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Morton Marcus: Good evening everybody, this is Morton Marcus. And with those very clear, beautiful tones from the Chansons by Baudelaire- by Berlioz, we come to a very sad and a very special program on The Poetry Show. Tonight, I'm

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going to change our usual conventions for the show. We will not be talking about a poet tonight, we'll be talking about a prose writer, a person who Richard Jades calls one of the great writers of America, and that is the wonderful Gina

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Berriault who we've just been informed passed away very, very suddenly within the last few days. Gina Berriault, and the book that we will be reading from really is her collection of short stories, which is called “Women in Their Beds,“ which two

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years ago won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and The Pen Faulkner Award. She won many, many awards in her time, but she really began to emerge as a writer that she- of the stature she should have had only within the last two years. I'm

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here tonight with the wonderful novelist and short story writer and really, the- the local man of literature in Santa Cruz, James D. Houston. We were both friends of Gina's, we both knew her well, and knew her work well, and tonight we're going to

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talk about Gina and we're going to read from her work so that you will know the work of this extraordinary writer. Really an extraordinary writer, and possibly go out and get her work and if you love literature, her books should be in your library.

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Jim, welcome once again to the show. James D. Houston: Thank you, Morton. Real pleasure to be with you, though this the occasion is unfortunate but- Morton Marcus: Yes.

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James D. Houston: We have a chance to pay tribute to- to celebrate the work of a really wonderful writer, a friend of- a friend of ours but someone that I've- I've just admired and looked up to for the- the high standards that she always

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maintained in her- in her writing, a absolutely uncompromising master of contemporary short story. Morton Marcus: And you know that word uncom- uncompromising really, I think, gets to the heart of the Gina we knew as a

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person, the Gina we knew as a writer. She was absolutely uncompromising. She- one of the reasons she's not better known is she just absolutely refused to get any kind of publicity for herself, almost to a point I thought to a fault.

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James D. Houston: Especially- especially in this day and age when everybody's supposed to be a media hip, you know, and she was the reverse. She just was was- was very reclusive by nature and- and didn't feel- I think she absolutely didn't feel

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that- that an artist, a literary artist had to get out there and promote oneself. That wasn't her job, her job was to- was to write as well as she possibly could, and put her full attention on the prose, on the sentences, and- and let the work

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find its way. Morton Marcus: When did you become first aware of her? I'm sure this is before you knew her. James D. Houston: I did. Yeah. I- back in the early 60s, there

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was a wonderful magazine that used to come out of Sausalito called "Contact." I think t e first issue came out in 1960 r 61, and it ran for about f ur years. and some terrific wri ers were behind it. One of them as- was Kenneth Lamott, the fa

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her of Annie Lamott, and some o her writers up in the Bay Area. And Gina used to publish storie in "Contact" and I first c me across her work in an issue t at came out in 1962. There wa a story in there called "Wed ing Cake 12 Stories High“ and it

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had a picture of Gina and all her credits, and I just- I just ell in love with her work and followed her ever since. And then about, oh, seven year , I think it was 1969 or 7 , I finally had a chance to eet her, and we became friends.

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And so, you know, I've cherished the friendship, but it was ki d of a magical friendship becaus I had such admiration for her w rk way before I met her, she was always a kind of hero Morton Marcus: Her partner, which people don't know her

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partner for, gosh, more than 30 years was the great writer Leonard Gardner, who was a very, very good friend of ours and who wrote the immortal California novel “Fat City“ which has been released along with one of your novels as well as the California

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novels. and he also stood in aw of her and had tremendou respect for her opinions, An just her stances on things. mean, she was the artis standing on high like a beaco and the Berlioz that I selecte here, that clear, beautifu

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, singular voice really is wh t she represents. And I guess e should get a little mo e specific than that. She was- in the 50s she had alrea y produced books, short storie , several novels, and she w s really one of the first women

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James D. Houston: Well, back in the mid 50s, I think 1956, s voices in Americ which- what, that's over 40 years ago, she won the Paris Review Short Story Prize. And in the mid 50s, she was winning O

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Henry- Morton Marcus: O Henry Award James D. Houston: Prizes and Best American Short Story Selections and stuff like that. So she was- I mean, we're

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talking- that's over 40 years ago, and she was already recognized, you know, as one of the really high practitioners of the contemporary short story. Morton Marcus: The interesting part of it is what her short

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stories were about. She had an unbelievable range and if you out there could pick up this book, which is now in paperback called “Women in Their Beds, New and Selected Short Stories by Gina Berriault," B-e-r-r-i-a-u-l-t, you will find

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a person who speaks to the most subtle nuances of mood and emotions in characters. They are women, women confronting her mothers, mothers confronting her daughters, black men confronting ex-lovers, Washington fishermen who are crippled with arthritis,

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a young boy who inadvertently- a nine year old boy who inadvertently murders his 15 year old brother, or kills him I should say, a young girl coming of age. I mean, the the cast of characters is just amazing, and they all take on this

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threedimensional life that is, I mean, it's just awe inspiring for a writer. I think she really is the definition of a writer‘s writer. But for anyone who wants to read really fine literature which really ranks up there with Chekhov and Tolstoy and there-

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you just can't miss the stories of Gina Berriault. James D. Houston: When you say that she's a writer‘s writer, I think of something she once said in one of her rare interview appearances. You know, somebody said, Why- why- why do you do

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this? Why? What keeps you going? What's- what's- Why do- why do we write our stories you know? What's the what's the point of it all? And she said, ‘‘you write because you can't not write.‘‘ It wasn't about money, it wasn't about celebrity, it

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wasn't about fame, it wasn't about getting in the Norton Anthology, you write the stories because you can't not write the stories and that's the only reason, and that's- that's the way she came at it.

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Morton Marcus: I've got to say that when anyone who I've talked to just in the last day thinks of Gina, what they think of her doing is writing, because she was just writing all the time. I mean, to the point that it seems as though her life was writing.

