This Other Eden Read online

  Advanced Praise for This Other Eden

  "Both humorous and profound, Hemmingson's new collection calls humanity on the carpet and makes us all account for our sins. A brilliant and refreshing collection of stories from an equally brilliant and refreshing author."

  ~ Ronald Damien Malfi, author of Passenger

  Provocative and intriguing, THIS OTHER EDEN by Michael Hemmingson is akin to reading a cross between someone's private journal and a True Crime magazine. Feeling titillated and naughty, as if reading a sibling's most private and dirty secrets, I found myself wholly unwilling to put this book down. It is glorious train wreck of loss, betrayal, and crime mixed with intimate thoughts and a poignant sense of loneliness. THIS OTHER EDEN is the kind of book that will make you forget your own life for a while but will also allow you to be grateful for it when you put the book down.

  ~ Jennifer Brozek, Submissions Editor, Apex Book Company

  Praise for previous Hemmingson works

  “...the master of the avant-pop genre…an oddly twisted brand of sin and redemption.”

  -American Book Review, on Nice Little Shorties Jam-Packed with Depraved Sex and Violence

  “Hemmingson’s writing skips from realism to fable and through time and space…His confident imagination [is] borderline sadistic and playful.”

  –San Diego Union-Tribune, on the play, Driving Somewhere

  “Hemmingson is Raymond Carver on acid.”

  –Larry McCaffery, editor of Avant-Pop: Fiction for a Daydream Nation

  “This writer should be turned into the police and incarcerated.”

  –An anonymous peer reviewer at an academic journal,

  commenting on one of Hemmingson’s essays.

  THIS OTHER EDEN

  Three Stories and Three Novellas

  By Michael Hemmingson

  Dybbuk Press

  New York, NY

  http://www.dybbuk-press.com

  Copyright © 2010 by Michael Hemmingson

  Published by Dybbuk Press, First Edition, May 2010.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in cases of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2009923951

  ISBN: 0-9766546-6-0

  13 digit ISBN: 978-09766546-67

  Acknowledgements

  Portions of this book first appeared, in slightly different form, in Gargoyle #48, Panic Americana #7 (Japan) and the anthologies The Urban Bizarre (Prime Books) and Tempting Disaster (Two Backed Books).

  "That Never Happened" was originally published as "This Other Eden" in Gargoyle #48 (2005) edited by Richard Peabody. It was also published in Japan in the magazine Subaru (Feb. 2006).

  "Where He Was the Day it Happened" was originally published as "Tuck" in The Urban Bizarre, edited by Nick Mamatas (Prime Books, 2004). It was also published in Japan in the journal Panic Americana #7 (2005) edited by Takayuki Tatsumi.

  "What Happens Between Literary Agents and Clients While in New York" was originally published as "The Agent" in Tempting Desire (Two Backed Books, 2005) edited by Jon Edward Lawson. It was also the basis for a pilot teleplay by the same name, optioned by Fox 21 in 2007 but never developed, and probably never will be.

  "And Then It Happened" first appeared as an e-book from Amazon Shorts (2007). An excerpt appeared in Fiction International (2005) edited by Harold Jaffe.

  CONTENTS

  Nothing Like That Ever Happened

  9

  What Happens wWhen Things Happen to People

  19

  Where He wWas the Day It Happened

  77

  Now That I Know What Happened, Could You

  Hold Me, Please, and Say This is Love?

  7185

  What Happens Between Literary Agents and Clients While in New York

  137161

  And Then It Happened

  209175

  With your language, you are looking for a new heart.With your Language, You are looking for a New Heart.

  ---Gordon Lish

  Nothing Like That Ever Happened

  I met my daughter’s mother in the spring quarter Comparative Literature course that I was guest teaching. I was thirty-two and filled with delusions about writing the great American novel. You know the type: unpublished and inevitably unpublishable.

  The young woman’s name was Pauline and this is the first thing she thought when she saw me: I will marry that man. She was nineteen. She was twenty when she gave birth to Gillian.

  We lived a simple and destitute life in a one-bedroom apartment two blocks from campus. Pauline was still working on graduating and I was jumping from job to job like a true bum. Sometimes the university hired me for guest teaching spots, when they couldn’t find anyone else. I worked at pizza parlors, gas stations, used bookstore; all the time laboring on my novel that was close to 700 pages long when I realized I’d never finish it. It was going nowhere and it was, ultimately, bad.

  Gillian wrote her first novel when she was five. It was a short book, 130 pages long, and while it didn’t see print until after her sixth, it still stands as something remarkable: a very adult-sounding product penned from the hand of a child.

  My daughter published her first novel when she was nine-years-old. It was the third she’d written.

  I imagine some of your jaws dropping, but this isn’t unheard of.; Taylor Caldwell started publishing books when she was Gillian’s age.

  Read Steven Millhauser’s Edwin Mullhouse.

