Interviewed June, 2013
Geoff Gehman is a former arts writer for The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and is now a full-time freelance journalist for newspapers and magazines. His first book was Down But Not Out in Hollow-Weird. It is an epistolary biography of Eric Knight, a noted screenwriter and film reviewer in the 1920's and '30s, and the author of the novel Lassie-Come-Home--the original launching pad for the universally known and loved Lassie legend. Geoff's newest book, a memoir, The Kingdom of the Kid: Growing Up in the Long-Lost Hamptons, which will appear in bookstores in July. He is also currently working on an oral history of a village in County Clare, Ireland.
Bethlehem Writers Group: Your first book was a biography of the enigmatic writer Eric Knight, who was renowned for the classic novel Lassie-Come-Home. He was also a controversial film critic for the Philadelphia Public Ledger in the 1920's and '30s, and once championed silent films over "talkies." How did you become involved with such an esoteric and little known character by today's standards?
Geoff Gehman: In 1988 I wrote a story for The Morning Call on the 50th anniversary of the novel Lassie-Come-Home. Through this I became much more aware of this guy who did much more that write that one novel about the fictive Lassie. This was a guy who was a pioneer film critic in the '20s and '30s, who made film criticism an art form, who was there when the "silences" became "talkies." The folks at Fox Film Corporation became aware this guy who kept his finger on the pulse of the film industry. His widow kept his papers, clippings, letters, and everything ever written about him. During this time, he was not enigmatic. He wrote a best selling novel in 1941, This Above All, probably the first significant novel about WW II, which was turned into a film starring Tyrone Power & Joan Fontaine, produced by Daryl Zanuck.
BWG: You told the story through a trail of letters. Was it difficult to sort through the mass of letters to pick and chose those that should be included and those that should be left out, and did you edit them to make the story more coherent?
Gehman: It wasn't that difficult because I chose a very specific period: his two screen writing turns in 1934 and '35 and then his return to "Hollow-Weird" in 1942 to work on his "Why We Fight" series. Once you chose two specific periods, that limits the number of letters out there, a nice, neat frame. Knight was a bit of a blatherer who went on and on. He said that writing letters was like vitamins for the soul. The real difficulty was in cutting them. We are talking about very non-specific letters where he would ramble on about films that no one, not even Robert Osbourne, would know today. It caused a lot of footnotes but a lot of cutting to eliminate non-distracting narrative. I sometimes had to paraphrase hunks that I had to cut out.
BWG: Was it a hard book to sell to a publisher?
Gehman: The second editor that I contacted, accepted it. It was a very easy sell. In fact, the first person who rejected me suggested the editor that accepted that I signed up with. It is a very funky film history book about film and done in an epistolary format, i.e, through a trail of letters. So I contacted this editor named Anthony Slade, a Brit, who was an editor at Scarecrow Press. So Slade, a Brit, and Knight, a Welshman, and everybody knew Lassie and Slade knew a lot of the folks in Hollywood in the '30s and '40s, so it was a very easy sale. And the editing was good, too, with a lot of great suggestions.
BWG: Did you consider it successful?
Gehman: Yes and no. There was absolutely no publicity. I did all the schlepping around. I made back all my money, including for a six week stint in California, and got some talks out of it and made some dents in Hollywood. My only regret is that Gerry Knight, Eric Knight's widow, died before the book came out. She died in 1996 and the book came out in 1998. She knew the manuscript was coming out but died before she had a chance see it. That was a shame.
BWG: In a complete turnaround, your newest book is a memoir. This time you reminisce about a six-year period in your youth spent in the Hamptons, before the Hamptons became the famous "in-spot" that it is now. I assume you have been turning this book around in your head for a bit of time?
Gehman: When I lived out there, 1967 to 1972, the people in the know referred to the Hamptons as "the South Fork," or the "East End." The "Hamptons" became a marketing tool in the '80s. I have been turning this book over in my head since 1991. I actually went there that year to move my father from there after he had a stroke to be closer to me in Pennsylvania and went to see a movie called "Cuba" staring Robert Redford and my mind drifted, knowing that I would not be back in the Hamptons for a while as the main reason for going out there is to be leaving. So I started thinking about why this place is so important to me. So I began to reminisce about all of the people and places that were so important to me during the 6 years I lived out there. That was the night I vowed to write a book about it, this place of remarkable beauty and remarkable people. The vow became more fervent when I started to read articles in Vanity Fair and the New Yorker, calling this place "Hollywood East. My intent is to normalize the Hamptons. There is, or was, such a deep vein of normal life out. As a reporter, it s important to realize that the middle of nowhere can be the center of everything.
