editors, Fanny Butcher of the _Tribune_, Emmet Dedmon of the
_Sun-Times_, and Van Allen Bradley of the _Daily News_ (the latter two
fated to move along to editorial positions on their newspapers). There
was Otto Eisenschiml and there was Olive Carrithers, for whom one of our
first literary parties had been given. The psychoanalysts came: Lionel
Blitzsten (who had assured everyone that I really wouldn’t, couldn’t,
make the move), Roy Grinker, Fred Robbins, Harvey Lewis, and of course
Robert Kohrman, who was still to see me through so much. There was
Sidney Morris, the architect; Henry Dry, the entrepreneur; Ed Weiss, the
advertising executive who discovered the subliminal world and asked
which twin had the Toni; and Everett Kovler and Oscar Getz of the liquor
industry. Louis played and sang and signed records and shook hands and
sang some more, and Miller played and autographed while the apparent
hilarity grew, the shouting, laughing, and singing. It was a very little
shop, and had there been rafters you could have said it was full to
them. But Ben Kartman was grim, Reuel Denny seemed bewildered, and above
all, the old gang: Algren, Conroy, Parrish, Terkel, Motley, Herman Kogan
... they were being charming and decent enough, but something was out of
kilter. I had never seen them more affable, but it wasn’t quite
right—being affable wasn’t really their line.
Terkel occasionally emerged from the throng to m.c. the performance.
Studs Terkel is a Chicago phenomenon, a talented actor and impresario of
the wellsprings of culture, whether jazz or folksongs. In the early days
of commercial television, when the experimenting was being done in
Chicago, he created a type of entertainment perfectly adapted to the
intimate nature of the medium. “Studs’ Place” was the hottest show in
Chicago, so far as the response of viewers went, but it soon
disappeared. Apparently what Chicago offered could not be exported. The
strange belief continues to persist that the tastes of America can
properly be tested only on the Broadway crowd (the knowing) or the
Hollywood Boulevard misfits (the paranoiac). The crowds and misfits
elsewhere do not seem to constitute a suitable national index. Anyway,
so far we have not been able to export Studs.
In the growing crowd and increasing turbulence and raucousness, I didn’t
care any longer what happened. I just stood in a corner and tried to
look friendly. Rhoda and Jack Pritzker came in with a party of friends.
People were crushing about Studs and Louis, urging Louis to sing and Max
to play. Suddenly I was terribly tired. I wanted air. I was just getting
out when the ceiling came down.
The toilet was on the second floor (it served the entire building) and,
never very dependable, it had come to the end of the line. When it
broke, the water came flooding down through the ceiling onto the people
in the shop and taking the plaster with it. Louis was soaked. I shall
always remember Rhoda Pritzker barraged by falling plaster and Dorothea
Parrish losing her poise and letting out a war whoop. Studs got a piece
of ceiling in his eye. Max Miller was directly beneath the broken pipe
and suffered the consequences. For some moments it seemed as though the
total disintegration of the aged structure was at hand.
I ran up the stairs and began applying my best flood control technique.
Finally, with the aid of a pile of rags, we managed to staunch the flow.
Those engaged were exhausted, but the party was made; now the laughter
rang with real gaiety and the songs soared with enthusiasm. It was one
hell of a wake.
The last song was “Honeysuckle Rose.” The damp musicians thanked
everyone for listening and said goodbye. There was a hurry of
leavetaking. Soon only Ira Blitzsten, Bob Kohrman, and Ben Kartman
remained.
There was nothing left but to turn off the lights and close up, yet I
couldn’t bring myself to rise from behind the desk. No more building
inspectors, no more landlord wishing me good luck, no more broken
plumbing ... just the end of the world. All I had to do was get up, look
around for the last time, turn off the lights.
Look around at what? The old bookshelves made out of third grade lumber?
The dark green walls that Tweedy and Carl Dry had helped paint? The
absurd little bench with its hopeful inscriptions? I didn’t need to
worry about the bench. I could take that with me.
There was the barrel in the corner, half full of apples ... the battered
old coffee pot sitting on the hot plate ... and the string dangling from
the ceiling from which a salami once depended. I always bought my
sausage from a little old Hassidic Jew who appeared from time to time in
his long black coat, black hat, and with a grey and black beard
extending down his chest. We would haggle over the price and he would
shower me with blessings when he left. All of this was spiced with
Rabelaisian jests. Once I asked him, while studying the sausage
situation, “Tell me, do you think sex is here to stay?” He thought a
moment. “I don’t know vy not,” he said. “It’s in a vunderful location!”
