DIED 2012
IN THE HEAD-SPINNING MIDDLE nineties, I was occasionally sent by my publisher to stay in hotel suites with doorbells, to be driven around by escorts, and to speak at fancy events, like a charity fund-raiser in Bloomington, Indiana. There I found myself one spring afternoon in the back of a limo with three other writers: a bestselling women’s author, a courtly scrivener out of Mississippi, and another young beginner like me. Having never before met such a successful colleague, I had many questions for the grande dame, and she answered them graciously. Once again this year, she told us, she was missing the blooming of her lilies because of her book tour. She had begged Michael Korda—her dear friend—to change the schedule, but there’s only one good time of year to publish a blockbuster. I asked her about her daughter, also a famous writer with three names. She was one of five children, we learned, raised while their young widowed mother, not yet a famous author, flew around the world as a stewardess for Pan Am.
Admirably, The Southern Writer, who wore lime-green socks, and the beginner, a sweet-looking blond, maintained strict poker faces throughout this interview.
Diving into The Southern Writer’s book after I got home, I found some of the most wonderful sentences I’d ever read, retelling one of the nastiest episodes in American history. The Southern Writer had grown up in the town where Emmett Till was lynched, and had been thinking about it for a good half century when he published this book. It recounts the story from multiple viewpoints, including the eye of the dead boy, weaving into the tragedy a skein of outrageous humor, largely created by his delicious use of language. Something about his writing evokes the blues, and worked in the same way the blues does, making something beautiful out of evil and pain.
More than ten years later, when I was working at a low-residency MFA in Pittsburgh, a visiting author was rolled in in a wheelchair. I was squinting at him, thinking, Wait, don’t I know this guy? “Marion Winik,” he drawled. “How wonderful to see you.” At sixty-five, he was crippled and prematurely aged by a painful nerve disease, but his demeanor was as genial as ever and his memory was obviously working better than mine. Here we were at yet another literary event, he pointed out, while our lilies at home bloomed unseen.
After he died, I read passionate remembrances by other authors and former students. There was nobody who didn’t wish they’d had more time with him. Though he did not publish until his mid-forties, there were seven books I hadn’t read yet. Our relationship was really just beginning.