One Hundred Autobiographies

David Lehman

Description

In One Hundred Autobiographies, poet and scholar David Lehman applies the full measure of his intellectual powers to cope with a frightening diagnosis and painful treatment for cancer. No matter how debilitating the medical procedures, Lehman wrote every day during chemotherapy and in the aftermath of radical surgery. With characteristic riffs of wit and imagination, he transmutes the details of his inner life into a prose narrative rich in incident and mental travel. The reader journeys with him from the first dreadful symptoms to the sunny days of recovery.This "fake memoir," as he refers ironically to it, features one-hundred short vignettes that tell a life story. One Hundred Autobiographies is packed with insights and epiphanies that may prove as indispensable to aspiring writers as Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet.Set against the backdrop of Manhattan, Lehman summons John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Edward Said, and Lionel Trilling among his mentors. Dostoyevsky shows up, as does Graham Greene. Keith Richards and Patti Hansen put in an appearance, Edith Piaf sings, Clint Eastwood saves the neighborhood, and the Rat Pack comes along for the ride. These and other avatars of popular culture help Lehman to make sense of his own mortality and life story. One Hundred Autobiographies reveals a stunning portrait of a mind against the ropes, facing its own extinction, surviving and enduring.

Sujets

• Idioma inglés
• USA
• English
• Poetry
• États-Unis
• Anglais

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501746468
• Langue: English

Extrait

One Hundred Autobiographies

One Hundred Autobiographies A Memoir

David Lehman

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2019 by David Lehman

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2019 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Lehman, David, 1948– author. Title: One hundred autobiographies : a memoir / David Lehman. Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2019. Identifiers: LCCN 2019019614 (print) | LCCN 2019020574 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501746475 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501746468 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501746451 | ISBN 9781501746451 (cloth) Subjects: LCSH: Lehman, David, 1948– —Health. | Bladder—Cancer—Patients— Biography. | Poets, American—Biography. Classification: LCC RC280.B5 (ebook) | LCC RC280.B5 L45 2019 (print) | DDC 616.99/4620092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019019614

Cover photograph © Jack Mitchell

For Stacey

Preface xiii  1 Execution Poem Expert 1  2 Spots of Time 3  3 Café Loup 4  4 No Big Deal 6  5 Cancer Alley 9  6 The Crisis 10  7 The Aftermath 12  8 The Procedure 13  9 The Protocol 14 10 The Good Kind 16 11 The Diarist 18 12 None But the Strong 20 13 Tropic of Cancer 22 14 Hospitals and Airports 24 15 Back to the Waiting Room 26

Contents

viii

Contents

16 “Hurry up, please, it’s time” 28 17 Why 1963? 29 18 Good Friday 33 19Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate! 35 20 The Weekend Before 37 21 “Bladder cancer: Isn’t that what Sinatra died of?” 22 In a Technical Sense 41 23 Five O’Clock Rush 42 24 A Heart Event 44 25 Good Show 46 26 Metaport 47 27 If You Were an English Poet 49 28 The Regimen 51 29 A Few Beacons in the Quicksand 53 30 What’s the Story? 57 31 Time Is on My Side 59 32 Rush Job 63 33 Final Call 64 34 And Then You Crash 66 35 Chemo 68 36 Roid Rage 72 37 Under the Garden 74 38 The End 77 39 Falling in Love Again 78

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40 Nothingness 80 41 Syllabus 81 42 Commencement Speech 84 43 The Exquisite Corpse 86 44 The Editorial “We” 87 45 Oblivion 89 46 Dostoyevsky 91 47 The Spiritual Connection 93 48 “Myself, When Stoned” 95 49 Bloomsday 98 50 Tom Collins 100 51 The Admissions Officer 102 52 Columbia 107 53 Classic Koch 111 54 The Poem Team 116 55 Shakespeare’s Birthday 118 56 Recovery Room 121 57 The Rebbe 123 58 Life Begins at Forty 127 59 Search for Meaning 131 60 The Old Religion 133 61 The Problem of Evil 136 62 Dean Martin’s Hat 137 63 740 Francs 139

Contents

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