Somehow, I did not see a salami hanging in my new Michigan Avenue
location.
But onward and upward! Don’t turn back now, or Lionel’s prediction will
come true. All is well. The lease is signed, the fixtures are paid for,
you’ve o.k.’d the color the walls are to be painted, no one is
threatening you, and you’ve put down a month’s advance on the rent. So
please get up and turn off the lights.
It was not I, but a zombie moving mechanically toward the future, who
touched the button, left the room, and softly shut the door.
8
On the Avenue
In all my life, I had never shopped on Michigan Avenue. I had no idea
who was in business there or what they sold (except for a general
feeling that they sold expensive merchandise and made plenty of money).
It was only after I had opened the doors of Stuart Brent: Books and
Records, that I discovered what a strategic location I had chosen ...
strategically in competition with two of the best-known book dealers in
the city!
Only a block down the street was the Main Street Book Store, already a
fixture on the Avenue for a decade. A few blocks farther south stood
Kroch’s, Chicago’s largest bookseller and one of the greatest in
America, while north of me the Michigan Avenue branch of Lyon and Healy,
the great music store, still flourished. And I thought what the Avenue
needed was Stuart Brent with his books and records! Maybe it was, but
the outlook did not seem propitious.
Now, ten years later, Main Street and I are still selling books and not,
I think, suffering from each other’s proximity. Main Street’s
orientation has always been toward art, and they run a distinguished
gallery in connection with their business. Lyon and Healy eventually
closed its branch operation, and Kroch’s left the Avenue when they
merged with Brentano, an equally large organization with which I have no
family connection, on the Italian side or any other. These
consolidations, I am sure, were simply manifestations of big business.
If I were to fret about the competition, it would be that of the dime
store next door, which sells books and records, too.
In addition to the street-level floor, my new shop had a fine basement
room which I fitted out hopefully as a meeting place. I immediately
began staging lectures and parties and put in a grand piano so we could
have concerts, too. Anything to bring in people. Business grew, but as I
soon found I would have to sell things besides books in order to meet
the overhead, I compromised on long-standing principles and brought in
greeting cards. Within six months, I was also selling “how to do it
books”—how to eat, how to sleep, how to love, how to fix the leaky pipe
in your basement, how to pet your cat, how to care for your dog, how to
see the stars....
By the time I had been on the Avenue a year, it was hard for me to see
how my shop differed from any other where you might find some good books
and records if you looked under the pop numbers and bestsellers.
Apparently some people still found a difference, however. In his book
_The Literary Situation_, Malcolm Cowley, the distinguished critic,
wrote:
On Michigan Avenue, I passed another shop and recognized the
name on the window. Although the salesroom wasn’t large, it was
filled with new books lining the walls or piled on tables. There
were also two big racks of long-playing records, and a hidden
phonograph was playing Mozart as I entered (feeling again that I
was a long way from Clark and Division). The books on the
shelves included almost everything published during the last two
or three years that I had any curiosity about reading. In two
fields the collection was especially good: psychiatry and books
by Chicago authors.
I introduced myself to the proprietor, Stuart Brent, and found
that he was passionately interested in books, in the solution of
other people’s personal problems, and in his native city. Many
of his customers are young people just out of college. Sometimes
they tell him about their problems and he says to them, “Read
this book. You might find the answer there.” He is mildly famous
in the trade for his ability to sell hundreds of copies of a
book that arouses his enthusiasm: for example, he had probably
found more readers for Harry Stack Sullivan’s _An Interpersonal
Theory of Psychiatry_ than any other dealer in the country, even
the largest. Collections of stories are usually slow-moving
items in bookstores, although they have proved to be more
popular as paperbacks. One evening Brent amazed the publisher of
Nelson Algren’s stories, _The Neon Wilderness_, by selling a
thousand copies of the hardcover book at an autograph party.
