Chapter forty-three: the latest news

“What I do these days”: ST, galley of Gopnik, “A Conversation with Saul Steinberg,” YCAL, Box 67. Because there are multiple copies of various typescripts there, for identification purposes this one bears the heading “Disk 10: gopnik A2 (steinberg).” The quote is from p. A2.

Sometime in mid-June 1989: ST to AB, July 15 1989, YCAL, Box 94; Gordon Pulis, interview, September 20, 2007, YCAL, Box 111.

Saul thought he had become: ST, diary, Sunday, May 26, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

And then he corrected himself: ST, diary, Sunday, June 2, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

He began with Prozac: Medical history and diagnosis of Jatin P. Shah, M.D., Memorial–Sloan Kettering Hospital, 1995, referring to medical history since 1990, YCAL, Box 71.

“a perfect shit”: Arthur C. Danto, interview, September 5, 2007.

His refuge was no longer the magazine: ST to AB, October 15, 1989, SSF.

“75th and Park”: ST to AB, February 26, 1991, SSF.

He made a series of drawings: TNY, June 8, 1992.

“as dead as Wall Street”: ST, diary, “1991—April 25–July 5,” YCAL, Box 75.

a fulsome declaration of “devotion”: ST to AB, February 24, 1990, SSF.

There was a momentary scare: Tests conducted by Dr. Morton Fisch, February 1, 1991, copies in YCAL, Boxes 33 and 110.

Although he continued to collect articles: Several years later, when ST was filling out a medical questionnaire, he told PC they had “gotten together the previous June (a birthday reconciliation?”); PC, mss. comment, 2011.

“chicken nuggets and French fries”: ST wrote this in a diary entry, May 30, 1991, after a dinner with Karen van Lengen, and he made similar comments after dinners with Maryam Javahiri Eng, YCAL, Box 75.

“every day, long or short”: ST to AB, May 8, 23, and 27, 1991, SSF.

“talk in shorthand”: ST, diary, April 25–July 5, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

When he finally got under way: ST, The Discovery of America (New York: Knopf, 1992); ST to AB, May 3, 1990, SSF; ST to AB, July 4, 1990, SSF; Wendy Weil, telephone conversation, March 22, 2010; Wendy Weil, interview, March 24, 2010.

Steinberg’s previous books had never sold well: Wendy Weil graciously made ST’s contracts and sales figures available for all the publications she represented.

None of his drawings gave him pleasure: ST to AB, July 27 or 28, 1989, SSF.

“50% in color”: ST to AB, June 5, 1990, SSF.

He insisted passionately: ST to AB, April 3 and July 30, 1990, SSF.

Often he collapsed: ST to AB, July 30, 1990, SSF.

“What a mistake the book!”: ST, diary, April 25–July 5, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

“in the same surprising way”: ST to AB, September 29, 1990, SSF.

He was among a select number: Marshall S. Cogan to ST, May 29, 1986, YCAL, Box 99.

Quietly and usually anonymously: Committee to Reelect Holtzman to ST, October 18, 1989, YCAL, Box 94.

Without being asked: Israel Museum, Jerusalem, to ST, thanking him for his contribution, YCAL, Box 94.

The Discovery of America was the most: In the inscribed copy ST presented to Leo Steinberg, he wrote: “For Leo/this uneven book/L’amico Saul ST/Sept 92.” The copy is now in SSF.

By the time he collected: “America’s Book” is in YCAL, Box 121.

“tougher, grittier, darker”: “And Bear in Mind,” New York Times Book Review, December 13, 1992; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 29, 1992.

one of the most perceptive: Red Grooms, “The World According to Steinberg,” New York Times Book Review, December 6, 1992, p. 7.

“However playful”: Donald Kuspit, “Saul Steinberg at Pace Gallery,” Art Forum, March 1992, p. 91.

Although Arthur Danto’s introduction: In e-mails of August 16 and 18, 2007, Danto wrote that “ Discovery was not a great success—DOA: dead on arrival,” and that “things cooled between us” after the book was published.

He was famed for writing letters of complaint: ST to AB, June 23, 1992, SSF: “I’m making life difficult for the people at Knopf, corrections, last minute changes, but the worst is over.”

to persuade him to leave her: Andrew Wylie, e-mail, March 21, 2010; IF, interview, October 2007; Wendy Weil, interviews, March 22 and 24, 2010.

