Gimlet-eyed

For many years, my mother gave me literary themed calendars for Christmas.

The first of these was a simple calendar that listed the birthdays of various writers of note. I remember my tremendous dismay when I turned to my birthday, July 23, and discovered the name of Coventry Patmore.

If the sight of his name doesn’t start you quoting from his most famous work, Angel in the House, you’re not alone. I remember going to the library to learn more about my birthday twin. Librarians, who like psychotherapists, hear everything and can keep a secret, understood my distress as they described this poem about the embodiment of feminine perfection. They did not expect to gladden my heart. I’m sure Victorian scholars could offer more nuance and context, but suffice it to say that the angel in the house is obedient to her husband and devoted to her children. Not the kind of role model I was looking for at the time. The Angel in the House gets to be but she doesn’t get to act.

Years passed. Literary calendars got savvier. One Christmas I turned to July 23 to find that Coventry Patmore had been replaced by Raymond Chandler. RAYMOND CHANDLER!!

Honor. Despair. Ennui. ALCOHOL!! My kind of guy.

So every year around my birthday I spend a little time with Mr. Chandler. Several years ago, I tried a gimlet. According to Terry Lennox, Philip Marlowe’s client in The Long Goodbye, a proper gimlet is made with half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice. I don’t know if my gimlet was made using that recipe, but it was uninspiring. I returned to the world of the Rob Roy and the vodka martini.

I’ve never lost my taste for Chandler’s prose. This is Terry Lennox’s paean to the perfect moment in a bar:

‘I like bars just after they open for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat bottles on the bar back and the lovely shining glasses and the anticipation. I like to watch the man mix the first one of the evening and put it down on a crisp mat and pull the little folded napkin beside it. I like to taste it slowly. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar—that’s wonderful.’

Happy Birthday, Raymond Chandler (a few days late)

Stephanie Patterson

*NB: If you go to youtube you can hear Ian Fleming interviewing Raymond Chandler. Some of it is hard to hear, but it’s well worth a listen.

Happy Birthday to My Taurean Twin, Linda Fairstein

It was my birthday. Little did I know, trudging to school along a sandy path on Willoughby Beach in Norfolk, Virginia, that on that same day a little girl was born in Westchester County, New York, who decades later would play a big role in my adult life.

Of all the bonds on this fragile planet, so full of surprises, finding another human who was born on your own birthday is a galactic coincidence unlike any other. Nationality, age, gender, ethnicity—none of these has the same tie as knowing that—in the light of eternity—this other human being first saw the light of day on the same calendar marker that was assigned to you!

I'd never met anyone born on my day, May 5, so years later, when I read that a stellar crime writer, someone whose books I'd devoured for what had been decades, a notable whose speeches I'd been glued to at meetings of writers' groups, was also a May 5 child, I felt an instant bond, and knew then, even if I never met this literary giant, I'd be her champion for life!

I finally did meet Linda Fairstein, as a fellow member of the Board of Directors of the New York Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America.

What charming games the universe plays with human lives!

I'd read every book by this gifted writer, was immersed in every plot of her novels, after her debut novel, Final Jeopardy, never knowing all those years that there was an ethereal bond between this famous lawyer and star on the world stage of literature and—little ole moi!

Today with over 14 bestselling novels under her legal belt, this talented honor graduate of Vassar and the School of Law of the University of Virginia has won high acclaim in many languages on countless shores. She has created her own unique spot in literary history.

Few writers have transformed historical places and moments in the colorful history of New York City into such memorable word tapestries!

Her novels should be required reading in all courses of New York history, as well as in advanced curricula on American literature.

From Final Jeopardy ( 1996) to Angel of Mercy (July 2013) I join the throngs of readers who are also fans—and wish my Taurean Twin many more years of success, joy and a special place in the annals of literary talent!

Thelma Jacqueline Straw