Hiding Man_ A Biography Of Donald Barthelme Part 16

Caligari enjoyed wide notice, a distinct achievement for an "esoteric" book dropped into America's dense cultural life. The Kennedy a.s.sa.s.sination continued to top the news. Two months before Don's book appeared in stores, the Beatles played enjoyed wide notice, a distinct achievement for an "esoteric" book dropped into America's dense cultural life. The Kennedy a.s.sa.s.sination continued to top the news. Two months before Don's book appeared in stores, the Beatles played The Ed Sullivan Show The Ed Sullivan Show. In New York, dinner conversations revolved around Con Ed's new nuclear-powered electric station on the Hudson River, which was proving to be inefficient and possibly unsafe.

In 1963, the year prior to the publication of Don's first book, many significant events occurred in New York. The New York Review of Books The New York Review of Books debuted-spearheaded by Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Silvers, and Barbara and Jason Epstein-during a lengthy newspaper strike in the city. The Pace Gallery opened, having relocated from Boston. Andy Warhol unveiled his Jackie Kennedy silk screens. Two members of the Pulitzer Prize drama committee resigned in protest after Edward Albee's debuted-spearheaded by Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Silvers, and Barbara and Jason Epstein-during a lengthy newspaper strike in the city. The Pace Gallery opened, having relocated from Boston. Andy Warhol unveiled his Jackie Kennedy silk screens. Two members of the Pulitzer Prize drama committee resigned in protest after Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? failed to garner the prize. James Baldwin's failed to garner the prize. James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time The Fire Next Time was published, Thomas Pynchon's was published, Thomas Pynchon's V. V. appeared, Mary McCarthy came out with appeared, Mary McCarthy came out with The Group The Group, and Susan Sontag earned praise and puzzled responses for her first novel, The Benefactor The Benefactor.

In the wake of all this, mention of Caligari Caligari slipped into the pages of slipped into the pages of The New Yorker, Newsweek, The New Republic, The Nation, Library Journal, The New York Times Book Review, The Sat.u.r.day Review The New Yorker, Newsweek, The New Republic, The Nation, Library Journal, The New York Times Book Review, The Sat.u.r.day Review, and The New York Review of Books The New York Review of Books. It didn't hurt that Don had supporters at The New Yorker The New Yorker-William Shawn a.s.signed Renata Adler to write a short piece on Don, whom she called a "very talented young writer...[who] can write extremely well in any number of incongruously mixed styles." Don's pal Jack Kroll was now book editor at Newsweek Newsweek. His unsigned review called Don's literary terrain the "cratered landscape of the broken heart." Kroll wrote, "His prose bales together, like a junkyard compressor, as many fragments of deracination and regret as a jazz-quick, free-a.s.sociation technique can gather."

In The New York Times Book Review The New York Times Book Review, R. V. Ca.s.sill said Don might turn "existentialism [into] as popular an American inst.i.tution as pizza pie." Robert M. Adams, writing in The New York Review of Books The New York Review of Books, claimed that the American short story was an exhausted genre but that Don might revive it. His praise for Caligari Caligari came at the expense of John Cheever and Joyce Carol Oates, whose latest offerings he singled out for scorn. came at the expense of John Cheever and Joyce Carol Oates, whose latest offerings he singled out for scorn.

Granville Hicks, in an article in The Sat.u.r.day Review The Sat.u.r.day Review, resurrected proletarian rhetoric from The New Ma.s.ses The New Ma.s.ses, calling Don "a member of the advance guard...very far out indeed" and saying that his "controlled craziness may be showing literature a new path to follow."

On balance, the most thoughtful a.s.sessment of Caligari Caligari (until literary quarterlies, working at a slower pace, began to examine it in depth a year or two later) appeared in (until literary quarterlies, working at a slower pace, began to examine it in depth a year or two later) appeared in The New Republic The New Republic. There, Hilary Corke proposed that "Mr. Barthelme has regarded each construction [in the book] as a unique problem demanding a unique solution." Each piece presented a "once-only technique" appropriate to its theme but "inappropriate to another theme," she said. "The term 'short story' is more than usually inadequate to such a piece of prose," Corke argued. "It partakes much more of the nature of poetry-a construct whose form is an essential part of its meaning. (It shares the multiple meaning of poetry too.)" In sum, she concluded that Don's work was "vastly more interesting than the tame successes of almost anybody I can think of."

