23, and 30, 1945.

  270 “I have the answer”: Edward Newhouse, interview by Christina Pratt, January 14, 1997.

  270 “twelve separate and distinct,” etc.: WS, “St. Clair McKelway,” TNY, January 28, 1980.

  270 “on the whole, fairly level-headed” etc.: StCM to S. N. Behrman, n.d., “November 26.”

  271 McKelway’s internal mental battle: StCM, “The Blowing of the Top of Peter Roger Oboe,” TNY, June 14, 1958.

  271 “compulsive practice” and “Kill the s.o.b.!”: Edward Newhouse, interview by Christina Carver Pratt, January 9, 1997.

  272 “As you doubtless know, we had”: Russell Maloney to EBW and KSW, September 12, 1942.

  273 “little 4f’s”: Maloney, in Conflict, January 18, 1943.

  273 “a dozen or more”: Terry to KSW, n.d.

  273 “I practically live”: Terry to EBW, September 23, 1943.

  273 “About 7 o’clock”: Terry to KSW, n.d.

  273 “Things move in such”: Terry to KSW, n.d., 1944.

  274 He earned minor sums: Don Wharton to WS, memos, late 1933.

  274 “shepherd of the fact stuff”: HWR to Morris Markey, December 1, 1939.

  274 “Shawn is now highly eligible”: HWR to EBW, n.d., 1942.

  274 “Gibbs is the perfect”: Charles Cooke to Ross, February 20, 1947.

  275 “too many children” and “in squalor”: WG to Joseph Hergesheimer, December 15, 1944.

  275 “the last movie piece”: WG to WS, September 1945.

  275 “It is my indignant opinion,” etc.: WG, “The Kingdom of the Blind,”
Saturday Review of Literature, November 17, 1945.

  276 “It probably doesn’t sound”: WG to Hergesheimer, January 15, 1945.

  276 “Last week I reviewed no less”: WG to Hergesheimer, January 31, 1945.

  276 “Unlike White I am capable”: WG to WS, n.d., 1941.

  277 “The last time I looked”: WG to EBW, n.d., ca. 1943.

  277 “fidgety,” etc.: HWR to KSW, n.d., 1939 or 1940.

  277 “Don’t be discouraged”: EBW to Alice Burchfield, June 18, 1923.

  278 “He has gone to Maine”: HWR to Robert Benchley, July 3, 1942.

  278 “Morning comes and bed”: EBW, “Cold Weather,” Harper’s, January 1943.

  278 “Hitler and I are about”: EBW, “First World War,” Harper’s, October 1939.

  278 “The true shape of man”: EBW, “Control,” Harper’s, February 1943.

  279 “I found it distinctly painful”: WS to HWR, February 5, 1943.

  279 Limited Editions Club’s Gold Medal: Elledge, White: A Biography, p. 249.

  279 “Although some one might accuse”: Roger Angell to EBW, January 6, 1945.

  279 “Running a column”: EBW to Frederick Lewis Allen, March 20, 1943.

  279 “Well, I am, of course, greatly”: HWR to EBW, early 1943.

  280 “whom Katharine was not”: Slawenski, Salinger, p. 167.

  280 “Now, of course, promptness”: KSW to Gus Lobrano, June 20, 1938.

  281 “dear friend” and “Andy’s oldest”: KSW to “Mrs. Detwold,” March 3, 1956.

  281 “Everybody thought she”: Dorothy Lobrano Guth, interview by author, March 10, 2013.

  281 “a difficult, sticky situation” and “many, many happy times”: Davis, Onward and Upward, p. 142.

  282 “unique cycle of apprehension”: JT to “Dr. Jorden,” December 3, 1958.

  282 “books which are full”: EBW, “Notes and Comment,” TNY, July 1, 1944.

  CHAPTER 12: “THE MORAL CLIMATE IS AGAINST IT”

  283 “The young men”: WG, “The Theatre,” in Goodman, ed., While You Were Gone, p. 487.

  284 “the most famous”: Hendrik Hertzberg, “John Hersey,” TNY, April 5, 1993.

  284 pretty much enshrined: John Hersey, “Survival,” TNY, June 17, 1944.

  284 The idea for the piece: Much of this background comes from Kunkel, Genius in Disguise, pp. 369–74.

  285 “one of the most remarkable”: HR to Rebecca West, August 27, 1946.

  285 “I’ve just read that long”: Kramer, Ross and New Yorker, p. 292.