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playwright, her mother an actress, as was his fiancée.
    The eighth? Maybe when a publisher called to say she was taking his first book. That was in ’76. He was happy but not ecstatic. He’d been trying to get a story collection or one of his novels published for around fifteen years. But it was a very small publishing house, no advance, a first printing of five hundred copies, and probably little chance of getting any book reviews or attention. So maybe that was his ninth happiest moment, and the eighth was when a major publisher took his next novel and for enough of an advance for him to live on for a year if he lived frugally. But again, not a great happiness when the editor called him with the news, since the novel was accepted based on the first sixty-seven pages he’d sent them and the rest of it still had to be written.
    The tenth also happened while he was living in New York and had no phone. 1974. Same year Harper’s took, but months later. He’d come downstairs from his apartment to go for a run in CentralPark. The mailman, whom he knew by name—Jeff—was in the building’s vestibule, slotting mail into the tenants’ mailboxes. He dug a letter out of his mailbox and gave it to him. It was from the National Endowment for the Arts. He’d been rejected two years in a row by them for a writing fellowship, so expected to be rejected again. He opened the envelope. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “I won an NEA fellowship.” “What’s that?” Jeff said. He told him. “But it says for five hundred dollars.” “So, five hundred isn’t anything to sniff at,” Jeff said. “But I thought all their fellowships are for five thousand.” “Now, five thousand would really be something, landing in your lap like that. Do I get a cut for delivering the news?” He ran down the street to the candy store at the corner, got lots of change and dialed the NEA number from a phone booth there. The person he finally got to speak to who he was told would know how to deal with the matter said “That is strange. We don’t have any five-hundred-dollar fellowships. Let me look into it and call you back.” “I don’t have a phone,” he said. “Then you’ll have to hold the line while I check.” She came back about ten minutes later and said “Are you still there? You were right. Your notification letter was missing a zero.” “So the fellowship is for five thousand?” “In a week you should be receiving a duplicate letter to the one you got today, the only difference being the corrected figure written in.” “When can I start getting the money?” and she said “You’ll receive another letter after the duplicate one with some forms to fill out.” “Can I get the money in one lump sum, or do you spread it out over a year?” and she said “Everything will be explained in the instructions accompanying the forms. But to answer your question, yes.” “One lump sum?” “If you want.” “Whoopee,” he said, slapping the metal shelf under the telephone. “Boy, am I ever going to write up a storm the next year.” “That’s what we like to hear,” she said.
    The eleventh or twelfth happiest moment in his life? He forgetswhat number he left off at. It could have been when he was living in a cheap hotel in Paris and was called downstairs by the owner to answer a phone call from “ les États-Unis ,” she said. He ran downstairs. Something awful about one of his parents, he was sure. This was in April, 1964. He’d been in Paris for three months, learning French at the Alliance Française; his ultimate aim was to get a writing job in the city with some American or British company. It was his younger sister. “Dad’s not too thrilled with my making this call,” she said. “Too expensive. A telegram