Breakable You Read Online Free PDF

He was a major writer. Besides that, he led a fascinating life—"
    "A writer who led a fascinating life?" Thea said. "Do tell."
    Jeffrey had a frighteningly wide grin, as if he'd been wanting to talk about Izzy Cantor for many long years. "In the mid-fifties, after he got out of college, he spent a year in a Zen monastery in Japan, observing a year of silence."
    "He never did explain to me why he felt the need to do that," Adam said. "He claimed he just didn't have anything to say."
    "In 1960 he played a role in the early Civil Rights movement. He was involved in the lunch counter sit-ins in North Carolina."
    "He got his nose broken down there," Adam said. "It improved his appearance."
    "And it was only after that, after his return to New York, that he started to take writing seriously. And that was when he began to produce a series of novels that bear the same relationship to the work of his contemporaries that Nathanael West's work bore to the writing of people like Hemingway and Fitzgerald in the thirties. In other words, it was unclassifiable. It wasn't the realism of writers like Saul Bellow and Philip Roth—and Adam Weller." He turned toward Adam as he said this, and Adam was annoyed. He liked to be flattered, but the flattery had to be plausible. It was one of his chronic grievances that no critic had ever placed him on the level of Bellow and Roth. "And it wasn't the pop experimentalism of writers like Barthelme and Coover. It was something all its own. Which is one reason, I think, that history hasn't treated him the way it should have. It's hard to stick a label on his work." Jeffrey looked elated to be talking about all this—overeager, overcaffeinated, overjoyed. He'd already written the book in his mind. "And along the way he had time to teach at Brandeis and Columbia and City College, to launch a literary magazine that did some interesting things before it ran out of funding, and to have high-profile fistfights with Norman Mailer and Alfred Tomas."
    "Who's Alfred Tomas?" Thea said.
    "Painter," Adam said. "Wild man."
    "Well, what do you think?" Jeffrey said to Thea. "Does he sound as if he deserves a biography?"
    "It sounds like he deserves a miniseries," Thea said. "How come you've never told me about him, Weller?"
    "There are many things I haven't told you about."
    Adam was unhappy. Izzy had been a friend of his, but also a rival. Adam had believed he had defeated him, simply by outliving him. But this was the second time Izzy's ghost had appeared that day. It was as if Izzy were a representative of the dead, coming forward to claim him.
    But he could outwit him. He could outwit his old dead friend. He didn't know what it was yet, but he was sure there was something in this situation that he could use to his advantage.
    "Izzy was a remarkable writer and a remarkable man," Adam said. "He'd be a worthy subject for a biography. I'm not sure what you want from me, though."
    Jeffrey's grin, if possible, grew even wider. He looked insane.
    "What are you smiling about?" Adam said.
    "You keep calling him Izzy. I've seen him referred to as Izzy, in letters. In the archives. But I've never actually met anyone who knew him well enough to refer to him by his nickname."
    "Congratulations," Adam said. He wanted this encounter to be over. He wanted to be far away from this young man's ghoulish dampness.
    "But to answer your question: what do I want from you? I want your help. First of all, I'd love to interview you. Your memories of him would be invaluable. And I'd like your help in locating people he knew."
    Thea snorted. "Locating people? Try using Google. It sounds like you're asking the old man to research the book for you. He has bigger fish to fry."
    She put her hand around Adam's bicep. He was glad he had worked out at the gym that morning.
    The young man looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry. I mean…"
    "It's all right," Adam said. "I loved Izzy. Of course I'll do what I can."
    Meanwhile he was furiously thinking about