Caligari "sold well enough to earn out its modest advance," wrote Herman Gollob. Don didn't pause to enjoy his success. Throughout the spring and summer of 1964, he peppered Roger Angell with submissions. When he pushed Angell to be more daring, Angell countered by warning Don not to be "so personal and so elusive that the surface devices dominate the stor[ies] and become irritating in their acc.u.mulative effect." In their dance together, each man gave ground, and each learned from the other. "sold well enough to earn out its modest advance," wrote Herman Gollob. Don didn't pause to enjoy his success. Throughout the spring and summer of 1964, he peppered Roger Angell with submissions. When he pushed Angell to be more daring, Angell countered by warning Don not to be "so personal and so elusive that the surface devices dominate the stor[ies] and become irritating in their acc.u.mulative effect." In their dance together, each man gave ground, and each learned from the other.

"With The New Yorker The New Yorker, Don found himself playing in the big leagues," Phillip Lopate says. "He was taken into the Establishment at a very high level. Other avant-garde writers, like Mark Mirsky and Jonathan Baumbach, wound up in academia, creating little niches for themselves. Don's career could have taken that turn, early, but it didn't because of The New Yorker The New Yorker."

"What helped Don the most hurt him the most: The New Yorker The New Yorker," says the writer Jerome Charyn. Don's "best stuff didn't always appear" in the magazine and "they probably published him for the wrong reasons"-solely for his humor.

"There's not another writer of his quality I've seen in The New Yorker The New Yorker, where the language just sings," Charyn says. "He was a contemporary Jonathan Swift. The New Yorker The New Yorker helped him financially, and helped him find an audience, but over time he didn't expand the way he might have. He took helped him financially, and helped him find an audience, but over time he didn't expand the way he might have. He took The New Yorker The New Yorker too seriously. For someone so bright...I don't know why he treated them with such respect. Perhaps it was from a kind of insecurity." too seriously. For someone so bright...I don't know why he treated them with such respect. Perhaps it was from a kind of insecurity."

Kurt Vonnegut agreed. "Barthelme was a good example of how a magazine like the New Yorker New Yorker confines one's growth," he told the literary critic Jerome Klinkowitz. "Once you have such membership in a group, it's like you'll do anything not to be excluded. And the group itself of course has a very narrow definition of what fits." confines one's growth," he told the literary critic Jerome Klinkowitz. "Once you have such membership in a group, it's like you'll do anything not to be excluded. And the group itself of course has a very narrow definition of what fits."

Angell is highly sensitive to such criticism. People suggest that Don "sold out by publishing in The New Yorker The New Yorker. That's nonsense," he says. "Don was thrilled to publish with us. And of course we didn't pay him all that much."

Beyond the obvious-money, middle-cla.s.s approval-why did The New Yorker did The New Yorker mean so much to Don? After all, he had told Harold Rosenberg and Thomas Hess he was embarra.s.sed at "being inside the establishment." He lauded "revolutionary" magazines and said he did not want to be an "apologist for an existing order." mean so much to Don? After all, he had told Harold Rosenberg and Thomas Hess he was embarra.s.sed at "being inside the establishment." He lauded "revolutionary" magazines and said he did not want to be an "apologist for an existing order."

At the same time, he had always dreamed of publishing in The New Yorker The New Yorker. "Don was very aware of celebrity," Lopate says. Two things suggest themselves when confronting this paradox.

First, Don learned from watching his father practice architecture that art's goal is the health and betterment of the community. Without compromising, one works to change the world-and this means moving, when you can, within spheres of power. As a museum director, Don had gotten a taste of the civic arena, and he used his position there to educate the public.

Second, even though he was never satisfied with the results, Don's dad remained optimistic about art's efficacy, an optimism Don shared as he started his career.

