[00:16] Meg: Welcome to Desperately Seeking the 80s. I am Meg.

[00:19] Jessica: And I'm Jessica. Meg and I have been friends since 1982. We got through middle school and high school together here in New York City. We where we still live and where

[00:27] Meg: we podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines and

[00:32] Jessica: I do pop culture.

[00:33] Meg: We have to clear something up from last week.

[00:35] Jessica: Okay.

[00:37] Meg: One of our BFFs wrote in and this is what he said. Meg is a very proud Big Brother of America. I can assure you that it is not filled with pedophiles. In fact, everybody I met who's been involved has been a truly awesome person. And the company does extensive vetting, which is wonderful to know.

[00:58] Jessica: And we did not know. And we were. I can speak for myself. I was being glib. So great to know.

[01:04] Meg: Absolutely. He goes on to say, most of us who get involved don't have children and want to give back to kids who might be in need of a positive role model. Additionally, I will say for people like me who like to give back in an active way rather than just write a check, Big Brothers is a terrific program. And it's wonderful to hear directly from somebody who's involved with Big Brothers what a great organization it is.

[01:33] Jessica: Certainly that's fantastic and a good reminder to us about being open and learning and I don't know my being glib. So thank you.

[01:44] Meg: I looked it up afterwards and it's true. They really do have an incredible track record. So, woo hoo. And there's also Big Sisters too. I mean, mentoring young people. Good thing.

[01:55] Jessica: Agreed.

[01:56] Meg: Yeah. And one thing that we forgot to bring up when we were talking to Travis last week, which I take on myself, is his incredible Paige Turner of a book, Hayden John Marshall, which is his second book that I've read. I am halfway through. I swear to God, if I didn't have so many stories for this podcast to write all the time, I would have finished it a month ago because it is engrossing, to say the least.

[02:27] Jessica: Fantastic.

[02:27] Meg: I know. I'm a huge fan. So, Jessica, you know how beautiful it is out right now?

[02:43] Jessica: Beyond beautiful, I mean.

[02:45] Meg: Ah, thank you, New York, for a day like today.

[02:48] Jessica: There's always that one day when spring arrives in New York and everyone looks like they're much less constipated than they were 24 hours earlier.

[02:57] Meg: I know. I just wish I could spend all day out there, and yet I can't. But we know there are more coming of these beautiful days.

[03:07] Jessica: Yay for spring.

[03:08] Meg: And it made me think about, do you remember when we had lunch on the west side piers? Do you remember that?

[03:15] Jessica: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was lovely.

[03:18] Meg: And there were all those incredible places, like Little island and there's like a putt putt over there. I mean, basically the west side highway used to be, which I think we've discussed on this podcast, a hellscape.

[03:33] Jessica: It. It was just a dangerous place where you could have a lot of illicit sex of certain kinds. But it is now a glamorous and glorious paragon of civic pride.

[03:51] Meg: Yes.

[03:53] Jessica: And yet the east side is a shithole now.

[03:55] Meg: I know. Poor, poor east side. They're working on it. I have some theories about that. Anyway, I have faith they're going to pretty up the east side piers. In any case, we're on the west side today. Today is a West side story, so to speak. All right. My sources are the New York Times. Oh, this gives it away. So I'm not going to say it. I'll say it later. My other source.

[04:18] Jessica: Okay.

[04:19] Meg: A little after 6pm On April 12, 1982, three men who worked for CBS at 524 W. 57th St. Near 11th Avenue got off work and headed to their cars parked on the roof of Pier 92, which jutted out into the Hudson at 54th Street. Now, as we were just talking about, a lot of the west side piers super beautified now. You know, you can have lunch and play beach volleyball and blah, blah, but actually, Pier 92 has not been beautified, particularly. I wonder if it's because it's in midtown. I don't know. It's still a little bleak. According to Google Maps, Leo Krenuki, Robert Scholze and Edward Benford were engineering technicians who drove into the city from New Jersey and Long island, respectively, to work at cbs. They had month passes at the parking deck. As they approached their cars, they saw a man in a ski mask stuffing a limp body into a white van.

[05:31] Jessica: That's called. It's not a good scenario. Did. Did they get involved or did they run away? I'll tell you, I'm excited to know.

[05:41] Meg: Leo, Robert and Edward called out to the man attempting to intervene in what looked like an abduction. A fourth CBS employee, Angelo Stica, came up the stairs just in time to see the man with the van turn and shoot all three of the good Samaritans one at a time, chasing them down as they tried to flee.

[06:11] Jessica: Oh, my God, that. By the way, that's a level of marksmanship that is putting up a little red flag for me about who this might be or the profile of this killer. I mean, that's like. It's hard to shoot and kill running.

[06:27] Meg: Well, you also have to picture where they are. It's a parking lot with a bunch of cars. There wasn't a lot of place to run. Easy to be cornered, especially if you run in the wrong direction.

[06:40] Jessica: Yes.

[06:41] Meg: I mean, it's a pier. There's nowhere to go.

[06:43] Jessica: No, I. I got you. It's. It's so bleak.

