Sheâs not a nice person, Iâve decided, narcissistic and politically too naive for a grown-up woman. On your recommendation Iâve just bought Shirley Hazzardâs The Transit of Venus and cannot wait to start it. Then Iâll go back to Italian novels, to keep the language up. Iâve bought two season tickets for the concert series; perhaps when you get back here we can share them.â
May Brodbeck was a philosopher of science, pushed up the demanding administrative ladder because of her calm, steady, logical way of thinking, and her objective but kindly treatment of everyone with whom she dealt. After years of enduring âthe exhausted evenings,â she retired, went to the West Coast, bought an apartment, and, a few months after settling into it, took her life.
The other two letters were from Esther Senning, a longtime friend of my husbandâs from the years they spent in Ithaca at Cornell University. Esther lived in a partially restored farmhouse in Voorheesville, near Albany, when my husband and I and our children lived close by. We visited the Sennings on Sundays and watched their four children grow up along with ours. Her husband, Bill, a New York State official in the Conservation Department, used to entertain the children by standing on his head at the age of fifty. One day an aneurysm burst in his head; he has spent the rest of his life in a nursing home. Only a small portion of his former physical and mental capacity survives.
Esther raised and educated her children, visited Bill once or twice a week, and sometimes, with help, brought him home for the weekend. She was a gallant, lonely, cheerful woman who loved cigarettes, music, art, and literature, but the Fates (perhaps more accurately the Furies) gave her no peace. One of her sons fell deeply in love, married, had a child, and then was deserted by his wife. He lived alone near us, in Gaithersburg, and called once to arrange a date for dinner. Before we could meet, he climbed on his motorcycle, left his helmet at home, and drove at full speed into a wall. Esther mourned him quietly. A short time later she developed cancer of the mouth, refused the operation that would have disfigured her face, accepted less radical chemical treatment, and went on living alone with her affliction.
On January 27, 1977, she wrote to me in Washington from her farmhouse in Voorheesville: âAnd now the news. The cancer is gone or arrested. I can hear again. Iâve got up off that couch and am able to take care of myself, even drive. Iâm pleased about the last two, but oddly enough, Iâm not so sure how I feel about being rid of the cancer. Itâs like having to die twice. I had accepted it when I declined âadequateâ surgery, figured Iâd had seventy pretty good years and was ready to settle for that. And the kids had come to terms with it, even to Bertâs [her youngest son] bringing himself to say heâd like to make the pine box for me, which I said Iâd be very proud to be buried in. I felt as though I were attending my own wake, at least receiving last rites. And now we all have to go through all this again. I feel Iâve conned people into getting more than my share, or at least crept down and looked at my Christmas presents ahead of time.â
I wrote to tell her that, as literary editor of The New Republic , I often got duplicates of books. What sort of books did she enjoy these days? In February she wrote: âI like all of Faulkner and John D. MacDonald, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Adam Smith. All of Robert OâNeil Bristow and both of Richard Bradford. Merle Millerâs Truman thing, and Jane Howardâs A Different Woman . I like John Cheever, Janet Flanner, Kingsley Amis. Anthony Burgess confuses me, but Iâm willing to try him again. I liked Portnoy , couldnât stand the bloke who wrote Myra Breckinridge . Or Auchincloss.
âI wonder if the common requirement I have for books is
May Brodbeck was a philosopher of science, pushed up the demanding administrative ladder because of her calm, steady, logical way of thinking, and her objective but kindly treatment of everyone with whom she dealt. After years of enduring âthe exhausted evenings,â she retired, went to the West Coast, bought an apartment, and, a few months after settling into it, took her life.
The other two letters were from Esther Senning, a longtime friend of my husbandâs from the years they spent in Ithaca at Cornell University. Esther lived in a partially restored farmhouse in Voorheesville, near Albany, when my husband and I and our children lived close by. We visited the Sennings on Sundays and watched their four children grow up along with ours. Her husband, Bill, a New York State official in the Conservation Department, used to entertain the children by standing on his head at the age of fifty. One day an aneurysm burst in his head; he has spent the rest of his life in a nursing home. Only a small portion of his former physical and mental capacity survives.
Esther raised and educated her children, visited Bill once or twice a week, and sometimes, with help, brought him home for the weekend. She was a gallant, lonely, cheerful woman who loved cigarettes, music, art, and literature, but the Fates (perhaps more accurately the Furies) gave her no peace. One of her sons fell deeply in love, married, had a child, and then was deserted by his wife. He lived alone near us, in Gaithersburg, and called once to arrange a date for dinner. Before we could meet, he climbed on his motorcycle, left his helmet at home, and drove at full speed into a wall. Esther mourned him quietly. A short time later she developed cancer of the mouth, refused the operation that would have disfigured her face, accepted less radical chemical treatment, and went on living alone with her affliction.
On January 27, 1977, she wrote to me in Washington from her farmhouse in Voorheesville: âAnd now the news. The cancer is gone or arrested. I can hear again. Iâve got up off that couch and am able to take care of myself, even drive. Iâm pleased about the last two, but oddly enough, Iâm not so sure how I feel about being rid of the cancer. Itâs like having to die twice. I had accepted it when I declined âadequateâ surgery, figured Iâd had seventy pretty good years and was ready to settle for that. And the kids had come to terms with it, even to Bertâs [her youngest son] bringing himself to say heâd like to make the pine box for me, which I said Iâd be very proud to be buried in. I felt as though I were attending my own wake, at least receiving last rites. And now we all have to go through all this again. I feel Iâve conned people into getting more than my share, or at least crept down and looked at my Christmas presents ahead of time.â
I wrote to tell her that, as literary editor of The New Republic , I often got duplicates of books. What sort of books did she enjoy these days? In February she wrote: âI like all of Faulkner and John D. MacDonald, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Adam Smith. All of Robert OâNeil Bristow and both of Richard Bradford. Merle Millerâs Truman thing, and Jane Howardâs A Different Woman . I like John Cheever, Janet Flanner, Kingsley Amis. Anthony Burgess confuses me, but Iâm willing to try him again. I liked Portnoy , couldnât stand the bloke who wrote Myra Breckinridge . Or Auchincloss.
âI wonder if the common requirement I have for books is
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