Possibly, Don changed The New Yorker The New Yorker more than more than The New Yorker The New Yorker changed Don. Consider his Q & A stories. In Frank Sullivan's hands, the Q & A form never rose above word games. Don pushed the form to metaphysical extremes ("Q. Is purity quantifiable? A. Purity is not quantifiable. It changed Don. Consider his Q & A stories. In Frank Sullivan's hands, the Q & A form never rose above word games. Don pushed the form to metaphysical extremes ("Q. Is purity quantifiable? A. Purity is not quantifiable. It is is inflatable"). inflatable").

There are many ways to achieve a revolution. Don knew knew the magazine, perhaps better than any reader of his generation: He'd pa.r.s.ed it since childhood. "Don perfectly matched the magazine, perhaps better than any reader of his generation: He'd pa.r.s.ed it since childhood. "Don perfectly matched The New Yorker The New Yorker tradition," Lopate concedes. "He was a sort of flaneur in his writing; he was not confessional. He was like Joseph Mitch.e.l.l, whom the magazine used to publish all the time, funny but not too disclosing, very much the man about town. The magazine's history was one that allowed for pastiche and parody." So Don got inside it, wearing talk-of-the-town clothing, and proceeded to explode its values from within-not to destroy the magazine, but to expand its scope. It is hard to imagine another writer pulling this off. tradition," Lopate concedes. "He was a sort of flaneur in his writing; he was not confessional. He was like Joseph Mitch.e.l.l, whom the magazine used to publish all the time, funny but not too disclosing, very much the man about town. The magazine's history was one that allowed for pastiche and parody." So Don got inside it, wearing talk-of-the-town clothing, and proceeded to explode its values from within-not to destroy the magazine, but to expand its scope. It is hard to imagine another writer pulling this off.

The following exchange from Don's interview with J. D. O'Hara in The Pans Review The Pans Review reveals his stealthy approach: reveals his stealthy approach: BARTHELME: [The popular] notion of an avant-garde is a bit off. The function of the advance guard in military terms is exactly that of the rear guard, to protect the main body, which translates as the status quo. O'HARA: Well, you've established yourself as an old fogey. O'HARA: Well, you've established yourself as an old fogey. BARTHELME: So be it. BARTHELME: So be it.

Among avant-garde critics of The New Yorker The New Yorker, one senses (understandably, perhaps) bitterness and jealousy, a personal animosity. Mark Mirsky, who worked with Don and Jerome Charyn on Fiction Fiction magazine in the early 1970s, seems astonished that Don embraced Roger Angell as a mentor. "Roger was (and still is) the quintessential Harvard man of a certain period, hair meticulously combed, suit and tie with the touch of modesty that bespeaks the gla.s.s of fashion," Mirsky says. And Angell disdained much experimental writing. magazine in the early 1970s, seems astonished that Don embraced Roger Angell as a mentor. "Roger was (and still is) the quintessential Harvard man of a certain period, hair meticulously combed, suit and tie with the touch of modesty that bespeaks the gla.s.s of fashion," Mirsky says. And Angell disdained much experimental writing.

But Angell always encouraged Don, even when rejecting him. The New Yorker The New Yorker may have been a troubled family, but it may have been a troubled family, but it was was a family, and it stirred powerful loyalties in Don. Still, he feared too much comfort. By the end of the summer, he felt restless, fearful of becoming complacent. He knew a family, and it stirred powerful loyalties in Don. Still, he feared too much comfort. By the end of the summer, he felt restless, fearful of becoming complacent. He knew Caligari Caligari should be followed by a bigger book (Gollob was pressuring him to write a novel). He was ready to stretch, to see new things, and to raise the stakes in his writing. should be followed by a bigger book (Gollob was pressuring him to write a novel). He was ready to stretch, to see new things, and to raise the stakes in his writing.

29.

COPENHAGEN.

"Can We Talk," an unusually personal story, offers a day in Don's life toward the end of 1964. In the morning, he'd go to the bank to "get [his] money for the day." He'd go shopping for new clothes or run to the Laundromat. He taught himself to cook, starting with salads and soups. He saw friends in the city (Kenneth Koch, Jack Kroll) or went to visit Herman Gollob in his house on Martha's Vineyard.

