Chapter forty-two: winding up like my parents

“I see with terror”: ST to AB, April 19 and July 2, 1985, SSF.

The “mess” began: ST to AB, November 14 and 29, 1984, and August 12, 1985, SSF.

“We have to be careful”: ST to SS, August 7, 1985, YCAL, Box 34.

Sigrid had her own use: White paper plates with ST’s drawings are scattered throughout the YCAL boxes; some with SS’s messages are in Boxes 99 and 110.

While the house was uninhabitable: In a typed diary for 1984, YCAL, Box 111, SS writes that she went to Africa early in January, leaving Papoose with HS, and that she had a breakdown (“desperate. don’t want to go to NY”) at Orly airport on the way home. “March 1: NY breakdown.” “March 10–17: Martinique, Barbados, Sanibel” (the islands from which they took short flights to Florida, and thence to New York).

He told Aldo that making changes: ST to AB, December 15, 1984, SSF. HS and Claire Nivola joked about ST’s penchant “for adding a new room” on the interview tape she made, May 31, 2005.

Instead of changing landlords, he changed: ST to AB, December 15, 1984, SSF.

“first class TWA”: ST, “Agenda 1984,” YCAL, Box 73.

The next day he went to Erba: In a 1991 diary, YCAL, Box 75, ST writes: “Green ink! Pity. I can’t help giving low marks for green ink.” Also, he feels for Solaroli “a beautiful emotion of love, friendship, spirit, complete confidence, security. I didn’t realize she is one of the few I trust.”

“the beneficent illusion of travel”: ST to AB, November 14, 1984, SSF.

This one found him constantly replaying: ST to AB, April 2, 1985, SSF.

“We are the victims”: ST to AB, April 19, 1985, SSF.

“excellent, pleasurable”: ST to AB, July 22, 1985. SSF

It was not fair, she told him: SS to ST, letter written but not sent, Monday, October 4, 1984, YCAL, Box 111.

Through Evelyn Hofer: SS, typed diary for 1984, YCAL, Box 111. Under October 30, she writes “See Armin Wanner first time.” Dr. Wanner did not respond to my repeated requests for interviews except for one e-mail citing doctor-patient confidentiality. Information in this paragraph is from SS, diary entries, YCAL, Boxes 109, 110, and 111.

If he also hoped it would inspire her: SS, diary, 1987, YCAL, Box 111. She lists after his contribution $2,890 income from interests on savings and money market accounts.

“Go fuck yourself”: SS to ST, November 18, 1989, YCAL, Box 111.

Many of Steinberg’s friends were so concerned: I refer to letters from (among many others) Muriel Murphy, William Gaddis, Saul Bellow, and Peter Matthiessen in YCAL, Boxes 69, 75, and 99–111.

“thin and whining”: ST to AB, October 16, 1985. SSF.

“Too late,” he concluded: HS told me about this in an interview, October 11, 2007, as she described how he shuffled the obituary cards from the American Academy. The drawing was published in TNY, June 17, 1972, present whereabouts unknown.

Two days before he died: ST to AB, March 18, 1988, SSF.

“very unexpected and complicated mind”: ST, memorial tribute to Jean Stafford, YCAL, Box 94.

“poor timing for obits”: ST, undated diary notation, YCAL, Box 95.

He underlined the sentence: YCAL, Box 32. The folder of obituaries dates from the early 1980s, the handwritten list from the mid-eighties, and the article is June 2, 1993.

“exaggerating, perhaps to avoid”: ST to AB, “January,” 1986, SSF.

Still, no one expected the shattering announcement: Information about TNY is primarily from Yagoda, About Town, pp. 413–25.

The staff hastily called: Roger Angell, telephone conversation, December 8, 2010.

“an act of self-delusion”: Yagoda, About Town, p. 415.

“sad, hurt, infuriated”: ST to AB, January 18, 1987, SSF.

And then he sent Roger Angell: Roger Angell, telephone conversation, December 8, 2010.

“unhappiness does not ”: ST, diary, n.d. but probably early July 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

No one is sure how it began: Information that follows is from interviews with HS, Ruth Nivola, and Claire Nivola; the diary of Ruth Nivola; and HS’s taped recordings of reminiscences made with Claire Nivola in 2005.

Ruth thought it was the most intimate: Diary of Ruth Nivola, undated entry.