“way of going always”: Wendy Weil, interviews, March 22 and 24, 2010. In her letter of August 24, 1992, she told ST that she did not agree to his request that Andrew Wylie take over the properties she represented, “nor do I agree that he should collect the moneys involved. My office will continue representing them as agreed”; YCAL, Box 38.

“real sorrows”: ST to AB, July 3, 1991, SSF.

He could not stand the smell: ST to AB, November 16, 1991, SSF.

Not until the dreaded Christmas holidays: AB, interview, October 2007; HS, interview, October 2007; Ruth Nivola, interview, September 22, 2007.

“Every now and then”: ST to AB, December 23, 1991; ST, diary, Friday, May 24, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

She wanted to know if it was true: PC to ST, February 14, 1984, YCAL, Box 64. In her letter of October 1, 1986, also YCAL, Box 64, PC asks ST if this was the copy signed by Aline Bernstein, given to her by Thomas Wolfe, who met James Joyce on several occasions. Perlman signed it before giving it to ST. ST gave it to PC, saying, “Because you will love it the most.” After ST’s death PC gave the book to Leo Steinberg, who had read it “about nine different times and in five editions and knew most of it by heart”; PC, e-mail, October 7, 2007. See also “Prudence Crowther on S. J. Perelman,” in The Company They Kept: Writers on Unforgettable Friendships, edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein (New York: New York Review Collection, 2006), pp. 179–80.

“an invaluable shortcut”: “PC on S. J. Perelman,” p. 180. In a diary entry for June 4, 1991, ST reminisced about his first days in America: “First thing learn the clichés in order to avoid them (or worse, reinvent them). In his satires (of let’s say Hollywood conversations) S. J. Perelman is indispensable as a teacher of pitfalls, common wisecracks, a hint of the fairly high level of popular sophistication.”

Saul discovered that he was comfortable: PC to ST, April 18, 1997, YCAL, Box 38; PC e-mail to DB, October 7, 2007, mss. comment, 2011.

Saul discovered that he was comfortable: PC, e-mail, October 7, 2007; PC, mss. comment, 2011.

When he began to see her more frequently: ST to AB, June 17, 1996; PC, e-mail to DB, December 6, 2010.

Saul attempted to work out: The account that follows is from ST, diary, June 2, 1991, YCAL, Box 75. HS recounted this conversation in much the same language as that ST used in the diary and verified that the “P” he referred to was Prudence Crowther; telephone conversation October 23, 2007.

“the crème de la crème”: ST to AB, November 29, 1991, SSF.

“to universal surpise”: ST to AB, January 7, 1992, SSF; reproduced on p. 193 in Discovery of America.

It was one of the drawings: According to SSF, July 2011, these covers were printed not from original drawings but from color photocopies in TNY files. It appears that ST was publishing some things during Gottlieb’s tenure—for example, the three covers plus the April 30, 1990, “Canal Street” drawing in conjunction with IF’s book of the same name.

After that, whenever he felt he had something: The covers appeared on January 13, June 8, September 7, and November 30, 1992; May 17, 1993, and February 28, April 25, and October 10, 1994; all are reproduced in Smith, Steinberg at The New Yorker, p. 138.

Tina Brown was so intent: Smith, Steinberg at The New Yorker, p. 46.

“such absurd one-dimensional publicity”: In ST to AB, December 12, 1992, ST writes that the four covers had already appeared in “that book,” in which they had been “used by those thieves with more impunity than usual.” The book was Seasons at The New Yorker: Six Decades of Cover Art, reprinted by the National Academy of Design, 1990. Tina Brown to ST, March 12, 1994, YCAL, Box 39.

When he had drawings he wanted to submit: For a description of how they worked, see Smith, Steinberg at The New Yorker, p. 47.

“Whenever and wherever”: William Shawn to ST, December 8, 1992, YCAL, Box 32. For Shawn’s misdating, see also ST to AB, December 12, 1992.

He had to stop playing this mental game: ST, diary, Thursday, May 30, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

“walking for two hours”: ST, diary, June 14, 1991, YCAL, Box 75.

While he was there, she went: SS’s medical records regarding the depression and suicide attempt are in YCAL, Box 110. They give June 27, 1992, as the date she sought help for “acute depression,” and July 13 as the date she took an overdose of sleeping pills. In YCAL, Box 34, letter from SS to ST, December 27, 1992, she writes that “exactly six months ago, June 27” was the day she made the suicide attempt.

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