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James D. Houston: Well, there's no question that was her life. I mean, she was a very reclusive person and- and obsessive too. She would hover over these stories, and write and rewrite and rewrite, and agonize over what to do with them, and

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whether they were finished. And I've talked to her, you know, she'd finished this story and it would take her weeks to figure out, you know, where to send it and she'd worry and brood because- that she lived- she lived for these stories, that

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was that was the whole definition of who she was and why she was among us. Morton Marcus: And you know, that's the other aspect of her work, I mean, her insight into human beings was- was amazing.

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But her writing, the selection of scene or mini scene within the stories, and the sentences. I know that you are a great stylist yourself, her sentences- you just wouldn't want to use any other word or one more word, they just seem to be laid down

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by almost the angels themselves on the page. James D. Houston: Yeah, yeah, that's true. Another thing you mentioned that Leonard Gardner‘s ‘‘Fat City‘‘ was- was one of the great California novels and a couple of years ago reprinted in

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this UC Press Series, California fiction. One of the things- one of the other things that drew me to Gina was the fact that she too is a California writer. She's born in Long Beach, and she spent her- most of her life here on the West Coast and many

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of her stories come out of this part of the world, which is not to say that she's a regional writer or a provincial writer, but she's one of these- the people- her home region fed her- fed her work, fed her stories, and she's, you know, a great

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tribute to the, to the rich literary abundance of the West Coast among other things, right. Morton Marcus: All right. Let's read some things by her, parts of stories and full stories. I know that what I would like to

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do, let's say 15 minutes of the hour, is read the story that in all her collections is ‘‘The Last Story‘‘ and it is very fittingly so-. And I know I've timed it so I know that's going to take me 14 minutes to do. Let's- let's get into other

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stories and see what we can get into by then. Jim, you lead off. James D. Houston: Well, I was looking at this story that- there's a new collection that came out just- just last month called ‘‘California Shorts.‘‘ It's a collection of short

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stories published by Heyday Press and- Morton Marcus: And you are in it, as I do believe. James D. Houston: By chance I happen to be in there too, but that's not why I want to read from it. I think it's a very

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good collection, it's- it's an- It's a unique collection because it's the only one that I know of that's in print right now, that focuses on the short stories that have come out of this part of the world. California is not often thought of as a short

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story country in the way that we think of the South. You know, the South has Flannery O'Connor and Eudora Welty, and- and a whole load of people who have written great short stories. And then New England has Nathaniel Hawthorne, and John Cheever, and

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John Updike, and a bunch of other short story writers, but California has a Gina Berriault, and Alice Adams, and Kate Braverman, and a whole load of people who are really, really good short story writers, and Gina's- Gina's right at the top

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of the list. And this California Shorts just came out, I thought I might read the selection that's in there. The editor of this collection is a guy named Steven Gilbar down in Santa Barbara and he went through a lot of- a lot of fiction, 22

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stories in here, and Gina's- the story by Gina, which is also from woman- ‘‘Women in Our Beds‘‘ is called ‘‘Wilderness Fire,‘ and this is what, about five or six pages, it shouldn't take too long to read. Okay?

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Morton Marcus: Sure. James D. Houston: Shall I proceed? Morton Marcus: Yes, sir. James D. Houston: WILDERNESS FIRE by Gina Berriault

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A wilderness fire was raging in the mountains east of Los Angeles, and a great brown cloud of smoke tinged copper by the sunrise lay over the desert in the small towns she passed through on her way to her mother. The first few miles she

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was alarmed under the cloud. Only in a nightmare could the sky be like this. Or was it this bad only because she wanted to turn back and the smoke gave her a good enough reason. If she wasn't going to be forced over to the side of the road by the

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highway patrol and interrogated as to why she was driving so fast in this smoke, she just might pull over on her own, under that long row of eucalyptus up ahead, under those towering, dry, lonely, gray trees, and bend her head to the

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steering wheel and sleep to put off the moment when she would embrace her mother, bringing her news from the world outside the pink stucco bungalow on the desert edge. She went past the eucalyptus row and passed the acres of fields planted with

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something she'll never remember the name for, even if you were told 12 times, past shacks far away at the end of dirt roads, past a huge, dusty fig tree branching out over the highway, past a black dog ambling along in a ditch. On the seat beside

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her the novel, untouchable, ominous, like an object stolen from a tomb, it slipped closer when she took a curve, and she hid it away with the side of her hand. The folded letter slipped out from the book and fell to the floor and it too slipped

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sideways. It was slipping close to the pedals and in another minute she could put her foot on it and grind it down. All those who practice this profession betray, no, not all, not the great ones, but maybe they betrayed too just because

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everybody said, "See how far they can see into the human heart." That didn't exonerate them in their own eyes. I have betrayed you. Your confidences, your soul, and I will regret it for the rest of my life. She went faster past the entrance to

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a trailer park. Above the hedge the trailer homes swept by with their green awning of rippled plastic. Oh thank god her mother didn't live in a trailer park, she almost wept imagining it. The heat of this desert edge was enough and to have to live in a

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trailer with all its dinky built-in things, with plastic flowers planted in tanbark by the doorstep, that was the end. She had always wanted to be rich, not just for herself, but for her mother too. And she had never got rich and never would,

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not the so-so actress that she was, and married, not now but long- not long ago to a man just as poor, though he was going to be less so now, because his novel might elevate him into all kinds of upper brackets. The scorched air, the dark cloud,

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were almost left behind. The tall, tall date palms, acres of them, she was passing had always seemed from some far reaches of the earth brought to a desert from deep swamps, and grotesquely lonely, out of place. She had told only her

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mother about how they looked to her. How else would- who else would see they wanted swamps and her mother had agreed they did look like prehistoric swamp plants out of their element, enduring. On the outskirts of the town where her mother lived,

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she slowed down past clapboard houses and stucco bungalows low to the ground, some in weeds, some in squares of very green grass, one with the same silver porpoise-shaped trailer out in the back, one with the lemon tree past the small stucco

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school, and now the pink stucco house, small, too box-like, but showy in this place because it had two stories. Before it a squat palm tree that never gave dates, just tiny yellow waxy droppings, and a midget fig tree, and in the back, towering

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way above the house, one lone palm. All around the yard a scalloped wire fence, a foot high, protecting the house, and the short dry grass, and the three trees from nothing. Oh mother, I had wanted an area glass house for you by a blue