He reread Gertrude Stein. Her descriptions of artichokes and lettuce in Tender b.u.t.tons Tender b.u.t.tons appear glancingly in "Can We Talk." appear glancingly in "Can We Talk."

He wrote early in the mornings, and spent his afternoons and evenings with women. "Can We Talk" details an affair ("I...decided to make us miserable") in which the woman suffers deep ambivalence. "When I leaned out of your high window in my shorts, did you think why me? why me?" the narrator asks. He suspects his lover wants to be rid of him; her coolness fans his longing. "After you sent me home," he says, "you came down in your elevator to be kissed. You knew I would be sitting on the steps."

Often, late at night after the jazz clubs closed, Don confessed to Lynn Nesbit that his literary career felt precarious to him, or he'd reminisce about Korea, recalling with particular warmth his old friend Sutchai Thangpew. Nesbit tried to rea.s.sure him about his writing, and to clarify her relationship with him. "Now I would know better, but I was young and at the time it didn't strike me as odd to get involved with a client," she says. "He was unlike anyone I had ever met. To his credit, he liked women. Very few men do."

She was drawn to his "quirky charm. Sometimes things he said didn't quite track, but later they made a kind of sense," she says. "He'd get inside your mind. He really opened my eyes about contemporary art." On the page and off, it was his voice that especially engaged her. "I had gone to Northwestern. I was a drama major, specializing in oral interpretation of literature, looking at short stories and novels from the point of view of dramatizing them, studying aspects of the narrators," Nesbit says. "One of the things that makes good fiction is voice, and Don's was absolutely amazing."

From Nesbit, Don learned that Renata Adler had written The New Yorker The New Yorker's review of Come Back, Dr. Caligari Come Back, Dr. Caligari, as well as a positive piece on him in Harper's Bazaar Harper's Bazaar. "He called and invited me for a drink," Adler wrote. He "had brought me a book. He said I must read it if we were going to be friends. It was Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook The Golden Notebook. A few days later, he called and asked whether I had read it. I said I had. He asked what I thought of it. I said I thought it was wonderful, even great, but that I didn't think things were as bad as that."

Don saw Adler regularly. "He came to visit me at my...apartment, a small studio in a brownstone on East Ninety-second Street, and I would visit him in his apartment...in the Village," she recalled. "Either he would cook, or we would go out to dinner, but basically what we did was drink, also talk, mainly drink."

The art parties continued in Elaine de Kooning's Broadway loft, but they were grim occasions now. JFK's murder paralyzed her. She took the a.s.sa.s.sination personally, since she had met the man. Bill de Kooning had left the city for his new studio in the Springs, and Elaine felt unsupported. Nothing Don said soothed her.

A pair of stories, written around this time, suggest that, in spite of Don's love of the city, New York was not unremittingly romantic for him. Perhaps in response to the president's death, an apocalyptic breeze blows through "The Police Band" and "A Picture History of the War."

In "The Police Band," an idealistic police commissioner forms a musical group whose performances are meant to "triumph" over violence and crime. The group's "grateful cheer" will bathe city crowds with "new and true emotion." "That was the idea," says one of the musicians once the initiative fails. "The...Commissioner's musical musical ideas were not very interesting, because after all he was a cop, right? But his police ideas were interesting." ideas were not very interesting, because after all he was a cop, right? But his police ideas were interesting."

Art fails to make a dent in this mean, mad metropolis. For his poor leadership, the commissioner gets sacked. Neighborhoods deteriorate. Still, the narrator remains somewhat hopeful. "I thought it might be good if you knew the Department still has us," he says. "We have a good group. We still have emotion to be used. We're still here."

Formally and tonally, "A Picture History of the War" antic.i.p.ates "The Indian Uprising" and The Dead Father The Dead Father. A man named Kellerman, "gigantic with gin," runs through Manhattan carrying his naked old father under his arm. The father is a war hero, disappointed that his boy does not march in his bootsteps. Kellerman admits his failings, hoping to foster closeness and understanding with his dad, but the old vet, locked inside patriotic rhetoric, does not share a common language with his son. Desperately, Kellerman longs for guidance-"Who is fit for marriage? What is the art of love? What physical or mental ailments can be hereditary? Is our culture sick?"-but his father's silence roars down the streets. Finally, Kellerman rushes up to a fireman with his questions. Still no answers.

