by Blake Bailey
I spent a very fruitful afternoon in the front parlor of Herb Jackson’s old house at 241 Prospect Street, Newark, where his grandson Michael Kraham now lives with his family. Michael could hardly have been more friendly and forthcoming—a repository of family lore, as was the house itself: one of Boom’s braided rugs is on the floor, one of his cut-paper lambs (such as Charlie gave Judy Garland for Christmas in 1944) is over the fireplace, and of course in the backyard is the barn where Michael’s grandfather spent much of his adult life as a boozy recluse. I also had a number of delightful conversations with Herb’s oldest daughter, Sally Wilson, who shed priceless light on the peculiar Arcadian ethos that her uncle Charlie evoked in his fiction.
My research would have taken twice as long, and been half as enjoyable, without the help of Eric Esau at Dartmouth. Without going into tedious detail, suffice it to say that most people would have charged a retainer for what he did out of the goodness of his heart. Best of all he became a friend, and the sweetness of his company was the highlight of my trips to New Hampshire—the time we visited Six Chimney Farm, for instance, and were graciously entertained by the present owners, Allen and Bonnie Reid Martin, whom I hope to see again soon. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Professor John W. Crowley at the University of Alabama, one of the most gracious academics I’ve ever had the pleasure to know: not only did he present me (as a permanent gift!) with his collection of Jackson first editions and paperbacks, but he also wrote me a number of long, helpful e-mails and shared his excellent scholarship (both published and non-) on Jackson’s work. And without the help of Rae Lindsay I could scarcely have written the last chapter of this book, key portions of which are based on an unpublished memoir by her late husband, Alex, which she managed to find in a cobwebby pocket of her attic. Many thanks, too, to Carol Rosenthal of the Newark Public Library, who sent me as much Jacksoniana as she could lay her hands on (her son had portrayed the novelist in the local Cemetery Walk). Carol also arranged for me to be given a guided tour of Newark by the amiable Mary Elizabeth Smith, of the Newark-Arcadia Historical Society, whose knowledge of certain rumors about the Jackson family reminded me yet again that, as Charlie liked to say, “In a small town it’s practically impossible not to know practically everything about practically everybody else.” Julia Fifield—the grande dame of Orford, age 106 and still voting (Republican) as of this writing—would certainly agree, and I thank her for chatting with me and letting me see the marvelous diaries of her stepfather, Ned Warren, who took such a keen interest in the everyday lives of his neighbors (“Jacksons lighted up tonight”).
The following people sent letters, photographs, and/or other helpful material, and in some cases also submitted to interviews: Steven M. L. Aronson, Gloria Ayvazian, Pepa Ferrer Devan, Thillman Fabry, Gregory George, Pat Hammond, Haidee Becker Kenedy, Richard Lamparski, Harold and Elsie Quance, Alexandra Piper Seed, Alice Schwedock Small, Laura Straus, and Principal Kevin Whitaker of Newark High School.
A number of others also granted interviews or else provided written reminiscences: Michael Baden, M.D., David Bain, Stanley Bard, A. Scott Berg, Andrew Besch, Alexandra Mayes Birnbaum, Nancy Bloomer, Robert S. Bloomer, Tom Bloomer, Kerry Boeye, Paul Bogart, Bruce Bohrmann, Ben Bradlee, Carl Brandt, Jr., Philip Brickner, M.D., Bill Brock, John Brock, Ann Montgomery Brower, Brock Brower, Gilbert Burgess, Joseph Caldwell, David Chanler, Gerald Clarke, John Connolly, Norman Corwin, Ann Davis, Seymour Epstein, Gene Farley, Mikey Gilbert, William A. Graham, Ann Green, A. R. Gurney, Geoffrey Hendricks, Stan Herman, Roberta Richmond Jenkins, Stephen Jones, Jeannie McLane Jones, Arthur Laurents, Richard Mallary, Robert Markel, Edward Pomerantz, Elizabeth Reid, Hilda Richmond, Robert Richmond, Ned Rorem, Edwin Safford, Diane Rowand Simons, Ron Sproat, Roger W. Straus III, Barbara Peech Streeter, Grace Streeter, William Toomey, John Weston, Alexandra Whitelock, and Margot Wilkie.
