I have to begin with an apology and a correction. In my last post, I misreported the date of Karen Wessel Marcus’s death as Sunday, May 3. It was actually Monday, May 4. During this pandemic, the days have lost their distinctiveness. Half the time, I don’t know if its Monday or Thursday. At any rate, my apologies to Karen’s family and friends for the error.
I won’t be writing about death in every post, but I have to now; two other friends died the same week as Karen: Marian Wood, who bought and edited my first book, A Rumor of War, and helped make it a success; and Dennis Ginosi, an old colleague from the Chicago Tribune.
Although their passing occurred during this pandemic, neither was caused by the Corona virus. That’s academic, as they’re gone and I’ll miss them both. I’ll devote this post to Marian.
She was a brilliant editor and vivid personality, feisty, witty, opinionated, formidably smart. Dark-haired and about five feet eight inches tall, she threw off an aura of glamour — not high society glamour, nor the glamour of New York’s lit-crit world, but a kind of intellectual glamor. Once, in circumstances I cannot precisely recall, she and I were listening to a symphony on a car radio. She identified its composer, its title, and the movement we were hearing at that moment. I was impressed. She said that she and her classmates at Barnard College and Columbia University, where she did her graduate work, used to hold classical music contests. They would play a segment from a piece; whoever could identify the symphony or concerto, the part that was being played, and its composer was the winner. That’s what Marian Wood was doing while my bozo buddies and I were driving around in American Graffiti cars, rockin’ out to Buddy Holly and Carl Perkins.
Marian was a 37-year-old senior editor at Holt, Rinehart & Winston (now Henry Holt) in 1975, when the unfinished manuscript for my Vietnam memoir, A Rumor of War, landed on her desk. She later confessed to me that it sat there, unread, for nearly a month. At the time, with American society as bitterly divided as it is now, the Vietnam War was toxic as a subject for literature. A writer would have had an easier time publishing a book full of explicit sex in Victorian England. Eventually, her conscience got the better of her. She read the partial MS, liked what she saw, and decided to take a risk. She gave me a modest advance ($6,000), and marching orders to finish the damn thing. When the book was published in 1977, she backed it with fire and passion. A lot of worthy books are published and disappear. A Rumor of War became a national best-seller and received universal rave reviews on its own merits, but it owed no small measure of its success to Marian’s excellent editing and her fervent support.
She and I remained a team for next eight or nine years, through the publishing of my first two novels. We had fun working together, playing together as well. We got drunk a couple of times, she wined and dined me at posh restaurants like (the now closed) Lutece. Looking back, I think I was a little bit in love with her; she might have felt the same toward me, which complicated our relationship — we were both married. I sound that intimate note because when we parted company in 1986, our professional divorce had the aspect of a bitter marital divorce. In time, we smoothed things over, metaphorically kissed and made up. Marian left Holt to start her own imprint, Marian Wood Books, at G.P. Putnam’s Sons, working with internationally acclaimed authors like Sue Grafton, Philip Kerr, and Hilary Mantel.
In her later years, she became something of a recluse, working out of her home on the North Fork of Long Island. We stayed in touch, off and on. She phoned me in 2008 with news that her husband, Tony Wood, had died. Gradually, however, “off and on” became more off than on. In late April, I had a dream about her, the details of which fled my mind as soon as I woke. But I had a feeling that I should call or write her and find out how she was faring in the pandemic. Less than a week later, I got an email from her niece, Nina Eigerman, telling me that Marian had stopped eating and appeared to be near death. The coincidence with my dream was eerie. She wasn’t afflicted with the Corona virus. Her condition, Nina went on, was one of general decline.
“She fell at home about a year ago, and could no longer manage the steep stairs in her Greenport home,” Nina wrote. “I think she hated that. And she took the deaths of some of her key authors, Philip Kerr and Sue Grafton, quite hard. They also led to her being pushed out of Penguin, despite the success of Fowler’s last novel. Without her work, and limited in her movements, I think she was a bit adrift. Her circle got smaller and smaller, and I suspect it just didn’t seem worth it.”
Another email arrived on May 3, informing me that Marian had passed the previous night, age 82. Nina wrote that Marian had a copy of A Rumor of War at her side table. “I thought you would want to know that she kept it close until the end.”
I was touched, and I was heartbroken, picturing the young, vibrant, fiery woman I’d known going gently into that good night.
Your memorial to Marian is very beautiful, Phil.
Thought you might like happier musings
The Cardinals, Stan Musial and God
It was cold, it was May, and my dad had a rare day off. We dressed warmly, took a glove and ball, rode a few trains and arrived at Wrigley Field. Somehow, my father got seats right behind the dugout. It was odd, because my father was a life long Sox fan and had absolutely no interest in the Cubs. In truth, no one back then, seemed to be Cub fans in Chicago. The White Sox played baseball and the Cubs were a baseball team that played during the day and never seemed to win or even be in the mix for a playoff spot. When our Westchester baseball league took us all to a game during the season, it was almost always the White Sox. Our Divine Infant Grade school had only interrupted school on the intercom for three things, the random nuclear air raid drill, the announcement of the selection of Angelo Giuseppe Roncali as Pope John the XXII and the White Sox win over Dodgers in game one of 1959 World Series. Ted Klusewski hit 2 home runs and Early Wynn shut out the mighty Dodgers.