We talked about the days when the Near North Side was full of
young authors—many of whom became famous New Yorkers—and about
the possibility of another Chicago renaissance, as in the years
after 1915. Brent would like to do something to encourage such a
movement. He complained that most of the other booksellers
didn’t regard themselves as integrated parts of the community
and that they didn’t take enough interest in the personal needs
of their customers.... Brent’s complaint against the booksellers
may well have been justified, from his point of view, but a
visitor wouldn’t expect to find that any large professional
group was marked by his combination of interest in persons,
interest in the cultural welfare of the community, and abounding
energy.
As a group, the booksellers I have met in many parts of the
country are widely read, obliging, likable persons who regard
bookselling as a profession and work hard at it, for lower
incomes than they might receive from other activities. They
would all like to sell more books, in quantities like those of
the paperbacks in drugstores and on the news stands, but they
are dealing in more expensive articles, for which the public
seems to be limited.
_The Literary Situation_ was published by Viking Press in 1954. I had
met Mr. Cowley on a January evening the year before. When he came in,
tall and distinguished looking, I had given him a chance to browse
before asking if I could be of assistance. He smiled when I offered my
help, then asked if I had a copy of _Exile’s Return_. I did. He fingered
the volume and asked if I made a living selling books. “Of course,” I
said, slightly miffed.
“But who in Chicago buys books like the ones you have on these shelves?”
he asked.
“Lots and lots of people,” I assured him. I still didn’t know he was
baiting me. We began to talk about Chicago, as I now saw it and as it
had been. In a moment, he was off on Bug House Square (Chicago’s
miniature Hyde Park), the lamented Dill Pickle Club, the young
Hemingway, Ben Hecht, Charlie MacArthur, Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson,
Archibald MacLeish, Sinclair Lewis. I had to ask his name, and when he
said, Malcolm Cowley, I took _Exile’s Return_ away from him and asked
him to autograph it to me. He took the book back and wrote: “To Stuart
Brent—a _real_ bookstore.” I felt better about being on the Avenue.
The next evening, Mr. and Mrs. Cowley came to one of our concerts in the
downstairs room and heard Badura-Skoda and Irene Jonas play a duo
recital.
America lacks the cafés and coffee houses that serve as literary meeting
places in all European countries. I had high hopes for our basement room
with its piano and hi-fi set and tables and comfortable chairs as a
place for such interchange. In addition to our concerts, lectures, and
art exhibits, there were Saturday afternoon gatherings of men and women
from a wide range of professions and disciplines who dropped in to talk
and entertain each other. We served them coffee and strudel.
Possibly the most memorable of our concerts was that played by William
Primrose. He had promised long ago to do one if I ever had a shop with
the facilities for it. We had them now, and quite suddenly Primrose
called to announce that he would be stopping over in Chicago on his way
to play with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and would be delighted to
present us with a recital.
There were only a few days to prepare for the event. As soon as the word
was out, we were deluged with phone calls. Our “concert hall” would seat
only fifty people, so I decided to clear the floor on the street level,
rent two hundred chairs for the overflow audience, and pipe the music up
to them from the downstairs room. I hired a crew of experts to arrange
the microphones and set up the speakers.
The show did not start with any particular aplomb, and it got worse, for
me at least, as the evening progressed. Primrose came early to practice.
It hadn’t occurred to me that he needed to. He wanted not only to
practice, but moreover a place in which he could do so undisturbed.
Since the “concert hall” was swarming with electricians, not to mention
the porter setting up chairs while I ran up and down the stairs
alternating between a prima donna and a major domo, it looked as though
another place would have to be found for Primrose to practice. I
therefore took the great violist into a basement storage room that
served as a catchall shared by my shop and the drugstore next door. But
Primrose settled down happily in the dirty, poorly lit room amid stacks
of old bills, Christmas decorations, old shelves and fixtures, empty
bottles and cartons of Kleenex and went to work.
In less than ten minutes, a little grey man who filled prescriptions
came bounding down the stairs screaming, “Where is Brent? Where is
Brent?” He caught me in the hall and continued yelling, “If this
infernal racket doesn’t stop, honest to God, I’ll call the police!” It
was no use telling him the man making the racket was one of the world’s
greatest musicians. He had never heard of Primrose and couldn’t have
cared less. The noise coming up the vents, he claimed, was not only
causing a riot in the drugstore, but he was so unnerved by the sounds
that he had already ruined two prescriptions. While he was howling about
his losses, I began howling with laughter. But there seemed nothing to
do but get Primrose out of that room.
