Only artistically, that is. In down-to-earth realist and material terms, of course, life is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and has everything to be said for it. But then life ends, while art persists for at least a little while longer.
Are you worried about the Great Pretender? I mean that high-end bingo caller who occupies pole position in the GOP? Every few years the Republicans feel the need to valorise an ignoramus (you may remember Joe the Plumber). They like the fact that their new champion, that trafficker in beefsteaks and dud diplomas, has no experience and no qualifications; if he wins, the first-ever political office he will hold is the leadership of the free world. Until recently, he was no more than a reasonably good sick joke. But I’m afraid we’ll have to keep a pained and rheumy eye on him for a little while longer.
I saw Trump in the flesh just once, about fifteen years ago, and Elena and I had an excellent view. It was at a tiny airport in Long Island. He walked very slowly from plane to car (not his plane, just some open-prop shuttle), followed at a respectful distance by two beauty queens wearing sashes: Miss USA and Miss Universe. He looked put-upon and longsuffering; the limousine was inconveniently distant; and the flatland wind was having a day at the races with his hair.
—————
As I said, I couldn’t write this novel back in Uruguay, but I think I can write it now – because the three principals, the three writers (a poet, a novelist, and an essayist), are all dead. The poet went in 1985, the novelist in 2005, and the essayist in 2011. The essayist was my closest and longest-serving friend and my exact contemporary. Whatever else it did to me and for me (a very great deal), his death gave me my theme, and meant, too, that Life could earn its subtitle. There was more room to manoeuvre, more freedom; and fiction is freedom. Life was dead. Life is dead, artistically. Death, on the other hand, is in this respect very much alive.
I’ll show you to your room. Or to your floor. This house used to consist of separate apartments. On every landing there’s a thick door with a chunky lock and a spyhole – separating private space from public. Around here we call your floor Thugz Mansion, with a zed. Or, more simply, Thugz. It got that name when Nat and Gus were both here. You can change it if you like but that’s what it says under your bell on the doorstep – Thugz. So notify any visitors.
We’ll be eating in around half an hour, and you’ll have time to wash or lie down or unpack or just get your bearings. Thugz consists of a bedroom with an alcove study off it, a sitting room, and a kitchen. And two bathrooms. Yes, two. In Cambridge, England, I lived in an eight-bedroom house with one (cramped) bathroom just above the groundfloor boiler. But this is the United States, after all. There’ll be a fair amount to say about what it’s like living in it, this country, America.
It’s basically a female set-up here: at mealtimes I join Elena, Eliza, and Inez – and frequently Betty (mother-in-law) and Isabelita (niece). My only comrade and bro, my only home boy, is Spats, who’s the cat.
And here he is. He’s a pretty decent little guy, you’ll find. And exceptionally handsome, according to Elena. When I accuse her of spoiling Spats, she says, ‘If you’re that good-looking, being spoiled is what you get.’ We’ll return to the question of looks: a profoundly mysterious and irksome human sphere.
Here he comes…Have you noticed how entitled cats seem to be? Entitled, and coolly self-sufficient. That’s the main difference between cats and dogs. That, and the fact that cats are silent.
Oh, thank you very much, Spats!
He timed that very wittily, don’t you think? Yes, Spats, you did. He won’t bother you much. If you’re down here and we’re all somewhere else and he’s complaining, he either wants to be let out or…I’ll show you where we keep his dry food and the tins – the Fancy Feasts. And you’ll be as pleased as I am to know that he has his shits in the garden.
He’ll be gone soon, Spats. He’s retiring to the Hamptons, where he has family. Elena has family there too – a mother, a sister, and (sometimes) a brother…Now I hope you won’t find your stay here wholly unstimulating. You and I will have our sessions, and you’re always very welcome at the table, but otherwise take this place for what it is – an apartment block. Where you have your own keys.
By the way, this final draft will take an incredibly long time – at least two years, I reckon. You see, unlike poems, novels are limitlessly, indeed infinitely improvable. You can’t finish them; all you can do is put them behind you…So for now, most afternoons, there’ll be an hour or two of what Gore Vidal used to call ‘book chat’, until you move into your own place. And then, too, you’ll be off and away for long stretches, and so will I. We can do a lot of it by mail. Let’s just see how we go.
The book is about a life, my own, so it won’t read like a novel – more like a collection of linked short stories, with essayistic detours. Ideally I’d like Inside Story to be read in fitful bursts, with plenty of skipping and postponing and doubling back – and of course frequent breaks and breathers. My heart goes out to those poor dabs, the professionals (editors and reviewers), who’ll have to read the whole thing straight through, and against the clock. Of course I’ll have to do that too, sometime in 2018 or possibly 2019 – my last inspection, before pressing SEND.
Meanwhile, enjoy
