Authors: Tom Grimes
Mentor: A Memoir (22 page)
Several days later, Eric told me the
Times
wouldn’t review
Season’s End
. That evening, I found Frank, standing at the Foxhead’s crowded bar, a drink before him, a cigarette in one hand. He wore the rumpled tweed sports coat that made him look like a disheveled prep-school boy. I glanced at the blackboard near the pool table. Through the smoky haze, I saw his name. The one above his had been erased, meaning Frank would play next. As usual, the space beside him was empty. Students didn’t approach Frank, he approached them, usually to bum a cigarette. When he saw me he said, “Hey!” As always, his voice rose an octave. It was this sound of happy surprise I would miss more than anything once I left Iowa. I delivered the news bluntly. The reviewer had nothing kind to say about the novel so, as an act of kindness, the
Times
decided to say nothing at all. Frank didn’t react, other than to look away, without moving his head. He had distanced himself, not from me, or his estimation of the book’s quality, but from the book’s fate. To protect himself, intellectually and emotionally, he’d moved beyond anger and bewilderment. The book’s critical and commercial failure implied his failure to predict its success correctly, and being wrong puzzled him. As we stood at the bar and Frank waited for his next game of pool, he pondered the news about the
Times
with profound equanimity. Then he adjusted his glasses and said, “Well, maybe the
New York Review of Books
will get what it’s about. But who knows what those Columbia dons think?” (He was referring to Columbia University intellectuals associated with the review.) I ordered bourbon with a beer chaser, but I didn’t answer. “A dark night of the soul,” Frank said. For the first time since I’d given him the news, he looked at me. “Listen, don’t let it stop you. Write another book.” Someone called his name. He said, “I’m up.” He patted my shoulder and said, “It’ll pass.” Then he walked to the table, holding his cue.
Times
wouldn’t review
Season’s End
. That evening, I found Frank, standing at the Foxhead’s crowded bar, a drink before him, a cigarette in one hand. He wore the rumpled tweed sports coat that made him look like a disheveled prep-school boy. I glanced at the blackboard near the pool table. Through the smoky haze, I saw his name. The one above his had been erased, meaning Frank would play next. As usual, the space beside him was empty. Students didn’t approach Frank, he approached them, usually to bum a cigarette. When he saw me he said, “Hey!” As always, his voice rose an octave. It was this sound of happy surprise I would miss more than anything once I left Iowa. I delivered the news bluntly. The reviewer had nothing kind to say about the novel so, as an act of kindness, the
Times
decided to say nothing at all. Frank didn’t react, other than to look away, without moving his head. He had distanced himself, not from me, or his estimation of the book’s quality, but from the book’s fate. To protect himself, intellectually and emotionally, he’d moved beyond anger and bewilderment. The book’s critical and commercial failure implied his failure to predict its success correctly, and being wrong puzzled him. As we stood at the bar and Frank waited for his next game of pool, he pondered the news about the
Times
with profound equanimity. Then he adjusted his glasses and said, “Well, maybe the
New York Review of Books
will get what it’s about. But who knows what those Columbia dons think?” (He was referring to Columbia University intellectuals associated with the review.) I ordered bourbon with a beer chaser, but I didn’t answer. “A dark night of the soul,” Frank said. For the first time since I’d given him the news, he looked at me. “Listen, don’t let it stop you. Write another book.” Someone called his name. He said, “I’m up.” He patted my shoulder and said, “It’ll pass.” Then he walked to the table, holding his cue.
