Rob was teaching another six-week meditation course in a Taekwondo studio at the rear of our gym. It was the fourth session and began with Rob talking a bit about what we were going to do that evening.
At the beginning of our first meditation, he said, we should ask about an issue that concerns us. It could be anything, in any area – relationships, profession, family, money, whatever. The music he played was comprised of an orchestra of singing bowls and the beautiful textures of the tones made it easy to slip into a relaxed state. For some reason, I started thinking about all the people we have known over the years who have died. Not just family, but individuals in publishing with whom we worked. I thanked all of them for what they had done for us, and suddenly recalled a weird encounter in 1988.
Diane Cleaver was my first agent. She was a Brit, gay, whose name I got from the parents of an aspiring writer who lived in the same complex I did in Vero Beach. I was teaching English to hormonal 7th and 8th graders at the time and writing nights and weekends. Diane had just left her position as an editor at Simon and Schuster, had joined Sanford J Greenburger, and was looking for clients. I had just finished my first novel. It was 1978.
That first novel didn’t sell. Neither did novels 2, 3, 4 or 5. But Diane never gave up. I wrote, she submitted, and in 1984, Chris Cox at Ballantine Books bought In Shadow, my sixth attempt. After Rob and I got married, Diane became his agent, too. Periodically, she would send tips our way that were based on our interests, skills and location. Hey, you guys interested in this project? That project? One day she called and asked if we would be interested in working with Sheila Graham, who was writing a memoir.
“THE Sheila Graham who was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s mistress? THAT Sheila Graham?” I exclaimed.
An amused chuckle from Diane. “Yes, that Sheila Graham.”
Well, yes, we were interested. I was beside myself. I loved Fitzgerald’s work, had read everything he’d written, everything that had been written about him, his wife, Zelda, and about his affair with Graham. I read a biography about his editor, Max Perkins and about his take on Fitzgerald’s relationships with Zelda and Graham. I was so steeped in Fitzgerald and his screwed up life that the mere idea of meeting Graham prompted me to pull out all my Fitzgerald material and thumb through it again. I think Rob and I even watched Beloved Infidel again, the movie based on Graham’s book about her three and a half years with Fitzgerald. In the movie, Gregory Peck played Fitzgerald and Deborah Kerr played Graham.
So one morning in November 1988, we drove north to Palm Beach, to a condo or apartment complex, I can’ recall which – hey, this was 23 years ago – where Graham lived. We had made the appointment through a woman who worked for her. I got the impression that the woman was an assistant.
But when we entered the apartment, I realized the woman was her caretaker, a nurse or nurse’s aid. Graham was 84 years old, a small, frail woman in a wheelchair, her hair totally white, her glasses thick, riding low on the bridge of her nose. But there was nothing wrong with her mind, her memories. We had a lot of questions and she had the answers.
Graham met Fitzgerald in the summer of 1937, when she was writing her celebrity column, Hollywood Today, which she wrote for 35 years. She claims in her books – and when we talked to her – that they fell in love instantly. At the time, Fitzgerald was still married to Zelda, who was institutionalized, and was writing for Hollywood to pay for Zelda’s hospital bills and his daughter’s school bills. They lived together – he, Sheila, and Fitzgerald’s alcoholism were constant companions.
During our conversation with her, she showed us a few pictures she had of herself and Fitzgerald, and said that other photo albums and letters were being sent to her, that we would have all of it at our disposal. The pictures were faded to sepia tones, but showed Fitzgerald as a kind of dapper Gatsby, and Sheila pretty much as she looks in this photo:
I asked her about the feud between Hemingway and Fitzgerald. It’s alluded to in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, where Hemingway expresses his dislike for Zelda. Sheila mentioned it and said that Fitzgerald always felt inferior to Hemingway. This has always struck me as ridiculous. Fitzgerald was the better writer, with the soul of a poet possessed of the ability to delve emotionally into his characters’ lives, even into those dark pockets where all the demons live. Hemingway, I think, was a closet misogynist, Mr. Macho Man – I hunt, I kill, I take trophies, and – bottom line – I don’t like women very much.
I remember that Sheila’s living room smelled of sickness, a faintly floral aroma that isn’t at all pleasant. It reminded me she was 84, at her Uranus return, an astrological cycle where that planet returns to where it was when you were born. It’s the age of sudden death – metaphorically or actually – where you either accept where and who you are or choose to pass on.