[06:45] Meg: Yeah. The gunman then climbed into his van with the limp body and sped away. So Angelo survived that and was able to tell the police what had happened. Once the police arrived, they found a purse, women's pumps, blood, and a.22 caliber casing next to the passenger side of a parked two blue BMW. Now, the lock on the driver's side of the car had been jammed with a toothpick. So the assumption was that the owner of the car had been targeted. And she tried to open her car door, and when she couldn't, she walked to the passenger side to open that side, where she was shot by the man with the van. Because the parking lot only accepted people with month long memberships, they quickly identified the likely female victim as Margaret barber. Margaret was 38 and lived alone in Ridgewood, Queens, and worked as an accountant for a camera store and a diamond company. She was born in Manhattan, raised in Queens, graduated with honors, and had a BA in Business Administration and made good money as a bookkeeper and computer operator. But things began to slip. In her late 20s, she dropped out of graduate school and gave a ton of excuses at work for not showing up. These are some of her excuses. Her fiance had been killed in an auto accident. Her mother was dying of cancer. No, she was, in fact, dying of cancer.

[08:25] Jessica: Ooh.

[08:27] Meg: And finally, she was fired from her full time job. She lived for 17 years in her apartment. But her landlord said, quote, she. She was a mystery. She kept to herself, didn't have many visitors and didn't speak much to people. For the last couple years, she'd been working freelance after she got fired. And that's how she started working for Candor, a small company at 15 W. 45th St. That sold pendants, brooches, and necklaces worth about $100 each to department stores. So do you have the location now? Yes, we're in the diamond district.

[09:07] Jessica: We're two blocks off of the main drag.

[09:10] Meg: Right. And that's also where a lot of camera shops are. And that's also where CBS is, so we can picture this neighborhood this is a very neighborhood story. Kander's top gross annual sales were about $300,000. Gross sales.

[09:28] Jessica: That's not a lot.

[09:29] Meg: Nope. Small business. When Margaret's body was discovered with a single.22 caliber bullet wound in her head, because her body was discovered in an alley in lower Manhattan, no one was shocked because she had been abducted. But still, no one could figure out why. The Police at the 104th Precinct in Queens, near where she lived, knew Margaret pretty well.

[09:58] Jessica: Ooh, Plot thickens.

[10:01] Meg: Because in January, she had reported that her friend Jenny Chin was missing. Jenny lived in New Jersey with her husband and four children. In 1979, Jenny's sister brought Margaret to Christmas dinner at the Chins. The sister had once worked with Margaret, and Margaret complained of being lonely. So Jenny's sister invited her to the family dinner.

[10:30] Jessica: Sweet.

[10:31] Meg: Soon, Jenny and Margaret became very, very close. Jenny would sleep over at Margaret's Queen's apartment often, though already married with children. Yes.

[10:45] Jessica: Curious.

[10:46] Meg: It was a romantic relationship.

[10:48] Jessica: Oh. No longer curious. Okay.

[10:52] Meg: According to the book, which I can now say is called the CBS Murders, they were clearly having a sexual and romantic relationship that escalated very quickly. And yet, you know, Jenny still had her family. So she would go home every once in a while. And the husband was like, what the hell is going on? But didn't seem to be actively trying to break them up in any way. I think he was upset, but nothing had happened.

[11:21] Jessica: Interesting.

[11:23] Meg: Yeah.

[11:23] Jessica: Well, it also. I was going to ask why Margaret reported her missing and not the husband. And you've just answered the question.

[11:32] Meg: Well, and actually I'll. Yes, yes. I've half answered it.

[11:35] Jessica: Okay. Okay.

[11:37] Meg: Jenny and Margaret went on a two week trip to Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands. They went to England for 10 days.

[11:46] Jessica: Wow.

[11:47] Meg: Yeah.

[11:48] Jessica: These are kind of expensive. Yeah. Trips. They. They are. And they were leading quite a. They had a slightly glamorous affair going on.

[11:58] Meg: Margaret had been promoted to controller at Candor and was making $35,000 a year. And soon she put Jenny on the payroll there, too. $35,000 a year. Do you remember what the gross was for Candor?

[12:14] Jessica: I was already doing the math. That's more than 10% of the gross. How? Ah, there's a story there.

[12:22] Meg: Before they left for their trip to England, Jenny gave her husband a bag to put in their garage that Margaret gave her for safekeeping. When Jenny's husband looked in the bag, he saw it was reams of financial docum. Weirded out and somewhat alarmed, he insisted Jenny return the bag to Margaret. Quite rightly, on January 4, 1982, Jenny went to Margaret's apartment, planning to return the bag and also to sleep over at 7pm on the 5th. So that's the next day Jenny left Margaret's place and was never seen again. On January 13th, Jenny's red 1978 Pontiac station wagon was found on West 36th street between 10th and 11th Avenues with blood stains on the seats and a spent.22 caliber shell casing.

[13:23] Jessica: Yikesies.

[13:24] Meg: Okay, we're gonna take a bit of a break. I love how you're following all the crazy facts of this, because it is.

[13:31] Jessica: Woo. No, no, you got me at.22 caliber and nowhere to run for those guys. All right.

[13:38] Meg: Have you ever heard of factoring? No. Okay. Factoring companies help finance small companies. In our story, John P. McGuire Co. At 51st and 7th, yikes. In the neighborhood, advanced to Candor, our small little company, the money that Kander's customers owed to but had yet to pay. So that's what factoring is. Then Candor would repay the full amount of the sale plus a Commission to the McGuire Company.

[14:12] Jessica: Okay, so it was collateral. Collateral. Their collateral was the receivables. Got it.

