What I mean can be summed up, I think, in Michelle Latiolais’ introduction to John Williams’ recently reprinted (thanks to the New York Review of Books) novel Butcher’s Crossing. In her opening paragraph, she reflects on her meeting of Williams:

In 1981 I began my graduate studies with John Williams at the University of Denver, where he had taught since 1954. After my first workshop, he came to my office — almost completely obscured by the stack of books he carried; he was not at all a tall man — and he set them on my desk. “Ignore all of what you just heard and sat through. Read these authors. They will be your teachers. You’re a writer who can’t be taught, who has to figure it out on her own.”

She goes on to say, being dumbstruck by Williams’ move, “I was used to simpering in doorways during office hours until a professor deigned to look up from his papers and acknowledge me.” This was, despite Williams’ admission that Latiolais “couldn’t be taught” and should instead look to other authors for tutelage, was a mentor presenting himself. It was him bringing her in to some private circle, baptizing her with a certain friendship that many of us don’t get to experience. Many of us are, instead, those simpering in doorways waiting to be noticed but never truly acknowledged.

I’ve had some great teachers along the way, people I call my mentors but who never truly were that exactly. In my undergraduate studies I had Arthur Athanason, an animated and passionate man who loved literature and, particularly, theatre and playwriting. Often he would work himself up so thoroughly that he, despite his small stature, would get red in the face and scream at his enthralled audience; “People! It means she was fucking the aristocracy!” or “If you haven’t read it, people — please, treat yourself!” or he would simply jump on his desk and act out an equine orgasm from Peter Shaffer’s Equus. No one could simultaneously play both Stanley and Blanche from A Streetcar Named Desire like him. He was not a professor you could fool, especially when it came to emotion, and he was never an easy ‘A’. I had Dr. Athanason for two courses, Introduction to Creative Writing and Playwriting; he was also my thesis advisor.

But despite the long hours of work I put in for him and the many hours I spent in his office talking about my writing, I never felt like he had a real interest in me. As soon as I left his office, it was over. I never felt a real kinship with him; after all, it was me who sought him out. He was an institution in himself, someone who you would definitely have heard of had you took the creative writing path at my alma mater. His classes were always full, always with a waiting list. But after I left my university, I never spoke to him again as it didn’t really feel like my place. He died a few years ago from pancreatic cancer and that was that. I wish I could have spoken to him before he died, or even attended his funeral, but then again… who was I?

I thought about Dr. Athanason recently because I’ve been thinking about this idea of having a mentor for a while. After a couple of drinks one night, I decided I would seek out his one book on Amazon: Endgame: The Ashbin Play. This book is a short thesis on Samuel Beckett’s play Endgame, and since I’ve only just received it I have yet to read it. Flipping through the pages, however, it feels like it might just be a compulsory overview of the play with some analysis — the general academic treatment. But I hope against hope that it produces some nuggets of Athanason’s wisdom, his incredible emotional intelligence, and perhaps some of his verbal foibles imploring you to “treat yourself.”

In graduate school I worked closely with another professor, an accomplished author, Stephen Wright. Wright is the author of a number of “cult” books (meaning, although he’s incredibly talented, no one ever really noticed) including Meditations in Green, M31: A Family Romance, and The Amalgamation Polka. Here is another case in which I sought out the person who I felt might make a good mentor. Wright is a cool, counter-culture kind of aging-rebel; always clad in a leather biker jacket, tinted glasses, and a baseball cap, complete with hand tattoos and facial piercings. Picture this on a man who could be a grandfather. He always had disparaging things to say about the publishing industry or critics, not in a way demonstrating bitterness necessarily but more with a realist-cum-defeatist attitude. He was right about most stuff, unfortunately, and he turned me on to some really great authors. To say he didn’t have a huge effect on my writing would be a complete lie; without him, I wouldn’t be even close to what I am capable of today. However, it’s over now. Wright’s telephone number is in my contacts and has made the transition from three different phones. But I won’t ever call him. I just don’t feel like I should.

