In her book Making a Literary Life, Carolyn See famously recommends sending a charming note to a person -- often an author -- you admire five days a week; Monday through Friday, as long as you live. She clearly took her own advice. A highlight of my own literary life was receiving one of See's charming notes after she read my book Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write. Her warm words brought me to tears; they felt like a benediction from a queen. See, a novelist, memoirist, book critic, teacher and literary legend, was truly a queen of the writing community -- the Southern California writing community, in particular. Her July 13 death from cancer at the age of 82 has hit Los Angeles (and beyond) like an earthquake.I was born in Los Angeles and I love it, See said in a 2007 interview with her publisher, Random House. One of the things I really love is that it hasnt been thoroughly mapped in fiction yet. Its terra incognita in a lot of ways. Its true, of course, that anything can happen anywhere, but out here things are profoundly amorphous. Theres a strict class system, for instance, and yet the class system is really porous. No one has a clue about reality.'
Reality is deliciously skewed -- and sharply, vividly, observed -- in See's large body of work. An atomic bomb goes off in Golden Days, perhaps her best known novel. Thanks to See's humor and zest, a New York Times reviewer called the book the most life-affirming novel Ive ever read. In Handyman, an aimless, pot-smoking artist ends up healing everyone he meets with his divinely inspired creations. In her memoir, Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America, See manages to make a story about alcoholism, emotional abuse, and suicide as funny as it is moving. A character in See's novel Making History says The whole point was that you were supposed to see life, and love it too. See saw life in all its absurdity, all its grit and pain, and she still loved it -- fiercely; profusely.
Carolyn See. | Photo: Wikipedia/Creative Commons License.
Publishers Weekly described the writing in Golden Days as if John Cheever had changed gender and moved to California. There is Cheevers intense sense of place (Los Angeles instead of exurban Connecticut), of the passage of time and of the enormities that gape just below the surface of life. Los Angeles readers relished seeing the world they knew reflected on her pages. Angela Barton writes, I remember reading her novels and knowing the places in L.A. she was talking about -- specific streets in neighborhoods no one else ever wrote about, all those L.A.s most of us actually live in, away from Hollywood and the Sunset Strip.
In a 2002 Newsday interview, See said Literary life in New York is a little more focused. Literary life out here in Los Angeles seems to have less malice in it. Everyone gets a ticket; everyone can give it a shot. She freely handed out many such tickets herself. When her death hit the news, aftershocks of grief and appreciation from writers whose lives she had touched swept across social media.
Her former students remember her as a generous and unforgettable teacher. Lisa Marguerite Mora recalls a lit class at UCLA: She began the first day of the quarter by walking up down the aisles of mystified students in her modest black skirt and matching attire but she also wore contrasting red cowboy boots. WAKE UP!' she said. National Book Award finalist Karen Bender writes, She beautifully modeled the life of a writer, teacher, mother She said, When you write something, it should feel like this (knocks on wood), Not this.' (knocks on plastic.)
Tod Goldberg remembers See as a remarkable writer who cared deeply about other writers and the value of literature in our world. In a post on Facebook, he writes: For a few years, when I was still teaching at the Writers Program at UCLA, shed have a classroom in the afternoon and then Id inherit it at night, so periodically wed pass in the in-between and chat. I was so young and seeing her in the flesh was like bumping into history, so I always tried to be as cool as possible. When my second book came out, we saw each other at an event and she came up to me, took my arm, squeezed it, and said, Youre a real writer now.' Ive never forgotten how that felt.
Still of Carolyn See from a 1989 episode of KCET series Take 5.
Barbara Abercrombie recalls See's legendary events at much-missed Dutton's Books: They were celebrations -- with marvelous food and a whole community of writers, all of whom had Carolyn stories to tell about her kindness and generosity, and how funny and smart she was.
Caroline Leavitt writes, I first encountered her when I was trying to get reviews for a book of mine and my then publisher was not really doing any promotion for me. So I took a chance and wrote her a heartfelt letter. And she wrote back immediately and even praised me for writing to her because she said thats what you had to do in publishing, take risks. And she gave my book a rave in the Washington Post, and the next one after that... When she was in NYC and she was having a book party, she insisted I had to come, because she thought I was too shy (I was back then -- I was also 8 months pregnant.) I came and met her and she hugged me and introduced me. She was truly amazing and I feel blessed that I got the pure pleasure of knowing her.
David Ulin notes, When I first moved to Los Angeles, she taught me how to be a writer in this elusive city, and I have returned to her insights and counsel again and again. But more than that, she was a role model, teaching by example how to integrate literary and critical writing, teaching, mentoring: the very essence of community. I miss her and I love her, and I will be ever grateful to her for all she gave to me, and t