The father is a floating metaphor, the way the Dead Father will be. He is priestlike, a remote paternal authority. He has seen action in every major war. His nakedness and his weight signal Kellerman's psychological burden. Literary a.s.sociations cling to him: Aeneas hauled his father, Anchises, out of Troy as it burned; in The Making of Americans The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein wrote of "an angry man dragg[ing] his father along the ground"; and in Beckett's Endgame Endgame, Hamm is unable to discard his father, despite trying to store the old fellow in an ash can.

In "Picture History," as in "The Police Band," New York is tearing itself apart: "There are sirens, there is a fire. The huge pieces of apparatus clog the streets. Hoses are run this way and that. Hundreds of firemen stand about, looking at each other, asking each other questions. There is a fire somewhere, but the firemen do not know where it is." The modern city, where Kellerman writes books, swigs gin, and reads Commentary Commentary, parallels the battlefields his father recalls with nostalgia...the "bones of the slain" scattered about.

"A Picture History of the War" appeared in the June 20 issue of The New Yorker The New Yorker. Its poetic structure, allusions, and layered imagery asked a lot of the magazine's readers-more than they were accustomed to giving. Soon, Angell would gather a new "bundle" of subscribers' "insults" to send Don's way.

Significantly, in its quieter moments, the story offered glimpses of community life. In years to come, as Don settled into his neighborhood, "community" would appear more and more often in his fiction. As Kellerman dashes about the city, he sees mothers in the parks: "[D]eliriously pretty and s.e.xy mothers in brawny Chanel tweeds." Mothers worrying about children and old men. Mothers talking to and hugging each other. Admiringly, Kellerman notes, "That is love."

On August 26, Angell wrote to Don, apologizing for the commas that "tiptoed into 'The Police Band' " when it appeared in the magazine on August 22. "I don't know how that happened, and I'll try to avert any such sneakiness" next time, he said. He wrote that he was mailing Don a one-thousand-dollar advance "against future work," and explained, "this gets sent to you instead of your agent, since it is a separate deal. There's no hesitation whatsoever about letting you have this, but it does depress me to realize that this means you really are departing next week." He promised he'd come by Don's place on Tuesday "with a jar of Mothersill's as a going-away present."

This is the first indication of Don's plans to leave New York on an extended trip. Helen Moore Barthelme claimed in her memoir that Lynn Nesbit had urged Don to "travel because he 'had not been anywhere.' " The truth is, he left to "get away from Lynn, who wanted to marry him," Angell says. "I was ready to have children," Nesbit admits. Don (who was still not divorced from Helen) wanted the excitement of an affair, not the commitment of another marriage. "He would say to me, not just once but over and over, 'Astonish me,' " Nesbit says. "That's a pretty big burden to lay on a twenty-four-year old." Also, Don was pressuring himself to produce a second book, a novel, and this caused tension between the two; Nesbit realized she needed to separate business from her personal relationship with Don.

"I had a friend and I introduced her to one of my clients, Per Laursen from Denmark," Nesbit says. "Per was in America, traveling through the South, and he would have written the first book about civil rights-before any of us really knew what civil rights was-but he got terrible writer's block.

"Anyway, he and my friend Carol married in Maine, and Donald and I were the best whatevers at the wedding. Then they went to Denmark. Donald said, 'I'll go to Denmark with Carol and Per and you can come over in six months and we'll see where we are.' I think he thought it would rea.s.sure me if he went to Denmark with my friends, rather than going off to Paris or something. You know, he'd just be working. That sort of thing."

Don asked Nesbit to look after his apartment while he was away. Eventually, she sublet the place to Tom Wolfe (whom Don had encouraged her to read). In the first week of September, Don left the States with a little New Yorker New Yorker money in his coat. He had discussed with Herman Gollob the possibility of turning "A Shower of Gold" into a novel. This was to be his overseas project. "The President" had just appeared in money in his coat. He had discussed with Herman Gollob the possibility of turning "A Shower of Gold" into a novel. This was to be his overseas project. "The President" had just appeared in The New Yorker The New Yorker, and it pleased Don to see people reading the magazine on the plane.