[14:17] Meg: The garment industry loves a good factoring because they do seasonal business and all their production happens months before their sales. But it's also super risky. What if the clothes don't sell? And if they don't sell, they're going to lose their value because trends change. So factoring in the garment industry, it's speculation. Yeah. Now, John P. McGuire, see, they were looking for another option. They love to factor, but maybe there's another kind of industry that would be cool to factor. Jewelry, for example. See, jewelry is different. If a brooch doesn't sell, you just remove the diamond, melt down the gold, and you still have something of value. So in our story, the McGuire Company was psyched to move away a little bit from garments and factor the Candor Company in 1980. They'd never factored a jewelry business before and it's very rare to do so. But they were like, hey, actually this sounds like a cool, like, opportunity. So this is 1980. Erwin Margolis owned the Candor Company with his wife Madeline. In 1979, their joint income was $59,400. In 1980, their combined salaries. So same thing was $104,000, so almost double. In 1981, the Margolis bought three cars, leased two others, and purchased a 30 foot boat. They also spent $100,000 to redecorate their Greenberg home and purchased $125,000 condominium in Fort Lauderdale.

[16:15] Jessica: So the Margolises are definitely now in some shady shit.

[16:21] Meg: Were people suddenly buying a ton more brooches?

[16:27] Jessica: The brooch business is booming.

[16:29] Meg: Yes. No, they were not. It turns out Irwin, with the help of Margaret, was submitting false invoices to McGuire and had been able to swindle $6 million through their factoring agreement.

[16:46] Jessica: My God.

[16:49] Meg: Now this is a very short period of time, right? So you would think, McGuire, what's wrong with you? But actually they're new to the biz, so it took them a minute to catch up, but it didn't take them five minutes to check. Yeah, okay. Irwin knew that it would all catch up to him if he didn't do something fast. First, he claimed that Margaret had stolen $1 million in diamonds from Candor. Then he, he's saying this to the McGuire people, right?

[17:17] Jessica: Right, right.

[17:17] Meg: Then he realized that Margaret had just as much incentive to throw him under the bus as he did to blame her for everything. That's when he got in touch with Donald Nash, who really loves ski masks. You're so clever. Donald was a guy who had grown up in Hell's Kitchen. So here we have another person from that neighborhood, Right, Because Hell's Kitchen's right there. He drove a cab and was the counterman at Ike and Mike Deli on West 45th and was the neighborhood handyman. He would do what he needed to do for money. And while he had been arrested a number of times, his offenses were nonviolent burglary, petty larceny, forging a taxi medallion. He was devoted to his live in girlfriend and her grown daughter. And that grown daughter had recently become pregnant and been abandoned by her abusive boyfriend. So Donald was desperate for money to support his growing family.

[18:25] Jessica: This is, this is filled with pathos.

[18:28] Meg: Irwin's lawyer, who had once represented Donald on one of his small petty crimes, put the two men in touch. Irwin, bad lawyer.

[18:40] Jessica: Bad, bad lawyer.

[18:42] Meg: I. Yeah, lock that lawyer up. Irwin paid Donald $8,000 to kill Jenny, hoping that Margaret would be intimidated. But Margaret, fearing for her life, started talking to the feds about her boss, Irwin. Then Irwin is new to this life of violence and just starts friggin flailing. He then directed Nash to kill Margaret for another $8,000. He's also like, I have so much cash. $8,000 here. $8,000.

[19:17] Jessica: My embezzled cash is yours for the taking.

[19:20] Meg: And he even threw in $5,000 more when the three CBS men were killed.

[19:25] Jessica: Well, I mean, guy deserved a bonus. Come on.

[19:29] Meg: But Nash Wasn't the savviest of hitmen. He had registered his van's license plate at the garage.

[19:36] Jessica: Are you shitting me right now?

[19:38] Meg: He left shell casings everywhere. And instead of dumping his van, he just painted it black and drove out of town. He was arrested in the van a week later in Kentucky. Two phone calls made from a payphone at the alley where Margaret's body was found.

[19:59] Jessica: Oh, come on.

[20:00] Meg: Were made to Irwin and to Donald's nephew. Helping to connect the dots.

[20:07] Jessica: I mean, this is this. So the book is called the CBS Murders.

[20:12] Meg: Yeah.

[20:13] Jessica: This should be, you know, the. The most inept criminals ever who did

[20:18] Meg: a lot of damage.

[20:19] Jessica: Yes. In a brief moment of total meltdown,

[20:23] Meg: Donald was sentenced to a hundred years to life. Irwin's lawyer helped fill in all the sordid details because obviously he was in trou then. Irwin was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 25 years to life, which would commence after his 28 year sentence for fraud. Irwin sia worried that his wife Madeline would also be imprisoned for fraud. Irwin tried to hire a hitman from his jail cell to murder Maguire's lawyer, who had uncovered the factoring scheme. Stop Irwin. It's not working for you, Erwin.

[21:01] Jessica: You can't make fetch happen.

[21:06] Meg: He was ratted out by a jailhouse informant. Of course he was.

[21:13] Jessica: Oh, Erwin.

[21:14] Meg: And Madeline was sentenced to three years for her participation. And she deserved every minute of that term. I mean, this woman, she was not sitting on the sidelines going, like, I have no idea where this money is coming from. I mean, she was in the.

[21:30] Jessica: Actually, Madeline Margolis would be like new. I know nothing. No, Blanche Dubois, Ms. Margolis, whatever.

[21:41] Meg: The diamond version.

[21:43] Jessica: I just did it for you.