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blue sea, say the Caribbean, lush plants all around with large deep green leaves, always with days of clear water on their surface, and birds, birds of miraculous plumage. She parked in the gravel driveway, stuck the letter into the book,

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and the book into her purse and swinging along very erect in high heels, purse slung over her shoulder, she went up the paved walk to the front door. For the moments of their embrace and the moments after her mother couldn't speak, and then she

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went on ahead leading the way into the kitchen, tossing her head from side to side with delight like a child. Her mother was bare legged, and clopping along artfully on backless wedge sandals. Her flowered cotton dress had once been her

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daughter's in an awful movie, but it had been expensive and was kept neater now than its original owner had ever kept it. Her mother's short hair was tinted a pink blonde, like a faint reflection indoors of the exterior of the house. In the

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four months since the daughter's last visit, the mother seemed to have not quite- the mother seemed to have got quite a bit older, or maybe it was the heat of the desert summer that shrinks the thin ones and expands the fat ones. Coming

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along behind her mother, she said ‘‘Mother, mother mother‘‘ just to herself, "if there was anything I did that made you get old, forgive me for that." ‘‘Penny, dear, shiny, bright Penny,‘‘ her mother said. And here in the dim kitchen, the

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striped curtains closed against the heat swarming of the windows, here where her mother turned to clasp her again, the daughter felt again how much she was thought about in this house. Her mother's face in the shade of the room told her again how

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brief was the time of their knowing each other, only 25 years so far, and told her again of the unknowable limits of the time left. There's a fire in the mountains if I smell of smoke, she said. ‘‘You brought me Chris's book,‘‘ her mother said,

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hands palm to palm under her chin, like a child praying at bedtime. Bless everybody, Amen. ‘‘Oh, yes, that's right‘‘ the daughter said, tantalizingly wagging her finger under her mother's nose, patience, patience. "You left so early,"

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her mother said, "shall I make you some breakfast?" "Never hungry till two," she said, "same as always, let's just drink a toast, some mineral water will do fine." "Is he happy?" her mother asked. She had been an actress and even got

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her name up on the screen in much smaller letters than the leads. She had always played innocence, girls from small towns, from farms, and now when she was called upon to express happiness, it came across like that of a girl who didn't know

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yet that happiness wasn't that simple. Her mother was a smart woman, but seeing her smile like that you couldn't guess how smart she really was. "Oh, he's happy, of course," she said, smiling at her mother, the same sort of smile from the

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backwoods. "A novel with his name on it, what else can he be but happy. He's living with a friend of his, I guess it's a woman, he just says friend at her or his apartment in New York, he's happy." "He says that?" "He says what?" "That

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he's happy." "If he says so he must be so," she said, coming out smiling from behind her hands, as if she had spread them over face only to rub away the soot or the dust or whatever that cloud of smoke has left. "He says he's going to write to

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you, you and he always had such a wonderful discussions just about everything from quasars to cucumbers. He says he's going to mail you an autographed copy with something like 'Love to Melody, whom I thank for giving birth to Penelope.'" "That's

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nice, but you're making it up." The daughter was wandering around the kitchen restlessly as if she'd come to the wrong house and was going to have to leave at once. She came to the other end of the long kitchen where there was a couch and a

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television and a sewing machine, and where on a table there were magazines, and a row of African violets, and little painted Mexican pots that had been hers when she was a little girl, a collection of sorts, and her mother brought over the misted

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glass to her there. "I made it up, and it's not nice," she said, "he admires you for just being you and he loves you. It's easy, you know, to love you. He'll just write 'To Melody, dear friend, all of my love.' Let's drink to that. If he gets

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to be famous, your copy will be worth a small fortune." But how little love, none at all, he had shown in his novel for her mother, she wasn't mentioned but what he had written about the daughter was to woo the mother beyond amends. They raised their

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glasses. "Chris has a good heart," her mother said. "Chris has a great heart," she said, "everybody's going to know that soon, not just you and me." But she couldn't drink because the ice cubes were making such a racket she had to set her glass

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down. "Sit down now," her mother said sharply. "Mother, it isn't me," she said. "The girl in his novel isn't me, he got it wrong, there's no resemblance whatsoever. I never gave him all that trouble and I was never loved, but the girl in there was

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loved. Everybody will think it's me. And it isn't me." "Where is it?" her mother asked, afraid. "Mother, he was always fascinated by women made of words. If you want to know their names, I'll try to remember. Emma Bovary, and Molly Bloom,

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and Brett and that girl who is mad over Heathcliff. Oh, the women in the flesh too, of course. But when he put me into words, he got me wrong, it's not me, mother." "Sit down," her mother said and the daughter sat down. "It's all made up," her

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mother said soothingly, sitting facing her daughter. "Everybody knows that, that's what novels are all about." "If I gave him trouble, mother," she said, "it was because he gave me trouble." "That's usually the way it goes," her mother said, stroking

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her daughter's arms down and down again along the long slow silk sleeves, "and nobody ever knows who started the trouble." "Mother, nobody can ever know what life feels like in another person. You only think you know, I never could know him, his

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desires for his life, his life in here," taking her hands away from her mother's to spread them over her chest. "And he could never know me, it's unknown territory, it's unknown in here, mother. I don't know myself. All I hear is the uproar." "Give me

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your hands," her mother said reaching for her daughter's hands again and holding them down. The daughter had been avoiding the mother's face. She had been looking everywhere, sideways and down, anywhere but at her mother, and now she

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looked at her mother face, at the slack cheeks, at the waiting fear in the eyes, and the ears through the pink curls seemed comically large, waiting. "Once I tried to kill myself," she said, and began to sob. She pulled her hands away and held

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them up, palms toward her mother, and a long sleeve slipped away from the wrists, exposing on each wrist, the thin, pale line of an old scar. They stood up at the same time and came together, clasping each other. She had betrayed this

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woman who had given her birth, betrayed this woman's hopes for her daughter to endure, endure against all the unsolvable puzzles life comes up with. She was taller than her mother, her mother over the past few years was getting smaller, and the

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daughter was wearing high heels, and her mother's face was pressed against her breasts, her tears wetting the blouse, and the nipples under the cloth. Long ago, her mother had told her that when she was newborn and began to cry, the milk

