The Cramoisy Queen: A Life of Caresse Crosby

9. Mind Over Matter

Mind Over Matter 108 108 9 MindOverMatter I n the summer of , Caresse told her longtime friend Constance Crowninshield Coolidge, Harry’s “Lady of the Golden Horse,” about two important changes in her life: she had set her future in the United States, and, to her delight, her heart had been claimed once again. With the sale of the Mill, she was without a permanent address in France for the first time in more than a decade. Her children’s plans and the political crisis mounting in Europe certainly provided incentive for an overhaul. But in a larger sense, Caresse was continuing in mode, nurturing both the ambition that fueled the Black Sun Press and the healthy lust that had jump-started her relationship with Harry Crosby.This time,however,she would create a more rural setting where she could invite writers and artists to work and play. Her new lover was very different from Harry except perhaps for his capriciousness . As Constance put it, Bert was “untamed” and “entirely ruled by impulse .”1 Constance feared that Caresse would want to marry him precisely because she found such behavior invigorating. Eighteen years younger than Caresse, Selbert Saffold Young—Bert—was a great-grandson of the first governor of Alabama. He had no gainful employment or particular accomplishments. He was broke. He dreamed of overseeing a large farm that someone else would buy for him. Caresse had formed romantic liaisons with younger men before she met Bert.Harry was six years Caresse’s junior, and Armand de la Rochefoucauld and other lovers were younger,though not by nearly two decades.Also,Harry andArmand had Mind Over Matter 109 had sizable bank accounts.Perhaps Bert was closer in circumstance to Jacques Porel, also Caresse’s junior, though not by so many years, and also dependent on Caresse for income.But what distinguished Bert most from Caresse’s former loves was that he lacked any understanding about why Caresse would want to run a literary press. Constance felt compelled to advise Caresse of the risk that she was taking. I can’t make up my mind what I think about your marrying Bert. He is very attractive & has the same elan vital which you have. But you are mentally far superior to him.What about your books & that side of your life. I am so afraid you will let all that slide if you marry him. But don’t darling.You must have something besides a physical life—because all that cannot last while the other does.2 While Caresse was hardly oblivious to the dangers of marrying Bert,she was unprepared for the compromises of middle age. Caresse met Bert in the summer of . She was in Hollywood, California ,having driven Polleen across country so that she could audition and take a screen test for a part in an MGM film. A stage mom Caresse was not. She does not bother to tell readers of The Passionate Years whether or not Polly got the job. Rather we learn that at this time that Caresse was cultivating her next author, a young, struggling writer, Tom Kromer, who had just gotten his first big break.His Waiting for Nothing was about to be published by Harcourt Brace.Beforeshe returned to the States,Caresse had been corresponding with Kromer. Now that she was in California, she wanted to meet him. It is difficult to imagine Caresse making an authentic connection with Kromer’s Depression-era classic on purely political grounds. Indeed, her claim to have been left-leaning since the late s was based on a skewed version of sharing the wealth, but with the wealthy still calling the shots. I believe I advocated a compulsory work week from nine to one Monday through Saturdays. Free enterprise, free education, free entertainment , from one to midnight. Picnics and parades on Sundays and lots of flags!3 In Caresse’s utopia, patronage remained a respectable venue for distributing money. The winter before she had sold the Mill, Caresse thought she could find a French publisher for Waiting for Nothing and an advance large enough for Kromer to get himself to France, where he could write his next book. When Caresse realized that she would be in southern California the following summer with Polleen,she tried to arrange a rendezvous with Kromer, Mind Over Matter 110 who was living in Malibu. Drawn to Kromer’s prose and politics...