of my brothers and sisters as they fled in terror. I didn’t say I was a pleasant child.
The house talked to us at night, whispers and creaks and groans, but I think she was happy that we were there. My sister saw a ghost. We all saw our brother, Bill. Bill was the oldest of the boys, away in the war, but there he was one night in the glare of our headlights, by the side of the road, smiling and splendid in his uniform.
Our father stopped the car and we tumbled out to greet our surprise visitor—and could not find him, though we searched in the ditches, behind and up trees, everywhere he might have hidden to tease us.
Disappointed, we piled back into the car. In the back seat, we debated what could possibly have happened to him after that first sighting. In the front our mother only gazed pensively at the darkness beyond the car’s window.
The telegram came nearly three months later. When she read it, our mother gave a single, heart wrenching wail of anguish. Bill had been killed in action, in Italy; as near as could be determined, at the very same time when we saw him along the road.
I don’t imagine there could be a good day for such a telegram to arrive but there could hardly have been a worse one; Happy Mother’s Day, Mrs. Banis.
* * * *
When you are as poor as we were, with a father in ill health and a mother constantly in motion, big sisters are important. Big brothers too, but the times and the ages were not favorable, with the older brothers away at war. This left much of the responsibility for us younger ones to Fanny, who was twelve or thirteen at the time. That is just old enough to look after younger brothers and sisters and yet young enough to communicate on our level—which is to say, the perfect big sister, and so she has mostly remained through many years, though I have no doubt that she has often wished to be rid of the lot of us.
Significantly, the chief weapons in Fanny’s arsenal were books from the library—not just stories, either, though she read those to us as well. Most important, however, we were intended to learn as much as we could, as fast as we could. This, though she did not put it in so many words, was to be our passport to a better life. If we had been given not much in the material sense we had been given brains and we must not waste them.
By the time I was four Fanny had taught me to read and write. I was surprised when, as an adult, I looked again at The Wizard of Oz. It was only a small book after all, though it had looked enormous when I first read it at four. Significantly, it was the beginning of my love affair with books. She also, by the by, introduced me to the Nancy Drew books, which I enjoyed and which later played a significant role in my life’s direction.
* * * *
With or without books, The Burnt Place was definitely a move up for the Banises. Still it was simply the gutted shell of an old house—no central heating, though there was certainly no lack of air. No water, no electricity, no plumbing, much of it, indeed, with no roof. Carol lived in a town manse called Home Acres. I think you can see a problem here.
Miraculously Carol and I did become friends—miraculously, since clearly she moved in a different social circle than I did. To be honest I had no social circle. If I wasn’t alone, as I was most of the time, I was with family. My closest friend in school was my sister Annie—and a good friend she was and has ever remained—who was only two years older than I and is not to be confused with our sister Fanny.
Now before you start blaming the names committee for short-sightedness I might explain that Annie was really Mildred Ann, a name that apparently no one liked because as a little girl she was Gretchen (I have no idea why) and after that, Annie—until she was grown up, when she became Ann, which I think you will agree better suits an insurance executive.
For that matter Fanny wasn’t really Fanny either, but Frances Laverne. She got called Fanny after our Aunt Fanny. Families used to do that more at one time, naming children after relatives. I suppose they got away from it when they realized how confusing it could be in memoirs.
Not that ours aren’t confusing enough as it is. Robert somehow became Dick. Bill remained Bill and Albert was, reasonably enough, Al, but James became Pat, I can’t tell you how any of this happened. I believe that children should remain what their parents called them until they are twelve, say, or thirteen, at which time they should get to pick a name for themselves, which would put an end to the grousing that teenagers have ever done about their names.
I was named for Uncle Victor, who liked to tipple and on his way home from a tavern one night either fell or jumped under a train—and was, as brother Dick so nicely put it, turned into peanut butter. I think this is an unfortunate namesake-legacy with which to burden a child but I cannot say whether it really had any influence on my development. It is true I do like a sip now and again, but I have never fallen nor contemplated jumping under a train, though I think it likely that there has been a time or two when others might have considered a helpful shove. Fortunately the impulse was resisted and I have remained to eat rather than become peanut butter.
* * * *
I’ve no doubt that Carol took her share of criticism for spending time with a rugrat like me but we remained friends and still do. She was wise enough not to take my devotion too seriously and in time I came to realize that my real romantic interests lay elsewhere. It is true, nonetheless, that one’s first love never quite dies, and she remains in a special place in my heart.
All well and good, you say, but what does this have to do with publishing? There is a point, however (you knew I would get to one eventually, didn’t you?). By junior high school Carol too had discovered the Nancy Drew books. Delighted to find this common interest, I began writing Nancy Drew-ish mystery stories, with Carol as the heroine, and, eventually, a number of our classmates playing roles in them.
These were my first literary efforts. Well, they were efforts, I don’t know if you would call them literary. One turned up a few years ago in my late mother’s effects and I could only wonder if, after all, they were to blame for the failure of my abortive romantic longings. Still, they were fun and they set me firmly on the path I was to follow, though there were detours along the way. Nor was it, I might mention, the rosiest of paths.
* * * *
Here is a test;
The year is 1963. You have just finished writing your gay novel, full of hot action, with a laugh on every page, and a romantic ending in which your two heroes ride happily off into the sunset. Your best course of action is;
A) Rush your manuscript off to a major New York publishing house and wait by the mailbox for their check.
B) Write to Boy’s Life about the possibilities of serializing your opus, First North American Serial Rights only.
C) Cut the pages in half and stack them, clean side up, in the bathroom cabinet, for that inevitable morning when you discover you are out of toilet tissue.
I’m sure that many writers would have opted—indeed, did opt—for the other choices, but alas, in 1963, your best hope of getting any reward for your efforts was C—believe me you”d have had far less crap to deal with in the long run.
How do I know? Sweetheart, I was there. Between 1963 and 1985 I wrote, as I said in my Foreword, something in excess of one hundred novels and nonfiction books—mostly paperback but some hardcover as well and some shorter pieces, even some poetry. We will skip the subject of restroom walls.
I can’t tell you exact numbers—I stopped counting at one hundred. And I can’t list all the titles, though I’ll do my best to provide a bibliography. I’ve