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seeped out at once from her mother's breasts wetting her dress, at once the mother and child were rooms apart. "Mama, I didn't die," she pleaded, "you see, I didn't die, I'm alive, I'm alive." But her mother would not let go and would not raise

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her head. With her arm about her mother she walked her out into the yard, because the broad desert light might force them to calm down and to endure. Even the tall palm they stood beside might force them to endure. Way far to the west, the smoke was

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like evening at the wrong time of day. Morton Marcus: And that story to me, really really shows the sensitivity to character and what goes on inside a character. It is really astonishing, again, the relationship that I talked

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about between mother and daughter here, really marvelous. James D. Houston: Yeah, yeah. It's the level of intimacy there is- is extraordinary. And you know the story- one of the- one of the definitions of the story- one of the- one of the features

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of a good short story, you're describing an episode and encounter that is somehow definitive in the life of the main character or the two characters who are brought together here and something really- something comes out of-

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she's ever- she's coming over to the mother's house to bring this novel by her- Morton Marcus: ex James D. Houston: -her ex-husband and in the course of

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doing that, something else comes up to the surface between the daughter and the mother that obviously has never surfaced before. And they have this moment of recognition and a really deep level of- of intimacy and that's you know,

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that's- that's the kind of thing you want to go on in a short story. Morton Marcus: And it's very hard to do. I would like to read before we take the break just one paragraph, another story, to

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show the insights that she has into characters and how she builds a character. And this is really just the first paragraph of a story called ‘‘The Science of Life.‘‘ But a lot of people out there will say, gosh, that's me in my depths, or I know that

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girl, I've seen her and that must have been what was going on with her. And it's just a description of a babysitter. James D. Houston: Okay, I want to come- I want to come back to the palm trees in the story.

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Morton Marcus: Okay, let's do that. Yeah, go on, let's do that first. James D. Houston: Now, one of the things initially about these palm trees. I mean, we're talking earlier about the fact

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that she's a California writer and that particular take on palm trees, the fact that they seem unauthentic, they‘re something that- they shouldn't be there, they belong in a swamp, they're out in the middle, they're the kind of palm that you shouldn't

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find in the desert, they have date palms that don't bear dates. You know, they only- they only get so far, they bear these immature dates and that's a real Southern California curious irony, you know. Something that strikes me all the time, even

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this far north in Santa Cruz, where the common- common trees, the indigenous trees are redwoods, and pines, and oak suddenly have these palms looming up out of nowhere, and is the contradiction there between the palms and the

00:29:46.440 - 00:29:55.320

redwoods and the pines. People take it for granted that pines- that palms grow all over California, but they're introduced, and there's something incongruous about them and-

00:29:55.320 - 00:30:04.410

Morton Marcus: this also- James D. Houston: -and she makes that part of the, you know, the strangeness of the mother's habitat. Morton Marcus: But it also is in there incongruousness they also

00:30:04.410 - 00:30:12.600

become the prime symbol of the story. James D. Houston: Yeah. Morton Marcus: The endurance of them in an alien environment, just as the daughter and the mother are enduring.

00:30:12.630 - 00:30:22.650

James D. Houston: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Let me just read this paragraph, this is from I said, ‘‘The Science of Life‘‘ and listen to Gina. If you just tuned in, we're talking about Gina Berriault, the marvelous

00:30:22.830 - 00:30:36.450

short story writer and novelist who just unexpectedly passed away a few days ago. And I just want to read to give you a sense of how she gets into character. And this is this the beginning of the story

00:30:36.470 - 00:30:48.520

THE SCIENCE OF LIFE and right after this, we will take a break. At nine o'clock the wife came home alone. The babysitter was startled by the reckless sound of the tires and the scattering

00:30:48.520 - 00:31:04.360

of gravel. She was a homely girl, with such a consciousness of herself that she felt under scrutiny even when she was alone. She felt that people saw her as someone not be trusted because there was so much that was wanting about her, so much

00:31:04.360 - 00:31:20.290

that was unpardonable, as if she herself had chosen how she was to look and chosen badly. Whenever she was hired to take care of children at night- else, when the woman threw off her coat, the girl got up and reached for her own coat on the

00:31:20.290 - 00:31:29.850

back of the chair. I mean, some amazing little insights into characters to be able to verbalize what goes on with them. At any rate, we're going to take our break. We'll be right back with this

00:31:29.850 - 00:33:17.390

discussion of the work of Gina Berriault. Hello again this is Morton Marcus and this is The Poetry Show and you are tuned to KUSP 8.9 on your dial FM. Tonight, we are having a special show but I do want to make one

00:33:17.390 - 00:33:31.670

announcement. At 9pm, following this show, "From The Bookshelf" hosted by Billy Harris brings us Aubrey Stanley reading the ‘‘Royal Occasion‘‘ by large- Gerald Darell from "The Garden of the Gods," which is about a visit from King George of

00:33:31.670 - 00:33:48.080

Greece. So stay tuned for that after the show. We are talking I'm with Jim Houston, the novelist and short story writer, and we are talking about our friend and colleague, the great short story writer and novelist, Gina Berriault who unexpectedly

00:33:48.080 - 00:34:04.400

passed away a few days ago. One of the really great writers of America who was just coming into her own, although she was one of the original voices of women in in the in the 1950s when she was winning a lot of awards, published several novels - a

00:34:04.430 - 00:34:21.050

collection of short stories, and then sort of as everyone else rose, she got forgotten in the backwash of women's literature because she would never ever go out and be part of a group, she would never, ever push herself or really seek or want publicity

00:34:21.050 - 00:35:25.460

of any sort. But her great writing ability is now just a washed her back into the forefront. James D. Houston: Yeah, it's- it was amazing to- to know Gina Morton Marcus: Yes, everything.