“the sole person I know with whom I can commiserate”: ST to AB, August 31, 1987.

Among the closest to both men: Henri Cartier-Bresson to ST, May 17, 1988, YCAL, Box 94.

“Dear Saul”: ST to ST, April 24, 1990, YCAL, Box 69. I was the first person to open the folder and read the message.

“Now for some sensational news”: ST to AB, June 27, 1987, SSF. Documents pertaining to Steinberg v. Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., 663 F. Supp. 706 (S.D.N.Y. 1987),” are in YCAL, Boxes 32 and 33.

he was quite pleased when Gaddis: William Gaddis to ST, January 23, 1987, YCAL, Box 64. Gaddis wanted to use the legal document as background material in a novel that would refer to what he called “the case of the dog Spot.”

The case generated a new friendship: ST to PC, Friday, April 20, 1990; Judge Pierre N. Laval, U.S.D.J., to ST, August 7, 1987, and postcard, September 8, 1987. All in YCAL, Box 33.

“Lo and behold”: ST to AB, August 31, 1987, SSF.

“when Saul and I divorced”: HS, interview, October 2007.

“trusted [her] to do the right thing”: Legal agreement dated and signed December 19, 1989; living will dated April 25, 1990. On December 7, 1995, he wrote a new living will that appointed PC as his agent; YCAL, Box 71.

“dropped out of the limelight”: Henrietta Danson to ST, June 21 [the year is not clear, probably 1987], YCAL, Box 94. ST wrote to AB, November 20, 1987, that even though Danson lived near him in New York, he seldom saw her, because she was boring and always wanted to talk about art. He thought her younger sister, Gertrude, who lived in a large house with swimming pool in Los Angeles, was “extraordinarily dull.”

The Royal College of Art in London: Convocation program, July 1, 1988, YCAL, Box 94.

Steinberg broke his ban: To represent the Steinberg family, he asked Henrietta’s son, Lawrence Danson, a professor at Princeton, and his wife, and his niece, Dana Roman, and her husband, Yan Richard. Aldo Buzzi and Bianca Lattuada topped his list of friends, followed by Bibi Eng, the daughter of Maryam Javaheri Eng and Robert Eng, who were also friends. From his professional life he invited his agent, Wendy Weil, the Glimchers, and the art historian Arthur C. Danto and his wife. He also invited the famed First Amendment lawyer who represented him against Columbia Pictures, Charles Rembar, and his wife; Sidney Felsen, the co-owner of Gemini G.E.L., and his wife; and his accountant, Charles Blitzer. Obituaries of Rembar, including that in the New York Times, October 2000, mistakenly listed Rembar as ST’s literary agent.

“the pleasures of vanity”: ST to AB, May 30, 1989, SSF.

Everyone else remembered: From interviews with John Hollander, Arthur C. Danto, Wendy Weil, and personal friends of DB on the Yale faculty who were also fellows of Morse College.

“How monstrous”: ST, diary, May 15, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

There were four major exhibitions: Paris: Galerie Maeght Lelong, 1986, Repères: Cahiers d’Art Contemporain no. 30, 1986, with an interview of ST by Jean Frémon. ST, Paris: Galerie Adrien Maeght, 1988, catalogue with text by Eugène Ionesco.

“a kind of personal payback”: ST to AB, September 29, 1987, SSF.

However, essays by Italo Calvino: ST, 4th Internationale Triennale der Zeichnung, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, 1988, catalogue texts by Italo Calvino and Curt Heigl.

To head off their many attempts: Arthur C. Danto, interview, September 5, 2007; IF, interview, October 12, 2007; Claire Nivola, interview, July 2, 2008 (among many others).

“who understand nothing”: ST to AB, July 4, 1990, SSF.

He moved immediately to take: Loria and Loria, Saul Steinberg; catalogue for an exhibition at Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1995–96.

Jeffrey Loria asked the distinguished: Nathan Garland, interviews, January 16, and July 31, 2007.

“happy to be taken seriously”: ST to AB, November 6, 1992, SSF.

“the title and drift”: John Updike to ST, June 19 and July 21, n.d., YCAL, Box 38. Updike refers to the help given by “the conscientious Mr. [Nathan] Garland” and also thanks ST for the gift of “your Swiss suicide.” He adds that he hopes someday to persuade Jeffrey Loria to write an introduction to the catalogue of his own Steinberg collection.

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