Many librarians and other nice people helped with my research, and I’m afraid this is a very incomplete list: Kathy Kienholz (American Academy of Arts and Letters); Charis Emily Shafer (Butler Library, Columbia); Erika Gorder (Douglass College, Rutgers); Lynn Eaton (Duke University); Rebecca Fawcett (Hood Museum, Dartmouth); Marcel LaFlamme (Independence Community College); Craig S. Simpson (Kent State University); Lia Apodaca (Library of Congress); Mark Genszler and Sally Andrews (Marlboro College); Laura Ruttum (New York Public Library); Laura Dodson and Mary Anne Vandivort (Norfolk Public Library); Sandra Stelts (Penn State Libraries); Charles E. Greene and AnnaLee Pauls (Princeton University Library); Jean Cannon (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center); Nicolette A. Dobrowolski, Kyle C. Harris, and Mary O’Brien (Syracuse University Library); Todd Vradenburg (Will Rogers Institute); Karen Miller and Nancy Wagner (Wilmette Public Library); Nelson Aldrich, Nick Anthonisen, Jerry Rosco, and Ralph Voss.
That a great publisher is still willing to subsidize books about obscure but deserving authors is reassuring to say the least, and my editor at Knopf, Deborah Garrison, is the embodiment of this spirit. Again, too, I thank Deb’s wonderful assistant, Caroline Zancan, who always returns my e-mails with cheerful efficiency. And I would be lost and broke without the services of my lovable, enterprising agent, David McCormick. This book is dedicated to my best friend, Michael Ruhlman, without whom it probably wouldn’t have been written for any number of reasons too complicated to go into; I owe much to this good man, period. And finally, as ever, my usual tearful gratitude to my wife, Mary, and our sweet daughter, Amelia.
Notes
Most of Jackson’s letters and manuscripts are at the Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth; unless otherwise noted, his unpublished work may be found in this collection. To the extent that an obsessive person is capable, I’ve tried to curtail citational clutter. Interview subjects are cited initially, and thereafter only when needed for the sake of clarity; when a source (of any kind) is explicitly given in the text, or glaringly obvious, I omit further citation below. Letters are cited in almost every case, unless three aspects of provenance are sufficiently established in the text: who was writing to whom, and when (the last is trickiest, of course—how much temporal context is enough: a week? a month? a season?). Jackson’s published fiction is only cited when its contents are quoted for their biographical (as opposed to critical) interest.
The following abbreviations appear in these notes:
Academy
American Academy of Arts and Letters
BB
Bernice Baumgarten (CJ’s agent)
BW
Bronson Winthrop
CBJ
Cecilia Bolles “Bob” Jackson (CJ’s sister-in-law)
CJ
Charles Jackson
CJ/AA-59
CJ’s address to Cleveland AA, circa May 1959; posted at http://www.xa-speakers.org/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=1797
CUCOHC
Columbia University Center for Oral History Collection
D-HH
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital (formerly Mary Hitchcock)
DS
Dorothea Straus
DS-Paper
Straus, Dorothea. Paper Trail: A Recollection of Writers. Wakefield, RI: Moyer Bell, 1997.
DS-Show
Straus, Dorothea. Showcases. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974.
Duke
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University
EC
Earthly Creatures. New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1953.
FSJ
Frederick Storrier Jackson (CJ’s younger brother)
FV
The Fall of Valor. New York: Rinehart & Company, 1946.
F&W
Farther and Wilder, unpublished ms., Rauner.
HFG
Home for Good, unpublished ms., Rauner.
HJ
Herb Jackson (CJ’s older brother)
JFC
Jackson Family Collection
KFC
Kraham Family Collection
KSU
Kent State University Library
KWJ
Kate Winthrop Jackson (CJ’s younger daughter)
LN
Barnett, Lincoln. The Lost Novelist. New York: Rinehart & Company, 1948. Unpaginated promotional brochure.
LW
The Lost Weekend. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1944.
OE
The Outer Edges. New York: Rinehart & Company, 1948.
Princeton
Princeton University Library Manuscripts Division
PSU
Penn State University Libraries
Ransom
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas
Rauner
Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College
RBJ
Rhoda Booth Jackson (CJ’s wife)
RS
Roger W. Straus, Jr.