00:34:33.350 - 00:34:49.580

through over such a long period of time, because you're right, there was the- she seemed to fall into- into the shadows there for maybe 15 years or so. When North Point was publishin out of Berkeley, Jack Shoemake did a couple of her books an

00:34:49.580 - 00:35:10.100

that began to bring her bac into public view, and then in i 1996 Counterpoint which was Jac Shoemaker's, the new avatar o North Point, he moved back o Washington DC and found d Counterpoint, he brought o t ‘‘Women in Their Beds‘‘ in 199

00:35:10.100 - 00:35:24.770

, which was Gina's new a d selected stories. And she s walked away with all the priz s and National Book Critics Circ e Award and the Pen Faulkn r Award, and I think t e Commonwealth Club Award up n San Francisc

00:35:25.510 - 00:35:45.250

James D. Houston: -for the best new work of fiction and suddenly everybody in the literary, in the book world was talking about Gina Berriault. And this was- it really culminated a lifetime of consistent, unswerving dedication to good- to good

00:35:45.250 - 00:35:56.290

storytelling and good writing. She never- she never backed away from that. She was never defeated, I don't think by the- by the fact that for a number of years nobody was paying attention, she just kept doing her work.

00:35:56.680 - 00:36:06.970

Morton Marcus: As you and I know that's all you can do, is just keep writing. James D. Houston: Yeah. And it was, I gotta tell you, Mort, it was a great inspiration to me to to know her over that time, and

00:36:06.970 - 00:36:26.470

to know the kind of work she continued to do because she had to do it, and never backing away from what she took to be her own highest literary values, she was always true to that. I don't even know she ever- she ever did any- like the kind of stuff that

00:36:26.470 - 00:36:41.710

the rest of us do for to survive, you know, the- what they call it- what Wally's technique is to call literary journalism, or reportage or whatever, you know. I mean, I do a lot of travel writing and one thing and another just to kind

00:36:41.710 - 00:36:50.580

of keep body and soul together. I don't know that Gina ever did anything but keep her attention fully on the fiction. Morton Marcus: There was- the one thing she did was write screenplays.

00:36:50.640 - 00:36:58.080

James D. Houston: Ah, that‘s right Morton Marcus: She was a very, very talented screen- screenwriter, as Leonard was, and his- great screen doctors. James D. Houston: Yeah.

00:36:58.650 - 00:37:12.960

Morton Marcus: I'd like to read a short story verse complete, to just give a sense of what she can do, and how she can do it, and how original her treatment of pieces are. And this is called the ‘‘Woman in the Rose Colored Dress‘‘ and just let

00:37:12.960 - 00:37:27.300

yourself go with it out there and I just -you can really get the magic of a woman who will not commit one cliche, either using the sentence or even in thinking in her work. THE WOMAN IN THE ROSE COLORED DRESS by Gina Berriault

00:37:29.220 - 00:37:44.430

My mother took me along to that party because my 13th birthday fell only one day after, and she said we could imagine it as a party for me, a birthday party that only we two knew about. Wandering away from my mother and the friends embracing her, I

00:37:44.430 - 00:37:58.170

went out alone into the rooms where the strangers where. Whenever I glanced up, I met a glance, and nobody spoke jokingly to me the way they do to a child. And when men came up to me, they treated me with a kind of knowingness as if I were

00:37:58.170 - 00:38:15.150

already steeped in the experience I had only imagined. I can see myself in memory as if I were observing another girl from a corner of a room, how she looked in a pale green dress that clung to the small breasts and the rounding hips, not in

00:38:15.150 - 00:38:31.320

gathered stuff, not pleats anymore, not in an autonomous material, but in the kind that conformed to the young body that was just beginning to make itself known, or its willingness known, or its own will known. And I can see how she turned to

00:38:31.320 - 00:38:47.400

tantalize and profile this young girl. Her fair hair cut short to her shoulders, no braids, no barrettes anymore, and I can hear a fragment of her voice, a voice that was changing like a boy's voice changes, but hers changed by anticipation, not

00:38:47.400 - 00:39:02.430

high and uncertain like a child‘s. My mother and I remained apart. I remember seeing her in a group way off in another room, and I remember wanting to be with her because as when I'm was a child she'd served to protect me from

00:39:02.430 - 00:39:16.110

persons who are overwhelming, and I remember being glad about the distance between us with our bracelets clinking on her wrists. She just showed her flattery at the hostess, and at the women's fingers, and at the men's width and wisdom,

00:39:16.170 - 00:39:32.250

hypnotizing everyone into harmlessness. My father came late to the party. We held hands and wandered around, popping canopies into our mouths and drinking whatever was presented to us in so many tinkling glasses. And when we had our

00:39:32.250 - 00:39:48.270

fill, not just the food and drinks, but of shrill voices and bursts of laughter, we found a room where nobody was, we sat down on an empty couch that I thought was too precious to sit on, a deeply blue velvet couch curved like a crescent moon. But

00:39:48.270 - 00:40:04.920

then we sat and patted our stomachs inside long sighs from a surfeit of pleasure. The young women- a young woman came in timidly as if she needed to a ask a favor from persons who had never seen her before. She seemed unsteady on her feet, and

00:40:04.920 - 00:40:21.210

I guessed it was because of the drinks she must have had. She sat down at the other end of the couch on the other side of my father, and then I knew that she had followed us. "This is Mary, my daughter," she said to the woman, but it was more like a

00:40:21.210 - 00:40:37.830

warning and not an introduction. And he didn't tell me her name. "How are you?" he asked her. "You know how I am," she said. "Mary, will you go?" He asked me, only it was a command. "Where's your mother Mary?" But he wasn't much of a figure to

00:40:37.830 - 00:40:51.630

command. There was a roughness in his throat like a cough held back and his eyes were afraid. If he lost the authority of the father for that moment, he gained another kind, and it was the authority of the man experience beyond his family's

00:40:51.810 - 00:41:10.380

ever knowing. What he knew about his own life that his family didn't know seem to grant me my own untellable experiences to come, it was as if he gave me carte blanche to the world then. I couldn't get up and leave, not them. I thought I might, but I

00:41:10.380 - 00:41:26.040

couldn't. She didn't wait for me to go, she said to him on a low voice, her side long gaze on our hands, smoothing the velvet of the couch, "I want to ask you if you ever came over to see me. I moved away so that when you came by, you'd see I wasn't waiting

00:41:26.040 - 00:41:41.820

for you. But after I moved, I wish I'd stayed in the same place and gone on waiting." She was no longer the fearful young woman in awe of my father. She was a voluptuous woman with heavy thighs under her rose colored silky dress and when my

00:41:41.820 - 00:41:56.880

father realized that I saw her as he had seen her in the past, and must still see her in the present, then he got up and strode away from us both. For a few minutes I sat with her not saying anything, as I would with a friend who had confided in me.

