THE NEWYORKER, DECEMBER 2, 2019 23
rible comments about you,” she said la-
zily, as if the shape of a passing cloud
had reminded her of it.
I don’t know where she gets the idea
that I—that anyone—would want to
hear things like this. “Gretchen, there’s
a reason I don’t Google myself, I really
don’t want to—”
“A lot of people just can’t stand you.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s a consequence
of putting stuff out there—you’re going
to get reactions. That doesn’t mean I
have to regard them all.”
J
eez, I thought, sprinting back to the
house over the scorching sand and
wondering which was worse—getting
snapped at by Hugh or having to en-
dure what Gretchen was doling out. Al-
though it’s true that I don’t read reviews
or look myself up, I do answer my mail.
A few months earlier, I’d been given
two hundred and thirty letters sent to
me in care of my publishing house. I
had responded to a hundred and eighty
already, and brought the remaining fifty
to the beach, where I figured I’d see to
ten a day. Most were just what I’d al-
ways wanted: kind words from strang-
ers. Every now and then, though, a com-
plaint would come along. I’d like to say
I brush them off, and I guess I do, in
time. For days, though, and sometimes
months, I’ll be bothered. For example,
a woman sent me her ticket stubs, plus
her parking receipt, demanding that I
reimburse her. She and her husband
had attended a reading and apparently
objected to my material. “I thought you
were better than that,” she scolded,
which always confuses me. First off, bet-
ter than what? I mean, a clean show is
fine, but no finer than a filthy one. Me,
I like a nice balance.
That aside, who doesn’t want to hear
about a man who shoved a coat hanger
up his ass? How can you not find that
fascinating? “What kind of a person are
you?” I wanted to write back.
Sometimes after a hard day of angry
letters or e-mails, after having an essay
rejected or listening to Gretchen tell me
how much a woman she works with
thinks I suck, I’ll go to Hugh and beg
him to say something nice about me.
“Like what?” he’ll ask.
“I shouldn’t have to tell you. Think
of something.”
“I can’t right now,” he’ll say. “I’m in
the middle of making dinner”—as if I’d
asked him to name all the world capi-
tals in alphabetical order. I feel as though
I’m always complimenting him. “You
look so handsome tonight.” “What a
great meal you made.” “You’re so smart,
so well read, etc.” It’s effortless, really.
“I don’t want to give you a fat head,”
he’ll tell me, when I ask for something
in return.
“My head is, like, the size of an onion.
I’m begging you, please, enlarge it.”
He says I get enough praise already.
But it’s not the same thing.
“O.K.,” he’ll say, finally. “You’re per-
sistent. How’s that?”I
like coming to Emerald Isle in May.
It’s not too hot then, and most every-
one in my family can take a week off.
Ditto at Thanksgiving. August, though,
is definitely something I do for Hugh,
a sacrifice. The heat that month is bru-
tal, and the humidity is so high my glasses
fog up. At home, in Sussex, I’d happily
be walking twenty-two miles a day, but
at Emerald Isle, at the height of sum-mer, I’m lucky to get fifteen in, and even
then I really have to force myself.
I don’t like to aimlessly wander, espe-
cially in a place where thunderstorms can
appear without warning. I need a desti-
nation, so I generally go to a coffee shop
near the grocery store, usually with a cou-
ple of letters to answer. Back and forth
I’ll walk, making three or more trips a
day. When Hugh and I lived in Nor-
mandy, he heard a local woman telling a
friend about a mentally challenged man
she often saw marching past her house.
He wore headphones, she said, and looked
at pictures while talking to himself.
That, of course, was me, but they
weren’t pictures I was holding. They
were index cards with that day’s ten new
French vocabulary words on them.
In Sussex not long ago, an acquain-
tance approached me to share a similar
story. Again I was identified as men-
tally challenged, this time because I was
picking up trash and muttering to my-
self. Only I wasn’t muttering—I was re-
peating phrases from my Learn to Speak
Japanese or Swedish or Polish audioThrough March 1 metmuseum.org #MakingMarvels
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THE COURTS OF EUROPEGerhard Emmoser, Celestial globe with clockwork (detail), 1579, Austrian, Vienna.
The exhibition is made possible by the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917.