Mentor: A Memoir (15 page)
Authors: Tom Grimes
In order to tie the story lines together, Ted knows Al, who says:
What type of situation is it, Ted?Short pause.TED
A high-concept synopsis? A man has been
exiled from his home by a brutal, let’s say, a
fundamentalist dictatorship. And now, the
only way he can reclaim his home is if we
help.AL
By making an action movie.TED
Yes.
A year later, I gave the finished play,
Spec
, to a director at Key West’s Red Barn Theater, which had a ninety-nine-seat space with a proscenium stage. Its board deliberated for three months. On the afternoon Jody and I were packing the U-Haul truck that would carry us to Iowa, its members agreed to produce the play. A month before it opened, rehearsals started, and every evening from seven to midnight I sat in the theater, watched the actors, conferred with the director, and made revisions. During the day, I worked on the novel. I needed to maintain its momentum and hear the narrator’s voice. I didn’t want to leave the novel’s world entirely and return to it feeling like a stranger had written it.
Spec
, to a director at Key West’s Red Barn Theater, which had a ninety-nine-seat space with a proscenium stage. Its board deliberated for three months. On the afternoon Jody and I were packing the U-Haul truck that would carry us to Iowa, its members agreed to produce the play. A month before it opened, rehearsals started, and every evening from seven to midnight I sat in the theater, watched the actors, conferred with the director, and made revisions. During the day, I worked on the novel. I needed to maintain its momentum and hear the narrator’s voice. I didn’t want to leave the novel’s world entirely and return to it feeling like a stranger had written it.
But I also felt like a stranger when I became a minor Key West celebrity. To my embarrassment, the restaurant’s owners had mounted an enlarged copy of the
New York Times
review of
A Stone of the Heart
and placed it on an artist’s easel beside the hostess’s podium, where Jody had stood for three years, scanning the reservation ledger prior to seating customers. Soon afterward, I appeared on the cover of
Focus
, the weekly entertainment section of the
Key West Citizen
. As directed, I sat at a table, held a pen above a revised page of the play, beside which lay a copy of my novel, and stared at the camera. The following day, while buying groceries, the woman behind me in the checkout line said, “You’re much better looking in person.” The reporter who wrote the article emphasized my waiter-turned-writer phenomenon, equating it with the evolution of ape to man. “Shortly after he arrived in Key West in 1986, Grimes worked first as a busboy, then as a waiter at Louie’s Backyard.” She also developed an anthropological interest in my work habits. “Grimes writes in longhand, perhaps one of the few remaining writers to do so.” I added, “Frank Conroy and I are the only two (at Iowa) who write in notebooks and transcribe.” Then, perhaps mindful of Frank’s minimal admiration for
A Stone of the Heart
, I said my new novel would “come in at around 750 to 800 pages” and “be considerably different than” my first, which she called “a small gem.” A week later, she described
Spec
as the worst play the Red Barn Theater had ever produced.
New York Times
review of
A Stone of the Heart
and placed it on an artist’s easel beside the hostess’s podium, where Jody had stood for three years, scanning the reservation ledger prior to seating customers. Soon afterward, I appeared on the cover of
Focus
, the weekly entertainment section of the
Key West Citizen
. As directed, I sat at a table, held a pen above a revised page of the play, beside which lay a copy of my novel, and stared at the camera. The following day, while buying groceries, the woman behind me in the checkout line said, “You’re much better looking in person.” The reporter who wrote the article emphasized my waiter-turned-writer phenomenon, equating it with the evolution of ape to man. “Shortly after he arrived in Key West in 1986, Grimes worked first as a busboy, then as a waiter at Louie’s Backyard.” She also developed an anthropological interest in my work habits. “Grimes writes in longhand, perhaps one of the few remaining writers to do so.” I added, “Frank Conroy and I are the only two (at Iowa) who write in notebooks and transcribe.” Then, perhaps mindful of Frank’s minimal admiration for
A Stone of the Heart
, I said my new novel would “come in at around 750 to 800 pages” and “be considerably different than” my first, which she called “a small gem.” A week later, she described
Spec
as the worst play the Red Barn Theater had ever produced.
