David Markson - Fare Forward - Letters from David Markson

Meantime there is NOTHING doing here, still. Awaiting copy-edited ms on the new novel. Lunch with Ann Beattie, dinner with Kurt Vonnegut (and two other chums) being my only recent “literary” activities. Also with my editor and publisher, and my novelist girlfriend (OK, it’s not DeGeneres). And she ain’t my girlfriend anyhow — though it’s nice to have felt a little playfully flirty for a bit, considering all my sexless, energyless ancient debilities. Bright, nice woman.

Still struggling to find something to react to when I read, dammit. About five total Anne Carsons now, and I’m about to quit — an occasional (no, a rare) glittering passage does not a genius make. And all that surface intellectuality is just that, surface. 98That long Ammons Garbage I have tried to get into twice — and cannot believe how it won a National Book Award — via intimidation maybe, a little like Carson in that respect. A Barry Hannah amused me, but wound up with a shrug. A Tabucchi, 99a grunt. But ignore all this, it’s me and my worn-down head, not the books. Or as my once-Playboy- centerfold-writer-ex-girlfriend recently said, “David, maybe we’ve just read enough novels.”

Then again, in your honor, I did buy a Penguin Bashō haiku collection. Now that’s the stuff for me — eight or ten words at a clip, the entire volume done with in fifteen minutes, hallelujah!

End of page, more than I anticipated. I think I’ll consider it a day’s work. No, it’s Thursday, make it a week’s.

Hope you’re both OK, still happy there, etc. With much love — David

98 I’m a huge Anne Carson fan, and vehemently disagree.

99 Antonio Tabucchi, Italian writer, 1943–2012.

Simsy, my sweet—

A P.S. Correction to this a.m.’s letter. It occurs to me that when I referred to my ex-girlfriend-former- Playboy -centerfold-also-a-writer, you might have thought she’s the one I’ve been talking about of late. No, this is another. Was a Playboy centerfold when I met her — probably twenty years before yourself saw the light of day. The only centerfold who ever had a short story of her own in the same issue. All these years later, and she lives only about three blocks away here in the Village. Amazing. You turn old and pot-bellied and senile and you’re still in touch with some who a half-century ago were heartbreakingly young and beautiful.

Love again—

D.

Simsy my love—

I owe you. But as always, no hay nada aqui. I uncopyedited my copyedited ms of The Last Novel, then proofed the proofs. I get wholly confused re what’s what with the two-in-one Epitaphs coming out before that. I just had to apologize to that lovely lady French critic for a minor annoying screw-up (mine), and began my letter by saying, “On December 20 I will turn 79. I forget things!” Friends, acquaintances, keep dying (would you believe two memorial services yesterday?) (I went to neither.) (And have long since told my kids — none for me, pls.) Were you aware of the death of Richard Gilman 100over there — that is, aware that it occurred over there? Another friend (to a small degree).

Yes, no, I am still incapable of reading. Except for Alice Denham’s Sleeping With Bad Boys, especially all the porno parts featuring David Markson. (Book just now out; she being the ex- Playboy centerfold I’d mentioned. Review in this coming Sunday’s Times refers to “the novelist David Markson (‘stud lover boy’).” (I kid you not — my step into literary Valhalla.)

Have you heard from Rebecca Wolff 101re your pomes (as old Aiken 102used to spell it)? Don’t know her, but I seem to receive a freebee of the periodical now and then. You didn’t say where you hoped to land a teaching job; any nibbles?

How odd is it that I know these guys (well, knew, in Dick Gilman’s case) with Japanese wives? Pete Hamill & a writer name of Josh Greenfeld being the other two.

But, hey, that reminds me — if you have the odd moment, check to see if a translated Wittgenstein’s Mistress is in print over there, can you? 103It’s a year and a half ago that I received my few dollars, but I’ve never seen a book. (I’m not sure why I care; for all I’ll know when I do see it, it could be a copy of The Sorrows of Werther.) Then again, I could ask the agent’s office. If I remember.

Nada mas. My kitchen sink drips. The super fixes it. It drips anew. This comprising the major events in my existence of late.

I will assume you guys are OK. What would happen if I dialed your Madison #? Wait, let me. I just did. It rang & rang. Then, as if an answering machine had been on (but sans message), it said, “Memory full.” Is it still yours? Did I ask about this before? On Dec. 20 I will turn 79. I forget things!

But with love — David

100 Richard Gilman, a leading drama and literary critic, 1923–2006. He died in Kusatsu, Japan.

101 Editor of Fence Books, who was reading my second manuscript at the time.

102 Conrad Aiken, American novelist and poet, 1889–1973.

103 I tried, but failed to find one.

Simser—

I was amused by that line you changed, 105which now asks if I sit staring into space on the subway, “lovesick.” 106

You’ll get a chuckle in turn when I ask Eric 107to change the line that follows, from me smacking you upside the head to giving you a whack on the tuchas!

Hey, hope all is well. Nothing new here. (Well, that award. 108) Reviews very slow in coming in on the new book, but several due soon.

Love to you both—

D.

104 I’m not sure why there’s been such a long break in our correspondence, though once I came back from Japan, we began speaking on the phone more often.

105 He’s referring to a line from the interview, included in this volume, we were doing for Rain Taxi . David took the questions I gave him and basically scripted the whole thing, right down to my interjections.

106 I was teasing him about his novelist girlfriend.

107 Eric Lorberer, editor of Rain Taxi.

108 He’s talking about winning the American Academy of Arts & Letters Award in Literature for “exceptional accomplishment.”

Dear Simsy—

Thank you for all the cows. 109There is now cow flop all over my rug!

Yes, depressed re Brooklyn. 110Severely. But a lovely letter from Palleau, telling me her husband says it was doomed from the start — since Brooklyn wasn’t young enough!

Yes (again), thinking about a next book — but, dammit, collecting these cursed notes again 111—which (see our interview) I swore I’d not do! Ah, well, keeps me occupied, at least. “Old. Tired. Sick. Alone. Broke.”

Some guy who’d wanted to do an interview, and whom I put off, commented on the Rain Taxi issue. I told him, “Laura Sims is prettier than you are.”

Hey — love to you both—

Ever—

David

109 I think I’d sent him a postcard with a picture of cows on it. It’s a safe bet, considering I was back in the Midwest.

110 He and his novelist girlfriend, whom he’d code-named “Brooklyn,” had broken things off.

111 He couldn’t seem to escape his old composition method.

Laura, lass—

November 5 th, that 92 ndSt. thing is. But why in hell would you punish any good friend by making him/her go? 112A., I’m only one of two readers — Will Self is the other one. B., Ann Beattie is flying up to introduce me, and surely ought to take some of my time. C., with no scenes, events, active moments in my work, I’ll surely need at least a 5 min. preface explaining whatinhell the book is all about, and how it works, etc., etc., if what I read makes any sense at all — earlier references to things that now repeat, and so on. Which means your chums will get about a page and a half of Markson for their $18 tickets!