Fiction Ruined My Family - Jeanne Darst [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
ONE YEAR IN NEW YORK
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BOURGUIGNON
THE CHICKEN SALAD FINANCIAL INDEX
DUMBENTIA
THE TREASURER’S REPORT
LES MISSOURABLES
CRABS AND REHABS
PAINTERS ON BICYCLES
A FAILED DIVORCE
I AM NOT AN IDIOTE!
ELAINE MAYBE
A ROOM WITH A POO
SOBER SCHMOBER
A SALLY OF THE MIND
IT TAKES A WEST VILLAGE
MANIFEST PREGNANCY
MY FATHER’S OB-GYN
NOTE TO SELF
Acknowledgements
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Copyright © 2011 by Jeanne Darst
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Darst, Jeanne.
Fiction ruined my family / Jeanne Darst.
p. cm.
ISBN : 978-1-101-54784-7
1. Darst, Jeanne—Childhood and youth. 2. Darst, Jeanne—Homes and haunts. 3. Novelists, American—21st century—Biography. I. Title.
813’.6—dc22
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers;
however, the story, the experiences, and the words
are the author’s alone.
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For Liz
And, no bout a doubt it, for Dad
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Tennessee Williams said, “Memory is seated predominantly in the heart.” What he meant by this was, fuck off. I like to think I’m considerably less testy than “the Glorious Bird,” so what I’d like to say regarding accounts and versions of the truth that may differ slightly from mine in this book is: I don’t have the greatest memoiry. So, this stuff is true, but I don’t claim any talent as a stenographer. I have also changed the names and identifying characteristics of some people to protect their privacy.
PROLOGUE:
FICTION RUINED MY FAMILY
WRITERS TALK A LOT about how tough they have it—what with the excessive drinking and three-hour workday and philandering and constant borrowing of money from people they’re so much better than. But what about the people married to writers? Their kids? Their friends? Their labradoodles? What happens to them? I’ll tell you what happens to them. They go fucking nuts. Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia, after copying War and Peace—1,225 pages—by hand seven times and having thirteen children by him, is rumored to have poisoned him in his eighty-second year; Viv Eliot, institutionalized after being found meandering the streets of London at five a.m. asking if T.S. had been beheaded, died in Northumberland House mental hospital, after one failed escape attempt, at age