SHL
A Second-Hand Life. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1967.
SJP
Sarah Jackson Piper (CJ’s older daughter)
SS
The Sunnier Side: Twelve Arcadian Tales. New York: Farrar, Straus & Company, 1950.
SWJ
Sarah Williams Jackson (CJ’s mother)
Syracuse
Syracuse University Library
Vassar
Archives and Special Collections Library, Vassar College
Prologue
“Charles Jackson has made”: Philip Wylie, “Wingding,” New York Times Book Review, Jan. 30, 1944, 7.
“Not only did I know”: “Production Notes,” Turner Classic Movies DVD edition of The Lost Weekend.
“a bright, erratic problem child”: Ray Milland, Wide-Eyed in Babylon (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1974), 218.
“Jackson was eyed somewhat in the manner”: LN.
“One third of the history”: “Editors’ Preface,” Time Reading Program Special Edition of The Lost Weekend (New York: Time Inc., 1963), x.
“I have become so used to having people say”: SS, 37.
“exerted a profound influence on the field”: Selden D. Bacon, “Introduction,” Time Reading Program Special Edition of The Lost Weekend (New York: Time Inc., 1963), xv.
“If he does not find escape or evasion”: “Editors’ Preface,” ibid., xiii.
“like a sandpiper’s beak”: DS-Show, 77.
“His prim appearance contradicted”: DS-Paper, 95.
“a massive Don Birnam saga”: LN.
“Malcolm Lowry as novelist was fortunate”: CJ, “We Were Led to Hope for More,” New York Times Book Review, Dec. 12, 1965, 20.
Chapter One • ET IN ARCADIA EGO
Malbie had “probably” suffered fatal injuries: “Two High School Pupils Killed,” New York Times, Nov. 13, 1916.
“one of the most beautiful young ladies”: “Three Killed in Fatal Automobile Accident,” Newark Union-Gazette, Nov. 18, 1916, 1.
“Where the globe stops”: CJ to Samuel Taylor, May 23, 1952, Rauner.
“A minister’s son”: “The Dreamer,” Newark Courier, Nov. 15, 1923, 4.
“the car was completely smashed”: F&W.
“No, no, there’s nothing wrong—”: Ibid.
“a good ten thousand at least”: Ibid.
“trivial, vain man”: EC, 108.
“nostrils distended”: F&W.
“You even blow your nose like your father!”: Ibid.
“Papa was proud”: Ibid.
“At school Jackson stood invariably”: LN.
“THE STORY OF STRONGHEART”: SS, 88.
“My uncle is an Indian”: CJ to Howard and Dorothy Lindsay, April 17, 1944, Rauner.
“He pretended not to recognize”: CJ to FSJ, April 17, 1944, Rauner.
“These, then, were the things which occupied”: SS, 89.
“I’m just a fan”: HFG.
“Can you do this sort of thing”: Information, Please!, Jan. 7, 1946, broadcast, JFC.
“whoever it was … ‘Acres of Diamonds’ ”: CJ to Mary McCarthy, July 22, 1945, Rauner.
“a band of gypsies”: EC, 89.
“Must have been a shotgun wedding”: FSJ to CBJ, Feb. 23, 1968, KFC.
“Your grandfather Herbert Williams [Jr.]”: “B. W. F.” to CBJ, Feb. 14, 1967, KFC.
“a big sweaty man”: F&W.
“very religious, frugal people”: Quoted in a family genealogy written by CBJ, JFC.
“Next to the mahogany music cabinet”: CJ, Three Flowers, unpublished ms., Rauner.
“That American Girl!”: CBJ’s genealogy, JFC.
“the glow of many cigars”: CJ to Samuel Taylor, May 23, 1952, Rauner.
“Don’t tell me … no social distinctions”: CJ to Carl Brandt and Robert Markel, June 22, 1964, Rauner.
“the very middle of the middle class”: CJ to Samuel Taylor, May 23, 1952, Rauner.
“I nearly always managed”: SS, 146.
“He was a dear little boy, Rhoda”: Kate H. Bloomer to RJ and CJ, May 20, 1940, JFC.
scouts “would marvel at his courage”: LW, 200.
