Boston

I’m up in Boston for a couple of days having a marvelous time. I should have gotten fired ages ago. (I also am thankful for severance pay).

Today I read a paper at the American Literature Association on the modernist Kay Boyle, whom no one has heard of but who is wonderful. Oh, it felt so good reading, knowing the paper was good, seeing people nod and smile. And afterwards we Boylites met in another room to visit with Kay Boyle’s 5th daughter, Faith Gude, who has had a rather notorious life herself. She looked just like her mother, large dark eyes, fine bones, short, light gray hair. Feisty as anything (she lived in a commune here in Boston for 30 years, then left a couple of years ago and is writing a book on her experiences that apparently will make quite a stir). When it was time for me to go I went over to Ms. Gude and told her how happy I’d been to meet her, and she told me she’d liked my paper very much along with my sense of humor.

Heaven!

ANd I met people whose names I knew, Boyle’s biographer and others.

I will be submitting an expanded version of the paper in Sept. to one of the boylites who is planning to put out a collection of essays on her.

I stayed over in the Westin Copley Square (in the Back Bay area which is quite lovely, which I know because I spent 45 minutes being lost in it yesterday looking for the hotel). I shared a room with the session’s organizer, whom I knew through work with my former not regretted at all employer. She is currently on a committee I was managing. She learned that I had written an article about Boyle but never submitted it because I got divorced around then and left academia, so she had me submit it to her session.

We chatted like Girlfriends for hours. She says she wishes we lived on the same coast. She had some amazing stories. A happy one–she is southern, and an ancester had a planation. He didn’t marry till after the war. Before the war, he had a family, however, with a woman who was a slave. Everyone lived in his house, he educated the children, and they helped him manage the estate. A “yankee” soldier noted in his journal, which was published, his visit to this place and his encounter with a group of beautiful, intelligent, educated light skinned people who seemed in charge. After the war the mother and her children went to Ohio, and the paterfamilias married, a couple of years later, a “yankee” who had come down to teach newly freed slaves. He proceeded to have 11 children. Meanwhile, his oldest son in the first family built a plantation in Ohio just like the one that had been left behind. That family prospered. My friend’s family used genealogical resources to look for them, and a couple of years ago found them. My friend has corresponded with one, a genetic researcher in Detroit. The two families are going to meet this year in a huge family reunion. From the sounds of things, they are going to need to rent the state of Maryland for the weekend. Only in the US.

A sadder story–my friend was married in 1966 at the age of 22 to a handsome 26 year old naval pilot, also an English major like her. They had two months, then he went to Vietnam. She saw him again in Hong Kong a few months later, and a month after that his plane went down. He was MIA until 1990, when the government contacted her to tell her they’d found his body. They showed her gruesome pictures of bones–two days before she defended her dissertation. She never married again–never gave up believing he was alive. Never had children. She had his diary published–I just ordered it from Amazon–The Heart of a Man: A Naval Pilot’s Vietnam Diary by Frank Callihan Elkins.

Now I’m at my lovely sister’s house, where I was fed grilled scallops and sweet potatoe fries. We watched a fascinating series of British tv documentaries in which a group of kids were interviewed every 7 years, starting at age seven. We have pooped out having made it through the 21 years old episode. I can’t wait to see more and see how they turned out. (The shows continued until just recently. The director has died so there won’t be any more).

When my nephew M. opened the door my mouth dropped open. He has shot up even since December. He beat me to it: “My! How you’ve grown!!” Nephew T was home from college. The boys listened to my tales of Kay Boyle then played a game called “finger jousting” in which you grab each other’s hand, index finger pointing toward the opponent, and try to pull him to you. You aren’t allowed to use the other hand or kick, but everthing else is allowed. A very guy game. You could have your shoulder pulled out of the socket if you don’t watch out.

Tomorrow I go see Ben and fill my car up with stuff of his to help him move out. He is coming home to NJ for at least the summer since he will be working an internship in Manhattan.

My BIL wants me to come back and spend a week writing a mystery novel with him.