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The History of Literature
673 Edna Ferber (with Julie Gilbert) | My Last Book with Jessica Kirzane
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- [00:02]
Jack Wilson
The History of Literature podcast is a member of the podglomerate Network and Lit Hub Radio. This episode is brought to you by Companion. Iris and Josh seem like the perfect match, but when a weekend getaway turns into a nightmare, Iris realizes that things aren't as perfect as they appear. From the creators of Barbarian and the studio that brought you the Notebook comes a twisted tale of modern romance and the sweet satisfaction of revenge. Companion only in theaters January 31st. Rated R. Under 17. Not admitted without parent. Hello. We begin today with a quote by a legendary 20th century American novelist. Quote. Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch digging, mountain climbing, treadmill, and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, wracking, relieving. But amusing? Never. End quote. The speaker was Edna Ferber, author of Showboat and Giant and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her novel so Big. Her string of adjectives for writing could equally be applied to her or. Well, let's see, it's a fairly long list. Interesting. Definitely. Absorbing. Exhilarating. Check. And check. Racking. Well, I'm not sure about that one. Relieving. I'm not sure about that one either. Amusing? Never or always? It seems I need some help. Luckily, I have help. Julie Gilbert, who knows all about Edna Ferber and who knew the great novelist from a privileged position, will be here to explain it all. Edna Ferber with Julie Gilbert today on the history of literature. Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Jack Wilson. Glad you're here. That was quite a run of adjectives from Ms. Ferber. I guess that's how writers talk, like a thesaurus. What about the string of gerunds? Does it apply to writing? I'll take her word for it. She's the expert. But can we apply those words to podcasting? In that I think I will have to claim a bit of authority, certainly over Ms. Ferber, who died in 1968 before the first Apple computer, let alone the ipod, let alone the first podcast. So ditch digging. Is that a podcasting term? I think my very first episode saw me in a ditch with a towel over my head, if I recall correctly. So, yes, mountain climbing. I talk about that a lot. Treadmill. Oh, that sounds familiar. And that sounds familiar. 673 episodes and counting. Treadmill is appropriate. Last one. Childbirth. Well, that too, I suppose. There's the labor. There's the exhilaration. There's the pride. The squawking, the sleeplessness. More pride. Frustration. The feeling of being hollowed out, and ultimately, if one is lucky, pride and love. Edna Ferber is a writer who isn't often read these days. Her movies endure. The musical, both the stage and screen version of Showboat was based on her work, and the movie Giant with James Dean and Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor is still viewed. It's a shame we don't read Edna Ferber more, because she is formidable. Born in Kalamazoo, although my home state of Wisconsin has a strong claim to Edna Ferber as well, as she lived in Appleton from the age of 12 and attended Lawrence University. Her mother was from Milwaukee. Ferber eventually moved to New York City, where she became a member of the famed Algonquin Roundtable. And even among those celebrated fops, she was notable for the sharpness of her mind and wit. Alexander Wolcott, she is reported to have said, is a New Jersey Nero who has mistaken his pinafore for a toga. End quote. Touche. As they might say in Latin. Or as they might say in Latin, rem aku tedegisti. Or as Nero himself might have said, hand me my fiddle. That expression, by the way, is anachronistic. Nero could not have fiddled while Rome burned, not in the sense we understand fiddle, because the fiddle wasn't invented for another several centuries. He's believed to have played music while Rome burned, if anything, and I'm assuming that he played bolero on his hi fi at a very loud volume, as my mother's college roommate used to do every morning while smoking a cigarette to get herself juiced up for the day. Another historical mystery cleared up here on the History of Literature podcast. You're welcome. Let's get some real experts in here. Julie Gilbert knew Edna Ferber, the girl from Appleton who wound up on a postage stamp honoring the most distinguished of Americans. I'll let Julie tell you just how she knew her. And then let's hear from Jessica Curzane, our expert in translating Yiddish literature. One of your dream guests, recommended by a listener who will be back to select a book that will serve as her last. But first, we'll have Julie Gilbert after this. Okay. Joining me now is Julie Gilbert, who's The author of four books, including a biography of 20th century literary giant Edna Ferber. She's also taught creative writing at NYU's School of Continuing Education and heads the Writers Academy at the Kravis center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach, Florida. She's here today to discuss her new book, Giant Love, which details Edna Ferber's life and works With a particular emphasis on her novel Giant and the famous screen adaptation of it. Julie Gilbert, welcome to the history of literature.
- [06:42]
Julie Gilbert
Thank you very much. Good to be here.
- [06:44]
Jack Wilson
So I think a lot of listeners will have heard of some of Edna Ferber's works. They've probably heard her name. They probably are familiar with Showboat and Giant, even if they didn't necessarily associate those with Edna Ferber. But they. They might not have actually read her books and they might not know much about her. So I thought what we could do is go through kind of the public conception of Edna Ferber in the first half of our conversation and then talk about the revelations that you've been able to come up with from your biography of her and your new book about Giant in the second half. Does that sound good?
- [07:20]
Julie Gilbert
Yeah, very good. Sure.