Nervously wandering the grounds the evening before
Spec
opened, I noticed someone seated on a bench outside the theater. He had long, brownish-red hair and a ragged mustache. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t decide whether he was an actor or a Key West bartender who had served me when I was drunk. Anyone was allowed to attend the final dress rehearsal, and he sat in the last row. When he laughed halfway through act one, I recognized his voice. I’d seen him in a Sam Shepard play; his name was Jim Gammon. Between acts, I stood, turned, and began to introduce myself. Before I could, he said, “Hey, Tommy.” He’d seen my photograph near the theater’s entrance. He shook my hand and said, “This is a hell of a good play. After you wrap up for the night, I’d like to talk to you about it.”
Spec
opened, I noticed someone seated on a bench outside the theater. He had long, brownish-red hair and a ragged mustache. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t decide whether he was an actor or a Key West bartender who had served me when I was drunk. Anyone was allowed to attend the final dress rehearsal, and he sat in the last row. When he laughed halfway through act one, I recognized his voice. I’d seen him in a Sam Shepard play; his name was Jim Gammon. Between acts, I stood, turned, and began to introduce myself. Before I could, he said, “Hey, Tommy.” He’d seen my photograph near the theater’s entrance. He shook my hand and said, “This is a hell of a good play. After you wrap up for the night, I’d like to talk to you about it.”
I said, “Sure.”
We met in the courtyard. He would be in town for several days, he said, shooting a Goldie Hawn movie, in which he played an aging hippie, hence the long hair. He asked for my number. I gave it to him and expected never to hear from him again. He called the next day, and the following afternoon he took Jody and me, along with his wife, Nancy, to lunch. He told me that he’d run the Met Theatre in Los Angeles for twenty years. Briefly, it had closed. But recently he’d found a new space for it. He, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, and a dozen other actors planned to lease the space and reopen the theater. “If you wouldn’t mind,” he said, “I’d like to show them your script.” I said okay, gave him a copy, and thought nothing would come of it. In Key West,
Spec
ran for six weeks. Then Jody and I flew home to Iowa. A month later, with a hundred new pages to show Frank, I was back in his workshop.
Spec
ran for six weeks. Then Jody and I flew home to Iowa. A month later, with a hundred new pages to show Frank, I was back in his workshop.
CHAPTER TWELVE
F
rank looked up when he sensed me standing in his office doorway. “Hey, babe. Come on in.”
rank looked up when he sensed me standing in his office doorway. “Hey, babe. Come on in.”
I took my usual seat and said to him, “How was your summer? Did you write?”
“I goofed off. I wrote maybe fifty pages.”
“Lazy fuck.”
“How’s the novel?”
“Long.”
“Well, let it be what it wants to be. Don’t force it.”
“Okay. Catch you in class.”
Then I went to see Charlie in one of the windowless offices we’d been given as second-year teaching-writing fellows. He’d read the new pages and had drawn a map, hoping to chart my novel’s course. He said, “You must feel completely at sea.”
“I’m lost. I know that much. What do you think of the chapter with Mike and his wife?”
“I think the furniture’s doing too much.”
“Like it’s about their house rather than about them.”
“Exactly,” he said, “exactly.”
Earlier that summer, his story “The Point” had appeared in the
New Yorker
. Before it ran, the story’s editor had flagged fifty-three corrections and changes. Charlie said to me, “They want to change Kurt’s last name.” Kurt was the story’s teenage narrator. “They don’t want it to be Simpson because of
The Simpsons
. If readers picture Bart Simpson, the whole story’s skewed.”
New Yorker
. Before it ran, the story’s editor had flagged fifty-three corrections and changes. Charlie said to me, “They want to change Kurt’s last name.” Kurt was the story’s teenage narrator. “They don’t want it to be Simpson because of
The Simpsons
. If readers picture Bart Simpson, the whole story’s skewed.”