Dr. Athanason would probably say I’m in search of a father figure, of a literary father figure, and maybe he would be right. But it didn’t work out with him nor did it work out with Wright. There’s some disconnect with these people. Like my experience with Athanason, I had two classes with Wright and he was my thesis advisor. But after all was finished, after I matriculated, those relationships ended. I understand that teachers have a difficult time truly connecting with students, after all they have so many pass through them over the years. And maybe neither of these men saw the spark in me, or saw what they felt to be the spark, or maybe neither of them had the time, the energy, or the desire to pass anything on, to help be a part of the next generation. I wrote a one-act play once for Dr. Athanason saying all this, pitting a young writer against an aging professor who never really gave him notice. “Look at me now,” the young writer was eventually able to say, on the eve of his success. “You ignored me then but now you can’t possibly ignore me.” Athanason saw right through this, as I knew he would, and he said to me, “So did you say what you had to say to me?” I did; it still felt like it fell on deaf ears.

On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner is a book I revisit every couple of years because it’s so powerful and speaks to who I feel I am as a writer. The introduction to this book was written by Raymond Carver, a writer who needs no introduction himself. One passage that strikes me, and easily accompanies the aforementioned connection Michelle Latiolais had with John Williams, is when Carver narrates his experience meeting and studying under Gardner:

Gardner had become aware of my difficulty in finding a place to work. He knew I had a young family and cramped quarters at home. He offered me the key to his office. I see that gift now as a turning point. It was a gift not made casually, and I took it, I think, as a kind of mandate — for that’s what it was.

Picturing this, Raymond Carver getting the key to John Gardner’s office, is almost heartbreaking. Did Gardner see something in Carver that Carver had yet to see in himself? Why Carver? This was, mind you, before Carver had really done anything — he was just starting out. What did Carver have or what did Gardner see that has always felt so distant from me?

Things are much different now. University English and writing programs are huge, there are so many of them, that the idea of a professor seeking out a student in need is diametrically opposed to what reality can offer. If you’ve yet to read it or it fell under your radar, take a look at the recent article We Need to Acknowledge the Realities of Employment in the Humanities by Peter Conn in the Chronicle of Higher Education to see just how awfully unwieldy life has become in academia for the professor and student. While this article doesn’t touch on my subject necessarily, I think it paints a pretty good picture of why almost no professor in academia has time to really mentor any particular student anymore. And though academia probably won’t hurt the aspiring writer, it’s a much colder place overall than the previous examples I’ve given seem to convey of times past.

I’ve found my own way. I once thought I wanted the life of a professor in which maybe I could provide mentorship to a student and live the “easy” life of a college teacher. But if my time spent in academia has taught me anything, if Conn’s article has pointed out the realities, and if the frightening idea of the insulated academia-infused writer who writes only about being a writer hasn’t scared me away, I think it’s probably best for myself, and for my work, to stay away from that life, to live like one of the regulars, and to be true to myself. I can just be my own mentor.

Related posts:

1. Stoner by John Williams

The prices for books at the book fair are outrageously low, and since I stick mostly to paperbacks I was able to acquire a considerable haul for only $16. But there are people who go there with dozens of bags, people who bring little wagons (I’m surprised I saw no wheelbarrows), and people who fill wine boxes until the books are spilling over. And the aforementioned retailers, well, they and their overflowing collections, stuffed duffels and canvas sacks, are everywhere. The cheap prices and the vast number of titles call to the bibliophiles, and if you attend this book fair you’ll be face-to-face with the ravenous humanity of all those who think books are worthwhile.

The book fair is an excellent place to people-watch; consider a hot and stuffy high school cafeteria on a summer night, over 100,000 books, and hundreds of people, many so absorbed in their search that they have no qualms with backing their rear-side into you, knocking you over with a bag of books without uttering any apologies, or forgetting that because they are attending a large event, with hundreds of people, in a stifled cafeteria, they might want to shower beforehand. There are books that everybody seems to want — before we arrived, B’s mother (hi Bonnie!) asked us to keep an eye out for Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife; throughout my time at the book fair, I encountered a handful of people wanting the same book. At one point, two different women asked one of the book fair volunteers, almost simultaneously, if she had seen that very title. And then there were books that nobody seemed to want. I have never seen so many copies of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections in my life. There were so many copies, both hardcover and paperback, I almost considered buying one myself (almost).