- [07:22]
Jack Wilson
Okay. So who was Edna Ferber?
- [07:25]
Julie Gilbert
Well, I think that Edna Ferber was so old that she's new again. And I'm hoping for that to reintroduce her to the public at large. She was a woman born at the turn of the century, 1885. And she was a Midwestern girl brought up in a German Jewish family of liberal, intelligent people who traveled through the Midwest with a store called My Store. It was a dry goods store. And she was exposed to a lot early, which I find interesting in terms of her output, her outlook, everything that she was a kind of a liberal kid in many ways, in small towns in the Midwest. And in fact, one of her classmates or people who were at her school at that time was Houdini.
- [08:34]
Jack Wilson
Right, right. Because she was in Appleton, Wisconsin, which is my home state.
- [08:38]
Julie Gilbert
He was?
- [08:39]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [08:39]
Julie Gilbert
Oh, my God, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. Well, Appleton actually has the Edna Furber High School. They have a school named after her. So she was a very motivated girl from the time she was little. And she had a theatrical streak and wanted to be an actress, but she didn't have. Certainly at that time, there was a real criteria of going on the stage. And one had to have the looks and the height and the weight and all of that. And she just. She didn't have that. And so her aspirations eventually turned to storytelling and then to playwriting. But she was early on, a power force everywhere she went. And in her high school, she was editor of the yearbook. She was already writing and performing at that time. And then when she was still quite young, she became a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal. And so her byline preceded her actual fame. And she was known locally as that reporter girl. And she early on was political she was an ardent Democrat all of her life and covered the Democratic Republican Convention of 1919 in Chicag. So she began to be known in Wisconsin, in Chicago, all through the Midwestern states. And then she wrote a novel, and she threw it in the trash. She didn't think it was very good, and she was frustrated, and her mother rescued it and sent it to a publisher. And that was really the beginning of the novelist Edna Ferber.
- [10:49]
Jack Wilson
Right.
- [10:50]
Julie Gilbert
And it was called Dawn O'Hara, the girl who Laughed. And then she began to write short stories. And that's where she gained traction and fame, local at first, and then more and more fame until Theodore Roosevelt, when he was president, called her the best damn woman writer in America at that time, at that, you know, of the day. And so she never had really a downtime except when she was young and kind of, you know, just getting her footing. But she always believed in herself. And then, you know, when fame gets you, it doesn't let you go so easily. And she earned it and began to write other novels and then wrote a little thing called so Big, which won her the Pulitzer Prize.
- [11:48]
Jack Wilson
Right, right. And was this. Now, at the time, she was also a member of the Algonquin Roundtable.
- [11:55]
Julie Gilbert
Yes, she was. It was 1920, and it was just forming, so it didn't have the sort of reputation of barbed wits and. And exclusivity that it gained quickly. But she was one of the charter members, and she was a member along with Dorothy Parker and Alexandra Walcott. And then George Kaufman came in, spotted her. He was a theater critic at that time, but, you know, scratch a theater critic and they. They've written plays usually.
- [12:31]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [12:31]
Julie Gilbert
And so he asked her if she wanted to write a play with him. And she liked him and thought that, you know, she would try that because she loved the theater. And so she wrote a play with George Kaufman called Minick, and it didn't do as well as they'd hoped, as often, first plays don't. But the producer said, one of these chilling projections of what is to come. And he said, well, don't worry. We'll all just rent a showboat and go cruising down the Mississippi River. And Ferber said, what's a showboat? And then she found out, and then.
- [13:19]
Jack Wilson
She wrote Showboat, and then that was a huge success as well. And then that was also made into a musical and a film, right?
- [13:31]
Julie Gilbert
That's right. It was made into Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein wrote the, you know, the classic score, beautiful score, and Ziegfeld produced it in New York and it never looked back. I mean, it never had a misstep. It never had a try out of town that they said, well, I don't know, you know, it was just a hit from the beginning.
- [13:57]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [13:57]
Julie Gilbert
And then they made. And Paul Robeson started it in London. And then he did the movie, the first movie of Showboat. And then of course, there was the MGM movie with Ava Gardner. And you know, that that was sort of a big, big splashy one. But the first one with Irene Dunn and Robeson, it's really, really a glorious one. And Helen Morgan as Julie, and I'm named after Julie in Showboat.
- [14:29]
Jack Wilson
Right. We have not yet revealed that, but we can do so now. Edna Ferber was your great aunt.
- [14:37]
Julie Gilbert
Oh, we haven't. That's right. Yes, she was. Yes. This is the work of. Yeah. Of love and respect.
- [14:48]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. So I will ask you more questions about that when we come back from the break, but I wanted to ask a little more about her writing. And let's just stick to so Big and Showboat and this era before we get to Giant. What was she writing about? And with these short stories, would you say that she had a favorite topic or theme that you could generalize or how would you describe her works?
- [15:15]
Julie Gilbert
She wrote about women. She was an ardent feminist early on, and she was always writing about women who often in the early days of her work, middle class Jewish American women forging ahead with juggling families and burgeoning careers. And then her novels focused more on American heroines venturing into the workplace and how that affected the supposed harmony of the sexes. So, boy.
