The Letters of Katie Crenshaw July 25, 2013

Dear Darling,      July 25, 2013

- Have been going to a book discussion group at McNally-Jackson Books in SoHo. The discussion itself is open and book focused but, boy, this is a good place to people watch. I’m sitting in the café, and the person next to me, an Abercrombie beige raincoat over her chair, just asked the man behind the counter if she could charge her phone. "Of course, the world will accommodate me." She had one of those water-resistant solid-color bags with brown leather straps and wore lace-up leather shoes, jeans, a styled-looking belt and a very fresh-looking blue blouse with white designs all over it.

The other day at the bookstore, I saw a woman with Barbie-doll legs made to look longer under short shorts and long straight hair that hung, poised, over a white mesh sweater. She wore a white black-banded fedora and had a little dog whose grayish-white fur looked sort of like what you would see on a stuffed-animal lamb. Incredibly put together and, of course, beautiful. "My outfit is perfect, and I have a dog, which causes me no mess or embarrassment, despite my preference for the color white." 

I was in the café today trying, and failing, to come up with story ideas. I gave up and looked at books downstairs near "Memoir" and "French literature"— the beginning of The Year of Magical Thinking, a page of Proust. Worried about bending the new books, I decided to see if they had the Didion memoir at Housing Works. They didn’t, so I started reading Alexandra Styron’s biography of her father, William Styron. I’d been interested in The New Yorker review of it and a few other bios of famous authors written by their children, including Greg Bellow's biography of his father, Saul Bellow.

According to James Wood, Bellow's book tries to be a story of the son accepting his father’s neglect but is “less a memoir than a speaking wound.” I suppose that would be okay if Bellow were trying to portray and discuss his woundedness… the problem is that Greg Bellow thought he was writing a story of coming to terms and actually wrote what Wood called “a child’s complaint.” Also, Wood says that the biography makes it seem like Bellow really didn’t understand his father. Bellow thinks he is telling the inside story of his father's life (as opposed to his work) but doesn't fully grasp that Bellow’s work, which Greg Bellow sort of tried to downplay out of jealousy, was his life. "He hardly ever made beef stroganoff for me," the eulogy might have gone--remember that whole uproar? Wood's review was sympathetic to the biographer, despite his criticisms of the biography. It must be hard to have your personal struggles pointed out by a literary critic. 
Hey--Didion said something about how throughout her career, she hid her true feelings behind increasingly sturdy enamel, inserting meaning between the lines. She nade a conscious effort not to reveal herself and thought about what her words implied Her point was that in The Year of Magical Thinking, she was more direct than usual about her own feelings.  

When I write, I try to acknowledge my biases so that they don’t come out accidentally. That doesn’t absolve a writer for whatever unfinished business she has, but it’s better than nothing.

For example, I’ll say it straight up: I miss you very much and wish you had been with me at the café today! I would have dressed up, and we would have made a fine couple for others to stare at. I have many components of the short-short outfit and could buy one of those hats on any street. More seriously, I was not feeling poised, sitting there devoid of ideas, and of course I envied the people who seemed on top of the world. 

It has been cool all day after so much heat! I had hot coffee this morning and tomato soup with grilled cheese for dinner. Now I’m hot in my wool socks, but you get the idea. 

Write soon! I don’t feed on telegrams like Katherine Mansfield, but if I fed on email, I’d be starved or, at best, full of junk. 

Yours,
Katie