I may have three favourite American authors or so my emergency cache of reading matter seems to suggest. Fearing that a particularly unsettled sleep will leave my spine uncooperative, I keep thirty-six books within a paralysed arm’s reach, that they may occupy me until the ambulance arrives. American literature is represented by only three writers, but that nation’s literary community is so insular [2] that it is frequently too difficult for me to tell one from another. To this end, I have devised a simple device by which I can keep the three distinct.
Two are sons of architects;
& Two had architects for fathers;
Two have moustaches;
Two have beards, but they are not the same two, except for one of them;
Three are dead;
But three lived between April 1931 and October 1979;
Two, in print, have praised Flann O’Brien, as would have pleased my younger self;
One, in print, drew the grave of L. F. Celine;
Two illustrated their own books;
A third “cannot draw a lick,” but can collage like a champion;
Two are of German extraction;
One voice I have on elpee;
Another on seadee;
Two were shipped to American wars;
But only one saw action;
Three went to university;
One has a degree;
One has none;
The last one is a Master;
Two wrote about abstract expressionism;
While the other two appeared in The New Yorker almost by the month;
Three died in New York City, but where else is there to die in the United States?
But, you see, now I have confused my self all the more! Who were they again?
N.B.
Since the writing of these sentences, three books by Ms. Stein have been promoted from a foot’s reach to the windowsill. Pray I will never need her.