- [15:55]
Jack Wilson
Yeah, yeah, this, you know, there is. She is a great representative of something. I mean, in a way, everything she did probably felt like she was pioneering. But there are also. I mean, this is sort of something we see over and over. When I saw that she was born in 1885, I guessed. I bet she had a stint as a journalist. You know, there were just these women who were coming out of places like Wisconsin and Kansas City and Nebraska and they were heading to New York and, you know, with aspirations of writing fiction maybe, but were finding work with newspapers and periodicals and doing the work of journalists and kind of becoming women of the workplace in this era.
- [16:51]
Julie Gilbert
Right, right. They were. And they. And a lot of them, though, were writing kind of domestic things and, you know, recipes and sort of small, small stuff. But she was. She really did have an exceptional mind. And so she was very political early on. And so a friend. When I say friend, they weren't buddies, but very much recognized By Franklin Roosevelt and certainly by Eleanor Roosevelt, and was on panels and asked her opinions, you know, about the world. So it wasn't only her focus was squarely on women heroines instead of women in a drudgery situation.
- [17:46]
Jack Wilson
Right. I've got a couple of great quotes here I wanted to touch upon to give a sense of who she was. And one is this Algonquin wit. And the story I read is that after Noel Coward joked about how the suit that she was wearing made her resemble a man, she replied, so does yours.
- [18:09]
Julie Gilbert
Yeah. Yeah. She was salty. Yeah.
- [18:15]
Jack Wilson
And then the other one I liked was that she wrote an autobiography in 1938 and dedicated it to Adolf Hitler. So she was a little bit ahead of the game here in recognizing him for what he was. And she said to Adolf Hitler, who has made me a better Jew and a more understanding human being, as he has for millions of other Jews. This book is dedicated in loathing and contempt.
- [18:42]
Julie Gilbert
Yep. Yeah. I think that's when you said, who's Edna Ferber and why should we know her? And most people, if they do, they know Showboat, they know Giant, but they don't know that really incredible protest volume where she always, you know, had been known as a Midwestern gal, but not necessarily a Jewish woman. And she just couldn't sit quietly anymore at all. She was really tormented by the rise of Hitler and World War II.
- [19:22]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [19:23]
Julie Gilbert
And in fact, went overseas as a reporter.
- [19:27]
Jack Wilson
What years were those?
- [19:29]
Julie Gilbert
She went in, like, I want to say, 44. 43. 44. Right in there.
- [19:36]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [19:36]
Julie Gilbert
Yep. Right.
- [19:38]
Jack Wilson
Okay. Well, let's take a quick break, and then we'll come back with the rest of the story. We'll fill in more of her biography, and we'll talk about Giant.
- [19:48]
Julie Gilbert
Okay.
- [20:05]
Jack Wilson
If you need three new reasons to love Jack wraps at Jack in the Box even more, here they are. Chicken fajita, chicken Caesar, and delicious. Starting at $3. Coincidentally, those are the same three reasons you should come to Jack and the Box right now. At Jack, every bite's a big deal. Okay, we're back. So Julie Edna Ferber was your great aunt. What kind of relationship did you have with her?
- [20:47]
Julie Gilbert
A great one. People don't think of a small child and a great aunt as having anything except maybe, you know, a bar of chocolate or something being given to them. But she. She was. We lived 20 blocks away from her. She was a maiden lady, as they used to say. She was never married, and she had no children. And so. And I was the firstborn of my two cousins, so that I. I Remember her voice, which was a very beautiful, velvety, kind of crisp, but. But soft. I don't know. A really interesting actress's voice, actually. And I remember that early, early on when, you know, it was a little bit of a matriarchy in my family. And I do remember her voice.
- [21:42]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [21:43]
Julie Gilbert
And then, of course, I got. I got to know her very, very well. And she was like my fairy godmother, truly. She was just wonderful to me all of the time I knew her.
- [21:56]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. And you were. So you were in New York City?
- [21:59]
Julie Gilbert
Yes, I was. Oh, we were at 90th street, and she was at 71st Street. So that's a brisk walk. It's nothing. So we saw her quite often.
- [22:09]
Jack Wilson
And would you go there and see kind of other literary loops, luminaries who were hanging around, or did she take you to plays and things like that? Or was it more like you saw a personal side of her that wasn't connected to the world of literature?
- [22:28]
Julie Gilbert
That's a good question. It was both. Very much both. But yes, she took me. I have such a vivid memory of going to Peter Pan with her. She would take me to matinees because she wanted to induct me in to theater going. And her very good friend was Mary Martin, who played Peter Pan.
- [22:53]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [22:54]
Julie Gilbert
At age 50 or something. And. And so we were at Peter Pan, and I do remember going backstage and seeing this green woman who, because she was all dressed like Peter and she looked old, up for. Up front, up close, but she certainly didn't from the stage. And she gave me a handful of pixie dust and I took it home with me and I wouldn't unclench my fist. And I went to bed with my mother, said, you know, you've got to come on, release it. And I wouldn't. And I went to bed with it. I had the worst eye infection the next.
