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

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

[00:27] Meg: We. Where we still live and where we podcast about New York city in the 80s. I do ripped from the headlines, and

[00:34] Jessica: I do pop culture.

[00:37] Meg: We are back in the same room together. Thank the Lord.

[00:41] Jessica: Thank the good Lord.

[00:42] Meg: I thought people would write in a little bit, talking about, you know, how the sound quality wasn't ideal or whatever for our last two zooming episodes. But actually, what I heard was everyone saying, it's okay. It's not. You know, they were like, we. We can hang in there for a couple episodes. So that was nice to hear.

[01:02] Jessica: Well, that's good. I'm gratified to hear that, because it is a lot to be on the other side of the Atlantic doing it as well. So it's. I am grateful to our listenership. Thank you, guys.

[01:18] Meg: Yeah. And that it was worth having a go at it. Absolutely. Why not?

[01:24] Jessica: In fact. So my friend Eleanor has a shop in Exmouth Market, and she gave me some things from her shop, and one of them is that sign on the wall.

[01:37] Meg: Yes, this is very true.

[01:38] Jessica: Better done than perfect.

[01:39] Meg: You know, I have an accountability coach.

[01:42] Jessica: I do know that you have an accountability coach.

[01:45] Meg: And that is one of the things that she says frequently. And she listens to this podcast, too. Hello, Bethany.

[01:50] Jessica: Hello, Bethany.

[01:51] Meg: But, yes, wonderful, Bethany. But the sign says. You can say it.

[01:55] Jessica: It just says, done is better than perfect. And it is a perfect, beautiful letterpress version of that. The other one that Eleanor gave me is, sorry I'm late. I didn't want to come. But it's less inspirational. Exactly.

[02:11] Meg: But it just. You have to admit, it's just so much better to be in the same room. Many, many reasons.

[02:17] Jessica: Yes, the vibe. The vibe is different, indeed. But I'm excited to know what you have in store for this week, and I'm excited to share with you as well.

[02:28] Meg: Well, first of all, I wanted to share something that Somebo wrote in, and I think you'll probably know who it is as soon as I start saying it. Really enjoyed today's episode. And by the way, this is a callback. He's referring to the episode 155.

[02:43] Jessica: Okay.

[02:44] Meg: The Plain Dealer and Adventures in Reading. Really enjoyed today's episode. Both parts were right up my street, so to speak. As one of those teenaged male schlubby geeks, I was.

[02:59] Jessica: I know exactly who it is.

[03:02] Meg: Who completely is not that Nice.

[03:04] Jessica: I know. But insists. Insists on hearkening back to those days.

[03:09] Meg: I would, in fact, call him dashing.

[03:11] Jessica: But would he. Would he accept that?

[03:14] Meg: No.

[03:14] Jessica: Okay, all right.

[03:16] Meg: He goes on. I was a total aficionado of Monty Python. I can quote at you their entire oeuvre with absolute accuracy, which does not surprise me.

[03:30] Jessica: It's sort of like guys with Monty Python. Saying it at you is very similar to the joke from the movie Barbie, I'm gonna play the guitar at you.

[03:38] Meg: Oh, my God.

[03:39] Jessica: It's the same thing.

[03:40] Meg: It is. Was a fervent. This is again, her friend was a fervent comic collector and also a devout acolyte of early Letterman. I agree with Jessica. The rot set in when he started jockeying for a better deal.

[03:57] Jessica: Thank you for that affirmation.

[03:58] Meg: Oddly, while I was totally aware of Harvey Picar at the time, he was never a title that I invested in. In terms of American indie comics. I was way more into ridiculous. Like Reed Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman. That's really Sarah the Aardvark, and Evan Dworkin's absolutely crucial milk and cheese. Dairy products gone bad. But I digress. PI Car was never going to be Letterman's comedic kicking boy. And those appearances were kind of inspiring in an insouciant punk rock sort of way. Well, thank you, Alex.

[04:42] Jessica: Thank you, Alex. Yeah, I think. Alex.

[04:47] Meg: Flaming Pablum. Right. How do you find it? Again, it's Vassafur.

[04:51] Jessica: How do you find him?

[04:52] Meg: No, how do you find the website?

[04:55] Jessica: I think it's Vassifer V A S S I F E I F E R. Right.

[04:59] Meg: But it's called Flaming Pablo.

[05:01] Jessica: Exactly.

[05:02] Meg: Got it.

[05:02] Jessica: I think that he makes a very good point. Picar's stubborn refusal to in any way fall for Letterman's charms or his agenda was extremely punk rock. It was so, you know, it was shocking. I think what was interesting about Letterman was that. And as Alex says, when the rot set in is that he started being the establishment instead of wanting to go against it because he was actually looking for the deal, and that was not cool. And Picar going against the burgeoning establishment of Letterman was kind of. Yeah, Very, very much an anarchist's move. Anyway, so I agree. That's. That's the agreement, feedback loop of Alex and us.

[06:06] Meg: So our state capital, Albany.