“That’s a stretch.”
“I know.”
But in the published story, Kurt has no last name.
The editor also objected to a quote from the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. “You have a kid walking a drunk woman home at night, along a beach,” Charlie said, reading a margin note in the galleys aloud. “From here, how do you leap to Pascal?”
“I like the Pascal passage,” I said.
“Me, too.”
“I don’t think it’s out of place.”
“Neither do I. I’ll keep it.”
Pascal got axed.
But, in the final version, the story was better without it.
“The
New Yorker
has a house policy about commas, though,” Charlie said. “It leans toward using a comma for clarity, whereas I believe the English language has more power with fewer commas.”
New Yorker
has a house policy about commas, though,” Charlie said. “It leans toward using a comma for clarity, whereas I believe the English language has more power with fewer commas.”
“Commas aren’t so bad.”
“The style just bugs me,” he said.
Frank treated comma splices mercilessly. “Meaning, sense, clarity,” he repeated. Then, on room 457’s blackboard, he drew the identical diagram he had drawn the preceding year, a diagram he would draw for as long as he taught. “The prose can be dense,” he said, “as long as it doesn’t confuse the reader. Learn how to use commas and periods. Rarely use colons, semicolons, and exclamation points [even though he used exclamation points frequently in
Stop-Time
, which proves that workshop mantras are always reductive]. And,” he added, “compose paragraphs logically, as units of dramatic action and narrative.”
Stop-Time
, which proves that workshop mantras are always reductive]. And,” he added, “compose paragraphs logically, as units of dramatic action and narrative.”
Seated at the far end of the table, I said, “But García Márquez doesn’t use paragraphs in
The Autumn of the Patriarch
, and some of his sentences are seven pages long.”
The Autumn of the Patriarch
, and some of his sentences are seven pages long.”
Frank said, “I don’t think it’s effective.” Then he added, “But listen to me criticizing García Márquez. The idea is grotesque.”
Nevertheless, one rule applied to everyone who either typed or held a pencil: if you don’t write with the reader in mind, you are not a writer, period.
I continued to work from 8:30 AM until 12:30 PM. Ideally, I would produce five hundred words. But some days, forty-five minutes would pass before I entered the language. I had to find my way in; language wouldn’t open the door for me. Once I was inside, time dissolved. When I felt myself back in time, I knew I’d completed the day’s work.
On September 30, I leaned back in my chair and stretched my arms. I glanced at the clock. I’d worked fifteen minutes shy of four hours. But I’d reached the end of a scene. I thought,
Maybe I should stop
. I believed I had several hundred pages left to write. The conclusion of the scene, in which Mike leaves everything behind, his wife, his daughter, and his life as a ballplayer, was simply the story catching its breath. Only this didn’t happen. Instead, first I saw, as if the words were imprinted on blank white space, the novel’s final paragraph. I felt the rhythm of conclusion, a slight elevation in tone, the flow of a single sentence. Five minutes later, the book was done, and the pressure I’d been living under for thirteen months vanished. Like a diver rising too quickly from the ocean’s floor to its surface, I felt disoriented. My typewriter, desk, notebooks, and pencils seemed surreal. My hands trembled. I thought I might pass out. Oddly, I felt as if I needed to apologize to someone. Slowly, I stood up, walked into our bedroom, and called Jody. My chest shuddered the way it did when Iowa’s air was so cold I couldn’t breathe. Her voice seemed to be a universe away. I made incoherent sounds, and when she asked me what was wrong I started to cry. It took me a minute to say, “I’m finished.” When I began to breathe again, my shudders diminished. I remained seated on one edge of the bed, waiting for my thoughts to flow, as my seizure subsided.