- [23:38]
Jack Wilson
Oh, no.
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Julie Gilbert
Yeah. So. But she would introduce me to a lot of very illustrious people through my time knowing her.
- [23:51]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. Okay. So that kind of brings me to my next question, which is, as you're writing a biography of her, what sources did you have to draw upon and how did they deepen your understanding of her life?
- [24:09]
Julie Gilbert
Well, you mean the first time out when I just. I wrote the whole biography? Well, I was very lucky in it because her editor, almost all of her career, she was a Doubleday writer. And her editor was a man named Ken McCormick. And so, years after her death, when I wrote my biography, he was my editor, and it was his last book. So that was quite moving, you know, it was really. It was very affecting and I had. At that time, people were still alive, so that I could. I got most of what I wanted. I never got to talk to Elizabeth Taylor, but I certainly got to have an afternoon with Rock Hudson, an afternoon with Katharine Hepburn, a lot of people. Kitty Carlisle Hart. So I was just at the right time. I was really young. I had no idea how to write a biography, but I. I did it.
- [25:16]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. Yeah.
- [25:17]
Julie Gilbert
And sometimes you. You go forth unafraid when you don't know what. What to watch out for.
- [25:24]
Jack Wilson
Right, right.
- [25:26]
Julie Gilbert
And everybody was very good and kind to me and opened the doors and. And everything. And I went to Madison, Wisconsin, where her archive is.
- [25:37]
Jack Wilson
I went all over the West. Yeah. Did she have letters and papers and things, or was there anything that. That you had access to it as a family member that hadn't been used before?
- [25:50]
Julie Gilbert
Very much so. Diaries. She had diaries and all kinds of correspondence with very famous people. I mean, with. Noel Coward was one of her best friends. Lots of witty, you know, repartee between the two of them. The Lunts, Katherine Hepburn, Mary Martin, Moss Hart, Kitty Carlisle, of course, Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rogers, Dorothy Rogers. The list just goes on and on.
- [26:19]
Jack Wilson
Were you worried at all? I mean, on the one hand, it just sounds like it's such a magical period of time and you had this window into it, and I'm sure you were very excited to be spending more time with these people and with the memory of your great aunt. But I could also imagine having a little bit of anxiety about. Well, what if I start learning things about this beloved relative that I would rather not know? What if there are some. Some aspects of her or. Did you have any concerns about that when you started, or that came up along the way? No. So you had a good sense of who she was and that's who she turned out to be.
- [27:06]
Julie Gilbert
It's a really deep question you just asked. Pretty much. I. I knew that she had. That she could be very. I knew that she could be difficult, that I knew.
- [27:19]
Jack Wilson
Mm.
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Julie Gilbert
She could give people really, you know, a sort of stomach turning time because she. She could be scary. She was very imperious and very. She would drill you down. And I saw it happen. She never did it with me, ever, Ever. But she could be impatient with people that she thought were sluggish, I think.
- [27:48]
Jack Wilson
Because she was holding them to her standard, maybe.
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Julie Gilbert
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And. And trying to make them the best they could be.
- [27:57]
Jack Wilson
Right.
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Julie Gilbert
And she just didn't believe that they could give dumb answers.
- [28:02]
Jack Wilson
Right. Or do shoddy Work.
- [28:04]
Julie Gilbert
Yeah, yeah. So in that sense, I mean, I did see some things that were, you know, at one point, we were walking down the street after dinner and a woman came up and stopped her and said, you know, oh, Ms. Ferber. Because those. In those days, people could do that in New York. They just could stop an idol and start talking. And she said, oh, Ms. Ferber, I just loved Giant. And Ferber said, oh, really? What did you love about it? So she could give somebody a little bit of a start.
- [28:40]
Jack Wilson
And do you remember the response?
- [28:43]
Julie Gilbert
No, I don't. The woman was. She must have been very flustered.
- [28:47]
Jack Wilson
Yeah, that's very flustered. Yeah. Right.
- [28:49]
Julie Gilbert
Yeah, yeah. But I didn't at that time. I had tons of help, lots of material. What I didn't have was that at the University of Wisconsin, where her papers are, somebody had misfiled the collection of giants. And so I didn't have the letters and correspondence that I would have wanted for one of her most famous books of all. And it had been years later misfiled under another author. So.
- [29:28]
Jack Wilson
Yeah, well, that gave you room to write this book.
- [29:31]
Julie Gilbert
It did, yeah. That's exactly it.
- [29:33]
Jack Wilson
Okay, so let's talk about that. What was the novel Giant about and what made it so popular, do you think?
- [29:44]
Julie Gilbert
Well, from Ferber's standpoint, it was about a woman marrying for love and passion who did not know really what was behind the man she was marrying. And she was from Virginia and he was a Texan and he was big and tall and handsome and look just like Rock Hudson and. And she was a genteel, you know, very well read young woman. And she was horrified by the imperiousness, you know, the kingly way that people with land behaved in Texas. And so I think a good book is sometimes about more than it's about, because it was about marriage and how you just can't know what you don't till it unf and comes out. Because everybody puts their best foot forward, you know, at first, but there was love there. And what happened was that he grew to the. The man she married grew to respect their differences, and she held her ground. And she never would, you know, she never would go back on what, who she was or what she believed in. So it' it's the dynamics of a marriage. But it's also because Ferber never turned a blind eye to bad politics and bad policies. And it's also about the treatment of the Mexican American in Texas at that time, in the 40s and 30s, 40s and 50s, and still.