[06:11] Jessica: I wish you could see the furrowed brow that you are presenting. Yes.

[06:15] Meg: Do you know of Albany? Do you have strong feelings or not? New York City versus New York State. Sharp distinction, correct?

[06:26] Jessica: Very much so.

[06:27] Meg: Were you aware of that when you were a kid.

[06:30] Jessica: I think that anything that wasn't New York City was to me all a blur. As a kid, I was extraordinarily New Yorker cartoon, you know, cover of the New Yorker, myopic. I, I, I think the best way to express it is I didn't think about it at all. Like there was, there was no reason for me to even consider Albany.

[06:52] Meg: I mean, one thing to say about it, which is interesting, is that our home is called New York, New York. Like it's, there's just so much New York in it. The idea that there would be a part of New York that wasn't New York, New York to me was just confusing as a small child. Yes.

[07:09] Jessica: Well, actually, I'll tell you to your point. This is a story that my parents laughed about for years. I must have been seven years old and I was in North Carolina for a family friend's bar mitzvah, you know, like one of these big hoo has. And, you know, they had like a DJ or whatever, an emcee who was going around to all the kids, you know, saying like, say something, blah, blah, blah. And he came over to me and said, so where are you from? And I said, manhattan. I think that that's the answer is I wasn't even New York. It was only, I'm from the island of Manhattan. That's it. So, yeah, Albany, named for the Duke of Albany. Is that of any interest?

[07:52] Meg: I have no idea.

[07:54] Jessica: That's it. There you go. English Duke of Albany. I have no idea if he financed something, who knows? But that's it. It's a big blank.

[08:04] Meg: Alrighty.

[08:05] Jessica: Yeah, It's a no.

[08:06] Meg: Okay.

[08:06] Jessica: It's a hard one.

[08:07] Meg: It might as well. We're going to get ourselves in trouble like Ed did.

[08:15] Jessica: I know this. Like, so what is this upstate you speak of? It seems so interesting. You must be very interesting people. I can say that. My second husband is from Rochester.

[08:37] Meg: You know who else is from Rochester? My great friend Michael, who listens to this podcast.

[08:43] Jessica: Hi, Michael. So are relatives of mine. Interestingly, my mother's cousin Judy was a science teacher and one of her pupils was Philip Seymour Hoffman. How about that?

[08:57] Meg: I think it's so funny that we're trying to come up with fun facts about upstate. Look, what we're coming up with is I know someone who once lived there.

[09:07] Jessica: Well, I mean, if that, if that isn't our brand, I don't know what is. I think we've just leaned extra hard into who we are. So. Okay, let's just, let's Just bring this car crash to a halt. And please, I am dying to know how where you're going with this.

[09:25] Meg: All right, my sources are Washington Post, New York Magazine, New York Times on April 11, 1981. This is actually a follow up story.

[09:37] Jessica: Okay.

[09:38] Meg: Remember last week's about Ed Koch?

[09:41] Jessica: Yeah. How could I ever forget?

[09:42] Meg: Like running for governor debacle.

[09:44] Jessica: He made a lot of mistakes, did Ed.

[09:46] Meg: Yeah. All right, so something came up in that story that I then researched for today.

[09:52] Jessica: Okay.

[09:53] Meg: Again. On April 11, 1981, Hugh Carey, the governor of New York State, married Evangeline Guletas at the Holy Trinity Greek Archdiocese. Diocesan. Diocesan. I don't know.

[10:11] Jessica: Archdioceseian.

[10:13] Meg: That sounds so much better. Say it again.

[10:15] Jessica: Diocesan.

[10:16] Meg: All right, I believe you. Cathedral at 319 East 74th Street. It was Governor Kerry's 62nd birthday.

[10:25] Jessica: I swear to God. I thought you were about to say his 16th marriage. I don't know why that went into my head.

[10:30] Meg: No, no, no, no.

[10:31] Jessica: What's wrong with me?

[10:32] Meg: No, this is different than that.

[10:33] Jessica: Okay, okay.

[10:35] Meg: It was his 62nd birthday and the ceremony was attended by his 12 children.

[10:41] Jessica: What?

[10:41] Meg: His wife of 27 years, Helen, had died of breast cancer in 1974. And two other of their sons, they had 14 children. My friend were killed in a car accident in 1969.

[10:58] Jessica: She gave birth 14 times?

[11:01] Meg: Yes.

[11:02] Jessica: Oh, Helen.

[11:03] Meg: Yeah. And then she died.

[11:05] Jessica: Holy shit.

[11:07] Meg: All right, Hugh, Carrie, this will not shock you. Was a Roman Catholic and his new bride was Greek Orthodox. It had been a whirlwind romance. Evangeline, who was 44, met Hugh the day after Ronald Reagan's inauguration in D.C. just three months previously.

[11:30] Jessica: Three months.

[11:31] Meg: Three months.

[11:32] Jessica: Good gravy.

[11:33] Meg: She had founded. This is another pronunciation strangeness. American. Invisco. So there are only two vowels in this word. Invisco.

