B007RT1UH4 EBOK (61 page)

And all aside from how I miss you both, it might work out more happily without Sarah under a paint-sprayer. I must confess I do envy the trip to Aunt Lena, of course that is too heart-rending, the canteen where he hung it ‘when he came back’ (you might tell Granny that Sarah is also direct descended from a Colonel (Sol Meredith) in the Union Army, and his Cherokee wife (I’ll find if he was at Gettysburg)). All of that is so exciting and it is a frightening temptation to get interested in it but right now I’m fighting it off, hoping perhaps ‘other things’ will get a little beyond their dead halt. Also while I think of it, about the Emmarts, don’t be concerned for that, you can see them when they get back surely (and I’d trust this place will be somewhat more presentable by then too).

Again, I’m delighted at the long change you’re both getting, and the re-acquaintanceships for you and Sarah’s introduction (I am so proud of her! and can at this distance scarcely believe she’s mine and going to be for so long; but then she won’t, will she; no, but even being allowed to participate in her existence). Sooooo . . . out for a bite, I must confess I’ve had most meals out in quiet wayside bars, now I think up to 86 for something leadenly German

and love again

W

Sol Meredith: Solomon Meredith (1810–75), a North Carolinian Quaker who became a prominent Indiana politician and later led a brigade at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he was almost killed. But it was his grandfather, James Meredith, who married a half-Cherokee Quaker named Mary Crews.

To William Gaddis

[
WG sent this registered letter to himself to protect his idea for
J R
from any future copyright infringement. Oscar does likewise in
FHO
: “I sent a copy to myself registered mail in a sealed envelope against just such a piece of dirty work as this one” (98).
]

Massapequa, L. Isld. N.Y.

27 August 1956

Though my first memory of bringing into conversation, with Donn A Pennebaker & others, the central idea to the book on which I am now working was during this past winter, in February 1956 I believe, the idea itself was older with me than that, though I should have no evidence of how much older. I started to develop this idea into a short novel no later than March 1956; and so far as I know it is one entirely original with myself, in substance and treatment.

In very brief it is this: a young boy, ten or eleven or so years of age, ‘goes into business’ and makes a business fortune, by developing and following through the basically very simple proceedures needed to assemble extensive financial interests, to build a ‘big business’ in a system of comparative free enterprise employing the numerous (again basically simple) encouragements (as tax benefits &c) which are so prominent in the business world of America today. By taking straightforward advantage of the possibilities which I believe might well be obvious to the eye and judgment of a child this age, brought up on the sets of values and the criteria of success which prevail here in our country today, he becomes a business tycoon, handling and manipulating controlling interests in such diverse fields of enterprise as oil, cattle-raising, insurance, drugs, textiles, &c., transportation, twine and batting, greeting cards &c.

This boy (named here ‘J.R.’) employs, as a ‘front man’ to handle matters, the press &c, a young man innocent in matters of money and business, whose name (which I got in a dream) is Bast. Other characters include Bast’s two aunts, the heads of companies which JR takes over, his board of directors, figures in a syndicate which fights his company for control in a stockholders’ battle, charity heads to whom his company gives money, &c.

This book is projected as essentially a satire on business and money matters as they occur and are handled here in America today; and on the people who handle them; it is also a morality study of a straightforward boy reared in our culture, of a young man with an artist’s conscience, and of the figures who surround them in such a competetive and material economy as ours.

The book just now is provisionally entitled both
Sensation
and
J.R.

William Gaddis

Donn A Pennebaker: American documentary filmmaker (1925– ), perhaps best known for the Bob Dylan tour-film
Dont Look Back
and
Monterey Pop
. See his memoir “Remembering Gaddis,”
Conjunctions
33 (Fall 1999): 157–60.

Sensation
: in
R,
a young lady is reading “a current novel” entitled
Sensation
(716); Gaddis explained, “I’d thought that one day I might write a novel with this title & so a little advance billing” (letter to Steven Moore, 12 June 1983).

To David Tudor Pole

143 East 19th street

New York City 3

8 March 1957

Dear David.

This will be brief, since I feel I have such a faint chance of its reaching you; the address I found on a Christmas card of some time past (and all the delights you’ve sent from Portugal &c &c never carry a return, much as they’ve delighted me). But my own habits of correspondence these 2 years past have become so sloppy that I’ve by now lost touch with almost all the better friends of youth, which by now even includes Barney, heaven knows where he may be (though you may too).

WG with his wife Pat and children; left, with Sarah, late 1955; bottom, with Matthew at Massapequa, 1958.

At the moment, sped on by an 18-month-old daughter who has just learned to say the word ‘money’ frighteningly clear, I’m trying to corner a writing job in a vast drug company called Pfizer International. And working out my very spotty resume, I included, somewhat embellished, the documentary film on the background of fine-paper making, which I worked on in North Africa for a Mr D*v*d T*d*r P*le . . . Of course you may never hear from them (I gave them this address), for they seem somewhat skittish about actually hiring writers; but if they should reach you inquiring querulously into my past triumphs, would you be kind enough to forward them a very professional-sounding note on that Great Film? Oh, what a chore this is to ask of anyone, I know. But things do look like they may be moving toward some settling eventuality around here and it is high time.

Even if you incline to pass off the above favour with a sharp note to this company saying “ . . . wholly . . . unreliable . . .” do let me hear from you on any account, and this for John Napper too, or even his address, —and if he is in sight of course, Barney, but let me know of you, married, but with family? or in Greece? Espain? even Inglen?

with every good wish

William Gaddis

Pfizer International: founded in 1849, and today the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. When WG worked there (1957–62), its main office was located in Brooklyn, but he worked at its Manhattan office. The company Thomas Eigen works for in
J R
is based on Pfizer.