- [31:36]
Jack Wilson
Right. So what exactly happened. She went to visit Texas. Why did she go to visit Texas? And what was it about Texas that kind of struck her? I mean, did she know right away, like, this is going to be the place that I'm going to write my next novel?
- [31:56]
Julie Gilbert
No, not right away. It took her about 10 years, a decade, to really get a hold of it. William Allen White, who was editor of the Emporia Gazette back in the turn of the century, really, and he was older than Ferber and was a kind of paternal figure, and he thought she was terrific and a real pioneer. And he said, you should turn your lens to Texas, and I know some people that I can introduce you to. And so she went and she was repelled and fascinated and. And kind of attracted because, you know, it is. It's. They're very charming in Texas. And yet she felt that it was too much. Too much of a state for her to. To, you know, to probe. And so she kept backing away from it and saying, you know, well, a Hemingway or a Menken should do this, but not me. This is not my book. And then. And then finally, she never really backed down from anything, ever. And she just didn't like it that she had walked away from it. And finally she embraced it.
- [33:13]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. And she seems to have found an angle of something that had kind of stuck with her, and maybe it was a bit of a stone in her shoe, the way these landowning men were behaving. That's such a fascinating idea to kind of, you know, want. To. Want to take that on directly without falling into the myth of it, but to kind of expose it for its flaws as well.
- [33:39]
Julie Gilbert
That's right. Well, it was. It was that they behaved like emperors and they were kingdoms. And she found also the charm combined with the flinty power was something kind of alarming in. In America. And so she felt it was. It was a state other than it wasn't part of the union. It was like a kingdom.
- [34:11]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. And does it feel to you like Giant holds up?
- [34:20]
Julie Gilbert
That's a hard question for me, having just written all about it. I think it does. I think her. It's a good story. It's a wonderful story. And even if you haven't seen the movie, maybe it holds up better if you haven't seen the movie. I think that the natural succession would be to read the novel and then see the movie if, you know, if one hasn't done either.
- [34:48]
Jack Wilson
Right, right. So let's talk about the movie. Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Rock Hudson. I mean, it's such an iconic production. And just the visuals of it are so. I mean, I just have this image in my mind of it being so wide on the screen and so grand. So did she have a role in the filmmaking? Was she part of it? Or did she just hand off the. No. Novel. And then, you know, they. They showed it to her when it was done.
- [35:24]
Julie Gilbert
Usually she handed off the novel. Her novel and just said, you know, thank you, Mr. Goldwyn. Do it. You know.
- [35:31]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [35:31]
Julie Gilbert
But with this one, not at all. Because she. That the novel had caused a lot of controversy in certainly in Texas and by Texans. And so when George Stevens, who was a very courageous filmmaker and he. He made his conscience, if you know what I mean? I mean, he. He did not do something that he didn't feel strongly about. And so he approached her and she just thought he was terrific and liked him very much. And she and George Stevens and Henry Ginsburg decided to be the producers of Giant and Warner Brothers would subsidize it. And so that's what they did. So she had more power than just selling the rights to her novel.
- [36:27]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [36:28]
Julie Gilbert
And so she had, as a woman who was a new producer on a picture, she was outspoken anyway, so she really said her mind whenever she wanted to. And it was. They. They took it pretty well. But she didn't like a lot and would say that. And at one point she tried to write the screenplay herself, but she was a novelist and not a screenwriter because it is a technique. And eventually, you know, she backed off on that. But she did. She was very much a participant, not so much in the filming. She never went to Martha, and she was already involved in her next novel, which was Ice palace and all about Alaska and the statehood of Alaska. But. But she was very involved with Stevens and certainly the cast, very friendly with Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor. And her special glow came from James Dean. She thought he was just terrific.
- [37:37]
Jack Wilson
And you have a line that George Stevens perhaps borrowed her heart along with her novel Giant and Ferber. I guess she would have been in her 60s at this time.
- [37:50]
Julie Gilbert
Early 70s, early 70s.
- [37:52]
Jack Wilson
Okay. And she hadn't married. Had she had relationships or was she known as going through life as a solo artist, so to speak?
- [38:01]
Julie Gilbert
Well, that's a leading question. You're going to have to. People might want to read my book and find everybody always thought that she just had nothing. And a life. A life does not have nothing. I really don't think. I mean, it's very rare. And this was the book where I was challenged to go deeper and to find out what was going on if. If anything. And I'm not saying, you know, oh, my gosh, you know, there was this huge love affair nobody knew about, but there were things that were very fascinating and layered and sophisticated that I did find.
- [38:39]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. And then there's also the anecdote where she was asked if she was ever lonely, and she said, oh, no, never. The characters in my books are my friends. They provide sustenance.
- [38:52]
Julie Gilbert
Yeah.