He intended to visit his family in Houston at Christmas, and return to New York around the first of the year. He felt the change of scenery would free him of his tensions. He also hoped that, away from the jazz clubs and the art parties, he'd drink less.

Years later, Don's eldest daughter, Anne (p.r.o.nounced Anna Anna), heard the story of his travels this way: "He was vacationing in Europe with some other gentlemen. I don't know who they were. I think he had been to Barcelona and Paris, and they had gone to Scandinavia." In letters to Helen, Don never mentioned the Laursens. He said he had gone directly to Copenhagen-the home of Sren Kierkegaard. He told Helen he had rented a "small but pleasant flat for five weeks at the end of which I'll have to get out and hustle up another." He intended to write, not sightsee, but the "truth of the matter is that I haven't been doing as much Serious Thinking as I should be doing, but I hope to remedy that shortly. But first I have to stop and write a new story as I'm getting to the point where I'll need some money." He had decided that "A Shower of Gold" was too self-contained to be developed any further. He said he was "still groping for a handle" on a novel; "[I have] a fair idea of what I ought to be doing, if not precisely how to do it."

The city, he said, was "very beautiful and old-worldish with cobblestones instead of good sound asphalt and no building taller than six stories." Cigarettes were seventy-five cents a pack, and Scotch was "ten dollars a bottle."

For fifty-two cents, he could get a "seat in the last row of the top balcony" at the Copenhagen Ballet. He saw a Balanchine performance and, on another occasion, Cavalleria Rusticana Cavalleria Rusticana. One night in the theater, he sat next to an eighty-year-old man who "spoke...about the wickedness of old New York, thumping me in the ribs from time to time. He had lived there as a boy, heh heh."

He informed Helen he had gone to "an old church and sat in the royal box. And the organist was practicing. And then into the graveyard next to the church. Here lies Anna Pederson, a good woman. I threw a mushroom on the grave. Bach streaming from the church windows. I felt like Old Werther." The graveyard would find a place in the next story he'd write, "The Indian Uprising."

Of course, he visited Kierkegaard's grave. It was a fourteen-minute bus ride from the center of town, in a.s.sistens, a former churchyard-c.u.m-park. The monument was triple-tiered (aside from Sren, the grave held his mother and father and other family members) and topped with a thick stone cross. A low wrought-iron fence surrounded it. Nearby, on the park lawn, in the dappled shade of palm trees, women in bikinis sunbathed in the unseasonably warm weather, reading paperbacks, propping their purses and bags against moss-covered tombstones.

In the late afternoons, Don strolled past the outdoor cafes along the Nyhavn Ca.n.a.l. He smelled the fresh fish unloaded from wooden schooners, listened to seagulls and to waves licking the boats' hulls. Square stone buildings with pitched red roofs lined the bank. The buildings were painted yellow, orange, blue, and pink. The cafes served overpriced salads and beer. Men and women sitting at the tables flirted with one another. Here and there, along the ca.n.a.l, day laborers, just off shift, dangled their feet in the water and munched fat falafel sandwiches.

He went to the street market for food. Next to the bins of fruits and vegetables, jewelry and candle sellers set up flimsy wooden booths. Hashish-illegal but quite plentiful and cheap-could be purchased in thick, broken chunks.

Don wrote to his parents that he had gone on a date one night with a "beautiful blonde Communist." She took him to a "cafe where there were a great number of depressed-looking young men sitting around being depressed." Later, in the woman's place, he made the mistake of "chuckling about some aspect or other of the Hungarian Revolution." In a huff, the woman said, "You are a fool. Get oudt uf my room."

Wherever Don went, he was pestered with questions about the Kennedy a.s.sa.s.sination and America's role in Vietnam. On August 7, just three weeks before Don had left the States, the U.S. Congress pa.s.sed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Don was desperate for English-language newspapers. Not only was Johnson deploying more American troops to Southeast Asia but China, North Vietnam's neighbor and ally, had just successfully tested an atomic bomb.