My own personal haul is eclectic, I think, as even though I told myself I could spend whatever I wanted, however much it took, I held back and only got what I thought I would really need and really read. Responsible, no? But I have to admit to you that I purchased three different copies of Moby Dick; I couldn’t help myself. One copy, in my defense, is going to be tore up and have its pages lacquered to the top of our coffee table. The other two, though, will reside on my shelf next to my other vintage copy of Moby Dick, donated to me by my own high school English department some ten years ago when they were clearing out their storeroom.

Keeping with the Melville theme, I also picked up The Portable Melville; this book contains pretty much everything Melville wrote besides Moby Dick, including Typee and Billy Budd, as well as stories and poems and personal letters and more. From another of my favorite authors, I bought All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy; those who know me know I love McCarthy and it may come as a surprise that I haven’t read this, one of his most famous books. I admit, I avoided Pretty Horses for a while as my writing mentor, Stephen Wright, once referred to the novel as “Cormac McCarthy lite.” Despite this prejudice, I think it’s also good to hold off on reading every book by your favorite authors and maybe save some for later; I haven’t read any of the Border Trilogy (of which Pretty Horses is included) nor have I read No Country for Old Men. That leaves me a couple books for the years to come, giving me a chance to continue to explore, for the first time, McCarthy’s oeuvre.

I picked up a few more modern books with Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres, a novel that retells King Lear but on an Iowa farm and has been recommended to me a number of times, as well as Lorrie Moore’s Birds of America. I remember once sitting in the Barnes & Noble in Union Square, killing time before class, reading from Birds of America. Keeping with the ladies, I also bought an excellent vintage copy of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, a book all of those interested in post-modernism should read, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. I haven’t read much Morrison, only Beloved, but I’ve heard such great things about The Bluest Eye I couldn’t leave it.

Speaking of the bluest eye, I purchased Richard Ford’s The Sportswriter; I met Ford once when he came to speak to my writing class in undergrad (he attended my alma mater) and dude has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen; he was a dreamboat. I was excited to get Grendel by John Gardner; I’ve heard so many good things about this book and I love Gardner’s how-to book On Becoming a Novelist, it was a perfect acquisition. I can’t give any reason why I haven’t read this book before. Another good buy was Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird; Being There was given to me a few years back by my friend Rachel and I flew through that novel in a few hours. Here’s hoping Kosinski’s seminal World War II novel is as powerful, painted with his own brand of dark humor, as Being There is.

As a Faulkner lover, I can’t pass up a good vintage copy of one of his books and at this particular outing I was able to get a fabulous condition As I Lay Dying; I love this novel and it’s actually quite strange to me that I didn’t already have it. If you haven’t read Faulkner, or you read The Sound and the Fury and struggled, give As I Lay Dying a shot. Then you’ll see why Faulkner is one of the best authors the US has ever had. From the same period, I got Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood. Barnes is an author whom I’ve never read, and I say that with my tail between my legs. This book has been on my list for a few years now and I think it pairs well with As I Lay Dying and To The Lighthouse, and certainly I anticipate seeing shades of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Gotta love the expats.

Finally, we have Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way. Yes, another author who I am sorry to admit I’ve never read. I could not let this copy of Swann’s Way lie; it is a beautiful vintage hardcover, Modern Library edition. The dust jacket is still in great condition for its age and the pages have yet to brown. I’ve been meaning to read this for years and I can’t wait to tear into this copy.

Overall, a great collection of books for a very small pittance. I love book fairs, despite all the people, and if you’re in the Chicago area and are only now being introduced to this annual book fair, make sure to put it on your calendar. The book fair is always the first weekend in August. Maybe I’ll see you there next year.

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