|
I have been informed that yesterday was the eightieth birthday of the novelist who introduced us to Isadora Wing. I am pretty sure no one, least of all the novelist, would object to my telling you a story about someone who told me a story about someone whom some people assume the character Isadora Wing was based upon or inspired by. So, here it is.
On a moonlit night, somewhat more than forty years ago, when I was thirty years old, at a party aboard a catamaran in quiet water about half a mile off the shore of Waikiki, I found myself alone in conversation with the host of the party, a man about seven years older than I, which is to say, probably close to the age of the novelist of whom you and I were speaking a moment ago.
I had good reason then and now to consider this man a person of great integrity and credibility. I never thought of him as a boastful man. For some reason, but I can scarcely imagine why, I must have mentioned the novel in which Isadora Wing appears. We, the man and I, did not, as I recall, get around to discussing what each of us liked about the novel. Instead, soon as I mentioned it, he happily recalled that he had a personal connection to the book. He, while working at a summer camp in New York when he was in college, had engaged in an intimate activity with the very person who may have, only a few years later, in literary form, given pleasure to a great many readers as Isadora Wing. He described the activity as having taken place in a hay mow, in a barn at or near the summer camp, and he said he particularly remembered it because he suffered a fit of sneezing from the hay dust.
I am sorry I cannot tell you more. I do wonder some of the same things you may be wondering, and if one or another of the persons in this story gets in touch with me to protest that I passed it along to you, or, better yet, to furnish corrections and embellishments, I will be sure to let you know.
♦
|