[21:47] Meg: So we've got the Margolises, we've got Margaret, we've got Jenny and Donald and even the CBS men whose lives changed drastically in such a short period of time.

[22:01] Jessica: Weren't they all killed?

[22:03] Meg: Yes. Their lives are changed drastically too, by them ending.

[22:06] Jessica: Okay, well, I. Okay, I thought. Forgive me. I thought that yes, ending is a drastic life change. I thought they had survived and like in some way they had. They. I don't know, whatever.

[22:19] Meg: Because what I'm trying to figure out is you've got all these people who would these people even be on jury duty together. They are so crazy. Have nothing in common with each other, but, you know, kind of six degrees of separation and the neighborhood. And once this greed took hold, things escalated rapidly and there was no going back. But yeah, it's like a neighborhood story.

[22:44] Jessica: I love that Margolis wanted to kill the lawyer as though the lawyer hadn't taken notes. And it wasn't information within the firm.

[22:53] Meg: It's so naive. Madeleine was 41, Irwin was 49.

[22:58] Jessica: What?

[22:59] Meg: They had two sons and in two years they lost their friggin minds up until like basically, you know, middle age. They were completely reasonable, as far as we know, upstanding citizens with a small

[23:16] Jessica: business or at least suddenly in some way. But yeah, they, they just turned into

[23:20] Meg: master criminal murderer people.

[23:22] Jessica: Well, really not master criminal.

[23:24] Meg: Not master. I take that back.

[23:26] Jessica: Deeply involved. But I wonder, like, what, what could the triggering event have been? Like, I, I'm having fun imagining, like,

[23:35] Meg: did someone like, we know what Donald's trigger was. He had a money problem.

[23:39] Jessica: Like, did the Margolis next door neighbor put in a hot tub and green with envy. They were like, we need to upgrade too.

[23:47] Meg: Yeah. And I'm assuming that it was this complete switch of their morals, but maybe, maybe they were like just sitting there bitter at their like, lack of, I don't know, success or something. I mean, I, to me, small business sounds great, but.

[24:05] Jessica: Well, I would imagine that if you're working essentially on the street. The diamond district on 40. Well, they're two blocks actually. What a great metaphor. They're two blocks from the main drag. They're not really in it.

[24:21] Meg: Oh, that's perception.

[24:22] Jessica: They're like the 20, you know, you know that, that, that documentary 20ft from stardom about the backup singers who are just as great as the lead singer? These people were two blocks from real money. So maybe they were like, you know what? We've done everything we possibly can with brooches and the gold chain industry is not enough. And you have to have not only a lot of money to get started in the real diamond business, but you have to be, you know, in that world. Like it's a whole universe and there is no if you're not in it already. You know, what is it? South Africa, Belgium, and the orthodox Jewish World on 47th Street. If you're not in, you're never in. So maybe they just were like, you know what, this sucks. And we've had it like we want. If we can't really play in the big leagues, we're gonna start living in the big leagues.

[25:28] Meg: And their sons were college age.

[25:30] Jessica: Were they in college?

[25:32] Meg: Yeah.

[25:33] Jessica: Ugh, poor kids.

[25:34] Meg: But also expensive.

[25:36] Jessica: Oh yeah, potentially. Potentially. I mean, if they went to like a SUNY school, maybe not. I love that I'm now conjecturing about where the sons went to school, but that's the fascinating part about this whole story. What I'm really drawn to is that you know what it sounds. You know what it sounds like. And I know this is a very irreverent take, but it's almost like A Fish Called Wanda. It's a farce of itself. Like, it's so knuckleheaded. And of course, if people. If people had not died, then it

[26:12] Meg: would be funny, these good Samaritans.

[26:15] Jessica: But. Yeah, but. And also the involved. Who's our BMW driving?

[26:22] Meg: Margaret.

[26:22] Jessica: Margaret. Margaret.

[26:24] Meg: Oh, yeah. What happened with her? What's your theory about her? Because she made a concerted effort to become someone who did things illegally. There was no gun to her head. She did this completely vulnerable.

[26:37] Jessica: She's an opportunist, like the Margolises.

[26:40] Meg: Her life started falling apart before she met Erwin.

[26:45] Jessica: Well, so that's the big question, right? Like, what was taking Margaret down a

[26:50] Meg: little lonely when she went to Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner at the Chins?

[26:55] Jessica: Okay, I've got one. So this is a crazy, crazy coincidence. So my dear sister in law has written a book about her great aunt who was one of the founders of pflag, Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays in the early 80s. So I'm thinking. And you know, and she did it because she was. She had a lesbian daughter and she was aware of how like, it was the norm for kids to be thrown away by their families. So because I've recently been exposed to this story, I'm thinking maybe Margaret came out. She's been thrown away by her. Her friends and family and is just at loose ends and maybe angry, maybe, you know, obviously sad and meets a

[27:45] Meg: woman who she's actually going. She has a, like, connection with a relationship with. And they want to travel.

[27:54] Jessica: Well, hell yes.

[27:56] Meg: Come on.

[27:57] Jessica: Absolutely.

[27:59] Meg: Now she gets some happiness in her life after being lonely personally.

[28:03] Jessica: And she's been so let down. Maybe she just doesn't give a shit about like, you know, the establishment. People who are, you know, like living, you know.

[28:12] Meg: So, yeah, she's. She gets fired because, you know, basically it sounds like she was pretty depressed. Yeah.