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Jack Wilson
So she does seem like someone who also. I mean, her passion for what she did seems to have been kind of a primary driving force in her life.
- [39:05]
Julie Gilbert
It was all consuming, and the reason for it, the output. And I think discipline fuels passion, and then passion complements discipline. So that she just wrote every day. She just would turn her back to the View and write for 3, 4 hours in the morning, and then she'd have the afternoon to do her business and shopping or whatever or socializing. But every day she just was probably one of the most disciplined writers in America ever.
- [39:40]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. Did you feel like, with the relationship you had with her, that it was her kind of expressing a maternal instinct or side, or were you sort of a project that she was taking on? You know, like creating one of her characters where she wants to make sure, like, well, I want the character to be well read, and I want her to be cultured. And.
- [40:06]
Julie Gilbert
No, I don't. I feel the first part, the first quest. I feel that we were birds of a feather, that she taught me how to, in. In a sense, experience life as she did. And when I was very young, we would go to a very fancy lunch and then to a big toy store in New York called Schwartz's Toy Store. And I'd pick a doll or something, and then we go to the park. In winter, in any weather, we'd sit on a bench, and she would have me look at a passerby and say, tell me the story of that woman. So she was kind of mentored me, if you will. And it was exceptional. I will say that it really was. She. When I was a young actress in New York, she came. She'd go down basement steps to some grubby little theater in the Village to see me. And she. She was wonderful to me, really.
- [41:14]
Jack Wilson
Right. I know you've written about her, but what I would like to do is read that story or read a. See the film version of it or something. It's such a beautiful relationship that the two of you had, and it's such a great era. It's so New York that only in New York really could you have that kind of backdrop for the kind of things you were doing. And. And just the whole, you know, her as a presence and then being able to learn from her in that way is. It just sounds magical.
- [41:49]
Julie Gilbert
It was. It really was. I mean, she was no. She was no anti mame in that. She wasn't at all kooky at all. She was a real person with. With so many layers and she was so interesting. The only time she ever got mad at me was. Or showed temperament to me was when I was about 15 years old and I had. I had a bad cold and the painters were all over our apartment in New York and Edna said, well, you know, tell Julie to come here. And. And she gave me her bedroom and I slept in, you know, her beautiful bedroom. And then because I'm 15 and I was a teenager, I smoked. I felt better, and I had a cigarette in her bathroom. And she didn't like that at all. She didn't care for that. Yeah. And that was the only time that I upset her. And I was so upset by upsetting her, but it was over very quickly.
- [42:55]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. Was it. Was she worried about your health or was she just. She didn't want the smoke in her house.
- [43:01]
Julie Gilbert
I just. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe both. I mean, she would have a cigarette occasionally because people did, but she was not a smoker. I think she was just shocked that, first of all, I had been this little sick thing coming in and lying in her bed and having trays brought to me. And then, you know, I'm sneaking a cigarette and I don't know, she just didn't like it.
- [43:27]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. My sister has a story like that with our grandfather where he was, you know, this kindly presence. He doted on us. He was kind of a fiery guy, but with us he was always sweet and everything. And there was one time where she did something wrong and he kind of let her have it. He was a teacher, and so I think his disciplinary inside came out to just explain to her why what she did was wrong. And she said she just felt this feeling of. She said, I knew I was wrong and he was right and I knew that I shouldn't have done what I did. And I just felt so bad that I had let him down like that. And there's something about that generation gap, you know, where they're not our parents, but they are figures in our lives that are like parents. And so they sort of indulge us a little more. But then they can also let us know when we've gone off, you know, when we've gone astray. Not that you're smoking a cigarette was necessarily any great departure from the.
- [44:35]
Julie Gilbert
Yeah, I just. I think. I don't know. I don't remember. All I remember is that she was displeased with me. And that was horrible.
- [44:47]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [44:47]
Julie Gilbert
And I didn't know how to make it up, you know, or what to. What to do to take it back.
- [44:54]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [44:55]
Julie Gilbert
And then it was over. And then the next thing you know, she said, julie, darling, you know, would you like to wear my panoir? Or whatever it was. So it was over.
- [45:03]
Jack Wilson
Well, she probably saw it on your face that she had gotten through and had said all she needed to say.
- [45:10]
Julie Gilbert
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, she was. She was everything. Everything else had been so rosy that it. It stands out in my memory just because it shocked me into that same place that your sister was in. Just. Oh, my God, what can I do to make this up?
- [45:32]
Jack Wilson
Do people like Edna Ferber exist anymore? Is that a bygone era, would you say? Or would you say that now there are more Edna Ferbers than ever? And we've kind of turned the corner on that.
- [45:47]
Julie Gilbert
I think there are more Edna Ferbers than ever in the sense of what's going on today, of women just having had it and speaking their mind and going about their business and defending other women and other people. And in that sense, yes, but she was famous and with fame, tremendous fame. In that time comes a kind of. I won't. I don't want to say a diva, because she really wasn't, but because she earned her. You know, she earned everything, but she did like top service and people being rather courtly to her. You know, she liked that. I would say obesity either, but she did like, like service and good service. So I don't know. It's a very. It's a trick question. And I'm not sure. I think that carving her own life is very. Today, I think women are doing that. They're saying, you know, all of what's expected of me, I'm going this way instead. And I'm not afraid of what people think. And that's very much who she was.
