Time Magazine and the writers who actually made the cover, 1930s edition

As should be obvious, Time Magazine is a news source, most famous these days for naming their Person of The Year every late December and...not much else. Ask your grandfather what it was like to read Time back in the 1950s. It was something then.

To be on the cover was almost considered an honor years ago when the magazine started in 1923, only for the most noteworthy, notable, and noted individuals in the world. Politicians, religious figures, scientists, dictators, athletes, business leaders, and celebrities the world over all made the weekly cover. And, occasionally, so did writers. It's true! Writers were once famous and important.

Previously, we noted the famous authors, playwrights, and journalists--writers in general--who made the cover of Time in the 1920s and made writing seem important, briefly, during that decade.

So, now, we continue with the 1930s:


1.)  We now know the trivia answer to "What was Willa Cather's middle name?" Apparently it's Sibert, which I didn't see coming. If that's asked at your local bar trivia night, they're going deeeeeeep.

Willa Cather, August 3, 1931

2.)  Making his THIRD cover appearance in under a decade, Eugene O'Neill gets the sketched/drawn treatment, which keeps his typical boyish charm and broad smile apparent  vacant death stare that suggests you better not take a nap around him.

I'm not certain what blackmail material O'Neill had on the editors at Time to warrant THREE covers, but he wasn't done in years to come.

Eugene O'Neill, November 2, 1931

3.)  You know it was the 1930s because men wore pocket squares as big as their head and they could casually smoke a cigarette on the cover, as Noel Coward does here.

Sitting on an end table is timeless, though.

Noel Coward, January 30, 1933

4.)  It's quite possible everyone in the 1930s was simply miserable, as Gertrude Stein sees Eugene O'Neill's general unhappiness and raises him a mild depression.

Bonus points for the sweater vest, though. Stein looks like she's a costar to any Johnny Depp or Winona Ryder movie, circa 1992. She was ahead of her time. (See what I did there?? Ehh??)

Gertrude Stein, September 11, 1933

5.)  While not an author, Alice saw a resurgence in popularity some seventy years after it was first published by Lewis Carroll.

Seeing as it isn't an author, this is as enthusiastic as anyone related to writing gets on the cover of Time in the 1930s.

Alice in Wonderland, December 25, 1933

6.)  Next upon the cavalcade of joy general disdain for humanity is James Joyce, who in the coming years will not only take over Eugene O'Neill's penchant for dourness, but become the dominant face of writers appearing on Time.

Apparently the editors at Time wanted to make sure Americans immersed themselves in lengthy, bleak, gloomy works the whole family could enjoy!

James Joyce, January 29, 1934

7.)  Put up yer' dukes, because Upton Sinclair is ready for some action!

Upton Sinclair, October 22, 1934

8.)  I've always wondered why photos would show posed subjects staring off to the side. Did Virginia Woolf get distracted? Did she just think up another 2,500 word sentence or five page paragraph to write? What's going on here?

Virginia Woolf, April 12, 1937

9.)  I can't tell you why Ernest Hemingway's first appearance on the cover looks like it was a 10th grade art project, or why his face is skinny but his torso looks like he's pushing three bills.

Ernest Hemingway, October 18, 1937

10.)  William Faulkner really wants you to count how many variations on beige you can make out on his cover.

William Faulkner, January 23, 1939

11.)  Admittedly, at first I thought James Joyce's second cover appearance was him asleep while reading, which would have been very laid back of him.

James Joyce, May 8, 1939

12.)  You're probably saying, "Who now?" But regarded by some as "The First Lady of Journalism," Dorothy Thompson was so popular a writer that the Nazis kicked her out of Germany before America became involved, and Katharine Hepburn based one of her most famous movie roles on her.

Anytime you're irking Adolf Hitler is a sign your writing has power. It's a good thing.

Dorothy Thompson, June 12, 1939

13.)  Unless you're a theater snob, you just asked, "Who now?" a second time.

George S. Kaufman was all the rage in theater for a time. In the 1930s he won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for a drama and another for a musical he wrote. Years later, he'd win a Tony Award as director for Guys and Dolls.

This is all to say I just prepped you for that obscure Jeopardy! category someday.

George S. Kaufman, November 20, 1939

14.)  That's a borderline smile I see from Carl Sandburg! I think the lips are slightly curled upward! We're ending the decade with the slightest hint of happiness!!

Carl Sandburg, December 4, 1939

Where Dead Writers Reside, Part Eight: Truman Capote, Dylan Thomas, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Willa Cather,

It's October, and that requires obligatory Halloween-inspired posts. And nothing is more obligatorily macabre than looking at the tombstones of those who have died.