[28:19] Jessica: I can't get out of bed because. And the only thing I can think of is everyone's dead. That sounds pretty depressed. Well, her excuses. Everyone's died.

[28:28] Meg: Oh, got it. Yeah.

[28:30] Jessica: It's dark.

[28:32] Meg: She meets Jenny. She starts to work for Erwin. And who knows whose idea it was? I don't know who can manage her?

[28:39] Jessica: Erwin doesn't seem very smart.

[28:42] Meg: So it might have been.

[28:43] Jessica: I'm thinking maybe Margaret, because Margaret was also savvy enough to put all of the paperwork together and try to hide it, whereas Erwin is like, I'll kill everybody.

[28:53] Meg: But it's also possible that Erwin had started this whole thing with candor and was just looking for a friendly accountant. They blamed each other when they started talking to the feds while Margaret was still alive.

[29:07] Jessica: Interesting. So, yeah, it's definitely a story of its time and juicy as hell. But as I said, from my perspective, if it weren't so tragic, it would be hilarious. So I have to admit that the reason I think I was primed to see the story of Erwin and Donald is so funny is because we're gonna talk about comedy today.

[29:46] Meg: Oh, good. Okay, so balance.

[29:50] Jessica: In one of our previous podcasts, we talk about the literary brat packaging of the 80s. Tamajanowitz. Right? Brett Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney and I had the great and good fortune to go to our local independent bookstore, the Corner Bookstore. So great. Best place ever. And they know me there and they know my weird tastes, as is the job of any good bookstore. Right? Like, they know their customers. And so I was talking to one of the guys who runs it, his name is Nick, and he was like, have I got the book for? So he recommended a book called My Search for Warren Harding, which we're gonna talk about. But that book inspired me to talk about great comic novels of the 80s. Okay, so. And anyone who is a fan of comic novels, the Holy Grail was published in 1980, and that's Confederacy of Dunces.

[30:53] Meg: Oh, so it's so great. And of course, everybody knows. Are you gonna tell the story?

[31:00] Jessica: I'm going to tell the story. And we know, but I don't know if everybody knows.

[31:04] Meg: You're right. I mean, I think it was probably of a time. And now, you know, people have gone on to read other fantastic books.

[31:12] Jessica: But yeah, this one had cult status and it came out exactly in 1980,

[31:18] Meg: and I told Billy that he should read it, and he's like, eh, okay, I'll get around to it. I'm like, no, please do. Really do.

[31:25] Jessica: No. And in fact, it has such a cult status that it's sort. You get the same reaction from people who love it as you do from, like, you know, the guys who work in comic book stores or record stores. Like, oh, let me tell you every nerd fact about this that I know. So I wanted to talk about these two comic novels, which I'm in love with. And also, you know, Americans are not hugely known for their great comedy novels. You know, catch 22, which is another one and written by Joseph Heller decades earlier. It's darker than these. These are just flat out hilarious. So there are a couple of things that I wanted to talk about first, as you know, I haven't done a full on rant in a while. So this is a little bit of Jessica's rant, which is both of these books are proof that success and getting recognized for what, what you've created do not come immediately, all the time. In fact, frequently they don't. And as you know, I was working on a project for the last several years and got some people involved in the last year, and they all dropped out after almost exactly 12 months because, quote, it wasn't happening fast enough. And so I was thinking about Confederacy of Dunces, and now we can add my search for Warren Harding to the list. But things that are great don't happen fast. And my Gen X crabby, crabby rant about social media and insta fame, just. You've heard me do it before. Insert here. So talking about comedy, two things that I think are very true and are evident in the two books we're going to talk about. To be a great writer, you need to be a great reader. And to have a great comedy writer, you have to know yourself and the world with cruel insight and forgiving love simultaneously.

[33:38] Meg: That's a good line, right?

[33:39] Jessica: Yeah, I wrote that. Yeah. Thank you. Okay, so that is what I think is very true and what I'm sharing today. So let's talk about a Confederacy of Dunces. Not an overnight success. So John Kennedy Toole wrote this book in the early 60s, and he was brilliant, by anyone's account. Brilliant and from New Orleans, which he knew like the back of his hand. He had a mother who always thought that he was a genius. And unlike a lot of mothers, she was right. He was a scholar, he was a professor, and known in his circle for being a little bit of a weirdo, but also just the funniest person ever. And, like, he wouldn't want to throw a party or entertain, but when he did throw one party, it was the party that everyone remembered forever. Like, he's that guy. So John Kennedy Toole writes this book in the early 60s. He knows it's good. He wrote a book when he was 16 called the Neon Bible, and he hated it, so he never did anything with it, but. But it was practice. So this book, he does this and he shops it around to all of the New York City publishers, and he doesn't get any traction except with. We're gonna now do a reference back to one of our earlier shows, the legendary Robert Gottlieb. Oh. Of Simon and Schuster.

[35:09] Meg: Good for him. Guy's got good taste.

[35:11] Jessica: Nope, he doesn't.

[35:12] Meg: Uh.

[35:13] Jessica: Oh. So eventually, though, he did encourage John Kennedy Toole. He rejected the book, and he said it was pointless.

[35:22] Meg: Oh, my God. That was not my experience of that book in any way.