  You may ask: how did I, an unpublished novelist who’d just turned forty, feel about my daughter doing such a thing? You would think that I would be jealous, flabbergasted; that it would destroy my ambitions and notions. Well, I’d long given up on my dreams when Gillian’s first novel came out; I’d convinced myself I was the better for it. And this publication wasn’t any surprise; Pauline and I were proud parents. We both knew something like this would happen; maybe not so soon, but eventually. Gillian grew up with books. Her mother read books to her when she was in the womb. Books were everywhere in our cramped apartment—every wall towered with shelves. Volumes were jammed in closets, under tables, in the kitchen and bathroom. Gillian had the vocabulary of a ten-year-old when she was eighteen months; she began scribbling stories and poems in a notebook at four. For her eighth birthday, my wife and I gave her a laptop; that’s when she began the novel that would be published a year later, The Royal Throne of Kings, —aan 110,000 word tale of precocious children in a big city, set in what is best called an alternate universe

  She derived the title from Shakespeare, as she would all her subsequent books. Pauline and I took Gillian to plays; Gillian was for reasons unknown to me drawn to a production of Richard II that she saw at age seven. The next day, Gillian found a copy of the play in the library and read it that night. She wrote out, in block letters on construction paper, a passage. She taped it to her wall; it remained there for years:

  This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d Isle,

  This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

  This other eden, demi-paradise,

  This fortress built by Nature for herself

  I can’t put my finger on why these particular words inveigled her, but when she titled her second novel The Sceptered Isle and her third The Earth of Majesty, I had a pretty good idea what her subsequent books would be called.

  The matter of how my daughter Gillian published her first novel is one of those wonderful stories that young unpublished writers (and some old ones) love to hear but in their hearts know must be myth, because no one is ever that lucky.

  Well, this is true. />
  One of Pauline’s friends from college went to New York after graduation and became an editor at a commercial publishing conglomerate. She came home one Christmas and dropped by. Of course, Pauline proudly informed her old classmate, whose name was Nancy, that her young daughter was a writer with three novel-length manuscripts.

  "“Are you kidding me?"” said Nancy.

  "“No,"” said Pauline.

  "“And she’s eight?"?” said Nancy.

  "“She’ll be nine soon,"” I said.

  "“Can I ask you this,"” said Nancy, "“can I ask to see one of these manuscripts? I’d be very interested in reading one."”

  Pauline said, "“Well, I don’t think Gillian would mind,"” and I knew that this was my wife’s plan from the start. She didn’t believe anything would come of this; she probably thought Nancy would be impressed and wonderstruck, certainly not making the phone call that came six days later.

  "“I read The Royal Throne of Kings on the flight back,"” Nancy said, "“and two other people here have looked at it and well - —well, we’d like to make an offer to publish it. Obviously, we can market this book because of the author’s age, the novelty alone will get attention, but moreover; this is a remarkably well-written novel. I was moved, very moved, and that happens so infrequently, believe me. But before we go any further, for everyone’s protection all around, you should get an agent for Gillian. She has two other books, right? Yes, you should get an agent for her. I know this agent, a very good agent, a very prominent one."”

  The agent’s name was Samantha Cartwright. She represented, I found out later, many of my favorite contemporary writers. Ms. Cartwright wanted to meet Gillian in the flesh, so Pauline and I flew out to New York with Gillian who, I might add, was receiving a $25,000 advance for The Royal Throne of Kings.

  We met Cartwright in her office on the eleventh floor of a tall skinny building., Llocation: Park Avenue South. She was a smartly dressed woman in her late forties.

  She said, "“Let me tell you, I’ve never gotten used to repping the current wunderkinden of American letters; these twenty-three-year-olds walking out of MFA programs with gems of flawed young novels; these twenty-year-olds that come out of nowhere with their one-hit razzle-dazzles. But a nine year old? This I wasn’t ready for. Sheesh, Nancy has sent me a doozy. Tell me, Gillian, are you prepared for fame?"”

  "“I guess so,"” Gillian said softly, staring at the floor.

  "“Don’t be so shy,"” Cartwright said.

  "“She usually isn’t,"” said Pauline.

  “"Tell me, Gillian, how many more novels do you have in that smart little head of yours?”"

  “"Many,”" Gillian replied. “"A lot.”"

  “"I hope so.”"

  ***

  Fame didn’t come to Gillian with that first book, but there were hints of it. The Royal Throne of Kings received a lot of critical attention, good and bad; the sales in hardback were modest, but it did better in paperback, along with the hardcover edition of The Sceptered Isle.

  Gillian was fourteen when The Earth of Majesty entered the world and several bestseller lists. By this time, Pauline had left us both and filed for a divorce.

  ***

  I mentioned that my daughter’s curious success did not bruise my ego, and this is true. I was behind her career one hundred and ten percent; I was her loudest cheerleader, her greatest fan. I guess you can say I experienced literary fame vicariously. This wasn’t the same for Pauline.

  My wife didn’t have artistic aspirations. She was an academic. When she overhead a fellow instructor at the community college refer to her as “'the mother of that literary freak”' it dawned on her what, truly, an anomaly our child was.