[11:47] Jessica: I, N, V, S, C, O.

[11:48] Meg: Yes. Who names these things?

[11:51] Jessica: Is it an acronym?

[11:53] Meg: It doesn't print that way, no. Yeah. And this was a billion dollar Chicago based real estate company and she founded it with her brothers Nicholas and Victor. They came from some family money. The Gouletas family money came from shipping.

[12:14] Jessica: Greek. Greek shipping. Got it. Check.

[12:17] Meg: Yeah. Evangeline's two and a half year old granddaughter was the flower girl at the wedding.

[12:23] Jessica: She was 44.

[12:24] Meg: Yes.

[12:24] Jessica: And had a two and a half year old grandchild.

[12:26] Meg: Okay. Yes. And it was a grand affair, this wedding. Hugh Carey sang New York, New York to a crowd of 700 lined up behind barricades. Many in the wedding party wore I Love New York buttons. The slogan had been adopted during Cary's stint as governor and many credited him with saving New York from bankruptcy back when Gerald Ford told the city to drop dead. And I'd be interested to hear what your father remembers about Hugh Carey and all of this.

[13:03] Jessica: My father personally had many experiences with Hugh Carey, so you can give Bert a call.

[13:09] Meg: Okay. But behind all the glad handing and celebration, there were some who were whispering. Even Evangeline's daughter admitted some reservations to the press. Quote, I was scared when they first started dating, like three months ago. Then I realized they were so happy together and so good for each other.

[13:33] Jessica: Three months ago.

[13:34] Meg: Okay.

[13:35] Jessica: Okay.

[13:36] Meg: Well, before the wedding, Hugh Carey had been demonstrating what some considered odd behavior. He was often aloof and cold, but could turn on the charm when he wanted to. He was considered a good governor, but a bad politician who didn't hide when his feelings were hurt. Very prickly. He'd had a long term courtship with Ford Motor Company heiress. And Ford, he even appeared to propose to her on election eve, 1978. Quote, I announced that in order that I will not be aloof, alone, remote, inaccessible and grouchy, I embark on a new campaign. Hint, hint.

[14:23] Jessica: Wait. He said this to the press?

[14:24] Meg: He said it in his speech on election night. He said when he accepted the governorship, he got re elected.

[14:35] Jessica: Wait, give me the opening line again.

[14:38] Meg: I announce that in order that I will not be aloof, alone, remote, inaccessible and grouchy, I embark on a new campaign.

[14:49] Jessica: I. It's such an awkward phrasing. In order that I not be like that is. I think just the syntax alone is a sign that something is awry.

[15:01] Meg: Well, Anne did not take the bait and they broke up soon after.

[15:06] Jessica: Cringe.

[15:06] Meg: As governor, he'd been busy. He signed the Willowbrook consent decree, which ended forced hospitalization of the mentally ill. He made environmental issues a priority and modernized the subway system. But he also baffled many old school Irish Catholics by being pro choice. He believed that poor women deserved the same access to abortions that rich women had. And he decriminalized homosexuality.

[15:37] Jessica: Go, Hugh Cary.

[15:38] Meg: I know, right? And Jimmy Breslin mocked his affluent lifestyle, dubbing him society Carry. Quote, he sits in the planes and helicopters and looks at the clouds, which often match those inside his head.

[15:55] Jessica: Jimmy Breslin was such a dick. Sorry I was a little harsh, but really, you know what? He deserves a profile from us.

[16:06] Meg: Oh, absolutely. But yeah, his whole deal was, I'm working class and this guy is all hanging out with all the rich people.

[16:15] Jessica: Jimmy Breslin made a point of only being seen in rolled up shirt sleeves, like so. Talk about cultivating a Persona.

[16:26] Meg: Hugh Carrey dyed his hair black.

[16:28] Jessica: Ooh.

[16:29] Meg: And scandalously kissed Evie in front of cameras. People didn't do that.

[16:37] Jessica: That was a lot. What was he thinking?

[16:39] Meg: This is another faux pas he made after he visited the chemically contaminated state office building in Binghamton. He said, quote, I offered to walk into that building, swallow an entire glass of PCBs and run a mile afterwards. That didn't go over so well. According to the Binghamton press, quote, carrie's gone cracker dog.

[17:03] Jessica: Cracker dog.

[17:04] Meg: They wrote that the governor has gone right round the bend, screaming yellow bonkers.

[17:10] Jessica: Okay. That's the greatest line. Can you. Okay. It's rare that I ask you to repeat exactly what you said, but I'm enchanted. Please, again.

[17:21] Meg: All right. Carrie's gone cracker dog. The governor has gone right round the bend, screaming yellow bonkers.

[17:27] Jessica: I also love that you're doing it like you're in a production of the front page, because it demands it. It absolutely demands it.

[17:33] Meg: It's like everything upstate was maybe 20 years behind.

[17:38] Jessica: What makes you say that? Huh, sister? You got her. I can't.

