Letters (98 page)

Authors: Saul Bellow

BOOK: Letters

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My dear friend Stephen Motika traveled with me to Chicago to help with the early stages of research. Brett Hool, Lindsay Alexander and, especially, Patrick “Memphis” Callihan transcribed endlessly and accurately. Patrick has additionally given yeoman service in securing photographic permissions. My freelance editor, Kristin Camp Sperber, was unfailing in precision and insight. Janet Biehl, my copyeditor, saved me from many a blunder. All those at Viking Penguin who have labored long have my thanks: Carolyn Carlson, Beena Kamlani, Amanda Brower, Shannon Twomey and Francesca Belanger. At
The New Yorker
, where an excerpt from this book appeared, I got to know the surpassing professionalism of David Remnick and Katherine Stirling.

Without the ferocious advocacy of Andrew Wylie and Jeffrey Posternak, agents to the Estate of Saul Bellow, this book could not have come to be. I am also grateful to their colleague Alexandra Levenberg, who cheerfully and expertly addressed issue after issue. Walter Pozen, Saul Bellow’s lawyer, has been an essential guide and occasional Dutch uncle. Good, wise, sharp-eyed Joel Conarroe read every blessed word of the proofs. To Philip Roth, a godfather to these pages, I owe incalculable debts.

I’d like also to thank Saul Bellow’s young daughter Rosie (cat lover, violinist, deep thinker) for her friendship, and for telling me off on one occasion, when I deserved it. To Rosie’s mother, the gifted and indefatigable Janis Freedman Bellow, who photocopied all letters leaving Bellow’s desk during the last twenty-three years of his life, I am boundlessly grateful: for her scholarly foresight, for the trust she has reposed in me, and for her warmth and wit in fair and foul weather. Were it within my purview to dedicate this book I would do so to J. F. B.

Finally, I want to thank Saul Bellow for the privilege of spending each afternoon of the last three years with him.

INDEX

Page numbers in
bold
indicate correspondence with individuals.

Abel, Lionel

absurdity

The Actual
(Bellow)

Adams, Alice

Adams, J. Donald

adolescence

The Adventures of Augie March
(Bellow)

completion and revisions

Dean Borok and

discussions about
Augie March

enthusiasm for writing

episodic nature

excerpt

publication of chapters

reviews

“The Adventures of Saul Bellow” essay

age and aging

coping with

death and

fatigue and

forgetfulness

old friends and

old men in novels and plays

thoughts on

Agnon, S. Y.

agnosticism

Air India plane crash

alchemy of writing

alimony

Alison, Barley

Alison, Michael

All Marbles Still Accounted For
(unfinished novel)

All The King’s Men
(Warren)

American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters

American Communist Party

American writing and writers

Augie March
and

Bernard Malamud and

discussion of
Invisible Man

distinct identity of

Ellison on purpose of fiction

exposing the seeming

Ames, Elizabeth

Amis, Martin

Anderson, Sherwood

Anne Bradstreet

(Berryman)

Anon
(journal)

Anthony, Joseph

anthropology

anthroposophy

anti-Semitism

Christopher Hitchens and

Ezra Pound and

Hannah Arendt and

Harvard Shop Club speech

Jerusalem Book Fair and

Jewish writers finding their place and

reviews of
The Dean
and

Ruth Wisse’s article on

Apple, Max

Arendt, Hannah

Army service

art

artistic principles

emergence vs. imposition of positions in

foundation of

non-definitive answers of

power of individual speech and

“prepared” attitudes and

value of

writers as prophets

Asher, Aaron

atheism

Atlantic Monthly

Atlas, James

Auden, W. H.

Auerbach, John

aging and illnesses

Bellow’s services to the arts award

Bellow’s seventy-fifth birthday

Boston University

discussion of Borges

divorce from Alexandra

each other’s writing

health, writing, and Israel

Kibbutz S’dot Yam

politics

stroke suffered by

visits to Vermont

Austin, Lyn

avant-garde
writing

Baldwin, James

Bard College

Barfield, Owen

Barfield’s judgment of Bellow’s novels

Bellow’s study of Barfield’s writings

death of

discussions of Israel

discussions of Steiner

discussions of writing

meetings with

Barshevsky, Yetta

Barzun, Jacques

Bazelon, David

anthropology

Bellow’s advice about writing fiction to

Bellow’s plans to meet with

discussion of reviews of their writing

discussion of
The Victim
with

discussions of politics and revolution

mutual friend Margaret

opinion of Bellow’s writing

Paris and France

reading, translating, and writing

remarks on Rome to

University of Minnesota

Beach, Joseph Warren

The Beacon

Begin, Menachim

Behrstock, Julian

Bellevue Hospital

Bellow, Adam (son)

affection for

college career of

conversations with

correspondence with

custody and parenting issues

infancy and childhood

visits with

Bellow, Alexandra Ionescu Tulcea

career in mathematics

divorce from

mentioned

Romanian family of

Bellow, Daniel (son)

affection for

bar mitzvah of

correspondence with

marriage of

mentioned

visits with

Bellow, Gregory (son)

childhood

college and

letter about alimony to

marriage of

mentioned

visits with

Bellow, Janis Freedman

doctoral studies of

marriage to

relationship with

Bellow, Maurice (brother)

Bellow, Naomi Rose (daughter)

Bellow, Sam (brother)

Bellow, Susan Glassman

alimony and child support issues

discussions of writing with

move to Chicago

relationship with

settlement payment

Belo, Abram (father)

arguments with

immigration and career of

money from

reaction to death of

relationship with

respect for

Belo, Liza (mother)

Bentley, Eric

Berghof, Herbert

Berlin, Isaiah

Bernick, Isadore

Berryman, John

alcoholism of

Bellow’s opinion of

children of

discussions of poetry and death

discussions of poetry and writing

friendship with

literary magazine work

suicide of

Berryman, Kate

Best, Marshall

bibliophilia

Billy Phelan
(Kennedy)

Birstein, Ann

Blackmur, R.P.

Blake, William

Bloom, Allan

death of

friendship with

illness of

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