[35:27] Jessica: No, no, no, no, no. Just wait for the story. So he says it's pointless because there are all of these crazy threads with these characters who are running around. And Robert Gottlieb is saying every single one of these threads has to come together to make a point, a single point. And that is definitely not what this does. But it was very hard to argue with the famous editor of the aforementioned Joseph Heller's Catch 22, John Cheever, Ray Bradbury, John Le Carre, Salman Rushdie, and Toni Morrison. So although they were not on the list at the time, so horribly dejected,

[36:07] Meg: did he believe what Robert Gottlieb said?

[36:09] Jessica: No, in his soul, he did not. And interestingly, later on in life, Robert Gottlieb caught hell for rejecting the book, I bet. But March 26th of 1969. So another reason that I was thinking about this book, that was the anniversary of the date on which. Well, 1969 is when he committed suicide. John Kennedy Toole, horribly depressed, and in part because of the rejection of what he knew was a genius book.

[36:44] Meg: Oh, my gosh.

[36:45] Jessica: So here's what happened. His mother, who knew he was a genius in 1976, takes the manuscript, and because she's in New Orleans, goes to the famous writer and professor Walker Percy. He's working at Loyola. He's a professor at Loyola, so he's connected to Louisiana and New Orleans. He knows the subject matter, and he. He wrote.

[37:15] Meg: Sees the Beauty in it.

[37:16] Jessica: Right. In 1961, he wrote the Moviegoer that won the National Book Award for fiction. So Thelma Toole knows that this is the guy who's gonna get it.

[37:28] Meg: It's also so interesting now that it's become a matter of regional recognition. I mean, when you think about Southern writers, that is its own genre that's now certainly respected, but maybe not so much in the late 60s. I don't know.

[37:44] Jessica: Well, and John Kennedy Toole was a huge fan of Flannery o'. Connor.

[37:49] Meg: I mean, come on.

[37:50] Jessica: So that was its own thing. And to bring this connect. To connect it to New York. One of the great bridges of Southern fiction to New York City was the aforementioned Truman Capote.

[38:01] Meg: Uh huh.

[38:02] Jessica: Originally from Alabama and best friend of Harper Lee.

[38:06] Meg: Yes.

[38:06] Jessica: So Walker Percy does not want to read an unsolicited manuscript from some lady with a dead son. And he's like, no, no, no. But he's a nice guy, so eventually he's like, fine, I'll read it. And expects to read the first paragraph and just dump it. She hands over a messy, almost illegible manuscript, and he's like, okay, fine. He starts reading and he's like, not bad. Keeps reading it pretty good. Reads a little more. This is a work of genius.

[38:41] Meg: Oh, my gosh.

[38:42] Jessica: So he. So that was in 1976.

[38:46] Meg: Okay. And he's a professor.

[38:48] Jessica: He's a professor at Loyola. And the mother says to him, quote, read this because it's a great novel. He can't disagree. His comment about it is, I shall resist the temptation to say what first made me gape, grin, laugh out loud, shake my head in wonderment. Better let the reader make the discovery on his own. So that is how it came to Life. And in 1980, on the recommendation and the insistence and the championing of Walker Percy, John Kennedy Toole's masterpiece is finally published.

[39:29] Meg: Just in time for us.

[39:30] Jessica: Just in time for us. I'm gonna read a tiny bit the same way that I did with the pop culture authors of the 80s who were only writing like three or four years later than this publication. So it's a stark contrast to the tastes of the literary world or readers of great fiction in the 80s. Another thing that I'm just going to throw in, and this also has to do with the other book we're about to talk about, is that not only are great writers great readers, but. But they pull from great characters. And here we go. Before I begin reading, when I say great characters, Ignatius J. Reilly, who is the protagonist of this totally bonkers book, is very clearly drawn from Don Quixote, Falstaff, and Thomas Aquinas. This is how the book opens. A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green ear flaps full of large ears and uncut hair, and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves stuck out on either side like turn signals, indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black mustache and at their corners sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs. In the shadow under the green visor of the cap, Ignatius J. Reilly's supercilious blue and yellow eyes looked down upon the other people waiting under the clock at the D.H. holmes, department store, studying the crowd of people for signs of bad taste in dress. Several of the outfits Ignatius noticed were new enough and expensive enough to be properly considered offenses against taste and decency. Possession of anything new or expensive only reflected a person's lack of theology and geometry. It could even cast doubts upon one's soul. Ignatius himself was dressed comfortably and sensibly. The hunting cap prevented head colds. The voluminous tweed trousers were durable and permitted unusually free locomotion. Their pleats and nooks contained pockets of warm, stale air that soothed Ignatius. The plaid flannel shirt made a jacket unnecessary, while the muffler guarded exposed Riley skin between ear flaps and collar. The outfit was acceptable by any theological and geometrical standards, however abstruse and suggested a rich inner life.

[42:03] Meg: Can I tell you, when I read this book, not everything about this character, but some of the elements of this character, reminded me of my father.

[42:14] Jessica: I see that.

[42:15] Meg: Do you?

[42:16] Jessica: I do.

[42:17] Meg: I crazily enough said that to him at the time.

[42:21] Jessica: No, you didn't.

[42:21] Meg: But you know what? I don't think he'd read it.

[42:24] Jessica: Oh, thank God.

[42:24] Meg: He was published in 1980.

[42:26] Jessica: He wouldn't care.

[42:27] Meg: No, he's a classics professor. He wasn't reading something that came out in 1980.