I remember how windy, chilly and devoid of people Cubs Park was. When I researched it, I found out there was about 5500 paid fans. My dad bought the scoring program and obligatory peanuts. He said, well today is history, Stan the Man will get his 3000th hit and we will see it. My dad’s National League team was the Cardinals. I was 11 and even then 3000 hits seemed outrageous.
Then, Pat Piper announced the starting lineups. If the Cubs were an uninteresting team, the giant green scoreboard and the amazing voice of Pat Piper were worth the price of admission. It was not only the husky, finely clipped enunciation of names, but somehow the names tumbled out with a reverb like an echo chamber. So, knowing his magic, he would wait between first and last name as the echo from each syllable penetrated the air.
Oh wait, what happened, some guy named Cunningham was playing first base. No this could not be, no Stan Musial and my dad took a rare vacation day and got box sears. My interest decreased exponentially in this low score game until the 6 th inning. Stan was announced as a pinch hitter with a man in scoring position. We stood and cheered while the crowd seemed rather uninterested. Of course, Stan came through with a line shot, never slowed at first base and slid hard into second. He was replaced and the ball handed to him. The Cards won 5-3 and I was now a NL Cards fan as well as White Sox fan, which would be heresy in modern day Chicago.
Time and life moved on. My amazing collection of baseball cards was wiped out by the great sump pump failure in our basement water explosion of 1961. A slightly dented Babe Ruth, a Big Ed Walsh and a Stan Hack were just part of the now invaluable collection turned into wet mush by the flooded basement catastrophe. Lost also was the complete 1952 Topps set with the invaluable Mickey Mantle rookie card. No more saving memorabilia.
In 1973, my wife and I flew down to Florida to visit my retired parents in their little Sarasota condo, right next to the Sarasota Causeway bridge. It was a great time, great food, a White sandy beach and even a celebrity tenant, Ceasar Romero. He had men coming and going at all hours of the night. Mom said it was poker games, but dad smiled and let us know that was not quite the truth.
We looked for a Sunday church, but dad said there was a 9 o’clock mass across the street at the Hilton Hotel. It was owned by Biggie Munn and Stan Musial. We walked across and into a conference type room that was holding mass. The road filled and suddenly, next to me was Stan Musial and his wife. He was tanned, chiseled and looked very powerful for a man barely over 6 ft. tall.
During Mass he was totally focused and reverential. He prayed head down and silently. After mass I said hello Mr. Musial. I never said Mr. to anyone, but I was intimidated. I wanted to say I saw your 300th hit, I’m a Cards fan, but no, tongue tied, introverted and awed. I stayed quite. He replied, but I do not remember what. I found out later he went to mass every day. If my God was good enough for Stan, surely he was good enough for me. It was not quite an instant epiphany, but it was the beginning.
I was very much in awe of Stan and yet never impressed by celebrities. Then, Our week was over. I could not wait til the next year to get some sun, seafood and visit the hotel again and maybe talk to Stan for a real baseball conversation with actual words. But, life is never as you dream. My parents could not afford the condo and their small apartment back in Westchester. My father got skin cancer on the nose and my parents sold the condo. My wife became pregnant with our first child, and my father would die two months before he was born.
My father was the role model a person could only hope for, honest, ethical, smart, self deprecating sense of humor and he would have been a great grandpa. He never made over 30,000 dollars and never weighed more than140 lbs. He taught me not to draw to an inside straight, Liberal Arts degrees are worthless, read everything you can, and never bet on sentimental favorites like Floyd Patterson vs Ali.And he took me to a Cubs game.
But, that single mass was the impetus that helped bring me back from years of religious indifference, avoidance and ambiguity. I found Stan Musial, the Cardinals and God, all ultimately as a result of a cold May Day at Wrigley Field at age 11. Role models, good ones, like fathers and even maybe a great baseball player are necessary, and important, especially if the messages are eventually learned, however many years later.
“Here stands baseball’s perfect warrior. Here stands baseball’s perfect knight.”—Quote inscribed on the base of Musial’s statue, attributed to former commissioner Ford Frick.
I loved this, except for the fact that I have been a Cubs fan since 1948. Did your Dad also teach you never to play cards with a man named Doc or eat a place called Mom’s?
She is fortunate to be so well remembered. A great payoff for a substantive and long friendship.
A life well lived is timeless.
While many of my students never seem to feel the same emotion as me from their reading of “A Rumor of War,” it was most likely because they couldn’t relate to the trauma we went through during our military service during the American War on Vietnam. For me, your writing about the here and now still elitists the same emotions as the first time I read “A Rumor of War.” I only wish there was more hope than sadness as we age out and see those who mean so much to us passing into the unknown, no matter what the cause. But that grief should not stop us from memorializing those who have touched us in so many ways.
You are unfortunately once again, the Officer of the Dead.