Maybe I should stop
. I believed I had several hundred pages left to write. The conclusion of the scene, in which Mike leaves everything behind, his wife, his daughter, and his life as a ballplayer, was simply the story catching its breath. Only this didn’t happen. Instead, first I saw, as if the words were imprinted on blank white space, the novel’s final paragraph. I felt the rhythm of conclusion, a slight elevation in tone, the flow of a single sentence. Five minutes later, the book was done, and the pressure I’d been living under for thirteen months vanished. Like a diver rising too quickly from the ocean’s floor to its surface, I felt disoriented. My typewriter, desk, notebooks, and pencils seemed surreal. My hands trembled. I thought I might pass out. Oddly, I felt as if I needed to apologize to someone. Slowly, I stood up, walked into our bedroom, and called Jody. My chest shuddered the way it did when Iowa’s air was so cold I couldn’t breathe. Her voice seemed to be a universe away. I made incoherent sounds, and when she asked me what was wrong I started to cry. It took me a minute to say, “I’m finished.” When I began to breathe again, my shudders diminished. I remained seated on one edge of the bed, waiting for my thoughts to flow, as my seizure subsided.
Jody said, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to come home?” She was at work.
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
Downstairs, I took a beer from the refrigerator and emptied it in three gulps. Ten minutes later, the alcohol ran its warm hand over my brain and my muscles unclenched. I put on a jacket and left the house. I wandered through town. Near dusk, I saw Maggie at the food co-op. I can’t remember what she said, only that she smiled when I said, “I think I finished my novel.”
Once Frank read the final pages, he said, “You’re right.”
Frank mailed a clean copy of the five-hundred-sixty-seven-page manuscript to his agent, Candida Donadio, who had represented Frank for twenty years and had sold
Stop-Time
. She also had represented Philip Roth, early in his career. Given Roth’s influence on me—at least once a year I reread
The Ghost Writer
—I viewed his publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux with awe. For me, the FSG acronym embossed on the spine of Roth’s novels was sacrosanct, and I was surprised, and disappointed, when it no longer graced his book jackets. In 1989, Roth signed with the agent Andrew Wylie, known in literary circles as “The Jackal” (he supposedly enjoys the nickname). Wylie had earned his reputation by demanding, and usually extracting from publishers, huge advances against royalties for his clients—with one exception. When he significantly upped the price for Roth’s 1990 novel
Deception
, Roger Straus told Wylie he could “go fuck himself,” and Roth moved to Simon & Schuster. Frank expected my advance to be roughly one hundred thousand dollars. If Roger Straus wouldn’t pay that much for a Philip Roth novel, how much would he pay for one by me?
Stop-Time
. She also had represented Philip Roth, early in his career. Given Roth’s influence on me—at least once a year I reread
The Ghost Writer
—I viewed his publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux with awe. For me, the FSG acronym embossed on the spine of Roth’s novels was sacrosanct, and I was surprised, and disappointed, when it no longer graced his book jackets. In 1989, Roth signed with the agent Andrew Wylie, known in literary circles as “The Jackal” (he supposedly enjoys the nickname). Wylie had earned his reputation by demanding, and usually extracting from publishers, huge advances against royalties for his clients—with one exception. When he significantly upped the price for Roth’s 1990 novel
Deception
, Roger Straus told Wylie he could “go fuck himself,” and Roth moved to Simon & Schuster. Frank expected my advance to be roughly one hundred thousand dollars. If Roger Straus wouldn’t pay that much for a Philip Roth novel, how much would he pay for one by me?
Ultimately, Candida did not become my agent. Her partner, Eric Ashworth, a respected agent in his midthirties, did. He would represent the next generation of writers, but I suspect Eric would not have signed me as a client had Frank not recommended me. Eric read my novel, then called to discuss it. His voice had the clarity, but not the aggressiveness, of an anchorman’s, and he muted the gay inflection that would become more prominent and relaxed over time. As he didn’t know me, and hadn’t yet gauged my temperament, he said, quite gently, and not wanting to hurt my feelings, “I’m afraid it needs a lot of editing.”
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