Every year we do this. Now through Halloween we'll occasionally post collections of tombstones to see where famous writers are hanging out today.

Today: Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Willa Cather


Truman Capote:

I actually have 1/2 of Capote's ashes, too!

Truman Capote got by in life on three things: a unique name, drug/alcohol addiction, and verbally clawing the eyes out of almost every writer that existed during his time. (Gore Vidal was a popular target. But it was Gore Vidal after all.)

Capote had a whirlwind life. Crazy parents, an early life being neighbors with Harper Lee, vagabond teen years, time working at The New Yorker, pissing off Robert Frost*, fame and notoriety, friendships with a cast of characters (like Andy Warhol), and a liver that was a beast all kept Capote going into his 50s.

Then the liver gave out. He officially died of liver cancer at the age of 59, although a coroner's report claimed there was a fantastic concoction of drugs in his system, too, which didn't help matters.

Tombstone Notes:
Capote's life was timid compared to afterlife. Shortly after dying he was cremated, with his ashes potentially split between two individuals--Jack Dunphy and Joanne Carson (the ex-wife of Johnny Carson). Except maybe not. Dunphy claimed he received all of the ashes, not half. Carson, meanwhile, said she kept her share of ashes in an urn in the room where Capote died.

When in doubt, claim you have some of the ashes.

In 1988, Carson claimed her ashes were stolen, along with $200,000 in jewels. Capote's ashes were later returned, hidden in a coiled-up hose in the backyard of Carson's home. A year later, the ashes were nearly stolen again during a dinner party. Cremated remains = hot commodity.

After Dunphy died in 1992, he was cremated as well. It took two years, but in 1994 Dunphy's ashes were taken with his own alleged stash of leftover Capote, and both scattered in various spots of water around New York.

All we really know for certain are two things: Capote bought a crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, where maybe no one is buried, and Dunphy had a memorial stone placed at one location where someone's ashes were tossed about.



Dylan Thomas:

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage our next literary alcoholic, Dylan Thomas!

Nothing much of note has ever really come from Wales, especially on the writing front. A Welsh person will rattle off twenty names for you, half of which sound like real names--but there's not a chance you've ever read anything by them. That is, of course, unless Dylan Thomas is mentioned.

Thomas wasn't a stellar student, and largely did nothing of note academically--yet he wrote poetry feverishly. In his teen years he gained some small popularity, and built a reputation off that. He also gained an appetite for smoking and drinking, and built a bigger reputation off those.

Writing doesn't pay terribly well, and it didn't pay much back in the 1940s and '50s. As a result, Thomas often embarked on reading tours to generate more money. It was on one of these reading tours of America that Thomas, while looking ill to everyone he encountered, went out drinking in New York City. After spending all night at the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, Thomas went back to his hotel and loudly proclaimed, "I've had 18 straight whiskeys! I think that's the record!"

He spent the next couple days still drinking, before falling even more ill. Eventually he ended up in the hospital and died within the week. Pneumonia was the official cause of death, with pressure on the brain and a fatty liver contributing.

Note to self: Quit at 17 straight whiskeys.

Tombstone Notes:
Wales isn't known for its writers, and it isn't known for stylish looking tombstones.

Thomas is buried in the over-spill graveyard of St. Martin's Church, Laugharne, Dyfed, Wales, under a simple white cross with garish writing from someone we can only assume just started out with amateur calligraphy. Although bonus point for trying to squeeze "memory" in diagonally on the cross and putting his name off-center.



Paul Laurence Dunbar:

Good news! Dunbar eschewed the trend of trying to kill himself via addiction!

The bad news? Death gets us all in the end.

Dunbar lived a short life, but a life packed with a vast amount of publications, from poetry to novels to short stories. Born of two former slaves--including a father who joined the Massachusetts 55th Infantry Regiment (the second all-black infantry in America's history, after the 54th Regiment portrayed in the movie Glory)--Dunbar had the stereotypical childhood all writers hope to have.

Unhappily married parents? Check.

Divorced parents? Check.

Dad dying while Dunbar still a kid? Check.

Off and running with the sad story, Dunbar didn't allow it to keep his ambitions down. By the age of 16, he started publishing poems. Yet, despite initial luck in being published, he still lacked fame. That is until William Dean Howells, editor of The Atlantic Monthly and author himself, gave rave reviews to the young poet.