And I returned to the novel I had recently begun. I’d written roughly fifty pages. The first paragraph took eight hours to draft over the course of two days. The novel’s music—its rhythms, its key signatures, its varying tempos—would be determined by those words. I learned this while reading García Márquez describe, in an interview, the importance of composing
One Hundred Years of Solitude
’s opening paragraph. The novel’s symphonic structure needed to be established immediately, he said; otherwise, he risked becoming hopelessly lost. Also, concentrating on sentences makes time dissolve. Your mind searches for the perfect word. You locate it. You type it. You look at it. You hear it. Maybe say it aloud. Then you decide it’s the wrong word. You change it. Look at it. Hear it. Say it aloud. Decide it’s the wrong word. You try a third word, repeat the above, decide it’s also the wrong word, and restore the original. Then you count the word’s syllables. You listen to its tone. Is it sharp, flat, or out of key? By chance, you notice the clock. Sixty minutes of your life have been swallowed by eternity and you still haven’t found the right word. Famously, Flaubert declined to take a weekend excursion with friends so he could remain home and work. When they returned they said, “Did you get a lot done?” He answered, “Yes. I’ve decided to keep the semicolon.” Writing with ludicrous intensity isolated me from
Season’s End’
s disastrous reception. And, naturally, Frank helped. He’d hoped my success would match his success with
Stop-Time
. Knowing it wouldn’t happen—the book was dead; Little, Brown couldn’t even sell its paperback rights—his allegiance to the novel diminished. But he understood that part of me had died and his concern now was to make it a minor, fleeting death. “Ultimately, writing’s a test of character,” he told me, although he likely mentioned this later on, so it wouldn’t seem didactic. I don’t remember. But good storytellers understand that what may sound corny one moment may sound wise the next, and Frank was a good storyteller. He kept the action simple and direct.
One Hundred Years of Solitude
’s opening paragraph. The novel’s symphonic structure needed to be established immediately, he said; otherwise, he risked becoming hopelessly lost. Also, concentrating on sentences makes time dissolve. Your mind searches for the perfect word. You locate it. You type it. You look at it. You hear it. Maybe say it aloud. Then you decide it’s the wrong word. You change it. Look at it. Hear it. Say it aloud. Decide it’s the wrong word. You try a third word, repeat the above, decide it’s also the wrong word, and restore the original. Then you count the word’s syllables. You listen to its tone. Is it sharp, flat, or out of key? By chance, you notice the clock. Sixty minutes of your life have been swallowed by eternity and you still haven’t found the right word. Famously, Flaubert declined to take a weekend excursion with friends so he could remain home and work. When they returned they said, “Did you get a lot done?” He answered, “Yes. I’ve decided to keep the semicolon.” Writing with ludicrous intensity isolated me from
Season’s End’
s disastrous reception. And, naturally, Frank helped. He’d hoped my success would match his success with
Stop-Time
. Knowing it wouldn’t happen—the book was dead; Little, Brown couldn’t even sell its paperback rights—his allegiance to the novel diminished. But he understood that part of me had died and his concern now was to make it a minor, fleeting death. “Ultimately, writing’s a test of character,” he told me, although he likely mentioned this later on, so it wouldn’t seem didactic. I don’t remember. But good storytellers understand that what may sound corny one moment may sound wise the next, and Frank was a good storyteller. He kept the action simple and direct.
“You want to teach here this summer?” he asked me.
“Sure.”
“You’ve sold your house, right?”
“We move out June 1.”
“Well, you can live in the new house June through August.” He and Maggie had bought it with
Body & Soul
’s latest advances.
Body & Soul
’s latest advances.
“You’re sure?” I said.
“Of course. We’ll call it seven hundred a month for three months.” With that, Frank reclaimed one-quarter of my salary and had his utility bills and a portion of his mortgage paid every thirty days. But, in the process, he rescued me.
My fortunes plummeted while Frank’s soared. He’d submitted the first half of
Body & Soul
to Sam and Candida, who mailed copies to foreign publishers and U.S. film companies. Within days, offers from overseas arrived by fax, and producers phoned in bids. Dustin Hoffman wanted to play Claude’s childhood piano teacher and substitute father, the angelic Mr. Weisfeld. “The problem is,” Frank complained, “Dustin Hoffman ties up the rights and never makes the movie.” Spring Creek Productions, known for making high-quality films, topped Hoffman’s bid. Several countries bought the novel’s translation rights. Soon, and unexpectedly, Frank had multiple six-figure advances in hand.
Body & Soul
to Sam and Candida, who mailed copies to foreign publishers and U.S. film companies. Within days, offers from overseas arrived by fax, and producers phoned in bids. Dustin Hoffman wanted to play Claude’s childhood piano teacher and substitute father, the angelic Mr. Weisfeld. “The problem is,” Frank complained, “Dustin Hoffman ties up the rights and never makes the movie.” Spring Creek Productions, known for making high-quality films, topped Hoffman’s bid. Several countries bought the novel’s translation rights. Soon, and unexpectedly, Frank had multiple six-figure advances in hand.
Joking over drinks one night, he said to Jody, “My son tells me I’m a very rich man and I should buy myself a new car.” He did, along with the new house that sat atop a hill west of the river.