[42:31] Jessica: Well, you. You got off easy on that one. So one last little bit, just to. To whet anyone's appetite or completely make them lose their appetite. Because that is what Ignatius J. Reilly will do to a person. His mother. They're trying to escape from a commotion that Ignatius himself has caused. In front of the department store. His mother pulls her. His mother, who's a bit of a rummy, pulls him into the Night of Joy Bar. My godmother. It smells awful. My stomach is beginning to churn. You want to go back on the street? You want that policeman to take you in? Ignatius did not answer. He was sniffing loudly and making faces. Mrs. Riley, Ghost says to the bartender, they got strippers in here at night, huh? Mrs. Riley nudged her son. I would imagine so, Ignatius said coldly. He looked quite pained. We might have stopped somewhere else. I suspect that the police will raid this place momentarily anyway. He snorted loudly and cleared his throat. Thank God my mustache filters out some of the stench. My olfactories are already beginning to send out distress signals. So that is Ignatius. That is the very beginning of Ignatius and Mrs. Riley. And they love each other and drive each other completely insane. There's another passage that I really want to read, but I will control myself about Ignatius meeting a New York Woman named Myrna and how she is representative of all of the the high minded liberals of New York City at the time.

[44:14] Meg: Oh my God, that sounds amazing. Why don't you do that for one of your Jessica Reid's?

[44:17] Jessica: I shall. I will. Dress up like Ignatius. Yes.

[44:21] Meg: Oh, will you? Do you have a hat like that?

[44:24] Jessica: Well, I'm gonna have to find one if I have to construct it with, you know, cardboard. I will quickly. I'll try to be fast, but I don't know if I can promise that. In a similar story of brilliance that needed a while to be. Let's just say re recognized is Robert Plunkett who wrote My Search for Warren Harding which came out in 1983.

[44:50] Meg: Okay, never heard of it, had you?

[44:53] Jessica: Never. Which is why I loved this book from being handed it by Nick at the corner bookstore. But here's what was said about it in 1983. The Washington Post said it's the top five books of greatest American comic fiction. The Guardian has put it on its thousand novels everyone must read. Time magazine at the time said a riotous debut, the Aspen Papers as performed by the Brothers Marx. Again, a good note to be a good reader. For those who don't know, the Aspen Papers was written by Henry James in 1988. There's an unnamed narrator who seduces a young woman to get to her ancient aunt's treasure trove of love letters from a famous and now dead poet. Which is precisely what Robert Plunkett drew the framework for this novel from. But he sets it in New York and in LA in the 80s in.

[45:51] Meg: So it's contemporary.

[45:52] Jessica: Yes, exactly. As a quick note, part of the comedy is that Warren Harding is known as one of the worst presidents of all time and was president from 1921-23 when he died in office in the wake of many scandals. Among them that he had much younger mistress who allegedly bore him a child in 2015 it was confirmed it was his kid. Thank you, DNA. So Robert Plunkett writes this in 1982. He is gay and writing from a particular perspective at a particular time with outsiderness as a very big

[46:37] Meg: Truman Capote.

[46:38] Jessica: Exactly. And the time itself that we know of the 80s was perfectly ripe for satire because everything was contradictory that was going on at the time. Too much for a humorist to ignore. Just as a quick aside, this book was loved by many people, but among them most notably Larry David. Larry David loved this book so much that he kept it in the Seinfeld writers room and would hand out copies saying do this to The Seinfeld writers.

[47:08] Meg: Maybe Billy will read this book then. He loves Larry David.

[47:12] Jessica: And in fact, Elaine's insane dance is lifted directly from this book. What? No, I swear to you, it is absolutely true. Because the world is a weird place. Where is Robert Plunkett now? Well, the New York Times, last year, when this book was finally republished by New Directions to. To unbelievable fanfare, opened their article thusly. Robert Plunkett was living in a trailer park in Englewood, Florida, with his pug, Meatball, when an email interrupted his life of quiet retirement.

[47:50] Meg: Oh, my God.

[47:50] Jessica: An editor in New York wanted to publish his debut novel. The message struck Plunkett as odd. The novel, first published in 1983, had long been out of print, and Plunkett, after a brief moment in the spotlight, had fallen off the literary. I did feel like an obscure has been, Plunkett said, because that's what I was technically.

[48:13] Meg: So even though Larry David and I'm sure many other people were like, oh, this incredible book, they hadn't republished it, so it was as good as dead.

[48:23] Jessica: It was a cult classic. And if you could get your hands on a copy, you could get your hands on a copy.

[48:27] Meg: Got it.

[48:28] Jessica: And because you're gonna see all roads lead to Madonna.

[48:32] Meg: Oh, my God.

[48:32] Jessica: A couple of years after the novel came out, Plunkett, who is gay and saw many of his friends in New York die of aids, needed a break from the city and left for Florida. In 1992, he published his second novel, Love Junkie, about a bored housewife who goes into business with a gay male porn star. Reviews were mixed, though. Madonna, who at one point wanted to adapt the novel into a film, was a fan. We hit it off. Plunkett said that was about as close as Plunkett got to stardom. The movie was never made, and Plunkett failed to sell his third novel, an illustrated coffee table book about a fictional interior designer. So this genius who's finally being recognized again. We're going to read a little bit of his book.

[49:17] Meg: Is he still with us?

[49:18] Jessica: He is. Yay. And really enjoying his return to the literary world. And he's been doing signings and running about. I hope that Meatball is still with us.

[49:29] Meg: So when did the resurgence happen? When was it reestablished?