Don a.s.sured his folks that his public encounters weren't all all awkward. He had "met a girl named Birgit who seems a little less doctrinaire" than the blond Communist, he said. awkward. He had "met a girl named Birgit who seems a little less doctrinaire" than the blond Communist, he said.

According to Anne, her father wrote to his grandmother, "I've met this crazy Danish lady."

Anne says, "My dad was with some other men. They were looking for a bar and they stopped this woman on the street and asked her for directions. Then they asked her to join them and she did. They were all wooing her, apparently. My father didn't want to lie to her, but he didn't think it sounded all that impressive, being a writer, so he told her, 'I'm a typewriter repairman.' "

Birgit Egelund-Peterson was the daughter of a university science professor. "During the Second World War, her father smuggled Danish Jews to Sweden," Anne explains. "When he told me he had worked in the Underground, I thought he'd built a tunnel. My grandmother was a nurse. They had four kids. My grandmother had Huntington's disease, and spent the last ten years of her life bedridden in a hospital. My mother watched her own mother die horribly."

Birgit was "ethereal, she was beautiful, detached, a scary-fairy woman,"

Anne says. "She was as brilliant as my dad was. That was their attraction. But she was not as together as he was. She spoke Russian, French, German, English, Danish. She read Kierkegaard like it was d.i.c.k and Jane d.i.c.k and Jane. But there was just something that didn't connect with her. She couldn't keep a job in Copenhagen."

Seeking steadiness, Birgit latched onto Don. Almost immediately, she moved into his flat. Don's plans changed. He canceled his flight back to Houston, having decided to stay longer in Denmark. "I got letters from him and I could tell something was going on, but I didn't know what it was," Nesbit says. On December 24, Don exchanged Christmas telegrams with Helen. He didn't mention Birgit. Shortly after that, he wrote Helen and suggested that they get a divorce.

30.

UPRISINGS.

"Edward put his hands on Pia's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The nipples were the largest he had ever seen. Then he counted his money. He had two hundred and forty crowns. He would have to get some more money from somewhere." These lines from Don's "Edward and Pia" neatly summarize the way Don spent 1965: living with Birgit and fretting over cash.

When he sent the story to Roger Angell in May, Angell a.s.sumed it was autobiographical. In a subsequent letter, Don warned his editor, "Please do not confuse my fiction with my life, my life." But the story was the most straightforward Don had written, and its details matched his "life and times."

Angell told Don, "I plan to fight for...Pia's nipples, but I have not yet discussed them with Shawn." (The nipples did did grace the magazine.) grace the magazine.) Birgit tended to be as restless as Don. Together, they traveled to the Netherlands, Germany, France, and England. Don wrote Helen that London was "gray and dismal." He said "hordes of Indians and Frenchmen and Italians cruis[ed] the streets in cheap overcoats and too much hair and nothing-to-do (a lumpen-proletariat if ever there was one; what hope, what felicity for these troops?) and a general air of having settled for much, much less than any minimal idea of human possibility known to me or thee-cities are deadly, the j.a.panese in Tokyo in 1953 looked more human than this."

Everywhere, people stared at Birgit, a stunning beauty who dressed fashionably, if sometimes oddly. She wore white plastic boots and plastic hats, green velvet skirts, many, many rings, and handmade necklaces with gla.s.s and wooden beads. She also wore heavy black mascara.

Her family owned a small farm in Sweden, just outside of Markaryd. She and Don stayed there off and on, returning every so often to Copenhagen and Don's rented flat. At the farm, Don chopped wood-most of the time the logs were too wet to catch in the fireplace. He tried to control his drinking (he was heavily into gin at this point). Frequently, he made himself dry vermouths with onions on the rocks. He cooked fried chicken for Birgit. He had trouble breathing the sharp, cold air and felt minor pains in his chest. To Birgit's dismay, he wouldn't go to a doctor; eventually, the pains went away.

The farm was remote from shopping areas. Don and Birgit would take a bus into Markaryd and stock up on household supplies for the week. Local children cheered them as they hauled their overflowing bundles onto the bus.