“Tonio! spiritual brother!”: Ibid., 19.
“how did you happen … writer?”: CJ, “The Sleeping Brain,” unpublished ms., Rauner.
“He was always viewed … flaky”: Author int. Tom Bloomer, May 15, 2009.
“This afternoon I went up”: CJ to Walter Hallagan, Dec. 17, 1918, JFC.
“The tragedy of homosexuals”: Richard Lamparski, unpublished ms., courtesy of the author.
“he constantly creates with this local area”: Don Casilio, “Author of Lost Weekend Works on 3-Volume Novel,” Newark Courier-Gazette, April 12, 1956, C1.
well-advised not to “pursue identifications”: author int. Kerry Boeye, March 4, 2009.
“I am sure people still”: Kerry Boeye, “Charles R. Jackson” (essay written for the Hoffman Foundation Wayne County History Scholarship), Newark-Arcadia Historical Society.
“In a small town it’s practically impossible”: SS, 56.
“It is a real pleasure”: Luceine Heniore to CJ, June 25, 1949, Rauner.
“I did, indeed, thank my lucky stars”: Luceine Heniore to CJ, March 26, 1950, Rauner.
“the first family of Newark”: Carole Nary and John Zornow, “Newark’s 1928 Murder Mystery,” Newark Courier-Gazette, March 28, 2003.
“I’m not Thelma”: Author int. Sally Jackson Wilson, June 29, 2009.
“Dad was there all the time”: CJ to Walter Hallagan, Dec. 17, 1918, JFC.
“the mistake of her life”: CBJ’s genealogy, JFC.
“Well, you see, I never knew my father”: CJ to Mary McCarthy, July 31, 1952, Vassar.
“I wouldn’t have dreamed”: CJ to FSJ, Aug. 22, 1952, Rauner.
“a disease of emotional immaturity”: Quoted in Jim Bishop, The Glass Crutch: The Biographical Novel of William Wynne Wister (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., 1945), 229.
“It is my belief that alcoholism”: CJ, “What’s So Funny about a Drunk?,” Cosmopolitan, May 1946, 136.
“a creature of sighs and bewilderment”: CJ, Simple Simon: A Play in Three Acts, unpublished ms., Rauner.
“an Ibsenesque study”: CJ to Howard and Dorothy Lindsay, April 17, 1944, Rauner.
“Do you remember the Presbyterian Church”: J. R. Elliott to CJ, April 2, 1950, Rauner.
“Also something about Homo Sexual”: SWJ to CJ, Oct. 15, 1942, Rauner.
“To succeed you’ve got to get out”: “Newark’s Child Prodigy of Yester Year Remembers Triumph as Church Organist” (newspaper article, c. 1937, hand-transcribed for author by Elsie Quance, wife of Herbert Quance’s grand-nephew, Harold).
“I never heard the term [pedophile]”: Author int. Harold Quance, Dec. 29, 2009.
“ ‘Pretend it isn’t so’ ”: SS, 30.
“I had been writing all my life”: CJ to DS, June 6, 1951, Rauner.
Chapter Two • SIMPLE SIMON
three-story, redbrick “firetrap”: CJ to Samuel Taylor, May 23, 1952, Rauner.
&n
bsp; “You are just the way I was”: CJ to KWJ, Feb. 5, 1954, JFC.
a “dreadful fiasco”: CJ to Samuel Taylor, May 30, 1952, Rauner.
“honor and credit” to the school: CJ, “The Last Time,” unpublished ms., Rauner.
“to general hilarity”: F&W.
“When I’d finish a poem”: Harvey Breit, “Talk with Charles Jackson,” New York Times Book Review, April 30, 1950, 19.
“first thing tomorrow morning”: LN.
“She was a natural actress”: Author int. Gene Farley, Dec. 1, 2009.
“A God, a God their severance ruled!”: Marion Fleck to CJ (c. July 1953), Rauner.
“anathema to social life in Arcadia”: CJ ms. fragment (probably Simple Simon, the novel), Rauner.
“She was the companion”: CJ, “A Red-Letter Day” (published in slightly different form as “An Innocent Love Affair” in Today’s Woman, March 1951), Rauner.