[49:31] Jessica: Oh, my gosh. Very recent. So this is just a quick bit from the introduction about the nature of satire and writing a horrible character, which, again, is very Seinfeld. Right. None of the characters in Seinfeld were anyone. You'd really want to know the main character in this book is Elliot Weiner. Wiener is the biggest joke of all. One of Elliot and Jonica's early dates is to an avant garde feminist performance, an audience participation play called All My Sisters Slept in Dirt, a choral poem performed at the LA Women's Theater. Quote, then all of a sudden people started streaming in like they just got off a bus. Women mostly, with severe haircuts and aviator glasses. It hit me what an important moment in feminist fashion it was when Gloria Steinem dropp by her opticians and said, I'll take those. The satire in the scene is perfect. And we're aware too that Eliot, who has a sweating problem and is wearing a silk shirt, has strapped cut up Pampers diapers to his underarms to absorb the sweat. Whenever the author is vicious about the people around him, he humiliates Eliot a little more. Eliot expresses his repulsion toward Jonica and yet the reader knows Weiner is the one with the soggy Pampers taped under his arms.

[50:54] Meg: That reminds me of. Oh, a movie we haven't talked about sweating profusely on air.

[51:00] Jessica: Oh, broadcast news.

[51:02] Meg: Thank you.

[51:02] Jessica: Best movie ever.

[51:04] Meg: Yeah, I wonder if they got inspired by this book.

[51:08] Jessica: God, I hope they did. Everything that Albert Brooks says in that film is priceless and everything that Holly Hunter says is almost as priceless. And in fact there's a line that people use all the time now and probably don't know where it's from when Holly Hunter, who is the producer and is such a know it all, is there's a breaking news and she's barking what to do and the head of the network is in the room and he says to her quite acidly, I'll bet it's really hard to be the smartest person in the room. And she says earnestly, you have no idea.

[51:47] Meg: There are. So I. I thought of three different other lines from that movie when you first started talking, it is chock full.

[51:57] Jessica: I'm going to read two sections. He's talking. Elliot Weiner is talking about the only other person in academia who cares about Warren Harding. He is his rival. They are both ridiculous. It was my chief rival, Patterson Decker from Yale, who had tracked her down, the old lady with the letters, or rather bumped into her through blind luck and no fault of his own. Harding has never been a fashionable specialization for historians. Consequently, Decker and I pretty much have the field to ourselves. Our relationship is cordial but competitive. He resents I feel my youth and ambition. Some unfortunate comments have gotten back to me about my quote, qualifications. I don't wish to bore the reader with some petty argument about a couple of fusty scholars or dwell on my educational background. Suffice it to say that I teach at both Mercy College and the New School, and I feel that speaks for itself. And I will be the first to admit that Decker's contributions to Harding Onia have been tremendous and that the charges of speciousness that are occasionally leveled against his work are largely unmerited. To go to LA to follow up on his letters that he thinks he's found, Elliot has to sublet his apartment. I had to sublet my apartment. One of those enormous west side fines to three girls from Texas who will probably never change the sheets. You should have heard them squawk when I demanded a 250 deposit for the phone. One look at them and I knew they were talkers. And of course, I would miss Pam. Pam is my girlfriend. She works at the Ford foundation where she oversees programs having to do with senior citizens, women's issues, and child abuse. It's a dream job, but she hates it. Pam is 35, somewhat older than myself. He's 32. She's terrified she's gonna end up one of those women you see all the time in the Village, dressed in a black turtleneck with a lot of Navajo Jew hair in a bun, attending meetings about social change, and quite frankly, so am I. Nevertheless, she has many wonderful qualities. We have discussed living together but have decided against it. It's funny how it's always the little things. For instance, I can't fall asleep unless the TV is on, and she can't fall asleep if it is. So we maintain separate apartments. And if that's not a New York story, I don't know what it is.

[54:39] Meg: That is too perfect.

[54:41] Jessica: So, anyway, you know, we talk a lot about all that is tragically hip on this podcast, and these books could not be farther from that. And, you know, I will even include, if I can, a link to the Corner Bookstore online because they should be selling these books to you.

[55:05] Meg: Oh, absolutely. There's no doubt we'll post about the Corner Bookstore.

[55:08] Jessica: And if you like comic novels, if these two catch your interest at the Corner Bookstore, they will be able to recommend every other brilliant comic novel that you could possibly want.

[55:32] Meg: So, yes, you have it.

[55:34] Jessica: I know, I. This, this, you know, I. I called it before I even started my segment, which is, you know, all of these people, both, both the Margolises, and, you know, your cab driver, like, all of them are cut from the same cloth as Ignatius and Elliot Weiner. They're all completely to blame for their own predicaments. Very quick to blame everyone else around them for what they're, you know, the soup they've landed themselves. Certainly.

[56:09] Meg: Erwin.

[56:09] Jessica: Yes, and they are all either intentionally or unintentionally so, hilarious in their complete ineptitude. Either the ineptitude of not being able to pull off even the simplest heist by removing the the license plates. Like, did he ever even see a movie? Like, come on. Or the insanity of Elliot Weiner stalking an octogenarian woman trying to get her letters and being gay and seducing her niece to get them. Spoiler. No, no, it's right up in the front. Very, very evident, you know, Ignatius railing against the world, not realizing that he's one man against, well, many others. So I think Bumblers is our Pee Wee's Playhouse. Word of the day tie in.

[57:07] Meg: That is good. Sam.