00:41:57.210 - 00:42:12.570

She was stroking the couch, her hand moving in little circles toward the empty place where my father had been. When I left her, I did not go trailing after my father. I wanted to find my mother instead and put my arm around her as a way of asking

00:42:12.570 - 00:42:27.750

forgiveness. I felt that I could not look my mother in the eyes for a long time to come. And it wasn't because I knew she was betrayed and couldn't tell her. With my discovery of my father and the woman, I hadn't thought about her. Guests we're moving

00:42:27.750 - 00:42:42.900

in a crowd to the grand piano, where the entertainer was seating himself to play. I joined them and was pushed up close to him, a young man with slick silvery curls and a smile that showed baby small teeth. I'd heard he was a cousin of the

00:42:42.900 - 00:42:59.040

hostess, a singer who was making a name for himself in nightclubs and at big parties. A black bow tie wobbled as he chatted with the guests gathering around the piano. The song he sang, his voice as changeable as his face, one moment quivery, in the next

00:42:59.040 - 00:43:15.000

moment smooth, was about a couple of lovers whose ineptness increased with their desire. Something went wrong for the lovers at the end of each stanza, after which he banged on the keys to emphasize each of their ridiculous disasters. They

00:43:15.000 - 00:43:29.280

were all packed elbow to elbow, three deep in a ring around the piano, and all of them were singing on cue at each defeat of the lovers. Their eyes were closed up tight with their laughter, or slant sideways, and one man kept a cigarette clamped

00:43:29.280 - 00:43:46.410

between his lips just so the smoke drew his lids together. They were averting their eyes from everyone else's eyes. My mother was in the crowd. I saw her across the piano, her face closed in between two other faces. She was sliding her eyes

00:43:46.410 - 00:43:58.800

and clicking her tongue and laughing like all the others around her, and I felt an up-rush of love and concern for her. She had support in numbers, but no matter how many joined together at that piano, and everywhere else to be little

00:43:58.800 - 00:44:19.020

lovers, I knew that all attempts to do that would end in failure. There's this idea, and you know, Jim, of experiencing the world, the people who have experienced it and had been led down by it, or people who are about to experience it, people are trying

00:44:19.020 - 00:44:32.940

to understand it. I mean, it's- you come back to the human condition, and it's broad strokes over and over again, from the littlest moments. There's another story called ‘‘The Mistress‘‘ which I'm sure you know, in which a 36 year old

00:44:32.940 - 00:44:49.380

woman recognizes the 16 year old son of the lover she had 10 years ago and engages him in conversation at this party and has to tell him that she was his father's lover. It's an amazing story. And it works, I mean, it's just like, oh my god, you

00:44:49.380 - 00:44:55.890

know? James D. Houston: Yeah. Morton Marcus: And she realizes what she has lost by doing that, and what she has lost over the past 10 years.

00:44:55.990 - 00:45:05.230

James D. Houston: Yeah, yeah and what you said- what you see here that the daughter's first glimpse into the backstage of the- of the parents life- Morton Marcus: Yeah.

00:45:05.870 - 00:45:19.520

James D. Houston: -and just the subtlety of the way that is charted. You know, she's no- she doesn't go into hysterics, she's not even at the point where she can, you know, attack the father, blame the father, but she already has that sense of,

00:45:19.850 - 00:45:31.610

of grief and inevitability that starts to come- come- come through. But just- just- just that first glimmer of that, and then the story ends, you know. Morton Marcus: And when you go back into the story, you see

00:45:31.610 - 00:45:45.620

that the men are now looking at her in a different way. She's no longer a child that she goes into a 13th year here, and this other young woman is again another picture of herself at a different time. And Gina‘s playing this generational game

00:45:45.680 - 00:45:57.980

all the time where you see, you know, mothers and daughters, mothers and sons, and- and old people, grandparents as well. James D. Houston: Yeah. Morton Marcus: And this endless round-going from one generation

00:45:57.980 - 00:46:08.770

to the next. James D. Houston: Something else I'm thinking right at the end of that story. You know I used to make my living as a musician; I used to play in a piano bar down here in Capitola on weekends. I

00:46:08.770 - 00:46:24.640

played string bass behind a piano player, and it was like a theater and around, you know, people would come in and gather around the- the lid of the grand piano and sing their songs. But they're bringing their lives in just in this, you know, in this-

00:46:24.640 - 00:46:38.470

inside this song. The daughter sees the way their lives are being revealed in the singing or what's not being said, you know, the mother is happy and she's smiling but there's- the daughter already knows the backstory. And that's one of the

00:46:38.470 - 00:46:52.000

things that always struck me about these piano- piano bar lounges. You know, the songs that people choose to sing, the way they sing them, they're just windows into their lives, all the things that aren't being said out loud, but it's somehow

00:46:52.000 - 00:47:06.390

being said in a covert way through the music. Morton Marcus: And of course, it's very pointed that what he's singing and what everyone is laughing at is the ineptness of the lovers and the young girl refuses to accept, you know,

00:47:06.390 - 00:47:16.960

that love can be laughed at and love can be made ridiculous. You know, she refuses to see what she's just been confronted by. James D. Houston: How long is that story? Morton Marcus: So, it was like four or five pages. Remember

00:47:16.990 - 00:47:36.650

Wallace Stegner used to tell us you can't write a story that length, it's gotta be longer than that. But Tim, here- here it is, um, why don't you read some more of her? James D. Houston: Well, let's see. I don't- I'm trying to

00:47:36.650 - 00:47:54.440

think what I could read here. You know, I- about 20 years ago, I edited this collection called ‘‘West Coast Fiction,‘‘ and I included one of Gina's stories in there, which was one of the stories that I think it also appeared in "Contact" called

