How to Save Your Own Life Read Online Free PDF

couples who had discovered swapping or about runaway wives or “Jewish Princesses”—whatever they are. (I had used the term ironically in Candida and everyone had taken it literally, and thrown it back in my face.)
    All the galleys came with sycophantic letters from editors tucked in. Some were the same editors who wouldn’t return my calls before I’d had a best seller. I remembered their names. It was human enough, I guessed, but nonetheless depressing. People had to set priorities somewhere. I could certainly use a few more of those myself.
    The only thing was: I knew Celia Laffont was more important than all the blurb requests put together. But how could I begin to help her with her problems? She needed nothing short of total salvation—and that was what I needed myself.
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    The door opens and Bennett appears. I continue to stare at my mail. Though we haven’t seen each other in three days, I somehow have no desire to get up and face him. I force myself.
    â€œHi, darling,” I say, embracing him in the foyer. He pecks me on the mouth and moves away, unable to give himself to the greeting. He has missed me, but he hasn’t yet seen his mail. It must be gotten out of the way like a bowel movement before screwing.
    His rigidity angers me. Embracing him is like embracing a tailor’s dummy.
    â€œAren’t you really going to kiss me?” I ask.
    He returns dutifully and kisses me very wetly (as he has ever since I ran off with a man whose kisses were wetter than his). He presses his pelvis against mine with consummate technique. I feel he is using craft. The Craft of Fucking or The Well-Tempered Penis by Bennett Wing. Our greetings and kisses seem rehearsed, unfresh somehow. Like actors who have been in the same Broadway play for eight years. The longest run in history. With the original cast still playing.
    â€œHow was your day?” I ask. (We speak to each other like parodies of married people.)
    â€œOh, okay, I suppose. Auerback is fighting me on hiring Sy Kelson for the adult department ...” He wanders off to go through his mail and play back his Record-O-Fone. God forbid he should miss a single phone message or pay his shrink later than the tenth of any month.
    Vaguely pissed, I drift away into my study and sit down to look at the galleys. I open the top set—a novel by my friend Jennifer about her Hollywood childhood. I read with apprehension, lest it be dreadful. But it’s not. It’s beautifully written. Delighted, I get up and run into the living room, where Bennett is....
    â€œJennifer’s book is marvelous,” I say, “really well-written.”
    He is writing a check to his analyst, Dr. Herschel W. Steingesser of 1148 Fifth Avenue, a building at Ninety-sixth and Fifth where you apparently cannot buy an apartment unless you have graduated from medical school, residency, and some accredited psychoanalytic institute or other.
    â€œWhat’s it about?” Bennett asks, absently.
    â€œOh, Hollywood, her father, her marriage ...”
    â€œThe whole oedipal drama, huh?”
    At this, I become enraged. Bennett can never react to any book, any movie, or any play without using the words oedipal, anal, or primal scene.
    â€œCould we have a moratorium on the word oedipal for about forty-eight hours?”
    Bennett wheels around in his chair: “What are you so goddamned hostile about? I haven’t seen you in three days.”
    â€œYes. And you don’t even bother to kiss me.” I say this automatically and then realize it isn’t true. He has kissed me. Why then do I feel so unkissed?
    â€œWhat did you call that thing out in the foyer?”
    â€œA kiss, I suppose.” I bury my anger, and go back to reading Jennifer’s book.
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    The next day we are supposed to leave for a writers’ conference at, let’s call it, Pastoral U. I’m to teach the Craft of Writing for three days, read student