He found little in English to read: a few Ross Macdonald mysteries, The Penguin English Dictionary The Penguin English Dictionary, infrequent copies of Time, Newsweek Time, Newsweek, and Life Life (the big story in America in late 1964 was the most recent James Bond movie, (the big story in America in late 1964 was the most recent James Bond movie, Goldfinger-Life Goldfinger-Life splashed a gold-painted lady across one of its covers). splashed a gold-painted lady across one of its covers).

Back in the Copenhagen flat, Don and Birgit entertained a stream of visitors, including several of Birgit's friends. The visitors lounged about the flat, drinking tea or cheap wine, strumming Joan Baez songs on guitars, and testing Don's responses to their increasingly anti-American att.i.tudes. In "Edward and Pia," he wrote, "Edward talked to a Swede. 'You want to know who killed Kennedy?' the Swede said. 'You killed Kennedy.' 'No,' Edward said. 'I did not.' " Lyndon Johnson had just authorized Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing campaign against North Vietnam's transport system. Birgit's friends peppered Don with questions about the war in Southeast Asia, and he grew weary of having to say he didn't support America's foreign policies. killed Kennedy.' 'No,' Edward said. 'I did not.' " Lyndon Johnson had just authorized Operation Rolling Thunder, a bombing campaign against North Vietnam's transport system. Birgit's friends peppered Don with questions about the war in Southeast Asia, and he grew weary of having to say he didn't support America's foreign policies.

Early in 1965, Don's mother fell ill. It's not clear what was wrong with her, but she spent two days in a Houston hospital. She regained her strength quickly, and urged Don not to make plans to hurry home. To cheer her up, he wrote her a lengthy, fanciful letter about his landlord, who, he said, had "soft-footed in" and taken away the sixty-watt lightbulb above Don's writing desk: "Cunning Landlord. He thinks I will not Notice, But I have counted the Watts and having a very good Grammar School Education by the Nuns, I Noticed that a few Watts were gone."

Don also told his mother that he went to a bar where people were "talking in a Strange Language. After a time it came to me that they were speaking English. And I said to myself what a beautiful language! I would like to hear more of it." He mentioned a trip to the Copenhagen zoo, where the giraffes wore "Neck Sweaters." Like "the rest of Denmark, [the zoo] was not Heated Properly." He had "no other Intelligence of moment except that I have thrown away a lot of bad Prose that I made myself. And that I am still Endeavoring to complete a new Work with which to Finance my future Life, if any." As in his letters to Helen, he failed to mention he was living with Birgit.

In the mornings he wrote fiction. He felt adrift from his friends and fellow writers. Eagerly, he awaited the arrival of red-and-blue air mail envelopes through the gold mail slot in the door of his flat. He sent Angell anxious notes: "Are you there or are you gone?"

He found a jazz club in Copenhagen, the Montmartre, and spent a happy evening there listening to the trumpeter Don Cherry, backed by a Scandinavian rhythm section featuring a young Alex Riel on drums. As in the States, jazz halls in Europe were giving way to "Big Beat" clubs. The Danish press called rock "pigtrad"-that is, barbed-wire-music. Don ignored it for the cooler sounds of the Montmartre.

With Birgit, he took long walks through Copenhagen. One night, she pointed out a street corner where she had been knocked off her bicycle by a car when she was a child. She pointed out the Botanical Gardens near the Round Tower, where she was once a.s.saulted by a man. Her history in the city, and her mother's early death from Huntington's, made her wary.

Don took Birgit for boat rides, on tourist cruises in the harbor. He walked her past Tivoli Gardens, past the Old Stock Exchange building, with its oxidized copper roof and statues of dragons, past the Royal Library's sleek black gla.s.s facade, past iron railings in front of shops gilded with faces and figures. The city's whimsical architecture gave whole sections of town a giddy, fairy-tale air-but the air was darkened by Birgit's expectations of violence around every corner.

Dear Roger:Here is THE INDIAN UPRISING...I have also sent you a purple-and-yellow Christmas card.Best,D.

With this note, sent near the end of 1964, Don began the most intense correspondence he ever had with Angell over one of his stories, an "endless transatlantic seminar on punctuation and the uses of the English sentence," Angell said. Don submitted the story in early December. On the fifteenth,