00:47:54.770 - 00:48:11.840

‘‘Nights in the Garden of Spain.‘‘ It's been a long time since I've looked at it but maybe I could read just- just just a part of it, just like the opening of it. But it was- there was no doubt in my mind, this was 20 years ago, you know that

00:48:11.840 - 00:48:27.020

she was one of the major- major story writers and had- had to be included in a collection like this. And it was, you know, it was a little this- this collection when it came out was a little bit like "California Shorts" now, there was nothing

00:48:27.020 - 00:48:44.060

else out like this, you know, that- that looked at the West Coast as literary reading. In this case in ‘‘West Coast Fiction‘‘ it was short stories and sections from novels. "California Shorts" 20 years later is all short stories. But

00:48:44.060 - 00:48:57.600

let's see where is this? Morton Marcus: Is that why you're looking for- This is one of her really well known fine stories that you certainly brought to everyone's attention. The other is the ‘‘Stone Boy,‘‘

00:48:57.660 - 00:49:08.730

James D. Houston: Yeah. Morton Marcus: Which is a motion picture as well which people may have seen, very powerful film. And ‘‘The Women in Their Beds‘‘ which is the title story of this. These are the stories that

00:49:08.730 - 00:49:17.790

have been anthologized again and again. James D. Houston: Yeah, I'll just read- just read a couple of pages of this for the- for the flavor. How much time do we have?

00:49:19.350 - 00:49:26.760

Morton Marcus: I'm not gonna be able- I'm just gonna read part of that story. We are floating free here. James D. Houston: We're floating free. Morton Marcus: But I will say for people who just tuned in, we

00:49:26.760 - 00:49:40.680

are honoring the work of Gina Berriault tonight, James D Houston and myself. Gina has just passed away, a very dear friend, and a marvelous writer, colleague, friend of ours. James D. Houston: Okay, a few. Just a taste of

00:49:40.710 - 00:49:56.880

KNIGHTS IN THE GARDEN OF SPAIN. The boy beside him was full of gin and beer and wine, and of the figure he had cut at the party as the great guitarist at 17, and he had no idea where he was until he was told to get

00:49:56.880 - 00:50:16.500

out. His profile with that heavy chin that he liked to remind everybody was Habsburg hung open mouthed against the blowing fog, and the cold jet black ocean of the night. Burger had no intention of forcing him out, but to command him to get out

00:50:16.710 - 00:50:31.830

was the next best way of impressing his disgust on his passenger. "I asked you when you got in, friend, if you had 25 cents for the bridge toll, and you haven't answered me yet. You want to get over this bridge tonight and into your little

00:50:31.860 - 00:50:46.290

trundle bed? You look for two bits because I'm sick of paying your way wherever we go and getting kicked in the face for a thank you. What the hell did I hear you say to Van Grundy, that you got bored by musicians because all they could talk

00:50:46.290 - 00:51:02.610

about was music?" His breath smelled of cheese and garlic from all the mounds of crackers and spread he had eaten, not the kind of breath to accuse anybody with. And that meant me, of course, because I'm what's known as your constant companion, that

00:51:02.610 - 00:51:19.860

mean old ignoramus Burger. "For a guy who's got all the famous relatives you're always bragging about, big dam builders, big mummy diggers, big marine commandant, you ought to be able to come up with a miserable nickel once in a while." He held

00:51:19.860 - 00:51:35.700

out his hand for the coins that David was searching for and found. "What the hell," David gripped his guitar between his knees again, settling back uncomfortably. "You saw her because they wanted me to play?" He shifted into load to start

00:51:35.700 - 00:51:50.370

the car again. "You don't know what anybody wants, you're too busy playing all night." The boy waited a minute, then sprang the big psychological question with a rare timidity in his voice: "You saw her because it's me that's going to play for Torrez

00:51:50.370 - 00:52:06.300

tomorrow?" "Jesus Christ, I'm sitting next to Freud here," he cried, disgusted. They went on in silence over the long bridge. The deputy at the tollgate reached out his hand to take the coins that Burger pressed into it with his gray gloved fingers,

00:52:06.480 - 00:52:23.760

suede driving gloves to keep his hands warm so that he could commence to play soon after entering a room. But David wore no gloves, came with cold thin hands into a room and played slickly, charmingly his first number, and afterward blew on

00:52:23.760 - 00:52:38.460

his fingers to impress upon the audience how cold they were still, and how much they had accomplished even so. It's amazing. It's a totally different kind of story than the other two that we were looking at. The first one, you know, was

00:52:38.460 - 00:52:55.500

mother and daughter. Here you got a kind of classic male rivalry. It reminds me a little bit of Amadeus, you know. Mozart, the guy who can do no wrong being observed by another guy who's a pretty good musician, but it's never gonna

00:52:55.500 - 00:53:08.850

be in the same league. And you know, and I what I read there was like a page and a quarter but you get these tw characters, we were already i their lives, you know that- tha sense of rivalry and th physicality of that, we kn

00:53:08.850 - 00:53:20.680

w we're in, you know, we're in S n Francisco, the fog, the bridg , a lot going on all real- v ry quickly, very efficient Morton Marcus: That's one of the things I want to do tonight was to give this sense of the difference in her work. I want

00:53:20.680 - 00:53:30.700

to just read you a little bit of a dialogue here. This is from a story called ‘‘The Overcoat.‘‘ And we're reading, well, re THE OVERCOAT and he's going home to see his mother and father in d parts of this- we're filling in, but you realize this guy who

00:53:30.700 - 00:53:43.930

is shivering in this huge overc at, who has no weight, and we fi ally got he has holes all over his arms. Not only is he an add ct, he is dying, and he is obvio sly dying of AIDS, this is on of her news stories. And t's ca

00:53:46.780 - 00:54:01.890

Washington. He's 32 years old, he left 16 years before, they haven't seen him since. He goes up to the wharf and here is the dialog as he goes to see his father: On the deck of his father's boat, he was instantly dizzy by

00:54:01.890 - 00:54:16.950

the lift and fall in the jilting against the wharf, and he held to the rail of the steep steps down to the cabin, afraid he was going to be thrown onto his father, who he hadn't seen in 16 years, entangling them in another awful mishap. "Eli," he