[17:43] Meg: 20 years? More like 40 years. Carrie was baffled and not a little insulted by all this commentary, especially considering his political colleagues Ted Kennedy, Tip o', Neill, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Ed Koch, who all had Hugh. Huge personalities that were, for the most part, embraced. So why is he getting so much grief? This is what he said. Quote. I guess a mayor can be bizarre.

[18:12] Jessica: Oh, girl, no, you didn't.

[18:16] Meg: But it wasn't his moodiness that did him in. What finally sunk his political career was his marriage to Evangeline. During their courtship, Evangeline said she was married once and was a widow. But the day after they announced their engagement and a week before their wedding, it was revealed that in addition to being married to frangiscos Kalaniotis in 1955, she had also been married to Evangelos Metaxas. Evie had received ecclesiastical divorces from both men from the Greek Orthodox Church.

[19:00] Jessica: So twice divorced. Well, widowed and then divorced. For the. Really?

[19:06] Meg: Hmm.

[19:07] Jessica: That's.

[19:07] Meg: I'm about to get into that.

[19:08] Jessica: Okay.

[19:09] Meg: There was also a problem with the whole widow thing. Kalaniotis, who she claimed was dead, was very much alive and living in la.

[19:18] Jessica: Well, that's just as good as dead. Thank you for the setup. I mean, that was really.

[19:23] Meg: And Evie knew he was alive because he was the father of her 25 year old daughter, the mother of her grandchildren, who all of them very Much in touch with this man.

[19:35] Jessica: That's so weird.

[19:38] Meg: So Kalianiotis told the press he had no idea why his former wife had claimed he was dead. Officials of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese did their best to smooth things over for Carrie, who, as I mentioned, was Catholic. They declared that the news of Evie's two divorces would not affect his upcoming marriage. They agreed to bless it. Governor Carey decided not to push it and did not request a Catholic ceremony. But then, two days after their Greek Orthodox ceremony and reception at the St. Regis, another husband surfaced.

[20:18] Jessica: No way.

[20:20] Meg: George Cautises, a Greek engineer living in Athens. He had married Evie. Am I saying Evie or Evie?

[20:29] Jessica: I don't know. Who cares at this point? This is so fabulous. She's nuts.

[20:33] Meg: 1958, and they divorced in 1963. Carrie admitted he had not known about the Caltices marriage before his wedding, but told the press he considered it, quote, essentially a family matter. I am certain in my own mind that I now possess all the relevant facts about the life and marriages of Evangeline Gulatas Carey prior to our marriage. I believe her decision to be silent on her previous marriages was made in good faith to protect her children and grandchildren. He said, when he was.

[21:14] Jessica: When the fourth one shows up.

[21:18] Meg: When he was asked whether there were any more former husbands, a Carrie spokesman answered, not that we know of. I mean, what do you say after that?

[21:35] Jessica: Nothing. Nothing. You run away.

[21:37] Meg: Oh, my God. Carrie's Democratic rival smelled blood in the water. I mean, he's a Democrat. But now they're like, not for long.

[21:46] Jessica: Out of there.

[21:48] Meg: January 15th, Carrie decided not to run for a third term. Threatened by Lieutenant Governor Mario Cuomo and Mayor of New York City Ed Koch. Again, a callback to episode 157. Zooming in ed.gov and stuck on you. Evangeline Guillotas would end up adding another divorce to her roster when she and Hugh Carey split in 1989. That was also the year he declared he was no longer pro choice and regretted his support for legalized and public funding for abortion. I don't know if there's any connection there, but it's interesting, frankly.

[22:28] Jessica: It's interesting then.

[22:30] Meg: From then on, he became. He didn't just say he wasn't pro choice anymore. He became incredibly active in the pro life movement.

[22:39] Jessica: Boo hiss.

[22:41] Meg: Kerry died in 2011, surrounded by his family in his summer home on Shelter Island, New York. Towards the end of his life, he referred to his marriage to Evangeline as, quote, his greatest failure.

[22:56] Jessica: Whoa.

[22:57] Meg: A lot.

[22:58] Jessica: What do you do when you Find out that you're new. I mean. Okay, wait, wait, wait. I'm gonna even answer my own question. None of this is that weird, considering he didn't know her at all. Anyway. It was three months. Who. Three months? Think of the people. Think of the people. I mean, I know I can. The people who I dated for three months and then being like, oh, I'm gonna marry you.

[23:24] Meg: What? This is one thing that everyone talks about that's interesting about Hugh Carey. That he wasn't a womanizer, that he actually was married for 27 years. Then he started dating someone and dated Anne Ford for a very long period of time. When they broke up, he was a one woman man. He needed someone and he wanted to get married and she said yes. Like basically he was a serial monogamist.

[23:50] Jessica: Well, you're raising. Another interesting quality in some men and certainly of older generations is this idea of, well, now I need a woman. Like, now I'm single, I'm not gonna live on my own, I'm not going to be self sufficient, I'm not gonna do my own laundry. And the way that you describe it, it reminds. I don't. This is so random and insane. But I immediately thought of like, you know, in like mining towns in the 1850s, how they would like import women to marry these men because like a man can't be alone. That's what this whole Hugh Carrie thinks Max of.