I moved my star into our receiving room, a messy cubbyhole ten feet
wide. He didn’t seem to mind, although now, since he couldn’t walk up
and down, he was confined to sitting in a chair for his practice.
Meantime, a crowd far beyond our capacity had swarmed into both levels
of the shop. Those who came early got seats. Others sat on the stairs
leading down to the hall. The rest stood, and some even spilled out the
door onto Michigan Avenue. I couldn’t get from one end of the place to
the other without stepping on people. I found myself begging someone’s
pardon all evening long.
Then the complaints began. Those seated in the hall were gasping for
air. Our cooling system simply wasn’t up to handling that many people. I
rushed to the boiler room where the gadgets for controlling the
air-conditioning were located and tried to improve the situation. Of
course, I made it worse.
Finally I introduced Primrose to the audience and beat a hasty retreat.
Almost at once an “important” guest tackled me with his complaints. I
beat my way upstairs (those sitting on the stairs discovered they were
not able to hear a thing) and after tripping over dozens of feet and
crushing against uncounted bodies was confronted by a thin, long woman
wearing a turban hat, who seized me and, amid this utter confusion,
began telling me I was the most wonderful man alive. Her eyes were
burning and every time she took a breath, she rolled her tongue across
her lips. I was fascinated, but desperate. “What do you want?” I begged,
willing to do virtually anything to extricate myself. “I want you to be
my agent,” she said, pressing me to the wall. “I’m an author and I’ll
have nothing to do with anyone but you.”
I ducked beneath her outstretched arms, trampled some people, caught my
foot in the lead wire to one of the microphones, and fell heavily into
the lap of one of the most attractive women I have ever seen. She fell
off her chair onto the floor and I rolled on top of her. A folding chair
ahead of me collapsed, and before anything could be done, a dozen lovers
of music and literature lay sprawled on top of one another, while those
not engaged in this chain reaction pronounced menacing “shooshes.” By
the time I had righted myself, several friends had come up from the
concert hall to complain about the noise upstairs.
Finally the concert ended. I was later told that William Primrose gave a
brilliant performance—something to be remembered and cherished for a
lifetime. I would not know. All I know is that the “most attractive
woman in the world” in whose lap I landed sent me a bill for eighty
dollars to replace the dress which I apparently had torn beyond
reconstruction. I paid the bill.
There were other fine parties, among them one that grew out of the
arrival of a play called “Mrs. McThing,” a funny, whimsical, adroit
production which could be the product only of a great goodness of the
heart. Helen Hayes and Jules Munshin were the stars.
I loved every minute of the play, and in addition to being entranced by
Miss Hayes’ remarkable performance, thought Jules Munshin to be
extraordinarily comical in his role. One of his telling lines was,
“Let’s have a meeting,” no matter what the situation that provoked it.
The problem might be entirely trivial, but before a decision could be
made, a meeting first took place. As things do happen, the morning after
the play opened in Chicago, Mr. Munshin walked into the shop along with
another member of the cast. It was impossible to greet him with any
other words, but, “Let’s have a meeting!” We became friends instantly,
and when the play neared the end of its run, we decided there should be
a farewell party for the cast. Jules asked Miss Hayes if she would come,
and I was properly thrilled when she agreed.
So on closing night they all came to the bookstore, along with about
thirty people Jennie and I had asked to join us. The program did not
have to be planned. There was singing, reciting, story-telling. Then,
quite by surprise, Miss Hayes’ colorful husband joined us. The fun
really began, not only in heightened conversation, but when the
MacArthurs’ daughter sat at the piano with Chet Roble and played and
sang. Roble is another Chicago “original”—an artist of the blues and a
superb personality and musician who has been playing over the years at
Chicago hotels and night spots and always attracts a large and
appreciative following. He was part of the cast of Terkel’s famous
“Studs’ Place” show. He represents an almost lost art not only in his
old-time jazz musicianship, but also in terms of cabaret
entertainment—the performer who genuinely loves his work and his
audience and who will remember ten years later the face of someone he
met in a noisy night club crowd.
