David Markson - Fare Forward - Letters from David Markson

What sort of dummy includes an extra blank sheet in a letter? 89

No, it is not Joanna Scott. 90She once worked in my ex-wife/ agent’s 91office, and wrote me a lovely (more than lovely) letter re my work more recently, & I finally got around to reading her, which is why I asked your reaction (mine=great prose) — but the one who says she is “besotted” with me is someone else (also good). What is this madness, regarding someone who is exactly (let me calculate), yes, one year, four months, & 25 days short of his 80 thbirthday! Women are mad (deliciously so, but mad).

Another Country Heard From 92 —great — except if it is all Japan — then, NO. Too real, precise, etc.

I’m glad things seem good — i.e., that your time is your own. There is nothing wrong in using much of it to just sit and stare. And daydream. (Or, even, to recall America from afar.)

Forgive the scrawl, eh? Again, the humidity is dense enough to swim through. Forgive the prose also, as bad as “the sea that continues endlessly widely.” Worse. It is 4:00 p.m. and I am lately half-asleep at this hour. (Even only five years ago I would have revised/rewritten this.)

Yes, the last book all signed, etc. Title: The Last Novel. But not scheduled until next spring — probably late spring. I did say my two old private eye things (in one volume) will be out in November, no? Not sure I’m happy re same.

Hey, end of fancy page.

Much love, & to Corey—

D.

89 David’s letter is written on that “blank sheet”—it came from a typical Japanese letter set, which contains paper, envelopes and stickers, all in a matching cute design. On this one is the phrase: “I want the heart and the strength which became clear like this beautiful sea that continues endlessly widely,” along with a picture of a smiling cloud saying: “Hello!!”

90 I was guessing who the “attractive middle-aged good novelist” he’d mentioned as having a crush on him was.

91 Elaine Markson.

92 A title I was contemplating for my second book, which would ultimately be called Stranger.

Simsy—

Carole Maso I used to know a little, some years back. She’s gay. Indeed, last I knew, she and her partner had a baby.

Joy Williams, very attractive, I met once. She is (was?) married to the ex-Esquire fiction editor Rust Hills. I think they live in Key West.

Lynne Tillman I never met, never read.

Mona Simpson, likewise.

Christine Schutt — never even heard of.

I’ll tell you the truth. It’s Emily Brontë.

Lissen, the whole thing is absurd. I’ve not seen you enough to have probably mentioned same, but A., I have prostate cancer, and B., the treatment for same blocks testosterone — meaning I ain’t got no sex life! (Whether I’d have one at 78 in any case is beside the point.) But all I can do about this besotted lass is sigh wearily and daydream of the past. I am inordinately fond of — indeed, cherish — my editor, too, who is in fact younger than the novelist, recently divorced, now in New York. And tomorrow or the next day a 22-year-old kid, working on my books, is due to stop by. And there’s Sims, nagging me for a name — when I’m debating which monastery to enter.

I don’t know what became of the Japanese edition. 93I was sent my few bucks long ago. Usually books eventually arrive. Though it’s all sort of meaningless when I can’t make sense of them anyhow. I remember tossing out several never-opened Norwegian copies of something, the last time I sold books. They are probably still on some bottom shelf at the Strand. 94

I was joking about Emily Brontë. It’s really Stevie Smith (she did write one novel, no? I delight in her verse.)

In fact it’s Jean Rhys. Grace Paley. Angela Carter. Colette.

Greenwich Village streetcorner anecdote for you, circa early 1990s:

Grace Paley: David, how are you? Tell me what’s new?

D. Markson: Hi, Grace. Nothing, really. Though in fact I do have a volume of poems coming out.

Grace Paley: That’s what we’d all rather do, isn’t it?

Markson household anecdote for you, circa whenever she used to spend a week with us, while a client of Elaine’s:

Angela Carter never bathed!

Lissen, OK, finally, I’ll tell you. It’s Anaïs Nin.

Love again—

D.

93 Of Wittgenstein’s Mistress.

94 The Strand Bookstore, a treasured NYC institution, opened in 1927, the year of David’s birth. Located at 12th Street and Broadway, it was one of David’s favorite haunts. He sold many books there through the years, and when he died, his library ended up there. One of his fans, Tyler Malone, started a tumblr called “Reading Markson Reading” after David’s death. He posts the marginalia found in David’s books that Malone and others have retrieved from the Strand.

Simsy, my love—

Okay, I’ll tell you. It’s Hillary. She’s told Bill, and understanding the depths of her passion he’s willing to step aside. And of course she’ll forgo a run for the presidency.

But don’t tell a soul.

What the hell is a “young adult novel”? 95Don’t waste your writing time on trivia, dammit.

Says David — whose two old private eye books will be reissued in a couple of months.

Meantime I love, love, love, your “poet” business card. 96I would show it to everybody — if I ever saw anybody, any longer. Even had to cancel lunch with my editor, Trish Hoard (of Shoemaker and…) last week, because of awrful arthritis. I’ll bet I haven’t ever gotten around to mentioning my arthritis — just one more of the 97658 subdivisions of the “sick” in “old, tired, sick, etc.”

I wish I had some news. Basically just going nuts, trying to concoct a new novel different from what I’ve been doing, getting nowhere — which is to say, doing nothing. Forcing myself to read some of the allegedly “great” novels I’ve let go past in recent years — Saramago, Sebald, etc., and being bored by all of same. Though Joanna Scott does do loverly prose.

It’s not Hillary. It’s Beyoncé. Who is Beyoncé?

Re that cartoon I sent 97—I passed it around a writing class or two — telling them that if they did write, they should be careful whom they marry.

Anyway. Forgive the draggy lack of energy. Not just old, tired, sick, it’s old, tired sick, DULL.

But I do send much love—

David

95 I must have told him I was thinking about writing a young adult novel while in Japan.

96 The Japan-US Friendship Commission issued me a box of meishi , business cards with English on one side and Japanese on the other, to use during the duration of the fellowship. They read: “Laura Sims, Poet,” and listed my Tokyo address. I’d sent one to David.

97 From The New Yorker , it shows a man and woman on a porch; he’s seated at a typewriter and she’s handing him a sandwich, and saying, “I’ve got an idea for a story: Gus and Ethel live on Long Island, on the North Shore. He works sixteen hours a day writing fiction. Ethel never goes out, never does anything except fix Gus sandwiches, and in the end she becomes a nympho-lesbo-killer-whore. Here’s your sandwich.”

Simso—

Okay, I’ll finally tell you the absolute, categorical, unadulterated truth. It’s Ellen DeGeneres. She’s not gay. She’s been faking that, so it won’t spoil her image when she’s seen ducking in and out of my building.

Speaking of in & out of my building, Edie Falco lived here for years, and I had no idea who she was, never having seen The Sopranos. (Or maybe it was before The Sopranos.)

Forgive the cruddy paper, by the way. (Though at least there ain’t no cutesy little pink animals on it!)