Trees lined the neighborhood’s grassy curbsides. Sidewalks were tidy and wide, and laid, seemingly, for no one. As I drove, I didn’t see a single pedestrian. Polished cars stood in driveways, rather than being parked on the street. And green hedgerows hid some front yards, while yellow daises, white roses, pink carnations, and purplish-blue irises bordered others. I believe the neighborhood was called, quite simply, “The Heights.” Understated, tasteful. Compared to “Chula Vista,” which meant, but didn’t offer, a “beautiful view.”
As a boy, Frank had lived there, on a marshy island, “well hidden in the woods,” near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In
Stop-Time
, he writes, “The view in all directions was exactly the same. Flat, sandy land, underbrush, and stunted pine trees. Dismal, to say the least.” His mother and stepfather “bought two lots.” But to build their house, they had to clear the land. “The young pines fell easily under a sharp ax or machete,” Frank continues, describing the work, “but the palmettos were more difficult. Showing only a knee-high fringe of palm above ground, these plants were in fact immense subterranean growths of appalling toughness. Their fat, hairy roots joined together in deep sand, so that when you’d worked your way down to the bottom of one plant you sometimes had to work your way back up along another.” The floor of the house was “a twenty-five-by-twenty-five-foot platform set on concrete blocks in the sand. After the floor came the framework of the walls and roof, then the lathing, roofing, windows, and finally two coats of paint outside. The interior was never finished.
Stop-Time
, he writes, “The view in all directions was exactly the same. Flat, sandy land, underbrush, and stunted pine trees. Dismal, to say the least.” His mother and stepfather “bought two lots.” But to build their house, they had to clear the land. “The young pines fell easily under a sharp ax or machete,” Frank continues, describing the work, “but the palmettos were more difficult. Showing only a knee-high fringe of palm above ground, these plants were in fact immense subterranean growths of appalling toughness. Their fat, hairy roots joined together in deep sand, so that when you’d worked your way down to the bottom of one plant you sometimes had to work your way back up along another.” The floor of the house was “a twenty-five-by-twenty-five-foot platform set on concrete blocks in the sand. After the floor came the framework of the walls and roof, then the lathing, roofing, windows, and finally two coats of paint outside. The interior was never finished.
“The house was actually one large room. The kitchen was hidden by a curtain and Alison [his sister] and I slept in a double-decker bed behind a partition. There was a pump in the yard and a privy in back.”
Frank and Maggie’s house, the second one from the corner, sat on the north side of the property. Its massive, two-story-high, dark-hued brick exterior looked fortresslike. To the south, a green meadow, rimmed by hedges, sloped away from a thick-trunked maple tree whose branches extended twenty feet and shaded the front yard. Bolted to the brow of the garage, a basketball hoop lent a touch of classic Americana. Inside, there was a semifinished basement, equipped with a washer-dryer. Up four steps from the back door was a large kitchen, with an adjacent breakfast nook. An archway separated the kitchen from a dining room with a mahogany table that sat twelve. To the left, a spacious TV room overlooked the yard. Directly ahead was a large sunroom. To the right was the living room, in which a long couch flanked by two Colonial wing chairs stood before the fireplace; behind them was Frank’s glossy black Yamaha grand, its lid open like the mouth of a crocodile. Across from it, a glass-paned bookshelf held a first edition of
Stop-Time
. Two sets of French doors opened onto an enclosed porch with a desk. Yet Frank wrote in the dim, second-floor room facing the street and the driveway. In it were more bookshelves, and another desk. Off the corridor were Frank’s five-year-old son Tim’s bedroom, a guest room, and a bathroom. Behind a white door was a dressing room and, finally, perched above the yard, the master bedroom and bath—all of it a long way from Florida.
Stop-Time
. Two sets of French doors opened onto an enclosed porch with a desk. Yet Frank wrote in the dim, second-floor room facing the street and the driveway. In it were more bookshelves, and another desk. Off the corridor were Frank’s five-year-old son Tim’s bedroom, a guest room, and a bathroom. Behind a white door was a dressing room and, finally, perched above the yard, the master bedroom and bath—all of it a long way from Florida.
Still, Frank had to finish the novel, and his work pace accelerated. Writing its first two hundred pages took him three years; writing the second two hundred would take less than one.