[24:37] Meg: To me, wives are very useful.

[24:39] Jessica: Yes.

[24:39] Meg: Now, Evangeline was not a housewife and she wasn't about to have 14 kids for him. She was a different kind of person. She was a society woman.

[24:50] Jessica: Maybe he miscalculated and she ran her

[24:52] Meg: own company and she, she was completely self supported. So that's a different kind of woman. Yeah, he, frankly, Ann Ford was a different kind of woman.

[25:03] Jessica: It's just so interesting because Anne Ford also. So he had two. He had been married to a normal person who bore him 14 children, whatever. Had a very typical, not typical, but a very conventional, from the outside Catholic, old school marriage. And then he went for two socialites. Like, what's that about? Like, was that a political move? Like, did he think that was a career move? Was he gold digging?

[25:33] Meg: Well, that was suggested that he wouldn't have to raise any money for his upcoming campaign because Evangeline could totally cover it.

[25:42] Jessica: Interesting.

[25:43] Meg: But you know, honestly, he didn't seem like. Like they said he was a good governor and a bad politician. He wasn't really even interested in all of that kind of stuff. He just thought he had really good Ideas. And for the most part, he was able to enact them. You know, it's. I don't. I don't think of him as a. Someone who was trying to hustle. Hustle? No, no. I think he was a romantic.

[26:07] Jessica: Huh.

[26:08] Meg: Well. And she said yes. Unlike the other one.

[26:11] Jessica: Oh, God.

[26:12] Meg: Who went running from the room when he proposed to her in public.

[26:17] Jessica: That's so embarrassing.

[26:18] Meg: Don't do that.

[26:19] Jessica: No.

[26:20] Meg: Don't propose in public, people.

[26:22] Jessica: No.

[26:23] Meg: That's my advice.

[26:25] Jessica: I concur. Interesting. Good story. Weird guy.

[26:30] Meg: Yeah. So will Burt, like, give us some insight?

[26:34] Jessica: I'll ask. I'm suddenly. But I am having a slight thought that maybe I have the wrong guy. But I know that he did talk about a New York politician who used to hang out at the 21 Club when he was young and would go be there a lot with work things. And I feel like it's Carrie, but I will ask him if. If I'm right. If not, it's still going to be a New York politician.

[26:59] Meg: Also, I'm sure that Bert has an opinion on Hugh Cary.

[27:03] Jessica: Well, I. I think. I think that's really safe. I think, yes. It runs in the family. The need to express the opinion. So I had a very interesting experience yesterday. So I flew back from London, and I was quickly joined by a seatmate who was an Orthodox Jewish gentleman who unpacked immediately two books from his briefcase to put in the seat pocket in front of him. Both of them guides to Talmudic scholarship. So I was like, okay, this is a serious guy.

[27:55] Meg: And heavy reading.

[27:56] Jessica: That's it. Heavy reading. And we wound up. I mean, yesterday was just a nightmare of travel. And I wound up being awake for 24 hours, which sucked. Everything was delayed because of the rain. We were sitting on the tarmac for a really long time. So I don't remember how he started chatting with me, but he said something, and I was affable enough. We were talking about books, and at some point he said to me, what's your favorite book? And I said, well, you know, I don't think I have a favorite book that's like. Which is your favorite child? I just can't do it. But I said, what I can tell you is a book that there's very few books that I return to and read regularly. Like, maybe once a year, every two years. And I said, one of those is a Confederacy of Dunces. To my surprise, he gasped, clutched his chest and said, that's my favorite book.

[28:55] Meg: Crazy.

[28:56] Jessica: And I was like, well, that's an. An unexpected Answer. And then we wound up speaking for another hour and a half about punk rock. And this guy had actually been deeply into punk and ska and new wave in London in the 70s. And he said the very first concert he ever went was a Ziggy Stardust concert. So it was a very interesting and very unusual moment and certainly a. Don't judge a book by its cover, which is also a theme we're gonna talk about today. On April 13, 1981, a very special thing happened, which is posthumously. John Kennedy Toole won the Pulitzer Prize for Confederacy of Dunces, which had been published just the year before by Louisiana State University Press. Now, this is such a popular book, if you know it, you know what I'm about to say, but I'll give a little bit of background. John Kennedy Toole wrote this book in the late 50s when he was in the Army. And when he came home, he showed it to his mother, who had been a schoolteacher, and she read it and said, this is phenomenal. And he tried very hard to get it published. And it was a weird book for the time because everything was about the Civil Rights movement. People were very interested in that. And this is a book about poor white people in New Orleans. So, you know, it wasn't an obvious snatch this up, but he bizarrely only sent it to one publishing house, Simon and Schuster, and he put all of his hope into that. And we're going to. That already is my first connection between this and New York City. Who does he send it to? Robert Gottlieb. And Robert Gottlieb engages him for two years in conversation and letters about the book. He never publishes it. And it is believed that when John Kennedy Toole killed himself in 1969 by attaching the gas pipe of his car into the window, that it was partly because of that. So there's a bit of a black cloud around all of this. However, his mother got a bee in her bonnet and said, my son is not going to have died in vain. Brought the book to Walker Percy at. He wasn't at Louisiana State University. Maybe it was too lame. But he brought the book to her, to him. He read it to indulge her. It was a carbon copy, it was smudged. He indulged her, he read it and eventually was like, this has to happen in 1981, a year after it was published. He wins. And here are a few things that Mrs. Toole had to say about that. She said, I don't like fame. 79 year old Thelma Toole says this, but I'M happy for my son. The book was praised in the New York Times Book Review as a masterwork of comedy, and it was selected by the Los Angeles Times as one of the five best novels of the year. She said about it and about her son, it's beautiful, and it's full of pain and anxiety. She also said, I had been reading it. I've been reading since I was a little girl, and I knew instantly that John's book was good. Now, before I continue with what she had to say, I've never. And I did some research, but I've never heard of a Pulitzer Prize announcement having so much attention on the mother. Now, she certainly was a campaigner for her son, but it was really. I think it was really very sweet.

