A Community of Writers: Paul Engle and the Iowa Writers' Workshop

Afterword

ink-marked pages and slink out. Back in my basement apartment I read and reread his harsh comments, finally concluding that the bastard is right. I slowly click a fresh piece of paper into my Royal portable and begin work on a serious idea I've had in the back of my mind for some time but have been afraid to tackle. A week later I submit the new story to Richard Yates. I wait a few days and make an appointment. When I enter his office he is crumpled in his chair, the picture of gloom. My story lays neatly squared on his otherwise empty desk. "Look," he says miserably, "I really don't know what to say to you." I swallow hard. "Sir?" "This," he says, patting my pages. "Well, it's ... uh ... it's ..." and he sighs ... "it's pretty damned good." His words have cost him dearly. The silence is awkward. "My last story was terrible," I remind him, hoping that will cheer him up. It doesn't. Richard Yates forces himself to tolerate me and in time we become almost friends. He drinks too much and makes himself sick, and loneliness stoops his shoulders like saddlebags. But he loves writing and doesn't know how to be dishonest about it. One day he starts a class by holding up a paperback copy of Catch-22 and ripping out a large chunk. "Look," he cries, tossing loose pages into the air, "I can tear out a hundred pages and I haven't changed anything . What can I say about a book like that? Class dismissed." "Well, hello! So very good of you to have come. Have you met ... ?" A seminar in modern fiction. Brian McMahon is discussing Catcher in the Rye. "Tell us, Mr. Salinger," he asks in his melodious brogue, "what do you think of this other Mr. Salinger's writing style?" I reply that I prefer a more muscular prose, that J. D. Salinger is too delicate for my taste, that it always seems like he is writing with a tweezer. "And," I declare, "you can't pick up anything really important with a tweezer." 268 M Y T H S & T EXT S "Ah," McMahon says, nodding his head appreciatively. "I see your point, Mr. Salinger. Like a diamond, for instance." The guest of honor turns to me. "You know, of course," he says with a wink, "that Engle means angel." R. V. Cassill cocks his head as I question a point he has just made to the class. "Tell me, Mr. Salinger," he asks with his courtly, poisoned sweetness, "have you read -" and he names a little-known story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. "Yes, sir, I have." Blind luck. "I see," he continues, undeterred. "And have you read ..." and he names an obscure story by Faulkner which, by wild chance, I have read the previous semester. He nods his large head sagely. "And how about ..." and here he recites an unfamiliar title in French. "No, sir," I admit. "I thought not," he replies. "It has yet to be translated into English . But had you read it, Mr. Salinger, you might have understood my point. No matter. Let us move on." "Well, hello! So very good to see you. Have you met Steve and Gretel Salinger?" A group of workshop students is dining together in the student union cafeteria. I make a somewhat vulgar remark to my friend Ellyn who surprises us both by throwing her glass of milk in my face. The cafeteria becomes quiet. I smile and dry off, reminding myself that revenge is a dish best served cold. The next day, in response to a radio advertisement which seems heaven sent, I mail in a check for $3.95. A week later I receive a notice that a package awaits me at the post office. The carton seems far too small, but when I get it home and carefully pry loose the lid, there they are, packed together like a giant yellow Easter confection. Live baby chicks. Three blessed hundred of them! S T EVE N D. SAL I N G E R 269 Ellyn is in class. Her apartment is on the ground floor of a sturdy old house that faces Dubuque Street. I slip around to the back, ease open a window, insert the carton and gently shake its contents onto her living room rug. I return to...