Albany Times-Union June 13, 2005 Article [REPOST]
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Date: Mon, Sep 26 2005 3:43 pm
Albany entwined in literary mystery
Mysterious author using pen name Trevanian tantalizes fans with book
set on North Pearl Street
By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer
First published: Monday, June 13, 2005
ALBANY -- Those who thought novelist William Kennedy owned the
franchise in fiction on Depression-era Albany will have to make room
for Trevanian and "The Crazyladies of Pearl Street." The thinly veiled
autobiographical novel, told through the eyes of a boy who comes of age
in Arbor Hill in the 1930s, tries to do for Albany what "Angela's
Ashes" did for Limerick.
Trevanian's narrative uses black humor to leaven a hardscrabble
landscape marked by entrenched poverty, bleak living conditions and an
absence of hope on a stretch of North Pearl a few blocks north of
Clinton Avenue and the Palace Theatre.
"North Pearl Street was a typical slum of the first half of what would
be called the American Century," Trevanian writes.
"Pearl Street was Irish. More precisely, it was bog Irish ... with its
noise, its squalor, its childhood rites and ordeals, the awkward
rutting of its adolescents, and its shoals of dirty brats with runny
noses, nits and impetigo playing their screaming games of kick-the-can
or stickball, sassing icemen and pushcart vendors, blocking traffic and
exchanging insults with truck drivers who wanted to get through."
"The Crazyladies of Pearl Street" -- which will be published Tuesday by
Crown -- possesses added intrigue. It was written by a famously
reclusive author who lives in the French Basque region. He writes under
a pen name that conceals one of the best-kept secrets in publishing.
Trevanian's international bestsellers include "The Eiger Sanction"
(made into a film starring Clint Eastwood), "Shibumi" and "The Loo
Sanction." His books have sold more than 5 million copies and have been
translated into 14 languages. He has developed a cult following among
fans whose Web sites offer a long-running literary whodunit attempting
to tease out Trevanian's true identity.
So far, the consensus is that Trevanian is actually Rodney Whitaker, a
former professor of film at the University of Texas at Austin who
earned his Ph.D. at Northwestern University in 1966. Whitaker also
earned a bachelor's degree in English and master's degree in drama,
both from the University of Washington.
The 1941 Albany City Directory lists Ruth L. Whitaker living at 238 N.
Pearl St., the apartment in which "The Crazyladies of North Pearl
Street" is set.
In the novel, the mother is named Ruby Lucile LaPointe and her son, the
narrator, is Jean-Luc. The book begins in 1936 after the boy's father
abandoned the family. The back story described his mother and father
meeting when both worked as waiters in Lake George.
The 1938 Albany City Directory listed William Whitaker, a waiter, and
his wife, Ruth L. Whitaker, living at 425 Clinton Ave.
In 1940, Ruth L. Whitaker moved to 238 N. Pearl St., and no further
mention is made of her husband, according to the directory.
One of the primary characters of the novel is an eccentric Mrs.
McGivney and her husband, a shellshocked World War I veteran and a
ghostly figure who never moves or speaks. The 1941 Albany City
Directory lists Thomas McGivney living at 236 N. Pearl St.
Today, a weedy vacant lot occupies the space where 238 N. Pearl St.
once stood. A few doors away, the 3rd Precinct Police Station is
abandoned and boarded up. At 206 N. Pearl St., old School No. 5 is now
Quackenbush Condominiums.
The magical place of the author's youth, which he describes with
soaring lyricism in the novel, was the old Pruyn Library at the corner
of North Pearl Street and Clinton Avenue.
"When I visited Albany the last time (1982 or 3) the library was gone,
crushed beneath a super highway ... or something like that," Trevanian
wrote in an e-mail. (The Pruyn Library was demolished in the 1970s to
make way for the Clinton Avenue on-ramp to Interstate 787).
Trevanian does not grant in-person or telephone interviews. He only
agreed to an e-mail exchange with the Times Union from his home in the
French Pyrenees.
Although the biography Trevanian provided in the e-mails lined up
closely with Rodney Whitaker's, the author refused to confirm his
actual identity. His responses are filled with coy digressions, baroque
filigrees of evasion and playful obfuscation.
The author said he has published novels under the pen names of Nicholas
Seare, Benat LeCagot and Edouard Moran, in addition to Trevanian -- the
famous pseudonym his wife created after reading the historian G.M.
Trevelyan.
The author said only his immediate family knows his true identity and
he does not even let his editors at Crown -- which also is reissuing
his earlier novels in paperback this summer -- know the man behind the
Trevanian persona.
The author claimed Rodney Whitaker was just one layer of his elaborate
ruse, a friend of his from Texas, a literary doppelganger who posed as
Trevanian at book signings and meetings with publishers. He said
Whitaker acting as his double managed to pull off several interviews
pretending to be Trevanian.
At least, that's Trevanian's story and he's sticking to it.
"The extravagant scam that an academic friend worked out has attracted
all the attention to his name," Trevanian replied in an e-mail,
referring to Rodney Whitaker. "I have used him as a combination
firewall and letter drop through which to receive communications ever
since. In return, he got a mention in 'The Loo Sanction,' a chance to
write a part of the 'The Eiger Sanction' screenplay and the poker
player's fun of meeting and bluffing agents and publishers."
Asked why he didn't want to take credit for his novels by printing his
birth name on them, Trevanian replied: "I prefer to think of myself as
a competent craftsman, occasionally even a master craftsman. But not a
self-promoting celebrity. It's a matter of pride with me, a matter of
shibui (adjective form of shibumi, meaning elegant simplicity)."
Whatever the author's real name, the publication of "The Crazyladies of
North Pearl Street" reveals a literary curiosity. Two famous writers
grew up within a few blocks of each other in roughly the same period.
Both write of Albany with a highly refined sense of place and deep
affection for the city.
Kennedy is 77 and grew up in North Albany, several blocks north of 238
N. Pearl St.
Trevanian is 74.
"I have no idea who he is," said Kennedy, who added that he never knew
a Rodney Whitaker growing up. Kennedy said he has a copy of Trevanian's
new novel and had only read snippets of it so far.
"He obviously lived in Albany for some years and has strong boyhood
memories of the place," Kennedy said.
Trevanian, in turn, said he did not know Kennedy, one of America's most
celebrated writers, winner of a Pulitzer Prize for his novel "Ironweed"
and a MacArthur Foundation grant.
"I recall that a few years ago I heard something about a novel called
Iron Weed, and that evoked the vacant lots of Albany for me. The name
of the writer slipped out of my mind, I thought about asking somebody
to send the book to me, but I never got around to it," he wrote. "The
problem is that I haven't read a novel in English for more than 20
years, so I have no idea what's going on."
Perhaps at this point, it's best to leave the elaborate ruse of
Trevanian as is. The author said that he suffers health problems
involving his heart and lungs. Doctors have told him he does not have
long to live.
"This is my last book," Trevanian wrote in an e-mail. "The worst part
of my present physical state is the realization that I shall have to
leave my wife behind. I promised her that I would not die first, so she
wouldn't have to be the one left alone. It turns out that I shall not
be able to keep my word."
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