- [47:09]
Jack Wilson
But I'm not sure if there is one thing that's different. I'm not sure people can do that as a professional writer in quite the same way as she was able to do. Well.
- [47:26]
Julie Gilbert
Yeah, maybe not. I mean, she was. She. First of all, there weren't that many women writers, and she wrote these. She was a commercial writer, but. But she Also was compared to Dickens. She was.
- [47:40]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [47:41]
Julie Gilbert
She was somebody that most people knew, you know. Oh, my God. Edna Ferber. You know, it was one of those that. And if, and if they didn't know her, their mothers knew her. I mean, she was, she, she was the leading. I'm trying to think of an example. She was the leading woman writer in America for about 30 years and held that position.
- [48:09]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. And. And, and books meant more back then.
- [48:14]
Julie Gilbert
And books meant more. They really did. And also, you know, that was what, what aided her were supplements in magazines that people would read before. And then they'd give you like three chapters and then you had to buy the book, but you were hooked by that time, so you wanted to buy the book, you know.
- [48:31]
Jack Wilson
Yeah.
- [48:32]
Julie Gilbert
So. And book clubs, of course. But there was no, there wasn't a lot of media because she, she never. People always ask me if she went on television. I don't think once. I really don't really.
- [48:49]
Jack Wilson
I thought I saw a clip of her on like one of those, you know, black and white, you bet your life kind of shows or something. But you don't think that was. Maybe I'm mistaken about that.
- [49:02]
Julie Gilbert
No, she. She did some recordings of her work, so on. There are recordings of her voice. But to my knowledge, you know, I've tried to find. When she was in Europe, she came back From Europe in 55, 54, 55, she'd been to Europe and she came back and she found New York very dirty, very terribly dirty city. And she spoke out about it. She said, New York is filthy and where are the garbage men and where is this? And. And it became kind of a meme. I mean, you know, it was all over the city that Edna Ferber disapproved of the way the city was K.E. it's housekeeping. And there might have been a news clip there, but I'm not sure and I haven't been able to find it.
- [49:54]
Jack Wilson
Yeah, right. Okay. Well, this has been wonderful to talk to you about Edna Ferber and the book. I would say it's a perfect. It's called Giant Love. And I would call it a perfect book for anyone who loves Hollywood or 20th century American literature. Julie Gilbert, thank you so much for joining me on the history of literature.
- [50:17]
Julie Gilbert
It was my big pleasure. You're welcome. Thank you.
- [50:28]
Jack Wilson
Wasn't that fun? That was Julie Gilbert talking about her great aunt Edna Ferber. And finally today, Jessica Curzane, who joined us about 100 episodes ago in number 500 after she and I discussed what it's like to Translate Yiddish literature and the writer Miriam Karpelov in particular. I asked Jessica this special question. Okay. We're here with Professor Jessica Curzane, expert in Yiddish language and literature. Jessica, this question comes from a listener who asks, what do you want your last book to be? This will be the last book you will ever read. You can either choose one that exists or describe one that has not yet been written.
- [51:20]
Jessica Curzane
Okay. One thing that makes this a hard question is that I'm usually reading more than one book at a time. So I think I'll probably, you know, die reading five books. My son has a T shirt with a picture of an octopus, and in every tentacle there's a different book. So that's me. But I'm going to give you one in Yiddish and one in English, which I guess is fitting for a Yiddish English translator. So the Yiddish one is going to be the Collected Stories of Yenta Sirdacky, which is kind of a book that doesn't exist. Yenda Srdacky's early stories were collected in a volume, but most of her work was published in newspapers, and it hasn't been collected. It's fierce and angry and feminist and intimate and bitter, but also kind. I really like her writing. I'm looking forward to seeing more of her work in translation and hopefully also collected in its original. And there is work being done on this by Saul Noam Zarit at Harvard, who has a new project called shund.org to make Yiddish literature in the press more easily searchable and recoverable, and also by Dalia Wolfson, who is a PhD candidate at Harvard who's writing about and translating Srdatsky. So I'm very optimistic that between the two of them, maybe we'll have a collective work of Yenta Srdacky at some point before I die. And then my English one is going to be my first literary love, which is Jane Austen. I actually. I read Pride and Prejudice every spring when the academic year ends as a kind of, like, palate cleanser ritual. So, like, as soon as I turn in my last grades, I pick up Pride and Prejudice. And at this point, it kind of, like, has a personal meaning for me beyond the book itself, of, like, a kind of breath of fresh air. But I just. I love the. The dramatic tension, the sly sense of humor in Jane Austen. I think she's actually, in some ways kind of similar to Miriam Karpilov. She observes gender dynamics in their absurdity. She writes about people as foolish, even her heroines as foolish sometimes. But she also has sympathy for Them. And so she's very clever. And no matter how many times I read her now, I've read her so many times, I really find her completely absorbing and satisfying. So I hope she'll be my last English book.
