The only photo I could find on the Internet of Lyle Leverich can't be blown up larger, really.
This morning, I see that TENNESSEE WILLIAMS: MAD PILGRIMAGE OF THE FLESH is NOW listed and linked on John Lahr's Amazon Page. I also see that yesterday's posting about its publication: http://theweathercontinues.blogspot.mx/2014/02/victory-john-lahrs-tennessee-williams.html got FEWER HITS than any posting in many, many months. What I wrote last Thursday, Feb. 13, http://theweathercontinues.blogspot.mx/2014/02/viva-mexico-and-presidente-pena-nieto.html , by contrast, had ZOOMED to the most hit posting of the WEEK -- within two hours. So I know what interests my followers the most, although I will write what I will.
But in conversation with Phil Poulos the other day, he asked me if Lahr's book is not to be a completion of the two volume project of Lyle Leverich, half completed, and in fact this is how it was presented when first announced and that is how I have always thought of it -- but it seems clear to me now that John Lahr has written his OWN book. But he ALSO got all of Leverich's files.
In May of 1996, I wrote Leverich, explaining that I had been Tennessee's live-in assistant for six months (which does NOT seem long unless you've tried it -- and I was told that NO ONE had lasted more than a week or two in the last decade or so), and would be happy to be interviewed or write up for him what I remembered that I thought would be helpful. I was SHOCKED by his reply.
I just found Leverich's actual response -- a form letter in which the signature is clearly scanned and pasted into the doc, only the DATE is "original". Below "LYLE LEVERICH" big and centered at the top with address and phone below, are these words (sorry, but this Windows 8 machine will print docs but I cannot figure out how to scan them, yet):
MEMO
15 May 1996
Dear Friend of TOM:
I just wanted to let you know that among some hundreds of pieces of mail concerning Tennessee Williams, I found your valued letter. I've been "on the road" since October touring bookstores, signing copies, also giving readings in addition to newspaper, television and radio interviews. In short, I have some idea of what Tennessee meant by "the catastrophe of success!" Still, I can't be other than deeply grateful for a response that I know would make Tennessee pleased.
I expect to return about mid-June to my home here in Kentfield, which is my Key West, finally, setting to work on the second volume. Almost every letter ended with a note of impatience in anticipation of TENN, which I hope to have completed sometime in 1998.
Meanwhile I'm going to need all the help I can get, and simply knowing that there are correspondents out there like you will go a long way toward completing what looms as a monumental task.
Thank you,
Lyle
Now I DO know that Leverich suffered complications of diabetes before his death of a heart seizure in December 1999 -- three and a half years after he "wrote" back to me -- but I have no idea if he was then demented or simply overwhelmed. He MIGHT have responded to Sewanee's demand that I be treated like a non-person.
Paul Willis on far left, Thomas Elliot Keith is also wearing glasses.
Long-time readers will recall that about a week after Alyson Books cancelled my book's publication for spring 2010 and then a HERE! Media/Alyson lawyer called to say they would do everything possible to see that WALKING ON GLASS: A MEMOIR OF THE LATER DAYS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS was NEVER published ANYWHERE, that Paul Willis, still the Executive Director of the New Orleans/Tennessee Williams Literary Festival, www.tennesseewilliams.net , emailed me to CANCEL my participation in three panels in the 2010 event in a very snippy email -- which I still have, but hackers having read that I know how to get Microsoft to repair Outlook 2010 now have REMOVED the same Windows Operation file that allows the program to open -- just like they've done on my other computer loaded with Outlook 2010, so I must re-load Windows on at least one computer before accessing old email. I have most going back about six years saved separately.
Indeed, as I type now, the right button of my mouse works for NOTHING in any tab open in Google's CHROME -- yet DOES work normally in Internet Explorer -- and I continue to battle with the cursor jumping to random places in ANY document including in Word on my computer -- a LONG KNOWN tactic of the CIA.
In any case, when Paul Willis sent the email, he wrote that the ONLY reason they would EVER invite me to speak was that my book was being published, and since it was NOT -- I was being CANCELLED!!!
Also, before, when he first invited me to join the panels, he had said that due to Hurricane Katrina (in 2005 -- about 4.5 years previous!!!), the Festival Treasury could NOT pay my travel expenses -- nor could they put me up in a hotel. The second part seemed ODDEST, since they get free hotel rooms in exchange for advertising the hotels, but I had agreed to those conditions since I would have attended anyway, as I had four previous festivals there.
>>> ADDED @ 4:19 PM, CST: A few weeks before the 2010 New Orleans Festival was to begin -- and I still planned to attend, regardless -- the month of FIVE attempts to commit me to a mental hospital in Georgia began, keeping me too distracted to go -- but also, I had met Col. Dottie Newman, the recently retired Chief Protocol Officer to Gen. Colin Powell, who told me it was too unsafe for me to remain in the United States, after an active US Army General at her BOOK CLUB I attended for three month, disagreed with something I said on politics and LITERALLY chased me out of Dottie's house. So my four-bedroom house was on sale at FIRE SALE prices, closing finally happening late May for $69,000.00 -- $250.00 dollars LESS than I had bought it for in 1988. I drove straight from the bank to Mexico, never stopping to sleep until I had crossed the border.
And I also can tell you that on my most previous visit with Thomas Keith in New York City in late 2009 (he was paid or not paid by Alyson Books to edit my memoir -- and added something that was a LIE to denigrate Tennessee Williams), Thomas agreed with me that Willis is sometimes hyper-nervous, but that the previous year, he had fed Paul some of his Xanax (Thomas Keith told me he was PERMANENTLY on three pills for his own anxieties), and laid him sexually in bed.
Allean Hale retired as a Williams Scholar at age 99, several years ago -- and appears to be still alive.
I dedicated my memoir of working for Tennessee Williams to Allean with GRATITUDE.
The first year that I attended the New Orleans Festival, Allean Hale pulled me aside to say that she had spent two entire summers trying to dig into the TRUTH about Tennessee Williams' death -- and that Sewanee had BLOCKED her at every turn. I know Lyle Leverich complained about Sewanee authorizing him to write the bio and then blocking his access to many materials.
For the record, after half an hour, I now have my right mouse button back!!!
So, I think anyone can see WHY I have been so anxious about how John Lahr will cover the death and disposal of estate in his book. I have always considered him an honorable man as well as amazing writer. The proof will indeed be in the puddin'.
Scott
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