Must Read Well, page 23
So you may be surprised to learn that very soon after the end of our affair, my estimation of him began to change. This alteration started when, a month or two after Susan’s funeral, Amy Reeves told me that Greg had indeed been a serial cheater, just as I myself had sometimes feared he might be. She’d had this information from Susan herself, who for all the disdain she had shown Amy when we happened upon her that night at Carnegie Hall, had confided it to her some years before.
The confirmation of my suspicions shook me to the core. I have reason to know that our case was different, of course. Greg did indeed love me, did announce to Susan his intention to break up their marriage for me, and so precipitated the disastrous sequel. Still, to have been persistently, repeatedly unfaithful to her over a period of many years—and none too discreetly, either—that was a low, selfish, dishonorable thing to do. As such, it greatly diminished my scorn for her violent and unnecessary reaction to the news that he planned to leave her. (Elizabeth, I do hope we’ve read the whole story by now!) Indeed, it was largely the reason I developed so much sympathy for her—the sympathy that led me to write Vengeance . At the same time, it led me to accept my own role in her death, to acknowledge that I had betrayed my natural ally—a woman like myself—in favor of a man.
I also felt more and more horrified by the pain I’d caused Steve, so trusting and so blameless. He was still alive when my feelings about Susan began to evolve, and you can be sure that his sudden death so soon after the blow I had dealt him only deepened my already piercing sense of guilt. Many people assumed the fury of Vengeance stemmed from some willful harm he had done me, and I longed to correct this injustice to him. Soon, I came to carry my perfidy around as a heavy stone.
Shortly after Amy told me about Greg’s infidelities, a whirlwind of fury began to rise in me—fury on Susan’s behalf, fury at him, and fury at myself as well. This is the fuel that burns in Vengeance . Not my vengeful anger at some man who did me wrong, but the rage I wished Susan had turned on us instead of herself. In a way, the book was a tribute to her, an act of penitence, a stab at allowing her to come out the victor after all. And I think it succeeded in this, because Catherine Clark became a touchstone for thousands of women who had allowed the men in their lives to dominate and mistreat them.
And so it is that, in the book, Susan has her revenge, not at the cost of her own life but at no cost to herself at all. In my reimagining, it is Catherine who makes her faithless husband pay for his actions, her husband whose life is crushed by loss after loss: her own violent, public departure, the respect of his employer when she tells him of Howard’s abuse of her, the friendship of his colleagues when his growing sense of victimization erupts into bellicose outbursts at the office, and finally, after Catherine’s visit to his ex-wife, his right to custody visits with his children. And, of course, he is the one who kills himself.
After Vengeance came out and I found I could no longer succeed as a writer, I realized I had also enabled Susan to take her revenge on me.
With regard to my papers, I believe that some of these—contracts and other professional documents, for example—may provide names and dates etc. that are missing in the journals. Once you’ve made use of them and the diaries, I’d appreciate your looking into whether some institution might be interested in acquiring them. The Browne Library of Popular Culture at Bowling Green University may be able to direct you to an appropriate collection. I doubt you’ll succeed, but I’d like you to make an attempt.
And now, Elizabeth Miller, I am going to toy with you one last time—and toy more like a lioness than a house cat, I fear.
I have asked Patrick to tell you about the bequests I’ve provided in my will. However, I’ve also asked him to omit a key piece of information: that they are contingent on a condition.
That condition is that you must prepare, and prepare to the satisfaction of my agent, Kenneth Fitzhugh, an edited, market-ready manuscript of my journals before you make any other use of them. Unless and until you have fulfilled this condition, Patrick will see to it that you abide by the non-disclosure agreement you signed, which requires, among other things, that you keep in strict confidence any information learned from the materials you were then about to read.
To clarify, you now have two options. You may write your dissertation immediately, without these materials, and permanently forfeit all of my bequests. Or you may accept the bequests and promptly start work on the edition sketched above. I must warn you that the 290 or so notebooks you haven’t seen aren’t nearly as exciting as the ones we’ve been reading. Combing through them and culling an edited, salable version will be a mammoth, time-consuming, and often tedious task, and this is why I am leaving money to sustain you during the necessary effort. Patrick will fill you in on how your progress would be monitored and the funds meted out.
When it is done and approved by Kenneth, you may turn over the business of selling it to him. (He is optimistic about finding a publisher, given that it solves the longstanding mystery of why a world-renowned pianist left the stage at the very height of his career.) You may then go on and use any and all of the legacies—journals, papers, whatever remains of the lump sum, and, of course, the royalties from my existing books—as you like.