  “"Don’t you think,”" she asked me, “"that this is just too odd? One or two novels maybe, but a whole bunch of them? My God, she’s been talking about a septet she wants to complete before she’s twenty-one!”"

  “"Mozart,”" I said, “"Beethoven.”"

  “"Frankenstein,”" she said.

  “"We created something beautiful, Pauline.”"

  “"Too beautiful.”"

  She eventually left her husband and daughter. She had been offered a tenured-track job at a big university several states away. There was also a man she was sleeping with, a faculty member at said university. Was I hurt? Of course. Was I surprised? Not at all. We hadn’t made love in more than a year.

  ***

  Gillian was on the bestseller lists. My ex-wife was making a new home with her academic lover, and I was alone, sitting in my chair and watching everything. Like the song says, “"How did I get here?”" If Gillian was ever troubled or pained about her mother’s departure, she didn’t reveal it. For the next three years, she worked every day on her 700 page science-fictional tome, The Seat of Mars. She was seventeen when the work hit the bookstores; it was a success. By this time, she was attending Yale; admitted early.

  The day she was accepted, Gillian showed me a surprising gesture of affection. She came into my room and sat on the edge of the bed and said, “"Daddy, I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”"

  “"What are you saying?”"

  “"Yale. You’ll be all alone here. I don’t want you to be alone.”"

  “"I’m used to being alone,”" I said. “"You’re not going to pass this up.”"

  “"I don’t need school, really.”"

  “"Nonsense,”" I said.

  She got under the covers and said, “"Will you hold me like when I was little?”"

  I held her. She cried. I didn’t ask why she was crying. I didn’t want her to know how much I’d actually miss her.

  So off she went.

  ***

  I realize I’m breezing through a lot of years and life here, but there really isn’t anything to say about the time. What I really want to get at is the publication of Gillian’s fifth novel, The Other Eden. At 450 pages, critics called it her most autobiographical work to date; a matter that upset me greatly.

  The novel is narrated by a character named Gwendolyn, the only one of Gillian’s books composed in the first-person. Gwendolyn is a child-genius, a master of the piano performing in concerts at the age of seven. Her mother dies when she’s ten, and over the years, as she becomes more known for her piano work (composing and recording original scores), another aspect of her life remains dark and secret: an incestuous relationship with her father. Fifty -years -old, a former rock musician, her father is a recluse: he never dates, he never goes out. There was never any force involved, stated the end of Part One, Chapter Nine, it was a mutual connection between two sad and lonely human beings who had lost someone they dearly loved.

  The first phone call about it came from Pauline.

  “"I want to talk to you about Gillian’s new novel,”" she said.

  “"All right,”" I said.

  “"Is any of it true? Were you having sex with her?”"

  “"Jesus Christ, of course not,”" I said.

  “"Then why did she write that stuff?”"

  “"I have no idea.”"

  “"The whole novel...that’s our lives. And she killed me. Is that what she thinks of me? Does she hate me? Does she wish I died instead of running away?”"

  “"She loves you,”" I said, although I didn’t know if this were true.

  “"If I find out,”" Pauline said, “"if I find out that you two…—”"

  “"Nothing like that ever happened,”" I said. “"I can’t believe you’d even entertain the…—”"

  “"You were both so close.”"

  “"I won’t listen to your accusations.”"

  “"Maybe she’s mad,”" said Pauline.

  “"Maybe she’s completely insane,”" she said.

  ***

  I met Gillian at a seafood restaurant in New Haven that she highly recommended.

  “"You haven’t had lobster until you’ve eaten there, Daddy,”" she said.

  She was right. The food was wonderful.

  You can imagine that
I had a hard time enjoying it, though. I was here on a mission. I was here to find out why she’d written such a book. I drank. I figured if I had enough drinks I could build up the courage to confront her.

  It wasn’t easy. She wasn’t the Gillian I once knew - —she wasn’t a small girl sitting across from me. She was a grown woman, and a successful novelist.

  “"How did you like your dinner?”" she asked.

  “"It was very good,”" I said.

  “"I’m glad,”" she said, taking a credit card out of her purse.

  “"I won’t let you pay for dinner,”" I said.

  “"I insist,”" she said.

  I noticed she had a platinum Visa.

  After dinner, we went for a walk.

  “"Gillian,”" I said.

  “"Daddy,”" she said.

  “"Gillian, listen,”" I said, “"listen to me, I came here - —I wanted to - —I came here to. Look,”" I said, “"it’s about your new book.”"

  “"I know,”" she said. “"I was wondering when that would come up. I could tell it was on your mind. I knew this was bound to happen sooner or later.”"

  She stopped and sat down on a bench. I sat next to her. She looked at the ground. There were a lot of dead leaves on the ground.

  “"Why?”" I said. “"Why did you write that thing?”"

  “"Why does any writer write anything?”"

  “"People are talking,”" I said. “"Your own mother - —”"