Many years later, I asked Hemingway’s niece, Hilary, about Fitzgerald and Uncle Ernie. She didn’t know either man, but since she and Andy Garcia have written a script about Hemingway’s final days in Cuba, she has access to all the family files and memorabilia. “I just want to be done with him,” she said. “I don’t care who was the better writer. That was decades ago. I’m living my own life.”
And so, apparently, was Sheila Graham. Several days after we met with her, she died of congestive heart failure.
See what happens when you meditate?
Just linked in here from a comment on another blog. How does one tell their Uranus return?
It’s when Uranus returns to the house and sign where it was when you were born. Since it takes Uranus 84 years to make a complete revolution of the zodiac, it happens at age 84. A solar return happens each year on or around the time of your birthday. A lunar return happens each month. A Saturn return happens 3 times if you live into your 90s – usually around the age of 28/29; then between 58-60; then around age 90. These are astrological cycles, important milestones. Thanks for stopping by and hope that helps!
What a great post, nearly missed it as my computer decided to die. Amazing what stories can come back to life through meditation – though I can’t compete with the interesting company you have kept!
wow, what a story! thanks!
p.s.
I don’t think that Gregory Peck was the right person to play Scott Fitzgerald. Just my opinion.
I’d have to see the movie again. But you’re probably right about Peck.
Hi Trish,
I think you and I often travel on the same mental wave lengths. I too read everything Fitzgerald ever wrote and all the biographies and also that whole group of writer – and then about Zelda. All of this was years ago so his writing is no longer fresh in my mind. However, I just bought a Kindle because I want to create for the Kindle and figure I have see what the result will look like. There are a ton of free books you can down load so my first free download was Fitzgerald’s, The Far Side of Paradise. I had forgotten that it takes place in Princeton so now that I am living here, it is fun when he mentions the spots he went to way back in the 1920’s. I’m reading it slowly, and it is a brand new book for me. So wouldn’t you know – you post about Fitzerald! How cool is that!
XOX.
Adele
What sign are you, Adele?
Leo – the 12th – Aries Rising – Moon in Virgo
I enjoy when you write about “the writing process”.
The stories behind the story have always interested me.
Too bad she rode the Uranus wave out of here, and we are left with a bit of a mystery.
I was sorry that she rode out on that wave. The project would’ve been fun.
This is wonderful stuff! I love it. Like Nancy, I was hormonal when we did TGG at school. I am sure it all looks different at middle age.
Your meditations are like 6 month world trips, and those are THE MOST FUN! 🙂
6 month world trips! 🙂
What an interesting story! Now I will be obsessed with this story and will have to find out all the details of Fitzgerald’s life. It has beeen eons ago that I read The Great Gatsby – I think I was a hormonal middle-schooler, in fact. Nothing that interesting has ever happened to me when I meditate. But now I’m intrigued.
yes, and what about the rest of the story? graham’s early life is certainly fodder for an incredible film – what strength and perseverance she possessed – what an amazingly intriguing story and experience for you all! speaking of which, i assume that you all have begun your own autobiography/ies? of hemingway, trish, i dare say he wasn’t as much a closet misogynist as a flaming one – to me, anyway – but an intriguing figure nevertheless – and as cj mentions, a tragic one – now, am anxiously awaiting the release of garcia’s hemingway and fuentes movie this year [or next] – at least, i’m assuming it’s still to be released – what a movie that will be!
a great post and one which sends me now off to amazon to grab beloved infidel for my stacks!
So….as Paul Harvery always said….what about “the rest of the story”? Did you get to write any of her memoirs even though she died? What an absolutely amazing and thrilling encounter; one to never be forgotten! For some unknown reason, BELOVED INFIDEL has always struck a chord of familiarity with me that I’ve never quite been able to bring to the surface. Uncanny sensations. I have a similar response when reading anything by or about Papa Hemingway: a tragic figure under any circumstances; self-absorbed and unstable. But the meditation with the singing bowls, WOW! I have a CD of the singing bowls, and it is powerful stuff for meditation. Such a high frequency. Takes the mind to often strange and exotic and unespected places and spaces, always magnificent. Great, great post. I envy you meeting Graham.
Nope, we didn’t get to do anything with her story.