[32:43] Meg: Well, I guess she was the only living representative of the book.

[32:46] Jessica: Yes, but like her, her opinion mattered anyway. So she had a few choice things to say about Robert Gottlieb.

[32:54] Meg: Oh, dear.

[32:55] Jessica: Which was unfortunate. And she said he would wr and say that the manuscript needed work, but it still would not sell. He said there is no market for it.

[33:04] Meg: Did he say something about not being likable characters? What was the. I recall because you've talked about this before, and my memory is that he had one very specific reason why he felt like it wouldn't. That it didn't work.

[33:20] Jessica: Well, you know me so well. You know that my answer is gonna be, I can't remember what I said at any particular point. And people had asked to see the letters from Gotlib, and she refused, saying that she might want to publish them.

[33:34] Meg: Ooh.

[33:35] Jessica: So she was in a vindictive mood. She also said she was in a transcendental mood because she never expected anything like this to happen. Walker Percy was at Loyola not too late. When interviewed about the Pulitzer Prize win, he said that he couldn't believe that the manuscript, which had looked so physically shabby, could have gotten to. To the point where it was. Frankly, he said, even I was astonished at the national response when I saw that this book had won the Pulitzer Prize on this particular date. I was elated. Like, I knew that it had won it, but I'd never seen the story. And, you know, when it's your favorite book or at least one of your most frequently read books, it was a definite charge. But as always, I was like, well, where's the New York connection? What is it? And I was like, oh, yes, Robert Gottlieb. But then I found another one, which is a connection, and to this podcast, in fact, to field trip number five. So the book was published in 1980 by LSU. In 1981, it was picked up by Grove Press. So a little bit about Grove Press. Grove Press was started in 1947 in Greenwich Village on Grove street by two people who were not capable of running it, who then sold it to Beckett's dad. Yes, yes, to Beckett's dad. But I'm gonna read a tiny bit about him. These were things I didn't know, and I was so absolutely delighted about it. So Barney Rossett, Beckett. Rossett's dad purchased Grove Press in 1951 and made it into an alternative press. So, again, it makes a lot of sense that they would have snatched up this book that was out of left field. He was into the literary avant garde with Jean Genet and Eugene Ionesco and, of course, Samuel Beckett. He was responsible for publishing Waiting for Godot. Now a little more about Barney Rossett, things I didn't know. Barney Rossett, who died in 2012 at the age of 89, was considered to be one of the biggest weirdos on the planet. Now, you knew this. You're nodding.

[35:53] Meg: Well, Beckett talks a lot about his relationship with his father that was strained at best.

[36:00] Jessica: He had many children with five wives. Beckett was his third in line, but he was known for being a champion of the First Amendment and. And in his obituary, he was a celebrated winner of First Amendment slugfests against censorship. He published Che Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, and the Autobiography of Malcolm X. But interestingly, this man in high school, so God knows when this was like in the 30s, I guess, he mimeographed a journal titled the Anti Everything, which really set the tone for who he was. And though he was a little guy,

[36:46] Meg: I can imagine Beckett is indeed. He loves slim and not tall.

[36:56] Jessica: He loved to fight this irascible little man. Yes, yes.

[37:02] Meg: I don't know currently whether he is fighting people, but he's a scrappy guy.

[37:09] Jessica: Well, I'm sure that it would not warm his heart to know how similar he is to his father. He also, Mr. Rossett, published Lady Chatterley's Lover. He published Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. He was also known for having imported the Swedish softcore pornography film. I am curious, Yellow.

[37:31] Meg: I do not know this soft core pornography film. What is the theme?

[37:36] Jessica: So it was. You know what? Maybe we should have a viewing. Although that's the 60s. It's a Swedish film that had a lot of sex and nudity in it. It was an art house film that was rated X. I've never seen it, but it Was rated X. And it was.