BWG: Why did you select this particular period of time to set the memoir:
Gehman: Everyone has a particular 6 months or 6 year period that changed their life. This was mine. This could have been anywhere, but for me it was in the Hamptons.
BWG: Let's talk about memoir writing itself. Those who teach about writing memoirs emphasize that memoirs should not be a day-to-day account of someone's life but should dramatize a period that tells a story. You have done this by compartmentalizing your life into segments, such as Sex, Booze, Barbershop, The Drive-in, etc.
Gehman: Celebrities are allowed to go day-by-day. They fall back on their diaries. There is no way, even with all of the research facilities in the world, they can do without detailed diaries. Mine is a crazy ass memoir. It is in fact a autobiographical biography. It is just as much about my life as it about the Hamptons in the same period. An oral history. It is not strictly a memoir. It is a hybrid. Sometimes I am a kid, and sometimes I am a journalist. Some of the people who rejected me, rejected me for this reason. Why didn't I just write a straight narrative?
BWG: How could you possibly remember the details of this period? The names of the teachers, neighbors, prices, cars, etc.?
Gehman: This was an easy and joyful book to write.I knew all of these people and places and institutions that I am writing about were important and while writing, I found out why they were important to me. But also, I am the resident historian in my family. And also, it seems that wherever I go, whatever newspaper I go to, I turn out to be the "go to" guy for memories. The Hamptons make me this way, gave me this memory. Being out there makes you pay attention to stuff. But I needed to rely on a lot of people and a lot of research, too. Going to my friends and to their friends built these "dunes" of memories. I also waded through 6 years of microfilms, ruining my eyesight!
BWG: The first print run will be 10,000 copies, which shows great confidence from your publisher. Do you think there is a national audience out there for such a memoir or will this be marketed heavily in the Hamptons, Long Island, New York City and its environs?
Gehman: This book is for everyone who has lived in the Hampton, lives in the Hamptons, or has thought about living in the Hamptons. People cannot get enough of that community. The publisher has shown confidence by sending out review copies to Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, New York Times, Wall Street Journal. and some of the town & country social magazines. These guys cover the Hamptons regularly, especially in the summer, and this is a summer book. So we are very optimistic about the book, both nationally but internationally as well, as people come from everywhere to go to this locale. The book is simply about a special place at a special time that teaches a kid how to be special. It is also a baby boomer book and there are a lot of baby boomers out there.
BWG: Why do you skip among so many disparate genres? Most writers establish themselves in one genre in order to build a fan base that moves with the author from book to book.
Gehman: It's from the fact that I am a journalist and a journalist gets everything thrown at them. It requires a steep and urgent learning curve, so you learn to be quick on your feet. But also, because I grew up in the Hamptons, I became curious about a lot of things: cars, baseball, sex, writing, and all of those things. The die was cast a long time ago. But also, this is a hybrid book. I've read some many autobiographies and they are all template autobiographies. They start with an anecdotal beginning, which is never finished, then drop to the day they were born and then on and on in boring detail. They are agent and editor driven books. It is how you see and frame things that make a book extraordinary. I love sharing stories of unsung people who have great ways of thinking. My real interest is in just telling a story.
BWG: I note you do not work with an agent. Can you describe how you approached and convinced editors to publish your books?
Gehman: I do not, as of right now [have an agent]. If one comes through thanks to this book, we'll see. All of the agents I have approached have turned me down. Also, the sales that I have had so far are so minimal that any cut to an agent would take all the profit out of it. The most important reason, though, is that I have not found that teammate I am looking for. I do not want someone who wants agent-shaped books. I already know how to write what I want to write because the story already told itself to me. The interviews and research shape the narrative. If I go through my life without an agent, I won't be bothered too much. I would like to find one editor to stick with and one house to remain with. That would be gratifying.
Interview by BWG member Jerome W. McFadden