The Land of Laughs Read Online Free PDF Page B

he’d been gazing straight ahead at something fascinating on the floor in front of us. I couldn’t see his face too well because the glasses were reflecting light from the window, but the rest of his face seemed impassive.
    “Is that why you’re here, Mr. Abbey? You want to write a biography?”
    “Yes. I’d like to try.”
    “All right.” He took a deep breath and went back to looking at the floor. “Then I’ll tell you what I’ve told the others. I personally would love to see a biography written of the man. From what little I know, he led a fascinating life. Not so much so when he got older and lived in Galen … but every literary figure should have his portrait done. But when Marshall became famous, he loathed the notoriety that went along with it. I’ve always been convinced that that was part of what killed him so early — people from all over hounded him, and he just wasn’t able to handle it. At all. Anyway, his daughter …” He stopped and licked his lips. “His daughter, Anna, is a very strange woman. She’s never really forgiven the rest of the world for the fact that her father died so early. He was only forty-four, you know. She lives alone now, out in that big awful house in Galen, and refuses to talk to anyone about anything that has to do with him. Do you know how long I’ve tried to wangle the manuscript of his novel out of her? Years, Mr. Abbey. You know about his novel, don’t you?”
    I nodded. The learned hiographer.
    “Yes, well, good luck. Besides the fact that it would make her a small mountain of money — not to sound mercenary — I think that whatever he wrote should be printed and read. He was the only full-fledged genius I ever came up against in this business, and you can quote me. For God’s sake, his fans are so devoted to him that some book dealer downtown told me the other day that he sold a copy of Peach Shadows for seventy-five dollars!”
    Ahem.
    “No, Mr. Abbey, she won’t listen to me or to anyone else. Marshall never told her before he died that the book was finished, although in his letters to me he implied that it was. But to her it’s unfinished, i.e. unpublishable. So I’ve begged her to let me put it out with a long note saying that it’s incomplete, but she just closes her little bee-stung eyes and disappears back into Baby Anna Land, and that’s the end of it.
    “But I must also tell you that Marshall never wanted a biography written, so naturally she’s obeyed that request too. I sometimes think that she’s trying to hoard what’s left of the man from the rest of the world. She’d probably take all of his books off people’s shelves if she could.” He scratched his white, steel-wool hair. “But really — not publishing the novel, not allowing a biography, never talking to the journalists who’ve gone out there to write articles on him … She’s trying to squirrel him away from the rest of the world, for Christ’s sake!” He shook his head and looked at the ceiling. I looked at it too and didn’t see anything. It was quiet and comfortable, and both of us were thinking about this remarkable man who was such a big part of both of our lives.
    “What about the possibility of writing a biography that wasn’t authorized, Mr. Louis? I mean, there must be ways to find out about him without having to go through her. Anna.”
    “Oh, it’s been tried. A couple of years ago an eager-beaver grad student from Princeton came through here on his way out to Galen.” He smiled a private smile and took his glasses off. “He was an outrageously pompous ass, but that was all right. I was interested to see how he’d fare up against the mighty Anna. I asked him to write if anything happened out there, but I never heard from him again.”
    “And what did Anna say?”
    “Anna? Oh, her usual. Wrote me a venomous letter telling me to stop sending snoopers out to dig around in her father’s life. Nothing new, believe me. In her eyes, I’m that New York