[37:52] Meg: But standard. Not scandalous sex.

[37:56] Jessica: Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. Not scandalous. No. Just sex.

[38:00] Meg: Okay, got it.

[38:01] Jessica: Just sex and nudity. Mr. Rossett said that his publishing house was, quote, a breach in the dam of American Puritanism.

[38:11] Meg: Okay.

[38:12] Jessica: Despite the fact that he was actually fighting for very lofty work. In 1969, Life magazine did an article about him called the Old Smut Peddler. And the Saturday Evening Post had a cover image of him, an illustration of him climbing out of a sewer.

[38:32] Meg: Huh.

[38:32] Jessica: So this is a very controversial guy. So what year? Sorry, it was 1969 for the life magazine and the same thing for the Saturday Evening Post. Cause I do believe that that was the year that the film came out. And what I thought was really interesting about this, and this is part of my New York. My New York life and publishing and talking about it, is that, you know, these were two people who represent exactly what New York publishing is about. You had Robert Gottlie, who was the establishment and focused on by this author as the Neplus Ultra. And he had been brought in and was a wunderkind, brought into Simon and schuster in the 50s, and within five years was a senior editor, editor in chief. Up, up, up, up, up. And, you know, it's so typical of editors and publishers to have so many writers who you just want to be nice to and you'll talk to them about their work. And who knew that? I'm sure he had no idea that anything like this was even in the offing. And he's been vilified, which I think is really unfair. Even though, again, one of my, quote, favorite books, the number of people when I was an agent who I was kind to and was like, well, this is what I think. This is what I think. You don't know who they are. And, in fact, Robert Gottlieb insisted that he had no idea who John Kennedy Toole was until after the book was published. When Toole's mother came after Gottlieb, he was like, I don't know who you're

[40:07] Meg: talking about, because he wrote letters over two years. That takes a lot of effort.

[40:14] Jessica: Well, and when people say. When people asked her for the letters, she said, I'm not gonna show them to you.

[40:19] Meg: Are you wondering whether they were liars?

[40:21] Jessica: I wonder by Wonder. But in 1981, she was maintaining that they existed and that she might publish. And then on the other hand, you know, and publishing well into the 80s, you have this firebrand lunatic who's looking for everything that Robert Gottlieb would never take. And I love that he was probably, again, knowing how publishers work. He was probably actively looking for everything that everyone else had rejected just so he could say, I took it on. It's kind of fun and kind of wonderful that, you know, it's such an underdog story. And I'm sure that I will return to it again. There will be some new facet. But sitting on the plane, speaking to this, in fact, an Orthodox guy who then revealed to me that he had become Hasidic and then told me about his seven children and their arranged marriages, and I'm just sort of like, okay, well, this is a lot. And I wonder if the plane is gonna take off soon.

[41:21] Meg: Have two books that you need to get through. Yes, sir.

[41:24] Jessica: Sir, it's time to study, I think. Yeah, it was a lot. And then he started listing. Listing punk bands, and he wanted to know if I knew about them.

[41:34] Meg: Better you than me, Jessica. I just. I don't know if I could have handled that.

[41:37] Jessica: I was like, yes, I know. Camper Van Beethoven. They were really fun. What, like, what do you want from me?

[41:43] Meg: But that's also, you know, a lovely travel story. I think it's interesting, you know, just meeting a stranger and having a lot in common and learning something about somebody who you would make perhaps a snap not judgment about, but make assumptions. It's interesting the idea of being a gatekeeper, which certainly Robert Gottlieb was in spades. And now in the days of, like, well, you know what? If somebody doesn't publish my book, I will put it on my sub stack, you know, it's like, so much for the Robert Gottlieb's and I mean, editors are amazing people, but isn't it also nice to know that they aren't the end all be all, and if you can't please one person, you can figure out another way to do it.

[42:32] Jessica: Well, it sort of also makes you wonder, if only he had not focused so intensely on Simon and Schuster that, you know, like, what else might have, like, happened?

[42:44] Meg: A story about choose your own adventure. I mean, didn't he go to every single publisher known to man until finally somebody was like, actually, I'm the perfect person for you.

[42:54] Jessica: Yep.

[42:55] Meg: So, you know.

[42:56] Jessica: Yeah. When I was an agent, I had

[42:58] Meg: a list, some depression issues going on.

[43:00] Jessica: Yeah, there was. Yeah, it was. Not entirely. He meant well, but he wasn't well. Yeah.

[43:08] Meg: Great ear for eccentricity.

[43:11] Jessica: 1981, the year that eccentricity was either vilified or celebrated. In this particular instance, you Reminded me that when I was an agent, I had a limit of 30 editors. That was my upper limit. You have to play a numbers game. And I think that is what is so tragic about Kennedy Toole's demise is the complete. Anyway, I don't know if it's a lack of understanding, whatever, but it was sad. But I love.

[43:41] Meg: He was a purist. Either it's this guy. He got fixated. He needed the affirmation of this particular institution or this particular man.