Why have I set this condition? It is not from spite, to thwart you, or “get you back” for deceiving me, as you may imagine. It is simply because I suspect that, once you’d made use of my private writings to achieve your own ambitions, you would not trouble to fulfill mine. I may be wrong in this—forgive me if I misjudge you—but knowing your capacity for self-serving underhandedness, it’s a risk I prefer not to take.
To encourage you to choose what I will call Option Two—accepting the legacies and editing the journals—I have instructed Patrick to make Option One just a little less appetizing. Once apprised of your decision to refuse the bequests, he will send your review committee department a copy of our non-disclosure agreement. He will suggest that, in order to avoid the necessity of a lawsuit that might cause Columbia University some embarrassment, he be allowed to read your dissertation before you are permitted to defend it.
If he finds that you have included information you could only have learned from your time with me, Patrick will bring a suit against you for breaching the terms of our NDA. He will also inform your advisory committee that you gained access to my home under false pretenses. As documentation, I have forwarded him a printout of your emailed answer to my ad. He will leave it to them to decide whether your irregular (to say the least of it) behavior disqualifies you as a candidate.
Should you choose Option Two, as I hope you will, it does not escape me that in taking these rather extortionate measures, I am likely to incur your anger, and with it, perhaps, a most unflattering portrait of my character in whatever preface, afterword, or annotations you may add to my journals. I would remind you that you did gain access to me through false means and I am therefore not unjustified in taking these steps.
At the same time, since the revelations of such a collection must inevitably reveal my own moral failings anyway, the prospect of any harsher portrayal of me on your part does not particularly trouble me. Nor does my own conscience: For one thing, should an edition of the journals be published, you will be the recipient of any money it earns.
Also, because I believe that publishing such a book would start you off nicely as a writer—a career in which I think you would do very well, whereas, quite honestly, the capacity for deception you have demonstrated does make me wonder about your suitability as a scholar—I feel that, at the same time as I jeopardize one professional path for you, I offer another. That opinion notwithstanding, if you still have enough energy and desire to complete your dissertation after the years it will take to edit my journals, I wish you the very best of luck.
I believe I have now said all that needs to be said. I trust that your common sense, if not any warm feeling you may harbor for me, will persuade you that the better course for you is to accept my bequests. Please do, and may they bring you pleasure and success.
Yours with affection,
Anne Taussig Weil
The letter dropped from my hands. I sat, head spinning like a T-boned car. “Be careful what you wish for,” I heard Rod Serling intone, as the camera dollies back from the greedy fool on “The Twilight Zone” who sees too late the trap he’s made for himself. How rich the English language is in idioms for comeuppance!
A taste of your own medicine.
Hoist with your own petard.
The shoe on the other foot.
Serves you right.
Just deserts.
He who laughs last laughs best.
Or, in this case, she.
BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION
QUESTIONS
1.How did your opinion of the characters change as you read the book?
2.What do you think happened to Liz after the book ends?
3.Which character did you like the best? Which did you like the least?
4.How did the setting of the book impact the story?
5.Did you agree with Liz’s decisions? Have you ever been in a similar position?
6.How did you feel after reading Anne’s response to the death of Greg’s wife?
7.Who did you most relate to in the story?
8.Are there any passages that stand out to you?
9.Were you satisfied with how the story ended?
10.Are there any books you would compare this book to?
11.Were you rooting for Anne and Greg to stay together? Why or why not?
12.How did this book make you feel?
13.Did this book make you think differently about lying?
14.Who would you cast to play Anne and Liz in a movie?
15.Have you ever met someone you idolized? Did your meeting change the way you felt about them?
16.How would you react to Liz’s dishonesty if you were Anne?
17.Did any songs come to mind when reading this book?
18.Why do you think the author chose to tell the story from Liz’s point of view, and not Anne’s?
19.Do you think there are any strong symbols in the book?
20.If you could ask the author one question about the book, what would it be?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ellen Pall has published more than a dozen novels, including Among the Ginzburgs, Back East, and Corpse de Ballet.
For ten years, she freelanced for The New York Times, writing many feature stories about people in the arts.
She has served on the board of PEN America Center, taught writing at Fordham College at Lincoln Center, and was a Shane Stevens Fellow at Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
Her personal essay, “To Recover Mother,” was recently featured in The New York Review of Books.
She and her husband currently divide their time between New York and Los Angeles.
Ellen Pall, Must Read Well