- [53:38]
Jack Wilson
You know, I was thinking that when you were reading the excerpt from a Provincial Newspaper by Miriam Karpalov, that one of the things that was so appealing was just her take on the world, and it almost as much as what was going to happen to the character from a plot perspective. I was interested just in spending time with her as someone who was observing those people around her and thinking, well, if there was anybody in the room that I would want to talk to about what's happening in the room, it would be this narrator. That she's got the wised uptake and she's got the powers of observation that has kind of transcended time.
- [54:17]
Jessica Curzane
Yeah, yeah. And in that way also, Jane Austen is a similar kind of figure. And where what's happening in the room is interesting, but what's happening in their head about what's happening in the room feels more interesting. The characters, the narrator, the narratorial interest, perspective is somehow the most interesting thing in the room.
- [54:35]
Jack Wilson
Right. It can be just the most minute of things that are happening. And the way that Jane Austen will kind of penetrate the psychology of the people and why they're saying what they're saying, you really do get. You fall into it. And that happens when I watch a lot of the adaptations as well, you. If you described it to somebody, you think, okay, so how could you even care about that? But when you're watching it, it feels so momentous, and it feels like the fates of empires are rising and falling. It feels like there's that kind of dramatic stakes.
- [55:15]
Jessica Curzane
Yeah, yeah. And the kind of eye rolling, the kind of subtlety of some of the poking fun where it could. If you read it one way, it can sound serious. But if you read it another way or with another kind of voice or angle, you can really see how she's laughing at everyone while she's writing it. And it's of enormous consequence. And also it is absurd that it's of such enormous consequence.
- [55:40]
Jack Wilson
Yeah. When a character who has our trust like that, when they have a friend or a sibling or a parent who can share that with them, then it feels like you're so happy for her that, oh, yes, you're with this person who gets it. But then when they're with the sibling or whoever who doesn't get it, you just feel like, oh, this is Just the worst, where she's all alone in kind of seeing through everybody and seeing the absurdity of the situation or the humor. Here you feel like she's. You want to just go and be her friend and say, I get it. I'm with. I'm with you. You're not alone here.
- [56:18]
Jessica Curzane
Yeah. I don't want to spoil it too much, but in Diary of a Lonely Girl, the main character is largely Miriam Karpolov, Diary A Lonely Girl. The main character is largely alone and hence lonely girl. And I think part of what makes her so lonely is this having a different perspective from everyone around her and seeing how funny everyone is and there's no one to laugh with about it. She has a friend, but that friend only shows up, you know, from time to time. And they wouldn't pass the Bechtel test. They only talk about boys. She doesn't have, you know, Elizabeth's father in Pride and Prejudice, who kind of like gets it like she does. And they can kind of look at each other across the dinner table and understand how ridiculous everyone else is being. And so in a certain way, like, we the readers have to be that for the character.
- [57:07]
Jack Wilson
Right. I was just gonna say that sort of the revenge is that we the readers are supplying it, but it's not to save from a reader's perspective as being able to see that another character is sharing that wink with them or that, you know, that they have it in their lives. Okay, well, that's wonderful. So it is Yenta Sudatsky and Jane Austen.
- [57:30]
Jessica Curzane
Yeah.
- [57:31]
Jack Wilson
Okay. Jessica Kurzain, thank you so much for joining me on the History of Literature.
- [57:35]
Jessica Curzane
Thank you.
- [57:42]
Jack Wilson
Okay, that's going to do it for this episode of the History of Literature. My thanks to Julie Gilbert and Jessica Curzane for joining me. We are pulling something out of the archives for the next episode, which is the last Thursday of the month. That's our new pattern. And then we'll have another story with Mike Palindrome the week following. We're trying to do one of those a month, too. 2025 has a few patterns that we will try to keep. And Zora Neale Hurston is next week, too. That's a wonderful conversation I had. Black History Month starts in February. It's a good choice. Zora Neale Hurston. We have a good episode for kicking things off also in February. Dylan Thomas and Fernando Pessoa, two great 20th century poets and a deep dive into a wintry Henry James Story. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for listening. And we'll see you next time. Hey, it's Dan Cummins. If you're into the weird, the wild, and the downright bizarre, check out my podcast, Time Suck. Each week I dive into shocking stories like the rise of the Nexium cult, the origins of conspiracies like QAnon, and the San Francisco Witch Killer murders. With deep dives and dark humor, Time Suck brings you the stories that'll fascinate you, make you laugh, and fill your head with lots of strange facts. New episodes drop every Monday. Join the Cult of the Curious. Follow Time Suck wherever you get your podcasts.
- [59:40]
Jessica Curzane
What role do books play in shaping who we are? Find out on the Five Books, the brand new podcast hosted by me, Tali Rosenblatt Cohen. Each week I sit down with acclaimed Jewish author authors to discuss the top five books that have shaped them. Hear from notable guests like Booker Prize finalist Yael van der Vowden and literary influencer Zibby Owens as we delve deep into what it means to live as a Jewish American today. Join me and listen to the Five Books wherever you get your podcasts.