Maybe the Moon
Page 28
As to Callum’s private life (the reason I’m not faxing this), it’s obvious we have to abandon that strand completely. I can hear the lawyers right now, and that business in the park just lends a sordid air to a story that’s fundamentally innocent. I’m sure you feel the same, given your affection for Callum. There’s hardly room for it, anyway, if we intend to beef up the relationship between Cady and Renee. We could still see her in one scene with a gay friend (perhaps one a little less strident) as a way of adding color and showing Cady’s tolerance. I think that would be nice, as long as it doesn’t overwhelm us. Balance is everything.
Incidentally, I don’t agree at all that you come off as a heavy. In my reading of it you’re just the natural scapegoat of Cady’s self-delusion, her need to believe at all costs. Maybe she was really as talented as she thinks she was—I can’t begin to tell from the diaries—but I doubt it seriously. What that fact will offer to the right actress in terms of tragic nuance is thrilling to think about.
Casting will be a challenge, to put it mildly, though it will certainly offer a rich publicity angle. Our actress will obviously have to be taller than Cady, unless we decide to make her Yugoslavian. (Small joke.) Taller would be fine, really, maybe even easier to sell in the long run. Also, I know I’m jumping the gun, but I’d think seriously about using a midget instead of a dwarf, someone perfectly proportioned but small, which is less off-putting, I think.
This is all off the top of my head, of course. I wanted to get things rolling as soon as possible. I can’t remember when I’ve been so excited about a project.
Love,
Di
P.S. How does Maybe the Moon sound as a title? I found it in the diaries and I think it strikes just the right note of striving for the impossible.
P.P.S. The enclosed clipping is from today’s Variety—in case you missed it.
Cadence Roth
Cadence Roth, the 31-inch actress who played the title role in the Philip Blenheim film “Mr. Woods,” died Tuesday at age 30.
Roth died at Medical Center of North Hollywood of respiratory problems and heart failure, said a longtime friend.
Roth was discovered by Blenheim at the Farmers Market in Los Angeles and hired on the spot to play the elf in the now-classic film.
Although the director had urged silence about whether the special effects of Mr. Woods were inhabited, Roth publicly stated that she had played the character in scenes that required movement, while a mechanical Mr. Woods was used in close-ups.
There are no survivors.
Services are scheduled for tomorrow at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in North Hollywood.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’m grateful to Leonard Maltin for letting me take liberties with his indispensable guide; to The Guinness Book of World Records for roughly the same reason; to Gavin Lambert and the late Dodie Smith for the inspiration of Inside Daisy Clover and I Capture the Castle; to Marie Behan, Patrick Janson-Smith, Susan Moldow, Joseph Montebello, Nancy Peske, David Rakoff, Deborah Rogers, Bill Shinker, Binky Urban, and Irene Webb for their tireless efforts on behalf of this book; to Jerry Kass for reading an early draft and offering comments; to Glen Roven for the use of that discarded lyric; to Greg Gorman for introducing me to Michu; to David Sheff for sharing his insight; to my old friend Steve Beery for holding the fort while I was in another hemisphere; and to my beloved Terry for making life wonderful in both.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Armistead Maupin was born in Washington, D.C., in 1944 but spent most of his childhood in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was elected to every major honorary society at the University of North Carolina, graduating in 1966, before flunking his first-year exams in law school. Shortly thereafter, he applied for Naval Officers Candidate School, and, while waiting to be admitted, worked as a reporter at Raleigh’s WRAL-TV, then under the management of Jesse Helms.
After being commissioned an ensign, Maupin served as a communications officer in the Mediterranean and on shore with the River Patrol Force in Vietnam. He subsequently returned to Southeast Asia as a civilian volunteer to build housing for disabled Vietnamese veterans. For this effort, he was invited to the Oval Office of The White House by President Nixon and later was presented the Freedom Foundation’s Freedom Leadership Award, an honor won two years earlier by singer Anita Bryant.
Maupin worked briefly as a reporter for a newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, before being assigned in 1971 to the San Francisco Bureau of the Associated Press. The climate of freedom and tolerance he found in his adopted city inspired him to come out publicly as a homosexual in 1974 in a “Ten Most Eligible Bachelors” feature in San Francisco magazine. Two years later, he launched his phenomenally successful Tales of the City series in the San Francisco Chronicle.
In 1992 the author was the subject of an hour-long BBC television documentary, Armistead Maupin Is a Man I Dreamt Up. The first volume of Tales of the City has been adapted as a six-hour series for British television’s Channel Four by Working Title Films of London.
He lives in San Francisco and New Zealand with his lover and partner, Terry Anderson.
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GREAT BRITAIN’S # 1 BESTSELLER
“A consummate entertainer…Maupin has created a funny, memorable character in Cadence Roth.”
—Edmund White, Times Literary Supplement
“An intensely enjoyable novel about friendship and prejudice: the dialogue is word perfect, the psychology laser fine, and there are some terrific jokes…but no synopsis can do justice to this glorious book.”
—David Profumo, Weekend Telegraph
“Maybe the Moon delights, amuses, moves and angers you with the lightest of touches. It is, as might be said of Cadence herself, a small masterpiece.”
—Simon Callow, Vogue
“What Armistead Maupin has done, with considerable poise, dash, and subversive wit, is to have created a convincing, bracing, jaunty voice for this doughty person…. An exhilarating and sometimes moving story.”
—Anthony Thwaite, Sunday Telegraph
“An affecting, very persuasive attack on bigotry in its subtlest and most insidious forms.”
—Jonathan Coe, Guardian
“The prose is airborne all right, and with Maupin at the controls you can be pretty sure that the in-flight entertainment will keep you enthralled till touchdown.”
—Anthony Quinn, Independent
Also by Armistead Maupin
NOVELS
Tales of the City
More Tales of the City
Further Tales of the City
Babycakes
Significant Others
Sure of You
COLLECTIONS
28 Barbary Lane
Back to Barbary Lane
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MAYBE THE MOON. Copyright © 2007 by Armistead Maupin.. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © MAY 2007 ISBN: 9780061844270
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
The Spiral Notebook
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
The Leatherette Journal
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The Three-Ring Notebook
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
The Director's Letter
The Screenwriter's Reply
Cadence Roth
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Other Books by Armistead Maupin
Copyright
About the Publisher