Writing
Season’s End
had taken thirteen months. Maybe the number cursed the novel. I’ll never know.
Season’s End
had taken thirteen months. Maybe the number cursed the novel. I’ll never know.
To forget the cumulative disaster its publication had become, Jody suggested that we drive to Wyoming and hike the Teton Range. We stayed at a Jackson Hole hotel. I’d given Eric the number. One afternoon, he left a message. Frank had called him. The Whiting Foundation wanted to read a new play I’d written.
Since
Spec
had won a Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award for Best Script, I assumed he’d sent it to the foundation’s judges.
Spec
had won a Los Angeles Drama-Logue Award for Best Script, I assumed he’d sent it to the foundation’s judges.
Eric said, “Frank told me they want
New World
.”
New World
.”
Idiotically, I’d listed the play’s title on
Season’s End’
s flap copy. “But it’s a draft,” I said. “It hasn’t been through rehearsals. I haven’t even
heard it read
yet.”
Season’s End’
s flap copy. “But it’s a draft,” I said. “It hasn’t been through rehearsals. I haven’t even
heard it read
yet.”
I asked if we could exchange scripts. Eric said it would be too embarrassing. When I returned to Iowa and was seated in his office, Frank said, “It’s good if they ask for more stuff. It means they’re interested.”
But the judges read an unfinished play. I didn’t receive a Whiting. And you can be nominated only once.
Yet, what would have been worse: to know Frank had nominated me and I’d been turned down, due, in part, to my stupidity? Or to wonder, for the rest of my life, why he’d never nominated me at all?
“We’ll go for a Guggenheim in a few years,” he said, tossing the foundation’s letter onto his desk. “Just write the new book.”
By late April, I had seventy pages to show Eric. Before leaving the house to mail them, out of habit I clicked the television’s remote and tuned to CNN. On screen, fires blazed inside roofless buildings. Smoke drifted over East Los Angeles. People smashed storefront windows using rocks and bottles. They carted away half gallons of milk, cigarette cartons, loaves of bread, shoe boxes, bed pillows encased in plastic bags. A bludgeoned truck driver lay on the street. A single police car sped away, backward, from a charging mob.
The riot had been triggered by the acquittal of four white police officers who had beaten a black man named Rodney King. They caught him after a car chase, and once he stepped onto a patch of nighttime roadway illuminated by a squad car’s headlights, two cops shot him using taser guns. The electrical shocks forced King to his knees. As eight or ten cops watched, four drew their nightsticks and clubbed King’s head, ribs, thighs, and back. They aimed for his throat. When he rolled onto one side, they lifted their nightsticks, then hit him as if they were chopping a log with axes. Someone filmed the incident using a home movie camera. They beat him for one minute and sixteen seconds.
I dialed Eric’s office and said, “My book ’s on television.” He asked what I meant and I explained that I’d written about a cop killing and riots.
He said, “You’d better FedEx the pages to me, overnight.”
By the next afternoon he’d read them. He said they’d astounded him and he planned to submit them, at once, to every editor who had bid on
Season’s End
. Responses were swift and identical: no. Bill Phillips from Little, Brown wrote, “We believe Tom’s an enormously talented writer but, based on these pages, we feel he has started down the wrong path.” John Glusman (rather than Roger Straus) replied, “We’d love to publish Tom’s books, but I’m afraid this isn’t the one to start with, if for no other reason than I’ve just spent a year working on an ‘apocalyptic’ novel [
Going Native
by Stephen Wright] and don’t have the strength to take on another.” Gerry Howard said, “This is the kind of book that makes me very nervous,” meaning the novel could be a masterpiece or a total disaster. “But I don’t think Tom can sustain the energy to write the entire book.” He passed.
Season’s End
. Responses were swift and identical: no. Bill Phillips from Little, Brown wrote, “We believe Tom’s an enormously talented writer but, based on these pages, we feel he has started down the wrong path.” John Glusman (rather than Roger Straus) replied, “We’d love to publish Tom’s books, but I’m afraid this isn’t the one to start with, if for no other reason than I’ve just spent a year working on an ‘apocalyptic’ novel [
Going Native
by Stephen Wright] and don’t have the strength to take on another.” Gerry Howard said, “This is the kind of book that makes me very nervous,” meaning the novel could be a masterpiece or a total disaster. “But I don’t think Tom can sustain the energy to write the entire book.” He passed.
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