It was an all-night party. I talked with Miss Hayes about Ben Hecht, who
had collaborated with Charles MacArthur on “The Front Page,” which
opened quite a new page for the American theatre. She agreed that Ben
could talk more sense, more dramatically than any author we knew. I had
had an autographing party for Ben’s book, _Child of a Century_, an
autobiographical study of his life and development as a writer. We sold
almost 800 copies of the book that night. Ben came with his wife and
daughter and sat behind the desk with a cigar in his mouth, his eyes
dreamy, his mind tending toward some distant land, but he was most
affable, while repeating over and over: “I’ve never done such a thing in
my whole life. And I’ve been writing for forty years!”
Later Hecht had taken me to the old haunts of the Chicago literary
scene. We sat in a tavern he had frequented while working on the now
defunct _Chicago Journal_. He showed me where Hemingway took boxing
lessons. We went to the building where Ben had lived on the fourth floor
and Hemingway on the floor beneath. It was a time not long past, yet far
away and long ago.
We viewed the former locale of the Dill Pickle Club, the famous literary
tavern. Ben talked to me with personal insight about Sherwood Anderson,
Theodore Dreiser, Maxwell Bodenheim, Covici Friede, and others, among
them, some of whose fame lay in tragic ends—death by drink, suicide, or
merciless twists of fate.
Not long ago, I phoned Ben at his home in Nyack, New York. Red Quinlan,
the television executive, had an idea for a series of literary shows to
be called, “You Can’t Go Home Again.” He had talked to me about being
narrator, and I in turn had suggested Ben Hecht for the first interview.
“Ben,” I said, “this is Stuart Brent. Do you remember me?”
There was a flat, “Yes,” as though he didn’t, really.
“I’m calling to tell you,” I said, “that we have a great idea for a TV
show and I want to interview you for it. It’s called....”
“I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “I don’t want a living thing to do
with TV. Don’t tell me what you have to say. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, “you haven’t given me a chance.”
“I don’t want to give you a chance,” he said. “I have no use for TV or
anybody who writes for TV. It’s worse than snaring little girls away
from home.”
“You still don’t understand,” I said.
“Look mister,” he said, “I understand. I just don’t want to hear your
proposition. I want nothing to do with you or television. Is that
clear?”
“Wait a minute, Ben,” I said, “this is Stuart Brent from Chicago, don’t
you remember?”
“Oh, Stu. Where are you calling from?”
“From Chicago.”
“Oh my God. Why did you let me run off like that? I thought you were
some two for a nickel joker from a television agency. I’m sorry. How are
you, baby?”
“Fine,” I said, “but I do want to talk with you about a TV series that I
hope I’m going to do.”
“Sorry, baby, the answer is no. Not for any money in the world.”
“Well, how are you financially?”
“Ach, you know. Same damn thing. But I don’t care. I’m busy, killing
myself with writing. I’ve got a hot book coming out soon. Be sure and
get a copy. It’s really hot.”
“I wish you’d hear what I have to say. It’s really a fine idea.”
“Sorry, no. How’s the bookstore?”
So we talked of books and the time I nearly blew a gasket when Ben
autographed his book, _Charlie_, at another Chicago store. He had sent
me a carbon copy of his manuscript on that talented and lovable bum,
Charles MacArthur, and I had told him I hoped we could raise a stir with
a real party when the book came out. He agreed, having been considerably
impressed with the first party we held for him. Ben was in Italy writing
a movie scenario when the publication date of _Charlie_ was announced.
Upon receiving a cablegram requesting a Chicago autographing party date,
he wired, Yes, thinking it was to be at my bookstore. It wasn’t ... and
for weeks after the event was held, nobody dared get near me.
“I’m still sorry about that mixup,” Ben said. “Well, o.k., baby, take
care of yourself. When you get to New York, give me a ring and I’ll meet
you for a drink at the Algonquin.”
I remembered my original purpose and tried again. “For the last time,
you won’t listen to me about this TV thing?”
“Absolutely, irrevocably, no. Goodbye, Stu.”
I was left pondering about the strange and rather terrifying creature
that is Ben Hecht, a wise, witty man of the world with the disarming
gentleness of a tamed jungle beast. I thought again of our sentimental
revisiting of Hechtian haunts ... the small tavern across from Bug House
Square where Ben paced off the original setting: “In this corner was a
stage, here were the tables, and there were the two chairs that belonged
to Charlie and me. Here, in this corner, we wrote _The Front Page_.”
Suddenly he put down his beer and said, “Let’s take a taxi over to the
campus. I want to show you where Carl Wanderer lived.”