Throughout his 20s Dunbar gained popularity, so much so that he toured Europe to read his work. But it generally went downhill after that. By the age of 27, Dunbar was diagnosed with tuberculosis and advised by doctors to go to Colorado for the dry air, and to drink whisky to alleviate his symptoms. (Oh, no...) Dunbar and his wife started to drift apart because of his dependence on alcohol (...not again!...), and they separated.

At the age of 33, his health damaged even further from his addiction to whisky (...this wasn't supposed to be about booze!...), Dunbar died, officially, from his bout of tuberculosis (...but alcohol won again).

Tombstone Notes:
Buried in his hometown of Dayton, OH, Dunbar's tombstone includes a plaque bolted to a giant, irregular boulder. On the plaque is a verse of his poetry written in what was called "Negro dialect" of the antebellum south.

The verse is about death, just to really drive the point home.



Willa Cather:

This time, I promise, a writer who didn't find friendship at the bottom of a bottle. I swear.

In fact, compared to most, Cather's life was downright homey and lovely. Born to two stable parents, her family initially lived in Virginia. Before her 10th birthday, with a father fearing tuberculosis running rampant throughout the region (hello, Paul Laurence Dunbar!), the Cathers picked up stakes and moved to Nebraska.

It's in Nebraska that young Willa Cather became affected by the sprawling land and unique personalities. As a freshman at the University of Nebraska, she intended to go into medicine and become a physician--but a publication of an essay in the Nebraska State Journal convinced Cather she could write. She'd end up graduating with a B.A. in English.

As the years passed, success found her. Short stories, magazine articles, and novels came forth, as did awards like the Pulitzer Prize. She never married, instead living with a female friend for most of her life, especially after moving to New York City.

Nothing major afflicted Cather as she aged into her 70s, although biographies note her health faded for nondescript reasons. Death isn't nondescript though, as Cather died from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Take THAT, alcohol!

Tombstone Notes:
In a great bait-and-switch, Cather was buried in Jaffrey, NH, in a plot beside her longtime friend. Why Jaffrey? Cather was one of the few people in American history who could handle stepping foot into New Hampshire often, and traveled to Jaffrey later in life to write in silence.

The tombstone includes a passage from her novel My Antonia: "...that is happiness; to be dissolved
into something complete and great."

Dissolve. Kind of ghoulish. But I guess "ashes to ashes, dust to dust"...




*Capote vs. Frost:
Capote, while young, largely unknown, and still working at The New Yorker, went to Vermont for vacation--yet he was violently ill with flu. Frost, while old, largely famous worldwide, and still writing poetry, went to the hotel where Capote was staying to give a reading.

Knowing he was from The New Yorker, the hotel manager convinced Capote to attend Frost's reading, which he did. After a short while, and feeling sickly, Capote stood up and started to leave the room. Frost, indignant, allegedly threw a book of poetry at Capote as he exited.

The next day, Frost contacted the editors at The New Yorker and asked, "Who the hell is this Truman Capote, anyway?"

Capote, later in life, described Frost as "the meanest man who ever drew breath, an old fake dragging around with a shaggy head of hair and followed by pathetic old ladies from the Middle West."

Admittedly, Frost did have one hell of a head of hair.

Book Review: O Pioneers!, by Willa Cather

This is part of the continuing series of random book reviews that'll be nothing like a New York Times book review. Gone is the ten thousand word analysis. Instead, here is a book review like you'd tell your friends.

The book: Willa Cather's O Pioneers!

Okay, sure, Cather has some issues with dialogue. A lot of issues with dialogue.

But she does write non-dialogue passages like this:
There was about Alexandra something of the impervious calm of the fatalist, always disconcerting to very young people, who cannot feel that the heart lives at all unless it is still at the mercy of storms; unless its strings can scream to the touch of pain.

And like this:
Emil was the one who trembled, through all his frame. After he left Marie at her gate, he wandered about the fields all night, till morning put out the fireflies and the stars.

And this:
Marie sat sewing or crocheting and tried to take a friendly interest in the game, but she was always thinking about the wide fields outside, where the snow was drifting over the fences; and about the orchard, where the snow was falling and packing, crust over crust. When she went out into the dark kitchen to fix her plants for the night, she used to stand by the window and look out at the white fields, or watch the currents of snow whirling over the orchard. She seemed to feel the weight of all the snow that lay down there. The branches had become so hard that they wounded your hand if you but tried to break a twig. And yet, down under the frozen crusts, at the roots of trees, the secret of life was still safe, warm as the blood in one's heart; and the spring would come again! Oh, it would come again!

It's like talking to someone who can't cook a turkey dinner, but damned if they don't make some fantastic pumpkin pie.

That's Willa Cather's writing style.