00:54:16.950 - 00:54:34.740

said. "Eli, here." "Eli?" "That's me," he said. Granite, his father had turned to granite. The man sitting on the bunk was gray, face gray, skimpy hair gray, the red net of broken capillaries become black flecks, and he didn't move. The years

00:54:34.740 - 00:54:49.860

had chiseled him down to nowhere near the size he had been. "Got arthritis," the father said. The throat, could it catch arthritis too? His voice was the high pitched whisper of a woman struggling with a man, it was Eli's mother's voice changed

00:54:49.860 - 00:55:05.190

places. "Got it from the damn wet, took too many falls. Got it since you've been gone." The Indian woman beside him shook tobacco from a pouch, rolled a cigarette, licked it close, and never looked up. "You got it before he went," she said, and

00:55:05.190 - 00:55:20.760

to Eli: "How long you've been gone, a couple of weeks?" "16 years more or less," Eli said. "Eli's my son," his father said. The Indian woman laughed. "I thought you were Louie, got a boat next ours, we've been expecting him, gotta tell him a

00:55:20.760 - 00:55:35.850

shortwave radio was stolen, storm did some damage too. You Harry's son? Never told me. You're a fishermen like your dad?" "Nope. He's smart," is father said. "Never got a kick out of seeing all those fishes flopping around in the net

00:55:35.850 - 00:55:50.550

fighting for their lives," Eli said. "Eli always saw stuff that wasn't going on," his father said, "the kid never saw what was real did you?" "Never did," said Eli. "You want to sit?" his father asked. Eli sat on the bunk opposite them. "That's a

00:55:50.550 - 00:56:04.200

big overcoat you got there," his father said, "you prosperous?" "I'm so prosperous I got a lot of parasites living off me." "They relatives of yours?" she asked. "Anything living off you is a relative," Eli said. "I'm never gonna live off you, and

00:56:04.200 - 00:56:14.100

you're never gonna live off me," his father said. "Right," said Eli. I mean totally different group, class of people, and everything going on.

00:56:14.550 - 00:56:24.630

James D. Houston: And you can see that- why she, you know she- she could take that talent to- to screenplays. That's terrific. Morton Marcus: Yeah. Great dialogue. James D. Houston: All rendered in speech.

00:56:24.720 - 00:56:37.590

Morton Marcus: Yeah. Really marvelous. I was going to read, and I would suggest you out there read this marvelous last story, which was really going to be sort of an elegy or a eulogy for her called ‘‘The Light At Birth,‘‘ about a troubled woman

00:56:37.590 - 00:56:50.820

entering middle age who stays with a German couple who own this house on the beach because she wants to be on the beach., and meet this crisis of being left alone by her lover, and just obviously another crisis going on too with tremendous

00:56:51.060 - 00:57:06.390

emotional import. One of the women she's staying with is the 96 year old mother, German mother of this German 62 year old woman, and you've got these three generations of women facing their end, and it is- and also it's very historical, which

00:57:06.390 - 00:57:20.400

you get into her. She is not just domestic, she really is rooted in time and place, something you and I have talked about a lot, Jim, that's not happening. And the heroine is actually- has a- her parents came over fleeing from the Nazis

00:57:20.670 - 00:57:37.590

and it turns out, so did this German- these two German women at the same time, and now at the edge of the Pacific, they try to make sense of their existence. It is just the story of stories by her, as far as I'm concerned. But I want to end before we say

00:57:37.590 - 00:57:48.300

something else by reading a poem that has just come by fax over from Greece, by another mutual friend of ours, very, very good friend of Leonard and Gina‘s, and that's Robert Peterson. James D. Houston: He just wrote this?

00:57:48.300 - 00:57:56.100

Morton Marcus: He just wrote this. James D. Houston: Oh my god. Morton Marcus: And he has dedicated it to Gina, he heard over there about this. And I really want to read only the

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last stanza of this poem, because this is why I think he dedicated it to Gina, it's sort of his picture of what she did in her life as a writer. And it says this, ‘‘what a neat place to idly, closely observe flawed fellow

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creatures, while catching occasional glimpses of our fleeting fugitive selves.‘‘ And he dedicated it to Gina, and I know he was very, very moved by this. I met Gina and Leonard through Robert.

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James D. Houston: Through Robert. Morton Marcus: Through Robert. Yeah. And we all became very, very close friends of the days when Sausalito flourished, and San Francisco flourished another time.

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James D. Houston: I think I met Leonard through you. Morton Marcus: Yep. James D. Houston: Because he used to have this course up at UCSC. And-

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Morton Marcus: Writers off the page James D. Houston: Writers off the page, and you invited Leonard down and introduced me to Leonard and pretty soon after that, I met Gina.

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Morton Marcus: Right [cross talk] I remember us having a great dinner up at the old Mabuhay Gardens, which has now been torn down, the following year. Wild, wild evening.

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James D. Houston: Well, you know what- Morton Marcus: And several others, we have had a number of dinners up there. James D. Houston: Yeah, it was a great time. So you know what I'm

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thinking when I read these lines by- by Peterson, I get the occasional glimpses- what is it? ‘‘Observed for catching occasional glimpses of our fleeting fugitive selves.‘‘ However you describe it obser- observations, glimpses, stories.

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On one hand, Gina is, you know, she's gone, but what a great legacy you know, her voice is still with us, her vision is still with us. What she saw, what she felt, the- the insight she had into the human condition, we still have that

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with us and it's very comforting. Even though there's a great loss we still have a lot to be thankful for, for what she gave to us a a writer. Morton Marcus: And I think those are perfect words to go out on.

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That was James D Houston who was our guest tonight. I'm Morton Marcus, we've been talking about our friend and colleague Gina Berriault, who died suddenly several days ago. A great short story writer, do go out and find her marvelous award winning

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collection ‘‘Women in Their Beds‘‘ at the bookstore, order it if it's not in the bookstore, tell the bookstore to get it. I'll be seeing you in three weeks. Howard, thank you so much. And we'll go out with the same Berlioz, no, we won't go

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out with the same Berlioz, but do stay tuned out there with "From The Bookshelf" with Billy Harris. Thank you.