[43:52] Jessica: You know, that is such a good point. Just the use of the word affirmation. I don't think that ever would have occurred to me. Meg, I know that sounds daffy, but the affirmation of one person. I was thinking about it, of course, as this is the publishing house that will do the best job with my book. And of course you're completely right. It's about the personal side of it.

[44:20] Meg: Yeah. And when what you think about the world, which is my book, is brilliant, and then the world reflects back to you that it isn't. That can make you a little cuckoo when the, you know, the outside world's reality doesn't match your reality. Well, it can feel.

[44:37] Jessica: It can feel terrible. It can feel terrible. But to have made one person the entire outside world. Well, clearly didn't feel good for him. But. Yeah. And I also loved about his mom and in this, you know, 1981 article that she was really kind of vindictive. I love. She was as salty as can be

[44:57] Meg: the character of the mother in the book. And she certainly was feisty in the book.

[45:03] Jessica: Well, she was certainly fond of a bottle of Muscatel. His mother was an educated woman. And, you know, for those who have read the book, Mrs. Riley was a Muscatel swigging ignoramus. Poor woman. But there are a lot of things in the book are actually reflections of his personal experience. I'm sure you recall that at one point Ignatius is manning a hot dog cart and. And winds up eating all of his own inventory. And in fact he had. John Toole had worked a street food cart at one point.

[45:39] Meg: Kind of Harvey P. Car. Ish.

[45:41] Jessica: Very. What a very good opportunity you're on today. You are on fire. And I wonder. And this is. You raise a lot of good questions. Back to New York. I wonder what in Tool's background gave him the experience of. Enabled him to conjure the New York Jewish intellectual Myrna Minkoff. So another. Another little something that brings this full circle. Maybe that's why my seatmate liked it so much.

[46:10] Meg: Oh my God.

[46:10] Jessica: Oh, my God. There you go. Oh, my God.

[46:16] Meg: We tie things up without even trying.

[46:18] Jessica: It's incredible. I think. I think the tie in that we both see is that these are. These are idiosyncratic Irish Catholic men.

[46:39] Meg: Sure. In 1981.

[46:41] Jessica: In 1981.

[46:42] Meg: Although one was dead.

[46:43] Jessica: One was dead, but his victory was 1981. I mean, even the. How about this? The character of Ignatius J. Reilly was also an idiosyncratic Irish Catholic man. So this is true. And he never dies. So he was alive in 1981. Okay, look, I'm just. I'm going for it. Okay? I'm taking a shot.

[47:07] Meg: We are taking August off. I'm really, really happy that our last episode before our extended break is one where we're in the same room, because that's such a pleasure and joy and luxury.

[47:22] Jessica: Indeed.

[47:23] Meg: And I was so texting with Mary, who I used to call Marie. Remember?

[47:30] Jessica: Oh, yes, I do.

[47:31] Meg: Okay. And she had just written in something and I was writing her back, and then she said, thanks for this and thank you so much for working through the summer. I need my 80s fix.

[47:43] Jessica: Aww.

[47:44] Meg: So it is appreciated we are churning out the content.

[47:49] Jessica: Look, if nothing else, we have our little noses to the grindstone, and I'm very glad that Mary appreciates that, and I'm hoping there are others. But I think that what we can encourage people to do while we are not doing any recordings during August is go back, see if there's anything you haven't listened to, any episodes that you've missed, give a listen, and anything that you really like, you know, tell us if you. If there's anything that you would like a follow up on. Because so many of our stories, really, you know, Meg and I are very aware of the fact that, you know, they could have deep dives. I mean, some of these stories could be podcasts unto themselves. So if there's anything that you'd like to hear more about or some angle that was mentioned and you know, very quickly moved on from, we would love,

[48:51] Meg: you know, one thing. I could even do an episode just of little follow ups of things that have happened in the news since we've told the stories, because Lord knows there's so much of that. Including, did you know that the man who was incarcerated for murdering Etan Pates is now a free man?

[49:10] Jessica: Yes, I do know that. I know that he walks amongst us, and I know that it's on a technicality.

[49:15] Meg: Well, actually, I re. Listened to the episode. I don't think he did it, Jessica. I don't think he did it There's a reason why they don't like that confession it's because well there was a

[49:27] Jessica: fir he did he first he confessed without being read his rights and then he confessed again He's a phrenic and

[49:34] Meg: he has the IQ of 70 confessions that come from somebody with that mental disability shouldn't if that's the only evidence you have with no corroborating evidence that's

[49:47] Jessica: a problem that is problematic yeah well I can't say that we know that he didn't do it but we do

[49:55] Meg: know I think that yes I can

[49:57] Jessica: say that well because there's no corroboration

[49:59] Meg: and because there's another person who is so right for it and has a

[50:06] Jessica: history of pedophilia well I think that's a follow up There you go so in that spirit anything else that is compelling or you know felt like like the story was left dangling that's a terrible word that the story story can continue Please let us know and when we all reconvene in September we will have answers and some more sur.

[50:40] Meg: Sam.